

The Freehacker's Union - jacktang
http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/the_freehackers_union.html
Do you need the UNION? and do you think "Business Is Killing The Art Of The Hack"?
======
rlm
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282731>,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309195>

~~~
andreyf
Worse than dupe: dead org. Zed hasn't posted to the mailing list since 11/26
last year, meetups kind of fell through.

~~~
apgwoz
Maybe it'll startup again with new found interest. I'm moving to NYC and would
love to start going to some of these meetupy type events.

~~~
andreyf
There was a news.yc NYC meetup, which I couldn't make it to, but I imagine was
neat :)

If you want it to be serious, I think the trick is to get people to sign up to
show cool stuff ahead of time, and advertise what people will be presenting.

If you'd like, I can help you organize (not that I have experience with that
kind of things). I'd imagine we can find a place, issue a call for
presentations, see how many responses there are, then make a site with the
list of speakers.

~~~
apgwoz
I'm not sure when exactly I'll be moving [hoping for April 1st, but I might be
commuting from Philly for a little bit since our apartment isn't getting
rented...] When I do actually move, I'll let you know. I'd love to see what we
can come up with.

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chanux
Nicely said. That very fact bothered me for a long time & now I'm happy
there's at least one in this universe who think like me.

I was unlucky that I was not there when "home brew computer club" formed.
Dammit I missed the golden age. I regret that.I really do.

I was looking for a place for me to fit in. A guy with the hacker gene. Grown
so carefully in me thanks to all those hackers lived & left their experiences
behind, on text files or whatever media. A guy who has lot of things to learn
but struggling to find people who are willing to make another hacker with
their knowledge & skills, like the real hackers who lived on this planet some
times back.

I was looking for the right place. Right place for me to grow. I went there, I
came here. No where is perfect. Maybe that's the way it is. Since the time is
changed, the hackers of new days has to build their own world like a kid
building a lego castle with pieces picked from HERE & THERE.

------
noonespecial
The postmortem

<http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-03-16.html>

------
Hexstream
"One thing I found through doing all this hardware hacking is that people who
wield a soldering iron in NYC are kind of secretive. I mean, they’re nice
enough, but they really hold their secrets close to their chest. Take sourcing
parts as an example. I would go to meetings where people showed off cool
projects they made, and ask them where they get their parts. They would just
evade the question, or tell me “digikey”, which is bullshit because I saw some
Radio Shack shit in their gear."

Why is this so?

~~~
markessien
It's like being a C programmer, and someone asks you - "How do you declare a
variable". You could try to explain, but it's not very interesting to answer
such basic questions. If you don't even know where to buy electronic parts,
you're not even at newbie level yet. You have not even started.

~~~
gamache
"Where do you get your parts?" is a lot more like "What editor do you use?"
than "How do you declare a variable?". It's cool as hell to find a parts shop
you never knew existed, or to find a useful component that Radio Shack sells,
or to find a website which sells a drop-in solution for what you need.

~~~
markessien
Not in the context that Zed is asking in. He's asking because he has no idea
what is in the devices, not because he wants to find a new store.

~~~
gamache
No, that is incorrect.

 _I’ve actually built a huge number of circuits, read tons of books and
learned how to program a PIC basic stamp. I fucking love this shit._

Then:

 _I had to do my own research and found that, no, these guys get some of their
shit from the NYU Computer Store on 242 Greene St near Washington Square Park.
It’s obvious since everyone in NYC uses Arduinos and this store has most of
the parts I’ve seen them use. That store has an entire section that’s
dedicated to hardware hacking gear, including parts, kits, tons of Arduino
components, full stamps, everything._

There is much more context and information in the original article. Zed
recognized the parts, really did just want to know where the parts came from,
and was interested to learn of the parts shop.

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raamdev
I actually joined and then attended the Boston FU meet a few times (there were
only four of us that ever showed and after a few meetings it fizzled out).
Here's something I whipped together in 30 minutes to bring to the first meet:

[http://blog.raamdev.com/2008/08/27/boston-fu-retractable-
ear...](http://blog.raamdev.com/2008/08/27/boston-fu-retractable-earbud-hack)

I love the idea behind FU and wish there were more open hacking groups around
where people could attend, even if only to watch and listen to others. I don't
necessarily have a ton of time for hacking stuff, but if I could spend an hour
or two every week looking over someone's shoulder while they make something,
or listen to someone explain their crazy ideas and then have open discussions
as a group, I think it would help everyone explore new ideas and opinions.

If not for my ridiculous schedule (working at a start-up), I'd be more
inclined to get such a group going myself.

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barrkel
It started out sort of vague (I joined the mailing list quite early), but as
it acquired definition, it seemed to be ending up excessively concentrated in
a "Zed"-like niche, i.e. the combination of scripting hacks and music /
theatre-like performances.

So I drifted away and terminated subscription, and I guess many others did the
same (and have had that impression confirmed from a couple of private emails).

~~~
nihilocrat
I think that will happen with any broadly-defined "geek" social group.

The nerd club at my college was hugely slanted towards roleplaying and anime,
so I felt sort of like an outsider caring mainly for computers and video
games. An electronics nerd would have zero fun, but then again, it was a
liberal arts college, so what do you expect?

------
simplegeek
One related question. I came across this book from the article "Making things
talk" and I kind of like it (from what I can tell by reading excerpts at
books.google.com). Can I enjoy this book and make cool programs like the one
in book if I don't have a background in Electronics? Just curious.

~~~
latrokles
Yes you can, the book will cover all the electronics stuff you will need to
build the projects it presents. I find it to be a nice intro to physical
computing stuff.

Tom Igoe, the author, co-wrote "Physical Computing" with Dan O'Sullivan, which
is a book used in NYU's ITP for teaching artists and other non-engineers about
electronics, microcontroller programming, mechanical devices, etc. So that
should give you an idea of the expectations the book has from the reader, if
you haven't done any electronics you will still enjoy it and, better yet,
learn quite a bit from it.

I also suggest you check out his site <http://tigoe.net/pcomp/> as it contains
tutorials, syllabi from his classes at NYU's ITP, and other resources.

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samueladam
> Everyone who attends has to eventually show something. If it’s your first
> night,

Reminds me of Fight Club.

Can't wait for Project Mayhem.

------
nihilocrat
"I’m finding that every geek gathering is full of asshole MBAs, groupies, and
their wannabes."

Someone please explain to me how MBAs show up at geek meetups of any
description. I would think stuff would be way too oriented away from money for
them to show up. Maybe I'm just crassly stereotyping too much.

~~~
unalone
There are different sorts of MBAs. My mother's was focused on computers and
tech, and though she's since moved out of that field, at the time she was
quite the geek.

Having an MBA doesn't make you a bad person. It's just that MBAs more than
many other degrees will attract a high proportion of the "make money and
intimidate people" crowd. That's not exclusive. I know computer scientists who
are equally clueless about what they do, but who think this degree will make
them rich.

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tomjen
Apparently, he want this to be open. I was hoping for a secret cabal since
then we could make programming mystical and perhaps attract more people.

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bryanwoods
I went to two meetings here in NYC. Met some great people and had a great time
seeing what other hackers were up to. I keep assuming all the layoffs combined
with the onset of winter were to blame for things kind of petering out. It was
a particularly weird time to keep momentum going for anything, but it'd be
nice to get together again. I'm glad some links to similar groups have been
posted, I hope to check them out.

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fizx
These things do exist everywhere. They're just invite-only.

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HSO
angry man... just ignore the mbas if they bother you. or move to california.

~~~
gamache
Yeah, California's a _great_ place for a wound-up guy who doesn't want to hang
with entrepreneurs.

