Join the GOSH book club

#1

The basic idea is to meet once a month for a video chat and discuss a book of interest to the GOSH community. It’s an open invite to join and you can also join the discussion even if you didn’t read the book. This is simply intended as a way to keep in touch and share ideas/resources about anything relevant to the GOSH movement (e.g., open science, open hardware, social movements, etc.).

I’ve created a Riot room here. Please join it to sign up for “the club”. For those who don’t know what Riot is, it’s like an open-source slack with clients for all browsers/phones, etc. There’s also a main GOSH channel which you should also join!

Our first book is called Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher After 25 Years’ Experience and it is available as a free ebook on gutenberg. Inspired by hackteria’s urban hunting and How to Eat (Almost) Anything projects. @dusjagr says it’s a short read and I doubt that many people will have already read it :wink:

Also, if anyone has experience organizing global video calls (picking a time/day that works across multiple timezones), please speak up and share any tips!

This page is a wiki, so you can edit it (you can also leave comments bellow).

Signup - please add name, username, and timezone)

  • Louise, @loubez, UTC+1 (Oxford, UK)

Book lists

Other books of interest

Creating a self-sustained entity to support GOSH initiatives
#2

Oops some links broken.sorry
Here is a PDF of that rat catcher book.
https://www.hackteria.org/wiki/Urban_Cuisine#inspirin_reads
M

#3

Especially the business section is interesting.

  • There is not much competition, the Rat-catcher can command a good price for his work.
  • The only times and circumstances when a Rat-catcher gives his services gratis is simply because he wants the live Rats for Ratting with parties of gentlemen.
  • The expenses of travelling come very heavy sometimes, for wherever the Rat-catcher goes he always has to pay railway fare for himself.
#4

Shannon, @shannond, UTC-5 or UTC-6

I can also help set up a Zoom channel for video calling.

Other books that I heard variously mentioned during GOSH were The Alchemist and Makers (Cory Doctorow).

#5

Also, here’s a link to a list of readings we keep at Public Lab in case any are of interest to the group: https://publiclab.org/wiki/suggested-readings

#6

Note that the top post is a wiki, so anyone should be able to edit it directly (e.g., to add your name).

#7

Thanks Shannon, adding these to the top post.

#8

Ha whoops, I was editing it and thought I was in a forum moderators loophole, but good to know that was the intention :slight_smile:

#9

@ryanfobel we can set up a group here on Discourse, to make sure messages only go to members without having to handle their email address lists: https://forum.openhardware.science/groups
I boosted your trust level so you should be able to set one up and add everyone who replies here manually, then there’s a box in setup to allow future members to request to join.

Jenny

#10

signed up! great idea Ryan!

#11

So happy to see a brazilian authour on the list :heart_eyes:

#13

Oh, I could not mention my own username properly because the post has a limit of 10 mentions.

We could use Jitsi, it is free and open source, it is not necessary to install anything and we don’t even need to login. I know, amazing.

Thank you!
Salve!

#14

I just increased the maximum mentions allowed in a post (and also removed the minimum post character limitation).

#15

So time to finally get the ball rolling on this huh? I propose that we meet on the 2nd week of the month starting in December. I created a dudle poll (an open-source version of doodle suggested by @leosehn) to see what day of the week works best and whether people would prefer to meet once a month or every two months.

Based on the timezone information posted by everyone, I think our best bet is to try for a start time of 2pm GMT. This means starting at 9-11am for people in the Americas, 3-5pm for Europe/Africa, and 10pm for those in Asia. Could probably shift a bit either way, but any more than that and it’ll be the middle of the night for a big chunk of us. If anyone has suggestions for a better way to choose a meeting time, please speak up ASAP. Otherwise, put in your vote and we can discuss at the first meeting.

I figure many people can probably find time to read the “Rat-catcher book” (it’s only 70 pages) before the first meeting or alternatively, the first meeting can just be a hangout to discuss how to organize things going forward.

#16

Also, since we maybe don’t have enough time for everyone to read a book before the first meeting, we could use that time for people to each “pitch” a book and then we could have a vote and setup a reading list/schedule for the next few months. What do people think of that idea?

#17

It seems nice. But maybe we can decide in each meeting the next steps, by consensus and based on how we are feeling. I believe that could be more flexible.

And I think we could start by the book you suggested, just to take a first step. Or just chat. Both approaches seem good.

Thank you!
Salve!

#18

So we had 8 people fill out the poll and Thursday was the clear consensus. I think I may have been a bit ambitious aiming for the 2nd week December, so maybe we can start 2nd week of January (Jan 10th, 2019) instead? That’ll give people time to read the “Rat catcher” over the holidays and start 2019 off on the right foot! Most people seemed to prefer meeting every 2nd month.

I’ve created a recurring google calendar event (will also send an invite to anyone I have an email for). Does anyone have permission to add it to the GOSH Community calendar? I think @shannond mentioned that she could setup a zoom call. Look forward to chatting with everyone on Jan 10th!

#19

I think I have successfully added it to the GOSH Community Calendar, which is here for anyone who wants it:

If you’d like to add events, email organizers@openhardware.science and we can add you as a contributor.

Jenny

#20

Nice, Ryan!

January is normally a random month, but I’ll try my best to be there.

I will suggest Jitsi for the webconference, because there is no need for installation or login, and it is a free software.

Thank you!
Salve!

#21

Sure. Happy to give Jitsi a shot!