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The Women of ENIAC: “Top Secret Rosies” Aug 18

What: “Hidden Herstory: The Top Secret Rosies of WWII”
When: Wed Aug 18, 2010, 7pm
Where: The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St, Phila

Did you know that the first electronic computer, ENIAC, was built in Philly at UPenn?  Bet you did.  Did you know that it was built to calculate ballistics trajectories for fighter pilots during WWII?  And did you also know that the first mathematicians and programmers to work on the new machine were women, mostly from the Philadelphia area?  Hive76 is really, really excited to invite you to a presentation about these “female computers”.

On Wednesday, August 18 at 7pm, Hive76 and the Rotunda are teaming up to bring an illustrated lecture and movie teaser called “Hidden Her-story, the Top Secret Rosies of WWII”.  Documentary filmmaker LeAnn Erickson will give this talk based on the research she’s done for her film “Top Secret Rosies” which is nearing post-production.

Wouldn’t you know it, one of our members’ grandmothers was part of the all-star math team that gave ENIAC its start. You know, before it went mainstream and sold out.

Flyer forthcoming for this awesome event.  Spread the word to the history, math, science, and engineering buffs in your life.

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Show and tell at Hive76

Francis Rabuck from Bentley Systems stopped by with some staff on Wednesday’s open house after seeing the Wall Street Journal article on hackerspaces. They came to see the space and chat about making stuff so we obliged them and showed off our best toys. Mr. Rabuck also brought a promo model of a Golden-i virtual display. Here is a Wired article about the tech and the item’s website.

In short, the Golden-i is a small voice controlled computer with a display that hovers over your eye. It’s odd to see the device perched on someone’s cranium, but saying “My Programs” does indeed go to the appropriate screen and displays a My Photos and My Videos app in a row with others.

I can see this being a neat (expensive) addition to a smartphone interface, but man, it has some prettying up to do. It looks a little 1998 right now. That may be fitting because Golden Eye came out in 1995. I don’t know what I’m saying. My p̶r̶o̶f̶e̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ amateur opinion is clean up the lines, add some new materials like alloy memory wire for the arms, and hide the plastic. But no one asked me.

Bentley and Motorola think this could be used in niche markets. The example Mr. Rabuck gave was construction workers accessing plans on the job site and navigating hands free. In CrunchGear, John Biggs recommends ignoring niches for tablet development. I’d say that’s fine advice for any new tech. It should be launched and then (to paraphrase Burning Chrome) the street will figure out its own use for it. Then you sell them an app for viewing blueprints or a remake of GoldenEye 007.

We appreciate Bentley Systems and associates dropping by for a chat. Feel free to bring your futuristic tech for us to play with any Wednesday night up on the 5th floor.

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Make Philly BBQ is this Sunday!

Get outside this Sunday, and spend some time with other makers, crafters, hackers, designers, and a lot of other ‘-er’s at Make:Philly’s summer BBQ. As usual there will be food (bring some of your own), frisbee, people hanging out, and Water Rockets. Bring your or, or make on on the spot using whatever happens to be lying around, and prepare to get soaked when you take your turn at the launcher.

If you were around last year, you got to play with The Wondergy team’s “Solar Smores” machine, a parabolic mirror perfect for toasting some mallow. They are bringing it back for this years BBQ, along with some new toys, like a trash-can launcher, that will send a trash can on a 20-50 foot flight.

In Short:
Sunday, August 8th, 1-3PM
Lemon Hill, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia
Kid Friendly: Yes
Food: Potluck – please bring something to share with 3-4 other people.
Water Rocket: Build yours at home and bring with you, along with a bottle of water

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Intro to Reversing

Hive76 is hosting an Intro to Reverse Engineering class on August 28th. Reverse Engineering is the art and science of taking a program apart, and understanding how it works. Reverse Engineering a program may seem like a bit of black magic, but it’s not. All of the instructions for a program are right there on your hard drive, and with some tools and tricks, you can figure out what the program’s doing and how it works.

This class is an introduction on how to take a piece of software apart, see what it is doing, and maybe even change how it behaves. To take this class you should be familiar with programming basics in *any* programming language, have a laptop, and be willing to sit still for a couple of hours. The class is 5 hours long with a 1 hour lunch break with food included in the price. We will be giving students a VMWare image of tools to use and examples for the duration of the class. If needed we can help you get VMWare installed and working. After this class you’ll have all the knowledge you’ll need to start reverse engineering.

Requirements: A laptop, curiosity, and experience in some programming language.

Aug 28th 11AM to 5PM
General Admission Tickets: $75 (suggested donation)
Hive76 Members and Students Tickets: $55 (suggested donation)

(Photo is CC by our very own PaintJob)

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Member’s Day Saturday the 24th

Saturday July 24th is a big day for Hive Members. We have two events going on that day for members and their friends/guests. Every member is strongly encouraged to attend, both of these, but we aren’t going to break legs if you are out of town, or can’t make it.

Biannual Members Meeting ( 12 Noon to 2:30PM, Saturday July 24th)
This is a twice yearly meeting of all members, in order to track/check how Hive76 is working out for everyone. Every member is encouraged to attend, and a full schedule of topics is in the calendar event.

Picknic at Lemon Hill at Fairmount Park ( 4PM until ?? Saturday July 24th)
Biagio is organizing a Hive76 BBQ in Fairmount park on (With a rain date tentatively set for Sunday July 25th.) It is Pot Luck, so for every 2 people Please bring something to eat and something to drink for 2-4 People. Bring squirt guns, frisbees, and tons of sun tan lotion This is a chance to relax, meet new and old members, and relax outdoors with geeks. Non members are welcome to join us, of course. (Bouncy Castle Not Included, photo by Zumix)

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Next HOPE is Next Weekend

The Next HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference is next weekend in NYC. Along with Hive76 helping with the Hackerspace Village and the OpenAMD project, there are a bunch of Hive related folks at the conference giving talks or on panels. Below is the quick list of some people you might have run into around Hive or in Philly who are presenting at HOPE and how they are related to our space.

Stephanie Alarcon (board member), Mitch Altman (workshop), Maggie Avener (workshop), Scott Beibin (local vj), Matt Blaze (UPenn professor), cpfr (project), Travis Goodspeed (philly local), Joey Mariano (local musician), Far McKon (officer), Don Miller(local musican), Christina “fabulous” Pei (visitor) , Tiffany Rad(visitor) , Pete Tridish (frequent visitor). And more!

Come to HOPE! Help with the Hackerspace Village! Meet interesting people, and hear about their project! See the RFID awesomesauce. There are still some tickets left, and it’s a train ride + two block from 30th Street Philly to Hotel Penn in NYC.

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Happy Birthday Alan Turing

On this day in 1912 Alan Mathison Turing was born. Through feats of Math and Engineering he helped save the western world and help found the discipline of Computer Science. He defined Definable Real Numbers, and had several key insights into breaking the Enigma Cipher in World War II. After being convicted for indecency for being a homosexual, and likely because of it, he committed suicide in 1954. And of course the Turing Award is named after him.

Happy Birthday to the late Alan Turing ‘Founder of Computer Science’ (‘IEKYF ROMSI ADXUO KVKZC GUBJ’ in Enigma cypher).

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The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers (TOOOL) visits Hive

The Open Organization Of Lockpickers (TOOOL) is a non-profit, public advocacy group that encourages people to learn about and play with locks. By understanding lockpicking, people can experience the thrill of an exciting and fun hobby and also be better consumers in the marketplace, basing purchasing decisions on hard fact as opposed to marketing promises.

This month’s meeting of the Mid-Atlantic chapter will take place at Hive76 on Tuesday the 22nd, 18:30. It’s open to all who wish to play and learn in an atmosphere of open disclosure and honest discourse.

Locks, picks, and other tools will be made available. Event open to all with a non-criminal interest in locks. Folks asking nefarious questions or hiding behind childish online nicknames will be asked to leave. 🙂

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Summer Project Day (Hackaton) on June 12

Everyone has cool projects they’ve not finished, or ones they’ve not made time to start yet. A Project Day (aka Hackaton) is a day to get together with friends, and finally get some of that stuff done. Have art to finish? A kit you want to build? Some software you need help on? Hive76 will be open 10AM to 10PM, so come by and get some quite, some help, and some comradeship as you work on whatever project you’ve wanted to finish. Little known facts about Hackatons:

  • People being too loud or just socializing will be politely asked to go hang out in the lobby.
  • Desk-sized whiteboards and some markers will be available to help in brainstorming.
  • We will have ‘quite please’ signs. Feel free to take one if you don’t want to be interrupted while you work.
  • If you just want to drop in and help, Hive76 will find something that fits your talents that can help the community.
  • A white board will be reserved for anyone to write what they are stuck on, to help people find tutors or helpers.
  • Lunch will be outside, at about 1PM, for about an hour. Get some sun!
  • People working on open source projects get free lunch!

(Photo CC and by Opacity of PS:One)

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Open Beacon or was that Open Bacon?

We have an Open Beacon install currently running at Hive for the next month or so. We are doing some testing and research on what the platform can offer just for the fun of it.

As part of this, we are trying to do some tracking. It turns out that our test setup is compatible with badges from The Last HOPE. If you are in the Philly area and want to play with OpenBeacon, or if you have a badge from The Last HOPE you can lend us, we’d appreciate the help!

(Photo is Creative Commons from Pedro Moura Pinheiro)