This is a free one-day German class for total beginners. You will get an
excellent overview of all the basics of German. Non-members are fully welcome to attend too.

This is the first in a series of one-day language boot camps facilitated by Sonja. Future ones will include Esperanto, Toki Pona, French, Latin, Mandarin, etc. or whatever else people request.

Location: Toronto HackLab, 170A Baldwin St in Kensington Market
Date: January 9, 2010
Time: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with lunch break (show up on time! we have a lot to cover)
Cost: Free, but you’re welcome to bring food for the teacher or fellow students

Join the HackLab-Lang Google group to be updated about future language boot camps!

Python Newbie Nights on Thursdays will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks, returning in mid-January. Folks aren’t around as much and I’m a bit burnt out, so it just seemed like the right time to take a break. Watch this space for the class’s return!

-Leigh

JetBrains has donated licenses of their excellent Ruby Mine IDE for the lab computers. Thanks guys!

Read all about it!

Street Level: Behind the doors of HackLab.TO.

So after doubt was instilled in the minds of various webizens whether our laser does in fact play Super Mario (the theme song, not the game), Cory Doctorow visited the lab this weekend and now believes our laser cutter cuts with awesomesauce, rather than lasers.  Thanks, Cory, hope it was fun!

We’re left wondering whether the sudden influx of visitors last night to the lab had anything to do with said-eating-of-words, but we’re always excited when new people show up.  Welcome, people!

Since this post hasn’t moved yet beyond “shameless self promotion”, I’ll continue the trend and say that if you’re sitting on the fence about coming down and checking out the lab, not only do we not actually bite, but we run several interesting workshops and events that are mostly open to the public which are all visible in our google calendar and don’t happen on nights when the lab is crammed with curious onlookers.  So if you’re into cool things, come and check it out, or at the very least, check out our mailing list.

On September 1st, I sent an email to the HackLab discussion list asking for folks to commit. Less than 24 hours later, members and non-members alike stepped up and pledged $700 in addition to my initial commitment of $200. Our MakerBot Batch 7 CupCake CNC will ship in early October, hopefully in time for MiniSoOnCon!

3D printing is so amazing. This is the MITS Altair of a DIY revolution whose shape I’m not at all certain of. I couldn’t be more exited to see what the hacklabbers make and how we improve the machine, too.

In alphabetical order, the donors were:

3ric Johanson
Alex Leitch
Byron Sonne
Chad Mounteny
Cheryl Mok
Chris Pilkington
Dale Babiy
Dan Kaminsky
Eric from NYC Resistor
Kate Raynes-Goldie
Sergio Martns
Seth Hardy

Welcome to the future, folks.

-Leigh

We’ve joined together with think|haus from Hamilton, diyode from Guelph, and Kwartzlab from Kitchener-Waterloo to put on a mini hackerspace conference!

Where: think|haus, 152 Niagara St, Hamilton ON

When: October 2-3, 2009

Who: Makers from all over southern Ontario and beyond. You should come too!

Cost: $25 for the first set of tickets. Use the EventBrite system at http://minisooncon.eventbrite.com or contact Seth (shardy@aculei.net) to buy a ticket.

On Friday October 2nd, the conference will host a BBQ and party. Bring cool projects to show off. Awesome badges will be handed out.

On Saturday October 3rd, think|haus will host talks, how to sessions, and a projects gallery at which anyone who is interested can give a 20 minute talk on something related to creating projects, show people how to build/take apart/modify something, or show off their cool projects.

Some confirmed talks so far are:
• You Let Your Kid Do What? A brief story about children and taking advantage of applied engineering skills in a positive way.
• Intro to Kite Aerial Photography Come learn about the kinds of kites you can use to fly your camera, what you need to build your own kite, and how to modify your camera to take pictures automatically.

Check out the website at http://minisooncon.ca and add your own talks or projects.

Thanks to Adina from think|haus for the original post I’ve semi-stolen. :D

The HackLabTO board of directors is responsible for the legal structure behind the lab, and is accountable to the members. Tonight we had the first meeting with our new board members, Dan Fraser and Chad Mounteny. It was quick and efficient, and we got lots covered; the minutes are up on the wiki here (registration-required). Fred Supinski, who was one of the initial Board signatories, is passing on the torch but staying on as a member.

We’re still looking for members to step up to be officers of the corporation – an email will go out to you all shortly.

-Leigh

As of July 1, HackLab.TO has been around for a year! You know what that means: it’s time for a party!

On Saturday, July 18th, we’d like to invite all of our members, our friends, our supporters, and our community to come join us to celebrate starting our second year. Let’s look back on everything we’ve done this past year, and think about what we can do to make the lab even better over the next year. Oh yeah, and let’s also just hang out, listen to some good music, have some cake*, and drink some beer**. That’d be pretty cool too.

In summary:
WHO : You!
WHAT : HackLab one year party!
WHEN : July 18th, 7pm
WHERE : …at the HackLab, of course.

* There may or may not actually be cake***. Want to bring some?
** Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are both ok, we don’t judge here!
*** The first person to make a Portal reference is fired.
**** Why are you reading this? There is no reference to it!

Hackers on a Plane is happening again!

Join us as we go to Hacking at Random 2009. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. Seriously, this was so much fun two years ago, and will be even better this time around… and you really can’t beat the price. Get on the plane!

From http://www.hackersonaplane.info/har-hacking-at-random/:

Join us as we depart from New York City and head off to experience Hacking at Random 2009. For the same price as two years ago you get:

* Round trip airfare from New York City to Dusseldorf, Germany
* Transportation from Dusseldorf to the HAR campsite
* Paid full admission to HAR
* Accommodations in an on-campsite lodge at HAR
o Nights of August 13-16 in a permanent structure
o Hot showers
o Sheets and towels included
* The opportunity to mingle with the best and brightest in the global hackerspace community

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff for only $1,337. What’s not included?

* Your transportation to and from New York City.
* Meals while at HAR and after the camp.
* Accommodations for the evening of August 17 and 18. This time is on your own and activities and lodging on these days is not included in the price. You can join a hackerspaces tour, head out to Amsterdam or Berlin…whatever you’d like!
* Transportation back to Dusseldorf is not included. (And we’re not responsible if you miss your flight back home!)

You will need to be in New York City on August 12 at 10 AM

Our current booking is scheduled to return to New York City on August 19 by 5 PM.

Because we have a group fare, we require all names to be confirmed before tickets can be issued.

Please e-mail info@hackersonaplane.info with any questions.