justinb's blog

On Tuesday, May 15, I attenteded TRL's "Community Conversations" meeting at the Lacey Timberland Library. This is a new approach for the library, and I must say that they have come up with an excellent format for discussion, and have made a smart choice by directly engaging the community for ideas on improving the library.

If you were unable to attend the meeting on Tuesday, there is another meeting TONIGHT in Tumwater. For details, see http://bit.ly/JW4zUW (read more) about Timberland Library's "Community Conversations" shows that the Library "gets it"

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla (read more) about Nikola Tesla - The Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived

I've submitted our application to the MakerFaire Seattle folks. I signed us up for a vendor booth, so we are cleared to sell Ballista Kits, T-Shirts, Bliplaces, and whatever else sounds good. I hope to hear back soon on any specifics they may need to know.

Now, it's on us to start planning our presence there. I have a few ideas, but I want to hear from you guys!

I'll be scheduling a planning meeting for an evening next week, (probably wednesday or thursday), at a coffee shop or restaurant, to start brainstorming ideas.

But that doesn't mean we have to wait until next week to start coming up with ideas. Lay it on us in the comments! (read more) about MakerFaire Registration Completed

UPDATE: New theme is live. Color scheme and fonts subject to change - make a suggestion in the comments!
UPDATE 2: Made some changes to the Forum color scheme and image handling
In keeping with the theme of offering a first-class experience on everything from mobile to desktop (and in between) I've also disabled the old chat plugin, which was decidedly NOT mobile friendly, and replaced it with this Shoutbox.

Over the weekend, I'll be turning on a few new things I've been working on for the site. The most immediately noticeable will be a new theme/layout.

Our new theme is derived from a Drupal base theme called "Omega" (an amusing coincidence!). Sub-theming in Drupal allows us to avoid unnecessary wheel reinvention - a base theme defines basic layout and behavior, and the sub-theme needs only define the things it wishes to override. This is a good arrangement, as we can easily take up any future improvements to Omega without tedious manual merging.

The features that make Omega particularly desirable (in no particular order): (read more) about Site Updates Incoming...

Jigsaw Renaissance co-founder @willowbl00 blogs about their experiences moving from one physical location to another. Jigsaw is a makerspace based in Seattle. I found many of their points extremely relevant to our own situation in looking for our first permanent space. Willow is also a co-founder of the Space Federation, an organization we hope to partner with in the near future. She's also mentioned that she might be paying us a visit soon. She's ridiculously active in the maker/hackerspace scene, and has a great deal of experience with setting up and organizing nonprofit groups. Looking forward to her visit!

Some points from the article that resonated with me: (read more) about Article on "Moving your Makerspace" has great advice for starting a Makerspace, too!