Hacker Scouts teaches children Linux, robotics, and welding
garratt.info
garratt.info
And yeah, Hacker Scouts is probably going to have to change their name. I'm not really sold one way or another on it, but from what I can tell you can blame congress in the early 1900s for giving scouting some pretty broad rights/privileges.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/09/25/1854257/boy-scouts-b...
Dear Hacker Scouts Community,
We have good news and bad news. The bad news , which should always be delivered first, is that we have received another letter from the BSA refusing to compromise or consider a licensing agreement and reaffirming their demand that we change our name or they will take legal action. This disappointed us, but it gave us a very clear choice to make. Our board took this matter seriously and our lawyer, who was as compassionate and supportive as he was wise, gave us his assessments. Based on all of that, our board has decided to close this matter and change our name.
We know this will disappoint some of you. We know some of you wanted us to fight this. We don't blame you. We had those same feelings. But our job is to keep our organization focused on its mission. Our job is to make this kind of education as accessible and affordable to as many kids as we can. It came down to how does this further our goals and objectives? And it doesn't.
It has already taken large amounts of time and energy that could have been used elsewhere. Often , when we need pearls of wisdom, we ask a kid. As usual, we were not disappointed. "It doesn't matter what you call Hacker Scouts," one kid told EdD Samantha Cook. "You could call it "booger" and I would still come. This is the best thing in my week." It was just what we needed to hear to make peace with our decision, although we did not add "booger" to the short list.
So the good news is that we have a chance to reinvent ourselves in some ways with a new name, which, once it is chosen, will allow us to move forward in several other areas. Also, now more people are aware of the extraordinary powers the US government has given an organization that continues to discriminate and abuse it's position. It is our hope that regardless of our situation, that Congress will take another look at their congressional charter and amend it to reflect and abide by the same laws the rest of us must follow. The good news is also that while our name may change, the vision and commitment hasn't. We are relieved to have closure and excited to continue moving forward!
Once again, we would like to thank you for all the kind emails and posts in support of our situation. We will be announcing our new name and how we plan to transition soon. If you would like to help us move forward and be able to expand the amount of programs, activities, and badges we can offer our local and national community, we ask you to support our Kickstarter. As always, you can email us with any questions you might have.
Warmly, The Hacker Scouts Board
And the link (currently overloaded) : http://hacker-scouts.org/blog/hacker-scouts-and-bsa-decision
BTW- I like Maker Skouts, too. Considering most of the stuff listed is Maker and not Hacker oriented, and Maker has no bad connotations to the uninformed.
BTW2- the first badge stemming from welding == awesome.
But then, Houston is probably at the very end of the list any way.
A couple examples of the cool stuff they did:
In the late 70s before cable TV, an over-the-air pay TV service launched called "OnTV" [1]. The Post got together the night it came out and had the NTSC scrambling (think analog DRM) broken in a couple hours, with the scouts going home with their own descramblers.
They pooled money and ought a bunch of bootleg Apple II circuit boards and put together their own computers. I was lucky enough to participate in that.
Other alumni went on to do interesting things [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontv
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rose_Bowl#Scoreboard_pran...
Its a different kind of focus when you know that a wrong move will electrocute you. (230V AC arc welding). I learned a lot about my own learning style that day.
Power lines trail the countryside and cityscape, competing in ubiquity only with roads and fast food restaurants. In this I am also mildly agoraphobic, as one cannot leave the homestead without being stared down by the thick black cables, taunting and intimidating from their creosote imbued perches.
My mom said it was just a matter of time, the fear had been building for months, slowly.
Anxiety supposedly runs in the family.
You might be interested to know that I write in such a style to obscure myself from style analyzing techniques. Not to hide the face of my persona from the likes of nsa bogeymen. My mother would die if she found out the extent of what I am going through. Good samaritans trying to help by telling her would only make it worse. I find the writing pretentious and sickening.
At the end of everything I write I am tempted to justify my phrasing and word choice. I am smart enough to know though that making yourself conspicuous only makes you suspicious in the eyes of of most people.
The people you need to worry about most are the ones you who do not appear on your radar. They are rats, you do not know they are in your midst until you find their shit in the morning.
Maybe give NLP a shot?