I finally, this past weekend, got around to implementing the Iron Blogger group that I’d been hoping to start at Noisebridge before Christmas (better late than never). This post is actually the first of my weekly obligations. Watch this space for more blogging.

Things are going well. Life is busy on many fronts. The plans that I had for Linux Fest North West and, more specifically Hackers on a Train are coming along nicely. Torrie, Jay and I have our travel booked, and others have expressed interested and marked the dates in their calendar.

Noisebridge has had 2 really wonderful fundraising events in the last few weeks, first the revival of 5 minutes of fame, and the second an awesome party which have brought some old hands and many new faces to the space. It’s encouraging to see the reactions of people walking in the door. Rubin even proclaimed it a “hackerspace” once again. It feels like we’re on the right track. We still have many events and fundraising to do to keep the doors open, but these first two have made me very optimistic.

I’ve become involved in putting on a workshop teaching the use of basic cryptographic tools to journalists at a conference run by the Committee to Protect Journalists in April. It’s the first time I’ve been involved in something like this, so while I’m excited for the opportunity I’m slightly nervous about my lack of experience. That said there’s a first time for everything, and I’m confident it’ll be useful for those who attend. There’s plenty of helpful material online from groups like the Cryptoparty and the EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense project which makes planning easier. I’ve long held strong views on these issues and I’m glad for the opportunity to put them into action.

I hacked a bit last week on Noisebridge’s RFID access control system, a large part of which is written in Go. I’d heard much about Go, but hadn’t yet had a chance to do anything really useful with it. It was fun, and is now firmly on my radar as a technology to use in upcoming personal projects.