[Vanhackspace] July 9: Intro to Relational Databases at VHS

[Luke Closs]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Julian Rendell<juliangrendell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeff-
> this Thursday's talk sounds like a great topic!
> However I was hoping to met a friend there so we could both find out a
> little more about VHS and the space, and also to hack on a new hobby project
> we're working on (http://code.google.com/p/sustainable-food-search/ -
> starting with Seafood, using Freebase.)  Yes there's very little there,
> hence we're looking for a somewhere we can sit down, have network access,
> and hack-away.  We'd love to include others, though at the moment we're
> still trying to work out the basics.
> Although neither of us are members, we'd rather come on an open night and
> donate $5 each and support VHS than spend it at a local cafe.

I can't speak for all of the VHS, but from my perspective: Awesome!

> So a couple of questions:
> 1. is this in line with VHS vision?

In my mind, yes.  I think we basically want projects that are done
"openly".  This has several properties to me:
* Socially open - sharing what your project is about, being social at the space
* Creatively open - we share our projects and ideas, so please leave
your @work_secrets at home
* Open licensing - work and ideas created at the VHS should be
released under an OSI approved license.

> 2. could we physically do this in the VHS space?  i.e. is there somewhere we
> can quietly chat and not be disturbing the presentation/other hackers?


Usually people arrive before 7pm and then shortly after we start with
an agenda and then jump into the tutorial or presentation.  Usually
this is about an hour of group time, and then we usually descend into
various projects.  Having said that, members are known to work on
projects unrelated to the presentation.

You'll have to come down and check out the space - pop into IRC to see
if people are around.  But it's very possible you could pull up some
chairs into the stairway plateau area even, or by the window to work
on your project.

But in short, we really want to make the best use of this space.  To
people in your situation, I think I can summarize as:

  Please come and bring your awesome projects and energy.

Cheers,
Luke

P.S. - We really could use a VHS Guestbook to help track trends.  If
anyone wants to buy one or even better make one for VHS we would
appreciate the gift.