Meeting Notes 2021 11 16

0These are the notes from the The 654th Meeting of Noisebridge.

• Live notes
  • https://pad.riseup.net/p/nbmeeting
• Virtual Meeting (jitsi mic/cam off by default)
  • https://jitsi.noisebridge.io/hackitorium#config.startWithAudioMuted=true&config.startWithVideoMuted=true&userInfo.displayName=%22n00b%22

Date: November 16, 2021

ALSO EDIT PREVIOUS AND NEXT DATES IN THE WIKI LINKS BELOW

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Note-taker: TJ

Moderators: Woz

• One or two bullet points of high-level meeting summary.

Meeting Summary

FIXME FILL OUT AT END OF MEETING AND SEND TO MAILING LIST TLDR what happened at the meeting:

• Fundraising Update
• Announcements:
• Finances:
• New members:
• New philanthropists:
• Consensus Items:
• Discussion Items:

Introductions

• Dave - he/him, electronics, code
• Ryan - robotics, fabrication, software
• Jacktar - laser artist, photographer
• Claus - not sure tbh
• pyconaut - he/him - set up VR station next week or two, preparing to do VR VCI stuff
• Leon - any/all - photography, computer in general, Artificial General Intelligence
• TJ - he/they - intro to reinforcement learning on Wednesdays

Short announcements and events

60-second description per item in bulletpoint.

pyconaut - neurotech SF online Thursdays 6-9 PM, look in Slack. Gamebridge is Wednesdays from 8 Pm to whenever, and I think in person (occasionally)

Dave - Getting people together to maintain server stuff. HAve a server that discuss is running o, will expire, going to brony, can't access, like to discuss immediate issues and build coalition for server maintenance. Want to stress that all experiences welcome, could be great learning experience. working linux shell is enough. If people won't volunteer, discuss goes kaput.

Claus - migrate or maintain? (Maintain)

Jacktar- retired merch marine captain, lot of quals, qualified for training others in mayn things. No Linux server experience, but runs gun for US, went to Iraq, went back to grad school.

Claus - migrate, then maintain

Jacktar - Had a brand new panamax ship,

Pyconaut - still licensed captain? I might have access to a ship

Dave - Hacker boat! (Hacker *ship*)

Jacktar - My documents are in hold, but will be a cruise captain once son is in challenge.

Jacktar - I need knee replacement, but will be ready afterward

TJ - Class on wed at 6 AI class

Claus - weekly work parties from 5 to 9 on Thursdays Dave - will crash work party for server stuff.

Excellence

Our One Rule is to Be Excellent to Each Other.

(What does that mean? How does the Anti-Harassment Policy fit into this? Are we SURE we know what being Excellent is? This is an important and fundamental conversation at Noisebridge, so let's give it like 120 seconds.)

Jacktar - noisebridge 2.0, the way I see it Leon - leaving place better than found, everyone feels welcome and safe,e tc.

Dave - calling out James for all the work he's done maintaining the server and such single-handedly.

Jacktar - left my camera stuff here, left at store, walk in today, noisebridgers kept $2k of camera at the store

Claus - could we put it in the lost and found?

Participation

TJ - Anyone who walks throught the door, they can participate. Talks about 30-day access... Gate code

Everyone at Noisebridge is a participant at Noisebridge.

(What does that mean? How do you get a door key? Access to Slack, Discuss, etc?)

Particip

Do-ocratic Task Board

Participation also means doing stuff to contribute to the space. Pick some tasks from github, from what needs to be done around you, or whatever, and see if someone will sign up to work on that task. Anyone can sign up and it's a great way to show you are contributing!

(Will update from Slack)

Philanthropists

A Philanthropist at Noisebridge has earned enough trust from the community to open and close the space.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Philanthropists? How do you become one? etc)

(Skipped due to lack of interest) ($40-80 depending on tech job) Just gives you 30-day, but you should feel comfortable opening/closing the space.

Jonah wants to be Philanthropists

Dave - Philanthropists are responsible for sheperding the space. If you don't kwno the space, you probs aren't qualified.

pyconaut - Go on wiki and read, more than enough introduction, follow someone on a tour. Learn enough to to help steward the space

Claus - why you wnat Philanthropy?

Jonah - want to be more involved, realize Philanthropist isn't required, but would like to do it and get 24 h access. In process of moving to area. Read through wiki before lockdown, been a couple times and plan on spending more time.

Dave - Who's sponsoring?

Sophia - I'd be happy to

Sophia - I'll give you a full tour, sin't done until after

( no blocks )

Dave - just hasn't been around enough

Jonah - expected time?

pyconaut - if you want to become philanthropist, you should explain at the meeting

Dave - sophia is blocking, nobody is sponsoring

pyconaut - Questions... I have none

Dave -Any more?

lxpk - late at night, expectation to close space, and someone isn't phil / member, trying to finish up

Jonah - I don't think you could leave someone here who isn't phil, asked to leave or stay

Jonah - I hypothetically would, but would avoid doing that.

Dave - If you do end up being last person, is likely, there aren' a lot of Phils, just 30 day people. Really good to give peple 30 minute warning, feel better about kicking out.

Jonah - wouldn't try to be last person until last person out.

Sophia - if one other person, good etiquette to ask them if they are leaving

Claus - if no one is in space, does space need to be shut down. If we go to bar, sohuld we shtu down? (Yes)

Dave - No blocks, so welcome Jonah (sponsor Sophia)!

Talking about imaginary positions at Noisebridge, good for business cards. Reference tree.

Membership Binder

Membership in Noisebridge entails community Trust in Consensus.

(What does that mean? What do we expect from Members? How do you become a Member? etc)

pyconaut - do you want expensive equipemnt

Dave - If we can't afford it, don't do it. It would be irresponsible imo to waste thousands on filtered charcoal or whatever, since we will run out of money and have no laser cutter, break down everything else.

Claus - we need to pay for this thing, and contribute to pay for it. We all use, and do

Leon - suggested donations should be needed

Dave - I do want to say it shoudl be strongly rec'd to have storng reason to do something for free. I like to charge a little more from everyone so one person who wants to do something, btu can't afford it, can. But we need to make some sort of requirement, with special allowance for those who need it.

pyconaut - if you said you need payment to do something that's required to run. We are a community that's disenfranchised from accessing this equipment. signage is a different story, as strongly suggested but not required. Time over $$ is great. 30 minutes cleaning is same as $80. Time is money, and people who don't have the latter can use the former.

Dave - This is just semantics. It is a de facto requirement. Should require it unless community can make an exception

pyconaut - long standing tradition of never requiring payment. It is one of absolute rules of NB. Can't teach class if require payment

Sophia - Silly to have a hard rule on payment

pyconaut - back when we had recommended charge, money income was enough

Dave - It's a social requirement, still, but just semantics

pyconaut - 50% would not donate, but other 50% pays for everything. Noisebridge is about semantics.

Dave - I wanted to state my opinion honeslty. Should allow exception to the payment as a community.

lxpk - Experiment has been run in a lot of context, notably in music industry. Pay if you can, pay what you can. People who can pay pay the same or more than everyone pays the same, etc. It's been proven a successful business strat in for-profits, and in principle. I donate so people who doesn't have money can do it. Have to constantly do this to keep our membership going. I think it'll be ok, the fear we're going out of business is understandable, but avoidable if we avoid it.

Ryan - music and class example are different from industrial equipment, which is huge cost center. Laser cutter will actively cost money per use, as opposed to rapidly scalable system.

pyconaut - We had classes with restrictive software, and people had money which would help donate.

lxpk - I was under assumption that ppl can use it

Dave - I would block for profit stuff. But I do feel strongly that we need to be real with ourselves. We don't do that enough. Head in the clouds, dream big, not much action. Laser cutter could get expensive extremely quickly, we might not get ROI on the $20 / hour used. Dreams are achievable, but ppl want to do soemthing, but it doesn't happen. Don't bank on a NB dream.

Financial Report

Anarchist societies under a capitalist state need money to survive and thrive, yo.

• Funds in bank:

Cash: $325,736.19 Crypto: $145,016.08 Total: $470,752.27

We sold off some BTC on Monday

Sophia : we should add a few ppl to the bank account

Tyler : adding to bank account is hard. Adding to PayPal is easier, and on Stripe

Sophia : do we have to be physically colocated? (Yes)

Tyler : Can manage it if on the phoen together. Me and John, we had to be at the Wells Fargo together, with board meeting notes to transfer.

Sophia: Great excuse to come to New York!

Tyler : We mostly just do PayPal, we can add that a lot easier, and can even do nb Venmo, as that's an easier reimbursement.

Sophia - and can just reroute through Paypal , as same company. Just have NB venmo, and put donation stickers everywhere.

pyconaut - Just have random donations to the space.

Claus - If we have $325k in cash. Why isn't it invested in index fund

Tyler - we are sitting on massive inflation liability. Wanted to bring up; investing portions of cash, investing portions of crypto. As far as cash goes, we recently acquoired cash by acquiring Venmo, remodeling has been closer to $0 than $3k

Claus - we intend to do this, though

Sophia - what about Noisetor? Tyler - No idea, Noisetor has earmarked 0.06 BTC. Don't know anyone with access, only know Crypto Steve, thought shut down in 2018, but SuperQ thought active as recently as 2 year ago. Either we have a wallet lying somehwere, or money laundering, or $3k / year on servers we don't use.

Sophia - Is elimisteve active on Slack?

pyconaut - not sure who was in charge before crypto steve, handed to him in 2017 by old crypto guilds.

Sophia - Where was crypto stuff posted on.

Tyler - some omre stuff on rack?

Dave - Take this offline maybe?

pyconaut - tyler mentioned reinvesting, we should get board authorization, new board elections. Kicked out secretary, X was elected 2 years ago. Our board is basically gone other than Tyler, Tim, and maybe Naomi.

Tyler - Tyler, Ruth , Tim, Tiffany, and Lady Red.

Sophia - Lady Red has no intentions of moving back.

Dave -0 Perfect president

pyconaut - Ruth and Lady red have been less involved. Required # board seats need to be higher.

Tyler - WE just need 5

pyconaut - Board seats can also have positions? Like can someone on Board can also have role.

Tyler - Positions separate from board members, but you can be both

pyconaut - 2 of 5 board members are not active anymore. If we do more with $$ or renovations, we do need way to have board signoff. At least one person who's consistently able to access space would be go. Maybe Tim can do it.

Tyler - Doubt Tim would be interested. Should get more people on board who are active and in space. I am also remote, and have trouble bein

pyconaut - can you be an officer and not on board? When we have elections, I'll run fro something, but I have way too much access and do not need more power.

pyconaut - bring potential protfolio

Ryan - ETF is a good idea Claus - ETF, we can just invest and it will pay rent Tyler - moving crypto over to Blockfi, allows interest for crypto. This is centralized wallet over coinbase. It's not a decentralized platform. It's a wallet, and collateral for crypto loans. You can get interest on it. 9% interest, so a lot.

lxpk - talk more in #finance-wg

Dave - appreciate formalization of plan on Discuss.

Operating on deficit!

Consensus

Consensus is how the Noisebridge Membership may change how Noisebridge works.

(How does Consensus work? What types of things are good for formal Consensus? What is small-c consensus? What is a "block"?)

Dave - Consensus is how we do things, small c and big C, explaining how to do it.

Proposals from last week

(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

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

Discussion

Discussion Item 1

Pyconaunt toilet (offline discsusion)

Discussion Item 2

X's pile in the front

Dave - Claus's item

Claus - set specific date, a week out. Talked to Mark, suggested to mark if X could come in the morning. Mark could bring up

pyconaut - if he has place, we talked about renting truck for 3D printer / solar panels, if we rent truck for 4-5 hours, we could drive X's stuff to where he is in Oakland.

Dave - A lot of Noisebridge stuff. We set time limit, pass to Mark, extend to all lockers

lxpk - present for locker discussion, basically all identified as his was removed, projects related to hambridge remained. Would look, stay for hambridge .

lxpk - I've been involved, as well as pyconaut

Dave - operated in inclusive way, where othe people can come in and access stuff. I'm ok as long as it happens

lxpk - Hambridge will be doucmented on wiki, if not to stay, then taken away. If we need time limit, I don't see it mattering that much. It will happen soon.

Ryan - we already have dat ethat passed?

pyconaut - look at nhambridge stuff, X brought me through it, large chunk brought in for collab project 3 ppl did last summer. Take look, can identify stuff for that project so know how to set up, happy to help. Know few NB'ers interested in hambridge

Ryan - MArk said stuff here is probably NB stuff donated by X or boxes with his name. Vaguely recall meeting that we did have a date stuff needed to be out, week after Wheezy is leaving. I'd be inclined to deal with it now

Dave - You have been talking to X, X has no claim to anything in lockers

lxpk - His stuff removed, hambridge stuff remains.

Dave - no concern with cutting locks and adding to pile

lxpk - would be counterproductive for people going through. Happen quickly

Dave - you think significant progress by next week. Ok giving another week. lxpk, a little ancy bc we've been through a bit before

lxpk - there are other interested folks.

Dave - With hambridge stuff, we don't need a gigantic workstation, just bin we can pull out

Claus - my concern is not the thing for noisebridge. I can't touch pile bc it's X's personal belongings. If there is anything left after a date, I will be free to move it around. That's my attitude.

lxpk -that's between you and mark. What if MArk can't do it another week

Claus - it means I can touch the pile next Tuesday. It's things that need to be sorted.

pyconaut - somehwhat available this week if stuff needs to be driven. Only thing is giant file cabinet or scale. Other boxes and bike and such can fit.

Sophia - Everything that isn't X's is Noisbeirdge?

Claus - everythign that's not NB's Dave - Loop in Mark pyconaut - all DMX stuff is all Noisebridge, all cables are Noisebridge.

Dave - There was a bin with a lot of AV cables.

pyconaut - mostly power chords, specific types to daisy chain DMX lights togteher. Not the right amperage

Dave - EOD

Discussion Item 3

Upstairs accessability

pyconaut - I acutally just measure stuff with staircase for 90 degree option, marked out with tape where would go. Plan in my mind is to widen starcase by 3 feet, so lift mechanism can be installed, take out mid platform, after 90 degree thing, we hav eto go 10 ft total diagonally. I need someone to draft this into CAD model, but can talk more with whoever wants to do that. If anyone wants to look at it, they can look at it, we'd gain as much floorspace as we'd lose with middle area. Would need to build / buy new staircase. Bc staravator installation, would need metal support somewhere, that's embedded into floor of NB. Would need to permit to do this, but large part of work we could do ourselves, need architectural plan, things ned to be permitted.

Dave - 3 things: 1) JD has already done cad stuff, just check on slac with him. 2) I think we should make plan and put it on Discuss, so we can spend serious time thinking about it, actually solves needs. Don't need stairvator, etc, when we actually needed elevator all along. Need to do good thinking

pyconaut - Would you be fine if we brought in ada specialist? Wait until we get specialist, or could bring in specifically to look at staircase.

Dave - Great idea. As long as we think they're good. Second to last time we hired, huge waste ofmoney.

pyconaut - been vetted, good idea.

Dave - 3) I feel like as Noisebridgers, we need to be honest. We cna do work and build stuff. We still haven't done gate yet, huge participation problem. Low hanging fruit isn't getting done

pyconaut - If this gets approved, I will break it down myself and force people to do it myself.

ryan - we don't have a weld-specialized staff.

pyconaut - I can do more welding on the gate.

Claus - we have alot of tables, build the gate

Dave - Even if we got a million donation, fundraised and everything, put in elevator, cleared out hallways, bc of the sheer nature of NB, the next day it'll be kaput due to personal project. We won't get perfect, so we'll just get compromise

pyconaut - That's always going to be the case. we used to develop wheelchairs here, a lot of wheelchair ppl here.

Dave - would be nice to get ppl on first floow

lxpk - I'll be her ethis week

Claus - Tyler made point earlier about fiscally viable, but we have money to be accessible, we have anticipation that we'd need to fund remodeling.

TJ - Could we get permits / quotes first?

pyconaut - cheapest order of operations - model draft done, ADA specialist come in and approve, lower cost of hiring contractor and would help with specific contract permit we need to get from the city. We can have contractors get the permits, much faster than we could. Getting NB blueprints would take 3 mo. (!!!) didn't have in person services running agian. That was last summer, need to check for in person stuff now. Happy to start doing that. Some of the options / design is the first step. Design we can show means a lot less time here explaining stuff. Cut time staying here from 2 hours to 0.5 hr, we can save thousands to spend on ADA contractor. They have references to ADA installation contractors for actual elevator stuff (inclined stairlift).

Dave - Whatever plan you do, clue in landloard, and get to pay for part of it.

pyconaut - This is general improvement, should get landlord to get in

CLaus - Hate to pay for contractor, when we ccan do it for free. Any contractor to build out structure should know things, they should know.

Dave - function of ADA person is to help make sure we meet needs of disabled ppl, function of contractor is what need to be done to build it.

Claus - which includes building

pyconaut - somethign a lot of ppl don't know. General contractor don't know ADA specifics, SF has different stuff from CA

Dave - Recognize that none of us are licensed contractors / lawyers / experts. Also want to mention NB has legal counsel, just get their take.

Discussion Item 4

  Fundraiser

lxpk - want to say that currently fleshing out fundraising page, places to put ideas, people who wnat to be regular participants. 10 weeks out, some kind of event after holidays, hack comedy , music guild (random musicians), gamebridge is starting game camp. Good entertainment like halloween fundraiser. At least one person involved with their thing. Good windows of time / specialties?

pyconaut - Interest in doing auction, silent auctions are great, regulat auctions also possible. Some Noisebridgers do auctioning. Really cool if by that time, we have specific project funds set up again, so we can propose upcoming projects for guilds, so ppl can donat eto specific guilds, so don't rip into currnet financial holdings. PPL would donate money to laser setup / 3d printing

lxpk - could make projects part of the fundraiser. Liek elevator, buying building, etc.

Dave - We're getting further away from buying building, not closer

lxpk - compared to a few yeras, doing better

RLewis - should do auction, include time as donations. Could get people who help lasercut or weld or stuff.

Dave - Auction off old toilet. Get Vc to spend money

pyconaut - bring back million dollar toilet, mke NFT

lxpk - is an auction item

Claus - also want to auction things, and labor / time (committing hour or two doing something

Dave - thanks for organizing! I do wnat you to reach out to Javier / Music Jay, wants to do music related event, good to coordinate. Victor Trevino / Hack comedy, also has experience with fundraising.

pyconaut - If we can finish decent version of barbot by then, that's what brought in the most money. during fundraiser, it brought most money

gaardn - valentine's day is on a Monday, could host grand opening to show love for noisebridge. Helpful for getting NB functional again.

lxpk - we did hacker prom, ppl dressed as robots, great idea for purpose and such

pyconaut - shoudl post of discuss / slack for good time for meetings, we shuold have fundraising secction in meeting, so someone could give update for plans. Need time of week a lot of ppl have free for fundraising. Need ppl like Tyler to be a bit involved, idk what Victor's schedule is. Callout on Slack / Discuss / Discord

lxpk - fundraising after regular meeting

pyconaut - dangerous because burnout and ppl not able to show. Before, it burned out a lot of people. Having afterwards, a lot of people would drop out. Should be on a different day.

= Item 5

Electrical

Ryan - I know you were working on outlet locations. I can figure out what's going on with breaker panel. Wnnt to upgrade it from talking to ppl. Put together BOM for conduit, etc. to help build it out.

Claus - My thought was to put in conduit, but would put in wall.

TJ - not sure why not conduit

pyconaut - comment that on github, posted in-depth article including cost of some plugs, breaker costs and cabling costs, we never did in-wall stuff at NB because hard to modify. WE are legally around to run conduit, can't do plugs or breaker wiring yourself.

Ryan - we can do everything up to hookup

pyconaut - I ran 2000 ft of conduit

Claus - Can I run evertyhing outside box.

pyconat - we can also have ethernet conduit and lefit wifi drops We need a lot more

== Discussion item 6 ========

Leon - wanted to bring up dark room, just do Discuss post, also went to 2600 metting on Friday, no one was there, could just email them and invite them

pyconaut - I fully support bringing back NB darkroom, Second, 2600 NB back at Noisebridge, yes! They used to have meeetings here

lxpk - I remember them back in the day.

Leon - First friday of the month. Could bring in more traffic, lay out donation boxes, makes sense.

Dave - more stuff the better. 2600 is awesome, dark room is awesome. Need to do it.

pyconaut - related to that, if we can set aside / createing system specifically for project funds, and a way to roll that into financial stuff. I know how expensive some photochemicals get if we get a lot of use. BC of downscalign of SF's dark rooms, we'd be in high demand. SF's more accessible one is closed, biggest public one had to be chopped up. Bring in revenue, but also expensive.

End of Meeting

Noisetor (offline)

Note taker posts the notes

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

Fun things to do after

• 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.