>Even if I had the time, money and expertise I would never do something like that. Invite only spaces. New members have mentors who are responsible for them. Anyone can be expelled for any reason at any time. It's amazing how much the tone changes when someone is on the line for breaking a 10k machine and having to pay for everyone else using an equivalent machine commercially while they get it fixed.
> New members have mentors who are responsible for them. Does that imply that if you vouch for a new member that you are also expelled if they are or share the cost of their fuckups?
some private torrent trackers do that and it works well
> A recent experience from a hackerspace showed me how incredibly thankless people can be. After working really insanely hard to build an inclusive space with loads of features, every little hobby revolutionary in the community just shits all over the work and proclaims the people actually getting stuff done should just stop and leave it to them. They are clueless. It's like when developers on HN share all their idea…
I'd be more interested on the "why being a manager". Considering how shitty the atmosphere seems, I wonder why people want to be managers at all...
From experience - because you can only get your salary to a certain level as a programmer before hitting a brick wall. To go higher you need to take on at least some managerial responsibilities - it's not at every company, but it's common enough.
> A recent experience from a hackerspace showed me how incredibly thankless people can be. After working really insanely hard to build an inclusive space with loads of features, every little hobby revolutionary in the community just shits all over the work and proclaims the people actually getting stuff done should just stop and leave it to them. They are clueless. It's like when developers on HN share all their idea…
I'd be more interested on the "why being a manager". Considering how shitty the atmosphere seems, I wonder why people want to be managers at all...
For me, I really enjoy helping people grow into their best selves. A lot of that means protecting them from politics and giving them the space to do their jobs effectively, make mistakes, learn and grow. It really isn't for everyone, because there's a lot less tangible rewards and the payoff can be pretty long tail, but when you can see potential in someone and then see them grow into that potential, it's a really fulfilling experience. Basically I saw that things could be better and I chose to be that better, I had a lot of amazing people that took a chance on me as well, so I owe it to them to pay it forward.
That place was a matchbox waiting to get struck. And the electrical situation was a total mess... I mean that's why it burned down. How shitty of a landlord can you be that you wouldn't prioritize people's safety.
Probably not shitty, just oblivious. A Hackerspace in Germany was proud of its smartphone-activated door lock. I was less impressed on their open house event when I saw firsthand how they struggled to open it for several minutes (with no mechanical override on the inside!), while dozens of guests were there. When I voiced my safety concerns they simply didn't seem to understand. I mean it's just a fun hack, right?
No, actually just shitty. There were criminal charges. The two people mainly responsible got prison time.
Also that's crazy about that smart door... Pretty sure that's against fire code if it's one of the only exits. Ignorance isn't an excuse when other people's lives are concerned, either.
I have a friend who runs a brewery. They distribute a ridiculous amount of their product into stores around the world and have won many awards, yet they make very little margin from all that. He told me they make an overwhelming amount of money off of the tasting room attached to their physical brewery because the beer itself is effectively water in terms of cost so they make profit by not having to pay any middle me…
> It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale they have.” Source and roast your own beans, don't overroast the beans, charge a premium over Starbucks for not producing crap coffee from overroasted beans. Starbucks does some impressive work with the candy flavors it adds to distract from their coffee, but...
> It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale they have.” Source and roast your own beans, don't overroast the beans, charge a premium over Starbucks for not producing crap coffee from overroasted beans. Starbucks does some impressive work with the candy flavors it adds to distract from their coffee, but...
I never had any issue with the way Starbucks coffee tastes - it's just coffee. I definitely don't pick my coffee shops based on the coffee taste - it's only a matter of distance/price, nothing else.
If it's strictly distance/price, then you make all of your coffee at home and work, right? You would never even think about going to Starbucks if that is all you cared about. Now you may pick coffee shops based on atmosphere, which I think many people do.
They go to some lengths to dance around the issue. If you can't pay for the space based on a sustainable amount of donations, or other recurring income, you aren't running a space you are running a business and a lot of businesses fail. There is at least half a century of complaints over gentrification to that point.
Right. The rent is the problem. You can find coffee shops/bookstores/wine bars/libraries that will provide or rent out space for these events and it's far less risky.
I double-dog-dare you to find a library that will rent out space for that guy who is welding a 27 foot tall phallus.
Writing about it would drive you insane, here it is in image, gif and email form: https://runningahackerspace.tumblr.com shitnoisebridgesays.tumblr.com A high point for me was getting my site ddos'd and ssh brute force attacked when I decided to run a course in another hacker space after being stuck for committee approval for 3 months. The saddest part is that I knew it would happen and scraped the site into a static…
OT: Regarding Tumblr, what cookies do you need to allow nowadays to be able to read it? I haven’t been able to see Tumblr links for months, at least. All it does is redirect to the front page and prompt me to sign in.
You can click "allow" to let you track them in obscure and unknowable ways. I gave up and let my adblock get them, but I should just have closed the tab.
That place was a matchbox waiting to get struck. And the electrical situation was a total mess... I mean that's why it burned down. How shitty of a landlord can you be that you wouldn't prioritize people's safety.
Probably not shitty, just oblivious. A Hackerspace in Germany was proud of its smartphone-activated door lock. I was less impressed on their open house event when I saw firsthand how they struggled to open it for several minutes (with no mechanical override on the inside!), while dozens of guests were there. When I voiced my safety concerns they simply didn't seem to understand. I mean it's just a fun hack, right?
Landlords of such spaces are not oblivious; they want all the money for the rent and none of the responsibility of being a real landlord. This is often what artists themselves are looking for since they are under capitalized and want to do questionably legal build outs and events and are willing to take on extra responsibility to be able to so (e.g. fixing pipes, patching holes, doing pest control). But that doesn't absolve the landlord.
So doubling or tripling everyone's salaries, making workweeks 4 days of 6 hours each, and firing all business and management majors and replacing them with engineers is not the path to a successful company?
it worked for Google....
I forgot to point out that this is tongue in cheek, lingua in maxillam as it were...