STL hacker space in the news

[Pete L.]

I just spotted this this morning:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/B761E8B034D3D0D18625767C000D6B4B?OpenDocument

Anyone here involved with this? I heard some about it at the Google
Wave Hackfest and it sounds pretty cool. I cringed a bit when the
story compared STL hackers to the "geek squad" (If you do work for GS,
I'm sorry.... and I'm sorry). Plus, it's a bit annoying that they
said, "They aren't hackers in the traditional, computer virus sense."
(since when did the "traditional" sense of the word "hacker" include
writing harmful code? I bet Steve Wozniak's spider sense is going
wild).

Anywho, if you're involved in this, congratulations on the main stream
publicity. If you weren't aware of it, then you should learn some more
about it, check out the website: http://www.archreactor.org/

-Pete

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I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter ads without
a messy bloodbath.

[Wilson, Eric]

We read this this morning too. I've never heard of it. 

The article sounded somewhat coder-esq.

I would certainly like to hear a review from a LUG or UUG perspective. 

The word hacker is forever adulterated.  It's unfortunate. Only a small group will truly understand the difference, and understand why that matters.

Cheers;

E!

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[Pete L.]

I've been involving myself with arch reactor (the folks running the
hackerspace) the past week or so and it really seems to be much wider
ranging than simply a LUG or UUG. There has been discussions of doing
projects ranging from embedded electronics and microcontroller
programming to costume making and woodworking. Basically, the
hackerspace is for people to have a workshop for which to do various
projects of all sorts. Therefore, the term "hacker" in this sense is
probably the most traditional usage, being essentially "tinkerer." So
it's a place to fool around with technology and make things.

They are doing cleanup of their new space tomorrow at noon in
preparation to start moving in furniture, covering walls, and getting
things set up. The cleanup is being organized on a Wave. Just drop a
message on the listserv to get added to the Wave. Otherwise, I'm sure
if you show up at noon tomorrow, they'll find something for you to do.
:-)

They're still looking for new members, and you might be able to get a
full membership still if you're quick. They've supposedly cut off
giving full memberships to anyone who hasn't been a supporting member
for fewer than 6 months. But the executive board can override that
limitation on a case-by-case basis, so you might still be able to
swing one if you join up soon.

-Pete

[Robert Ward]

Hey,

This is Bob Ward, I'm one of the founders of Arch Reactor.

I could go on and on about the word hacker it's meaning on modern culture, how it's been hijacked by the media and.... actually I'll just shut up about it now before I get started.

What I will say is that we've got a cool thing going on.  We're moving into a space in the old Lemp Brewery, we've got a halfway decent shop pledged to us from members as soon as the space is ready to move things into.  It's a great group of people, and I know we're going to be doing some cool things.

If anyone on this list wants to see the space and meet some people, we're having a clean-up day Saturday Dec. 5th at Noon (tomorrow).  You don't have to help clean up if you just want to stop by and take a look (but it would be appreciated if you did!).

Email me off or on list if there's anything you'd like to know about us.

You can find our site at:

www.archreactor.org

And we're located at:

904 Cherokee St.

Saint Louis, MO 63118

Thanks,

~Bob