The Occupy Movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against social and economic inequality. Currently there are hundreds of groups around the world Occupying Together.

Noisebridge, a hackerspace in San Francisco, as always is open to those looking for a space to work on projects, and resources to make those projects a reality. We’ve been seeing more and more groups coming through seeking aid for things related to the Occupancy. Together we’ve built out interesting ways to recharge car and cell phone batteries, provided internet at camp, had meetings about web presence, document GA minutes and more.

We want to let the participants of the Occupy Movement know that we’re here and open to them. We’ve also started a site called hackupy.org (graciously hosted off of Hackerspaces, thanks!). Hackupy are open hack nights at hackerspaces for Occupy related projects, and the site gives a listing of spaces which provide such nights. So far hackupy has been happening at NYC: Resistor and almost 24/7 at Noisebridge, and we look forward to seeing more hackerspaces jump in and provide time to those wanting to hack for excellence!

Why so harsh? For the simple reason that at a certain abstraction level hackerspaces are not that new and unique. They are semi-permanent gatherings of people who share a common interest, namely technology for the sake of technology and unorthodox uses of it. Semi-permanent in the sense that the group has a certain continuity, with obvious turnover of the participants of that group. They also have assets and often liabilities. The assets tend not to be very liquid, meaning that often they cannot be easily sold. After all, take a look around in a typical hackerspace and you see lots of stuff that is not easily replaced but not easily sold either. Which is the same for your average rowing society, student union or scouting club. The liabilities tend to be less complex, usually a long-term lease for the space itself, but sometimes a bit more than that, for example some financing arrangement with particular participants that was needed to buy really fancy equipment such as a lasercutter. Which again is not terribly different from a rowing club (you do not want to know what a carbon composite rowing boat costs nowadays).

One caveat however: I am using the terms foundations and associations a bit loosely and from a mostly civil law perspective. In common law countries other than England, Wales and Ireland (Scotland is a civil law country) your mileage may vary a bit more. Your mileage may vary anyway, even within continental Europe.

First of all look at the problems the typical not-for-profit corporations (foundations and associations)  face:

Especially associations are vulnerable to disproportionate power wielded by a small group of members, or even worse, to a newly elected board that turns out not to be competent to run a prudent ship. Especially student associations are vulnerable to that phenomenon because they tend to rotate boards on an annual basis. On the other hand, the democratic nature of associations fit in much better with anything you want maximum participation from outside the board in.

Foundations are fundamentally problematic because the board is accountable to none but themselves (and the founding charter, but this only becomes an issue when a foundation enters bankruptcy). So you end up with a, in the option of some, arbitrary, group of people who get to decide on issues that have a major impact on the not-for-profit.

Another issue is limited liability. In most jurisdictions being a board member of either an association or a foundation you’re personally and jointly liable together with all other board members. However, being a board member of an association has a slight advantage: if the members of the association decide to overrule the board, which they can to a certain extent, board members cannot be held liable for such a decision. On the other hand, telling board members of a foundation that they should take a certain decision is not unlikely to be met with ‘and will you be held liable for any negative consequences?’, or at least the thought of it.

Basically it is a trade-off between accountability and (certain level of) stability.  But also of participation versus consumption. The nice thing is that it is not an either-or decision. And the issue has been reasonably well solved by my earlier examples: student unions and scouting clubs. The typical pattern used there is that of two entities that work together: a foundation and an association. The foundation typically has one or more seats reserved for representatives, if not board members, of the association. All activities that need lots of participation in terms of time take place under the flag of the assocations. Assets and long-term obligations that are best served by a foundation are put under the flag of the foundation. In case of scouting clubs the club house is typically owned or rented by a foundation, which lets the association use it while the association typically transfers  financial surpluses above a certain level to the foundation in order to let it invest in the club house and associated expenditures.

Translated to a hackerspace the foundation would be:

• renter or owner of the real estate;
• owner of the equipment that would otherwise be called ‘capital goods’, for example CNC equipment, lasercutters;
• provider of said real estate and equipment to the association and in return being funded by the association.

The association would exist for the actual activities, e.g. the actual hacking, running the bar, organising events. Accountability can be introduced by having the foundation’s board having one or more seats appointed by the association. It is however preferable not to have an intersection between the foundation’s and the associations board in order to keep roles clear, if only inside peoples’ heads.

And yes, it is a bit of a hack. It is not terribly elegant, it needs specific bylaws and statutes for both the foundation and the association involved. But it allows for a modicum of accountability for the foundation and a reasonable amount of stability for the association. It works elsewhere, for non-profits faced with rather similar problems as faced by hackerspaces. If you are involved in starting a new hackerspace or running into governance issues at an existing one, consider this option. Why limit yourself to one entity if you can solve issues by having multiple?

So with an eye on a bit of blatant self promotion, we’ve decided to run a number of events next week 14th-22nd of August and call the whole series Irish Hackerspaces Week.  We are hoping to use the events to show our spaces and Irish hacker culture in a good light in both the local and national media, while providing a range fun and informative talks, workshops and social events.

The week has been scheduled to coincide with the 10th Global Synchronous Hackathon on the weekend of the 21st-22nd of August. So hopefully we’ll be able to interact with a wider range of hackerspaces worldwide.

Do you know a project that has greatly improved the quality of your hackerspace?

What about a project that costs much, much less than the average off-the-shelf solution?

What about an astounding innovation that you’re used to seeing from the corporate sector, but
was designed in your home town’s hackerspace?

These projects and more are what the Hackerspace Awards would like to recognize.  Over the next few weeks members of all hackerspaces are invited to suggest award categories and post  them on the Hackerspace Awards wiki page.

Projects nominated to each category will be subjectively judged by a panel made up of one member from each hackerspace.  Dates and categories are not set in stone yet, but keep watch here at hackerspaces.org for additional information.  Once set, any project may be nominated for a category, with self-nominations encouraged.

Alongside the Merit Based Awards, the Workshop88 guys have offered to make their Hackerspaces In Space (HSIS) event the Competitve leg of the Hackerspace Awards.  The HSIS competition is encouraging all hackerspaces to launch a Balloon Satallite for as light, and as cheaply as possible,  and return with pictures of the Earth’s horizon.

As of the writing of this article, there are over 18 hackerspaces signed up to compete! The launches are set to begin on June 1st, and end August 31st.

For more details on the HSIS Competition, please visit:  http://workshop88.com/space/

To get involved in the creation of the Hackerspace Awards, visit:

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspace_Awards/Brainstorm
Or send an email to awards@hackerspaces.org

Updates: As March 5th, 2009, there are 29 groups signed up to compete in the HSIS!

Every 3rd Weekend of the month starting NOW!

Now a quick history lesson. Back in August of this year a few members of Pumping Station: One decided to put on a event that was an all night project frenzy dubbed Hackathon, now it looks like a number of hackerspaces worldwide have joined into the fray.We are currently calling this the Synchronous Hackathon. Which has become a monthly event on the 3rd weekend of every month. Of the people and hackerspaces currently involved they are providing live video feeds into their spaces to show what is going on for the entire weekend also in a direct effort to cross collaborate on a number of projects.

Now for the longer history lesson. Pumping Station: One didn’t create the Hackathon nor did they start this fire, nor is it a new idea, nor is the wiki article I just linked definitive, but the sentiments are still the same. Come in for a period of time, with a project, and/or the intention to join a project and complete it.

Some projects of course are started can’t be completed in the allotted time but are given a great start which is also great because they are so large. Doesn’t matter though. The point is to DO IT!

What can you expect from the hackathon, I’ll list what we’re doing for the PS:One Hackathon: Feel The Noise Edition Our noisy Hackathon of the month.

###

PS:One Hackathon: Feel The Noise Edition

Features:

DJ’s spinning fresh beats on two turn tables.

Welding

Power tools Galore

Coding – In all it’s beautiful technicolor emacs/vim/nano highlighting beauty
Soldering

Knitting

Crafting

Noise Noise Noise(The beautiful kind) Remember this is Hackathon: Feel The Noise Edition

Academic Research in all fields (Yes I’m looking at you chemistry and bioinformatics people)
2D/3D Animation

3d Prototyping and Digital Printing

Coding – I had to repeat myself (Yes there will be lots of this also)

Tricked out Bicycles (Maybe even some of the motorized variety)

MORE MOAR MOOOOOARE!

We may also treated to some very interesting visuals.

###

So if that sounds like fun in a hand basket full of goodies, you might want to drop by your local Hackerspace.

Cheers,

-Ericm.

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.

After the California adventure, we made our way up to Seattle. After getting in late, we met with Justin Martenstein from a hackerspace known as Saturday House. Unfortunately we learned that Saturday House is no more, and we discussed several reasons why hackerspaces can fail.

The next day we met with Rob, another member of Saturday House, and then Willow and Baron, who are starting a new space in Seattle called Jigsaw Renaissance. Baron was awesome enough to give us a ride out to Vancouver that night, where we checked out VHS. After driving us back to Seattle, Baron dropped us off at Bill Beaty’s house.

Bill Beaty is clearly a mad scientist, but awesome nonetheless. We interviewed him the next morning, as he seemed to know quite a bit about the history of the local hackerspaces. Following that, we talked with Noid about The Black Lodge (fomerly known as Eastside Hackerspace).

Having finished the West Coast portion of the trip, we shot across the country to Charlotte, North Carolina. Teleco Bob gave us a ride from there to Atlanta, where we experienced the beauty of FreesideAtlanta. Their space is huge!

The following day we caught a ride with Freeside to the Hackerspace Meetup at Makers Local 256 in Hunstville, Alabama. Great ideas were discussed, including things which could very well change the direction of hackerspaces at large… more on that in a later post.

Now that the chaos has subsided a bit, we are sitting in the airport, waiting for a flight to Chicago, eager to continue capturing the passion and creativity of the hackerspaces that await.

Between visiting Noisebridge, NIMBY, the reMake Lounge, HackerDojo, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, 23b Shop, Radish Research Center, Machine Project, Sugar Shack, and the Public School Project, we’ve barely had time to rest!

After visiting so many spaces, I’ve noticed a few things. At first glance, it seems that the only common feature of these spaces is that they are all different… but upon taking a closer look, similarities do appear. These places all share more or less the same core values; they realize that having a place for people to gather, share ideas, and create new things is vastly important.

I think I’m starting to get a feel for the nature of these hackerspaces. While there have always been places “like” hackerspaces that embody the nature of collaboration and creativity, the difference now is that these places are being created by many different kinds of people in society. In other words, hackerspaces come in flavors; some are artist inspired, some are entrepreneur inspired, and some are coder inspired.

It is refreshing to know that no matter who starts these spaces, they all seem to be teeming with the hacker spirit.

- Jordan Bunker (writing from the Long Beach Airport)

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!

Cheers!
- Jordan Bunker

In the podcast he describes hackerspaces while playing with tigers at the Bronx Zoo in NYC.

From the site.

Sat, 18 April 2009

Exotic Liability 6: Nick Farr Interview

In this episode:
Tiger enrichment
Hackers on A Plane
Hacker spaces
Survive DC update
Security stereotypes
Denver area events
Boston College is out to get you!

Direct download: Exotic_Liability_6.mp3

-E.