[nmglug] make santa fe opening at Meow Wolf [Was: meeting tonight; ]

Arlo Barnes arlo.barnes at gmail.com
Sun Mar 20 18:33:16 PDT 2016


I have heard this before. The gist is as you say: effort will be wasted and
people will get frustrated.

And I understand that, I do: I think of the metaphor of driving in winter
conditions. Let us say you are stuck by the side of the road. Gun the
engine and you may end up just contact-melting and refreezing the ice,
going nowhere and getting even less traction now that the ice is smooth and
slick.

But the metaphor has another component: just sitting there will not get you
out either, even if you are fine with sitting in your heated truck.
So you have to give a very slow and constant application of gas, perhaps
rocking the vehicle if you are in a low spot, until you accelerate very
gradually. Eventually you will be able to get where you were going.

It is easy to give up on a lost cause, but this particular institution is a
cause I do not think is lost, and is too promising for *me* (I am not
asking anything of anyone on this list, just responding to a question) to
just resign myself so early to the idea that when I go in, I will have to
use a commercialised, privacy- and creativity-disrespecting,
patience-trying encrustment of various binaries.

I cannot just solve all the obstacles in one fell swoop, I doubt anyone
can, but working towards a better system would keep me sane. Specifically,
gently but continually advising the members and employees of the makerspace
to consider the decisions they are making regarding the interconnected
collection of 'wares.

-Arlo

*PostScript*: Why did you choose the Hackerspaces wiki for your writings? I
see you started on Ward's Wiki, then moved those articles over. Your
account has lately accounted for upwards of half of the edits in
Special:Recent, which would be an amazing revival of a mildly dead wiki &
associated community (the Jabber always has a bunch of lurkers, not much
chatter), but you are editing your pages which are basically not edited by
anyone else, and I have no idea about their readership.
It does not really bother me, but it does make me curious. Why not dedicate
your own wiki?
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