

Poll: would you visit a "thinkerspace?" - begriffs
http://begriffs.wufoo.com/forms/is-this-a-good-idea/

======
Foomandoonian
The idea needs a lot of development - and a name better than a 'thinkerspace'.

Math and music? What about philosophy, literature, other branches of science?
I can think and write with my flouncy fountain pen at home, so what are the
merits of me going to a collaborative space? I'm sure there could be many, but
these aren't elaborated upon at all. Conversation? About what? Will it be
structured? Themed? How? Or why not?

Tea but no coffee? Bookbinding but no typewriters? Blackboards but no wifi?
Why is technology unwelcome in this context? Are these important distinctions?
I've no idea.

Sounds like you need a manifesto. And I would suggest you try very hard to
make it as unpretentious as possible.

Short answer: Nope.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think he just wants to find people who share his exact hobbies to help fund
a clubhouse.

It's not a bad idea, but it's kind of dishonest to assume that this is the
sort of thing that interests a ton of people, and that people will flock to
it.

~~~
tommoor
"Blackboards but no wifi? Why is technology unwelcome in this context? Are
these important distinctions? I've no idea." +1

------
miles
Here are some similar existing spaces:

<http://www.theofficeonline.com/tour.htm>

<http://www.paragraphny.com/>

<http://www.sandboxsuites.com/>

<http://www.onealfredplace.co.uk/>

The idea is rather reminiscent of the Diogenes Club:

"There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from
misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not
averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the
convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains
the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take
the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is,
under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice
of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion."

(from _The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter_ :
[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-
new2?id=DoyGree....](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-
new2?id=DoyGree.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all)
)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is quite cool. I wish we had something like this in Beijing. Also, nice
Sherlock Holmes reference.

------
goldfeld
Call it a Renaissance space! Encourage the sciences, writing, philosophy, the
arts. Make it the micro-equivalent of going through a liberal arts major for
those of us who picked something else or people who can't afford it. Organize
discussion, readings. Have a studio setup for painting and the like. I'd sign
up in a heart beat.

------
jstanley
Note that your results will likely be skewed. I don't care about this and I
couldn't be bothered filling in the form, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

~~~
shanusmagnus
In other words, you decided against one click (the 'submit' button, since the
'nope' radio button was already selected) in favor of several clicks and a
hundred keystrokes to tell the guy how uninterested you are? Huh.

~~~
jstanley
I didn't do that to tell him how uninterested I was; I did that to tell him
that his results are likely skewed, and then explained why I thought that.

Furthermore, discussion on HN is worth a lot more to me than clicking a button
in his form.

------
jjsz
When you mentioned a modern salon I thought about 300 B.C. Back when
barbershops / salons were the center of gossip, philosophy, and debates. The
stylists / barbers, mostly focused on men, and participated in trimming the
beard, hair, and fingernails of other high profile people. Since most of the
time they didn't have their own shop, they went to an agora. Agoras were
opened to the public, but they had to obviously create a group around high
people to allow higher forms of conversations. When men visited these areas,
whether it was the agora itself or the shop / salon, they wanted to tackle two
things at the same time just like how you're suggesting bookbinding and
painting at the same time. Personally, I can't paint and have a decent
conversation at the same time, or bookbind-- I won't get much done because
I'll have to look at the person from time to time or I'll feel I'm
disrespecting them.

I can't think of a being who would want to be in the same room as someone
doing bookbinding, painting, and reading. Maybe some readers want a quieter
room. Not sure but you should consider topic specific private rooms.

Back then, in an agora there wasn't arts and craft tools because men had their
public social fix handed to them already from getting groomed, they did this
with their private friends. Now. This was done in the open and in the public,
outside in parks or plazas. So taking that idea and making it subscription
based and inside. I wouldn't go to it. I would go to a public outdoor space,
where I have the option to rent bookbinding and painting materials, or other
books so I don't have to bring my own there. I shouldn't be excluded to
participate if I wanted to bring my own canvas.

Now I understand why you said, modern day salon, and not a modern day agora.
It's indoor based.

------
quarterto
You basically just described the Common Room of my old university's Maths
Department.

------
hammock
You are getting a lot of hate in this thread. Just wanted to say that I work
in an ad agency, and we have a number of these spaces, and everyone (or at
least, the most ambitious people among us) loves them - creatives and
technologists alike.

Here's a description of some of them: 1) a small quiet room with a couple
couches, soft fengshui-safe decorations, iPad hooked up to overhead speakers
playing music, and a guitar. 2) A room filled with magazines, craft supplies,
and meditative collages that people have pasted all over the walls. 3) A huge,
white room with bare floors, long wooden tables. The walls are white, can be
written on with markers and are magnetic for posting up whatever ideas, paper,
etc you are banging around, by yourself or with others. There are big screen
TVs, and also speakers, scattered that you can hook up your computer to if you
need. And of course wifi everywhere (should go without saying)

I use 1 and 3 quite a bit, for collaboration and sometimes just meditation.

------
alanctgardner2
Is this substantially different from a member's club for technologists? If so,
it's a pretty established concept, you just probably want to attract a younger
demographic. Wikipedia link is not NSFW, btw.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemens_club>

------
tomhschmidt
I imagine the clientele would be try-hard pseudo-intellectuals, so no.

~~~
bigiain
I had a similar reaction. I often use my local hackerspace (Robots and
Dinosaurs in Sydney) as a place to hang out and talk to smart interesting
people - I guess because I find people who make stuff more interesting to
people who just talk about stuff. (Maybe that makes _me_ the try-hard pseudo-
intellectual sometimes… Hmmm…)

------
charliepark
This type of thing is already present in a number of larger cities. It's
usually called a private library, a private club, or an "athenaeum."

------
niggler
Why not make a HN poll? <https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>

~~~
_lex
He gets better data, and the ability to restrict how people vote. For example,
HN polls allow you to upvote several options simultaneously.

------
petercooper
Almost sounds like a university library outside of a university. I would
certainly be in support of that, but as it'll be nowhere near anywhere I go,
I'd find it hard to put actual money down.

Now.. I'd totally love one of my _own_ , just need to save up for that bigger
house ;-)

------
n2dasun
That's so frightening. I was thinking of this exact thing as a business idea
on a road trip this weekend. Comfy chairs, a cash bar, maybe
pool/foozball/darts. Companies could rent space out for interviews. You could
rent rooms to hang out and bounce ideas around, or maybe have an open space
where you can just draw up and chat about ideas and allow others to freely
come over and weigh in on them. You might meet a new employee or employer this
way.

The names I had in mind were ThinkBar and... uh... "Lounge" something.

Anyway, I just thought it interesting that I'd be mulling this over all
weekend and jump on Hacker News, only to see this post.

------
smegel
I think your local uni Arts department probably have this one covered...

------
JulianMorrison
I dunno about that, but something I want is a space that has little one-
occupant rooms with no particular furnishings aside from perhaps a beanbag, a
frosted window or indirect lighting, walls painted a neutral colour, heavy
soundproofing, no electrical sockets, faraday cage shielding, and a door that
locks. They should build a few rooms like that into every office. Somewhere
that you can go and switch off your external attention and think or meditate.

~~~
jmharvey
Aside from the faraday cage shielding, that shouldn't be too hard to achieve.
Why not just shut off your cell phone?

------
tlarkworthy
Our hackerspace is largely this during open nights. Too many people to
actually do anything practical (www.edinburghhacklab.com)

------
superuser2
Sounds a little like a university library. Yes.

------
fauldsh
As some-one living in a flat, if there was somewhere with a quality piano I
would happily pay gym prices to go play it. Although much like a gym, if I
couldn't get at the piano I would soon stop paying.

I live nowhere that would have this unfortunately (140k pop town)

~~~
trafficlight
I live in Helena, MT (let's say 60k pop). I met a local piano tuner a few
months back who had started a program where he would place unwanted pianos in
local businesses and maintain them for free. He said the local market just
isn't buying pianos anymore and he has a couple dozen sitting in storage.
Rather than throw them out, which he is a real, tragic possibility, he gives
them away.

I just opened a coworking space in town (grand opening was Friday!) and I'm
going to try and get one of these pianos in there.

------
cottonseed
I'm a member of a thinkerspace. It's called a math dept. See also: library,
cafe.

------
ww520
Isn't it what a cafe is for?

------
iterationx
I think you'd need to not provide Wi-fi or else people would just be huddled
around laptops. But then if you did that maybe no one would come? Or they'd
just use their aircard :|

------
logn
I'd like a hackerspace that's not overrun with makerbots.

------
jjsz
Note: "There was a problem with your submission. Sorry, but this form is no
longer accepting submissions."

~~~
begriffs
Thanks for pointing that out! I upgraded the account and the form should be
back up.

------
KC8ZKF
Sounds like a "Gentlemen's Club" from an Ian Fleming novel.

------
rms
If it's in San Francisco or Berkeley/Oakland...

~~~
anigbrowl
Mechanic's Institute Library. It's right around the corner from Montgomery
BART.

<http://www.milibrary.org/>

~~~
rms
I would pay a few hundred a month (or more?) if I could hold semi-private
events for 20-30 people occasionally in the evenings, but the listed hours of
9AM-5PM are uninteresting to me. Mechanics Institute still sounds neat, I'll
check it out sometime. Thanks.

------
ricardobeat
Sounds like a hackerspace without computers. I think the intersection of
people who love math, arts and sciences, but want to stay away from
technology, will be quite low.

~~~
krcz
I used to go to the library with just Kindle to get away from technology (=
distractions), so I guess it might be more popular than you assume.

~~~
ricardobeat
But would you pay for that? Besides, a "thinkerspace" would be as noisy as a
cafe.

------
anigbrowl
I would have said yes until the music part turned out to be non-technological.

