I’m in the middle of my Hackers On A Train Workshop Tour, giving my popular Learn-to-Solder and Arduino-For-Total-Newbies workshops at 22 hackerspaces near Amtrak stations, and going to 4 conferences, over a 53 days. All by Amtrak. That was the plan, anyhow.

I was scheduled to give a talk about the hackerspace movement at the WorldFuture 2012 conference this Saturday. While there I was going to stay with my (academy award winning) friend Chris. It was going to be a really wonderful 5 days in Toronto.

To give the workshops, I’m traveling with a rucksack full of clothing and toiletries, my laptop, camera, and two huge suitcases, 50 pounds each, full of workshop stuff, including kits for teaching.

The train to Toronto from Syracuse, NY, stops at the Canadian border for customs and immigration. Everyone has to get out of the train with all their stuff. The line moves rather quickly, and when it was my turn, the Canadian Border Patrol wanted to have a look at my huge bags. After much polite discussion, there was no way that I could assure the CBP that I wasn’t going to sell the kits in Canada.

The CBP folks politely offered a suggestion that I could leave the workshop stuff in the US, and then come back to the border. When I asked where to leave the workshop suitcases, they had no info to offer. When I asked about my train to Toronto, I was told I’d have to call Amtrak. Then they gave me and a Japanese woman a free van ride to the US side of the border in Niagra Falls, NY. As we were getting in the van, one of the CBP people politely told me that in order to get into Canada, I’d need court records for my arrest when I was a young teenager.

Flashback: I’m 13 years old, hanging out with a friend in suburbia. My friend has the idea to grab his remote control for his garage door, and see if it works on any other garage doors in the neighborhood. Wouldn’t you know it — it did! In the hour that we walked around his suburban ‘hood, we came across 5 garage doors that would open. Damn. On the last one, we hid behind a bush, and opened and closed and opened and closed the garage door to see what would happen. The people who lived there came out, scratched their heads, and went back inside. As we were walking home, the police stopped us, assuming we were the people wanting to break into someone’s garage. Oddly (naively), it never even occurred to us that anyone would think we were trying to steal anything.

After meeting with a lawyer friend of my dad’s, he told me that after I did some community service, I should never tell anyone about this, since the record would be expunged.

It turns out, however, that the record was not expunged. After all these decades, it’s the CBP that (politely) told me this. They also (politely) told me that in order to get into Canada, I’ll need the court records for this case, otherwise they’ll assume that the case is still open. Since I was never given any records (from my parents or anyone), and I have no idea how to get any court records, this may mean that I may never be welcome to Canada ever again.

Scratch the WorldFuture 2012 conference in Toronto and the workshop at Vancouver Hack Space.

Lots of photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maltman23/sets/

This was my 10th trip to China. I was there with my mom in 1998, and then every year since I started making TV-B-Gone remotes there in 2004. It has been very interesting to get a snapshot impression of how China has changed through the years.

Though not very accurate, it is possible to have a sense of some very real change happening in China.

In 1998, there was capitalism visible in China, including KFCs everywhere, but it still felt like a 3rd-world version. Also, the Cultural Revolution was not all that long gone in ’98, and my sense was that people were still realing from it. Police were all over, and they had guns. And people seemed to be a bit wary of them.

On my trip in 2008, just before the Olympics, there must have been some heavy propaganda happening on Chinese media, ’cause lots and lots and lots of people I met all asked me what I thought about protestors in London and San Francisco. And before I could answer, they all said the same thing: “CNN is all lies.” I’d probably mostly agree, but probably for different reasons. There were also many inconvenient, seemingly random, restrictions imposed by the Chinese government (such as not allowing anything to be shipped with a battery installed). When asked why, most Chinese people I asked, answered with a straight face that it must be done because otherwise the Dali Lama would blow things up at airports.

By the time of the first Hacker Trip To China that I organized in 2009, things were very different. A gigantic, ugly statue of Mao was surrounded by a perimeter of stores selling everything imaginable. A huge department store had a mongo pile of a newly released American board game that they were pushing hard: Monopoly! There were still no hackerspaces in China, though. I still had the sense that officials were very official, and you didn’t want to cross them.

When I went there on my own last year, things were somehow way more open than it felt before. People I met were openly criticizing the government. There were two hackerspaces, XinCheJian in Shanghai, and FlamingoEDA in Beijing. Lots and lots of people, including those with positions in Chinese bureaucracy, were expressing the opinion that Chinese culture needs to change to encourage people to be creative and innovative — without this, they said, China would not have an economic future.
When I mentioned hackerspaces, people agreed with me that this was one means of implementing this change; and there was a lot of interest in me sharing my experiences in how to start a hackerspace. And there was also a lot of interest by people in organizing a Maker Faire for the same reason.

One year later, this year, there were not one, but two faires in China: a Mini Maker Faire in Shenzhen, and a big Maker Carnival in Beijing. And there are 7 hackerspaces in China, with talk of lots more. There may very well be 100 more soon, as the top 100 universities may be mandating that they each have one. And an elementary school in Shanghai is slated to have one soon. The hackerspaces in schools and universities are being called “Toyhouse” .

Everywhere I went, the Chinese media was interviewing me about how hackerspaces can change China in positive ways.

The Chinese government still openly censors the internet (though there are free online services that easily circumvent this).  And the bureaucracy is still huge and centralized (though so big and out of control that many actually call it “anarchy”), and people in power can, seemingly on a whim, make decisions that adversly affect projects (such as the last-minute venue change for the Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire and the last minute date change at Maker Carnival — both because some bureaucrat said he needed the venue for a meeting — no apology — it’s just the way things are.

How will the changes in China play out? I don’t know. We will get to see.

Mitch.

Let’s have a meetup where geeks can talk about depression and suicide. You are not alone. Share your story, if you like. Share a friend’s story. Or just hang out and listen. Let’s make it OK to talk about these things so that we don’t feel so alone with our feelings of being alone and depressed or suicidal.

This is not a support group — none of us are trained professionals, but we can get together in a safe, confidential space to talk about depression and suicide — an important part of life for so many of us geeks.

If others elsewhere in the world feel like creating their own meetups, please do.

Mitch.
#ilyaz

Ilya hung out at Noisebridge, and also led workshops and hackathons for Diaspora at our space.  Most people who met him were quickly taken in by his enthusiasm and do-ocratic charisma.  I became instant friends with him the first day he showed up at Noisebridge shortly after he moved to San Francisco last year.

Hardly anyone had even a clue that Ilya was depressed, let alone suicidal.  He was bubbly, cheerful, excited about all the way cool projects he was implementing, as well as the ones he had thought, and would think of.

Last night was his memorial in San Francisco, followed a party in his backyard in the Mission.  This party was typical of the epic parties Ilya threw in his backyard over the past many months, bringing together so many wonderful people — incredible opportunities to have fun meeting and connecting with each other.  The only thing atypical last night was that Ilya was not there.

Both the memorial and the party were full of people who knew and loved Ilya, and who Ilya knew and loved.  Ilya could have reached out to any one of us — any time of day or night.  He could have reached out.  But he didn’t.

For Ilya to have held in and hid his pain so well that all of these people, including myself, had no clue — Ilya must have felt *so* alone, *so* isolated, exacerbating his pain too greatly.  If he had reached out, maybe — maybe — he could have lived another day.  But he didn’t.

I lived the first half of my life in total and utter depression.  No joy, just shame, just self-loathing, dread and anxiety and fear of other people — total depression.  I know what it is like to be depressed.  I know what it is like to live for one’s whole life knowing and believing that the best life might have to offer is the ability for me to endure the pain till I eventually died.  That was the best possibility.  As with Ilya, I hid all of this from the world as best as I could.  And most people had no clue I was depressed.

Yet, I learned, through making choices for myself, and learning from the consequences of my choices, and with help and support of others, over a period of many years, making more choices, learning, growing, crashing, burning, making more choices, more support. . . — I eventually learned to live a life I love.  I love the life I live!  If I could learn to live a life I love, then, certainly, it is possible for anyone to do this!

It is more than possible — it is way worthwhile, way rewarding, way wonderful to go through the experiences of our life — through the ups and the downs, through the all-arounds, and all the pain and suffering and joy and love and excitement — and come to a place where you know that the pain, regardless of its intensity, is yet another (perhaps seemingly unendurable) experience, which gives way to more of what makes life even more worthwhile.

Depression is an important part of life.  Everyone experiences it to some extent.  But to those of us who know chronic depression, it is our own unique hell.

Unique as it is to each of us, we all share a lot.

And we all have a lot to share with each other. Through the ups, and the downs, the all-arounds.

For someone who has no experience reaching out, it can seem to be the scariest thing possible.  But it is possible.

It is very possible.  Ilya is dead.  But you — you are still alive.  If you are contemplating suicide, please know that you are not alone.  You are part of a community of others, many of whom know what it is like to be hopelessly depressed.  Many of whom are more than open for you to reach out to (if you only knew!).

You *can* choose to kill yourself.  But it will be your last choice.  If you are ready to kill yourself, why not try out one choice first?  What do you have to lose?  I know it is scary, and perhaps way shameful, and maybe too awful, and extremely difficult — but, really, what do you have to lose?  Please know that you *can* choose to reach out to someone.  Please, know that you can.  Please, pick someone and reach out.

Why wait till your pain is so unendurable?  You can reach out now.  (Really, you can.)

Thanks,
Mitch.

3-Day Hackerspace at Maker Faire Africa

I’m in Cairo.  The main reason for this trip was to set up a 3-day hackerspace at Maker Faire Africa, which is in Cairo this year.  Exciting time to be here!  Lots of high hopes since the “Freedom Revolution”.  Plus lots of attempts by the still-ruling-military at divide-and-rule.

Our trip was funded by generous donations from 186 people, who collectively gave us $8,169 so that we could spread the joy and hope provided by the international hackerspace movement.  <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bilal/3-day-egyptian-maker-space-expanding-the-maker-mov/>

The 3-day hackerspace at Maker Faire Africa was incredible!  The main idea of setting this up was to show people how incredibly cool it is to be part of a supportive community where people explore and do what they love.  And the energy was high.  I taught about 300 people to solder (on my own) at an ongoing, 3-day-long workshop, with kits and soldering irons bought with money donated through our Kickstarter campaign.  The brand new Cairo Hackerspace put together the MakerBot, donated by MakerBot Industries, and also put together the Egg-Bot, donated by Evil Mad Scientist — and they gave 3-D printing workshops.  Minal gave fabric painting workshops.  Bilal gave several Arduino workshops with Arduinos donated by a new local electronics store named Future-Electronics.  Lots of fun for all!  I gave away lots of Noisebridge keys to people who will be visiting us someday in San Francisco.  And Cairo Hackerspace now has a large number of enthusiastic people who will help contribute to Egypt’s first hackerspace.

Before Maker Faire Africa we organized two Hackerspace Meetups, to get people psyched about starting and joining hackerspaces.  The first was hosted by a co-working space in Cairo named Rasheed22.  The second was hosted by a startup incubator in Alexandria named Tahrir2 [the 2 is actually a superscript, and pronounced "squared" -- a reference to the "Freedom Revolution" much of which took place in Tahrir Square in Cairo].

Mitch in Giza

We will have two more Hackerspace meetups before we leave on the 14th.

Photos of all of the above are at my Flickr: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/maltman23/sets/>

Mitch.

There is a powerful, small minority of ultra-right-wing Islamic theocrats called the Salafiyun, with ties to the supreme military council running the country. They want to rid the country of Coptic Christians (and, of course, Jews), and want to force Islamic law on Egypt.

Coptic Christians are angry at many violent and deadly attacks on them over recent days and months, and were demonstrating today in Cairo, when thugs of unknown association(s) attacked them. The Copts attacked back with weapons (perhaps ones taken from police or military).

There has been hatred exacerbated and promulgated by many religious groups: Sunni, Shiite, Sufi, Coptic Christian (with everyone hating the Jews). This is accelerating and getting worse. If this hatred and violence continues the “Freedom Revolution” is under threat of becoming a big win for the Salafiyun. (And many believe that it is being purposely spurred on by provocateurs from the previous Mubarak government and the Salfiyun.)

Let us hope that the majority of people here, who want to live in peace, and enjoy the freedom to be themselves, continue to prevail without violence (since, in my view, any apparent gains by violence will be of little long-term value).

My trip to Europe was paid for by BruCON <http://2010.brucon.org/index.php/Main_Page>, and annual hacker conference in Brussels, Belgium, which is branching out this year from security to other diverse hacking activities. I’ll be giving a talk there on how to bring your project from idea to reality, and how to make a living on your project. I’ll also be setting up a Hardware Hacking Area, teaching people to solder and to make cool things with micrcocontrollers.

While in Belgium, I’ll also be visiting three hackerspaces in the area, giving workshops and talks.

VoidWarranties <http://we.voidwarranties.be> — Antwerp, Belgium
HSB <http://hackerspace.be/Mitch_Altman_Electronics_Workshop> — Brussels, Belgium
whitespace <http://0×20.be/Main_Page> — Gent, Belgium

And while I’m out here in Europe, Hacktivity <http://hacktivity.hu/portal/en>, an annual Eastern European hacker conference paid for my trip to and from Eastern Europe, where I’ll be setting up a Hardware Hacking Area.

While in Eastern Europe, I thought I’d put out the word and see if any of the brand new hackerspaces would like me to give workshops at their spaces. The response was very enthusiastic, and I set up a tour of four hackerspaces!

progressbar <http://www.progressbar.sk/> — Bratislava, Slovakia
brmlab <http://brmlab.cz/event/mitchaltmanworkshop> — Prague, Czech Republic
H.A.C.K. <http://hspbp.org/tiki-index.php> and Kitchen BudaPest <http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/en>
Harkopen <http://harkopen.com/news/workshop-mitch-altman> — Bucharest, Romania

Everywhere I go, hackers are graciously putting me up in their homes. I feel really grateful to be part of such a warm, welcoming, community of hackers.

As with my other tours, the workshops on this tour give anyone and everyone the opportunity to learn to solder by making any number of kits that me and Jimmie Rodgers and Ladyada and others have created to teach people to make cool things with microcontrollers — kits that are designed so that everyone, regardless of age or skill level, can complete successfully and take home with them. It is very similar to what I do when I’m home (and what Miloh does all the other times) at Circuit Hacking Mondays at Noisebridge . The workshops also help build publicity for the hackerspaces that host the workshops by attracting people to the space, and showing everyone how cool it is to have a hackerspace in their home town.

Sharing experiences about our hackerspaces is also a big part of how hackerspaces around the world help and support each other, and I’ll be sharing all I can about Noisebridge and how we got going and make things work out.

Other than reimbursement for air fare from the hacker conferences, I am doing this Workshop Tour without charge, and only ask to be reimbursed for any parts used ($10 to $30, depending on the kit). I do this ’cause I love it!

I am looking forward to meeting more of the coolest, intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, creative people in the world — hackerspace people!

Here is my schedule:

11-Sept: leave San Francisco
12-Sept: dinner with whitespace hackerspace — Gent, Belgium
14-Sept: progressbar hackerspace workshop and talk — Bratislava, Slovakit
16-Sept: brmlab hackerspace workshop and talk — Prague, Czech Republic
17-Sept: Hacktivity conference dinner — Budapest, Hungary
18-Sept: Hacktivity workshop
18-Sept: Hacktivity party
19-Sept: Hacktivity workshop
20-Sept: Kitchen BudaPest and H.A.C.K. visit — Budapest, Hungary
21-Sept: Harkopen hackerspace workshop — Bucharest, Romania
23-Sept: VoidWarranties hackerspace workshop — Antwerp, Belgium
24-Sept: BruCON conference talk and workshop – Brussels, Belgium
25-Sept: BruCOB conference workshop
26-Sept: HSB hackerspace workshop — Brussels, Belgium
27-Sept: whitespace hackerspace talk — Gent, Belgium
29-Sept: fly back home to San Francisco

After this tour, I’ll be home in San Francisco for the entire month of October!

– Mitch.

My first stop was the Detroit Maker Faire <http://makerfaire.com/detroit/2010/>, where 22,000 people gathered to check out over 300 exhibits, enthusiastically sharing, learning, and teaching through making cool things. I led a panel on hackerspaces both days of the Faire — both with standing room only. Hackerspaces are really popular now! There are way more hackerspaces in the Midwest alone, than time to visit all of them in a month. This is an exciting time to be a geek!

My main thing at the Detroit Maker Faire was to set up a Hardware Hacking Area, which I did with the help of Jimmie Rodgers <http://www.jimmieprodgers.com/> and Dale Grover, of A2 MechShop <http://www.a2mechshop.com/>. Together with 19 other volunteers, we taught 1,500 people to solder! The Makezine blog has a really sweet writeup on it:
<http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/08/mitch_altman_rocks.html>

From now (4-August) till the end of the month, me and Jimmie and Matt Mets (of Hack PGH <http://www.hackpittsburgh.org/> — who will be joining us for the rest of the tour after Canada) will be giving 14 workshops at that many hackerspaces around the Midwest.

The workshops will give anyone and everyone the opportunity to learn to solder by making any number of kits that me and Jimmie have created to teach people to make cool things with microcontrollers — kits that are designed so that everyone, regardless of age or skill level, can complete successfully and take home with them. It is very similar to what I do when I’m home (and what Miloh does all the other times) at Circuit Hacking Mondays at Noisebridge <https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Circuit_Hacking_Monday>. The workshops also help build publicity for the hackerspaces that host the workshops by attracting people to the space, and showing everyone how cool it is to have a hackerspace in their home town.

I also share any and all experiences with the hackerspaces I visit about how we started and run Noisebridge.

Me and Jimmie and Matt are doing this without charge, and only ask to be reimbursed for any parts used ($10 to $30, depending on the kit).

As we go from city to city, hackers host us, and we meet some of the coolest, intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, creative people in the world — hackerspace people!

While traveling I hope to have time to blog more about our experiences here on this Noisebridge blog. Jimmie will be adding his thoughts to the blog on his website.  And Matt will be blogging about it and posting it to the Makezine website. 

Here is our schedule:

Hacklab.TO – Toronto, ON — visit on 3-August
Site3 — Toronto, ON — workshop on 5-August
Kwartzlab – Kitchener, ON — workshop on 6-August
think|haus – Hamilton, ON — visit on 7-August
OCD — Detroit, MI — workshop on 8-August
Mt. Elliot Makerspace – Detroit, MI — workshop on 9-August
I3 — Detroit, MI — workshop on 10-August
A2 MechShop — Ann Arbor, MI — visit on 11-August
AHA — Ann Arbor, MI — workshop on 12-August
LVL1/Actors Theatre – Louisville, KY – demo on 13-August
LVL1 — Louisville, KY — workshop on 14-August
Hive13 — Cincinnati, OH — presentation on 17-August
Hive13 — Cincinnati, OH — workshop on 18-August
BloomingLabs — Bloomington, IN — workshop on 19-August
Arch Reactor — St. Louis, MO — workshop on 20-August
KC Mini Maker Faire / CCCKC — Kansas City, MO — Hardware Hacking Area at Faire on 22-August
Quad Cities Co-Lab Hackerspace — Quad Cities, IA/IL – workshop on 24-August
PS:1 — Chicago, IL — workshop on 25-August
Madison BarCamp — Madison, WI — talk on hackerspaces on 28-August
Sector67 – Madison, WI — workshop on 29-August

I wish I had more time, since there are many other hackerspaces that we don’t have time to visit on this trip.

According to google maps, we’ll be driving about 2,400 miles in the car we rented for the month. Road trip!

- Mitch.

The Hackerspace Movement:

http://codebits.eu/intra/s/session/93

Make A Living Doing What You Love: How to Bring You Project From Idea to Reality:

http://codebits.eu/intra/s/session/95

They were both very well received.  Many people told me they were inspired by one or the other, which is about the best compliment.  The videos are at the above links.

I also set up and ran a Hardware Hacking Area throughout the three days of the conference.  49 people out of the 400 attendees made one of my kits — about half of them TV-B-Gone kits.  So, there are currently more TVs being turned Off in Portugal.

Now I get to hang out in Lisbon for a few days, before heading to Singapore on Wednesday, where I’ll talk about hackerspaces again.

I got here today.  Rather than sleep, which is my MO on planes, I worked on my presentations for Codebits, which I’ll be giving Thusday and Friday — the one Thursday is about how to start a hackerspace, and Noisebridge will, of course, be the focus.

The CNET story about Noisebridge hit the interwebs.  It’s a very decent story:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10405255-245.html

I met up with two friends and managed to stay awake, and even have an hours-long coherent conversation.  Now I get to catch up on some emails…