I’ll admit, this post is coming a bit late, but we’re still recovering from our month-long sleepless, caffeinated, sprint across North America. On the plus side, we’re done filming! We visited as many hackerspaces and makerspaces as we could in a month, but that was the easy part….
Now begins the post-production work.
We’ll be working for a quite a while on getting everything just right, so unfortunately I can’t give an exact date of release. I can, however, tell you that we’re going to try to have it done by next spring. Believe me, we’re just as excited to see the finished film as you are!
I want to say thank you to the dozens of people who helped us out along the way. Without the car trips, beds, and donations of both hackerspace members and kind strangers, there is absolutely no way we could have done this. We may have had the cameras, but it was all of you who made this possible. Thank you!!
For updates on the film, check out www.twohandsproject.com! I’ll do my best to keep all of you in the loop here on hackerspaces.org as well.
This is a Story originally written by Smári that was spread on the net by some other people. I asked Smári if I was allowed to post it here, since I think it’s really funny – and here it is:
[Disclaimer: This is a bit of a joke, written last night as I was falling asleep.]
I just arrived in London after another one of those mind-numbing long haul flights, this time from Mumbai. And in my eight hours of pneumonia induced pain I managed to watch a delightful array of films that I hadn’t gotten around to, including the fourth ‘Terminator’ movie.
Two-or-so years ago, just before it became public knowledge that this film was being developed, I was visiting MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms when the makers of the film contacted CBA looking for technological goodies that could make the film more interesting. I’m sad to say that none of the more profound ideas tossed at them made the script, but either way, I think that the entire discussion contained an important implicit subtext which was lost on the kind of people who think that hurdling Christian Bale between flying machines whilst explosions happen is a good idea.
So I present here a short analysis of where the Terminator movies go wrong:
The first Terminator movie didn’t stretch things very much. It was a simple time travel scenario with man versus machine, a kind of crypto-luddite cumfest. It wasn’t until Judgement Day came around that the industrial model started to warrant scrutiny.
In Judgement Day we are treated to a view of Los Angeles being vaporized by a nuclear explosion. For the machines, this tactic makes sense. Take out major human outposts to diminish their numbers significantly straight off. Humans have very low tolerances for nuclear hijinx such as radioactivity, but machines, being simpler and more discreteized, can presumably take much higher doses before problems start to occur. Expose a titanium alloy to a source of beta radiation for long enough and sure enough it will melt or otherwise morph, but long before humans melt from that kind of radiation atoms in their DNA start picking up extra core elements, altering their nucleic structure, and causing their host to die a very brutal death.
This illustrates a model. Consider that for anything that is “required” for sustenance, or “must not be” for survival, there exists a continuum, and each individual occupies an interval on that continuum. The length of this interval is often called “slack”. More slack equals more likely to survive a lack of something crucial or an excess of something lethal.
Simply by comparing the average slack values and their 95% intervals for each individual species you can pretty easily discern the smartest set of tactics that can be employed by each side. The robots can go ahead and use nuclear instability, thermal radiation (metal objects tolerate high heat while humans like myself start to go all wiggly and faint when it’s higher than 45°C out), extreme climates, darkness, and that kind of thing to their advantage.
The humans on the other hand have a much better ways of dealing with machines at their disposal.
In Terminator 4 a huge 7-or-so-story evil robot thing came out of nowhere in one scene and started scooping up people. It later became a part of some sort of super-carrier aircraft. Each of these things must require a large amount of metal to build, not to mention rare earth metals, plastics, semiconductors, etc. In T-2 Schwarzenegger claims that he has a “metal” endoskeleton, without being specific as to which metals exactly. From what I’ve seen of the Terminator’s Moh’s hardness, it is most certainly an alloy of something. Either way, Ferrum is for this kind of purposes a pretty aweful atom, and it kind of only makes up for it by fact of its general ubiquity. It requires lots of special treatment to be very hard, it rusts easily, and it is a crappy conductor compared to lots of other metals.
For proper construction of a Terminator you’d presumably need a bunch of metals: Titanium, Cobalt, Paladium, Chrome, Copper, Gold, Silver, Tantalum, etc. Each of these metals is relatively easy to get, provided you know where to look. Tantalum is a pretty good one. Most of it is mined in the Congo, by children. I would be very happy to replace those children with robots, but let’s face it: if the robots are out to kill us, one of our best ways to kill them off is to keep them away from tantalum. Even if that means making a bunch of child slave laborers unemployed. Not being able to use tantalum for capacitors would mean they’d need to use other types of capacitors, such as electrolytic, which have worse properties for a number of things, and are generally larger and more fragile.
See where I’m going with this?
Humans are part of an eco system that has been around for millenia, and through our evolution we have managed to adapt our “slack” values to be narrow for things very abundant in our environment (such as amino acids) and wide for things that are relatively scarce (such as certain metals). We can survive without tantalum. The robots cannot. We can survive without electricity. The robots cannot. We can survive without most of the infrastructure we take for granted – it won’t be pretty, but honestly, you can stick a human in a Mumbai slum far more readily than you can stick a Terminator.
Humans are good at surviving the kind of situation where everything is messed up and ugly. Our bodies adapt. Robot’s specifications don’t change. Sure, you’ll have a T-1000 liquid metal thing every now and then that’ll cause you some grief, but honestly there’s no threat that the T-1000 can pose that a little electromagnetic resonance burst can’t fix.
When it comes down to it, the battle between humans and robots is not so much about sheer power as it is about controlling the industrial chains. Attacking the slack. And as long as robots require things that are harder to get than the things humans need, the humans will win.
Today I will embark on an epic journey with my friends Bilal Ghalib and Paul Jehlen to travel across the U.S. and Canada. Our mission? To record hackerspace history. We’re calling this film adventure the Two Hands Project… because along with everything else ever made, it will be produced with two hands!
Why are we doing this? As a member of Pumping Station: One, I know what a hackerspace is, but many other people don’t. If you are a member of a hackerspace, I’m sure you’ve had to explain it before, and it’s not always easy. If you aren’t a member, then I’m sure you’ve wondered yourself. We want to help explain what a hackerspace is, why they are important, and what it means to be a member of such a place.
So, we’re setting out to film the creation of projects, ideas, and whole new hackerspaces! We feel that now is an important time in the history of these spaces, and it is our responsibility to record that history.
For more information about the project, visit www.TwoHandsProject.com. I plan to blog here as much as possible along the way, so stay tuned for updates on our adventures!
What may seem to be an innocent toy that was bought for children in their youth, or not, by those deprived by their parents. Has found a home for some of the members of Pumping Station: One in Chicago. In very much the style of Bring Your Own Big Wheel in San Francisco that used to run down Lombard Street, and power tool drag racing, the newly formed P-P-PRWS will be creating a multi race series where people will hack, mod, pilfer, and costume these childhood toys to devices that pop wheelies go at least 10-15 mph and might even spit fire.
A scene from last years BYOBW
Right now the first batch of Power Wheels and teams are forming and getting ready for the first race that seems to be at the end of June. Below is the post from the Pumping Station: One site.
POW POW Power Wheels Racing Series
Who wants to mod and race Power Wheels?
All of you? That’s what i thought.
Chicago’s only hackerspace, Pumping Station: One, will be organizing into teams, and having each team mod, race, fix, and continue racing a Power Wheels vehicle through a series of trials and tribulations. For $40, you can have your very own functional Power Wheels, for you and your team (if you’d like to work in a group) to modify and race!
Join in, or you will be missing the most epic event in hackerspace history: the Power Wheels Racing Series.
In the event you’ll code microcontrollers for power management, rip out motors from washing machines, fabricate parts, and have a art squad on your team. Sounds like an interesting blend.
Recently the Columbia Chronicle did a profile of Pumping Station: One, the hackerspace I run in Chicago. I don’t have much to say here other than the article puts across the vision of hackerspaces succinctly.
While twenty people sat around with their laptops and coffee, Sacha De’Angeli stood up to propose a crucial decree for the group.
“The rule I’d like to propose comes from Bill & Ted,” he said. “Be excellent to each other.”
The motion was voted on and seconded. From then on, the organized group of Chicago hackers would have to “be excellent to each other.” After the meeting was adjourned, the hackers scattered and began individual discussions about topics such as knitting and machinery.
Courtesy KAMIL KRAWCZYK
A new Chicago-based hacker space, called Pumping Station: One (PSOne), is ready to set up shop in the city. Since October, the group has been looking for a building to call home. At press time, the group had written a letter of intent and were waiting for the owner’s approval to move into the space as soon as April. Until they move into a space, the group meets every Tuesday night at The Mercury Cafe, 1505 W. Chicago Ave.The members of PSOne aren’t out to steal money or use their computer skills to overthrow the government. Actually, a few of the members aren’t computer experts at all.
Josh Krueger, a member of PSOne, defines a hacker as “someone who makes something and modifies it and uses it in a way that wasn’t originally intended.” His definition can be applied to just about any medium.
“[A hacker space is] a place where people can go to push the boundaries of their form and art,” said PSOne founder Eric Michaud. “It doesn’t relate just to computers.”
The members of PSOne come from very diverse backgrounds. They’re artists, engineers, programmers, bakers and writers. One of the only qualities that binds all of them together is their desire to create. The creations, however, vary from machines to crafts.
When: Thursday, March 5, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
Where: HacDC Auditorium (1525 Newton St NW, 20010)
Why: Because he’s Dan M.F. Kaminsky. That’s why.
Cost: FREE – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – EVERYONE IS INVITED!
The man responsible for breaking DNS like it’s never been broken before (then quietly gathering the world’s network operators to fix it because he’s a superhero) will be talking about his experiences with DNS and (if we’re nice to him) previewing some of his latest research at HacDC tonight at 8:00 PM.
I hope all is well with the tubes tonight, and might I add let the Ted Stevens be with you!
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.
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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.
Our friends in Luxembourg from syn2cat are having a little get together that is open to the public (as long as you RSVP for the 10 spots), to put together a number of Arduino units for your hacking pleasure.
From syn2cat’s wiki post:
What is it about?
On the 15th of March we are going to solder an Serial Arduino Board and a few Velleman Kits to afterwards.
Hack them and make them behave in a different way than originally conceived. (Limited to 10 People! Deadline: 8th of March)
We will provide
There will be approximately 6 full soldering stations
with all the necessary gear (Multimeter, Wirecutter tools, etc…)
These sets will be available FOR SALE. So in case you like what you did
and want to become a REAL Pirate make a future proof investment.
Most of the Kits will be in 3 exemplars, if you are really keen on one, reserve it please.
A Room (kindly provided by emQue)
6 30W Soldering Irons with an adequate Tip and stand (but please bring your own should you have one)
6 Third-hands
6 Multimeter (again, you have one bring it please)
6 Ubuntu Laptops with the Arduino IDE
Power supplies (some regulated some not, Voltage varies)
So this last weekend I was at NYC Resistor taking in the sun *cough* taking in the sights *cough* taking in the culture *……* well yeah. Anyway I was witnessing the birth of something magnificent. The “sudo make me a sandwich” robot!
Some of you may know the origin of the story, but for those that do not I think a simple cartoon slide will suffice.
So Bre of NYC Resistor and Adam of Hackerbot Labs decided to finally implement the infamous Simon Says of hacker sandwich making.
From Bre’s blog post
Make sure to check out Adam’s photos and his excellent blog called Shadowflux where he’ll post the code for this robot. Adam took the robot home to Seattle with him and I am optimistic that more sandwiches will be born of this robot and set free into the world.
In order to make it all work, Adam set up an arduino to interface with 2 servos and 2 steppers using the RepRap stepper controllers.
I used QCAD to design some bread and cheese distributing mechanisms and the infrastructure is up on Thingiverse.com.
The toaster oven needed a little modification and a servo controlled flap was put into place with some hinges to make it move slowly. Adam found some pretty special stepper motors with an amazing amount of torque fo.r the flap and the tray controls.
This is one of those robots that I swear is alive. The noises it made were like an animal and it seemed that everytime we looked the other way, it was coming to life and changing things with the setup.
The entrant that destroys the most space surfboards wins. Simple. If you are in the area, I would highly suggest checking it out once they release the location.
These radical astronautical surfers are self balancing due to a solid state accelerometer. So unlike your tiny helicopters, they shouldn’t go flying into your cat’s face. They are on sale at ThinkGeek right now and I am honestly considering picking one up for funsies.
