Virtual private what? event, news & new members

[Martin McGrath]

Morning all,

Sorry, this mail is going our much later than intended.

This Thursday (23/02/2017) sees a ScotLUG (Scottish Linux User Group)
meeting taking place in the Electron club. "Virtual private what?":

https://scotlug.org.uk/meetings/2017/february

"This Month we will be hosting a workshop, following a similar theme
to last months very successful talk. This month we will be covering
how to set up and use personal VPNs. Covered in 2 sections:

* What is a VPN and why might I want to use one?
* How do I run my own VPN Service?"

I think this will be very interesting for many members given the laws
pushed through by the government recently:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper

It's a sad state of affairs when the most unrealistic part of V for
Vendetta is that in the story people can smoke in pubs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

On the subject of sad states of affairs, once again I'm sorry to say
we've had reports of people leaving the room in a mess. This is
unacceptable.

Last Monday we left a box marked "Please do not touch" sitting on the
table of the right hand side of the room, containing equipment we're
going to use to build tools that others will have access to. Tools
we've been asked to provide several times over the years. At some
point between last Monday night and Saturday lunchtime it had been
stuffed full of rubbish which should have been placed in one of the
many bins provided. The tables were left covered in cake crumbs or
something similar.

This isn't an isolated incident. I've had reports where people are
regularly having to clear up the room before using it, throwing away
bottles, food packaging etc. Having had to do this myself many times I
appreciate how disheartening it can be, especially when people are
giving up their time to improve what the Electron club has to offer.

If you sign out the keys you are responsible for the upkeep of the
room. Ensure it's tidy before you leave.
If you find the room a mess on arrival please report it to us at
info at electronclub.org, then tidy it up.
If you can't be civil, follow the few rules we have and show a basic
level of respect for everyone else you shouldn't be using the space.

On the subject of bookings, again we've been contacted by members of
the public who show up to attend events as advertised in the Calendar,
only for nobody else to show up. If you aren't going to run the event
for whatever reason cancel the booking and email the list. This also
allows others to book the room when it's actually empty, and lets us
all know what's going on should someone ask. Keeping such discussions
among your own group/mailing list/facebook page or whatever doesn't
help the rest of us, or more specifically anyone who has to actually
deal with it. Repeat complaints about an event will result in the
meetings being marked as 'tentative' in the calendar, as this is the
only way we have of managing the expectations of others planning to
attend. Again this is the responsibility of the person booking/running
the event.

Bob touches on some great points here:

"There are a ton of groups and individuals working on all sorts of
projects out there. Do you ever wonder what they have in common? Are
there coherent strands to this work, broader aims, coalitions, a
bigger picture that directs any of this work?"

http://radicalimagination.co.uk/2017/01/30/radical-imagination-making-news-building-vision/

If you haven't taken the time to review this site and the associated
video content I can highly recommend doing so.

We seem to have multiple groups meeting who don't provide enough
detail in their bookings to let people know what's going on, and/or
who don't email the list to let everyone know what's going on. As
consequence we have multiple groups holding meetings to address the
same (or very similar) issues that different groups say they're also
working on.

Thanks to Kenny D has spent a lot of time removing junk that people
keep bringing into the room and disposing of it responsibly. This
takes a great deal of time and effort.

Please don't bring more stuff to the room and dump it under the
tables. If you see someone doing so please tell them to take it away
with them, If you plan on working on something in the space, please
mark it appropriately. If something is marked "Please do not touch",
please take the hint.

Thanks to Kenny C for his efforts in adding SSL certs to the site.

New members:

Virginie Nakure Clayton:

"I am part of We Will Rise and compaigning for End Detention. We do
not have money to lent the meeting room Electron room help us to have
meeting regularly."

Andrew Smillie:

"Hi, I'm Andrew. I've been attending ScotLUG meetings in the Electron
Club for a number of years, and thought it was about time that I
joined."

Graeme Hattan:

"Hi, I am interested in software and electronics. A long time Debian
user, I enjoy applying FOSS to solve problems. The programming
languages I like to work with are C, C++, Python, and writing shell
scripts. Recently I have been working on some neuro technology
projects, like the SmartPhoneBCI, for which there was a workshop at
last year's EMF boot camp. I am currently working on a tVNS
stimulator. I have previously been a member of London Hackspace where
I met lots of very interesting folks and hope to do the same at the
electron club. https://jmanart.github.io/smartphone-bci-hardware/
http://unix.stackexchange.com/users/48083/graeme"

Jason H. J. Lim:

"Hello! I am a musician who turned to the dark side of electronics and
software engineering after graduating from my second music degree in
2010. I have been designing modular synthesizers full time since. I
cofounded my first startup company developing synths while based in
the US, but for the last couple of year I have been based back in
Glasgow where I have established a new company www.instruo.media and
now split my time between designing modular synths, making music and
teaching music synthesis, sound design, music theory and production. I
have been involved in the recent Saturday synth DIY hangouts, where my
focus is making noise, helping build kits and developing some
collaborative designs. I learned electronics from the open source
community and enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience. I'm
definitely still learning and hope I can help others interested in
getting into music technology in this niche. Thanks! Jason [Instruo]"

The info pages are chock full of guides for getting the most out of
the Electron club, and getting help should you need it:

https://electronclub.org/doku.php?id=info

Upcoming events can be found on the events page/Calendar

https://electronclub.org/doku.php?id=events:30dayfeed
https://electronclub.org/doku.php?id=howto:calendar

Please let me know either on list or directly if anyone has any
questions about anything touched upon here.

Cheers

Martin