Meeting Notes 2015 05 05

Meeting Notes 2015 05 05

edit, needs converted to wikimedia format.

Nosebridge Weekly Meeting Notes 050515

Moderated by: Patrick Notes by: Trent

Who?

Patrick hacks on noisebridge things, been a member for a few years

Trent, web developer, run PyClass, python class since June last year. Around the space for a few years.

Vgo visiting from Barcelona, interested in how we do our hackerspaces.

Dan, programmer, neurohacking, been coming for a few years.

Kevin, cohosts neurohacking group on Wednesdays. Been coming for a bit over 2 years and its awesome. Was just at coreos fest and has distributed compute engines on his mind.

Jade - Python tutor, part of neurohacking, used to be part of the PyClass group and may come by again.

Ben - First meeting, been to a couple of the classes. Developer, interested in VR and virtualization.

Bill Hill - Interested in categorizing archives.

Carl - Been coming to noisebridge for years, write IOS apps.

- Coming Since January, working with python and other software.

Henner - Writes software, hacks hardware.

Frank - Interested in SDR, software defined radio applications to wireless data communications.

Joe - haskell programmer, new to the space, interested in math, looking for ways to contribute

Alex - teaching game development on tuesdays. If you want to learn c#, unity, and/or make a 3d reconstruction of noisebridge, come on over and join us after the meeting. next time will bring an oculus.

What is noisebridge? A dark place with bright lights (it is dark today). As far as CA Gov is concerned a 501-c3, as far as the universe, it is an anarchist hackerspace. It has seen more notorious times, but is a pretty great space right now. The only rule is to be excellent to each other.

Announcements & Events - Patrick: Stupid shit 2 day hackathon coming up possibly in collaboration with sudo room. - Patrick: Maker faire is soon. For the weekend of maker faire, we are going to try to keep noisebridge as open and vibrant as possible to amaze annd awe people with the awesome things and hackers going on at noisebridge. Ruben is trying to put together an awesome list of people and things that will be in the space. - Carl - The people involved with the Noisebridge booth at maker faire are jared and others. Patrick - Jay and Jared. Weekly maker faire build night on Thursday, building a large table with a Noisebridge table and backlit LEDs. - Patrick - Mitch has run into someone who would like to give us a pick'n'place machine if we can build it to display at maker faire. - Trent - if you want library stuff, or want to expand what the library offers, let me know what you would be interested in reading or seeing here. - Patrick - I am working on a catalog for the library. - More library stuff during discussion. - A kind visitor says: Bathrooms and elevators have moldy smell, needs to be located. Moved to discussion.

- Bill Hill - Been collecting a gay archive of articles since the 70s, storage in san rafael, society has changed and now these things are desired and wants to get them out there. Has started cataloguing in a text file. Wants to catalogue into a relational database and available online. Also for distributing duplicates. Currently has about 1000 titles, needs to move into RDBMS, need to find a better way.

Bill Hill's Contact info:

=========

Email: aropoika@gmail.com Phone Number: 415-686-6146

Bill - International Gay Archivists Conference. Next is London 2016. New York, I presented a short talk about what I was trying to do.

Torrie - 5 minutes of fame is in a few weeks on the 21st at 8 PM. You should come and suggest a talk, the idea is 'weird shit, science not spooky'.

Noisebridge Membership:

Kevin - At noisebridge everyone can come and use the space freely. We are open to the public and the community so long as you follow the one rule of excellence. Membership means you have been coming to the space for a while and like the space and would like to participate with more commitment in the space and the government of the space. With membership, you could block concensus which is the only thing you can really do more than other people at noisebridge. You are responsible for sliding dues of $40-$80. You must fill out an application, find two sponsors who are current members of the space, four weeks must go by, and then a decision is made about the membership through concensus. If you are interested talk to someone after the meeting. If, after four weeks, your application is not eligible, it will stay in the binder for 12 weeks after which it is removed, you may reapply at any time.

Patrick - You don't have to be a member to do anything at noisebridge. All of this is orthogonal. You can donate without being a member. Membership is like stewardship. You have more expectations of running the space and stepping up where others may not.

Current Applications: Alex - see application for details. No sponsors, week three.

Finances - Patrick: Noisebridge has $____ after paying rent on 24th of April. Of that total, roughly 10-11 thousand are allocated towards Noisetor. Noisetor is a subproject of noisebridge that runs tor exit relays in the US for benefit of the tor network. They solicit donations for the noisetor project separate from noisebridge. They can use our checking account and status as a 501-C3. Effective balance: $16,684. Noisebridge's operating expenses for a month: approximately $4500/month We try at all times to keep 3 months operating expenses buffer which we are just over. Dues, employer matching donations, donations from all over the place. VERY diverse income. Our current regular income is not over our operating expenses so we are still looking for more monthly support. We accept all currencies, anything that can be processed will be processed.

Dan - What if we made it 3 months + 10% to accomodate our rent future? Patrick: We may not have a rent increase.

Patrick: If you have any ideas for funding, grants, donations, events, this friday at 730 PM, a bunch of us will be gathering to sit down and talk about it.

Concensus: Dan - Concensus, it is a linguistic coincidence that it sounds like consent. Consent, to me, is something that comes through with noisebridge's concensus process. When we talk about things, people like me might have other opinions but we are glad that we are asked about things rather than saying 'this is how we are gonna do it and that's it.' As far as specifics of the capital C Concensus process. By the time it is discussed at a meeting there's a good idea if someone has really strong objections to the point where they are going to talk about blocking it which doesn't really happen that often, and it shouldn't. That is the beginning of the discussion that allows us to make a decision that maybe isn't perfect and perhaps doesn't make everyone happy but is difficult and everyone can know they are heard. Patrick - do-ocracy - allows people to affect the change they want to see in the space. It is an anarchist space, if you think it is cool and it would be excellent, then go ahead! Teach a class, paint the dirty shop, hang fabric in the lounge -- these are decisions that don't need the full community input. Concensus is for those big decision that affect and include everyone. 99% of the time you can discuss things with people and do-ocratically make it happen. A concensus comes up for discussion for 2 meetings. On the third meeting it is discussed a third time and if there weren't major refactors or aren't any still pending then concensus is voted on. Example: During the reboot, noisebridge was closed for a long period of time. This was concensus at work insofar as group discussion and communal decision resolution. Example 2: Access controls. "Noisebridge should be as open as possible." This allowed us to close at night and close at times when it was not possible to be open.

Concensus Proposals: N/A

Discussion Topics: Henner - Access Control Updates Bill - Scanner to donate Whiteboards? Blackboard? Torrie - Trent - Library Resources and Ideas Extended

Discussion Notes:

Access Control: Henner: 1. Previous meetings discussed extending full time user to sunrise instead of 7 AM. 2. Updating a user to give that user a name is a pain to do, requires editing a file. Kevin volunteered to work on a web frontend to modify this. 3. For Maker Faire - we want greeters, we want to use technology to set a status for greeters, then elaborate on greeters for the long term with the space. Reuben: Clarification - the reasoning is to communicate this through other makers that they are welcome in the space, here is a code to get in. Patrick: General gist I got with sunrise is that fulltime users... Henner: It is in general easy for users to get fulltime tokens. Expires after 30 days. If we add a name etc then the token can be permanent. Token opens the gate from 10 AM - 11 PM roughly during daytime. Henner: Fulltime users are 7 AM to 23:59. Opening time dependent on sunrise. Summer 530, winter 820. There was confusion between anonymous and regular users. We need more people that come early. Patrick: Seems like people are cool with Sunrise. Henner: We'll hash something out and bring it back to the meeting. Important thing is to keep it based on authentication, no extra set of passwords or anything. Reuben: I believe we should add as much incentive for nonmembers to become members as possible, we need to do everything possible to increase our member base to survive. Dan - I give $40 or more when I have it. I'm not a member with a capital M, allergic to formality. I am allowed to use the space, 80% of our funding is not member dues. I don't think I'll be becoming a capital M member if I can help it. You may be right in the bigger picture and that's an anecdote. Reuben - We still need capital M members to make the space go. I totally undestand and respect your position. Jade - I agree entirely with Dan. I think this has nothing to do with membership and should stay FAR away with membership. Access control and membership are orthogonal. Membership is ONLY concensus and dues. My membership status is not related to my donations. Reuben: The incentive is that we need people to participate in the community. Jade: My membership isn't related to my participation. Reuben: You are right, I am not going to argue with that fact. Dan: I read into that that we would encourage people to become members by disencouraging them to use the space as nonmembers. Reuben: I am suggesting to not add more pillows to the couch of nonmembers. Dan; To hedge your bets, I would appreciate participation to people who are allergic to formality but still love noisebridge etc to do everything a capital M member would do the hard way without validation of Membership. Torrie: I am a Member. Going along with the discussion here about allergies to formality. I am also allergic to formalities. I noticed: sink in back bathroom broken, tp rolls haven't been replaced until today, tools missing somewhere, we need more responsible people in the space. Empowering people who come to the space to be responsible for things like electronics, the library, other things. If you are not a member and you are wondering about it, you should be telling people 'hey we are all responsible for the space.' It empowered me to be a member and go through the bureaucratic process of becoming a member. I agree we need more members, specifically referring to the people who are responsible for the space. Do stuff! Bring something to the space and improve on it. Eventually you'll become a member whether you like it or not. Part of that is having access to the space by gaining trust in the community by showing the community that you can earn that trust by being responsible and encouraging community. Bill - I am a nonnmember, and I haven't contributed a cent. I bring in stuff that I think people would want to hack. It seems to me that you have tons of non members that come rarely. Then it catches on and you come a lot. Should we log who comes in when? Henner: No we don't log who comes in when. Torrie: What problem does that solve? Bill: Someone might want to put some money towards it. They will feel more responsible about it and that will bring them into being a member. Henner: Generally agree but we are trying to solve a nontechnical problem with a technical solution. Advocacy is a social thing and we are a community. We don't want to measure contribution by frequency you enter the space. Access control shouldn't be about membership, it's about levels of trust. If I have good vibes and have seen someone, then I will trust them to come in at night and do good things. Patrick: Time! We must move on. Hacker dojo is now a dictatorship coworking space and I used to think of it as Noisebridge's big brother. Their board let this happen. Our membership is very important because it allows blocking. Cbase is all about having a default request of 200 euros. They can start becoming members by donating, then we go through the 4 week process. So it doesn't feel like its something that might not happen. Reuben: Quick exercise: everyone raise your hand. Everyone who is a member keep your hand up. Everyone with door access raise yoru hand. Anyone who has let someone in the space raise your hand. Ayone who has also greeted the fuck out of the person and given them a tour. Anyone who has asked someone to please donate. Anyone who has monetarily donated. Cbase is the mothership, a hackerspace in Berlin with TV towers as their main communication array.

Joe: Some things were unclear to me - they must have tons of money, maybe google gave them money. We need to have something by the door recommending a donation amount and what we need in donations. A customary amount to give. Torrie: Those are great ideas. lets make a flyer after the meeting.

Patrick: Lets break fundraising out after the meeting tonight. Reuben: Fundraising meeting 730 PM on Friday! Lots of ideas, if you are interested in this, please come discuss what this plan could be.

Patrick: Final thing, we are reaching out to the landlord to renegotiate the lease. We are going to ask for the exact same lease with the same terms, with a 3 year extension available for a 10% increase. Our existing lease ends August or September 1st. We are confident the landlord will not gouge us because of the building condition. That's it! Happy meeting!