[Noisebridge-discuss] draft of Signal to Noise, a NB newsletter
Shannon Lee
shannon at scatter.com
Wed Jan 5 19:55:14 UTC 2011
Seems to me that the ideal way to handle this is a well-structured wiki,
where the editorial process could be fairly open, and discussion of each
piece can take place on the talk pages...?
--S
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 1:12 AM, Danny O'Brien <danny at spesh.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 8:22 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> are you the editor? i.e. do stringers send you
>> their drafts?
>>
>>
> I think so. I am trying to work out how to share the workload a bit,
> because while obviously I have a bit of a crush on noisebridge right now, I
> want this to be sustainable and I don't want to burn out (also I have both a
> daughter and a job that are sometimes intense and take me away -- I am in NY
> next week for example, and may be in Bangkok for a bunch of February). I am
> often prone to slacking off.
>
> What I am thinking now is an editorial alias -- say
> noiserat at noisebridge.net, which goes to YET ANOTHER MAILING LIST. I'll
> mail rack at noisebridge.net about setting this up. That means I'm not the
> only one seeing stuff go by, and we can swap people in and out, as long as
> somebody knows who is in charge.
>
> I do not know what the right frequency for this is. I have some time on the
> flight tomorrow and so can swap in some of the stuff in the current draft
> issues and put new stuff in. We should probably do one next week to plug the
> elections/membership meeting.
>
> I can take the bulk of the editing/writing for now, until the format
> stabilises. I am shitty at sub-editing (proofing) though, and it's always
> good to have people submit ideas and people who they think should be
> interviewed or such!
>
> d.
>
>
>>
>> On Tue, 2011-01-04 at 17:06 -0800, Danny O'Brien wrote:
>> > Briefly, my sense talking and polling people right now is that there's
>> > a huge amount of activity going on in and around Noisebridge that
>> > people (and the public) don't know about and is not easily
>> > discoverable. (Also that the NB community is now far larger and more
>> > diverse than it used to be, which means the time and resources need to
>> > maintain one-to-one conversations with everyone to maintain social
>> > coherence and spread news and mutually groom one another's silverback
>> > pelts and prevent [or at least adequately publicise] HUGE FIST FIGHTS
>> > is growing steadily greater. If this was a TED talk I'd start
>> > bullshitting about Dunbar numbers, but this is nb-discuss so you would
>> > start throwing PBR cans at my head, so I won't.)
>> >
>> > Anyway, at last week's meeting I mused that one way to help fix this
>> > would be to have a regular Noisebridge newsletter, which would pull in
>> > some of the threads of this larger social group, and have a simple way
>> > for everyone to keep in touch with what's going on, and feel a warm
>> > glow of self-regard at being in with all the in shit, and thing.
>> >
>> > Below is my first stab at this. I went around the mailing lists,
>> > talked to people, interviewed one Noisebridger at length, and then
>> > through it all into an old ASCII email newslettter format I happen to
>> > have around (some of you may know I co-wrote http://www.ntk.net/ a
>> > decade ago. Yeah, I dusted that off. Kill me)
>> >
>> > The content is pretty much what I could imagine writing every
>> > fortnight with some help. It certainly wasn't hard to find cool stuff
>> > that noisebridgers do; it was harder to decide what not to put in. I
>> > didn't spend much time on formatting nor tone or voice (ie this is the
>> > special No Actual Jokes edition), because that takes a while to get
>> > right and for this first go I wanted to concentrate on purest content.
>> > It's very rough though.
>> >
>> > I'm sending this one out only to noisebridge-discuss for your comments
>> > and criticisms. In the real world, it would go out to nb-announce. I
>> > want whatever finally goes out there to that to be sustainable long
>> > term however. Realise that if you're a regular nb-discuss reader you
>> > probably know much of this, but there are plenty of people who do not
>> > (most NBers I've spoken to don't know that the financial mess is not
>> > so dreadful these days, for instance.)
>> >
>> > My acute self-criticism is at the bottom of it, under the ASCII <HR>
>> > tag. I welcome comments, yeah even from you.
>> >
>> >
>> > ============
>> >
>> >
>> > .-'`-. Signal
>> > z !/| To Noise
>> > z !\| V11.010000000(Beta)-rc7
>> > `-'`- 2011-01-04
>> >
>> > In this issue:
>> > > NOISEBRIDGE SAVED FROM REPO BOTS
>> > > THEY CAME FOR OUR TEA ROOM
>> > > HEART SPARKS AND TRON GUYS
>> > > DISTILLING NEURAL NETWORKS INTO BRAIN BROTH
>> > > HUMAN OF NOISEBRIDGE OF THE MONTH:
>> > > Meredith Scheff-King is ALL SCARF, ALL THE TIME
>> >
>> > >>> NEWS: NB NO LONGER DIVIDING BY ZERO
>> >
>> > This February, Noisebridge will not disappear in a white hole of
>> > debt, anguish and sheet rock dust. You all stepped up, and in a few
>> > weeks we went from having little cartoon flies buzzing out of the
>> > cartoon wallet, to touching the rim of our canonical hackerspace
>> > float of three months costs in advance ($15K).
>> >
>> > Noisebridge has historically paid its bills with about 2/3rds from
>> > membership dues, and the rest from casual donations. We're mostly
>> > fixed the overdue dues problem thanks to Kelly's excellent financial
>> > forensics, but Noisebridge is still prone to economic boom-bust on
>> > the rand()*(donations) front.
>> >
>> > A lot of you drop a few bucks in the box when you come by, and thank
>> > you, you're awesome. But just as you don't have to a member of
>> > Noisebridge to use the space for whatever, you don't have to be a
>> > full member to make a pre-programme regular donation. Turn those few
>> > bucks into a monthly electronci payment of just $10 or $20, and
>> > you'll always have a Gentlemen And Ladies Space Within Which To Hack.
>> > Plus less of this irregular NPR-style pledge-drive spazzing. Go on!
>> > Do it! IT'S JUST MONEY. YOU'D ONLY WASTE IT ON OIL.
>> >
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Donate_or_Pay_Dues
>> > - We'll give you Ira Glass's perineum in a totebag if you give us a
>> fifty
>> > http://cha-ching.noisebridge.net/
>> > - mfb broke into our PayPal account and wrote a script at it
>> > http://j.mp/tenbridge
>> > - $10 dude! You pay more than that in dropbox or Ritual or watercress
>> > or something!
>> >
>> > >>> STUFF THAT GOT DONE
>> >
>> > ULTRASTRUCTURE
>> >
>> > Noisebridge's Scanning Electron Microscope is getting better
>> > every day: Mike and Andy got it working up to 20,000x.
>> > Schematics and pics uploaded to:
>> > http://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/SEM
>> >
>> > THE TEA ROOM is no more! Zed and Shannon went on a
>> > stairs-constructing rampage and constructed a space you can
>> > walk up to, on your legs. It still works for tea drinking.
>> >
>> > That BUILD-OUT MESS by the touch-panel was magicked away
>> > into the Even Darker Room (aka the Scott Memorial Storage
>> > Room). The ADA BATHROOM got grab-bars c/o Miloh!
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/File:Noisebridge_map.png
>> >
>> > ELLIPTICALLY ORBITING PROJECTS
>> >
>> > Eric and Chung-Hay of Sensebridge launched their HEART SPARK
>> > heatbeat-sensitive necklace to universal Internets acclaim!
>> > Eric's in Toronto now, hanging out with our hacklab.to
>> > sisters, but C-H is still about, and working on new
>> > projects, including a heartbeat scarf. Scarfs are cool.
>> > http://sensebridge.net/projects/heart-spark/
>> > http://bunnymeetsbean.blogspot.com/
>> >
>> > MC Hawking, the wheelchair robot, now has an embedded PC for
>> > a brain, and is possibly conspiring with our IRC noisebot.
>> > He is actually deadly.
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noise-Bot
>> >
>> > Sean made a Tron suit out of 190 proper LEDs and not boring
>> > EL wire like you thought. He's like Tron Guy : Legacy!
>> > http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-lit-Tron-v20-suit/
>> > (From the Cyborg list:
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/cyborg )
>> >
>> > >>> INCOMING
>> >
>> > All the usual events at
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Events plus:
>> >
>> > > Sean's Distillation Class
>> > Wednesday, January 5th @ 7PM
>> >
>> > "I'll teach you how a still works, go over some options for 'rolling
>> > your own', and the best part of the whole thing? We'll actually
>> > distill something, and try the results! Plan on the class lasting
>> > about 2 hours."
>> >
>> > > Neural Net Workshop!
>> > Wednesday, January 26, 2011
>> >
>> > Mike Schachter says: the Machine Learning group at Noisebridge wants
>> > to teach you! We're holding a workshop on constructing and using
>> > neural networks, to raise Neural Network Awareness (NNA) and money
>> > for Noisebridge. Bring laptops!
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Neural_Network_Workshop
>> >
>> > > Noisebridge Book Club!
>> >
>> > Miah implies without explicitly stating: "I'm starting a NB book club
>> > on Goodreads. We can be virtual or have actual meetings":
>> > http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/41745.Noisebridge_Book_Club
>> >
>> > >>> HUMAN OF NOISEBRIDGE OF THE FORTNIGHT
>> >
>> > MEREDITH SCHEFF-KING won the Awesome Foundation's monthly $1000 award
>> > for her proposal to make 30 scarves in January. Signal to Noise
>> > caught her attacking her third scarf in the space, and plagued her
>> > with dumb questions:
>> >
>> > > So is this three scarfs of the day or one you're making right now?
>> >
>> > It's one; the scarf of today is reconfigurable with one or two or three
>> > free-floating sections.
>> >
>> >
>> > > Are you planning out the whole month beforehand, or are you taking
>> > it one scarf at a time?
>> >
>> > Well, I went into it with more than thirty scarf ideas, but
>> > ultimately I'm making them one at a time. I don't want to plan too
>> > far ahead. I work better spontaneously.
>> >
>> > > How much your time are you setting aside for this?
>> >
>> > All of it. I'm not doing much else but making scarves this month. At
>> some
>> > point I'm going to have to get groceries, I guess.
>> >
>> > > Okay, I have to ask. Why scarves?
>> >
>> > I love warm, fuzzy things. I'm sort of a chilly person. I grew up in
>> > the Central Valley, where it's over 100 degrees a lot of the time, so
>> > it's always cold by comparison. And I like making art that I wear.
>> > With a lot of my work, like the cartooning or the construction you
>> > don't know if anyone sees the end result. It might be that noone sees
>> > it.
>> >
>> > > But if you're wearing, you get to see the reaction?
>> >
>> > Yes! Also, people know what they're seeing. It's not like an artwork
>> > where you have to explain to the audience what they're seeing first.
>> > They already know it's a scarf. They know what it's supposed to do.
>> >
>> > > I saw that you were agonising on your Twitter stream about keeping two
>> craft
>> > centers, one at your home and one at Noisebridge. Where do you think
>> you're
>> > going to spend most of your time this month?
>> >
>> > Well, this is scarf three, and the first one I'm making at NB. It
>> > gets lonely making stuff at home. I'm very distractable, but it's
>> > easier to avoid that here, strangely. Like, I can choose not to bring
>> > my computer here, but I can't *not* have it at my apartment.
>> >
>> > > Does it help you finish a project when you have a clear goal like
>> this?
>> >
>> > A bit. Mainly, though, it's the publicity that encourages you to keep
>> > going. When the Awesome Foundation mailed me I'd won the award for
>> > January, I'd actually almost forgotten I'd applied. And then they
>> > told me all the blogs and people that they'd already told. I was like
>> > "uh-oh, I guess I'd better actually do this". Then of course, the
>> > economics of taking a month off for $1K doesn't work out, so I
>> > started a Kickstarter project to get the rest of the money, and I
>> > thought "Whoa, now I really *really* have to do this."
>> >
>> > I guess it sounds kind of bad, but I do like it when my projects do
>> > the rounds on the Internet. Like the Northskirt -- that was such a
>> > lot of work, and so is this. It makes me happy to know people see it.
>> >
>> > > Do you know where you're going to show all the scarves yet?
>> >
>> > Actually, no -- I haven't had a moment of time away from scarves to
>> > call around galleries.
>> >
>> > (Miloh shouts from the kitchen that Meredith's rice is boiling.
>> > Finally distracted, she runs off to grab five precious minutes of
>> > non-scarf scarfing.)
>> >
>> > Meredith's Kickstarter project is here:
>> >
>> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/668017121/scarf-a-day-a-scarf-everyday-in-january/
>> >
>> >
>> > ============
>> >
>> > Okay, that's that. My self-criticisms/thinking aloud:
>> >
>> > I finished this last night, and when I read the nb-discuss this
>> > morning, there were already a bunch of worthy new stories (vending
>> > machine! tardis!) that I hadn't included. The newsletter is already
>> > slightly too long, I fear that once I actually get stuff sent in, it's
>> > just going to grow even more. I don't think I could stand to write
>> > this weekly or even a shorter time-period though.
>> >
>> > Would a what you young people call a "weeb-log" or "b'log" work
>> > better? Maybe: certainly if we ramped up the NB weblog, I bet we'd get
>> > a lot of coverage and relinking from Maker blog, etc. What isn't so
>> > great is ownership and ritual with blogs. The advantage of a regular
>> > periodic mailout is that people look forward to it, and if you write
>> > it well (this draft isn't written well) people will sit through and
>> > take it all in, and feel like they're an exclusive subscriber. Also we
>> > can print it out and put it in the space somewhere. Blogs are less
>> > easy to attach ritual to, and the level of control that you can exact
>> > on a broadcast-only news format often feels inappropriate for blog --
>> > ie saying "We" all the time, not having comments, etc. It might just
>> > be a style thing. I will talk to people about this.
>> >
>> > My actual sese right now is that what we have here is a bunch of nice
>> > potentially aggregatable mini-features: Noisebridge Human of The Time
>> > Period, Project Updates, Infrastructure Diffs, General News, that need
>> > to be in one place, and quickly digestible, rather than scattered over
>> > dozens of mailing lists, inside people's heads, and as wikisplatter. I
>> > think one output of all of those mini-features is potentially a blog,
>> > one is an email newsletter to nb-announce, and one is a printed
>> > pamphlet that can be on the wall entering Noisebridge. But just
>> > writing and collating this text is hard work -- piping it into
>> > different media needs either an automatic process, or a bunch of
>> > people working together consistently. Wait, would people be interested
>> > in a Noisebridge press club?
>> >
>> > I WUV YOU
>> >
>> > d.
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
--
Shannon Lee
(503) 539-3700
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
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