Hacking as a way of life
Elegant solutions to tricky problems
No more updates
0Due to lack of time to write my thesis. I will post my thesis here when it’s done.
Pumping Station: One
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Just fucking do it. This is the motto of the hackers at Pumping Station: One in Chicago. And they did it, about one and a half years ago when they opened the hackerspace for interested people. It took a lot of legal examination, physical labor and money to set the space up. Now, they have about 75 paying members who work on their projects in the space that is about the size of four garages.
I experienced a warm welcome by the hackers who were willing to tell me all the ins and outs of PS:1. I learned a lot about the internal structure of the hackerspace, the problems they faced during the setup, the projects they are currently working on, the connections they have with other hacker spaces and a lot more. They have a very transparent structure and policy that would probably surprise a lot of people. The weekly meetings are accessible to anyone interested and decisions are made democratically.
A major loft was built in the corner of the space that provides a nice lounge area on the top and a workplace underneath it with lots of tools that were either donated or bought for a cheap price. The room is stuffed with things people are currently working on and tables and chairs. In the middle of the space stands a home-made replica of Dr. Who’s TARDIS, that still needs some fixing before being able to travel in time and space. In an adjacent space that is shared with other people from the building, there are possibilities for working on larger projects and welding.
I felt like there was an overall positive and inspiring atmosphere flowing at the night I made my visit to the space. People were working on their projects and socializing, there was a meeting going on in the hallway (on a -little out of place- massive luxurious circular couch) and people were playing with Lego. The crowd and their projects seem pretty diverse: someone was working on integrating LEDs in clothing, there were people working on a cart for the annual race against i3Detroit, a woman was making small paintings and I got an introduction into didgeridoo by a guy who makes them from PVC.
I feel like Pumping Station: One is a really cool place to hang out on the regular to meet like-minded but diverse people and a space that enables and inspires you to work on stuff because there’s a lot of tools available. It showed me that it requires a bunch of really dedicated people to make a hackerspace as organized and thriving as this one. Their aim is to grow the coming years and provide a place for children to learn and work on stuff after school. I think this is a really interesting aim as they would play a more public role. I want to look if I can incorporate this into my thesis.
SLUG
0After someone tipped me on the existence of SLUG (Squatters Linux User Group, a hacker-like group) at the piracy debate a couple of weeks ago, I really wanted to go there. But my Tuesdays (the day they meet) were already booked. Today I could finally go. Bicyclemark (who wanted to see it as well) and I arrived at a squat in the Da Costastraat in Amsterdam and found out that the squatters just lost a lawsuit and had to leave the building soon. Sad news. So there was no real SLUG meeting going on, but we were invited to drink some coffee. Inside we met six very friendly squatters / SLUG members. BM and I introduced ourselves, and when I told them I was doing research they didn’t react reserved, but rather interested.
We went to the basement where SLUG normally has its meetings. Apparently it was less messy before, but after the negative verdict SLUG members took hardware out of the place already. Wires were all over, some construction materials were lying around. It looked disorganized; they told us that the place was just set up as a hacker space and getting shape, but the verdict threw a monkey wrench in the works. Still, they were continuing their plan to give workshops on working with the Linux command line. Too bad I cannot join them next week! But then, I will probably be visiting Pumping Station: one in Chicago 
I got to talk a bit about my project and people seemed interested. They gave me new information on who to talk to and where to go. Apparently an Italian Linux / hacker guy named Jaromil knows what’s going on here in Amsterdam. I looked him up and he indeed seems to be an interesting figure; he’s written some books on open source and is quite well known within this world. I also got the name Tatjana, and I found out she’s writing her Phd on somewhat the same subject as me. I should definitely meet her!
Although I couldn’t really see the hackers in full action, I was very happy with this visit. Especially because the SLUG members were so friendly and inviting. On forehand I had my doubts about getting access to a squat, but I felt quite comfortable. I look forward to learning more on Linux, something I’ve always wanted to learn. That way I can meet these guys/girls more often as well. Hopefully they can stay in the squat for a while, or that they can find something new.
Today my research has begun!
0A wonderful day full of information and progress. I worked for eight hours at the university today, had a meeting with my thesis advisers, attended a debate on digital rights and made a lot of new contacts in the hacker world.
While I was filming my advisers’ lecture on Durkheim’s view on religion this morning, I was reading a book on the hacker ethic by Himanen, which was just given to me by that same adviser. The author proposed that the hacker ethic could be an alternative to the protestant work ethic on which our current capitalist economical system is based. This gives the hacker ideology a whole lot more meaning and significance than a mere utopian vision. I’m definitely going to dig into this subject, because it is connected to debates on copyrights, intellectual property and new models such as open source.
At five o’clock I was supposed to meet my two advisers, but the one mentioned above was busy until six. We were kicked out of the building by then and we decided to go into a bar. I already had a good conversation with my other adviser, who has a wider perspective on hacking than I did. He distinguished different types of hackers and diversified the dichotomy of the ‘good hacker’ and the ‘bad hacker’. He is also interested in the virtual aspect of the hacker communities, which I should take more in consideration. In the bar we further discussed my proposal and they were both quite positive about it, which was good to hear of course. They both think that usability of Bourdieu as my theoretical guidance is limited and that I should pay some attention on sociologists concerned with community formation. Noted. I will work on an altered thesis proposal asap.
I had to rush to the debate organized by the Dutch political party Groen Links (green left): An Internet Bill of Rights – Pirates and Greens for online freedom, with keynote speaker Christian Engström from the Pirate Party. The information was really useful for me because it connects to the heart of the hacker’s ethic: freedom of information and distrust authority. Engström promotes the idea of making an Internet Bill of Rights, which should state all the rights that civilians have concerning the web and technology. A lot of discussion was going on about the abuse of the copyright system, the destruction of our current rights and the tendency of governments to spy on its citizens. It is too much information to summarize here, but I saw that everything was being taped, so I hope the debate will be made publicly available.
Afterwords people had some drinks and I got to talk to the guy that I met before at the hackerspace in Den Haag. I introduced my thesis project and we discussed whether hacker communities are politically active. He invited me to visit the hackerspace once more. Another interesting person was standing next to us and joined our conversation on political attitudes. He used to be part of the Amsterdam based ASCII hacker community and enlightened me with the knowledge on SLUG, a hacker community that isn’t permanently located in a specific space. I’m going to visit those hackers/squatters soon. Then I got to talk to another guy that made some interesting remarks during the debate. Apparently he knows a lot of people within hacker communities and helped organizing hacker camps. I got his card. He also introduced me two more people who are really active in and around hacker communities, who were willing to help me getting into hackerspaces and contact people!
Man, so much happened today! The snowball has been released at the top of the mountain and is rolling down in high speed. Yeah! So much fun!
New tool
0My wonderful girlfriend Katie notified me (me, the IT-guy) on a great free tool: Zotero. It is developed to collect, manage and share (academic) resources and an introductory video explains quite well how it works. I just started working with it and made my own profile and library. I also integrated a stream into this web page, found on the right. So more 2.0 for me, I think I like it.
A new hacker’s utopia?
0I just watched a presentation by Sandro Gaycken named A Hacker’s Utopia What’s There and What’s Missing, recorded on December 27, 2009 in Berlin during the 26C3 congress. He made a really nice historical summary of the connections between utopian visions, technology and society and addressed the relation of hackers to this. He argues that the first generation hackers (1950s-1960s) couldn’t have foreseen what impact computers could have for society, despite the hacker’s ethic they developed (as distilled by Stephen Levy in his 1984 book Hackers). Yet, some of these points [freedom of information, distrust authority, and computers can create beauty] are quite apparent in today’s hacker’s ideology and seem really central to issues related to the information age.
He starts his presentation with an philosophical perspective on what a utopia is. Utopias derive from human desires. They depict social situations which are maybe not realizable, but can function in a couple of ways. They can 1) be inspiration for political agendas 2) inspiration for change 3) inspiration for design and 4) comparison & critique of societal states. This last point I think is really interesting. You propose some ideas in order to reflect on the current state of society, to be critical and to address problems. Utopias don’t propose direct means of how to change the situation, as opposed to ideologies that offer something conceivable.
Utopias that were developed during the 19th century industrialization often propose an important role in technology: machines that do everything for us and produce everything we want. This utopia has not yet appeared of course. A hypothesis is that the fall of the USSR also led to great disillusions amongst utopians. But what utopia is has developed alongside technological changes. Computers have become a common object in people’s houses and most of them are linked to the internet. The old hacker’s ethic suddenly got a different meaning. This new world suddenly opens up and people start to realize its potential. Information and co-creation become central themes.
Today, we might have a new hacker’s utopia, but it is not yet clear, fragmented and too broad, according to Gaycken. It is connected to the freedom of information, copyright issues, authoritarianism, democracy. This is too much to carry for hackers. Gaycken sees a role for hackers in being the watch dogs for the threatening power of governments, that could use the omnipotent technology for surveillance, which could eventually lead to the Orwellian dystopia as depicted in Ninteen Eighty-Four, in which information technology is used by an authoritarian power to control society.
I too think it is important to have critical thinkers, people who distrust authority. I don’t want to be a dystopian thinker, but the power of governments and corporations is growing as we are giving up more of our privacy, in the virtual world, but also the corporeal world, especially during the last decade. I’m not sure how many hackers will actually be so politically engaged, but it might also demonstrate automatically if one has some utopian ideas. I want to dig into this possible new hacker’s utopia: does it exist, are hackers actively talking about it? Is it just a mentality? Is it a myth? I also want to get a basic idea of utopias, the history and significance of them. Where should I start? Francis Bacon?
Revelation Space
0Yesterday I made my first visit to a hackerspace. The initial idea was to go a hackerspace in Utrecht, but my friend Bicyclemark had the Den Haag space with the one in Utrecht confused. With a detour via Rotterdam we arrived a little delayed at Revelation Space in Den Haag. The space is found a little south west from the Central Station in an industrial area. The top floor of a former Chrysler garage is converted into a space where hackers can meet each other and work on projects. It is a massive empty space with in a corner some couches and a television, an old office room filled with little projects, a server room and a room full of tech stuff.
I met two hackers; it was quite quiet at that moment. Apparently it is a lot more crowded on Tuesday nights and hopefully I can drop in once more on those evenings. But the two persons I met were really friendly, they explained things when I asked them stuff and they offered us drinks. I felt a bit out of place since I’m not as experienced with computers as they are. I never introduced myself as a sociology student that has interest in the hacker communities, which I probably should have. I regret that now. But I’ll come back and do a more proper introduction of who I am and explain what I want with my project.
I thought it was really cool to see a hackerspace for the first time and was surprised by the amount of space they had. Since it wasn’t really busy, there wasn’t really an inspiring atmosphere and I didn’t feel like an experience that has given me a lot of empirical information. Maybe this will be different at my next visit.
Hello World!
0Hello people.
This is a blog that I will keep while writing my thesis on hacker communities during 2010. More information and stories will follow soon.
For now, you can read my thesis proposal if you’re interested: 20100205_Thesis Proposal_Elgin
