Meeting Notes 2011 05 03
Agenda
The 159th Meeting of Noisebridge
Note-taker: Seth
Moderator: Rachel M
Introduction and Names
- What Noisebridge is about: "Noisebridge is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides a space for creation, collaboration, and learning about technology and creative projects. Noisebridge provides space, power tools, and infrastructure to help the public learn new skills and create cool things. Noisebridge continues to exist through and depends entirely on membership fees and donations. Our code of conduct is 'Be excellent to each other'."
- Round of introductions: What's your name, what do you do, and if you are new, how did you hear about Noisebridge? Start with the moderator and go left.
- A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you! Only paid-up members can block consensus.
Announcements
We have t-shirts and stickers! (Lots of them!)
Q. What are we going to do with them at Maker Faire?
A. Let's take all of them to the Faire and see if we can get rid of all of them there! The world of geekdom will descend upon Maker Faire before, during, and after the Faire.
Financial Report
Funds in bank: $13,871.86. This is a little bit low but it's the beginning of the month and we just paid rent, so it's not too bad.
Generally we now have $10,000 in the savings account and use about $5,000 as operating expenses, but we had to dip into the savings account to deal with the purchases of t-shirts and stickers. But we were able to restore that quickly.
Q. Can we invest money in a CD?
A. Actually, the t-shirts and stickers are a much better investment for Noisebridge right now. Interest rates are low but we get good returns in practice from shirts and stickers. We have made $1.10 in interest on our savings account.
Jared deposited $236 from the vending machine. Thanks!
Samsung is now manufacturing a Sidekick 4G running Android with a super great keyboard. Noisebridge isn't going to get one but the treasurer likes them a whole lot.
Membership Binder
- Read off any names from the binder for the past month.
- Anyone up for join this week should introduce themselves then leave the area in search of gifts (traditionally beer and a lime) for the rest of the group. The rest of the meeting should consense on whether they may join.
What's Going On at Noisebridge
One short sentence about each of the following:
This is the active list of events from the main page:
Event Calendar
events are haphazardly cross-posted on Meetup, the Discord, and Google Calender here
Some noisebridger's have also started hosting Events from a calendar at https://noisebridge.today/, and new (additional) associated gCal.
Key:
W: Weekly |
1st 2nd 3rd 4th: Certain weeks |
-2nd: Except certain weeks |
S: Streaming |
event: caution maybe dead |
event: management of space
Upcoming Events
Mondays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| W | 7:00pm | Meetups/Infra | Self-hosting, rough consensus, & running code. Find upcoming sessions on Meetup or in #meetup-infra on Discord. |
| W | 7:00pm | Circuit Hacking Monday | Learn electronics, Arduino, and/or how to solder! We have kits and Arduinos for donations, or bring your own project. Most Mondays at 7PM. More details on Meetup |
| W | you-o-clock | TRASH NIGHT | Please take out all three large trash bins!! They are on the patio. |
Tuesdays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| W S | 5:00pm | Premeeting Social Story Time | Noisebridge's excellence, do-ocracy, and consensus are inspired by anarchism and a rich lore of lessons learned. Meet members, learn about membership, share ideas, ask anything and question everything! |
| W S | 7:00pm | Noisebridge Weekly Meeting | (In person & online via Jitsi) - Introduce new people and events, joining, announcements, discussions, and consensus. Come express what you think about what's going on with your space! |
| W | 7:00pm | San Francisco Writers Workshop | Free drop-in writers workshop, get feedback and critique! Located on the first floor hackitorium. |
Wednesdays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| W S | 5:00pm - 7:00pm | Tablebridge | tabletop gaming & hobbying for playing and designing boardgames, RPGs, wargames and mini painting hobbying. |
| W | 6:00pm - 9:00pm | Woodhacking Wednesday | "Have a woodworking project in mind but you don't know where to get started? This is a good time to come ask questions, get some help, and ideas from other woodworkers. Everyone is welcome..." Confirm dates with Meetup |
| W S | 7:00pm - 9:00pm | Gamebridge | game development mentoring & coworking meetup for gamedev beginners and indies alike.
|
Thursdays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 7:00pm - 10:00pm | Indiebridge Showcase Throwdown Thursdays | Indie Game Showcases & Game Tournaments for casual-friendly competition in console & PC games like Smash Brothers, Halo, Quake, Marathon, etc. |
| 2nd | 6:00pm-8:00pm | Tablebridge | Tablebridge tabletop gaming & design (board/card/miniature/rpg/party/ARG/etc). |
| 2nd | 8:00pm - 9:30pm | DC415 | Defcon 415 Security on 2nd Thursdays: Informal meetup group about all things security related. |
| 3rd S | 6:00pm-8:00pm | Ten Minutes of Game a.k.a. 10MoG | Five 10min talks in an hour and discussions on any gaming/gamedev topic |
| 3rd S | 8:00pm - 9:00pm | Five Minutes of Fame a.k.a. 5MoF | Ten 5min talks in an hour, on any topic |
| 4th S | 6:00pm-8:00pm | Songbridge | Music making meetup & mentoring for electronic and experimental music, soundtracks, VJing, music videos |
| Mar 26 8:30pm - 11:30pm | School of Melee Workshop Tournament | Super Smash Melee Self Improvement Workshop & Tournament: Learn to master Super Smash Melee with expert mentors LanTurN & Megaman and test what you've learned in a tournament! | |
| 4th S | 8:00pm - 10:30pm | Resident Electronic Music | An electronic music open mic! |
| W | you-o-clock | TRASH NIGHT | Please take out all three large trash bins!! They are on the patio. |
Fridays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| W | 9:00am - 5:00pm | Hack on Noisebridge! | a good open time for cleaning 'n re-organizing the physical space. Coffee and Donuts on a first-come first-served basis! See #facilities-aka... channel on the Discord |
Saturdays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2:00pm - 5:00pm | Unitybridge Unity Meetup | Learn Unity and cowork with fellow indies using it |
| 2nd | 2:00pm - 5:00pm | Unrealbridge Unreal Meetup | Learn Unreal and cowork with fellow indies using it |
| W | 12pm-2pm | Robotics Meetup | Co-hack on robotics with us. Work on our group projects, or bring your own. No robotics experience required. |
| 3rd | 2:00pm - 6:00pm | Godot Meetup | Gamedev workshop & networking for users of the Godot game engine. |
| 4th | 2:00pm - 5:00pm | Graphicsbridge graphics & engine coding meetup | Custom graphics & engine development meetup & mentoring |
| 4th | 1:00pm - 3:00pm | Building Guitar Pedals Workshop | Come build guitar pedals or other electronic music equipment! Look for the #pedal-building channel under #events in the discord. Check the Meetup for more info and confirmed dates. |
| 4th | 4:00pm - 7:00pm | Decentralized Web | Presentations and networking for those interested in weaving a decentralized web. |
| W | 8pm | Noisebridge Cinema! |
Sundays
| Tags | Time | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| W | 12:00pm - 1:30pm | 3D Printing Class | Learn how to use a 3D printer |
| W | 2:00pm - 4:00pm | Laser Cutter safety training | Get certified to use the laser cutter (limited availability) |
| 2nd | 2:00pm - 3:00pm | Fabrication 101 2nd Wood Shop Sundays | class on safety and basic techniques |
| W | 4:00pm - 8:00pm | Spacebridge Weekly Meeting | Noisebridge's resident space program. Meetup page. (Sometimes we watch a politically-related movie around 7:30) |
Other Bay Area Consortium of Hackerspaces Events
- Queerious Labs is open during limited times, check it's status
- SudoRoom: Women & Non-Binary Coding Mondays 7-9pm
- SudoRoom: Hardware Hacking Tuesdays 7-10pm
Non-weekly
- Second Saturdays are Noisebridge hackathon:
a casual monthly event dedicated to working on the space or relevant projects and building community. This is a great time to get feedback or help on any projects you have been considering that center around the space, culture, and infrastructure of Noisebridge. You can also help with existing projects and find out ways to get involved.
- Five Minutes of Fame
- Bay Area Hackers Association - (Second Sunday, 2PM)
Project Updates
Controlling music playback in the space from your smartphone or other computer
It's now very easy using any smartphone, by downloading any mpd client, to control the two music receivers that we have here and to control the music playback from your phone. You can also get mpd clients for your computer and control the music when you are in the space!
Fixed TV
Zack fixed the 42-inch TV and it could be placed onto a table with wheels and display various things and kinds of information while people are doing projects. It can take two simultaneous inputs in split-screen mode. Ideally there will be a computer attached to it and maybe a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Q. What inputs?
A. DVI up to 720p and 1080a. Two component, two composite inputs, S-video.
Q. Make a wiki page and an nburl for the wiki page and put a label on it.
A. Sure, please help me do this!
Q. What is the brand?
A. Gateway.
Q. What will the TV be called?
A. Per the treasurer, NBTV!
The TV is now called "NBTV". See [1]
It will perhaps have two computers to control the two computer inputs.
Hacker in residence
Mitch has been talking with Paul about having a hacker in residence. He is a grantwriter. He is proposing to write a grant proposal to have a hacker in residence.
Someone will sign this grant proposal and then it will be an actual proposal on behalf of Noisebridge.
Consensus items
(Add any new items for consensus to the Current Consensus Items page.)
Discussion Items
Noisebridge administering grants
Open source research under Noisebridge's ægis.
Can Noisebridge administer grants to let individuals get funding to work on open source projects? E.g., Jason, who has a specific open source project that he wants to get a grant to work on, to be administered by Noisebridge.
The money would presumably get paid to Noisebridge and it would be earmarked for paying a particular person to work on a particular thing in the name of Noisebridge. Publications about this would be done with a Noisebridge affiliation.
This does create responsibility for Noisebridge and reputational risk. Our bylaws permit this but we have never done it before.
In this case Jason would promise to make his work open source.
It's not clear who would do what and whether consensus is required.
Q. What is the procedure for the treasurer to be given earmarked funds, such as a grant for a specific purpose?
A. Send the treasurer an e-mail describing the nature, date, and amount of the transaction.
Q. But what will Noisebridge do in order to fulfill its obligations to administer the grant properly, to ensure that we comply with our obligations under the grant and as a non-profit organization? We need to keep track of this for tax reasons, among other things.
A. The treasurer will track the amount and purpose of the money allocated and expended for these purposes.
Q. Doesn't Noisebridge get some obligation to monitor what Jason does and that the purpose of the grant is fulfilled? What kind of oversight will Noisebridge exercise?
A. Yes. We could have a consensus item that says that we'll go forward with this and that one of our officers has volunteered to be the contact person and to perform the oversight, including an obligation for Jason to report on his progress.
We think that the consensus item would be to administer the grant.
Q. Does this need consensus?
A. Not sure, but we will proceed as a consensus item for now. We will also ask Paul for advice.
End of Meeting
- PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
- Put back the membership binder by the Shrine.
- Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
- Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
- Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
- Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.