WHYcast transcript episode 39
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Transcript 39
Nancy: Hi, and welcome to the WHYcast episode 39. I’m Nancy. Ad: I’m Ad. Nancy: And we are the hosts of the only podcast about a hacker camp in the universe.
Nancy: This volunteer-run event will take place this year in a couple of weeks in the Netherlands, approximately 42 kilometers north of Amsterdam, from August 8th to 12th. So that is coming close now. It’s close.
Ad: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nancy: 48 days. 48 days. What are we talking about today?
Ad: Well, most people will already know this, but we’ll be talking about the news. We have a cool interview. We have some “where to hack” tips. We have the vacancies of the week, and we have a listener question. Woohoo. But first, let’s dive into the news.
Nancy: Yes.
Nancy: Tomorrow, actually, we will have an in-person meet with the organization—so all the volunteers that are, or at least as many of them as possible—in The Hague at Revspace, a beautiful hackerspace in The Hague. If you want to be there, please sign up on the wiki because of food. The weather is going to be pretty okay from what I know today, which is a couple of days before releasing this podcast.
Ad: Yeah, you never know.
Nancy: You never know. But please do sign up, and we’ll talk about all the things going on, all the things that we still need to fix before the event starts. It’s coming closer. It’s coming closer.
Ad: Yeah, instead of weeks, we can now start counting in days. And that is cool because event.
Nancy: It’s also 48 days.
Ad: It’s like, yeah.
Nancy: It’s likely not 48 hours yet, but 48 days. My goodness.
Nancy: Tickets are going fast. It’s speeding up again. I guess nearer to the event more people are getting their tickets. The last time I checked during this recording, we have 120 tickets left. Probably at this rate, in a couple of days it will be less than 100 tickets left. I won’t be surprised if when this podcast comes out it will be less than 100.
Nancy: But at the last Orga Meet we announced—because we had a lot of discussion with the separate teams on what we could do about this—“Can we make more tickets available without burning out volunteers?” Especially for teams like Team:Terrain and Team:NUTS, it was relevant to know how many people are on the field. We checked with them, and the conclusion was that we are going to have 250 extra tickets available in the ticket shop.
Unknown: Yay!
Nancy: Which is good news. They still sell really fast, and ticket prices go up on July 1st. So I expect a boop at the end of June, especially around payday. And that’s nearby as well.
Ad: Maybe we can see the results in next week’s podcast for that.
Ad: Yeah.
Nancy: I do expect that we are going to be the first DARTS hacker camp that is completely sold out before the event itself. At MCH, the last ticket was sold on the field. Of course, if there are still people after that who want a ticket, some visitors came up with the “Ticket Swap” on the wiki.
Ad: Yes. Tickets are non-refundable. So if you bought a ticket and can’t come, you can’t get a refund—but you can edit the wiki. Someone requested a “Ticket Swap” page to trade their tickets.
Unknown: Yeah.
Ad: That’s a way to get a ticket, sometimes even at a little discount. But be careful—you could get scammed. Build in some security for yourself. This isn’t monitored or moderated by the organization. It’s an open wiki.
Unknown: So, yeah, it’s a great way to exchange your ticket if you unfortunately can’t come.
Ad: I saw someone who broke an ankle. That’s going to be a thing. But be careful. The link to the Ticket Swap will be in the show notes down below.
Unknown: Yep.
Nancy: For now, you can also still buy your tickets in the regular ticket shop at tickets.WHY2025.org.
Voiceover: Yes.
Unknown: That was the news for now.
Nancy: A lot is happening, but these are the highlights I think are important for our listeners.
Ad: Next week, we can give a little summary from the in-person meet, I guess.
Nancy: Absolutely. Yep.
Unknown: Yep.
Ad: If you click subscribe now, you’ll be notified next week when this goes live.
Nancy: You’ll be updated.
Ad: Yes, exactly.
Nancy: A while back, I think it was October or November—
Unknown: When was the last Hackfest organized in Enschede by Dave?
Nancy: It was end of last year.
Ad: Yeah, I think so. Let me quickly look. If you’d asked me before, I could have—
Nancy: Yeah, you could have. I forgot about that beforehand. Otherwise, I would have asked you.
Nancy: You spoke there with Mitch about hacker camps in general—cool stuff. If you go back to earlier episodes, you can find Ad talking to Mitch. This time, I interviewed Mitch about the refugee village. Mitch, when we got online you already started without me hitting the record button, so maybe we should start back a little bit.
Ad: Sure. There’s a whole new generation who might be clueless on who you are. Can you introduce yourself for those who have never heard of you?
Mitch: There are 8 billion people on the planet. There’s no way people can hear of everybody.
Mitch: True. I became sort of internet famous a long time ago for inventing a keychain that turns TVs off in public places—2004, a generation ago.
Mitch: Since then I’ve been to hacker conferences. I got connected with incredible people, including at my first Dutch hacker camp, “Hacking at Random.” Before that, conferences in New York—Hackers on Planet Earth—and CCC events and camps including Chaos Communication Camp.
Mitch: At my first CCC camp, a talk on starting your own hackerspace intrigued me. A bunch of friends and I went home and started early U.S. hackerspaces—Noisebridge in San Francisco, among others.
Mitch: I got known for that and for giving workshops, traveling to help hackerspaces get going—helped by people in Germany previously. I’ve visited hundreds of hackerspaces, given a few thousand workshops teaching people to solder, maybe 100,000 people total. I still travel around Europe by train, teaching soldering, giving talks—big and small—and love helping people.
Unknown: Awesome.
Nancy: You were also part of the “hackers on the plane” team that toured. You share knowledge about setting up hackerspaces. We covered that earlier. You’re bringing your hardware hacking village to WHY as well—but that’s not what we’re talking about today.
Unknown: There was an idea at Field Day on April 5th—you were there, talking with friends, and something emerged. What happened? How did it come to be, and what’s the plan?
Ad: Yes, what’s the plan?
Mitch: Several weeks ago at Field Day, we had started a wiki called transworldexpress.org, a resource for anyone leaving so-called “shithole countries”—the U.S. among them. People are emigrating for good reasons. We talked about a refugee-style village where anyone can feel safer—especially trans people from the U.S. and elsewhere, being targeted in horrible ways. We wanted arms open for those who need support, so having a refugee village at WHY this summer seemed right. I’ve been recruiting people—still nascent, but we’re going to make it happen.
Nancy: Yes. We have a “Gulf of Plahaie”—a playful name from last episode. People are already helping with planning. Is there anything up on the wiki yet?
Mitch: It’s still on the to-do list—I’ve been busy with travel, workshops, talks. I leave tomorrow for more workshops and goulash in Germany. But this is moving up the list.
Unknown: Yeah.
Nancy: What kind of help do you need? Beyond wiki editing, what else?
Mitch: If anyone listening knows people who might want to come to WHY and visit the refugee village, let them know. If anyone has ideas for activities or wants to volunteer at the village, contact me—email’s public: mitch@cornfieldtheelectronics.com or mitch@berlin.de. Let me know and we’ll make cool things happen to build a welcoming space.
Nancy: You reached out to me, asking if it’s OK to recruit actively at a hacker camp—making an exception for this village. If you have work and can help someone secure a decent income to build a sustainable future, come help this village—help people move to Europe or earn a living.
Mitch: TransWorldExpress.org is growing—lots of country pages for Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. I’ve shared my Germany experience; there are Matrix/Signal channels, work-finding pages. We can expand in person at WHY.
Unknown: Yeah.
Nancy: And people can use the direct channels to find lifelines and share info.
Mitch: On a personal note: growing up queer in the U.S. in the 1960s was dangerous—I was bullied daily while teachers watched. That spurred me to help others. If we can give more people opportunities to suffer less, that’s huge to me.
Unknown: So that’s why you’re doing this.
Nancy: It really comes from the heart. We gave it a funny twist calling it a U.S. refugee camp—working title. Come help Mitch. We stand for welcoming all creatures.
Unknown: It’s sad it’s needed.
Nancy: It is. I’m so happy you and we can do our bit to build a safe place for everybody.
Mitch: That’s very important.
Unknown: The more, the better—and you don’t have to be sad all day.
Nancy: There are lots of other cool things at camp to lift spirits—because it’s hard. Maybe we can bring joy too.
Mitch: There’s a lot of terrible stuff going on, and we need to pay attention, but we don’t have to focus on it all the time. We can support welcoming communities and improve our lives together.
Nancy: You are not alone.
Unknown: Okay.
Nancy: Mitch, anything else? Plans for the hardware hacking village?
Mitch: The hardware hacking village usually arrives in a big bus from Belgium owned by Tom, but he’s moving to Portugal. We now need to scramble for a tent. I’ve emailed Orga Villages. We hope to make it happen. We have many people ready to give workshops, with 100 soldering irons and tools, and a range of people making physical things—not just electronics—and help fix things brought by visitors. Folks hang out, learn from each other—a little sub-community within the broader welcoming community.
Unknown: Yeah.
Nancy: Cool, good to hear.
Unknown: Yeah. Awesome.
Nancy: We also try to reach younger people—there are actually teenagers in the organization now, plus many in their early 20s. What would you say to a young person interested in hacking and making things who’s hesitant to come to camp?
Mitch: It can be scary to go to an event where you know few or no people. All I can share is my experience—at my first conference, HOPE in New York, I cried tears of joy feeling safe, welcomed, and part of a tribe. As an introverted geek, I wanted to hide, but I felt so welcomed I kept pushing out of my comfort zone. There are volunteers who go out of their way to help new people at WHY and all hacker events.
Unknown: Yeah.
Nancy: I saw “newbie buddy” buttons at DevOps Days Amsterdam—cute dog icons. That vibe means someone will help you feel welcome.
Mitch: And there’s a family village at WHY with kids, knotted toddlers, workshops, Legos, ball pits—fun for all ages. Geeky people find lifelong friends.
Nancy: Certainly. Mitch, thank you so much for making time between your travels and activities. I highly appreciate it—and see you in a couple of weeks. It feels just around the corner.
Mitch: No, it’s crazy—time keeps happening.
Unknown: We all have so much to do.
Mitch: Thanks for spreading the joy as you do. See you soon.
Nancy: Okay, bye-bye.
Nancy: Bye.
Nancy: Bye.
Unknown: Bye.
Nancy: Mitch told me he was on his way to GPN—it’s probably over now.
Ad: Where to hack.
Nancy: Where to hack.
Voiceover: Each week we share where you can find why-minded people. Where to hack:
Ad: Mitch is at the Goulash Programmierenacht in Karlsruhe. It’s still going when this goes live, though it may be late to join.
Unknown: Yes.
Ad: What you could do is go to Lille, France, July 1–3 for “Pass the Salt,” a free university event on free and open-source software.
Nancy: And security—important to note the event is in English.
Ad: They explicitly mention it’s in English.
Unknown: Yeah.
Ad: The first talking point on the website is “it’s in English.”
Unknown: Yeah.
Nancy: Sounds cool, and it’s quite close for Benelux people.
Ad: Lille is right up north, so very doable.
Nancy: Let’s look further ahead: Dave will organize Hackfest in Enschede on September 13 (location TBA).
Unknown: Yes.
Ad: You saw Dave in episode 1 and 14.
Nancy: He’s on the show twice—that’s why I held up two fingers.
Ad: Episode 1 and episode 14.
Nancy: And that was before the first Hackfest, so fun.
Unknown: Yes.
Ad: The first Hackfest I interviewed Mitch for was episode 3.
Nancy: Everything comes together in Enschede after WHY—you can go from WHY to Hackfest.
Unknown: Yeah.
Ad: If you don’t want to travel, then on September 21 there’s PancakeCon online.
Unknown: And I like this one.
Unknown: Yeah.
Ad: Sixth edition—started in the pandemic. Talks are 40–45 minutes: half IT/security and half non-IT topics (e.g., pentesting & personal finance; command-line surveillance & novel writing). Channels range from IRL to “ACN,” “Digitalized News,” “Robotics^2.”
Unknown: OK.
Ad: All available online to binge. September 21 online—just sit back and enjoy.
Nancy: We’ll share the link in the show notes.
Ad: Yes—flip with that, let’s go to vacancies of the week. Yay, vacancies:
Nancy: Guess this week’s vacancy?
Ad: Parking.
Nancy: Yes—still parking. We’ve tried social channels, email lists, IRC, WHYcast—we still need someone to coordinate car-park layout, oversee terrain, lines, management. You get help—you won’t be alone—but we’re still looking. We’re optimists and will find someone.
Ad: It’d be cool if it was through WHYcast.
Nancy: It’s coordination Tetris—Jeroen Bata called it a real-life soco bomb. Merchandise is similar—moving boxes. If you like boxes, coordinate merch.
Ad: Or judge merch samples and pass out orders on the field—your volunteering vacancy.
Nancy: Absolutely. Who doesn’t want cool merch? I wanted it so badly I made my own.
Nancy: Same here—I have my Waikos sweater hanging over there (it’s too warm to wear it).
Nancy: Listener questions?
Ad: Someone asked for the schedule—but it’s early. There’s a timeline on wiki.WHY2025.org/timeline showing build-up, event days, tear-down. Team:Content is still reviewing 246 submissions. They’ll have a sticky-note session over a weekend to pick speakers and set the schedule by end of June. Expect a draft online by early July.
Nancy: You have to wait a little longer.
Ad: I heard from Robert and others that this year’s content is amazing. We submitted something too—but it’s almost time to finalize our 48-day lineup.
Nancy: Do we need prep? We talk all the time. Ad wants to join—we only need about 20 minutes per person. If we do weekly podcasts, we’ll be fine.
Unknown: I think we’re out of items—we’re nearing episode 42. If you have suggestions for episode 42, let us know.
Nancy: Put suggestions in the YouTube comments or email us at WHYcast@WHY2025.org.
Ad: And if you want to help the algorithm, press “like” and “subscribe” everywhere—platforms love that.
Ad: Thank you all for listening and watching. See you next time.
Ad: And we hope to see you next Friday.
Voiceover: WHYday?