Sure, you may have seen the earlier post about where to sled in the District, but with less than 24 hours to go before an epic snow, it’s too late to order your very own version of Rosebud from Amazon, and all the local Targets, WalMarts, and hardware stores are sold out. Luckily, the folks at HacDC are coming to the rescue, with a late night impromptu sled-building workshop tonight at the Columbia Heights Hackerspace at 1525 Newton Street NW.

Sled building will commence once tonight’s Dorkbot DC meeting finishes up, sometime between 9 and 10 PM. But come early at 7 for the Dorkbot presentations!

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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 was an inspiration to everyone around him, and I donated to his campaign when he ran for Congress last year. Selfless and committed, service was not a goal but the rule. Service to family, community and country were not a question but a given.

Out of college he went to Capitol Hill to try and make a difference. Frustrated by partisanship, he became a journalist to better inform the public. The September 11, 2001 attacks drove Bill off the sidelines. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps at age 34 to personally take up the fight. Bill served two tours in Iraq. In 2008, Bill’s belief in service and country led him to resign his job as a journalist to run for Congress in his home community. He wanted to influence how the Iraq/Afghanistan wars were being fought. In the spring of 2009, he deployed to Afghanistan.

Bill left behind his loving wife and two expected children. If you’d like to help out his family during their time of loss and need, please visit the Bill Cahir Memorial Fund website and follow the links to donate.

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On Tuesday, June 2 at 7:30PM HacDC will host best-selling author Peter W. Singer  for a talk on military robotics and his new New York Times best selling book Wired for War.

Peter Warren Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and he is the youngest scholar named Senior Fellow in the 90-year history of Brookings. His new book looks at the implications of military robotics on war, politics, ethics, and law in the 21st century. Described as “an exhaustively researched book, enlivened by examples from popular culture” by the Associated Press and “awesome” by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, Wired for War made the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in its first week of release. It has already been featured in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot, and Singer has given presentations on the book to a diverse array of military and civilian audiences.

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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 Johnson, Amanda Hirsch, and Peter Corbett.

If you don’t have a ticket yet, don’t fret. The Ignite gang sent out an email today with details on how to get in with and without a ticket:

If You DON’T Have a Ticket. We’ll have a wait list line, first come first serve. At 6:45 we’ll let in people until we hit 400. If it’s raining, we’ll have a tent. You won’t be able to buy a drink, but there’ll be plenty of cool people to talk to. If we fill up, people will still be leaving and we’ll do the whole one-out, one-in thing that you all love so much.

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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 interested in space, tomorrow’s movie night starts at 8. You can find HacDC in Columbia Heights at 1525 Newton Street NW, at the intersection of 16th Street and Newton.

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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 workshop series is going to involve soldering, (ab)use of digital CMOS chips for analog ends, a smidgen of electronics knowledge (provided), and enough noise to ensure that you leave with a good solid headache.Bring $5.00 to cover the cost of materials for April 16th and around 3-6 volts’ worth of batteries if you’d like to leave the space with something powered up. Two to four AA, AAA, C, or D cells will do.

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‘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 of the Ellington School Show Choir.

Miss Graves, ably accompanied by pianist Joseph Thalken, started the evening with a selection from the opera Adrianna Lecouvreur that highlighted her dexterity as a singer. From loud to soft, intense to whimsical, and low to high, she gave a glimpse of what the rest of the night had in store.

Unamplified through the operatic first half of the program, Graves paused between numbers to enlighten the audience about the pieces she was performing, and relayed a few thoughts about her time at the Ellington School, where she was a student in the 1980s.

After she sang Habanera from Carmen, Graves joked that the crowd enjoyed it because they recognized the tune. But the applause wasn’t just because it was familiar. Her lyrical phrasing contrasted with the staccato beat of the piano, and Graves mastered it and made it her own.

She closed out the first half of the program with two African-American Spirituals and a piece by Gene Scheer, American Anthem, which seemed appropriate for a concert in her hometown of Washington, DC.

The Duke Ellington School Ellington Show Choir under the direction of Samuel L. Bonds gave Graves a brief respite as they performed two energetic selections. Dancing around the stage, the black-tie and black gown clad high schoolers put on an impressive energetic show.

Graves returned to the stage with the haunting Milonga sin Palabras, a piece whose lyrics consist entirely of “oohs” and “ahhs.” Sung by Graves, it inspires similar reactions from the audience, along with enthusiastic applause. She finished the concert with more recent material, borrowing from jazz, blues, and even the Beatles to round out the very varied recital.

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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 of you interested in making that rather large DC employer known as the federal government more open and accessible can still take part.

The nature of the sprint will be fairly freeform, two Sunlight Labs members will be on hand guiding users that want to contribute to opening up the government. Users can come to the sprint without any background and we would help coordinate them and place them on a project where there skills would be useful (there is always a ton of scraping that needs to be done, building mini-web apps to showcase gov’t data, etc.)

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The forum is designed to bring DC Gardeners together to  share resources and foster partnerships between those who are working towards common goals of a greener, healthier DC. Are you a community gardener in Washington, DC? A teacher with a schoolyard garden? A member of a garden club or block club interested in beautifying your neighborhood? Involved with a non-profit leading a gardening program? Or, are you interested to get involved with such community projects? Sounds like this is the event for you.

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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 Linux Chix) and Nick Farr (hackerspaces.org) in a conversation on building the DC Tech Community.

The seminars will take place most Tuesdays at 8:30 PM, and will feature a wide range of topics and interactive opportunities of general interest to DC’s finest hackers. If you have any suggestions for speakers or topics, send an email to info@hacdc.org

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Nittany Lion, courtesy of Ben Stanfield

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, isn’t always so quiet, though. On a football Saturday, over 200,000 fans from around the region stream into town, filling hotels, Bed and Breakfasts, and RV Parking Lots with boisterous fans. Its possible this could be JoePa’s last season at Penn State, so now is the time to visit Happy Valley.

Friday night before a game, you can stop at The Tavern Restaurant or The Corner Room for a bite to eat. Both establishments have been for years and cater to the University community. After dinner, you’ve got your choice of bar after bar downtown, all packed with students, alumni, and fans.

Phyrst, a still life, courtesy of Flickr User Kluv32

You can’t go wrong by visiting The Phyrst, with it’s Phyrst Phamily Band and a grand tradition of table wars. Or, you could try Zeno’s, with a slightly more hip crowd. Or, just wander up and down College Avenue until you find a spot that looks promising. With over 30 to choose from on the two main streets in downtown State College, it won’t be hard to find something that appeals to you. And after the bars close, head to Ye Olde College Diner, open 24 hours a day, for a post-drinking feast including world-famous Grilled Stickies.

Saturday is game day, and the tailgating starts early. By 8 AM, cars will start streaming in, charcoal and gas flames will be lit, and beers will be open. Fans are friendly and hospitable, so wander through and strike up conversations. Even if you haven’t brought your own tailgate supplies, you’ll find folks who will offer food and drink before and after the game. You don’t need a ticket to the game to make it a fun day, but it helps. You can find people selling tickets all around Beaver Stadium, so bring cash and good haggling skills.

Joe Paterno Statue at Dusk, courtesy of flickr user enviziondotnet

There’s more to Happy Valley than just Penn State football, so don’t head back to DC right after the game. Grab a room in one of Bellefonte’s historic Bed & Breakfast’s (town motto: Pennsylvania’s Victorian Secret), and spend Sunday exploring Central PA. You could stop by Penn’s Cave for a boat ride through the only all-water cavern in the country. Or, you could visit Hyner View State Park for amazing scenery and the chance to watch hang gliders leap off the side of the mountain and sail over the Susquehanna River.

Hanglider and Paraglider Cruise Over Hyner View State Park. Photo courtesy of Ben Stanfield.

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Tonight is the first of the presidential debates. If you think you can’t handle the anger and frustration of watching politicans speak for a couple hours, we’ve got definitive drinking game for the festivities, and the corresponding website DebateDrink.com (currently offline, thanks to Pepco not getting power back on in Ben’s Friendship Heights basement where he keeps his servers.)

The game has rules for Sipping beer, taking shots, and chugging those drinks, but feel free to add your own rules to make it even more fun. Download the rules below:

Presidential Debate Drinking Game (PDF)

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When I saw that WAMU 88.5, DC’s public radio station, had a Twitter account, I signed on right away. I was hopeful they’d engage with other users, and provide great local tidbits. Instead, every now and then they post a bunch of unintelligible links with truncated first sentences from the same stuff they put on their website. There’s virtually no readable content, no idea what the link is to, and 5-10 of these useless posts all in a row.

This isn’t the way Twitter works. At the very least, they need to write 140 character summaries with a short link to the article. Ideally, they’d let their reporters post from their cell phones throughout the day as they report on DC, MD, and VA. They’d allow followers to reply and engage with them. Twitter is not just a place to republish an RSS feed (poorly). It’s an ecosystem that encourages conversations and interaction, and until WAMU learns how to do that, they’re no longer welcome on my follow list.

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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 certainly appreciate the musicality of Mr. Garcia and his gang. I figured that spending the night listening to a symphonic version of their ditties wouldn’t be so bad. And one of my favorite orchestral works of all time, Berstein’s Overture to Candide was on the program.

It seems that when you combine the refinement and class of the traditional symphony-going audience with the summer of free love embracing hippies that constitute a large majority of grateful dead fans, you end up with a unique audience for a symphony orchestra. I’d like to present you with a “List of Firsts” I witnessed this evening:

1. First time I’ve ever seen people were tye dye to the symphony. Some “dressed up” their tye dye t-shirts a bit by wearing a suit jacket on top of them. That was a nice touch with the jeans. (Disclaimer: I wore jeans, but no tye dye.)
2. First time I’ve seen people (lots of them) wear baseball caps to the symphony. There were probably 100 people in baseball caps, cowboy hats, and other non-traditional head coverings.
3. First time I’ve seen security guards at a symphony. They were checking bags as people entered, and also stationed around the concert hall.
4. First time I’ve seen security guards attempt to throw a person out WHILE the orchestra played. The guard did it in hushed voices and hand gestures, but it was still wildly distracting. The man he was trying to throw out was in the middle of one of the center orchestra rows and refused to leave. After several minutes of stern looks and angry gestures, the guard gave up.
5. First time I’ve seen the guy in the row directly in front of me light up a joint and start smoking it WHILE the orchestra played. This was not the guy the security guard was attempting to kick out. And I’ve got pictures of him sneaking a drag.

Oh, and Dead Symphony no. 6 was not at all my cup of tea. Pandora, the online Musical Genome Project, says that what makes a Grateful Dead song is the electric guitar solo, the vocal harmonies, and  major key tonality. Dead Sympony No. 6 was anything but in a major key. Slow and dissonant seemed to be the theme, with movement after movement of music that grated on the ears and had seemingly little to do with the Grateful Dead. While some of Garcia’s melodic themes were easy to pick out in the composition, others seemed hidden behind layers of orchestral texture that had to be deciphered to hear the way it related to the Dead’s music. And while the melodies were there, the character and harmony associated with them was decidely not rock n’ roll like. Perhaps that’s what composer Lee Johnson was aiming for, but it didn’t quite work for me.

That isn’t to say there weren’t some highlights. The sixth movement, “Sugar Magnolia” highlighted the BSO’s outstanding woodwind section who kept up with conductor Lee Richman. Sadly, Magnolia was the shortes movement of the night and was buttressed between “Blues for Allah” which featured the strings and more depressing atonality and “To Lay Me Down” which seemed to stretch on and on.

Dead Symphony no. 6 was the second half of the program, with two popular works from Bertstein before intermission; his “West Side Story Suite” and the “Overture to Candide.” The audience was appreciative of West Side Story, too appreciateve at points when Richman had to hold his hand up to the audience to try to keep the applause down. Sadly, when the piece was finally over and the applause died down, the noise didn’t. People got up from their seats, latecomers were allowed into the hall, and conversations were struck up.

Richman waited on the podium for several moments before launching into Candide, hoping the audience would quiet down, but eventually seemed to give up. The BSO played the frantic piece well, from what I could hear, but it seemed that Richman was eager to speed them through it since half the audience was engaged in conversation for most of the overture and not listening anyway.

Audience participation was fairly restrained during Dead Symphony no. 6, with some spontaneous clapping as pictures of the band and Jerry Garcia were shown on a large screen behind the orchestra. The standing ovation at the end, though, seemed to indicate that the crowd of dead heads had loved it much more than I had.

I applaud Maestra Alsop and the BSO for taking on projects that reach out to crowds that wouldn’t normally be filling the seats at the Meyerhoff, and on performing pieces by living composers. I might not always enjoy the performances, but it’s good to see them try new things. If you haven’t seen them lately, check out their 2008-2009 season. There’s something for just about everyone, and you don’t have to travel all the way to Baltimore, since you can catch them at their DC-area venue the red-line accessible Strathmore.

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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 operating, and take care of all the other electronic things you don’t know how to use, you can head out to the Brickskeller and buy a round for the geeks gathered there for System Administrator Day.

As part of their Grand Opening Week Festivities, HacDC is organizing the Friday night event, from 8:30PM until 2 AM.

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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 havoc with a simple game of tic-tac-toe, tonight’s your night. (Also, you’ll get to see a young Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick.)

I’ll be heading to the Tyson’s Corner location with a group from HacDC, but you can look up the closest theatre to you on Fathom Events website. (Unfortunately, it seems only theatres in VA are participating. I couldn’t find any in DC or the MD suburbs.) Tickets for most showings are still available online.

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monochrom is a worldwide operating collective dealing with technology, art, context hacking and philosophy and was founded in 1993. So to sum up, monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism. Their mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom released a leftist retro-gaming project, established a 1 baud semaphore line through the streets of San Francisco, started an illegal space race through Los Angeles, buried people alive in Vancouver, and cracked the hierarchies of the art system with The Thomann Project.

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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 the cultural scene; I love it all, too. Part of loving DC is the sum total of those who have come before both here on the blog this week, and throughout our history as a nation.

But what drew me here 6 years ago was a love of politics and the sense that this town is the best place to experience the process of governing, and also see into the seedier underbelly of the system. While Profesionally I’ve pursued opportunities of a more geeky persuasion, becoming a system administrator and following other technological distractions, I try to remain engaged in local and not-so-local political happenings. In my spare time, I’ve volunteered for numerous campaigns, offered my technological know-how to political and advocacy groups, and even started a successful online grassroots political movement.

Being in DC is the perfect backdrop for such activities. The rich historical tapestry that DC presents, from the monuments to the architecture to the founding documents of our nation, mean there’s no better place to explore the history of our country, and engage in helping to shape it’s future. And that’s why I love DC.

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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 and enjoy great beer
• Saturday, July 26: Paying homage to Grace Hopper at Arlington National Cemetry.
• Sunday, July 27: OFFICIAL GRAND OPENING CEREMONY! HacDC opens at 3:00 PM, Ceremony at 8:00 PM with reception to follow.

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Curt will be flying a tethered aerostat balloon (weather permitting) and taking aerial photos of HacDC and the Columbia Heights neighborhood near St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church. He’ll talk about what he does with balloons, show off the system he’s developed for deploying them, and generally have a good time.

If you’re interested, stop by the church parking lot (at 16th and Newton in Columbia Heights View Larger Map) around 3 PM.

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