#geekcluster on Twitter
“Hackbusses (or mobile hacklabs or hack vehicles) are a low-threshold way of bringing the culture of hacking to the people. They are migratory learning and teaching units, taking the talented hackers and their ideas out of urban centers and bringing them to people who might not otherwise be aware of the possibilities available to them.” (via Laughing Squid)
Maybe we could make a Clusterbus. 
Just an idea
Throwing it out there for discussion. This is the only idea I’ve had (although the logo does have about three separate ideas going on!)
Blimey, the image uploader could benefit from some simplification!
Wow. I like the sinclair-ish font lots! (and I’m sure Steve would too)
Although I’m less keen on the 633K bit to be honest. (I think the word GEEK ought to be a bit stronger)
But strangely I had a similar idea – based on the badge of a Karmann Ghia.
Like this:
http://www.karmannghia.com/Products/p2208.jpg
Great work though & I like the colours too.
foo, the image uploader is the standard WordPress one. It’s just upload then insert into post?
I like the logo! Agree with dorko about 633K bit though.
That’s fine, I can handle loosing the 633k – I thought it was amusing, but I realised when I drew it that it was a step too far.
I understand the image uploader Carl, but it takes about twelve steps to upload an image, where it could take three, with one field it didn’t even use and an unclear final step. I get why it’s like that, but uninitiated users on a P2 site expecting Twitter-like simplicity would probably be pretty baffled by it all.
Also, I just noticed this appears in the recent posts sidebar as ‘[caption id=”attachment_32″ align=”al…’ – which is kind of dumb.
These moans are aimed at the template, not anyone here. 
Your post was a “status update”, it’s new in this version of the P2 theme. It can be changed, it might take a bit of tweaking though.
Cheers, this is all useful feedback!
I approve of the concept wholeheartedly! However, the Sinclair pedant that I am would have a lower case ‘L’ and get the proportions to match the Sinclair brand. Not that I meticulously measured the logo in Photoshop, no sir. (Just about got away with that I think. Oh no, I’m still typing! Arse arse arse. Um, what’s that over there? *escapes*)
LOL. Who was that masked man?
Excellent stuff! Nice touch having the gathering times up top like that. (If I could, I’d turn on the pretty URL’s though)
I usually turn on readable URLs for permalinks – but at the moment they’re automatically quite short
e.g. http://geekcluster.org/?p=9
which could be an advantage?
Not too bothered about SEO benefit and for Twitter it would mean using URL shorteners which are a bit silly…
http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners.html
Any thoughts?
[Testing editing Carl's post]
Yeah. There are a few URL shortening WP plugins that let you manage things on your own domain quite nicely, so we could have the best of both. I agree that SEO is not critical here, but why not account for it anyway? It can only be a good thing.
I’m not sure, but I think I found http://yourls.org/ to be the best when I researched it a while ago.
Seems I can edit anyone’s posts here. Not necessarily a bad thing, but probably not ideal.
I really like this WP/P2 approach. It’s simple, flexible, demands very little and allows for a lot. We can be unstructured and random, but still organise it all.
Yes, I made you an editor.
It’s pretty good. I like it. (even if I haven’t figured out how to upload an avatar/icon yet)
I think I might put a post up about ‘how it all began’ and our history so far.
We might also want a post or two listing the things we’ve talked about. (Not ‘minutes’ exactly, but jus a list of subjects we’ve covered.)
Also, some thoughts on future directions & projects.
That sounds like an about page Howard – maybe that would be better as a page rather than a blog post.
I guess so. Although I did mean each of those things as a separate post. Maybe the ‘how it all started’ bit should be a separate ‘about page’.
dorkomatic, if it’s a key/milestone blog post we can put a permanent link to it from a page or the sidebar.
I like minutes, your memory’s really good!
foo, we could have an About page too.
I’ve added the original email (more or less) as an extra page (About Geek Cluster) – but I’ll probably edit it somewhat to make it slightly more concise.
The other posts: summaries of meetings and future ideas might be best as milestone posts maybe?
dorkomatic 8:06 AM on 19 July 2010 Permalink
It’s a fascinating idea, and potentially easier than our dream of a Hackspace. I wonder what the minimum equipment list would be for such a vehicle? I’d love to use my van as a hackbus; but in all honesty it’s probably far too small.