[Noisebridge-discuss] History

[lee worden]

I wonder whether Moxie is thinking of the Whole Earth Catalog Demise Party 
of 1971:

http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/1180/article/321/history.-.demise.party.etc
   A non-stop non-score volleyball game competed for loudest activity with
   balloons full of inhalable laughing gas.  And then at midnight Scott
   Beach announced from the stage that these here two hundred $100 dollar
   bills, yes, $20,000, were now the property of the party-goers. Just as
   soon as they could decide what to do with them.

   "Flush them down the toilet!" "No, don't!" "Give it to the Indians!"
   "Bangladesh!" "Our commune needs a pump or we'll all get hepatitis!" And
   so on. The debate lasted till 9 a.m. the next morning, when a dozen
   remaining hardcore turned the remaining $15,000 ($5,000 had been
   distributed to the crowd at one wild point) over to Fred Moore,
   dishwasher.

Fred Turner's excellent book traces the outcome:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html
   In the summer of 1971, Felsenstein joined Resource One, a gathering of
   former staffers from a volunteer switchboard and computer programmers
   who had left the University of California at Berkeley in protest of the
   invasion of Cambodia; Resource One was also a project partly funded by
   several thousand dollars Fred Moore had taken home from the Catalog's
   Demise Party. At Resource One, Felsenstein and others sought to
   establish public computing terminals at several locations in the Bay
   area, with an eye toward creating a peer-to-peer information exchange.

ps. Welcome back, Moxie!


On Sun, 12 Sep 2010, Moxie Marlinspike wrote:
> Cc: noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] noisebridge's birthday!
> 
>
>
> On 09/12/2010 01:02 AM, Jonathan Lassoff wrote:
>> Moxie, this sounds like a blast!
>>
>> A couple complications spring to mind:
>>
>>  - Noisebridge charging money to get in. I would think that some
>> people would object to having to pay to get in. Perhaps if there was a
>> separate, cordoned-off area, people could enjoy the space while paid
>> attendees can still be differentiated.
>
> I think this is easy enough to handle.  Since participants would need
> some kind of "voting" tool (colored cards or something else), we could
> just have people pay for that without requiring paid access to the
> entire space.
>
> Still, I'm thinking that this event would "take over" the space in other
> ways.  Since it potentially gets more interesting with the more money
> you collect, I would want to promote the fuck out of the event in order
> to get a lot of folks there.  I'm imagining a
> push-the-furniture-out-of-the-way party environment with music playing
> over a bustling crowd.  Noisebridge could even sell drinks or something
> as a fundraiser for the space.
>
>>  - Would the purchase(s) be made immediately? I would think that it
>> could be difficult to rent a bouncyhouse, band, clowns, etc. on short
>> notice.
>
> I think it depends on the purchase.  Some purchases could be made
> immediately, others would have to be delayed.  Proposals would have to
> include details on things like (for instance) where the purchased
> bouncycastle would be stored, who could use it at what time, etc.  Folks
> in London did a similar kind of experiment once and actually ended up
> purchasing a really small parcel of land outside of town, for which
> everyone who was in attendance is now like 1/200th owner of and can do
> whatever they want on.
>
> - moxie
>
>