May Book Club

The next meeting of the TOG Book Club is 7:30pm, Friday 30th May 2014, and we’ll be reading Embassytown by China Miéville

The plot of the novel surrounds the town of Embassytown, the native alien residents known as Ariekei, their Language, and the human interaction with them. The novel was well reviewed and won the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Big thanks to everyone who came to our April Book Club and read The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.

All are welcome to come and chat about the book (members & non-members).

Tech Week Talks

g3030We are proud to be taking part in the inaugural Tech Week, which hopes to encourage young people to enter technology professions. We will be holding a night of short talks. each speaker is limited to just fifteen minutes  to convey their idea, story or insight on a part of technology.   The event is free for anyone to come along, no need to book.

Date: Thursday 1st May

Time: 19.00

Location:  TOG

Cost: Free

Sign Up: None. Just turn up.


Details on the talks below.

Speaker – Rory McCann
Title –  Introduction to Open Source
Why do programmers give away their software for everyone to use for free? What is Open Source / Free Software? Where did it come from, and how does it work?
Links: http://www.technomancy.orghttps://twitter.com/lalonde

Speaker – Sinead McDonald
Title –  How to pretend you know stuff about stuff
I’m a visual artist, and a graduate of the Art in the Digital World Masters at NCAD. I like to make machines that make people think about things, like quantum mechanics or emotions or time travel or regrets or alternative realities or music or long-defunct Victorian crazyscience. I play with the blur between science and fiction, and I get a LOT of help and collaboration. I’ll be talking about a few past projects, the people who helped me and made me look good, and the stuff they taught me that helps me pretend I know stuff about stuff.
Links: www.sineadmcdonald.comhttps://twitter.com/sineadw

 

Speaker – Jamie O’Leary
Title –  Blender and the Creative Space
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games.  The talk will be on what blender can do for you as a hobbyist.
Links:

 

Speaker – Diarmaid McManus
Title –  Spammers hate him! How one weird trick can keep your accounts secure online
Social media accounts are valuable to scammers and spammers, who want to make a quick buck off your reputation. Here’s a few tips to help make your accounts harder to abuse.
Links:  https://www.twitter.com/hacors

 

Speaker – Aoife Crowley & Mary Plunkett
Title –  Made It
Dublin is a city that has been known for its creative and literary heritage. More recently the tech community has elevated Dublin into the new age, but for some, this is a closed circle. For other, they may have the skills, but lack the confidence to bring their ideas to life. You may know how to build an app or create a product, but do you know how to bring these things to market? With Made It, we want to foster a greater sense of community and engagement between the spheres of technology, creativity and entrepreneurship and see how the successful projects we see around us came into being.
Links: http://madeitseries.com/

Photographic group exhibition opens on the 25th April

placedWeb

 

Placed presents work from members of the TOG Dublin Hackerspace photography group. Led by visual artist Sinead McDonald, the course offers an opportunity for creative members of the public to engage with each other on a critical level over the course of 10 weeks, working through concepts and methodology, editing down images, post production, printing / framing / installation-based techniques etc, and culminating in a city centre gallery exhibition.

Placed will open on Friday 25th of April, 7-9pm at Hendrons Collider (see map), and will run Sat 26th and Sun 27th 12-6pm

Featuring work from the TOG photography concept to exhibition group:

Gary Cooke, Jane Friel, Olga Klimovich, Sinead McDonald, Tracy O’Brien, Eadaoin Ryan and JJ Worrall.

Google Map to the Gallery: http://bit.ly/1fgfk4d

Gallery Website: http://hendronscollider.com/

April Book Club

The next meeting of the TOG Book Club is 7:30pm, Friday 25th April 2014, and we’ll be reading The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

The Quantum Thief is the debut science fiction novel by Hannu Rajaniemi and the first novel in a planned trilogy featuring Jean le Flambeur. It was published in Britain by Gollancz in 2010, and by Tor in 2011 in the US. It is a heist story, set in a futuristic solar system, that features a protagonist modeled on Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc.

The novel was nominated for the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and was second runner-up for the 2011 Campbell Memorial Award.

Big thanks to everyone who came to our February Book Club and read The Bridge by Ian Banks.

All are welcome to come and chat about the book (members & non-members).

TOG Wins A 3D Printer

Thanks to LulzBot, TOG is getting a shiny new TAZ 3D printer!

LulzBotTAZ_3Dprinter_low
LulzBot TAZ

TOG’s entry in their giveaway described how we could create 3D printed parts for the TwitterKnitter – and then share the designs so that anyone with a knitting machine like ours could print a TwitterKnitter add-on. LulzBot, who are all about open hardware, liked the idea enough to select TOG as one of 12 winners. We’re anxiously waiting for the TAZ to arrive and planning more printed projects…