I considered not writing this. I also considered posting a book review of one of the many books of Howard Ziinn’s that I’ve read. But ultimately, I think it’s right to call this guy a world class hacker of history. With his most famous work, A People’s History of the United States, he presented one of the most compelling alternative viewpoints on US history ever produced. His impact on high school and college students throughout the united states has been indelible. And, his passing earlier this week has left me truly saddened. And here’s why…
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htink will be hosting a Linux tutorial, today Tuesday, Jan 26 2010. Both Ben Combee and Myself have volunteered to assist. This will not be at NYC Resistor however, look for it at Bug Labs ( your friendly neighborhood purveyor of fine open source micro-controllers ). I do not work for British Telecom =P.

If you’ve ever wanted some guidance in the Unix world, this is a tremendous opportunity. The folks that will be available to you are all very talented. If you’re interested, more details HERE!

I’ve been slowly (very slowly) setting up a small store at Resistor to carry electronics parts and prototyping tools, since there aren’t any retail stores in town where you can pick up an Arduino RIGHT NOW. While ordering parts and figuring out where it will all go, I had a vision:

Vending machine full of components!

I’ve been surfing Craigslist and eBay, and while I’m not allowed to bring any new equipment into the space until we’re all settled in post-move, it looks like a used vending machine can be found for $300 – $700 depending on what you’re looking for. Since I’m overridden with debts, I’m kind of keeping from purchasing the machine. I’m glad I took an iva, because half my debts got cleared because of that last time. 

One of the old school snack machines sounds just about perfect, but the one we found can only handle prices up to $3.95. Most vending machine hacks I was able to find were about getting free stuff out of them, not modding them to sell out of. Another fun hack which probably wouldn’t be terribly difficult would be hooking it up to the net and letting people pay with PayPal or credit card.

I’ll continue to hunt for the perfect machine, but in the mean time I’d love to hear about any vending machine hacks folks have seen or done. Because clearly what we need a robot who sells robot parts!

We’re at the end of our 2 year lease at NYCResistor. We’ve grown out of our space. Classes are almost always full, the heat isn’t on on the weekends, and the walls are stacked high with projects. It’s been time to move for a while and now it’s official. We’ve signed the papers and given notice and we’re moving to an awesome new space.

The new space is really awesome. It’s about 10 blocks away from our current location and two blocks from the Atlantic Street station which is convenient for pretty much every train ever. It is almost 3x the space with two main rooms and a bunch of smaller rooms. There is a place for a kitchen although there is no kitchen in that place. We will have our own bathroom. The laser gets its own room. There is a loft already there and an archway. There is a stage with lots of room for presentations and probably an audience of 100-150. The ceilings are tin. There will be more room for more awesome.

The downsides are that there is no passenger elevator (only a very old freight elevator) and that the space needs a lot of work to get to be the cozy space we want it to be. There aren’t concrete floors like our current space, but there is a fire escape and sprinklers in the event of an emergency which is an upgrade from our current space. We get to control the heat, but we have to pay for it.

We’re excited about the possibilities and freaked out by the amount of money it is going to cost us to move so stay tuned for a fund-raising post. Over all, we’re thrilled to make more space for more hacking in 2010! We have to be out of our current place by the first of March, so expect the last two weeks of February to be a little busy in terms of our schedule. If you’ve got questions, drop them in the comments and we’ll try and answer them!

Mitch Altman is in town next, and will be giving one of his famous workshops at NYC Resistor. Mitch has taught thousands of people to solder and make cool things with microcontrollers at his workshops at hacker spaces and hacker conferences and schools almost everywhere. He can teach you, too, if you like.

If you have ever had any curiosity about making something with electronics, then please join us. Anyone and everyone can learn to make cool things. And it’s fun. And easy! You can learn to make something cool with electronics in one workshop, and take your cool project home with you!

*What*: Make Cool Things With Microcontrollers! workshop.
*Where*: NYC Resistor, 397 Bridge Street, 5th Floor.
*When*: 8pm, 29-January, Friday. (It is totally OK to come late.) Stay as little or as long as you like. Most projects take about 1 to 2 hours.
*Who*: It is fun to make things in the friendly community of NYC Resistor. Come join us. All skill levels. 18 years old and up. Everyone is welcome.
*Cost*: Instruction is Free! If you use any kits, reimbursment for kit price is requested ($10 to $20, depending on kit). There will be plenty of cool kits available to build, including:

TV-B-Gone (turn off TVs in public places!)
Brain Machine (Meditate, Hallucinate, and Trip Out!)
LEDcube (cool cube of blinky lights!)
Mignonette Game (play fun games!)
Trippy RGB Waves (interactive colored blinky lights!)
MiniPOV (more cool blinky lights!)
MintyBoost (charge your USB enabled gadgets!)

and for the more advanced:
microcontroller programmers (program all your AVR family chips!), Arduino clones (make just about anything!), and more.

More info on most of most of these projects is available on Mitch’s website: http://www.CornfieldElectronics.com (click on the “maker faire” tab). If you have your own project, please bring it by and make it with us in the friendly community of NYC Resistor.

Mitch is the brains behind Cornfield Electronics, and one of the co-founders of Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco. Mitch is best known as the inventor of TV-B-Gone, but his list of great hacks and cool electronics includes a lot of other great projects. When he is not at Noisebridge building awesome and amazing things, he is on the road from hackerspace to Hacker-Con and back again, sharing his love of electronics.