would anyone be interested in doing something "for kids" or people who are
most likely 1x visitors?
this is a large swathe of the public - a lot of cool people are simply
curious about hackerspaces, but many who visit are probably just going to
drop by, look at something cool like a raspberry pi or a 3d print out and
then never come back again
for donations etc. it would be cool to just make special projects just for
these people and schedule "visiting sudoroom" day
maybe from this group we could harvest repeat visitors, but most likely we
won't
i think stuff that would qualify would be:
- arduino music projects
- raspberry pi proejcts
- anythignt od o with kids - "gardening with kids", "learning to make
games with kids", "kids making artificial kids", "artificial intelligence
with kids", "kids creating mind control objects for parents"
- something with a lilypad
- a 3d printing project that's easy
These 1x visitor kits should come in attractive boxes that are clean, and
when they visit the space should be tidied up a bit
i think we should probably do something like this once a quarter. it would
be probably better than a party, or should be coordinated with a party..
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Romy Ilano
romy(a)snowyla.com
hey i know there are people who love sudoroom and who are busy
are any of you working on any arduino or raspberry pi projects?
would it be possible to make an appearance and blog about it? I think
there's a general interest from mainstream people to see someone working on
a raspberry pi project, bonus points if it's something *kid friendly.*
if you could come in, work on it ,blog, and make something creative, I
think it would really help the sudoroom! bonus points if you make it
something unique and a little different from the run of the mill "I worked
on a n adruino/raspberry pi" project all over the internet lately... <3
much love,
Romy
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Romy Ilano
romy(a)snowyla.com
https://sudoroom.org/cyberwizard-institute-first-weekend-cartoon-report/
hi here are cartoon notes and videos from the first cyberwizard institute
weekend
it's so fun!
- please pass this around on social media, email to cool people. not
necessarily all at once or today -> just throughout the week. this keeps
awareness of the cool stuff going on at sudoroom <3
-
https://sudoroom.org/cyberwizard-institute-first-weekend-cartoon-report/
- add to the blog post if you can.
ok if you don't want to pass it around don't do it. but stuff like this is
cool!!
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Romy Ilano
romy(a)snowyla.com
Could we feature four or five members similar to this nytimes piece?
i will interview people, do some portraits, starting with troy ;)
- we at SudoRoom come from a unique perspective of activism, social
causes and art. I think we can add to the conversation.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/22/is-silicon-valley-saving-th…
Silicon Valley has “a greater capacity to change the world than the kings
and presidents of even a hundred years ago,” one wealthy Facebook
beneficiary supposedly told
<http://www.gq.com/story/silicon-valley-is-a-lie?fb_ref=Default> a tech
conference last year. Many tech luminaries think they are ”doing God’s work
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/upshot/can-technology-save-the-world-expe…>.”
But are the innovations coming out of the Bay area really creating a new
and better world, or just making lots of money for a few people?
=============================
Romy Ilano
romy(a)snowyla.com
Hello all,
Tomorrow Sunday a friend of mine is coming to visit and to volunteer at the
Omni for first time. But, I just learned that I cannot be there due to
another meeting that I have at 1pm in SF.
My intention was to give her an introduction of whats the Omni about; and
then to introduce her to Matt and Yar or whoever that is working on repairs
of the building. She is doesn't know about construction, but if she is
tough what to do, she would help with that.
So.... is there someone interested to be there for her (Mary S.) between
12-1pm? I'd appreciated it, I double book myself.
Many thanks in advance, and please let me know so I can tell her your name.
Daniel
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Help open a people-powered common space in Oakland, California!
https://omnicommons.org/donate
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Hello All,
I would like to announce that now we have 17 Asus Eee 1201n netbooks for us
to use. Yay! :)
This set of netbooks is part of the donation we received several weeks ago.
Most of the netbooks had keyboard keys missing, others with broken
displays, and one or two with bad hard disks.
A THANK YOU NOTE:
Many thanks to Hilary for not only donating brand new keyboards for each
notebook, but also for installing them.
Also thank you to Max-b and Alex for working on fixing and testing them.
Thank you,
Daniel
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https://sudoroom.org/wiki/MRI_3D_Printing
So there are a lot of projects at Sudoroom that we don't really talk about that much projects that are started and not finished but they're still there and there's still a lot of documentation about them on the wiki
In the next few weeks I would encourage everyone to mention any unfinished projects in the hopes that it might pick the interest of someone outside of Sudo Then inspire them or make them join Sudoroom or have them add to the project and even finish it
I'd like to put these projects in a little bucket and have them be a little more prominent on the page
One example here I have is this link that I had we had a very lively discussion about owning your MRI scans and modifying them with free open source software and drinking them and then printing them on the 3-D printer
The discussion was lightly and we didn't get that far unfortunately but we do have a bunch of MRI scans
And we have a bunch of discussions on how to take the scans and use free software or very cheap software but mostly free software to create 3-D models that can be printed on the 3-D printing machines that are at Sudoroom
This is really valuable information and it shouldn't be lost
It can be used for students who are in high school or senior citizens were studying or anyone who just wants to know more about their body to learn how to use a 3-D printer into something tangible
There is also an interesting active aside discussion which I should probably summarize and document and put on the wiki about how Americans don't always on their medical records and that the cost of these MRI scan sometimes aren't very clear or that it's not always crew the people that they're allowed to get a copy of the MRI scans and play with them
That's an entire discussion that was very political and very interesting because that's what we discussed at Sudoroom
We don't just go into technology we also discussed like broader social issues and even spiritual ones
So I'm going to in the next few weeks like this up as one of the unfinished her ongoing projects on there might be someone who is 1000 miles away who can't even afford to get access to an MRI of a real person that was recently taken and they might be able to use my MRI and they can use that to him at least skills on the software and give your thoughts on the topic and do a creative project or just learn how the body is made or Orla just use this is like a more interesting example of a 3-D model
I think the way that the MRI topic was handled was very unique to how we do things that Sidoroom
We discussed a lot of social issues we talked a lot about politics we bring a lot of Susoroom into things but we also do have a good knowledge about business models since a lot of us are starting
These conversation shouldn't be lost
Keep on building and fighting the good fight not every project that we do is finished but not every unfinished project is unfinished forever
Sent from my iPhone
So i'm starting a series of comics making the pseudo-mesh project easier to understand it's one of those things at once people get it they really support it
But it's hard to build an emotional connection if the ideas are too complex at first
But once people get it they love the complexity and it's really fun way to get people to understand how networks and Internet are in government and industry all interact
So if you could just get over that hump and make the stuff more accessible it be cool
I know that people have said it should be in JavaScript since there's so many programmers to do JavaScript in Oakland if there's anyway that we could make a few more JavaScript projects at bridge onto the Lua
That would be cool it wouldn't even have to be anything to do with networking I know you guys want to be open source code that's used in Greece Slovenia and South America but we could at least have marketing pages or even learning pages and JavaScript that link to the Lua
I'll just throw some more ideas up on the wall but I don't want to create more work for everyone but this time it is I hope it's up in the right direction because after the original Complexity is overcome people really love all the different directions and sophistication that come with the sudomesh project
Sent from my iPhone
Hope we can get some nice notes wihh the second session
http://notconfusing.com/cyberwizard-institute-retrospective/
CYBERWIZARD INSTITUTE: RETROSPECTIVE
Cyber Wizard Institute
The Cyberwizard Institute (CWI) was a free programming school based out of Sudo Room, running for the month of January 2015. The proclamation that I saw on their website before I volunteered to teach there was:
The idea is to be an anti-bootcamp. Anyone can participate. It’s free. We’re going to try hard to have lecture notes, assignments, and lecture livestreams up online. It will be primarily self-directed, but with guidance from higher level wizards.
As a founding member of sudoroom since 2011, but suffering from a recent malaise in my hacktivism, this was the perfect project to reinvigorate my involvement. What most appealed to me was the idea of an anti-bootcamp, because I’ve wanted to make clear to world the distinction I care about between start-up culture and technology. I wanted to do something metaphorically akin to hijacking the stereo system at a $4-coffee-wifi-shack and making a public service announcement that the computers are not just fancy TVs, but programmable instruments of self-empowerment, which, in addition, can be used for non-commercial purposes.
Meeting Every Day
Without any formal advertising, each sudoer leading CWI was pleasantly surprised when 27 wizardlings showed up on the first day (14 women and 13 men from my count). When I remarked this to CWI’s originator @marinakukso, she responded that “when you offer a free programming class, with no experience required – people want that”.
I recall some apprehension when we introduced ourselves, and there was the occasional naïve posturing of people who claimed themselves as programmers with the phrase “I know HTML”. But the need to impress quickly disappeared as we sat down to struggle with them in installing Linux on the laptops they’d brought.
The next day I was nervous with anticipation to arrive at an empty room after all we had shown fresh minds was that computer programming was about inexplicable Ubuntu hurdles. Still, with only a slightly leaky attendance most wizards did come back for more. And we went right on with teaching them bash.
We continued to meet for 5 hours daily with lectures and hackerspace-esque hands-on floating help from higher level wizards, which we dubbed “social code”. Our rhythm was found quickly, and only half way through the month CWI was feeling so magical, it received coverage in the East Bay Express:
“Many coding bootcamps in the Bay Area charge tens of thousands of dollars in fees, which can be seen as restricting access to what has become essential for finding a job in technology, let alone moving up in Silicon Valley’s so-called “meritocracy.” Kukso explained that Cyber Wizard Institute’s mission is very much aligned with that of Sudo Room, which is to give everyday folks the opportunity to understand and create the technology in their lives. “For a lot people who consider themselves nontechnical,” Kukso said, “a lot things relating to technology or coding seem mystical or secret, our perspective is … everyone can learn these types of things.’
Pedagogical Questions
Yet towards the end, I started to question the effectiveness and importance of CWI. From the beginning as facilitators we quipped that “anti-bootcamp” reallly meant “bootcamp”. And the calendar began by reflecting that.
Day 1: Install Linux
Day 2: Unix and Bash
Day 3: vim
Day 4: HTML
Day 5: javascript
Day 6: Networking
Day 7: Node.js
Day 8: Git
etc…
Which is exactly the way that substack, Oakland’s pre-eminent “unix philosopher,” would have it. Yet, that was before the collaborative aspects took over and I began to try and think about how I would teach a less trained non-programmer version of myself what I know now. I mixed in:
(click to view the recorded lectures)
Day 1: Install Linux (I counted 5 Ubuntu installs)
Day 2: Turing Machines
Day 3: Emacs
Day 4: Python, (notes)
Day 5: Functional Programming
Day 6: Data Analysis
Day 7: SQL
Day 8: Map Reduce
Day 9: Algorithmic complexity
Day 10: Set Theory, (part 2)
Where substack was spreading his knowledge of artisinal web-buildery, I was attempting to proselytize a world of Mathematical elegance. At times I was worried this felt interfering and competitive to the wizards.
However the final projects did come to life, instigate solely from the intrinsic motivation of the new-wizards. On the last day arduino hacks and personal-itch websites really had materialized. After speaking to those who made it all the way through the month, they spoke of a brighter perspective than my own: perhaps we inadvertently succeeding at being an anti-bootcamp.
The Medium Was Always The Message
As another facilitator @Johnnyscript, at the ending Cyberpunk Masquerade Wizard Initiation Ceremony, said we showed them what it coding is actually like – many differently opinionated hackers running around without too much top-down organization. We delivered the essence of the hackerspace more accessibly than just happening upon a room of silent geeks staring down. Our package, despite being a bit dishevelled, did form a solid curriculum, although it was not refined as something that you might pay $17,000 for. Yet it also was not an altar for silicon-valley start-up-ism.
Taken together, we find a point that I am surprised that I missed. Whereas programming bootcamps are normally Cathedrals, as Eric Raymond might put it, we built a Bazaar.
Notconfusingly yours,
Your humble newb-druid.
Cyberwizard Institute II
“Will there be another Cyberwizard Institute?” many are asking. Likely, but it is as-yet unplanned because volunteer work is tiring. If you have the intitiative or want to hear about an inititiative, join our discussion tracker on github.
Sent from my iPhone