Yeah, it’s that time of the year again – Vienna has been turning from the sinister city covered in grey light and fog to the blooming summer oasis it’s designed to be, and people overflow with glee (or so do we, at least)! Time to be looking forward to PlumberCon 10, probably one of the snugliest and neighborliest hacker conferences ever heard of.
So what exactly should you be looking forward to, you might ask?
In fact, it’s hard to tell. In one paragraph of lifeless and almost anti-emotional text, that is. What could be mentioned, for instance, is that there’s not only gonna be a ton of interesting talks by speakers from all around the globe (which I’m really really excited about btw), but also multiple hands-on workshops and trainings. Presenters you’ll meet at PlumberCon 10 include neighbors like Mitch Altman, Jimmie P. Rodgers, Jeff Gough, Barry van Kampen, Kugg, Allessio Pennasilico, or Mike Kemp. Topics range from Information Warfare to fun with microcontrollers.
Basically, one could call it a schnuffeliges meeting of a very large family… I happen to call it a hacker con (but that’s just me )
Now, as of the bare basics I haven’t mentioned yet:
PlumberCon 10 will be held at WerkzeugH in Vienna, Austria from Friday, July 09th – Sunday, July 11th in the year of the hacker 2010. You can still register for the 3rd round of early bird tickets at the registration site until the end of the month, and I’d advise every hackerspace member to use the promo code ‘neighborliness flows’ to get a reduction on the ticket price – that, already as it is, will not lead us to profit but only cover a part of our expenses ^.^
Don’t forget to sign up for trainings beforehand wherever you find this requirement mentioned.
In any way, if you’re in town, make sure not to miss the epoque kick-off party on Friday night, where Phonoelit aka Mumpi and joernchen will provide us with their superior tunez that shall guide us safely through the night!
Back in 2008 at The Last HOPE, we said that Hackerspaces were possible everywhere and your excuses are invalid. We had an awesome Hackerspace Village and Hardware Hacking Area, and provided inspiration to hundreds of folks who would go on to build their own Hackerspaces all over the world.
It’s now 2010. Hackerspaces are everywhere and our rallying cry from 2008 has been heard all over the world. Spaces that kicked off the movement like NYCResistor and HacDC have matured and moved into larger quarters and spawned very successful startups from Open Source ideas. Spaces like Hive76 and AlphaOne Labs have proven that big cities need more than one Hackerspace. Now that we’re well on our way to “Hackerspaces Everywhere!”, we think it’s time to change the cry to “Hackerspaces Forever!”
“Hackerspaces Forever!” is the theme of The Hackerspace Village at The NEXT Hope and the panel discussion taking place at the next hope. In addition to a Hardware Hacking Area that’s in a prime position in the Mezzanine level, we have an awesome group of speakers lined up to tell you how their Hackerspaces are working on growing, expanding and being around for a very long time:
Mitch Altman (Noisebridge, San Francisco, USA)
Mitch likes to trick people into doing what they love to do
Sean Bonner (Crashspace, Los Angeles, USA / HackspaceSG, Singapore)
We’re not really sure what Sean Bonner does, but it’s awesome.
Johannes Grenzfurthner (hackbus.at, Vienna, Austria)
Writer, artist, director, DIY researcher
Markus “fin” Hametner (Metalab, Vienna, Austria)
Less serious than Nick Farr
Alexander Heid (HackMiami, Miami, FL, USA)
President, HackMiami and Co-Chair of South Florida OWASP
Nathan “JimShoe” Warner (Makers Local 256, Huntsville, AL, USA)
Former Chairman, Charter Member of Makers Local 256
Matt Joyce (NYC Resistor, Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Once Banned from HOPE, twice spoken at HOPE
Carlyn Maw (Crashspace, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Crashpace Cat Herder and canonical source of awesomeness
Far McKon (Hive 76, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Co-Founder of Hive76, Instigator of weird and interesting projects, and a ginger
psytek (Alpha One Labs, Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Inventor and engineer currently building a Flying Saucer at Alpha One Labs.
The “Hackerspaces Forever!” panel will be moderated by Nick Farr.
2nd, 3rd, 4th (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) October 2009, Palazzolo Acreide, at the misterious center “Lisbeth Salander” in the Palazzolo Acreide countryside
It’s Poetry! It’s Art, IT’S DELIRIUM!
IT’S ALL AND NOTHING, YIN AND YANG,
GOPHER and ARCHIE!
Now at the 9th edition, the “Troppo Caffe’ Poco Cervello” (too much coffee, too little brain) it’s a cultural and scientific happening that lasts three days where people from all over the world (and beyond) are meeting in Palazzolo Acreide and via the internet to share experiences, research, culture, poetry, art and science with the intention to create new and beautiful things to donate to the community.
This edition will have people from all Sicily and also foreign guests committed in advanced programming sessions, dissertations for beginners, scientific experiments, sumptuous lunches, enormous dinners and sleepless nights dedicated to the passion for computer science.
Poems will be read, poems will be written, everything and nothing will be discussed, weeds will be weeded, new weeds will be planted, debates will happen, decisions will be taken, all and nothing will be done!
Everyone can join, the important thing is to leave the brain at home and bring a lot of coffee!
So hopefully some of you remember that epic adventure that was HoaP in 2007 which in turned spun up and inspired many a hacker/maker/knitter/chemical mix masters into what is now known as the hackerspace movement threading itself into the North American and now Earth culture.
A lot of people including me were disappointed that we were not able to make it on what is know known as a auspicous trip. Now with a turn of events and where fortune favors the bold, it seems that HoaP is now reborn!
As a phoenix from the ashes, Nick Farr and a few individuals have pulled some strings, made calls, kicked down doors, and overall kicked ass in pulling together HoaP 2 or as I like to call it.
As you can see quite a few hackerspaces fell under their wrath, and we can’t wait to see what they bring to the table. Show up and be amazed. If your still wondering what to expect they have a press release.
###
Monochrom from Vienna is a worldwide operating collective dealing with technology, art, context hacking and philosophy and was founded in 1993. So to sum up, monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism. Their mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment.
monochrom released a leftist retro-gaming project, established a 1 baud semaphore line through the streets of San Francisco, started an illegal space race through Los Angeles, buried people alive in Vancouver, and cracked the hierarchies of the art system with The
Thomann Project.
In Austria they ate blood sausages made from their own blood in order to criticize the grotesque neoliberal formation of the world economy. Sometimes they compose melancholic pop songs about dying media and host the first annual and inevitably leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics. At the moment they’re creating a conference series about sex and technology. Also they do international soul trade, propaganda camps, epic puppet theatre, aesthetic pregnancy counseling, food catering and — sorry to mention –modern dance.
monochrom’s gigs will be a medley, a little tour-de-farce, a presentation of their projects and political motivation. A joyful bucket full of good clean fanaticism, crisis, language, culture, self-content, identity, utopia, mania and despair, condensed into the well known cultural technique of a gala show. Powernapping highly welcome.
Next year I think we need to have a proper battle, maybe MC Frontalot? Just saying, it’s an idea. Anyway, I personally thank everyone that came on behalf of HacDC, ShmooCon, and ToorCamp for hosting such an amazing party. In the process of the night we helped raise a lot of money, somewhere North of $2000. I think someone is still counting the singles. That money will help HacDC furnish out their new FabLab they are building plus get some other goodies. I can’t wait to see what gets built next.
Also the hosts of the venue where we held the event, seemed to be happy with how everything turned out and it looks like we may get another shot next year.
How I Learned To Stop Fearing The Digital DIY Life and Love It!
Some friends of the blog who attended ShmooCon this weekend were tickled pink (literally) when they arrived to find out the badge to the conference was just made out of a single piece of laser cut acrylic.
This lead to rapid phone calls between friends at NYCR and people whipping out US dollar bills to size up the badge for proper scaling.
Not 6 hours later they had been hand delivered to HacDC for a trial run as to the quality of the badges by passing it through some of the most stringent on site conference security available.
What rapidly became apparent to us and The Shmoo Group was that even if something that took large initial resources originally, now comes easily to a group of scrappy hackers that want more for themselves than to be beholden to a wealthy singular group.
A recent quote by Bre Pettis, “The future of manufacturing is going to happen in your living room.”, seems to impress the idea of having ability to produce what you want, when you want is rapidly becoming a reality.
What I’m trying to bring across here to you, the hackerspace fans and friends, is that we are in a very interesting time. Where we can in less than a few hours over a relatively large distance, with a device that is costing less than the Mini Cooper (think late 1970’s where a PC cost as much), we can produce something that normally requires machines that cost in the hundreds of thousands only a few years ago.
Let’s think of what beholds us in the next few years.
Those of you that were on the conference call last Sunday were the first to be made aware that I’ve been working incognito for the last two months scheming, planning, plotting with fellow members of HacDC to pull off a really cool event.
So how does HacDC play into this? Well, some short background:
HacDC didn’t exist when ShmooCon was around last year, it was only spoken about in hushed tones till after the conference. Now we’ve been around for almost a full year with lots of stories to speak of.
Now at this ShmooCon we’re very loud and very proud of how far we have come and we’d like to say thanks to everyone by hosting the official ShmooCon Friday night party.
The details are forth coming but the basics are:
Location: HacDC Sanctuary (4 meters from the Altar)
1525 Newton St NW, Washington DC 20010 USA
(near corner of 16th and Newton NW) Google Map
Time: 10pm till past 3ish.
How/Who: If you’re a member of a hackerspace or an attendee of ShmooCon, just show up for the festivities.
Venue:
This is where the action happens.
What to expect:
Three DJ’s:
DJ HSO
DJ Just Joshin
DJ Keith Myers
Plus a number of fun projects that hackers from other hackerspaces are bringing in to show off.
)
