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Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#31

Post by pessimizer »

citizenkeys wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In communes, you don't really do your own thing. I think you're talking about an apartment building where a lot of hackers live that has a hacking room instead of a gym. Or possibly efficiency apartments. Maybe you meant "common kitchen" rather than commune? Like a dorm?

I'm thinking along the lines of a 24-hour drop-in center / hostel for developers instead of crazy bums. The wikipedia entry for hostels kinda sums it up, including the picture of the taiwanese hostel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostel

A hostel is just like a hotel, except you usually don't get a room (unless you're willing to pony up an extra $20.) You're just looking for a cheap place to stay, but you don't want it to be scary. Hostels generally are not scary at all, and are filled with mostly pleasant foreigners. They used to have rules that require that you have ID proving that you don't live in the town that you're hostelling in, though; don't know if that's changed at all.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#33

Post by alastair »

citizenkeys wrote: post #20

Seriously... I'm going to register a domain and try and set this up on kickstarter. If anyone wants to help out with design or whatever, send me an email to citizenkeys@gmail.com . In theory, if we just had a big rental place with couches, bunkbeds, a kitchen, and a place to shower. That'd be enough to start.

fyi there may be laws that regulate how many people may live in a single residence. i know there are in my part of the world.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#35

Post by olefoo »

trotsky wrote: post #11
shaunxcode wrote: post #2

wouldn't a hacker hippie commune be more about building a robotic plow and spending your, now spare, time OCRing and analyzing old farmers almanacs to determine the optimal time to plant/rotate/water crops?

In today's culture, it might be dreamed up on facebook, funded on kickstarter, promoted on twitter, picked up by 10,000 blogs that all poach from each other and then abandoned by the next semester because the earth-water-sun interface is ancient and suffers from significant design issues whose tickets never get responded to by the upstream provider.

I'm tempted to start blogging up the project proposal for a hippie arcology to be built on a south facing slope in southern Oregon with geothermal backup heat and a fiber optic connection to the internet for the remote workers whose economic contributions exempt them from the maintenance duties that the less skilled have to do (hey, someone needs to turn the compost heaps and feed the tilapia you know). The basic design concept is to have one largish thermal envelope that encloses multiple garden and dwelling spaces that are kept at a relatively constant temperature year round.

I would really like to bring the Whole Earth Catalog hacking tradition full circle.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#36

Post by alexophile »

I spent some time on a farm that could liberally be called a "commune" and there's actually a ton of innovation to be had all over the place. Somewhere, I probably still have a moleskine with notes on the matter. A couple things I remember:

-Crop Rotations: The texts I read about this subject were the result of some very painstaking note-taking, and keeping all this information straight can confound even the very studious. We had at least 3 copies of Elliot Coleman's "The New Organic Grower" around and they were all falling apart from constant reference. Having instant access to your planting history would be invaluable, especially if coupled with pH effects of relevant crops and other useful info.

Certifications: The process for getting that nifty "certified organic" label is quite difficult. You have to submit all sorts of things. It was even worse for us because we had commercial kitchen equipment (we sold jarred jams, salsas, etc)

Marketing: We sold shares of our output through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. ~100% of people who partook found out about us from meeting us at a farmer's market. I think there's a decent market for CSA shares, but not really any way of comparison shopping, or even knowing what's available.

It would be neat to work on a project to solve these problems while simultaneously encountering them on the day-to-day. But fair warning: "plowing the fields all day" does not really leave one in the mood for hacking. Contemplation? Surely. Conversation? Absolutely. But I wouldn't expect to get a whole lot of hacking done, at least not in your first season.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#37

Post by organicgrant »

So I wasn't acting alone when I bought capitalistcommune.org a few months back?

I have a 'giant' mansion...in Iowa...with open rooms for hackers. Hit me up, libertarian-capitalist-economical living can be a real ideal. See pic here: http://organicgrant.posterous.com/winter-home-0

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#38

Post by organicgrant »

organicgrant wrote: post #37

So I wasn't acting alone when I bought capitalistcommune.org a few months back? I have a 'giant' mansion...in Iowa...with open rooms for hackers. Hit me up, libertarian-capitalist-economical living can be a real ideal. See pic here: http://organicgrant.posterous.com/winter-home-0

organicgrant [at] gmail.com High-speed internet, large garden plots right down the street, and a few blocks from a (20,000 enrolled) state university

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#39

Post by burgerbrain »

alexophile wrote: post #36

I spent some time on a farm that could liberally be called a "commune" and there's actually a ton of innovation to be had all over the place. Somewhere, I probably still have a moleskine with notes on the matter. A couple things I remember: -Crop Rotations: The texts I read about this subject were the result of some very painstaking note-taking, and keeping all this information straight can confound even the very stu…

>I probably still have a moleskine with notes on the matter.

Why do people insist on telling us the brand of their notebook? It's just a book with some blank paper dude...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a hippie commune for hackers?

#40

Post by JesseAldridge »

citizenkeys wrote: post #16

Some clarification: Commune does not mean being without internet, nor does it necessarily imply growing food. Think about it: if we had bunk beds, we could stack hackers on top of each other to save space. Compress at least twice as many in the same space. And if we bought food in bulk, we could eat better on the same amount we ordinarily need to live on ramen budgets. All this being said, I am broke, broke, broke! I…

Let me know if you figure something out.

I've got $4000 in the bank. Rent is by far my largest expense. Solve that problem and your runway length approaches infinity.

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