[Noisebridge-discuss] Who's In Charge of Noisebridge?

Cameron Hackett camhkt at gmail.com
Sun May 6 17:32:54 UTC 2012


On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 10:53 PM, William Sargent <will.sargent at gmail.com>wrote:

> There's around 40 members, and a number of people that donate without
> membership.  Membership dues are $80 a month, although there are "starving
> hacker" and "benevolent patron" options.  Noisebridge costs $160 a day to
> run.
>
> As for the why; well, Noisebridge is a fun place to hack.  If you think
> about how much you would spend at a cafe, a tech shop, a library or at a
> co-working facility (or even going out for drinks over a month),
> Noisebridge isn't that big of an expense.  I also Borderlands Cafe,
> Mechanics Library, Citizen Space / Parisoma... but Noisebridge benefits
> strangers.
>

Noisebridge seems like a great place to hack!

However, the second or third time I came by, I blocked out several hours to
settle into my terminal and work on open-sourcing a library I make for
work. But it wasn't 30 or some odd minutes into working, when someone on
the same couch insisted that they *needed* to stretch out their legs over
where I was sitting. She claimed it was her arthritis that was bothering
her.
No big deal, I figured, I can move elsewhere -- especially for someone
who's not feeling well. But just 15 or so minutes later, she was lying
there with another boy, using the couch for their snogging activities! What
the heck?
They appeared to just be there to hang out and read. Nothing wrong with
that, I suppose.

Sitting on one of the stools by the kitchen, I was booted again by a
cooking group that wanted the space.

As an outside visitor, I didn't really feel comfortable asserting myself
and saying no.

It seems like the most socially manipulative people get control of most of
the physical resources at Noisebridge, as most of the geeks of the
technical inclination seem too polite to bother wasting their time
defending themselves instead of actual... hacking.


My impression is that somehow Noisebridge has turning into more of a
flophouse than a hackerspace. At any given time when I've visited, there
seem to be about 10 - 25% of people working on something technical,
surrounded by many others sitting around reading on the computer, cooking,
sewing, or engaged in some non-technical pursuit.

Is there an actual hackerspace in San Francisco somewhere? I was hoping to
find something similar to the environment I've found around the world at
places like NTC Resistor, Metalab, Pumping Station One, Crash Space, etc.
Where are all the real hackers at?

>
> Will.
>
> On May 5, 2012, at 10:39 PM, Cameron Hackett wrote:
>
> > I'm a little new to Noisebridge, and I still just don't understand how
> this works. Is Noisebridge organized by anyone? Who's in charge?
> >
> > It seems like the place is totally open to anyone on a drop-in basis for
> free. But, who pays for the rent then?
> > I get the sense that the freeloading visitors are much more numerous
> than the paying members, but it's hard to tell what the ratio is.
> >
> > I guess I'm just curious why people continue to put in what I would
> presume is a lot of money into a system that tends to benefit strangers.
> > Sounds like charity.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Cam
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
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