Author Archive
In Memorium: Sgt. William John Cahir
Sgt. Bill Cahir, courtesy of Bill Cahir Memorial Fund
On August 13, US Marine Sergeant William Cahir was killed while serving our country in Afghanistan. Before moving to the Washington, DC area, Bill was from the same small town in Central Pennsylvania where I grew up. Although I didn’t know him personally, we shared several friends. He [...]
IgniteDC Finalizes Plans for Thursday’s Event
Courtesy IgniteDC
The Innaugural IgniteDC goes down this Thursday. It’s an event where all evening long speakers take the stage for five minutes at a time with 20 slides that automatically advance every few seconds. The speaker lineup this year looks great, covering everything from modern dance to military robots to radiohead featuring people like Clay [...]
See Rare NASA Footage Tomorrow
Courtesy of NASA.
HacDC announces the return of Nerd Movie Night tomorrow with a showing of rare NASA footage from the Apollo years. The 16mm film snippets, part of a collection from one of our members, feature all sorts of archived NASA footage rarely seen, including clips from moon landings and other Apollo missions.
If you’re [...]
Buzzes, Beeps, Bloops, and Bleeps Workshop
HacDC Electronics Bench
Originally uploaded by acaben
For the next few Thursdays (starting this Thursday) at 7:30 pm, HacDC is hosting workshops on sound hacking from the ground up. Borrowing, a couple tricks from the glitch/bender tradition and adding some new twists. If you’re interested in electronic sounds and music, this is the place to be.
This [...]
We Love Arts: Denyce Graves Lends Her Voice to Help Ellington School
‘The Kennedy Center‘
Courtesy of public.resource.org
Denyce Graves, a native of Washington, DC returned here last month for a recital to support her alma mater, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts. The Kennedy Center was crowded for the recital, which featured a nice mixture of classical, jazz, gospel, and contemporary selections as well as the talents [...]
Hacking The Government (For Good, Not Evil)
‘Open Government Data Session Tack-on Free For All’
courtesy of ‘illustir’
The hackers and do-gooders at Sunlight Labs are coordinating their first ever Open Government hackathon from March 29th to March 31st. Although the event takes place in Chicago (at PyCon2009 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare hotel) there will also be an online presence, so those [...]
Urban Gardening Forum on Saturday
It may be the middle of winter, with freezing temps back and more talk of wintry mix coming from the weathermen, but it’s not too soon to start thinking about planting your garden. RootingDC is holding their second annual Urban Gardening Forum this Saturday at the Carnegie Library.
The forum is designed to bring DC Gardeners [...]
Tuesday Tech Seminar Series
HacDC Opening Night Portrait
Originally uploaded by acaben
Tonight is the debut of HacDC’s Tuesday Tech Seminar Series, with seminars designed to help bring local geeks, dorks, makers and hackers closer together. In the first Tuesday Tech Seminar Series, Dorkbot DC overlords and Gareth Branwyn and Alberto Gaitán will join fellow HacDC Members Katie Bechtold (DC [...]
More »Getaways: Happy Valley
Nestled in the hills and valleys of the Allegheney Mountains, just 3 1/2 hours from the hustle and bustle of power brokers, power breakfasts, and newly powerful administrations, lies the scenic centre of Pennsylvania, perfect for a weekend getaway.
State College, home of Penn State University, along with Nittany Lions with their legendary coach Joe Paterno, [...]
Presidential Debate Drinking Game
Every four years, our nation faces a great choice: which is better for the Presidential Debate Drinking Game? Beer or Liquor. This year, I think we might need both, and so in the spirit of bi-partisanship, I’ve created the DebateDrink.com Presidential Debate Drinking Game to find out just how much we’ll have to drink to [...]
More »WAMU is No Longer Welcome in my Twitterverse
I was an early skeptic of Twitter, but I’ve become a convert to the 140 character way of life. I follow several different crowds of friends on Twitter, and have even started to follow some Twitter identities that aren’t human beings. These vary from the Mars Phoenix to CNN Breaking News and tend to deliver [...]
More »A Night of Firsts at the Symphony
Photo shamelessly cropped from NPR’s story on Dead Symphony no. 6
A friend and I went to see the Baltimore Symphony perform “A Symphonic Tribute to the Grateful Dead” at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore this evening, what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 66th birthday. While I’m not the biggest deadhead in the world, I can [...]
Last Minute: Systems Administrator Day
Gigabit
Originally uploaded by Ben Stanfield
Today’s the day to do a little something nice for that nerd in the dark office staring at the computer screen all day. It’s System Administrator Appreciation Day, and to show a token of your appreciation for the guys and gals who keep your computer running, your blackberry going, your voicemail [...]
More »Last Minute: War Games 25th Anniversary
War Games, the quintessential geek movie of the 80s, is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary tonight with showings on the big screen. For those of you looking to relive the good old days of 300 baud phone-coupled analog modems and a military industrial complex unconcerned with security breaches that could wreak a nuclear holocaust kind of [...]
More »Last Minute: monochrom
If you’re looking for something entertaining this evening, check out Monochrom: Law and Second Order tonight, hosted by HacDC, at 8:30 PM at St. Stephen’s Church in Columbia Heights (16th & Newton NW). It’s sure to be a wild and absolutely crazy show. The rumour is they spent yesterday in Pennsylvania Amish Country shooting an [...]
More »Why I Love DC: Ben
It’s tough to find something unique to say near the end of a week when we’ve heard from so many other great writers about why they love DC. I could echo just about all of their reasons, from Tom’s love of the hidden wonders to Carl’s love of the people here to Brittany’s love of [...]
More »HacDC Announces Grand Opening Festivities
Smooth Sine on Scope
Originally uploaded by phrontist
Mark your calendars, DC geeks. HacDC has announced Grand Opening festivities for the week of July 22-27.
Wednesday, July 23: monochrom presents LAW AND SECOND ORDER. (8:30 PM)
Thursday, July 24: A town hall meeting with members of DorkbotDC, MakeDC, and HacDC.
Friday, July 25: HacDC invades The Brickskeller! Come by [...]
Aerial Photography Demo in Columbia Heights
If you see something funny in the sky over Columbia Heights on Saturday afternoon, smile and say cheese. HacDC, a new hacker collective, is hosting an aerial photography demonstration by Curt Westergard of Air Photos Live.
Curt will be flying a tethered aerostat balloon (weather permitting) and taking aerial photos of HacDC and the Columbia Heights [...]
