Since Jordan went to MakerBot ‘Bot Cave’ opening this weekend, we started to pool money to get a MakerBot 3d Printer.
’nuff said!
PhillyCocoa iPhone Deviation, July 28th, 7-10 pm
Bring a project you’re working on or just a general curiosity about coding for iPhone. Exchange knowledge and improve your apps and their interfaces.
We’ll have guests from a local non-profit to discuss our first group project — building an open-source iPhone app for them pro-bono to be distributed free on the App Store! You can also come to work on your own projects, learn from others, or help with beta testing :-]
An interview with ITL
Invisible Things Lab is a sweet little security company. Tom’s Hardware has a great interview with Founder and CEO Joanna Rutkowska, once you get past the first page of obligatory ‘what was your first PC’ questions. Kernel Level rootkits are getting a lot of attention these days, and it’s awesome to read about the hackers that make (or defend against) them.
Having the two opponents (a rootkit and an A/V) operating at the same privilege level (ring 0) doesn’t mean that either of the two is a clear winner in the long term. In fact, in the long term there is always a draw. It’s that malware usually wins in the short-term, and this is pretty bad because, for malware, it is just enough to survive a few weeks (or days maybe even) to do its job.
If anyone is going to Black Hat ’09, you should check ITL’s talk on ‘Attacking Intel BIOS, and Introducing Ring -3 Rootkits’, it should be awesome.
PhillyCocoa iPhone Deviation, July 21st, 7-10 pm
Bring a project you’re working on or just a general curiosity about coding for iPhone. Exchange knowledge and improve your apps and their interfaces.
Cardboard Tube Fighting League
This coming Saturday Cardboard Tube Fighting League is invading Philadelphia, and having an event out front of the art museum. To prep for it, some of us built some cardboard armor and equipment at Hive on Wednesday. There are some photos of it up on flickr, and it you want come check out the awesome action in person by the Art Museum Saturday.
Hive Mind is now Active!
Hopefully this will be just a starting place, because right now I can’t claim credit for much of the design or implementation (Dan did the logo, and Pinax/Eldarion did most of the code), but we now have a small set of web applications for our members to use, communicate, discuss ideas, keep track of GTD, etc. Suggestions, feedback and help are all appreciated in the future development of these tools, but for now, registration is open, though e-mail is not being sent. I recommend using OpenID if you’re comfortable with it, wordpress.com is one of the more widely used providers. Feel free to email me for help or with questions! The site is at http://mind.hive76.org
Around The Table
A lot of geeks are fans of Daft Punk, and it’s not a surprise to find awesome objects or events made as tribute to, or inspired by the band. So with that I bring to to you the Daft Table. It’s an awesome coffeetable that seems to react to music (or is pre-timed) to run a great dance-floor pattern. It’s keen, pretty simple, and just awesome. Every livingroom (and hackerspace) needs one.
3D printing workshops in Philly
Hot on the tail of The Fab Show, EKG has been hitting the bricks, and working to get art into people’s hands. The Fab Show (which is still running at their gallery at The Science Center) was a show of 3D printing technology, and rapid prototyping. I think the fancy term was “Modern DIY Vernacular”. Seeing how nifty the show was, they’ve arranged printing workshops for the Fab@Home and the MakerBot 3D printers for right here in Philly.
MakerBot Printing Workshop:
This workshop I do know about. The MakerBot workshop is happening right here at Hive 76, starring MakerBot founder Zack Hoeken. The class is Saturday June 20th, from 1PM to 5PM. You just need to show up on time, and with a laptop, and we do the rest. We’ll teach you everything you need to do a first design, and a first printing using the MakerBot. Tickets for the 4 hours class are $25 (or $5 for students).
Fab@Home Printing Workshop
I don’t have much detail on this one, and I’ll fill it in when I do. I do know it’ll be the night of June 17th from 6PM to 8PM, and it will be with Fab@Home founder, Evan Malone.
3D printer vs 3D printer? Project founder vs Project founder? Seriously folks, that is just awesome.
Fritzing
Daniel showed up the Python, Processing, and Pizza tonight with Fritzing on the mind. Firtzing is this awesome new tool that is based on the ideas Processing and Arduino. Instead of doing code though, Fritzing does electronics board design. If you know how to put together a breadboard, or can figure it out, Fritzing will auto-generate a PCB and schematic based on just that. It’s clearly still in beta, but already it looks like it will knock the socks off of anyone who has tried to work with Eagle or other PCB design programs.
We are going to be running a Fritzing study group starting next Thursday, right here at Hive 76. The Study Group will run from 7PM to 9PM out of our space at 915 Spring Garden (dial #500 to get let in). If you want to find out more, join the discussion on our mailing list.
Plus, I just like the word ‘Fritzing’…
Find the MacGuffen
Philadelphia is home to one of this fine countries oldest traditions. The Guerrilla Drive-in. Not to be confused with the Gorillia Drive in, where you drive through Gorilla City. Instead it’s a drive in that moves, and appears and disappears without warning. Kind of like the Tardis but with popcorn, and less death and aliens.
But of course, we’re geeks. We don’t do things the easy way. So instead of just letting people look at a schedule and show up at the location. So the genii behind West Chester Guerrilla Drive went and hid a macguffen, which you have to find before you can get on the super seekret Drive-in mailing list. What is a MacGuffen you ask? I’d tell you, but that wouldn’t be much fun. Ask an argonaut.
So, I’m trying to crack the MacGuffen. If you want to get onto the Hive 76 MacGuffen Cracking Team, email Hive76@gmail.com or join the google discussion group. Did I mention there is a secret Nerd Merit Badge for finding it?