[Noisebridge-discuss] Meeting notes 25 November 2008

David Molnar dmolnar at eecs.berkeley.edu
Thu Nov 27 08:17:41 UTC 2008


This is the first in a series of belated meeting notes. Apologies for
the delay. Hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving. As always, if
anyone sees things that are wrong, misleading, mistaken, etc. please let
me know via e-mail or on the list. I will wikify once there's been time
for corrections.

0) Introductions
* We had a round of introductions, everyone is cool.

1) Hologlyphic Art Project
* Walter Funk continued discussion from last meeting about potential
grant application in collaboration with Noisebridge
* Grant would be for materials and time to create Hologlyphics, total
$30K, gives $20K to Walter, $10K to Noisebridge, period of 2 years
* Grant _must_ be in conjunction with nonprofit; Letter of intent due on
3 December (next Wednesday)
* Full proposal due in March, Walter willing to do all or almost all
work here
* Walter has talked to fiscal sponsor and funder, both are encouraging
* Showed awesome demo of monochrome version of Hologlyphics
* Several people went to see demo at ACCRC, unfortunately none at
meeting tonight
* Discussion of technical aspects of Hologlyphics, including ability to
accurately account for interocular distances, ability to view from
multiple perspectives, etc.
* Walter wants some collaboration on building, but major collaboration
will come in doing art with the finished product. Goal is something
artists can use without needing to program. Noisebridge good fit because
tech and art focus.
* Walter wants to do live 3D performance
* Mikael has algebraic geometry ideas already!
* Walter notes tesseract demos, difficulty of visualizing 4D things in
2D, 3D is much more helpful
* Someone (Steen?) notes would be awesome to use in dance club
* Mitch in favor, has to leave early, believes we can decide since
discussion opened last week
* Why can't this be done as just a plain old Noisebridge member project?
Answer: grant needs to be done "in collaboration with", Walter can't
technically be a member.
* What are the responsibilities for people not directly involved in the
project?
* Walter points out he has deep technical skills, access to other
artists' studios, e.g. artist with neon sculpture. Walter will not
unduly inconvenience with demands for help.
* Andy concerned about legal responsibilities of Noisebridge, overhead
in applying for grants. No need for the money on Noisebridge's side, we
are making rent + utilities out of dues.
* Andy emphasizes it's a cool project, just concerned about structure.
* Shannon happy with the collaboration but wants a Noisebridge member to
be a point person.
* Andy would be interested but he is too busy to take on new project.
* Someone suggests Daniela S. as point person; David M. suggests we not
give her the position in her absence.
* Jake points out agenda item is about discussion, not about making
decision, may be best to have focused item on "let's make a decision"
* David M. asks about letter of intent draft, even though point person
not known yet. Walter willing to write draft and use it to inform member
discussion, will have to anyway since not a good idea to write such a
letter the night before. Because Noisebridge cannot guarantee consensus
on going forward, writing is a risk for Walter but he is willing to take.

* Consensus: Walter will find a Noisebridge member to be point person
for the collaboration. Next week will have an agenda item specifically
about deciding to go forward with letter of intent or not. Noisebridge
can not guarantee discussion there will go in favor of going forward,
but Walter is willing to write a potential intent letter to inform
discussion.

2) Noisebridge Thanksgiving
* Star and Skye offered to make vegan Thanksgiving in the space
(Thank you, Star and Skye!!)
* Offer conditional on people showing up to actually eat
* Quick check - does anyone not already have plans?
* Few to none of the members present were free on Thanksgiving
* Shannon Clarke indicated he has a big Thanksgiving thing underway
already, happy to host Noisebridgers. Talk to Shannon Clarke.
* Possibility of holiday celebrations later?

* Consensus: Great idea, but no one will be present. So no Noisebridge
Thanksgiving this year.

3) Donated rack server for NB use inquiry
* Opportunity to get ridiculously beefy rack servers (quad xeon, 16GB
RAM, gig ethernet, tons of disk, etc.)
* Would fit in upstairs server closet
* Main downside: loud, at least if you sleep near them (as Verbal does).
* Shannon Clarke suggests modifying to make less loud.
* Hackable? Yes.
* Can we destroy them? Best if not.
* Discussion of the "no strings attached, no takebacks, no conditions"
policy for donations.
* Someone states strongly do not want a shell host in the space, will
eat up all available bandwidth
* Jake asks if we can have donated hosting instead of/addition to
donated hardware?
* Verbal: we can talk about it
* Other person who graciously offered the server but whose name escapes
me: we have some extra bandwidth, can talk about it, can't give you a
full gig

* Consensus: bring a server to the space as a personal project, we will
see if noise is an issue, use is an issue.

4) Junk discussion
* David Fine is doing a junk run to ACCRC
* This week only: the "outbox" will be cardboard boxes under the kitchen
  food presentation table.
* David Fine will e-mail discuss with exact time of pickup. Likely next
Tuesday.
* ACCRC has money problems, everyone please donate if you can
* How bad is it for ACCRC? Bad.

* Consensus: There will be an ACCRC pickup, time TBA but probably next
Tuesday.

5) Alcohol Redistribution
* There is a lot of Budweiser in the fridge
* Where did the Bud come from? No one knows. There when we got here?
* Steen would like to remove the Budweiser, make room for other stuff
* Some possibilities for dealing with Budweiser: launching into air,
leaving out in alleyway (please don't actually do that), trashing
* Does anyone want the Budweiser? No.
* Discussion about how we should not waste fridge space on bad beer

* Consensus: no more Budweiser in the space, please.
* Consensus: Steen can dispose of the current Bud as he sees fit.

6) Membership Hiatus
* Mikael notes he will be away from Bay Area for a long time, he also
has cash flow issues and cannot justify full dues for periods when not
present, even "starving hacker" rate.
* Mikael would like a process for members to go "on hiatus": pay reduced
membership fee during periods when not present at space, have
streamlined "re-activation" process when back
* Shannon offers to sign Mikael's application for admission as a "new"
member when he gets back, so Mikael can resign or lapse membership now,
then re-apply with sponsor on return.
* Jake is going away too, but still paying full dues
* Some discussion of models: be a "supporting member" for $13.37/mo,
Harvard Club of NYC model where dues depend on distance from home to
club, others? No consensus on the right model.
* David M. notes current state of affairs is that members _can_ be
removed for reason of dues non payment, but no mechanism exists for
member garbage collection on account of non payment
* Quinn congratulates David M. on the value judgment in the term
"garbage collection"
* David M. does not get it, what value judgment?
* Issue is real, needs further work, probably by a team to come up with
a draft process for discussion/adoption. Mikael nominated by David M.,
others to lead the Hiatus Team, graciously accepts. (Thank you, Mikael!)
* Someone (Skory?) volunteers to join Mikael on team.
* Jokes about "The Hiatus Team is still on Hiatus."
* Consensus: Hiatus Team will meet separately, work out a process for
discussion, and submit process at future meeting.


7) Member Candidate Names
[Please correct spelling!]

Joe LaPenna
Jeffrey Marlowe (ieatlint)
Matthew Borgati

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20081127/de518e8f/attachment-0002.sig>


More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list