If you're in the East Bay, there's Berkeley Coworking (http://www.berkeleycoworking.com/) near the Ashby BART station. It's not all techies, and not open all the time, but it's a damn good place to get some work done.
Hackerspaces
31–40 of 47 posts
Re: Hackerspaces
#32surprised that there's only one space in sf ( https://www.noisebridge.net/ ) - has anyone been there?
I haven't been to noisebridge (yet), but from the people I've talked to at relatively large events like SuperHappyDevHouse, there's a quite a few smaller, informal groups of hackers getting together to work on stuff. It's just that most of these occur in peoples' apartments, so they're not open to the public. If you're interested in finding some place like this, though, I recommend you try and meet people somewhere like SHDH.
Re: Hackerspaces
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably all those people running coworking facilities. There are people who pay, and there are those who just show up and mooch. But somehow they're able to stay alive. In SF, there's the Hat factory & Citizen Space. I've only been to Citizen Space as a non-paying resident, but it amazes me how those places manage to survive in general.
So, if I understand correctly, there's basically no difference between "hackerspaces" and "coworking facilities". Except maybe that coworking facilities already exist and work.
I was a member of the first coworking space in San Francisco for a few weeks toward the end --- the one at Spiral Muse. I've also been to the (now defunct) hacklab here in Buenos Aires, to SuperHappyDevHouse (which is sort of an intermittent hacker space), to TechShop, to some classes at the Crucible, and gone to Wiki Wednesday at Citizen Space, and I'm considering signing up as a client of CoworkCentral here. So, given this broad but shallow experience, I think coworking spaces don't have much in common with hacker spaces; coworking spaces (IME) are a place where people go primarily to work (and aren't necessarily hackers, nor are they necessarily going to be happy with you interrupting their work to ask for help with your own), while hacker spaces are where they go to spend time with other hackers and work on fun stuff that you aren't getting paid for, in a fun collaborative setting. You might meet cofounders of a company at a hacker space and then go start your company in a coworking facility.
I recognize that my experience on both sides is pretty shallow, though.
noahlt writes: "Except maybe that coworking facilities already exist and work."
I'm pretty sure hacker spaces have been around a few more years than coworking spaces.
Re: Hackerspaces
#34Doesn't seem to be one in Peninsula/South Bay. Several coffee shops (particularly Coupa in Palo Alto, Red Rock / Dana Street in Mtn View) come close, but as others have pointed out coffee shops are less focused, aren't 24/7 and (to me this is most important) don't offer much of a chance to talk to people you don't already know. Is there an interest in an ad-hoc hack time for anyone in that area at one of the local pl…
What do you think about TechShop?
Re: Hackerspaces
#35The one in London seems to be for so-called "hacktivists", not people who just want to code. I'll pass.
Ack. What I'm looking for in London is really a late-hours coffee shop with a bit of a community. Hackers optional. Any suggestions?
Re: Hackerspaces
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably all those people running coworking facilities. There are people who pay, and there are those who just show up and mooch. But somehow they're able to stay alive. In SF, there's the Hat factory & Citizen Space. I've only been to Citizen Space as a non-paying resident, but it amazes me how those places manage to survive in general.
So, if I understand correctly, there's basically no difference between "hackerspaces" and "coworking facilities". Except maybe that coworking facilities already exist and work.
Both hackerspaces and coworking facilities are kind of operating on the "gym membership" model, where a lot of membership fees are pooled to get something that is shared but no one could afford to buy for just their own use.
However the people there don't totally overlap, any more than they totally overlap with Gold's Gym, TechShop, a Country Club, Hunting Lodges, organic co-ops, or any of the other things that people do in the same pattern.
Co-workers are there to make money, mostly either by freelancing or by doing a startup. They have in common that they have rejected (or been rejected by) the large corporate organization, and that their work consists mainly of typing on a keyboard and looking at a screen (instead of shaping metal or cooking food or something), so they have similar facilities requirements.
Hackers might like to make money, but the primary goals of the endeavor are expansion of ability and knowledge. Thus, hackerspaces can succeed, and then completely disappear as people wander off; they tend to have more counter-culture type themes; people often live there; since the part of hacking that is typing on keyboards and looking at screens is easy to do from home, the stuff in the hackerspace tends to be the stuff that needed money and physical space, so there is more hardware crap all over; and a portion of the people are generally interested in hacking human society in various ways, leading to the political interests and "hacktivism" and etc.
Both hackerspaces and coworking facilities are not new. HQ and BusinessSuites and many hotels are essentially more expensive co-working facilities with less emphasis on community, and the insurers who agreed to do all their business at Loyld's coffee house in 1600s London or the lawyers who all worked from the Inner Temple Inn even before that must have been doing something similar. I am pretty sure that CoD had a loft hackerspace in Boston in the early 1990s, and I know of a few other shared apartments and houses that were hackerspaces for a few years.
The basic idea is, if you want to do something, and you can't drop the cash to do it yourself, see if you can find some like-minded friends. "Co-founders" is what they are called in the startup context.
Re: Hackerspaces
#37That's a cool idea. A place you can go, hack, talk about your ideas, get help debugging, get suggestions, hear about new languages/frameworks/libraries, etc. The issue I see is getting it to happen. A hackerspace won't be cheap or particularly easy to setup. You have to rent (or happen to own) the space. You have to pay for power, heat/AC, and Internet every month. You have to buy seating. It's a cool concept, and I…
A group of us had a space in Seattle and the cost ended up being $150 / month / person. That got us maybe 2000 sq feet of basement space. People used it as a project space, party space, and work space.
I think a few things in particular made it work: - A bunch of people who wanted to work on projects together and could come down for weekly meetings. - A few people willing to take on administrative responsibilities (collecting rent, thinking about organizational structure, etc). - The cool-factor of having a hacker space (there weren't many others at that point)
We eventually closed it down when everyone's lives got busy but it was a great run.
Re: Hackerspaces
#38Doesn't seem to be one in Peninsula/South Bay. Several coffee shops (particularly Coupa in Palo Alto, Red Rock / Dana Street in Mtn View) come close, but as others have pointed out coffee shops are less focused, aren't 24/7 and (to me this is most important) don't offer much of a chance to talk to people you don't already know. Is there an interest in an ad-hoc hack time for anyone in that area at one of the local pl…
What do you think about TechShop?
Looks promising, but a) it seems more of a hardware/mechanics/electronics organization, am I correct b) the membership fee seems somewhat high (or rather would be somewhat high if I only made use of this space for software/development, but it's very good deal for the machinery/mechanical/electronic hacking!). I'll check it out eventually - I've an interest in mechanics as well (car and motorcycle tuning) but it isn't as extensive as my interest in software hacking (as my alias suggests ;-)).
Re: Hackerspaces
#39I am not trying to be super cynical here, but... The problem I see with this kind of thing is that it looks like it would probably be against someone's self interest to make too much of an investment in (by hanging out there, possibly paying up for it). Because it could be a big time-suck. It is not possible to have a good or meaningful relationship with everyone, especially if you have a busy life already (non-compu…
Newsflash bro: meatspace is messy and relationships take work.
I was talking about the specific plan to monetarily support such a place. Seems like it would be a time suck to engage in this kind of place a lot -- and therefore the self interest it takes to get people to "buy in" and help isn't there.
Your comment, it doesn't address anything I've said. I'm well aware that relationships take work and that is central to my point: sometimes that work isn't worth it.
Consider the "Grandma" in your life, the person you love to help set up their computer, come over to troubleshoot, etc. What a sweet lady.
Now imagine there are ten of these people in your life. Now imagine they start loving computers and tell you all about the cool new stuff they found, etc. Now imagine you have no other relation to them other than these conversations. And they love starting such conversations.
Re: Hackerspaces
#40I am not trying to be super cynical here, but... The problem I see with this kind of thing is that it looks like it would probably be against someone's self interest to make too much of an investment in (by hanging out there, possibly paying up for it). Because it could be a big time-suck. It is not possible to have a good or meaningful relationship with everyone, especially if you have a busy life already (non-compu…
That's not cynicism. It's just pessimism.
I disagree entirely. If I was pessimistic I wouldn't have met and talked to anyone. It was instead the opposite situation.
Eventually I couldn't attend all my usual spots to get any work done because there were too many relationships there (both the good and the toxic).