Hackerspaces irl collab spaces. "YMCA for geeks."

[kuranes]

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_ALL_hackerspaces

I'm checking out the one here in Chicago.

 

[Bird]

So how creepy would it be if I hung around
and then proceeded to trail you?


Anyway, this site is really disorganized.


But thank you for posting this.


Edit: I also was confused about
the title of the thread.

 

[kuranes]

So how creepy would it be if I hung around
and then proceeded to trail you?

Not creepy at all unless you had hostile intentions. ;-) It's easy to get to know me - no stalking required. PM's etc.welcome.

Anyway, this site is really disorganized.

intpforum.com ?

But thank you for posting this.

SOITANLY !

Edit: I also was confused about
the title of the thread.

I put "irl" in there because geeks can "collab" in virtual spaces, too. The "YMCA" was not meant to exclude women. It is just a phrase someone else came up with to summarize what the basic idea of the places are. ( Just as we sometimes use "He" in a sentence but mean "anyone". ) I could have titled it using dry academic language, but thought I'd go for something provocative. Related to phenom like "barcamp" and "Un-Conference" in a few ways, but permanent, and not focused on getting funding ( yet ) for entrepreneurial ideas, but doing stuff.

You're welcome.

 

[Bird]

No, I just had trouble putting together
your title because I felt it lacked some
important sentence structures. I think
it was all the abbreviation.


And no, not the INTP forum, that website.
It is disorganized. If you're going to partially
alphabetize, alphabetize the whole damn
thing.



You're editing your post so I don't know if
this is still going to be relevant to what
you say.

 

[kuranes]

No, I just had trouble putting together
your title because I felt it lacked some
important sentence structures. I think
it was all the abbreviation.

OK

And no, not the INTP forum, that website.

Yes, I was joking. Silly wabbit. Twix are for KIDS !!

You're editing your post so I don't know if
this is still going to be relevant to what
you say.

We'll both survive it. ;-)

 

[kuranes]

I can't get in to INTP Central last night or today. It keeps telling me "Cannot modify header information". The same for Typology Central. Yet I can see ( from the intro page ) that there are some recent posts. Some folks are getting in. What's up with that ?

 

[Cognisant]

Hackerspace, ugh paying $60 to go to a place where I can't use the lathe or laser cutter and nobody will help me, I don't mean to be greedy and I know it's not a business but I just don't see the point of it, unless you're a qualified engineer or a cashed up hobbyist it's just not worth your time.

I dunno maybe it's just the Brisbane Hackerspace, the seem to have a high turnover of new members and a small group of regulars who are quite happy to remain a small group, if anything the place makes me wonder how successful I'd be if I did the same thing and tried make a business of it.

 

[Kuu]

Lol business? I looked into starting one at some point and decided it would be absolutely impossible after I looked at the numbers. There's not enough interest to support it, let alone turn a profit, even if the idea overall makes sense. Most of the big successful hackerspaces in the US and Germany were backed or are still largely backed by universities or local governments.

There's the idea I've toyed with of making a synergistic business and then using the profits of that to keep the hackerspace operating, providing it as a sort of public service and magnet for your other business. But philanthropy like that isn't common and nobody so far has been willing to give me some money to try it.

I've seen the appearance of a couple of coworking spaces here, one has been struggling for years and barely makes a profit, and it's not even a hackerspace, just an open office, so they don't even have to pay for the costs of buying and operating manufacturing equipment... The other is relatively new, but is backed by a bunch of NGOs so it's also not a realistic self-sustaining model.