[Noisebridge-discuss] An introduction, a lot of gratitude, and some ideas!

[Caitlyn Meeks-Ferragallo]

Hello all,  I wanted to say hello, introduce myself, give thanks and share
a couple of ideas I have.  My name's Caitlyn, and I am very grateful and
honored that I was made a member last Tuesday.  Thanks to Alex Peake &
Lizzard for sponsoring me, and to all at the meeting for condensing!    I
think Noisebridge is absolutely the coolest thing in the city.. I've been
lurking around once in a while but felt a bit weird not being a member, as
it doesn't feel right to take without giving back.  I look forward to being
excellent to all of you!

About me, I'm 40, a games and graphics professional living in SF.  I was
originally introduced to Noisebridge by Alex Peake by way of his Gamebridge
Unityversity program, the Open Primer and Code Hero projects.  Did a dual
major at UC Santa Cruz in computer science and art. As an employee of Unity
Technologies (we make the game engine used by these projects) I have been
an ardent sponsor of these programs and was thrilled when Alex first
brought me here last year to check out the space.  The concentration of
intelligent, creative and constructive people here really enticed me, my
favorite kind of people!  One year later I am proud to be welcomed to the
group!  I code (these days mostly in C#/Mono), make virtual worlds (SL and
other platforms), mobile stuff (usually with Unity on iOS and Android).  To
be honest I'm entirely attracted to the tech-brainiac side of Noisebridge--
the "lets make stuff" side.  I've been coming here as a place to get my own
personal projects done and to meet people who do the same, and explore
ideas and technology. 'm not really here for the political stuff (there's
enough of that outside of NB) or black-hat hacktivism, but I appreciate
people who cultivate their beliefs and follow through with their passions,
especially in the name of freedom and sympathy.

Looking at the calendar of events, I see a LOT of cool stuff.  And it
occurred to me--there's things that would be cool to do in addition to the
existing ones-- especially the things *I* want to do.  :)

 So I have two events I want to propose doing, and I'm curious to know if
any of these would have traction with you guys.  If so, perhaps we can meet
up and get some stuff going.  First,  I am developing an open virtual world
platform-- similar in theory to the Second Life / Open Sim / Open Grid
approach, but completely different technically, with a cloud based
back-end, dynamic content and best of all, no 'sim crossings' (if you know
what that is, you know the problem!).  I've actually got an alpha version
of this working in Unity, with a browser-based client and full Unity
rendering capability, PHP/MySQL accounts and region management, and asset
bundle management system for streaming and storage of world assets.  I am
working towards making this an open architecture and am about ready to
invite developers and world builders to participate.  Perhaps if there is
enough interest, I can put together a regular virtual worlds group meet up.

Second idea is for metal detecting and treasure hunting enthusiasts-- it's
a hobby of mine and I always enjoy it with the company of other people.
Maybe called PlunderBridge, the idea is that those of us who are passionate
about metal detecting can get together, go out scavenging for bottle caps,
pennies and rare doubloons, maybe organize an overnight trip to gold
country after the snow melt uncovers new minerals.   Also it would be quite
cool to involve more electronically-inclined people in the development of
an open metal-detector technology, for something which can be made with
Arduino, 3d printed parts, using accelerometers and signal strength with
mobile devices to record the strength and position of a signal and build a
3D model representation of what's down there!  Something like the OKM and
the visualization is displayed on the iPad. Maybe GPS integration.  I can
provide adventure companionship, the 3D software to do the visualization on
mobile devices, and some basic direction, but I"m not a hardware person.

I'm also a motorcyclist (if you see a pink helmet with a Noisebridge
sticker on it, that's me). Hm any metal detecting motorcyclists around?
Maybe we could ride to gold country. Anyway, that's it!  Thanks again for
the membership and I'm looking forward to a long ongoing non-stop
excellence with all of you.

Cheers
Caitlyn
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