So, I had an idea that I wanted to run past everyone: What if we invited people (both within Sudoroom, and perhaps some of the creative/art groups at the Omni) to redecorate our giveaway laptops? My reasons for suggesting this are as follows:
- It's fun
- It's an opportunity to introduce other Omni people to Sudoroom
- People who might not be comfortable coming to sudoroom for technical stuff might be interested in a creative project, and find us friendlier than they'd expected
- A lot of the laptops just have IT stickers on them indicating machine iDs and such, that don't mean anything anymore.
What do you all think? Would a weekend be good for this? Maybe a Saturday?
I've been thinking about network and computer access for seniors this for a couple of years, and recently finding a YouTube channel named Linux for Seniors gave me just the little extra push I needed. https://www.youtube.com/@linuxforseniors
I've committed to trying to be regularly present and helpful at sudo room on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday evenings, so if anyone is available with knowledge about what hardware is available their help would be appreciated as would the support of those experienced with configuring systems for people with visual and physical disabilities.
So, I was looking into setting up a Matrix space for Sudoroom (I think it'd be a great way to improve internal communication, and could be a helpful collaboration tool on software projects), and I was surprised to learn that there is already a Matrix channel (not space) already set up, with integrations with the IRC channel, video chat, and the website. I was wondering who set this up, and if they'd be interested in combining our efforts to set up a more robust Sudoroom presence on Matrix.
Hey everyone,
I've been focusing on serving the membership working group for a few
months, and I'd like to highlight some issues I see with our new member
joining process.
*1. It's not clear what membership means.* Longtime sudo room members have
told me that membership isn't necessary to participate, it's just a
designation that allows you to weigh in on consensus proposals and endorse
members. This isn't the impression the word has with any new members I've
spoken to, though. The term for most people signifies belonging, and an
allowance to attend events, and this misunderstanding is particularly
accute in my experience when dealing with BiPOC folks, women, anyone new to
tech or hackerspaces... just anyone who doesn't arrive with a preexisting
sense of belonging to the dominant cultural ingroup.
*2. The new member process puts up a lot of barriers to joining.* When
people discover Sudo Room, they often arrive with a sense of excitement to
dive in, and then when I start walking through the steps, I watch all that
excitement dissipate. The endorsement process, for instance, feels like a
massive mud patch on a foot track. It seems to interrupt people's ability
to focus on learning about who we are by creating an open-ended social
challenge. Once again, I don't think tech bros who show up or have been
members since the begining experience this at all, but if you're new to the
town, or you've never been part of a hackerspace, this is stressful and
confusing. I felt this way when I joined, and a new member just told me
exactly this: they're non-white, their non-male, and they've never felt
like tech spaces were built with them in mind. They really went outside
their comfort zone and met people at events and got the endorsements, but
it seems to be working completely against our interests to put up an
obstacle that selectively filters people like this. Then there's a long
wait where nothing happens, and often no one ever tells a new member that
their membership was approved.
As an exercise I would like to invite people to respond to this email and
answer these two questions:
*What roles you think exist in our community?* and *What processes are
effective for helping people enter into it?*
I'm not interested in hearing defenses of the current system. That's not
the exercise. Imagine we're starting from scratch. Maybe, we'll come to
find that the current system actually fulfills certain aims well, but I
don't want to frame this as a change, I want to imagine the process for
helping people become at home at Sudo from a blank page.
Cheers,
Andy
*Andrew R Gross, (he/him)*
412.657.5332 - shrad.org <http://www.shrad.org>
A friend of mine is selling some four high-speed oscilloscopes that need
work.
They are posted on ebay but you can make an offer directly if you want and
i'll pass it along
"4 Tektronix digital oscilloscopes? 2xTDS540, 2xTDS520 in various state of
repair. One converted from picture tube to LCD. Likely enough good parts to
assemble 2 working scopes and part out the rest for good money. 2Ms
sampling rate"
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285452652435
-jake
(Just got back from traveling & an illness)
Are folks still at Burning man and travelling in Europe for the Chaos
Congress? [Trying to figure out this week at SudoRoom]
Since so many folks were travelling, or going to the Burning man festival
maybe we can have a small 5 minute "today I learned during my travels"
segment for fun at a meeting or at the hardware hacking tuesdy.
=============================
Romy Ilano
romy(a)snowyla.com
Hi everyone,
Omni Commons needs some rooms locked up with electronic locks. I volunteered
us to make everything and all the software. We can ask for some rent relief
or other favors in exchange for making this stuff, because otherwise they were
going to spend money that we don't have, to buy stuff that wouldn't work.
Who wants to help with this stuff???
We have a bin of keypads and another bin of solenoids and another bin of servo
motors, and plenty of arduinos. The plan is to build a couple of these things
and tune up the software and get them going, and install them on the rooms.
I'm thinking an N600 wifi router flashed with openWRT and python, with an
Arduino plugged into it over USB. The Arduino connects to the numeric keypad
and solenoid latch, and a beeper. The software on the arduino can be
basically this:
https://github.com/jerkey/doorkeypad/tree/twocol-eeprom
and then the N600 linux machine can host stuff like what i made recently for
the omni front door magstripe reader (ask me about it) so that people from the
events group who are not technical can add and remove codes from the systems.
here is what Phillip from the events group has put together to describe what
they want the system to do:
Feature List:
● Remote access by Omni events staff to unlock or see if the door is currently
closed/locked
● Ability for Omni events staff to admin the system for these doors
● Numpad next to door for renters to quickly unlock with 4 digit pins
● Timeline recorded of each door access for lookup later by Omni event staff
● (optional) log of when door is closed
Feature Expectations:
● Omni events staff admin abilities
○ Delegate additional admins
○ Add/remove renters with a pin access
○ Set dates when renter pin starts and stops working
Planned Doors:
● DJ booth above bar with sound system control
● Tech room side of stage where sound equipment is stored
basically there will be about three parts of the project:
1. hardware on the sudoroom tables (wiring stuff up and making things talk
to
each other and fiddling with early software tests)
2. copying the basic hardware setup a couple of times and making a third or
fourth spare setup, for fiddling and hacking and maybe additional doors
after
the needs specified by the events group
3. writing more software together and concurrently writing notes on how to
use
it, and composing instructions to send to end users like people in the
events
group
4. installing the hardware at the required doors and configuring and testing
5. writing emails to events group people explaining how the system works and
handling their replies and ongoing tech support requests.
I will be back in two weeks and ready to work on this stuff in person!!
butt
in the meantime if anyone wants to get started (especially on the software)
let's not hesitate! I've been writing lots of software remotely.
if you want to see the CGI door access stuff i've been working on which will
be pretty relevant to this project, send me your github username so I can
grant you access
as for the hardware, people can start by grabbing an N600 router and
flashing
it with openWRT and installing python and configuring things... or you can
find a working arduino and wire it up to a numeric keypad and a couple of
LEDs
and a beeper for testing, and that involves a bit of soldering and software
flashing.
-jake
On Sat, 26 Aug 2023, ch1rxpy3 via sudo-discuss wrote:
> I can't commit to the entire project but I do need to work on networking
> skills and would be interested in flashing a router. What sort of machine
> would we want to use?
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On Aug 25, 2023, 4:00 PM, Laura Wesely via sudo-discuss wrote:
>
>> Thanks for including me in this! I am very eager to support by lending
>> what I can: some time, brute force, impeccable instruction-following, and
>> strong executive functioning and spacial reasoning skills.
>>
>> Beyond that I lack technological knowledge and experience to be of much
>> help.
>>
>> I short: tell me what to do and put me to work.
you not short
>>
>> XO
>> Lo
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 15:08 Jake <jake(a)spaz.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> Omni Commons needs some rooms locked up with electronic locks. I
>>> volunteered
>>> us to make everything and all the software. We can ask for some rent
relief
>>> or other favors in exchange for making this stuff, because otherwise
they
>>> were
>>> going to spend money that we don't have, to buy stuff that wouldn't
work.
>>>
>>> Who wants to help with this stuff???
>>>
>>> We have a bin of keypads and another bin of solenoids and another bin
of
>>> servo
>>> motors, and plenty of arduinos. The plan is to build a couple of these
>>> things
>>> and tune up the software and get them going, and install them on the
rooms.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking an N600 wifi router flashed with openWRT and python, with
an
>>> Arduino plugged into it over USB. The Arduino connects to the numeric
>>> keypad
>>> and solenoid latch, and a beeper. The software on the arduino can be
>>> basically this:
>>> https://github.com/jerkey/doorkeypad/tree/twocol-eeprom
>>>
>>> and then the N600 linux machine can host stuff like what i made
recently
>>> for
>>> the omni front door magstripe reader (ask me about it) so that people
from
>>> the
>>> events group who are not technical can add and remove codes from the
>>> systems.
>>>
>>> here is what Phillip from the events group has put together to describe
>>> what
>>> they want the system to do:
>>>
>>> Feature List:
>>>
>>> ● Remote access by Omni events staff to unlock or see if the door is
>>> currently
>>> closed/locked
>>>
>>> ● Ability for Omni events staff to admin the system for these doors
>>>
>>> ● Numpad next to door for renters to quickly unlock with 4 digit pins
>>>
>>> ● Timeline recorded of each door access for lookup later by Omni event
>>> staff
>>>
>>> ● (optional) log of when door is closed
>>>
>>> Feature Expectations:
>>>
>>> ● Omni events staff admin abilities
>>>
>>> ○ Delegate additional admins
>>>
>>> ○ Add/remove renters with a pin access
>>>
>>> ○ Set dates when renter pin starts and stops working
>>>
>>> Planned Doors:
>>>
>>> ● DJ booth above bar with sound system control
>>>
>>> ● Tech room side of stage where sound equipment is stored
Hey, I mentioned to the building working group that we need to do an ewaste
run, and Silver said they could help us out.
Where do we normally go for ewaste and does anyone from sudo want to help?
The building working group meets on Sundays. Im not available then but can
help add more stuff to the pile from our unsorted areas.
Paige
