Author: FarMcKon

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Far McKon speaking at PACS on Saturday

Far McKon and Digital Snowart at 26C3
Far McKon and Digital Snowart at 26C3

Through some kind of GROSS error on their part (do they know what they are getting into?) I’m going to be speaking at Philadelphia Area Computer Society (aka PACS ) this weekend. I have no idea how or why I got through their sanity filters, but there is my name, on the schedule for a talk.

I’m going to be talking about Hackerspaces, how they relate to Software Libre and distributed software projects, and why the are going to take over the world (peacefully). I’m going to have a blast talking, and I hope I’m entertaining to the folks listening.

If anyone wants to come watch me make a fool of myself in person, the meeting is at the Community Center at the Super Giant Food Store of Willow Grove, and my talk starts at 12 Noon, and there is great stuff before and after it.

If you want to come and are not a member, You’ll probably need to grab a guest pass (from the right sidebar). Hopefully this is a first step in Hive76 and PACS working together on great stuff around Philly!

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Open House with Mitch Altman Jan 20th

Mitch AltmanMitch Altman is coming through town next week, and had decided to stop by our Open House to hang out, and share some of his experience. He is also going to have some kits on hand, so if you want to buy a kit there, or need help assembling one you already have, come on out to visit.

Mitch is the brains behind Cornfield Electronics, and one of the co-founders of Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco. Mitch is best known as the inventor of TV-B-Gone, but his list of great hacks and cool electronics includes a lot of other great projects. When he is not at Noisebridge building awesome and amazing things, he is on the road from hackerspace to Hacker-Con and back again, sharing his love of electronics.

So next Wednesday (Jan 20th, at 7:30PM) come hang out at Hive76, meet one of USA’s great hackers, and build something cool! Mitch Altman included free of charge. Do not taunt happy fun hackerspace. Batteries NOT included.

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Project Operation completed

About a month ago, Body Worlds 2 (currently at The Franklin Institute) contacted the crew from Make:Philly about making a giant version of the board game Operation for an event at Body Worlds.

Make:Philly had the skill to build it, but no place to work on such a project, since their regular home (at the Industrial Design Department of UArts) is a presentation space, not a build space. So Make:Philly turned to their friendly neighborhood hackerspace (us) as a place to build the project.

So after 5 weekends of tinkering, tweaking, and painting, the Make:Philly and Hive76 crew(s) deliverer the finished game to the event last Friday. Unfortunately, the event got snowed out, and Body Worlds is working on snow date for it.

In the meantime, here are some photos of the project.

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Hive’s first Board of Directors!

Hive76 has got gotten in the results of it’s first round of elections for Board of Directors. I, for one, welcome our insect overlords. The Board (in general) does overseeing and big-picture naval-gazing for a group(wikipedia explains it a bit better), and Hive elected a great group of people watch our collective navel(s).

Our Board is:
Adam E – Is an active member of Hive76, and has a pretty great weblog about making things.

Jack Zylkin –  A founder of Hive76,  Jack is an inventor who makes laser trip-wires, tesselated puzzles, synaesthetic synthesizers, manual cnc machines, and the like. He graduated Drexel University with a BS in Electrical Engineering in 2008 but is old for his age.  He cares deeply about conserving fossil fuels.  His interests include bicycles, jazz fusion, chinese food, and funny hats. He has taught classes for Hive76 and the Hacktory concerning chocolate mold-making, talking gift cards, singing pencils, and DIY guitar pedals.

Jordan Miller – (@jmil) is a founder of Hive76, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His research combines chemistry and rapid prototyping to direct cultured human cells to form more complex organizations of living vessels and tissues. Jordan has been a member of Hive76 since it’s inception and spearheaded the fundraising, assembly, and maintenance of our MakerBot, 3D-PO.

Steph – Is pleased as punch to serve on the board. She’s a Unix/Linux admin by trade, treehugger by training, and tinkerer by habit. She will preach about environmental justice and appropriate technology indefinitely if you let her, and alternately scowls at gratuitous gadgets, and jumps up and down at provably cool tech. She like bikes, plants, homebrew, diy renewable energy, Brazilian pop, Philadelphia, and figuring out what the heck polymerization has to do with natural wood finishes. With any luck, she’ll soon graduate from the 2010 Master Gardener program through the PSU Cooperative Extension, and finish up her Master of Environmental Studies at Penn (for which she’s doing a study about electronic waste), at which time you may call her “mistress.”

Far McKon – A loud mouth and general instigator, and is a founder of Hive76. He is often the first one jumping of bridges, and and can convincing others to follow. 87.4% percent of the time he is correct about landing on giant marshmallows at the end of the fall. 12.6% of the time the landing is just deep (sometimes hot) water. When he is not coding or building stuff, he’s coding and building stuff. Far has co-founded a Housing Cooperative, a City Wiki, 2 hackerspaces, and 1,000 weird and wonderful friendships.

[Edit: This post has been updated as Bio’s have come in from Board Members]

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Party in our new Space on Dec. 5th

Hackerspace Party Madness
Hackerspace Party Madness

Party in the New Space!
Dec 5th. Doors open at 9PM
Hive76 Headquarters
Food and Drink available all night
$10 suggested donation at the door
RSVP required!


We just moved to a new Headquarters (3x the size of the old one), and we want to celebrate. So we’re throwing a party December 5th with the doors opening at 9PM. We’ll have a couple of VJ, a DJ, and food and drinks all night. This is open event, so if you’ve wanted to come check out our new space, or meet the crew, come on out. If you want to drop in, we’re going to ask for $10 donation at the door, because we’ve mostly wiped our our saving to expand. If you’re broke, well, come anyway. (If you want to know what a hackerspace party looks like, here’s a peek).

Here are some numbers for you math-heads. 6 months now. 4 classes, 10 workshops, 24 open houses, and 1 (minor) electrical fire. From 4 to 12 members. 42 awesome personal projects, 33 pointless arguments, and a 1-billion ‘dude, that is such a bad idea’s’. OK, those last 3 are made up. But we are living the life, and doing what we promised. We are making things awesome, and making awesome things.

We are a little limited on space, so be sure to RSVP for it, so we can plan.

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BarCamp Philly is this weekend

barcampphilly2Bar Camp Philly is Nov 14th (This Saturday already). It’s Philly’s version of the Bar Camp un-conference scene, and is going to be jammed with webby and invent-y people talking about what is going on in Philly.

Or if you just want to party on, you can just rock out at the Geekadelphia party. I think tickets are sold out, or close to it, so get your tickets (or not). I myself will be working the sign in table on Saturday, so if you are coming, say hi to the guy in the weird hat signing you in.

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Pumpcon 2009

Pump_logo500There are no words to describe the sadness in my soul as I woefully admit to the public that there will be a pumpcon 2009. Or, as Pumpcon themselves put it Fuck! Not AGAIN!! It’s Pumpcon 2009 b1tch3z… Pumpcon is Philadelphia’s only con, and of course it’s on Goth Christmas so a lot of geeks are already partied out that weekend. If you have a strong stomach, a strong desire to learn, and are not afraid of getting technical, PumpCon is the place to be.

Early Friday October 30th till dawn Sunday, November 1st 2009
Contact them at at info@pumpcon.org

Best Western Inn
501 N. 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130

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Big Planning meeting coming up….

EDIT: We will be meeting Sunday October 22nd at 7:00PM at the space. for this meeting. See the agenda on the wiki for topics for the night.

Hive76 has a good chance to grow, and we need to move on it reasonably quick. To decide how to deal with the opportunity, and better organize our group, we are going to have a 2+ hour planning/ organization meeting. This meeting is key for Core/Basic members, and people that have a strong interest in Hive76. Input is welcome from all parties, but voting on issues is reserved for Hive76 members.

We are picking a date now, and will announce the meeting date on the mailing list. If you are interested in Hive76, and want to see become even more amazing, this is a good time to get interested. The Planning Meeting date will be added to this post as soon as we nail it down, so watch this space