Meeting Notes 2011 05 24

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Agenda[edit]

The 162th Meeting of Noisebridge

Note-taker: Liz Henry

Moderator: Danny O'Brien


Introduction and Names[edit]

  • What Noisebridge is about: "Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."
  • Round of introductions: Danny. Max from Portland. Mike, Kelly who hacks brains and your money, the guy eating dinner, some people at other table, John the australian guy, Shannon, and some Arduino people, Randall, Alex, Ilya the guy doing Hack Politics, Ryan, Julian, Philip who is writing code, Steve here for the first time, and the entire German Corner.


Announcements[edit]

What's going on at Noisebridge. Go look at the wiki. We have 5 minutes of fame, we did lots of Maker Faire things, vegan hacking coming up, SF chapter of the Open organization of lock pickers who will do their event as soon as they can break in. BioBridge, Django, etc. Danny explains BioBridge which is an Arduino thing set up to sense things about the kombucha. They measure turbidity, temperature, ph, and so on. They got a Maker Faire 2011 editor's choice award. Hey, cool, the brewing project spawned an electronics project. Second Saturday is coming up in 3 weeks for June and is for infrastructure hacking. We are a do-ocracy etc etc. New guy Ryan asks who to talk with because his company is just donating some servers. Kelly says to email the rack list (https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo) and ask.

Crutcher is putting together a group on meta-heuristic optimization. He has been putting a lot of time into it lately and wants to know if anyone else is interested.


Financial Report[edit]

Funds in bank: 16,913.79. Rent has not gone through yet, so subtract rent from that. There is also another transfer about to go through. Tshirt money from Maker Faire has not come in yet.

Our taxes. Which were late. We forgot to file an extension. Our tax guy, we have issues with him. He did our taxes last year and they were screwed up. He had to redo them and claimed his assistant did them wrong. OUr treasurer caught the errors. He said he would do our taxes for free this year in exchange. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. We should have hired someone else. He told us the late fee was $20 a month but the IRS tells us it is $20 per business day , since the 16th. We sent him our information on the 19th and we haven't heard back from him and then finally this morning heard from him. He can't get to our stuff for another week or so. ($20 a day). What do people think we should do at this point?

We don't pay any taxes, we just file a 990N. But it is complex enough to need someone professional to do it for us. How did we find this guy? He's a hipster accountant. T*x N*nja. Feedback from people at the meeting: Why would we ever trust this guy again?

What other non profits might talk with us about what they do or rec us a tax person? Hackerdojo? Walk SF? Box Shop?


Membership Binder[edit]

Ryan Salisbury is now been read for 4 weeks and is up for membership Eric Steinberg Ryan wants to be a member because the space looks interesting and could be useful to him, tools are awesome, and he wants to support the space and the work it does. Crutcher who is wearing a red shirt that says BLOCK asks if he likes arguments that go on and on and on and on. Ryan says, give him an example of an argument. And that some are good for the mailing list, like bedbugs, which he has seen no evidence of. Kelly grills Ryan on his feelings about consensus decision making. Ryan mentions radical bike activism and thinks consensus okay but would tend to drop out of exhausting long arguments rather than blocking for reasons he doesn't feel very strongly about it. Alex says he has good insight into plasma treating polyurethane or something. Woo! Gosh we are asking Ryan quite a lot of questions. Ryan contributed to iChat's videoconferencing framework and various other software projects. People are asking Ryan quite a lot of questions. We devolve into general Apple dev gossip. Apparently he brought several 6 packs already. He goes off to Safeway for a while.

Ryan is discussed briefly and is now a member.

What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]

One short sentence about each of the following:

This is the active list of events from the main page:


events are haphazardly cross-posted on Meetup, the Discord, and Google Calender here

Some noisebridger's have also started hosting Events from a calendar at https://noisebridge.today/, and new (additional) associated gCal.


Key: W: Weekly | 1st 2nd 3rd 4th: Certain weeks | -2nd: Except certain weeks | S: Streaming | event: caution maybe dead | event: management of space


Upcoming Events[edit]

Five Minutes of Fame: 10 5 minute talks every third Thursday! Spread this poster around.
Introduce yourself and meet the community at meetings

Mondays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W 7:00pm Meetups/Infra Self-hosting, rough consensus, & running code. Find upcoming sessions on Meetup or in #meetup-infra on Discord.
W 7:00pm PyClass A complete introductory Python course. Classes are held regularly. Find upcoming sessions on Meetup or in #python on Discord. (Returned! Mar '24)
W you-o-clock TRASH NIGHT Please take out all three large trash bins!! They are on the patio.
W 7:00pm Circuit Hacking Monday Learn electronics, Arduino, and/or how to solder! We have kits and Arduinos for donations, or bring your own project. Most Mondays at 7PM. More details on Meetup
W 7:00pm 3d Simulation Hack Night Come work on your Unreal engine, 3d Unity projects, Houdini projects, 3d character design projects, or architecture projects! General meetup for working in simulation and 3d. Hosted by delta_ark

Tuesdays![edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W S 7:00pm Noisebridge Weekly Meeting (In person & online via Jitsi) - Introduce new people and events, joining, announcements, discussions, and consensus. Come express what you think about what's going on with your space!
W 7:00pm San Francisco Writers Workshop Free drop-in writers workshop, get feedback and critique! Located on the first floor hackitorium.
W 7:00pm Neurotech Tuesdays Do neuro. Do tech. sfg. Check #🧠│neurotech on discord
2nd 4nd 6:00pm Numerati SF Hacking the Stock Market with AI/ML. Every other Tuesday. Please RSVP on Meetup.

Wednesdays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
3rd 3:30pm - 5:30pm Zinemakers meetup Monthly gathering of zine and book and comic creators, to share ideas and work on projects. Newbies welcome! Confirm with Meetup
1st 7:00pm - 8:30pm Conflict Resolution We do our best to address pressing issues, mitigate conflicts, be excellent to each other.
2nd 4nd 6:00pm - 7:00pm Bike Psych! Time and space to talk about transit related projects Confirm with Meetup
W S 7:00pm - 9:00pm Machine Learning AI and RL Meetup Weekly gathering of AI enthusiasts discussing cool things happening in the field and ongoing projects / learning tracks
1st 8:00pm Woodhacking Wednesday "Have a woodworking project in mind but you don't know where to get started? This is a good time to come ask questions, get some help, and ideas from other woodworkers. Everyone is welcome..." Confirm dates with Meetup


Thursdays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W S 6:00pm - 8:00pm Gamebridge game development mentoring & coworking meetup for gamedev beginners and indies alike.
W S 6:00pm NeurotechX SF hacknights for mind-machine interfacing with EEGs.
2nd 4th 6:00pm - 8:00pm Advanced Geometry SF An event for people who would like to study/teach advanced topics in geometry.
3rd S 8:00pm - 9:00pm Five Minutes of Fame a.k.a. 5MoF Ten 5min talks in an hour, on any topic
4th S 8:00pm - 10:30pm Resident Electronic Music An electronic music open mic! (note: Nov/Dec pushed to Dec 10th, 6pm setup)
4th 9:00pm Queer Game Developers Meetup! "Here you will find other queer game devs, game-making enthusiasts, and be a part of a community that welcomes everyone who is interested in creating games." Please register on Eventbrite. See Meetup for more info.
W you-o-clock TRASH NIGHT Please take out all three large trash bins!! They are on the patio.

Fridays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W 2:00pm - 5:00pm Hack on Noisebridge! a good open time for cleaning 'n re-organizing the physical space. See #totally-secret-cabal-of-space-organizers on the Discord
Brewery meetup - brewing & tasting days Come learn to brew mead with Eliot and Andy! Check the Meetup for dates or check in #brewing on Discord.

Saturdays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W 9:30am - 1:00am Hack on Noisebridge! cleaning, physical organizing and re-organizing, donuts. See #totally-secret-cabal-of-space-organizers! on discord
W 2:00pm - 6:00pm Free Code Camp with Paul Farley Brandon as host
3rd 2:00pm - 6:00pm Godot Meetup Gamedev workshop & networking for users of the Godot game engine. We have two meetups this March around GDC: March 16th and March 23rd!
4th 1:00pm - 3:00pm Building Guitar Pedals Workshop Come build guitar pedals or other electronic music equipment! Look for the #pedal-building channel under #events in the discord. Check the Meetup for more info and confirmed dates.

Sundays[edit]

Tags Time Title Description
W 2:00pm - 4:00pm Laser Cutter training Get certified to use the laser cutter
2nd 2:00pm - 3:00pm Fabrication 101 2nd Shop Sundays class on safety and basic techniques
W 6:00pm - 7:15pm Noisebridge 15th Anniversary Planning Meeting planning for Noisebridge 15, any/everyone is welcome to come and help with planning.. etc.
W 7:30pm - 10:00pm Self-Driving Flying Car Meetup training class, discussion, and meetup on flying cars
2nd S 2:00pm - 4:00pm BAHA: Bay Area Hackers' Association Security Hacking Meeting 2nd Sundays at 272 and via Jitsi

Other Bay Area Consortium of Hackerspaces Events[edit]



Non-weekly[edit]

a casual monthly event dedicated to working on the space or relevant projects and building community. This is a great time to get feedback or help on any projects you have been considering that center around the space, culture, and infrastructure of Noisebridge. You can also help with existing projects and find out ways to get involved.

Project Updates[edit]

(Anyone doing interesting projects is welcome to chip in here.)

Consensus items[edit]

(Danny O'B up for secretary)

(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)

Discussion Items[edit]

Danny recuses himself from being the moderator for the meeting since he is the subject of it. Item, that Noisebridge make Danny O'Brien secretary. This was discussed last week. Some people expressed uneasiness that Danny has TOO MUCH POWER.

Crutcher, who is wearing a hilarious bright red tshirt that says BLOCK on it, remarks that Danny looks rather shifty.

What does the secretary do? They interface with companies for us. They see to it that notes are taken at meetings. They negotiate with insurance so Kelly doesn't have to, and track the membership stuff. Stuff that is necessary which isn't actually bookkeeping. Kelly just wants a helper to do a bunch of work, basically, and Danny has agreed to do it.

No one blocks.

Danny adds in that SETH HAS BEEN VERY AWESOME as secretary.

End of Meeting[edit]

  • PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
  • Put back the membership binder by the Shrine.
  • Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
  • Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
  • Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
  • Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.