Tuesday 10 February 2015

Weekly Update - Director QA Edition

SkullSpace!

With board elections around the corner, I thought I'd answer a couple of questions that sometimes come up regarding running for the board.

Q. What sort of responsibilities and liabilities do I take on if I join the board?

A. volunteer.ca has a great high level summary here: http://volunteer.ca/engaging-board-members. It's really not that scary so long as you follow the three basic principles listed there.

Q. Do we have directors' and officers' liability insurance?

A. Absolutely! We'd be insane not to. If you'd like to see the details, just let myself or any of the current board know.

Q. I haven't been groomed for leadership by the shadow cabal that secretly runs SkullSpace. Should I still run for the board?

A. Yes! As per usual, the shadow cabal has failed to groom anybody for leadership! We consider this failure nearly as egregious as the cabal's continued failure to exist.

Q. Am I cool enough to be on the board?

A. Oh man, have you met any of the past board members!? We're not exactly shining examples of cool. For example, I relax by watching old episodes of The Mindy Project on Netflix. Ron spends hours of his life painting mini-figurines for a game he doesn't even play any more. God only knows that Justin Lacko does in his spare time. Cool isn't required on the board.

Q. Are you trying to tell me that those mini-figurines aren't cool?

A. Okay, you got me there - those things are awesome.

Q. Damn right they are.

A. Hey, stick to asking questions.

Q. Fine. How do we get our name on the director ballot?

A. Email Nathan Wild! He's handling the electoral process this year.

Upcoming Events (2 Week Scope)

All of these events are on the SkullSpace Calendar. Check it out for more details!

Sunday February 15th - Mark Jenkins Birthday: Potluck, chess simul, and movie

A belated 2^5 -1 birthday party for Mark Jenkins.

7pm -> Potluck dinner (classroom)
7:45pm -> Mark vs everybody (willing) chess simul (classroom)
9pm -> Pitch a Movie (lounge)

All Skullspace members welcome (not a public event), bringing a gift or food not necessary.

Note, alcohol is not permitted at Skullspace and Mark isn't a drinker.

New Stuff

I'd like to send my thanks to everybody who's been troubleshooting our internal network over the last week. Extra special thanks to Les of Les.net for donating an awesome 48 port switch!

Edwin found his old iClicker! He also found it to be wonderfully hackable. Give him a shout if you want to use it for something fun:
https://groups.google.com/a/skullspace.ca/forum/#!topic/discuss/C9DIw6kZEjo

Meeting Agenda

6pm, February 10th, 2014
2nd Floor - 374 Donald Street
  1. Call to Order
    1. Ring the bell!
    2. Introductions
    3. Reading of Old Minutes
  2. Old Stuff
    1. Financial Update
    2. Cleaners Update
    3. Papers We Love Winnipeg
    4. Upcoming AGM
  3. Cool stuff
    1. Open show and tell
  4. It's over!

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Weekly Update - Political Edition

SkullSpace!

Just a reminder that our Annual General Meeting is on February 24th! Nathan has once again offered to run the electoral process. If you're interested in running for a position on the board, please drop Nate a line at nathan.wild@gmail.com. The more people the better! We have a couple incumbents not running again, so a few new faces on the board are guaranteed. It's a fun job that helps you guide the future of SkullSpace!

Exciting!

Upcoming Events (2 Week Scope)

All of these events are on the SkullSpace Calendar. Check it out for more details!

Friday February 6th - Work From SkullSpace Day

Do you work from home? Are you the sort of person who's commute takes them from one room of their house to another? Have you deemed basic hygiene to be a waste of time? Have you forgotten the meaning of the word "Pants"? Have you lost track of where your beard ends and where your chest hair begins?

Rejoin civilization for one brilliant day. Come together with your fellow digital nomads on the first Friday of every month and work at SkullSpace. Just please, put some pants on.

New Stuff

The Winnipeg chapter of Papers We Love has recently been started by SkullSpace Winnipeg founder Mak Kolybabi.
Register for the next event here: http://www.meetup.com/Papers-We-Love-Winnipeg/

Prairie Dev Con is coming up at the beginning of March! It's a great conference for the programmer-minded amongst us. I'm not just saying that because I'll be talking there... but it does help!
http://www.prairiedevcon.com/

Meeting Agenda

6pm, January 27th, 2014
2nd Floor - 374
Donald Street

  1. Call to Order
  2. Introductions
  3. Reading of Old Minutes
  4. Old Stuff
    1. Cleaners Update
    2. Music Theory And Notation Presentation recap
  5. New Stuff
    1. Proposal to get rid of the blankets
    2. Papers We Love Winnipeg
    3. Upcoming AGM
    4. Winter lull and a call for more events!
  6. Cool stuff
    1. Open show and tell
  7. It's over!

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Weekly Update - Frostbite Edition

SkullSpace!

It's cold outside. Outside is a stupid place to be. Come to the space tonight and hack things with us instead.

Upcoming Events (2 Week Scope)

All of these events are on the SkullSpace Calendar. Check it out for more details!

Friday January 16th - January Hackathon: Ghost In The Shellcode

Join us as we spend the weekend working on the challenges in one of our collective favourite CTFs! Beginning on the evening of Friday, January 16th and going mostly non-stop through Sunday evening. http://ghostintheshellcode.com/

Sunday January 18th - Board Game Day

Come down to the space this Sunday for our semi-regular mostly bi-weekly card/board/tabletop having day! Drown out the harsh reality of the painful winter winds by throwing down with some friends. Raise all the sheep, eat all the meeples, plot all the routes, buy all the houses, conquer all the countries and cast all the spells!

SkullSpace will be open for gaming from 11am to 6pm. Bring a game to share or play one from our extensive collection. Come on down, bring a friend. See you there!

Sunday January 25th - The Basics of Music Theory and Notation

I found this fantastic description in the calendar:

This presentation will be intended to provide the basics of how to read music, and will also cover rudimentary elements of music theory. Areas covered include: The twelve pitches; clefs; accidentals; scales; key signatures; intervals; rhythmic notation; time signatures; basic chord progressions.

But I prefer to think of it as an intro to making cool noises.

New Stuff

Need a new video card or power supply? Colin will hook you up!
https://groups.google.com/a/skullspace.ca/d/msg/discuss/8torbQlCqjM/0jv1NQinx2YJ

Our friends and former room-mates over at Innovation Alley have a documentary premiere on the 16th! Check it out for a fun piece of Winnipeg history.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/innovation-alley-documentary-premiere-tickets-14878884143

Are you a lady? Do you want to learn how to code? You're in luck! Ladies Learning Code is holding an Event this Saturday called "Winnipeg: HTML & CSS for Beginners: Learn to Build a One Page Website From Scratch." Spots are going fast!
http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/winnipeg-html-css-for-beginners-learn-to-build-a-one-page-website-from-scratch-on-january-17th-tickets-14834106211

Meeting Agenda

6pm, January 13th, 2015
2nd Floor - 374 Donald Street

  1. Call to Order
    1. Bell Rings
    2. Introductions
  2. Reading of the minutes
  3. Old Stuff
    1. Cleaners
    2. Introduction to Linux
    3. AGM is in one month!
  4. New Stuff
    1. Ghost in the Shellcode
    2. Ladies Learning Code
  5. Cool Stuff!
    1. Open show and tell!
  6. It's over!

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Weekly Update - 2015 Edition

SkullSpace!

A new year is upon us! Now that we've all had time to recover from holiday merriment and New Year's hangovers, we're kicking off 2015's meetings tonight at SkullSpace!

Upcoming Events (2 Week Scope)

All of these events are on the SkullSpace Calendar. Check it out for more details!

Sunday January 18th - Board Game Day

Come down to the space this Sunday for our semi-regular mostly bi-weekly card/board/tabletop having day! Drown out the harsh reality of the nip of fall in the air by throwing down with some friends. Raise all the sheep, eat all the meeples, plot all the routes, buy all the houses, conquer all the countries and cast all the spells!

SkullSpace will be open for gaming from 11am to 6pm. Bring a game to share or play one from our extensive collection. Come on down, bring a friend. See you there!

New Stuff

Have you been introduced to Linux yet? Would you like to be introduced to more Linux? If so, let Mark Jenkins know! He's hoping to supplement the Linux Foundation's "Introduction to Linux" edX course with in-person study sessions.

More details can be found here:
https://groups.google.com/a/skullspace.ca/forum/#!topic/discuss/nlE2QF1ZIHc

Our friends and former room-mates over at Innovation Alley have a documentary premiere on the 16th! Check it out for a fun piece of Winnipeg history.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/innovation-alley-documentary-premiere-tickets-14878884143

Meeting Agenda

6pm, January 6th, 2015
2nd Floor - 374 Donald Street

  1. Call to Order!
    1. Ring the Bell!
    2. Introductions!
  2. Reading of the minutes!
  3. Old Stuff!
    1. 24 Pull Requests Recap!
    2. Game Tournament Recap!
  4. New Stuff
    1. Cleaners!
    2. AGM is in one month!
    3. New events for 2015!
    4. Innovation Alley documentary
    5. Introduction to Linux
  5. Cool Stuff!
    1. Open show and tell!
  6. It's over!