Author: FarMcKon

Posted on

RHOK FTW

In a week-or-so (Saturday, June 4th) is Random Hacks of Kindness.

And what is RHOK? RHoK is a hackathon and competition to create solutions to pressing real world problems. By gathering the brightest hackers and problem-solvers for weekend hack-a-thons, RHoK aims to use technology to tackle disaster relief, social development, climate change, and human rights.

RHoK Philly begins at 9am on Sat June 4th. Register a team of 2-4 hackers (or join a team there) and Pick one of the dozens problem-definitions. Then design a solutions, dream/scope/layout and hack at it, and see what you can make by Sunday afternoon. The best project will be featured around the globe. If you have a global problem to suggest, get involved in the discussion on the RHoK site (http://www.rhok.org) and submit it.

There will also be a keynote talk by Roger Dingledine of the Tor Project Space is limited so be sure to pre-register.

WHAT: A FREE hackathon to create software solutions to global human challenges.
WHO: Designers, programmers, geeks, hackers, activists, problem solvers and concerned citizens!
WHERE: 3175 JFK Blvd, Drexel University, Philadelphia
WHEN: June 4th and 5th, 2011 starting at 9am. (Reception on June 3rd at WHYY)

Register at http://rhokphiladelphia.eventbrite.com

Posted on

Gitmarks 2.0 Alpha

As rumors of delicio.us shutdown rumbled through the internet, a bunch of geeks in a minor IRC channel started gabbing. They has a lot of info, links, tags, and data stored in delico.us, and were afraid to lose them, syncing, and all other good features. They realized as geeks often do, that if we owned the service, we wouldn’t have to worry about outside shutdowns if we had our own service. Thus hypatia spun-up Federated Bookmarks

The first output of this crew is something called gitmarks, based on work by Hillary Mason (of bit.ly). This is a little tool to store bookmarks, bookmark metadata, and page content locally for searching, using, and peer-to-peer sharing. Since it is based on git this system can use a central server, *or* it can share peer to peer. As the name implies, it uses a git backed for data transfer and versioning. It also has the ability to pull down content for a local cache, and for local searching.

This project is in Alpha, and if you want to test the silly thing, the basics work. If you want to help build a cool distributed tool, we could use some help! We need to building a server, building more git tools, xmmp messaging, and browser integration. We also hope to create tools that along the way that make it easy to build systems for Moglen Boxen. Ping FarMcKon@gmail.com, leave a comment here, or hit #hive76 in IRC if you want to help.

Posted on

Audio House Open House

On January 30th from 5PM to 8PM is an Audio House Open House at Hive76. This is an open house for *anyone* of any skill level to mess with audio electronics. Whether you have never soldered before, or if you are an audio expert, we will have great folks to hang out and learn from. On hand will be some beginner audio kits ($15 – $30) for people just getting started, and a couple of knowledgeable geeks to help out on more advanced projects. What experts? I’m glad you asked.

Exhibit #1: If you have been to a Maker Fair in the last year, you might have run into Jimmie P Rogers and/or Mitch Altman running one of their famous electronics tables. Jimmie and Mitch have tough countless people to solder, and do basic electronics. Jimmie is also well known for his circuit bending, and can do things to a talking toys that, well, you just have to hear it to understand.

Exhibit #2: If you have been to Hive76 for an open house in the last few months, you may have run into Brendon, who is an analog electronics nut, and has run some effects building classes here at Hive76. The Guitar Effects class he and Jack ran was a hit, and he’s back to help make your projects sound fantastic.

So, young or old, geek or square, drop by Jan 30th between 5PM to 8PM, Hive76 will be open and both of those audio hackering experts will be on hand tou help people mash up circuits, tweak their audio, and get analog. If you like audio (from Novice to Expert) come drop in, hang around, and geek out.

When: Sunday Jan 30th from 5PM to 8PM
Where Hive76 HQ (915 Spring Garden St, Phila PA)
Cost: Free! (A $10 donation if you insist)
Equipment: Bring a project, a talking toy, or 20 -30$ if you want to buy a kit.
(photo by CC from Steve Dubois Thanks Steve!)

Posted on

Making things Blink and Buzz!

Ever wanted to learn more about electronics but weren’t interested in taking a long, drawn out class on theory? Are you looking for a class that will pique your interest and spark your creative flow?

Then join us at Hive76 for “Making things Blink and Buzz” on January 29th. Join us for a day filled with blinking, buzzing and all out DIY geektopia. The class is open to anyone who is curious about electronics of all skill levels. The only requirement is a willingness to learn and a desire to have a lot of fun while doing it. Example projects will include a 555 timer and an Atari Punk Console (if you don’t know what these are then you definitely should come and find out). These projects are hands on, beginner friendly, and cool kit to take home and keep playing with, so grab a seat in the class before it sells out.

If you’re still unsure, Hive76 will be offering a free preview of this class during one of the weekly open houses in January. Far will be demonstrating how to build a “blinky bug.” Come meet the Hive76 crew, and find out how much fun DIY electronics can be!

Class: Making Things Blink and Buzz
Date: Saturday, January 29, 2010 from 10AM – 4PM (with an hour break for snacks)
Cost: $40 (Includes 4+ hours of class, as well as parts and materials).

We have only 15 seats, so get your Tickets soon.

Posted on

Multithreaded Banjo Dinosaur Knitting Adventure 2D Extreme

Along with being highly neighborly, and slightly insane Travis Goodspeed is also great reverse engineer. He is consistently a bringer-of-weird things to conferences (and the parties that inevitably follow). Many of those cool & weird things are objects designs and/or builds himself.

So It’s not a huge surprise to see him hacking on an amazing collaborative project to make an interactive tapestry creating game. As far as I can tell, as people play the game the winners custom designed image is added to the end of the tapestry. The game appears to be an scroller/shooter game, which is controlled by waving around RFID tags. Geez. And here I was, thinking having #15 high score on Hive’s Spy Hunter machine was cool. One more amazing projects from an awesome Philly resident.

Posted on

Officers and Elections, and Board Member departure

Last night was elections at Hive76. It’s my pleasure as the previous Instigator to announce our new slate of Management, who were elected with 100% of all the members that voted. If you need to reach them with questions or feedback, they are available at Management@Hive76.org

Quartermaster – Brendan
Brendan has been around for quite a while, and us the longest standing member of Management. He’s been Quartermaster as long as we’ve had the position. He keeps the space clean and usable, and makes great amps and audio tools.

Book Keeper – Jack
Jack is one of Hive76’s Co-founders, and is the brain (and hands) behind USBTypewriter. He was previously our Events Coordinator, and is now going to be keeping our books.

Chief Technological Officer (CTO) – Adam K.
Adam is one of the powerhouses behind making Hive76 awesome. He’s done a great job as CTO setting up tools to make the organization run smoothly. Above and beyond his officership, he invests a lot of time keeping Hive active, and getting things done. He’s also our #1 print-ninja for our Makerbot.

Secretary – Chris T.
Chris is a designer, artist, and maker at large. He continues his post as Secretary (aka secretarat). He’s also an expert in cutting things into meat with lazzzors.

Instigator – Mike Hogan
Mike is an gentleman and a Maker of first degree. If you’ve taken a micro-controller class or electronics class at Hive, you’ve probably met Mike. He’s also our inside source for MSP430’s.

Events Coordinator – Sean M.
Sean is a developer, zombie-dummy maker, and now our Events Coordinator too. He has some great ideas for 2011, and some cool classes are already in the planning.

Congrats! *ding* to all our new officers, and thanks to all our old officers. If you want to reach them all at once, you can always drop them a line at they are available Management@Hive76.org.

On a sadder note, Adam Elkins has retired from the board of Hive76. He’s done some great projects (like the Free Spirit Stickers), and has constantly brings the coolest water-rockets to the Make:Philly picnic. We wish him the best of luck with whatever cool project he’s onto next.

We are now accepting nom-nom-nominations for a new board member for the open seat on the board. We are open to hearing nominee ideas from anyone. If you have a good idea for a nominee (even if you are not a member) feel free to drop a note on our discussion list with the name of the person, and why they would be a good board member. The members will consider the nominees, and vote to choose the best board member they can decide on.

Posted on

Make Philly on Nov 11th

Make:Philly is back after a summer vacation, and is kicking off a fall round by events by hosting Peter Bressler of Bresslergroup. From the Make:Philly website:

Peter’s expertise includes user research, human factors application, manufacturing processes and innovative criteria conflict resolution. Peter has authored or co-authored over 60 design and utility patents and has received over 40 national design awards. He is a Past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

Make:Philly is happening on a new time and date, (Thursday night, at 7PM sharp) instead of the classic Sunday afternoon, but the place ( University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor) is the same. And the Make:Philly meetings are still 50% a great talk by local maker and 50% build challenge, where you build something on the spot to meet a challenge announced at the start of the meeting.

In Short:
What: Make Phily with Peter Bressler
Date: Thursday, November 11th*, 2010 (revised date)
Time: 7PM sharp!
Location: University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
ID: Bring your ID with you to sign in at the front desk
Cost: Free!

Posted on

OpenHatch at UPenn this weekend

If you aren’t already going to Maker Faire NYC, or setting up an antenna with Promethus Raido in Hudson, NY this weekend, there is also going to be a FOSS Hackathon in Philly this coming weekend.

If you use open source software and want to give back to the community, here is your chance. Or, if you have some UI, design, or human interface skill and want to work on a project used by thousands or millions, Open Source software *always* needs design, UI, and layout help. Always. I mean, have you even looked at GIMP?

Posted on

Zerg-adelphia (Hive76 Starcraft II LAN Party)

Does your love for insane micromanagement of miscellaneous bugs and aliens know no bounds? Do you enjoy sharing that love with others? Assuming you already know that we’re talking about Starcraft II, we’ll just say it:

Come to Hive 76 on Saturday, August 21 for some Starcraft and SCII LAN madness. The siege tank-rushing shindig starts at 5 PM and will go until your fingers cannot possibly strike another hotkey. Absolutely do not bring food, we’ll take care of it. What you do need are these essentials:

* A computer (laptop or desktop with internet capability) capable of playing Starcraft and/or SCII
* Your own copy of Starcraft and/or Starcraft II to play with
* More vespene gas (kidding… sort of)

See you then and remember to bring your A game!

Saturday, August 21
Hive 76, 915 Spring Garden (Suite 519) in the Spring Garden Arts building, Philadelphia PA
Free, bring your own game,laptop, snacks, and beverages.

This Event is by Hive76(Far McKon), and Geekadelphia (Joe Osborne) , and several others.

Posted on

Hackadelphia at Hive76 on Sunday

Hackadelphia is meeting at Hive76 this Sunday, from about noon to 5PM. Hackadelphiais (in their own words):

We’re a group of coders who get together in the Philadelphia metro area to hack and share ideas. We’re a pan-technological group who accept people regardless of technology (though we can’t promise that COBOL users won’t get strange looks). The basic idea is to have people spending nights hacking in the presence of other hackers.

Come and share your code expertise, learn from another hacker/code, or just get some work done on a project. Hackadelphia will be here to help. Or better, sign up for their mailing list, and get a heads-up every time they meet.

The Skinny:
Hackadelphia
Hive76 (915 Spring Garden)
Sunday, Aug 15th, Noon to 5PM
It’s Free, bring your own food & computer.
(This event organized by Hackadelphia)