Author: FarMcKon

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Python Hacking

Python hacking was a success. After a few hours of messing around B-Man and I managed to get a good cross-platform version of tab completion running on OS X/Windows/Linux all. It’s the first version of full cross platform tab completion I’ve run across. If anyone has shown me an earlier version of the same thing, I’d be keen to see how someone else did it.

Python hacking night was a success, we brought some new functionality into the world, and hopefully it will be useful to folks. Catch you at the next one.

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Cleaning and Planning Sunday

Just a quick update. A few of us are meeting for cleaning and some planning on Sunday 8/2 from around 1PM to 6PM. If you want to help (and not just gawk) come on down and help out

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An interview with ITL

Invisible Things Lab is a sweet little security company. Tom’s Hardware has a great interview with Founder and CEO Joanna Rutkowska, once you get past the first page of obligatory ‘what was your first PC’ questions. Kernel Level rootkits are getting a lot of attention these days, and it’s awesome to read about the hackers that make (or defend against) them.

Having the two opponents (a rootkit and an A/V) operating at the same privilege level (ring 0) doesn’t mean that either of the two is a clear winner in the long term. In fact, in the long term there is always a draw. It’s that malware usually wins in the short-term, and this is pretty bad because, for malware, it is just enough to survive a few weeks (or days maybe even) to do its job.

If anyone is going to Black Hat ’09, you should check ITL’s talk on ‘Attacking Intel BIOS, and Introducing Ring -3 Rootkits’, it should be awesome.

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Around The Table


A lot of geeks are fans of Daft Punk, and it’s not a surprise to find awesome objects or events made as tribute to, or inspired by the band. So with that I bring to to you the Daft Table. It’s an awesome coffeetable that seems to react to music (or is pre-timed) to run a great dance-floor pattern. It’s keen, pretty simple, and just awesome. Every livingroom (and hackerspace) needs one.

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3D printing workshops in Philly

Hot on the tail of The Fab Show, EKG has been hitting the bricks, and working to get art into people’s hands.  The Fab Show (which is still running at their gallery at The Science Center) was a show of 3D printing technology, and rapid prototyping.  I think the fancy term was “Modern DIY Vernacular”.   Seeing how nifty the show was, they’ve arranged printing workshops for the Fab@Home and the MakerBot 3D printers for right here in Philly.

MakerBot Printing Workshop:

This workshop I do know about.  The MakerBot workshop is happening right here at Hive 76, starring MakerBot founder Zack Hoeken.  The class is Saturday June 20th, from 1PM to 5PM. You just need to show up on time, and with a laptop, and we do the rest. We’ll teach you everything you need to do a first design, and a first printing using the MakerBot. Tickets  for the 4 hours class are $25 (or $5 for students).

Fab@Home Printing Workshop

I don’t have much detail on this one, and I’ll fill it in when I do. I do know it’ll be the night of June 17th from 6PM to 8PM, and it will be with Fab@Home founder, Evan Malone.

3D printer vs 3D printer? Project founder vs Project founder?  Seriously folks,  that is just awesome.

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Fritzing

fschemerawsmall-jpeg-image-700x230-pixelsDaniel showed up the Python, Processing, and Pizza tonight with Fritzing on the mind.  Firtzing is this awesome new tool that is based on the ideas Processing and Arduino. Instead of doing code though, Fritzing does electronics board design.  If you know how to put together a breadboard, or can figure it out, Fritzing will auto-generate a PCB and schematic based on just that. It’s clearly still in beta, but already it looks like it will knock the socks off of anyone who has tried to work with Eagle or other PCB design programs.

We are going to be running a Fritzing study group starting next Thursday, right here at Hive 76. The Study Group will run from 7PM to 9PM out of our space at 915 Spring Garden (dial #500 to get let in). If you want to find out more, join the discussion on our mailing list.

Plus, I just like the word ‘Fritzing’…

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Find the MacGuffen

gur_drive_inPhiladelphia is home to one of this fine countries oldest traditions. The Guerrilla Drive-in. Not to be confused with the Gorillia Drive in, where you drive through Gorilla City. Instead it’s a drive in that moves, and appears and disappears without warning. Kind of like the Tardis but with popcorn, and less death and aliens.

But of course, we’re geeks. We don’t do things the easy way. So instead of just letting people look at a schedule and show up at the location. So the genii behind West Chester Guerrilla Drive went and hid a macguffen, which you have to find before you can get on the super seekret Drive-in mailing list. What is a MacGuffen you ask? I’d tell you, but that wouldn’t be much fun. Ask an argonaut.

So, I’m trying to crack the MacGuffen. If you want to get onto the Hive 76 MacGuffen Cracking Team, email Hive76@gmail.com or join the google discussion group. Did I mention there is a secret Nerd Merit Badge for finding it?

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Repurpose

Repurpose is A great little documentary that just came out. It’s a short film by Jack Oatmon that looks into the hardware hacking community in Montreal, centered on Foulab. It’s always awesome to get a peek inside other hackerspaces! Gratz to Foulab!

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Mailing Lists

A big part of a organization is communication, through email (and wiki, and IRC, and more).  While we are still spinning up the Wiki and the IRC chat channel, we do have some mailing lists up and running.

To kickstart things, there are now two google groups up and running for Hive76. There is an announcement group and an open discussion group as well.  The announcement group is a moderated list, which is only used for sending out 1 to 4 emails a month, about DiY/Maker/Hacker events happening around town, so it’s a safe low-traffic list. The discussion group is open to everyone and anyone, for talking about projects, cool stuff on the internet, or whatever else is going on.

Feel free to join both of them, or just join the Announcement list if you only want to tip of the iceberg.