Operation Go West

OBJECTIVE: LXPK and support elements at HQ will prepare accomodations for RiZen's arrival and pick him up upon arrival at 1540 Thursday at Greyhound.

WHEN:

1. RiZen picked up by LXPK Thursday 1540. Subject to change due to Greyhound unreliability.

WHERE:

1. RiZen will be picked up at SB Greyhound at 34 W Carrillo St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, (805) 965-7551.
2. RiZen will be transported to EHQ at SBInfoshop at 421 Alisos St. Santa Barbara, CA 93103.

WHO: Elements led by LXPK are putting a welcoming committee in place.

CONTACT: LXPK 805-456-9977

OBJECTIVE: RiZen is making his way to Empowerment Headquarters as the first operative in Operation Go West. This is a historic first step for Empowerment and RiZen alike. RiZen's arrival opens up many future missions for RiZen as part of the Empowerment Team and paves the way for future Operation Go West participants.

HOW: via Greyhound bus $100

WHEN:

1. RiZen departing Tuesday 1300 hours.
2. Picked up by LXPK Thursday 1540. Subject to change due to Greyhound unreliability.

WHERE:

1. RiZen is departing Indianapolis Greyhound.
2. RiZen will be picked up at SB Greyhound at 34 W Carrillo St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, (805) 965-7551.
3. RiZen will be transported to EHQ at SBInfoshop at 421 Alisos St. Santa Barbara, CA 93103.

WHO: RiZen is on point to transport himself and command and support elements led by LXPK are putting a welcoming committee in place.

CONTACT: LXPK 805-456-9977

Empowerment Headquarters is the first office for Empowerment doers to collaborate on EmpowerThyself and many other projects.

Location: 952 Eastern Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46201

Facilities: 2 2-story 3-bedroom houses with street access

Empowerment now has an official headquarters! I am signing rental agreement papers on a new 3 bedroom 2 story newly built house in downtown Santa Barbara with spacious gardens, garage and yard. Details and pictures coming soon. Those who want to come out to live and work on Empowerment, contact me at lxpk@empowerthyself.com.

Like all decisions you make, where you physically operate is a decision that should be CAREFULLY decided on based entirely on facts.

Every region in the United States, and indeed every country as well, has positives and negitives.  One must carefully choose where a person is to relocate to based on a great many factors.  Existing social inferrence, jjob market, census analysis, existance of a unique resource, proximity to other operations, and much more all should be considered when relocating.

It is important to remember that cities want productive people to move into their area.  View a possible move as the acceptance of a new job.  Does it offer you what YOU want or are you settling for something?  It is important to remember also that most of the time people do not initially START where they want to be.

Research and make a well informed decision and make sure you really REALLY really put some thought in your target geographic location.  Nothing changes your day to day operations quite like where you live and work and play.

Always remember, each city and country are competing with each other for YOU.  Make em give you what you want.

Santa Barbara Infoshop has a new web site (http://www.sbinfoshop.org/) and I'm speaking with them about ways we can collaborate with them as we seek to set up a similar space. We could find a large space that could accomodate all of our needs or we could find separate spaces and help each other out with learning curves and logistics but either way I see us working closely with these excellent people in building space for both of us.

We're discussing plans for containerization as one future possibility. We may start in a house right now but long-term, shipping containers seem like the cities of the future.

Container City in London and Shippable Container Shacks in Australia

Shipping Container Living in LA

A shipping container house with a containerized pool!

Stuccoing A Container

In residential neighborhoods, some building inspectors will insist on painting containers to be less industrial looking. This is an example of a "civilianization" process to make them more pleasing to the suburban eye. I like the idea of covering them with removeable creeper walls of plants.

Combining 3 containers and cutting out walls for big space

Crane lowering containers onto each other

Bob Villa even does a piece on container-based house frames with some people that build units for the military as well as housing. 

Posting here for the first time as a quick link dump to a couple of usefull pages on creation of hacker spaces. Most of it's pretty common-knowledge. Start it up, keep it legal, keep a level of security on everyone, don't let the purpose bleed..

The Hacker Foundation description and overview: http://www.hackerfoundation.org/wiki/index.php/Hacker_Spaces_Initiative

And a PDF slideshow on building your own: http://imakethings.com/Hacker-Space-Design-Patterns.pdf

From what Alex has said, it sounds like real world things are in the works, and perhaps aspects of hacker spaces can be implimented in them.

These links are easy to get off of google, but I hope they're some help.

~ Sci