sudo-discuss July 2013

sudo-discuss@sudoroom.org

58 participants
143 discussions

It's July 24th: Current Balance + Pay Your Dues!

by Marina Kukso

hi everyone, it is july 24th and we currently have* $1929.61 *in our account. on aug 1 we will owe approximately *$1700*. this means that we get to have a hackerspace for another month, but it also means that we will be about $300 below our $500 account minimum (as reqd by the bank). as such, we very much encourage you to pay your dues or contribute a one time payment to help us stay above our minimum balance. please contribute in one of these ways: 1) online (via wepay): https://sudoroom.org/ 2) online (via gittip): https://www.gittip.com/sudoroom/ 3) in person (anytime): please drop cash or checks into the clear plastic box by the door that goes to the elevator 4) in person (at meetings): bring cash or checks to wed. meetings. - marina

13 years

LOL open Friday (noon-5p)!

by Vicky Knox

LOL (Liberating Ourselves Locally) will be open again this week, Friday from noon-5pm. LOL is a hackerspace located in the San Antonio neighborhood of east Oakland, and was founded by and for people of color, women, queer peeps and others underrepresented in tech. Come check it out if you haven't already--it's awesome! LOL is located at: 1234 23rd Avenue x-street International Blvd.

13 years

Open Knowledge Meetup on Thursday at 7pm

by Matthew Senate

Hey all! We have a special guest visiting from Paris, Célya Gruson-Daniel, working on a web documentary on Open Science through the Hack Your PhD community: http://hackyourphd.org/ While she's in town, she wanted to throw an open science event, so I offered to host at Sudo Room on Thursday at 7pm. We're reaching out to the Open Knowledge community in the bay area and everyone is invited: http://www.meetup.com/OpenKnowledgeFoundation/San-Francisco-CA/966132/ See the event on the sudo room calendar: https://sudoroom.org/ai1ec_event/hackyourphd-open-knowledge-meetup/?instanc… I'd love to see your faces, be merry, and mush our braincells together. // Matt

13 years

Oakland Domain Awareness Center

by Ed Biow

Hey folks, I'm new on this list, I first visited the sudoroom a month ago or so at the last Cryptoparty and became a member that evening. Some of you may have seen me around, I am a tremendously obese older bloke who generally sports stained suspenders. I have been working with Occupy Oakland for some time and I'm on their web committee, where I've worked with Bill B. & Will H. and perhaps some of the rest of you. Anywho, as you may know last Tuesday the Oakland City Council tried to slip authorization to spend another $2 million bucks on to the supposedly non-controversial consent calender, but a number of us got wind of it and showed up to harangue them so the council set the meeting for next Tuesday, July 30th at 6:30 or so. occupyoakland.org/2013/07/sign-up-and-speak-out-against-government-surveill… http://occupyoakland.org/2013/07/stop-the-oakland-dac-surveillance-city-spe… We are encouraging folks to sign speaker cards and speak out against funding this further movement towards a surveillance state, if you look at the second article towards the bottom you can see basic instructions about how to fill out a speaker card so you can tell the council what you think of tying all the cameras, license plate readers, and other sensors from the city, private security, the OUSD, BART, CalTrans, etc. together to keep an eye on the citizenry. Occupy Oakland discussed also having a rally in front of City Hall, perhaps at 5PM before the council meeting to make a bit of noise. We'd like to have a meeting Thursday to do a bit of research and plan a rally, I thought we might meet at the sudoroom commons area. I know there are already several events planned on an ongoing basis for Thursdays, the Oakland Wiki meeting as well as Wifi Mesh, Python & Javascript meetups. Do you folks think a few of us would get under foot or should I call the meeting for the Oakland Public Library Main Branch teen room or perhaps my fetid domicile? The OPL teen room is open until 8PM. Solidarity whenever, Ed

13 years

LOL is open today! (12-5p)

by Vicky Knox

Lentils and rice are boiling. Come by and work, study, hang around and just be. Hugs, Vicky

13 years

kombucha meetup?

by Patrik D'haeseleer

Hi Sudoroomies! We've been planning some cool bio meetups for Counter Culture Labs, and lots of people were excited about doing one on brewing kombucha<http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Big-Batch-of-Kombucha/>. I figured it would be great to do this at sudoroom, and make a joint sudo/CCL party/workshop out of it! Do any of you have a nice healthy kombucha "mother" at the moment? We want to do some microbiology experiments on the culture in the future, so it should be a natural one that has been propagated for a long time, not something started from a store-bought bottle (those typically use a single strain, rather than the complex mixture of bacteria and yeasts you find in a real kombucha mother). We have a slot in our meetup calendar penciled in for a kombucha meeting for the week after next (next week is bioinformatics<http://www.meetup.com/Counter-Culture-Labs/events/129899352/>!) I figure that may leave us just enough time to brew a big batch in advance of the meetup, so we'd have enough kombucha for tasting, and enough mother to hand out to anyone who wants to participate and brew their own batch! So... let me know if (a) you have a kombucha mother we can use, (b) would be interested in brewing up a big batch in advance of the meetup, and/or (c) would be interested in helping to lead the meetup the week after next (exact date to be decided)! I can definitely help out with (b) and (c). Heck, we could even try brewing some mate kombucha... Patrik

13 years

come do things with sudo kids tuesday at 6:00 + invitation to join sudo kids future direction team

by Marina Kukso

hi everyone, you are once again invited to come do things with the awesome sudo kids tuesday from 6ish to 8:30ish. want to do a group activity? teach really brilliant kids something awesome? build a thing with them? help them build a thing? we've done calligraphy, clay, mate-brewing, piano, radio, and more. kids have expressed an interest in 3d printing and making videos. if you want to do either of those things with us (whether tomorrow or sometime in the future), or have an idea for another thing you'd like to do, be in touch! additionally, ray and i have started working on concrete goals and desired outcomes for the sudo kids program. we are doing this because a hackerspace without kids is like a diy electronics project without a blinky light - extremely sad. kids are natural hackers and if our role is to provide the physical and community infrastructure to encourage people to keep building and making and learning and exploring things forever, then kids are naturally part of that equation :) additionally, having activities for kids is a proven strategy to expanding our community. yes, we are operating from the principle that if you hook a kid on a thing, that you will eventually have an opportunity to speak with their parent. the good news is that we are not selling stuff but selling the idea of making stuff and being in a community of makers. finally, if you've never done stuff with kids before, you may find the experience to be really different than what you'd expect (i know i have). i continue to be extremely impressed and more or less constantly verklempt at the insight and intelligence of the children we work with. so, if you want to help coordinate activities and be a part of the cool sudo kids organizing/future direction/expanding the program crew, (or are just interested in learning more about what "helping coordinate sudo kids" involves - it's not a lot), be in touch via email or just come on a tuesday night. - marina

13 years

wifi signals

by Daniel Kelly

what DC would look like if you could see wifi signals http://www.mydeals.com/blog/what-if-you-could-see-wifi/post

13 years

OL: Oakland Surveillance Center delayed by opposition

by Eddan Katz

Approval for citywide surveillance now scheduled for July 30. > The Domain Awareness Center began as a federal grant for port security, but has expanded to include more of Oakland. > http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/07/a-proposed-citywide-surveillance-center-in-… > > The approval of $2 million in federal funding for a citywide surveillance center in Oakland was postponed to July 30 as opposition to the controversial proposal slowly gains public awareness and criticism. > > The agenda item first presented in an Oakland City Council Public Safety Committee received little vetting by the some council members when it was heard July 9. It also attracted no public comment that night. However, in the past week the issue has gathered energy as some city advocates question the proposal, they say, may further infringe on their privacy, in addition, to it lacking any guidelines for its use and possible expansion. > > At Tuesday’s Oakland City Council meeting, the director of the city’s emergency services, Renee Domingo, said no standard operating procedures currently exist for how the system known as the Domain Awareness Center (DAC) will be employed, if approved by the council. In addition, the city and port are in the process of studying various public records and data retention requirements in relation to the DAC, said Domingo. Later, she added there is doubt whether the DAC will function as a center for data storage since the feeds it will pull in already come from sources with their own retention rules. > > The DAC was first approved by the City Council in July 2010 following the allocation of federal stimulus dollars for security at the Port of Oakland. The $2 million outlay before the council this month represents phase two of the program which, according to a city staff report, has ballooned from covering the port to other parts of the city, including street cameras and various other locations, including schools and the Coliseum. Approval would also allow the city and port to seek out other agencies to provide additional video feeds to the DAC, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrans, among others. During the Public Safety Committee meeting last week, staff also indicated plans to partner with other statewide and federal authorities for inclusion in Oakland’s DAC. > > Privacy advocates say the DAC’s ability to become a clearinghouse for numerous video feeds from a panoply of government agencies, along with a torrent of data sources, including information and statistics from law enforcement, sets a dangerous precedent in a city beset with a police department, which in the past, has routinely infringed on citizen rights and has paid millions in settlements for their actions. > > “[There are] huge opportunities for abuse here, too,” Oakland resident Joshua Daniels said Tuesday night. “We’re talking about giving a surveillance system for the entire city over to, perhaps, the most abusive police force in the country.” > > Gwen Winter, another Oakland resident speaking during public comment said, “This has nothing to do with crime. This has nothing to do with terrorism. What you want to do is watch what all the people are doing so they won’t organize.” > > Following revelations brought on by Edward Snowden over the federal government’s ability to spy on Americans, Sandy Sanders urged for the council to maintain a delineation between the city’s data and other agencies. “Our data is our data and your data is your data and those should be separate. Do your job in government and protect us.” > > A few public speakers took fault with Councilman Dan Kalb’s comments in committee last week when he concluded his statements on the DAC by saying, “sounds good to me.” In response to the public outcry Tuesday night, Kalb said, “This is not a fault or a criticism, but I’ll only say, I wish all the people who were here today were at the public safety committee a week ago. It would have been more helpful.” > > The City Council may have been caught flat-footed by the amount of criticism against the DAC Tuesday night. Councilman Larry Reid moved to delay the item to July 30. Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who sits on the Public Safety Committee, agreed. Reid asked staff for additional research on the proposal before adding, “Given that we can’t even get our freaking phones working for our police officer…and now we want to add this additional technology when there’s only two to three years for maintenance?” He also criticized the public safety committee for not properly vetting the item. > > Councilmember Desley Brooks said the item should have never been placed on Tuesday’s consent calendar. “It was only supposed to go on the consent calendar if it wasn’t controversial and clearly there are people who have a different opinion. > >

13 years

help coordinate TILs!

by Marina Kukso

hi everyone, you may have heard of "today i learned," our wildly successful co-learning-teaching one-off workshops that take place every saturday: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Today_I_Learned since the launch of TIL in January we've held over 20 workshops on topics that range from jewelry-making to today's statistics with doodles. many thanks to everyone who has facilitated a workshop, attended a workshop, suggested a workshop, promoted a workshop, and workshopped a workshop. i've mostly been taking the lead on keeping the schedule filled up, encouraging people to do sessions, and promoting the TILs, but i need help! we are not doing as well as we could be on really fulfilling the potential of the TILs. unfortunately i don't have the time to really give this project the love it deserves. here are some of the tasks that we need help with to really have the TILs fulfill the original intended function: providing an easy way for new people to show up and participate in sudo room (while also sharing our knowledge with each other and improve our teaching techniques): - keeping the schedule filled up & encouraging sudoers and others to facilitate sessions - ideally we'd have at least a month ahead booked up so that we can prepare detailed schedules for distribution to local schools, after school clubs, etc. - promoting events - at the moment, we barely provide a week's notice for upcoming TILs. this is not enough lead time and as a result, they are often not as well attended as they could be. - promotions currently really only happen to channels that are likely to reach people who already know about us: via email lists, twitter, fb, and our blog. creativity in promotion (with different kinds of promotional activities for different TILs) - currently, i mainly promote the events with little participation on the part of the facilitator or larger sudo community. if we'd like to distribute responsibility for the promotion, it would be helpful to have a "how to promote your workshop" guide and provide other mechanisms to help make it easier to promote (blog post templates, flyer templates, etc.) - documentation - we should have been taking video of every workshop and putting it online. we have not done this. this would be a huge improvement. who's in? XD - marina

13 years

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sudo-discuss July 2013