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The Freehacker's Union

zedshaw.com

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Re: The Freehacker's Union

#11

Post by markessien »

Hexstream wrote: post #10

"One thing I found through doing all this hardware hacking is that people who wield a soldering iron in NYC are kind of secretive. I mean, they’re nice enough, but they really hold their secrets close to their chest. Take sourcing parts as an example. I would go to meetings where people showed off cool projects they made, and ask them where they get their parts. They would just evade the question, or tell me “digikey…

It's like being a C programmer, and someone asks you - "How do you declare a variable". You could try to explain, but it's not very interesting to answer such basic questions. If you don't even know where to buy electronic parts, you're not even at newbie level yet. You have not even started.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#12

Post by simplegeek »

One related question. I came across this book from the article "Making things talk" and I kind of like it (from what I can tell by reading excerpts at books.google.com). Can I enjoy this book and make cool programs like the one in book if I don't have a background in Electronics? Just curious.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#13

Post by Edinburger »

mobileshub wrote: post #2

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/ - Book lovers from India now have the option to open Infibeam.com to view, select and buy books online of their choice with free shipping available in India.

Hi PG, I don't know whether you're watching but this seems like a good example where it would be useful to grey out the URLs in downvoted posts as well as the message.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#14

Post by nailer »

HSO wrote: post #6

angry man... just ignore the mbas if they bother you. or move to california.

From the article, it seems the MBAs are intruding on his traditional creative meetings for hackers, making it hard to ignore them.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#15

Post by barrkel »

It started out sort of vague (I joined the mailing list quite early), but as it acquired definition, it seemed to be ending up excessively concentrated in a "Zed"-like niche, i.e. the combination of scripting hacks and music / theatre-like performances.

So I drifted away and terminated subscription, and I guess many others did the same (and have had that impression confirmed from a couple of private emails).

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#16

Post by apgwoz »

andreyf wrote: post #7
rlm wrote: post #3

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282731 , http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309195

Worse than dupe: dead org. Zed hasn't posted to the mailing list since 11/26 last year, meetups kind of fell through.

Maybe it'll startup again with new found interest. I'm moving to NYC and would love to start going to some of these meetupy type events.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#17

Post by andreyf »

apgwoz wrote: post #16
andreyf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than dupe: dead org. Zed hasn't posted to the mailing list since 11/26 last year, meetups kind of fell through.

Maybe it'll startup again with new found interest. I'm moving to NYC and would love to start going to some of these meetupy type events.

There was a news.yc NYC meetup, which I couldn't make it to, but I imagine was neat :)

If you want it to be serious, I think the trick is to get people to sign up to show cool stuff ahead of time, and advertise what people will be presenting.

If you'd like, I can help you organize (not that I have experience with that kind of things). I'd imagine we can find a place, issue a call for presentations, see how many responses there are, then make a site with the list of speakers.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#18

Post by gamache »

markessien wrote: post #11
Hexstream wrote: post #10

"One thing I found through doing all this hardware hacking is that people who wield a soldering iron in NYC are kind of secretive. I mean, they’re nice enough, but they really hold their secrets close to their chest. Take sourcing parts as an example. I would go to meetings where people showed off cool projects they made, and ask them where they get their parts. They would just evade the question, or tell me “digikey…

It's like being a C programmer, and someone asks you - "How do you declare a variable". You could try to explain, but it's not very interesting to answer such basic questions. If you don't even know where to buy electronic parts, you're not even at newbie level yet. You have not even started.

"Where do you get your parts?" is a lot more like "What editor do you use?" than "How do you declare a variable?". It's cool as hell to find a parts shop you never knew existed, or to find a useful component that Radio Shack sells, or to find a website which sells a drop-in solution for what you need.

Re: The Freehacker's Union

#19

Post by chanux »

Nicely said. That very fact bothered me for a long time & now I'm happy there's at least one in this universe who think like me.

I was unlucky that I was not there when "home brew computer club" formed. Dammit I missed the golden age. I regret that.I really do.

I was looking for a place for me to fit in. A guy with the hacker gene. Grown so carefully in me thanks to all those hackers lived & left their experiences behind, on text files or whatever media. A guy who has lot of things to learn but struggling to find people who are willing to make another hacker with their knowledge & skills, like the real hackers who lived on this planet some times back.

I was looking for the right place. Right place for me to grow. I went there, I came here. No where is perfect. Maybe that's the way it is. Since the time is changed, the hackers of new days has to build their own world like a kid building a lego castle with pieces picked from HERE & THERE.

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