#hackspaces

[cassolotl]

Me and three friends are trying to set up a makerspace in our town, but it ain't easy 'cos we're BROKE and so is the town. :D Would you like to donate a bit of money and get a cheesy 3D-printed souvenir doubloon for your trouble?? PROBABLY

It closes on 28th August, click here to help out.

[isaacsapphire]

Definitely feel like Planet Fitness is slowly re-evolving into this type of thing, what with the pizza and bagels and showers and wifi making them both a hot tip for homeless people and also so prevalent that even very well off travelers often have memberships for working out on the road.

So, you've probably all seen this post going around, about how The Chuds Want Gentleman's Clubs (but can't afford to go to the things called "gentlemen's clubs" today, so wouldn't have been able to in the past either). And I hate to say it, but that post isn't accurate.

The things we call "gentlemen's clubs" today and the things that were called "gentleman's clubs" in the past are not the same thing; the one is descended from the other, but they used to be a lot more common and served a purpose that they don't really serve anymore.

The modern equivalent of the historical gentleman's club isn't the thing currently called a gentleman's club; it's the premium airport lounge. And by losing the concept for all but the turbo-rich, I think we genuinely have lost something! Let me explain.

(NOTA BENE: This is mostly about England and from about 1880-1930, and most of my experience with this is from fiction written in that era. I know enough to know what I don't know, but I also know menswear guy is wrong about this.)

So- gentlemen's clubs started in *wiggles hands* the late 1700s, and mostly served a particular purpose: they were places you could stay in a city if you mostly lived in the country, instead of staying in lodgings or owning your own place. Finding a place to stay in London was kind of a misery at the best of times, and owning your own house in Town wasn't practical for a lot of people, even rich people. If you were, say, a young man, just starting out in life, and you hadn't inherited your father's wealth but also weren't set up to live on your own? Having a place you were guaranteed to be able to stay was a fucking godsend. And as time went on, even people who lived in London most of the time started joining clubs, because they served another important purpose- they were a place you could go if you didn't particularly want to be at home, for whatever reason.

The way that historical gentlemen's clubs worked is, you got recommended to the club by a friend who was a member, you paid dues to the club, and in exchange, you'd get to use the club's facilities. * Most gentlemen's clubs had, at minimum, a dining room (with waitstaff, natch), a library, a couple of nice places to sit and hang out, a game room, and a bar. Many of them also had rooms you could sleep in overnight, fitness equipment, or stuff related to the club members' interests. Most of them had a room or two where you could invite friends who weren't part of your club and spend time with them. In the era where phones were a thing, a lot of them had a phone. You could write letters there and get your mail sent there.

Here's the thing: in the period I know best, gentlemen's clubs weren't just for the turbo-rich. They were the province of rich guys, yes- you had to be a 'gentleman' and know the right people to get in. But men who were doctor/lawyer/software-developer rich were most likely members of a gentlemen's club. Anyone who was rich enough to travel regularly was part of at least one club, because having somewhere to crash when you were going between (say) London and Delhi and back again was worth the cost.

Most gentlemen's clubs were owned by their members- not an outside corporate body. The club leaders were elected, usually by a small committee.

And a lot of gentlemen's clubs founded around specific interests, as time went on. There were gentlemen's clubs specifically for Guys Who Were Really Into Radio. There were clubs specifically for men who spent a lot of time traveling. There were clubs specifically for dudes who wanted to talk your ear off and clubs for old dudes who mostly wanted to nod off in their chairs and talk about The War and clubs for dudes who did not want to be percieved at all.

There were clubs for men who were really into science, or the arts, or sports. And one perk of being in a club like this is that you had access to equipment that you might not have been able to buy on your own. You didn't have to shell out for an entire library of scientific and medical books; you could go to your club and read in the library there. If your club had, say, an art studio, you could go paint at your club and not have to keep a studio space of your own.

There were gentlemen's clubs specifically oriented around specific political or social views. There were socialist clubs. (And a lot of them admitted women, which was !!!SCANDALOUS!!!) Like, they were still the province of goddamn rich people, there were a lot of trust fund baby socialists and not many working people, but there were socialist social clubs.

...I don't want to pretend that gentlemen's clubs were some kind of idyllic haven. 99% of these clubs were For Men, and For The Right Sort Of Men at that; if you didn't have a friend who was a member, or you weren't "respectable" enough, you didn't get to join. There's a reason that most of these clubs are gone now. Part of the point was excluding the Wrong Sort of People, and that became gauche over time. After a certain point, being part of a club became a thing for stodgy, out-of-touch rich men- not just "men who happened to have enough money to be part of a club"- and so most of the men who could join one didn't, and people stopped forming new ones. Only Old Money assholes (who will continue to do what they've always done, current trends be damned) keep the concept alive.

But like... the thing that replaced gentlemen's clubs for 99% of the people who would have had one a hundred years ago... is the premium airport lounge, and the premium gym membership, and the ~coworking hub~.** Anyone can join, yeah, as long as they're able to pay. You pay a corporation a chunk of money for similar amenities, and the amenities are ... fine? But because the entity is driven by profit, most of the money you're paying them goes into running their other business concerns and paying their CEOs a fat paycheck.

I think... as exclusionary as gentlemen's clubs were back in the day, there's the seed of a good idea there. I think the guys who wish they were still an attainable thing for a middle-class person have a point, and I wish we could inject some fucking nuance into this conversation.

A community-owned space that gives you a place to crash when you need one, has community-owned resources for its members, and isn't beholden to a corporation is a good thing. Third spaces that don't have to turn a profit are a damn good thing.

At the end of the day, my politics are 'everyone should get to have the kind of luxuries that were historically reserved for the rich'. Everyone should get to have the best life has to offer- leisure, beauty, good craftsmanship, and community. And so, you know, if this kind of community space sounds like a thing you'd like to have, maybe it's something you could work towards creating, too.

*TBF, this is still how they work today! But the networks are much smaller.

**I do find it very funny that apparently one of the biggest problems facing the few remaining Actual Gentlemen's Clubs (TM) is that people are trying to use their space to telework-- a lot of them are trying to ban laptops and business talk to "keep the club's character" (read: "we're too rich to have to work here").

[citydataexplosion]

MfG von AFK* – Stadt feministisch hacken zwischen Algorithmus und Asphalt

Vortrag und Diskussion mit Maja-Lee Voigt // Dienstag 7.5.2024, 19 Uhr // Garabatos Atelier, Bohnenstraße, Bremen

Der urbane Raum ist längst ein Inter_Space: Hier treffen Materielles und Virtuelles, analoge Räume und digitale Kommunikationströme – in den unterschiedlichsten Situationen und im steten Wechsel – aufeinander. Oft unsichtbar und als ‚technisch neutral‘ deklariert bestimmen Tech-Unternehmen zunehmend über urbane Gestaltung, wollen die Komplexität und Zukunft von Städten durch ‚Smartness‘ berechenbar machen. Diverse Lebenswirklichkeiten marginalisierter Perspektiven finden dabei wenig Raum oder Repräsentation. Im Gegenteil: Von meist weißen, cis-männlich dominierten Entwicklern programmierte Technologien scheinen mehr und mehr über gesellschaftliche Teilhabe, Möglichkeiten der Raumaneignung on- und offline sowie über die Zugänglichkeit zu (sozialer) Infrastruktur zu entscheiden.

Cyberfeministische Zusammenschlüsse aber leisten Widerstand. Durch das Schaffen eigener Räume und (technologischer) Infrastrukturen hinterfragen – und hacken! – sie vorherrschende Geschlechterhierarchien und Machtverhältnisse, die sich in technologischen Entwicklungen und (digitalen) Stadträumen fortschreiben.

Aufbauend auf einer fünfmonatigen Feldforschung in 2021 zeigt der Vortrag, wie hackfeministische Kollektive wichtige Mitgestalterinnen digitaler Zukünfte sind. Indem sie Wissen und Werkzeuge teilen, die sich einer patriarchalen Codierung entziehen, schaffen sie Zugänge zu Interfaces, (Cyber-)Spaces und letztendlich zur Gesellschaft selbst. Ihr Aktivismus zeigt, wie (urbanes) Hacking eine entscheidende Praxis ist, um mit nicht-demokratisch kontrollierten Digitalisierungsprozessen zu brechen: zugunsten einer Stadt für alle.

Maja-Lee Voigt (sie/ihr) ist Stadtforscherin, Doktorandin an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg und Mitbegründerin des interdisziplinären Stadtforschungskollektivs Akteurinnen für urbanen Ungehorsam in Hamburg. Begleitet von einem ethnografischen Methodenkoffer und kritisch feministischem Denken forscht sie zu Amazons Bits, Bytes und Boxen. Ansonsten geht sie der Automatisierung logistischer Städte nach, widmet sich Fragen zum cyberfeministischen Widerstand gegen algorithmische Architekturen der Unterdrückung und kämpft für die Überwindung des Patriarchats auf dem Weg hin zu gerechteren urbanen Zukünften.

* MfG = Mit freundlichen Grüßen, AFK = Away from Keyboard (verwendet bei kurzer Abwesenheit zum Beispiel in Chats, oder als Alternative zu IRL (In Real Life) -- Wiktionary) Das Garabatos Atelier ist ein Queer Feminist Art Collective mit Räumen in der Bohnenstraße, Bremen, in denen auch immer wieder Veranstaltungen und Workshops zu Drucktechniken und anderen künstlerischen Praxen angeboten werden, insbesondere für Queers und FLINTA. Instagram: @garabatos.atelier

Eine Veranstaltung der Rosa-Luxemburg-Initiative Bremen und city/data/explosion zu Gast im Garabatos Atelier. city/data/explosion sind Thomas Böker und Ulf Treger (he/him). Veranstaltungen, Vorträge und Workshops zu Digitalisierung, Stadt, Selbstermächtigung in Bremen und Hamburg.

info@citydataexplosion.de // https://citydataexplosion.tumblr.com // Mastodon: @citydata // Instagram: @city.data.explosion

Zeichnung: Maja-Lee Voigt

[feministbibliobs]

QUEER + FEMINIST + KOMPITREFF 🌈👾✨

so / sun / dim 21.4.24, 15-19h so / sun / dim 2.6.24, 15-19h

@ SPIT, erlenstrasse 44, 4058 basel

wir hacken wieder in die tasten! zusammen zeugs am komputer und smartphone basteln, aufräumen oder was auch immer - - - we're hacking away again! tinkering together on the computer and smartphone, tidying up or whatever - - - on retourne pirater ! bricoler ensemble des trucs sur l'ordinateur et le smartphone, ranger ou autre

[andypiper]

Liverpool Makefest 2023

Last weekend we were at Liverpool Makefest #LivMF23 - here's a round-up of the event.

Last weekend, we visited Liverpool for a few days. I had an ulterior motive for the trip – my friend Caroline Keep and team were running the Makefest 🛠️️ at the Central Library. [aside: does anyone know whether there’s a good way to stay up-to-date and aware of where and when maker-centric (and adjacent!) events are happening around the UK? I’d love to get to more of them, if I’m able – in this…

[sunshinesesequencing]

Part 2 :

[dbooksorg]

With enough inspiration, the world is your playground - that's why this issue we're bringing you 16 of the best DIY toys and games to keep boredom at bay. - Get started with surface mount soldering - Make Islamic-inspired geometric LED patterns - Building an aeroplane powered by the super duper supercapacitor - Drool over the finest 3D printed guitar we've ever seen ...

[commiepinkofag]

Take action now

These are ideas for what you can do in the short-term or with some preparation. Start with:

Ask you government to call on the European Commission to withdraw the chat control proposal. Point them to a joint letter that was recently sent by children’s rights and digital rights groups from across Europe. Click here to find the letter and more information.

Check your government’s position (see above) and, if they voted in favour or abstained, ask them to explain why. Tell them that as a citizen you want them to reject the proposal, that chat control is widely criticised by experts and that none of the proposals tabled in the Council of the EU so far are acceptable. Ask them to protect the privacy of your communication and your IT security.

Share this call to action online.

When reaching out to your government, the ministries of the interior (in the lead) of justice and of digitisation/telecommunications/economy are your best bet. You can additionally contact the permanent representation of your country with the EU.

It can also be useful to reach out to Members of your national Parliament who can determine your country’s vote. Talk to your political representatives. Whether it is the newly elected MEPs of the European Parliament or local groups of the political parties: make sure everyone is aware of what chat control is about and that you expect politicians to defend your fundamental rights against the proposal!

When contacting politicians, writing a real letter, calling in or attending a local party event or visiting a local office to have a conversation will have a stronger impact than writing an e-mail. You can find contact details on their websites. Just remember that while you should be determined in your position, remain polite, as they will otherwise disregard what you have to say. Here is useful argumentation on chat control. And here is argumentation for why the minor modifications so far envisioned by EU governments fail to address the dangers of chat control: by us, by EDRi, by CDT.

As we continue the fight against against chat control, we need to expand the resistance:

Explain to your friends why this is an important topic. This short video, translated to all European languages, is a good start – feel free to use and share it. Also available on PeerTube (EN) and YouTube (DE).

Taking action works better and is more motivating when you work together. So try to find allies and form alliances. Whether it is in a local hackspace or in a sports club: your local action group against chat control can start anywhere. Then you can get creative and decide which type of action suits you best.

Take action now. We are the resistance against chat control!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

#20yrsago Kill a stupid Internet patent https://web.archive.org/web/20040612095150/https://www.eff.org/patent/contest/

#15yrsago Stiglitz: America’s double-standard on economic crises infuriates the poor world https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2009/07/third-world-debt200907

#15yrsago Chinese censorware will expose every PC in the nation to malware, ID theft, botnetting https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/06/11/chinas-new-mandatory-censorware-creates-big-security-flaws/

#15yrsago Eliot Spitzer explains himself https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2009/07/out-to-lunch-spitzer200907

#15yrsago Network neutrality advocated by…cable operators? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/cable-group-turns-net-neutrality-around-over-isp-access-fees/

#15yrsago Econoblogger explains why Batman villains shouldn’t cooperate https://eco-comics.blogspot.com/2009/06/should-batman-villains-betray-each_2173.html

#10yrsago Armed, masked Russian separatists seize “decadent” hackspace in Donetsk, Ukraine https://www.euronews.com/2014/06/10/in-donetsk-armed-pro-russian-separatists-target-seize-decadent-cultural-centre-

#10yrsago Pensacola newspaper editorial board condemns censorship of Little Brother https://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/editorials/2014/06/11/fear-books/10295745/

#10yrsago Rarity versus the Internet https://medium.com/message/you-need-to-hear-this-extremely-rare-recording-27619411e077

#10yrsago Big Cable fronts fake anti-Net-Neutrality group whose “members” never joined https://www.vice.com/en/article/4w747j/community-groups-were-duped-into-joining-telecom-industrys-anti-net-neutrality-coalition

#10yrsago Join the Fastlane: hypothetical ISP from the cable company fuckery dystopia https://web.archive.org/web/20140614100545/http://jointhefastlane.com/

#10yrsago Happynomics versus econobollocks https://timharford.com/2014/06/the-four-lessons-of-happynomics/

#10yrsago Dada vs Hitler: the anti-Nazi collages of John Heartfield https://web.archive.org/web/20140530122539/http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/06/extraordinary-anti-nazi-photomontages.html

#5yrsago The Church of the Subgenius’s Salvation Pack is the best $35 I ever spent https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/11/the-church-of-the-subgeniuss-salvation-pack-is-the-best-35-i-ever-spent/

#5yrsago Countries with longer copyright terms have access to fewer books (pay attention, Canada!) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3401684

#5yrsago Hackers stole a US Customs and Border Patrol facial recognition database https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/10/us-customs-border-protection-says-photos-travelers-into-out-country-were-recently-taken-data-breach/

#5yrsago Chrome-derived browsers threaten to fork from Google, refuse to eliminate ad-blocker features https://www.zdnet.com/article/opera-brave-vivaldi-to-ignore-chromes-anti-ad-blocker-changes-despite-shared-codebase/

#5yrsago Detroit charter school salutatorians use their graduation speeches to condemn their school for putting profits before kids https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/06/10/salutatorians-criticize-charter-school-graduation/1381474001/

#5yrsago How fanfic archives lead the world in data organization https://www.wired.com/story/archive-of-our-own-fans-better-than-tech-organizing-information/

#5yrsago The Grand Dark: Richard Kadrey’s headlong rush of noir dieselpunk, so fast and so smart https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/11/the-grand-dark-richard-kadreys-headlong-rush-of-noir-dieselpunk-so-fast-and-so-smart/

#5yrsago “The Grand Dark”: Kadrey’s latest is a noir, dieselpunk masterpiece that’s timely as hell https://web.archive.org/web/20190612041736/https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-review-richard-kadrey-grand-dark-20190611-story.html

#1yrago The Shitty Tech Adoption Curve Has a Business Model https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/11/the-shitty-tech-adoption-curve-has-a-business-model/

[cassolotl]

4 hours left to contribute to our makerspace fundraiser. :O

I feel like £1,621 is quite a lot really, I think we've done pretty well!

[oeffentlicheversicherung]

@crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts präsentiert jetzt die Misskey Familie. Sehr interessant. Kommt gerne dazu: https://kabi.blue/join/krautspace/

[pflegende]

Congress Everywhere zum #38C3 & #pflegendeAngehörige im bytespeicher.de #Erfurt

Ab 27.12. 10 Uhr tgl. bis 30.12. Liebknechtstr. 8 Congress Everywhere zum #38C3 & #pflegendeAngehörige im bytespeicher.de #Erfurt

Der 38. Chaos Communication Congress des Chaos Computer Clubs findet vom 27. bis 30. Dezember  in #Hamburg statt. Der Bytespeicher.de wird traditionell in #Erfurt eine eigene Veranstaltung parallel zum 38C3, den sogenannte Congress Everywhere durchführen. Es ist ein dezentrales Event weltweit, zu dem Hackspaces und andere Einrichtungen einladen, den Congress per Livestream zu verfolgen. Der CCC…

[transarsonist]

This is part of why I'm a HUGE proponent of constructin your own furniture, now I'm not fat but I'm Rough. I break things. Living in a world of flimsy plastic and particle board means that if not for monthly trips to home Depot or Lowe's I wouldn't Have furniture. Because 150lbs At Rest is Very Different from 150 lbs in reckless full power motion of an acrobat.

My high school bed however was designed and constructed out of 2x4s by a fat engineering school student and it never once came Close to breaking. I've broken every bed I've slept in since, but that bed was made of maybe $150 of material, $150 time, and Never Once Came Close to breaking. And what's more impressive is it was a loft desk combo, it was dorm furniture before it was mine. I presume that fat man fucked on it as well but it showed no signs of it.

At this point I believe full well that building your own furniture from basically scrap is better than buying anything from the modern furniture industry

Granted there's the learning, the failed experiments, so on and so forth. But wouldn't you rather waste your money on something that teaches you how to build something that'll last you 50 years than some landfill destined garbage designed by fools?

Granted there's the tools and equipment, but there are "hackspaces" and "community wood working shops" that exist explicitly and specifically for the purpose you require. I urge you to go to the fat nerds, the fat engineers, the fat woodworkers. Explain your problem and desired solution and let them help you build a desk or chair or bed that is built for YOU, by YOU, and can be fixed in a weekend with nothing more than a screwdriver and a trip to a hardware store.

This doesn't change or mitigate the problem you speak of but it certainly does Help all of us divorce ourselves from the idea that "homemade" means "shoddy"

Here's something that a lot of thin people don't know about being fat: you have to be very careful, these days, what the weight limit on your furniture is. So much is made of particleboard or even cardboard or flimsy plastic, and it may be great for the environment for things to be made of recycled materials, but it can easily leave fat people in the incredibly humiliating situation of breaking a chair by sitting on it, or a table by leaning on it. It also creates an effective "fat tax" on furniture, since the more solid materials tend to cost more.

When I was looking for loft beds to make my apartment effectively larger, the majority of them had a weight limit of 200 pounds, including the weight of the mattress. That puts a weight limit on the person of roughly 150 pounds, and that presumes a light mattress. That's not taking into account blankets, pillows, and stuffies, which can easily rack up a weight of around ten to twenty pounds without much trouble, bringing the safe weight for a person down to roughly 140 to 130 pounds. The ones that held more than that had a steep increase in price, with ones that held 300 pounds costing roughly 600$ more than the 200 pound ones, and the 400 pound ones, which I wanted for tolerances, ran a good 800$ more on average than the ones for 200 pounds.

More generally, solid wood, metal, tempered glass, and thick, durable plastic cost more than particleboard, cardboard, and flimsy plastic. They are also far more likely to be safe for fat people to use.

If you are a thin person and want fat people to be comfortable when visiting you, invest in furniture that is clearly made with sturdy materials. Having to brush off standing the whole visit is embarrassing both for us and, if you are a host who cares about the comfort of guests, for you.

[y2fear]

HackSpace Magazine Issue 75 – Make Your Own Game Controller #RaspberryPiPico #CircuitPython @HackSpaceMag @Raspberry_Pi « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!

[kitwallace]

Delta Scroll saw

I bought a scroll saw from the Hackspace where it was surplus equipment. There were two in an auction, both quite old and litlle used. I won one of them for £15 and chose the Delta model since it was the heavier and had a dust blower.

The model is 40-430, single speed. There is a manual for it on-line https://www.manualslib.com/manual/590720/Delta-40-530.html

The machine takes pinless blades of which I already had a few. Pinless blades are finer and come in greater variety than pined blades, which are faster to change. There is a custom tool for blade changing, with a long 4mm Allen key attached to a bar which slots into a hole on the blade holder, setting the key in the right position and locking the hinged holder. It was missing and its fiddly to change blades without, so I need to make a substitute.

Surprisingly the blower works - online advice says the bellows is usually perished.The connecting tube is stiff and should realy be replaced.

At first the machine was very rattley until I realized the the three bolts put though the holes in base were only needed if the machine was going to be permanently fixed to a bench. Much better without and its heavy enough to be stable although it would be better with rubber feet.

Once I'd attached a blade and got the tensioning right, I turned it on and it cut fine and true.

The saw was very dusty and hadn't been used in a while. I took it apart, happy to find all fittings were metric.

A few jobs to do:

free up the table so it tilts

lubricate the pivot bolts

remove the rusty table, sand and polish with wax

(x)replace gnarled cover screws

(x)replace worn blade holder socket head bolts

make the blade change tool with long hex 4mm tool (x) and 5mm threaded (x) bar with 3D-printed spacers

add rubber feet 12mm hole eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133246278952

x Bits ordered 28/01 £12.50

Blade change tool

I designed a spacer in OpenSCAD to align the long Allen key and a threaded guide bar with M5 nuts to hold it in place. Took a few iterations to get the sizing right but it works fine with three spacers, using lock nuts to fix the spacers in place. The OpenSCAD and STL files are on Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6460819

Anti-vibration feet

Commercial mounts are surprisingly expensive so I made my own. I had a lot of large tap washers in stock so I made up a stack of one dished and two flat washers below the base, two more flat washers and a metal washer above the base, held together with an M8 coach bolt and nut. This works very well and the saw runs pretty quitely now.

The table

I sanded and oiled the table and it's much improved. Car polish is recommended so I'll do that.

Tilt lock handle

Now that the table has been freed up, the locking mechanism comes into play. It is an M6 bolt with a handle moulded onto it, but the moulding has failed so it can't be fully tightened. Fortunately, it also takes a 3mm Allen key and doesnt need to be adjusted quickly.

Looking better

[djotaku]

My Reading Life in 2023

By the end of 2023 I had 3049 ebooks and magazines (a change of 256 – pretty even with last year). Of those, 2434 were unread. Some chunk of those – maybe as much as ¼ were giveaways like Raspberry Pi Magazine, HackSpace Magazine, and Tor.com book club freebies. I stopped getting the monthly free Prime books since I no longer have a way to liberate them. I ended the year with 197 audiobooks (a…