Copies of TAILS Linux for Upcoming NSA Event!

On Saturday, February 1st, Senator Sanders will be facilitating a public forum in Montpelier entitled “NSA: Out of Control.” It will feature Professor David Cole from Georgetown Law School , and Heidi Boghosian, the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, and, as of the time writing, almost 100 people have RSVPed to the Facebook event.

TAILS PenguinThe event certainly seems like it will be a good opportunity to learn more about the NSA privacy abuses that have flooded the media in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations, but, beyond that, it offers an ideal opportunity to widely distribute user-friendly privacy tools that allow people to opt-out of the NSA drag-net immediately while Congress figures out how to appropriately respond to the revelations of abuse. The best suite I’ve found which is easily usable by folks with limited computer literacy is TAILS Linux, a live OS based on Debian that, among numerous other features, is preconfigured to route all internet connections through TOR.

As such, in the next week I will be assembling a few hundred burned DVD copies of the latest TAILS release to hand out to the attendees of Saturday’s event. If anyone would like to help defray the cost of DVDs and jewel cases, Bitcoin donations can be sent here: 13qaGsVRjoGHmYnV4RZcugnfxpTXxRkAsL

Additionally, I’ll be working on burning and assembling copies at the Lab during public hours on Thursday from 7-9pm; if you want to help with production or with distribution at the event itself, stop in!

January 28th: Satoshi Square

dogecoinTo follow up on the great gathering of crypto-currency enthusiasts at the Lab that was recently featured in Seven Days, the Lab will host a “Satoshi Square” this coming Tuesday, January 28th from 7-9pm. The goal is to bring together the community of Bitcoin/ Litecoin/ Dogecoin/ Coinye devotees to get to know each other, truck and barter, and discuss the latest news and opportunities that the emergence of crypto-currencies present for Burlington.

Feel free to bring a beverage and/or snack to share, share the Facebook event with any friends who might be interested, and vintage 2011 Bitcoin t-shirts will be for sale with all proceeds benefiting the Lab!

Finally, the Lab now accepts Bitcoin donations! 1E8Pr5CY5Me74UeYhsfXfoTrwYm4Qnqz7Y

techie.com mentioned Burlington and Laboratory B a cool high tech place..

The BTV Web App Group meets several times a month for presentations and networking. Laboratory B, the local hackerspace, holds regular events. The sustainability-focused Green Drinks meets twice monthly, once in Burlington and one in Montpelier. CodeForBTV, a civic hacking group that meets weekly, enjoys support from Code for America, and they’ve produced several improvements to local systems and organizations. The meetup groupBurlington Net Squared also hosts regular meetups that cover many different tech angles. Tech Jam Vermont is a well-attended annual event sponsored by Dealer.com, which is headquartered in Burlington.

More at http://techie.com/techie-coms-most-promising-tech-hubs-to-watch-in-2014/

January Events

It’s cold outside and the weather is frightful. But the Lab is warm, snug and dry so it’s a good place to hangout this time of year!

2600 Meeting January 3rd 5-8 at the Burlington Town Square Mall, we’ve moved location and we’re going old school!
The Generator is  holding “Build a Makerspace Party” January 4th from 10am to 5pm at the Memorial Auditorium’s Annex!
We’ve adjust our open drop in  hours to 7-9PM EST on Thursdays

Look for more events coming soon!

Rise of the Tech Ninja….fashion!

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As is keenly obvious Laboratory B is center of cutting edge fashion (j/k). Seriously though,  we do spend a fair amount of time thinking about high tech fashion either in the wearable way or in a materials way. We are pretty excited by the rise of techninja fashion, which I quipped in just” a monochromatic Vermonter just back from  hike!”

Though the pricing is outrageous (isn’t it always in the fashion world) it present some interesting looks (straight out of a William Gibson novel!)

 

 

 

Bitcoinage Discussion!

Laboratory B hosted a bit of coin meetup last week and the local alt weekly (more like just awesome weekly) did a write up about it!

In Vermont, Users of “Cryptocurrency” Bitcoin Are Few But Committed

 Last week, in a small, subterranean workspace near downtown Burlington, a group of tech-savvy Vermonters held an open forum on a topic that’s attracted a great deal of attention lately: Bitcoin. Early adopters of the “cryptocurrency” believe it has the potential to upend the entire global economy…..
Also Laboratory B has some cool “I use bitcoin” t-shirts if you need one.

New Server Cabinet!

IMG_20131126_093344It’s been an exciting last few weeks with plenty of cool addition to the Lab. One of these if your new full sized server cabinet! Friend of the Lab Pat new a guy who knew a guy. Working with Pat we picked it up and brougth it back to the lab. It a Dell model and it’s super awesome. We are currently in the process of cramming servers into it. Thanks Pat!

Designer Lighting!

IMAG0333 This post is long overdue but better late then never! We’d seen Rebecca Schwarz’s designer lights at the number of local maker and art events and we thought “Man those are super cool!” After talking with Rebecca a little we learned that they usually lived in her basement unseen and unloved. Well with a little cajoling we managed to convince her to hang them at the Lab! We maybe the only hackerspace with designer lighting! If you want to see the cool lights from recycled material come on down to the Lab! Rebecca can also do workshops on how to make similar lights at schools and such!

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