Monthly meeting?

[Jonathan Nesser]

Anybody interested in having a "meetup" style event in the near future? My name is Jonathan, and I was active in the ACLUG and 2600 group back when we were meeting at the Vagabond and the riverside perk... I recently moved here and would like to get connected with people working with technology again. My thought was to try to set up a meeting some friday after work (7:00pm or later?) at the Vagabond (coffee shop/bar on Douglas near oldtown, they used to be friendly to us, they have a back area that was fairly accommodating), unless we have younger (under 21) people who would like to attend (have to be 21+ after 9pm at the Vagabond). Personally, I'm into the linux scene, programming, maker work as well as a weird little hobby called DIYBio (look it up!), so anybody would be welcome. Respond to this message if you're interested, we can talk about an actual date and make this thing happen :) Look forward to meeting you guys, and maybe seeing some of you again. o_0

Jonathan Nesser

(the kid who's parents drove him to a bar to hang out with bearded technohippies back in the early 2000s :P)

[John Goerzen]

This is an interesting idea - I might come on occasion, though the
logistics are difficult.

How about a virtual update...

I'm still as excited about Linux and Open Source as ever. My 5-yr-old
and I built his first computer, and he already knows how to join
commands together in bash with the semicolon. It's a lot of fun
watching him learn.

Lately I've been having a lot of fun with ham radio, marrying it with
Linux. Ham radio is, you might say, the ultimate open source hardware
hobby. People do all sorts of things from running transmitters putting
out more than 1kW to Arduino control boards to people talking across
continents with 5W and everything in between. I've had some run running
long-distance TCP/IP radio protocols (in this case, AX.25 frames).
Linux, as it turns out, has the world's most complete long-distance
packet radio stack. It's pretty sweet to be able to telnet into
computers and BBSs (yes) over nothing but a radio link that might be 50
miles away. This has nothing to do with Wifi, BTW. I've run
dist-upgrade on a Linux machine that I have rare physical access to by
using telnet over a 15-mile radio link.

Even more fun, and yes a little trying at times, is to do this with
people in different states or continents. So far, I believe the
farthest packet radio contact I have made using packet radio on my
homebrew antennas is California. It was 300bps, but it DID work. (If
you're getting a shudder at the thought of a TCP frame at 300bps...
well, your instinct isn't far off. Suffice it to say that our MTU is a
lot lower than 1500 at that speed.)

I can explain how, if anyone's interested (it was a direct radio
connection; no cell phone, satellite, or ground line involved) - due to
propagation of HF radio signals. Just talking of general contacts -
which are considerably easier than packet radio - I've spoken with
people in all 50 states and nearly 80 countries using my homebrew
antennas, and keep track of it all and control the radios using Linux.

-- John