Liberating Ourselves Locally

Last updated

Liberating Ourselves Locally
Abbreviation
  • LOL!
  • LOLSpace
Formation2011
Purpose
Location
Origin
Oakland, California
Website Official website Blue pencil.svg

Liberating Ourselves Locally is a makerspace/hackerspace in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California. [1] It is part of the Bay Area Consortium of Hackerspaces (BACH). [2]

Hackerspace community-operated physical space where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, or art, can socialise, collaborate, or make

A hackerspace is a community-operated, often "not for profit", workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, science, digital art, or electronic art, can meet, socialize and collaborate. Hackerspaces are comparable to other community-operated spaces with similar aims and mechanisms such as Fab Lab, men's sheds, and commercial "for-profit" companies.

Fruitvale, Oakland, California Neighborhoods of Oakland in Alameda, California, United States

Fruitvale is a neighborhood in Oakland, California, United States. It is located approximately 4 miles (6.44 km) southeast of Downtown, and is home to the city's largest Hispanic population, with Hispanics constituting 53.8% of Fruitvale's population. Fruitvale's ZIP code is 94601. It lies at an elevation of 49 feet.

Contents

LOL! is a place where people can learn new skills, from soldering to video game design, [3] [4] and operates on the principle that members of the local community can be involved in all aspects of creating things that sustain people, such as food, clothing, energy, technology, shelter, and art.

History

LOL! was founded in 2011 by a group of people including Jen-Mei Wu and software engineer Praveen Sinha. [5] [6]

Software engineer Practitioner of software engineering

A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, maintenance, testing, and evaluation of computer software.

Mentors from many professional fields volunteer their time to share their professional knowledge. [6] LOL! has close ties with other San Francisco Bay Area hackerspaces including Sudo Room, Noisebridge, and Mothership HackerMoms. [7]

The Omni Commons are a group of thirteen collectives in San Francisco's Bay Area devoted to DIY and community education. It traces its inception to the Occupy movement, specifically Occupy Oakland, and was founded in 2014 on the principles of "community, positive creation and radical inclusion".

Noisebridge hackerspace, makerspace in San Francisco, California

Noisebridge is an anarchistic hackerspace located in San Francisco, inspired by European hackerspaces Metalab and c-base in Berlin. It is a registered non-profit California corporation, with IRS 501(c)(3) charitable status. According to the Noisebridge website's Vision page, "Noisebridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and learning. Noisebridge is also more than a physical space, it's a community with roots extending around the world." It was organized in 2007 and has had permanent facilities since 2008.

Mothership HackerMoms is a nonprofit hackerspace/makerspace in Berkeley, California, founded in 2011. It was the first all-women hackerspace.,

Project areas

Art Creative work to evoke emotional response

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. Other activities related to the production of works of art include the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

Computer hardware physical components of a computer

Computer hardware includes the physical, tangible parts or components of a computer, such as the cabinet, central processing unit, monitor, keyboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, speakers and motherboard. By contrast, software is instructions that can be stored and run by hardware. Hardware is so-termed because it is "hard" or rigid with respect to changes or modifications; whereas software is "soft" because it is easy to update or change. Intermediate between software and hardware is "firmware", which is software that is strongly coupled to the particular hardware of a computer system and thus the most difficult to change but also among the most stable with respect to consistency of interface. The progression from levels of "hardness" to "softness" in computer systems parallels a progression of layers of abstraction in computing.

Computer program Instructions to be executed by a computer

A computer program is a collection of instructions that performs a specific task when executed by a computer. Most computer devices require programs to function properly.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Maker culture community interested in do-it-yourself technical pursuits

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Hackerspace.gr organization

Hackerspace.gr ('hsgr') is a hackerspace in Athens, Greece, established in 2011. It operates as a cultural center, computer laboratory and meeting place. Hackerspace.gr promotes creative coding and hardware hacking through its variety of activities. According to its website: "Hackerspace.gr is a physical space dedicated to creative code and hardware hacking, in Athens".

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References

  1. Booth, Kwan. "East Oakland Makerspace Liberates Tech for All". Emerging Arts Networks. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  2. Baichtal, John. "Hackerspace Happenings". MakeZine. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  3. Steven Kurutz (May 1, 2013). ""One Big Workbench"". The New York Times . Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  4. "Liberating Ourselves Locally encourages diversity in tech force through Hack Night". SFGate. November 6, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  5. Alison Vayne (November 6, 2015). "Liberating Ourselves Locally encourages diversity in tech force through Hack Night". East Bay Express . Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Squiggy Rubio: Web Developer". Electronic Frontier Foundation . Retrieved March 22, 2016.
  7. Ryan, Jenny (November 10, 2012). "Hacking the Commons: How to Start a Hackerspace". Shareable. Retrieved March 22, 2016.