[Novalug] ShmooCon & Hackerspaces

[Wei Wu Wei]

Well Brian, I appreciate your input, and I think we should fold
together these disparate groups and move forward. I am completely open
to to the development of the HacVA or HacNOVA or whatever it is in any
direction regarding organization, location, etc... I have no personal
agenda, but offer my time to help formalize something and maintain a
"TCP KEEPALIVE" on the group for periods where activity is low.

The only thing I was say in feedback to your contribution is that I
believe eventually it would be good for us to have a hackerspace (a
physical persistent space with tools to perform actions), because I'd
eventually like to share software tools, take equipment apart and
re-purpose it, or create a new version of the annihilatrix.

Nino has suggested the possibility of providing an non/semi-persistent
space in the basement of his home, which is an option, although it is
in the mixing-bowl area.

I am amenable to contact Micro-Center and attempting to use their space.

Let's continue the conversation. Is your Hacva list still active? if
so, perhaps we could continue the thread there.
~JD

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Brian Knobbs <bknobbs at gmail.com> wrote:
> So I basically just browse this list and haven't really participated
> before, but I
> thought I would chime in on this topic.
>
> Last Shmoocon, a good group of us decided it would be a great idea to have
> "HacDC" for NOVA, mainly because non of us actually make it into DC for
> HacDC because we hate going into DC =D So we started up a mailing for
> the infinitely creative "HacVA" , which you can find here:
>
> http://www.handynerds.com/mailman/listinfo/hacva
>
> Initially we tried to be somewhat active, and within a few weeks after the con
> we had our first meeting where we got together and shared stories from the
> con, and watched DVDs of talks that we hadn't gone to. About 10 poeple
> showed up, so it really wasn't bad for a first meet. But since non of us have
> the time to devote to actually running these kinds of things, it eventually
> fell apart.
>
> I would definitely love to get this going again, and was thinking of having
> the same meeting where we watch DVDs from previous cons. Initially, we
> weren't looking for a hacker space, as none of us wanted to rent an actual
> building/room and setup equipment, it was more to have a regular meeting
> to bring projects and have talks, etc.
>
> I really like the idea of using Microcenter as a meeting spot, that is
> basically directly in the middle of all of the people that had interest before.
>
> If you all would like to start up your own thing in conjunction with NOVALUG,
> thats cool, of if you would like to merge up with what we started to do, that
> would be awesome as well. (I would be up for changing the name etc, we
> never really got much going) The main thing is I need someone other than
> my self to help lead it, because I'm just too busy =D
>
> -Brian
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Rich Goodwin <Rich.Goodwin at cox.net> wrote:
>> An elementary school cafeteria should be ample in size.  A public libary
>> might be a good starting point - and they have wireless access.
>>
>> Meeting etiquette might be a high priority.  Any place that is open to
>> providing facilities might get concerned (legally) on provider a "hacker
>> organization" facility access.
>>
>> Mirocenter used to allow access to their meeting rooms during the week.
>> That has reasonable Metro access, relatively good parking and access to
>> "supplies" as needed.  They offered us widescreen HDTV's for the MythTV
>> meetings we had.
>>
>> Rich
>>
>> On Tue, 2010-02-09 at 11:41 -0500, Nino Pereira wrote:
>>> Just a dumb question: how much space would be needed, and
>>> how many people would show up how often? Peak occupation?
>>> average?
>>>
>>> Nino
>>> >
>>> >> Here is a question. How many of the HacDC members are from Northern
>>> >> Virginia, would starting the northern VA space dilute membership to HacDC
>>> >> so much that it could kill one, or make both struggle (is the hackerspace
>>> >> market big enough for multiples? I guess this is your market research).
>>>
>>> >> We're kind of in a similar situation down here where traffic can make it
>>> >> obnoxious to travel between certain areas. We haven't actually had members
>>> >> sign up yet (757labs), so I'm out of pocket around $600/month right now.
>>> >> Trying to figure out rules, it's hard. Some people want their own piece of
>>> >> space, and we're not sure how to handle that.
>>> >