HacDC

In case some of you hadn't noticed the payphone is back up and working. Thanks Serge.

That's (202) 870-5002, by the way.

I want to send my thanks to everyone who attended the OSM party yesterday. Russ said that
it was the best attended event he's seen and also the most enthusiastic, so great job to
everyone.

I also want to give a quick "Hi!" to all the people I met at the event who are lurking on
the blabber list- we had a lot of people who're on blabber hadn't yet stopped by.

A few of the folks from the local mapping community (Kate, Kate and Andrew) are
interested in making a more regular mapping event. I'll be getting the list of atendees

Join us for another HacDC movie night!

When: 8 p.m. on Friday, 26 June 2009

Where: 1525 Newton St. NW, Washington, DC 20010

As always, this event is free and open to the public, but we're asking you to RSVP via Eventbrite. Your RSVP will help us determine whether to hold this screening in our smaller space or in the church's large sanctuary area, so please let us know if you plan to come; we'll publicize the exact location by the morning of the 26th. Everyone is welcome!

Sita Sings the Blues

Directed, written, produced, designed and animated by Nina Paley; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License; 82 minutes; Animation; Color, stereo; 2008

Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

On July 7 at 7:00PM, HacDC and DorkbotDC will together sponsor an event with a very innovative and interesting local musician, Keith Sinzinger.

Sinzinger goes under the performance name Fast Forty. He calls his genre of music Intense Ambient: "found sounds, altered electronics, scrap metal and other devices, blended to soothe and stimulate." His music is anchored by homemade tubular bells which he plays and routes through various audio effect processors.

He is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and his music reflects the industrial sounds of the Ford plant and the railroads of his early surroundings.

At HacDC and Dorkbot, he will explain how he conceived of, researched and constructed the tubular bells, and will then offer a demonstration of their sounds. The audience will also be able to play them afterwards.

Below one can listen to a full set of his from a recent Sonic Circuits performance, posted by District of Noise. Also see his MySpace site for more information.

Where: HacDC (1525 Newton St NW, Washington, D.C.)
Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Time: 7:00PM

Do you wish you had truly universal communication device? A device that is a cell phone and can connect using GPRS, 802.11 Wi-Fi, 802.16 WiMax, a satellite hookup or any emerging standard, as well as GPS, GLONASS or both?

The HacDC has started a fundraising campaign to acquire a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRPv2) from Ettus Research.

Some projects that the USRP can be used for:

• RFID reader
• RF Test Equipment
• Cellular base station
• GPS receiver
• FM radio receiver
• FM radio transmitter
• Digital television decoder
• Passive radar
• An amateur radio

HacDC will use the USRPv2 to research Radio Frequency (RF) / Software Radio! / Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and open up classes and teach these subjects to the DC community. As always our classes and study groups our free and open to the public, so donate, join (www.hacdc.org) and help build a new RF / software radio group in DC!

DONATE HERE: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/4801

Below are the details of the USRPv2 from Ettus’ website:

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral product family allows you to create a software radio using any computer with a USB2 or Gigagbit ethernet port. Various plug-on daughterboards allow the USRP and USRP2 to be used on different radio frequency bands. Daughterboards are available from DC to 5.9 GHz at this time. The entire design of the USRP family is open source.

The USRP and USRP2 work with GNU Radio, a free-software (open source) framework for the creation of software defined radios. GNU Radio works on all of the following operating systems:

* Linux
* Windows
* Max OS X, PPC and Intel processors
* FreeBSD and NetBSD

Picture below available via carrierdetect under Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution license:

Check it out here. Their main working page is here and their organizational mailing list is here.

If you live in the Baltimore area and are interested in hackerspaces, you may want to help get them organized and off the ground. We at HacDC wish them well.

Want to make fun GPS toys, but need a base map? Don't like Google Maps'
terms and conditions? Come learn about OpenStreetMap, a free and open map
of the world editable like a wiki.

When: June 20th, from 9am to 5pm
Where: HacDC, in the Auditorium and Main Space

The rapid deployment of robotics platforms and systems within the military represents one of the most important present-day political and technological developments. Bestselling author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Peter W. Singer has written a new book about this "robotics revolution" entitled Wired for War, a broad ethical and technological look at the subject.

On Tuesday, June 2 at 7:30PM, HacDC, a "hackerspace" and creative technology collaborative in downtown Washington D.C., will host a talk and discussion with Dr. Singer. Singer has recently discussed the book on The Daily Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and has been traveling the country presenting his findings to audiences of civilians, military personnel, and technology industry workers. As a neutral meeting-place open to engineers, technology hobbyists, and policy analysts, HacDC is an ideal location to discuss the significant ethical and political questions raised by the acceleration of military robotics. Many HacDC members build robots themselves and have a good feeling for the technological possibilities, especially in terms of offensive capabilities that technologies with off-the-shelf components might offer amateurs and small groups.

This event will be free and open to the public, and there is no need to RSVP. HacDC is several blocks away from the Columbia Heights metro station and is located in St. Stephen's Church at 1525 Newton St NW. The event will be held in the large church sanctuary space. For more details, contact Todd Fine at tdfine@gmail.com or (857) 234-0920.

Where: HacDC (1525 Newton St NW, Washington, D.C.)
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Time: 7:30PM

Also, see Singer's appearance last week on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson:

Come join HacDC for a viewing of Freedom Downtime, the documentary film made by Emmanuel Goldstein and 2600 Films about Kevin Mitnick.

This film is in direct response to the Miramax film Takedown, where the filmmakers feel that Kevin Mitnick and the hacker community are misrepresented. In this film, the filmakers search out the makers of that film a la Roger & Me as well as interview famous members of the hacker community.

When: Friday, May 22nd 8pm

Where: HacDC Main Space

This event is Free and Open to the Public!

Wednesday, May 20th is the world celebration of Metrology Day, in commemoration of the same day in 1875 at the signing of the treaty between 17 nations to agree on a common set of measurement units.

Today most nations of the world use the Metric system, enjoying not only the interoperability that it provides, but the far simpler math required to make unit conversions.