HacDC

Regardless of your political leanings, for most of us with scientific/technical training and/or leanings, the trend over most of the last decade in government towards science has been challenging.  From the way that global climate change science has been treated to how evolution and ecology are handled in the classroom, politics has been placed over science in a way that has significantly inhibited the ability of the government to leverage scientific approaches to solve the problems of our time.  There is a great op-ed piece over at the NY Times by Olivia Judson (an evolutionary biologist hers

BIRTHING HYDRA: Growing the Hacker Community The first in a series of conversations on community building in the Hacker Community in Washington DC and beyond!  Part of HacDC's Grand Opening Week. The great resurgence in community building on the part of the greater hacker community over the past 10 years is not coincidental. Responsibility lies in parallel influences including a generation raised on the hacker ethos established by the Boomer generation, the precipitous decline of the price point for entry level experimentation and prototyping, more than two generations of obsolescent technology ripe for the hacking, and the perennial motivation to showcase and compete in the meritocracy of inventors and artisans that characterize a Western approach to innovation and political activism. Hardware hacker communities are by necessity meat space phenomena, dealing as they do with chunks of matter and not just the electrons and code that the software hacker communities have condensed around. Join representatives from DC's Make:*, Dorkbot*, and Hac* organizations in the first of a series of talks aimed at defining the best way to use each organization's mission to grow the region's burgeoning community in a synergistic manner.

(OK, so maybe that wasn't their first thought when producing this video...but we still need to obtain a video camera somehow, some way.) Can you donate a prosumer video camera to HacDC so we can make our own promo videos and film our events? E-mail info@hacdc.org or Make A Donation! [vimeo 1307809 Metalab Promo Video]

(Please distribute widely to interested parties!) The Washington DC Area has a Hacker Space: HacDC. We have a space, tools, equipment, donated resources and a growing crop of enthusiastic participants who are ready to launch the organization. We've seen the need for a space to collaborate on all forms of technology, culture and craft in new and interesting ways. That space is now a reality. The response from the community proves it's sustainable.

"TechShop is a fully-equipped open-access workshop and creative environment that lets you drop in any time and work on your own projects at your own pace.  It is like a health club with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment...or a Kinko's for geeks. " This sounds a lot like what I envisioned for HacDC, except we add on the proviso that projects are oriented towards public benefit purposes.  Can we pursue both goals?  Discuss! http://techshop.ws