"In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete"
Every Thursday night at 8pm EST join redcell, psytek and osiris for our weekly live video & “chatroom” “Ask a Hacker“. Bookmark this page to view the “live” video and chatroom – or visit our USTREAM page. You can ask anything about hacking, hackerspaces or just stop in to meet other hackers who are hacking things. At the end of the chat we give away an Alpha One Labs t-shirt to the winner of our trivia question. If you would like to connect to our chat via IRC here are twohow-tos. We are #alphaonelabs on IRC server irc.freenode.net
Alpha One Labs hackerspace was founded in the summer of July 2009. Boasting radical inclusivity, Alpha One Labs superb design aims to provide a safe, clean space for users of all ages and interests to work on projects together. Contact us to set up a visit and learn more about our new membership specials.
This Friday, at Ada’s Technical Books in Seattle, WA, MAKE editor and publisher Dale Dougherty will be at a MAKE magazine release party! They’ll be on hand to talk about Volume 23, Gadgets.
MAKE Magazine Release Party
Friday, July 23, 2010
Ada’s Technical Books
713 Broadway East
Seattle, WA 98102
The OpenAMD/Badge team has another exciting announcement: The Next HOPE iPhone App is now available for download and it’s totally FREE!
Just like the Android App released last week, this app contains the whole schedule, which we’ll continually update before and during the conference. The app also has full details on each talk, a favorites feature to mark the talks you want to attend, full search capabilities and a gateway for sending out vital information to attendees!
Visit the HOPE website to see what it looks like and also to give us some feedback.
If this awesome app inspires a need for last minute coding of your own, check out the public API for the conference badge.
Now is also a good time to remind you that pre-registering is the only way to guarantee getting a hackable badge of your own. Supplies are very limited, and we’ll be closing pre-registration on Sunday, July 11. So pre-register now, save $15 and get the awesome hackable badge!
As we get closer to the event, be sure to stay tuned here and via @thenexthope on Twitter.
Reminder: This weekend, June 26-27th, is the ARRL Field Day 2010. Ham radio operators will be setting up stations across the US and Canada and inviting the public to come and experience ham radio. You can find your local Field Day using the locator. ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. Each year over 35,000 amateurs gather with their clubs, friends, or simply by themselves to operate.
ARRL Field Day is not a fully adjudicated contest, which explains much of its popularity. It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, most groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities. It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to local elected community leaders, key individuals with the organizations that Amateur Radio might serve in an emergency, as well as the general public. For many clubs, ARRL Field Day is one of the highlights of their annual calendar. From ARRL.org
Adafruit will be offering a 10% discount on their kits from June 26-27 for all licensed hams. Just enter code “HAMS” at check out and in the comments include your call sign.
2600 Magazine presents The Next HOPE, the eighth conference in the 16 year history of the Hackers On Planet Earth series. It will happen at the Hotel Pennsylvania in the middle of New York City from July 16-18, 2010, and will be the largest creative technology conference on the U.S. East Coast.
Personal privacy will be the focus of a key project at The Next HOPE, when hackers unveil the next generation of a technology that could send privacy advocates into panic mode, and enforcer-types into nirvana.
Conference attendees will see first hand where human tracking by commercial and government interests may be headed when they are offered an active RFID conference badge. Participation in RFID tracking is completely voluntary. If you wish, you can request an electronics-free “unpopulated” badge at registration, or simply remove the battery from your “populated” RFID badge at any time. There will be a limited number of the full-featured badges, so register early to be guaranteed to receive one.
Ever since last year’s sold-out Nerd Nite — when East Coast nerds descended upon our fair city bringing beer and presentations on real-life zombies, parasitic birds and ancient foodstuffs — San Francisco nerds have been hankering for another chance to get edified. Well, hanker no more. Nerd Nite SF returns! And this time, local nerds get to do all the edifying.
Nerd Nite is an informal gathering at which brainy folk get together for nerdery of all sorts — well, mostly presentations and drinking. It was conceived in a Boston bar in 2003 when Chris Balakrishnan, a doctoral fellow at Harvard, spent so much time at his local watering hole talking about his research into the parasitic finches of Cameroon that the bartenders asked him to give a presentation on it for his friends, hoping he’d just get it over with.
Now there are Nerd Nites in New York, Austin, Washington, DC, Munich and San Francisco, with more coming soon to LA, Chicago and Seattle. All the presentations are given by volunteers who are eager to share their knowledge. No advanced degrees are required, just a passion for the subject matter.
At June’s Nerd Nite SF, find out why dead fish in stinky jars matter, how scientists are using your lipoproteins to create medicine nano-taxis, and how World of Warcraft gold can be exchanged for real sex. Alpha Bravo will man the turntable, spinning records not merely for their rhythmic aptitude, but also for their nerdy subject matter.
A university is offered funding, but only if they’ll name a building for William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the transistor, but was infamous for his support of eugenics. What do they do?
Join us for a dramatic reading of Transistor Shock, a new play by Ivan K. Schuller and Adam Smith, performed by Break A Leg Productions. William Shockley was an American physicist and inventor. Along with two colleagues, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics. Shockley’s commercial enterprises helped create California’s “Silicon Valley.” In his later years, Shockley espoused eugenics — the practice of selective breeding applied to humans. Following the performance, the playwrights will hold a discussion with the audience.
Wednesday, May 26, 6:30 PM
Elebash Recital Hall
No reservations. First come, first seated
Our favorite part of Maker Faire was the steady stream of parents with their daughters who had built Adafruit kits, watched “Ask an Engineer” and/or just wanted to meet “Ladyada”. Here’s a photo from Jeff that captures it nicely
And on that note, a parent who watches “Ask an Engineer” with their kids each week said that their daughter asked the following question after seeing Ladyada and Amanda (w0z) on a few shows…
“Are there any guy engineers? Or are they all women?”
The DIY, or Do-It-Yourself, movement in science and technology is demonstrating that it can do inexpensively what large companies and even Big Science have spent millions doing. I call them “make-offs,” low-budget knock-offs of scientific and industrial technology built with off-the-shelf components.
It is a version of what China has been doing to America, benefiting from the R&D that goes into refining the specifications, developing prototypes and building a finished product. Only now, with new digital fabrication techniques and open source hardware and software, individuals and small companies are in a position to compete globally with a distinctly DIY approach to innovation. It’s a new independent source of creative work, similar to what indie films are to Hollywood films developed in-house. It’s open, collaborative and done on the cheap. And almost anyone can play, as you can see this weekend at the Fifth Annual Maker Faire Bay Area.
On Saturday, Maker Faire will mark its fifth annual appearance at the San Mateo County Event Center in San Mateo, Calif., south of San Francisco.
The do-it-yourself festival will feature more than 600 exhibitors of all kinds of projects, from singing tesla coils to crafts to walking electric spiders and the Lifesize Mousetrap. Over the course of the weekend, about 80,000 people are expected to visit the event.
CNET News visited Maker Faire on Friday to see what the event is like before the tens of thousands of attendees show up, and to watch the makers setting up their goods.
Printable catalog (PDF) or (EPUB)
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