[ale] [OT] (slightly): The surprising truth about what motivates us

[arxaaron]

On 2011/07/23, at 18:09 , William Bagwell wrote:

> On Friday 22 July 2011, Aaron Ruscetta wrote:
>> PS:
>> The MASS Collective, which sent me this link, is another
>> Atlanta area collaborative hacker, maker and research
>> space that should be coming on line at the end of the
>> Summer.  It is similar to Freeside, but with a slightly
>> different structure and a slightly broader vision for
>> releasing collaborative research and development
>> works under GPL and Creative Commons. More info
>> to come as details become available.
>
> Thanks for the link! Agree with the Youtube comments
> about forwarding it to bosses:)
>
> As to your PS: Why so close to Freeside? Looks like
> the new space is less  than two miles from the old.
> Why not top end perimeter or even further  north?
> Not be in direct competition with Freeside and some
> of us out in  the sticks might get a chance to participate.
> -- 
> William

Their choice of location in Castleberry is a matter of having
an ongoing relationship with a very generous landlord. He
wants to support their group as part of a design for building
strong creative communities as a foundation for revitalizing
urban neighborhoods (as he is already doing successfully
elsewhere in Atlanta).  I discovered the MASS group because
I'm a board member of the Eyedrum Arts and Music gallery
and we may end up both sharing the MASS Collective
building and collaborating with them extensively as part
of that grand vision.

As for defining the MASS mission, it's almost easier to say
what they aren't than what they are. The idea of a member
base sharing physical tools and resources  is similar to
hacker spaces like Freeside, but the types of resources
being assembled and their applications are much broader
in scope.  The MASS acronym breaks out to Music, Art,
Science and Social.  The essence of the self definition that
was offered when I visited their board meeting today was
"A multi disciplinary collaborative toolkit of human and
physical resources organized to foster diverse creative
pursuits through project driven collaboration". They
have a promotional bumper sticker that proclaims
"I am a tool.  Use me."

They are talking small foundry, machine shop, chem
lab, wet lab, photo lab, electronics lab, recording
studio and more, all under one (solar collector) roof.
Some of the initial projects they talk about organizing
are more akin to university level research than gadget
or system fiddling.

A group to watch.  Again, info as they get their
space off the ground. I'll give a heads up when
they announce the exact September dates of their
grand opening activities.

peace
aaron