Meeting Notes 2016 01 06

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These are the notes from the The XXXth Meeting of Noisebridge. Date: Jan 6 2016 Note-taker: Rohini, Alex; Moderators: Alex

Meeting Summary[edit]

  • Announcements: 5moF Jan 21 needs speakers, Hack the Left hackathon Feb 20, PiBridge raspberry pi group and product design group starting mondays
  • Finances: become philanthropists so we can get over 6 months reserve!
  • New philanthropists: Marat and David
  • Discussion Items:

Introductions[edit]

What is Noisebridge?

Jarvis: Excellence.

Frank: A place to study with people of many interesting backgrounds.

Rohini:  Increasing communication to do cool things!

Alex: Non-profit 501c3 that is member donation supported and free to anyone to come and participate in.

INTRODUCTIONS

  • Nana: I've been away with health problems lately. I find it amusing to see Noisebridge as an experiment of an unstructured organization and how people take control. Part of my job is to keep a minimal female presence here. I'm a sucker for hardware. I designed hardware professionaly. 
  • Rohini: I'm a grad student visiting from New York studying hackerspaces for my dissertation
  • Jarvis: I like to do android programming. I'm working on an app almost fininshed. I do 3D art and animation.
  • Brandon: I'm a guy with a lot of leftist opinions and I write code. Sometimes I organize event, today I'm bringing those together.
  • David: I'm a senior at SF State. I'm interested in hardware and for last year learning coding JAvascript, JSON, JQuery, all mutations. I feel that being in my neighborhood I want to contribute by volunteering by sharing about Raspberry Pi and in turn learn. I have interest in sewing and mixed multimedia. My boyfriend does projection mapping and was presenting at the mapping festival in Geneva and might present about art and projections. I do smaller electronics. We're both interested in participating as we do with GAFTA. Mixed Tape music festival is going to show Brian Eno's masterpieces Friday!
  • Alex: I'm from Colombia, we have a hackerspace called UnLocker. This one is like Disneyland.
  • Ramon: Been coming for several years. I like this place. Mostly interested in Linux and Python.
  • Frank: I'm studying data, broadband data communications.

    

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'."

  • Introduce any experimental or unusual moderation techniques that may be using during the meeting like: direct responses, limited speaking time, orderless stack, &c.
  • Round of introductions (remember, announcements come later):
    • What's your name
    • What do you do
    • What do you maintain at Noisebridge?
    • if you are new: how did you hear about Noisebridge?

Short announcements and events[edit]

  • GAFTA. Mixed Tape music festival is going to show Brian Eno's masterpieces Friday! Tickets on sale $15-25 it was a hoot and a hollar last year, it was a 26 channel reproduction of a Brian Eno concert. www.grayarea.org
  • Brandon: I'm wanting to host an event here called Hack The Left, an Anticapitalist Hackathon. Work I'm doing is toward connecting with organizations that want to work with groups at the hackathon to make tech projects in the spirit of build with not for. It seems like my objective number one to see if I can host for and connect with a member is accomplished (Alex!). Objective 2: If anyone is connected with interesting organizations that want to be involved and represent at the hackathon, let us know. Example: Reaching out to San Francisco Tenants Union. I want this for legal reasons to be focused on constructive open source projects. That seems consistent with the anti-capitalist principles. I'm also reaching out to Icarus. Eviction Mapping Project. People's Open Network at Sudoroom. SecureDrop. Also reaching out to Riseup.
  • There is a meeting Saturday the 9th at the Larkin street library downtown to discuss the danger of a proposal to arm police with tasers.
  • Circuit hacking will be back January 11th.


Membership Binder [edit]

Ramon: Come to a couple meetings, get to know people, help out, fill out an application. It gets reviewed each meeting and after 4 meetings it can be a consensus vote to approve your membership. You leave the room, people discuss you, and you come back and find out if you've been approved.

  • Invite a knowledgeable volunteer to describe membership, and the application process.

Being a member of Noisebridge is not like being a member of a gym or your local chess club. Anyone can come to Noisebridge to hack and learn: you don't need to be a member for that. At Noisebridge, membership is something different: it means taking responsibility and committing to help to maintain, improve, and govern Noisebridge. As a member of Noisebridge, you don't just come here to hack and learn, you actively work to improve what you see around you, help to deal with problems, and make this community and space better than it is today.

  • Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Mark down a check or other indicator on every open application to keep track of how many weeks they've been read out.
  • Anyone eligible to join this week should
    • introduce themselves,
    • answer any questions members may have for them, then
    • leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime, or cookies) for the rest of the group.
  • The rest of the meeting should reach consensus on whether they may join.
  • Remember to applaud new members when they return.

Philanthropists[edit]

  • Invite a knowledgeable member to describe Philantropy, and the application process.
  • Read off any names from the binder for the past month. Any applicants must have their sponsor present to vouch for them.
  • If there are no objections, they're a philanthropist! Their pledge should be handed over to the Secretary posthaste, after which their token will be updated to give them the 24/7 access they've earned(?)
  • David Melville has applied to become a philanthropist. 
  • Alex Peake sponsors him. "David is awesome and does raspberry pis and wants to help organize rasppi events at Noisebridge! He volunteers with GAFTA and many other organizations and will be a great participant in the community."
  • Marat: I started 3D printing out of necessity because I didn't want to pay exorbitant amounts for prototyping. I have ideas for products to build and I'm learning printing and circuitry and sourcing materials from stuff in China and USA. Key circuitry and wireless charging. I got solar panels, Here I am today 3 provisional patents in hand and nearing production. I have been a professional developer and options trader and worked in Hollywood making 6 or 7 hollywood scifi horror movies.
  • Alex: Marat has been helping get new 3D printers online for the printing section and helped me with updating the printing documentation and plans to build thermal enclosures. He volunteered to print parts for Botbridge as well. Awesome guy and great to talk to about building anything from idea to manufacturing with the newer methods!

Financial Report[edit]

  • Funds in bank:  Patrick's not here but the general situation is that we are working to increase monthly donors to the point where have revenue enough to build up towards a 6 month rent buffer rather than losing money slowly till big donors top us up.
  • Fundraising group needs volunteers! Want to help with grant writing and fundraising things? http://www.noisebridge.net/fundraising

Consensus and Discussion[edit]

  • 5 Minutes of Fame needs speakers and volunteers.
  • David volunteers to help.
  • Hack The Left event
  • I would like to reach out about what organizations might be interested in collaborating on projects.
  • While it will be a technically oriented hackathon, it would be super cool if non-tech projects happened also like art, video, content, whatever.
  • Nana: We have Code For America. We have a security gap of people not very experienced building public infrastructure there. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has been doing public civic hackathons in alliance with the government. SAIC runs things to do with that. They're part of a real estate takeover taking the low income real estate in the Tenderloin. They're trying to formalize gentrification.
  • David: Adbusters has numerous projects that are day-long afternoon projects that are doable.
  • Nana: I'm a housing activist and lots of housing organizations are on the take now. It is tricky.
  • Alex: People interested in housing issues should talk to Torrie who wants to host a housing conference.
  • Homes Not Jails:  
  • Transcode: A transgendered community. Doing training and job hunting and other interesting activities.
  • Bike Kitchen: David: Givin people access to transportation to help people have mobility to transport outside of the neighborhood.
  • Nana: People in Bayview are dealing with toxic land. Suppliers have raised the price of testing equipment so neighborhoods can't test their neighborhoods. The group is called The Bayview Hunters .... and they're meeting soon.
  • David: Pi intro class getting started.
  • David: I have two Pis, a Raspberry Pi 2, and a Raspberry Pi Zero. They're $5. 
  • I programmed one to stream every movie and TV station to a TV through HDMI. Really powerful tool. A lot of people travelling can't access television when they travel.
  • Another is a VPN server and hops your IP around Tor IPs guaranteed.
  • More people who might help organize: Rigley Dutra. I'll bring him to help.
  • I formed a project called Added Benefits LLC as a liability shield for experimental projects.
  • Alex: I would like to see us acquire a Pi-top to see what it can do as an educational pi project box. http://www.pi-top.com/#/
  • David: I'm documenting everything we're doing as open specs.
  • Sci fi book club
  • Rohini: A place like NB would be incomplete without a book club for sci fi fantasy fiction. Idea is to meet once a month and to vote on which books to read as a group and discuss. I don't know what we have in our NB library but I'd be happy to loan books if I have them.
  • First one would be to discuss what book to start with. Let's meet next week Tuesday after the Noisebridge meeting.
  • Nana: I've been trying to get computers that talk to help with 
  • Alex: I have an opener suggestion to read immediately: Tales From The Afternow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5bbtsGbKsY
  • Rohini: Patrick Rothfuss is speaking at Borderlands soon and he writes heroic fiction which is exceptionally good writing style. He's written 2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles.
  • Alex: Let's each bring a passage from a story or poem that inspires us.
  • David: I read a lot of hacker fiction, and I enjoy the Shadowrun role-playing books based on it.
  • Alex: There are some other folks interested in a cyberpunk group.
  • There's a feminist book club starting at Double Union check it out! http://www.meetup.com/SF-Feminist-Book-Club/
  • Frank: During meetings there hasn't been Pegasus announcements have been absent.
  • David: SFSU Makerspace room 236 of the Lennard Library at 1600 Halloway has started a discount on students buying filament for printing with. $3.50 per cubic inch rather than 7 so it is at cost.  Have to have a student of the school to come use it. Contact DavidofAlaska @ gmail.com.
  • Marat: Formation of a group dedicated to exploring product development ideas and development processes. We'd come up with projects and take them through to completion.
  • Marat: I'd like us to get creative about using the facility that is available here. We could pick out the components that can be leveraged to try to work together to find problems in the world we can solve with a product idea. We could discuss it, figure out how much impact it could have on the world, etc. Monday nights is possible time to do it. I don't have a lot of time to organize yet.
  • David: I was certified in Design Thinking from SAP, a passive way to solve problems through group collaboration. 1. Scoping. 2. Research. Prototyping. Etc. Scoping helps keep project explorations to a certain time commitment.
  • Marat: The idea is to develop an open incubator type community here at Noisebridge. People with different projects and expertise can get together to build momentum and do shared projects when possible.
  • Alex: I'm interested in that.
  • David: I'm interested in the methodology and want to see an umambiguous focus such as a specific team goal.
  • Nana: I would like to hear what's new in Germany with global politics. Some of our people are over there because they're unable to be in the US. Jake and Laef are still there.
  • Alex: I got nothin. Ask next week when people get back from CCC.
  • Alex Colombia: We could use streaming to allow people who are not here travelling to participate. We could stream the meetings.
  • Open Data, it is hard to find data sets in South America. How can we get better access to the data? How do we request data?
  • invite a knowledgeable volunteer to give a brief primer on consensus process
  • It is important that everyone in attendance understands at least:
    • Blocking with verbalized principled objections.
    • Why we use consensus over other approaches to decision making.
    • How consensus isn't a legislative process
    • Why consensus isn't applicable to some things like conflict resolution, resolution of time sinks, and the like.

Proposals from last week [edit]

(Add any items which are consensed upon or someone has raised a principle objection for to the Consensus Items History page.)

Proposals for next week [edit]

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

Discussion Items[edit]

If any important discussion happens, it should be happening after forward progress is made during consensus.

End of Meeting[edit]

  1. Return the membership binder to its rightful location.
  2. Discuss any items for which there was not time during the meeting.
  3. Enjoy the company of your fellow hacker, robot, or robothacker.

Note taker posts the notes[edit]

  1. Clean and tidy the meeting notes including removing all these really verbose instructions.
  2. Fill out the short summary at the top listing just announcements, consensus items, discussion topics, and names of new members and philanthropists.
  3. Copy paste the notes to the next meeting page. (They will become Last meeting at midnight.)
  4. Email the meeting summary to Noisebridge Discuss and Noisebridge Announce lists.
  5. CC on the email treasurer@noisebridge.net and secretary@noisebridge.net if there are new members and philanthropists.
  6. Edit the Current Consensus Items if anything is proposed for consensus next week.
  7. Edit the Consensus Items History if anything was reached consensus or failed to reach consensus this week.

Fun things to do after[edit]

  • Reprise of the Hackernationale. [This is anarchy - we do what the wiki says!]
  • PGP Key Signing could happen now (if it doesn't happen before any given Meeting).  Ask others around the space or check the list to see who wants in on the action.