WHYcast transcript episode 1
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Transcript episode 1
Nancy: Welcome to the WHYcast, episode one. I am Nancy. And we are the hosts of the only podcast about a hacker camp in the world. This volunteer run event will take place next year in the Netherlands, 42 kilometers above Amsterdam, from August 8th to 12th, 2025. So, Ad, what are we talking about today?
Ad: Well, there's a couple of things we will be discussing. And one of the things I want to touch on first is what happened about two weeks ago. In Eindhoven, at Hackalot, we had Fallfest, the most recent in-person organizing meet for the event. And we were there together with about 70 other people, which was a lot. It was a lot. But it was great, I think. You have to imagine that we have 42 teams, and not even everyone was present at this meetup, so there are even more people working behind the scenes getting this event up and running. But having 70 people in one room who all have the same goal—making this an awesome event—is very productive. Hell yes. There has been more done during those few hours in there than there has been in the weeks prior, I think, which is awesome. And what did you—what were your highlights?
Nancy: Well, I'm all up for remote first, but yeah, just seeing and meeting each other and having leaders and leaders of Club Mata going on there. First, thank you—thanks to Hackalot for hosting us. The fun fact is they just recently had a new space, so they're based in a church now, which helps a lot when you want to have 70 people of a community in one space. I think Christal, my co-chair of IFCAT, did a great job in opening everything and welcoming everyone, because without everybody volunteering, this event is not happening. All the things we spoke about and all the teams who were getting together—whether it was about the food court or the permits or the family zone or Team:NUTS (you can look it up on the Wiki what that means)—it was great. And also, we did a lot of interviews for the WHYcast; we got a lot of content already from there, which is also pretty cool. Thanks, Stitch, for using your office for it, because we had a nice cyber museum background there, so that was cool. And yeah, I think the overall vibe was very enthusiastic and looking forward to everything. Team:Terrain did a really great job presenting the terrain and some of the bumps that we also have to address, which I think we can take into account. But all in all, I think it was a great meet, and I saw a lot of positive vibes all over the place. So yeah, I'm very, very excited about it—especially because it's 11 months prior to the event, right? That so many people already are active and involved in making this happen, that's so cool.
Ad: Yep. And also the terrain talk—I mean, having terrains designated as the Desert, the Badlands, and the Boneyard—I mean, yep, very interesting. And we had the bit of house style show there. “Look at the banner, look at the banner”—if you’re listening to this podcast please check out the YouTube because on screen currently is—
Nancy: —uh, the banner for the event, yeah. And Team:Volunteers also made some very lovely posters, which is over there but not quite clear, but I think you can download them at the Wiki as well. Oh, okay, this is not working out, which is fine. It says “Volunteers need it,” and they’ve been passed along to all the hackerspaces, so the posters are everywhere. And we had loads and loads and loads of stickers—obviously stickers go to hackerspaces; if I show them in front of the camera, they come in all kinds of different colors and you can stick them anywhere. Yep—legal, yes. So the poster says—
Ad: —“Volunteers need it.” If you go to the Wiki there’s a vacancies page that lists a lot—
Nancy: —of the vacancies still open. Yeah, link will be in the show notes. But you mentioned you had a couple of interviews at Fallfest, and I know that one of them was with Danny from Team:Content.
Ad: Content is obviously quite important for an event like this because part of the conference is just being there and seeing friends but also going to lectures.
Nancy: And we have talks—every event we have at least 200 talks and workshops. One of the highlights of Fallfest was that the CFP is open, so now you have the possibility: if you want to share cool knowledge on a stage you can sign up. They also need reviewers by the way, which Danny will talk about. But yeah, the CFP is open, so if you have a cool subject you want to talk about, head over to the CFP page and sign up. Links will be in the show notes, wherever they are on your favorite podcast app or down in the YouTubes. Well, maybe now it’s time to listen to Dani, I guess? Yes, perfect. So we’re still at Fallfest in September—we don’t know when this will be in the episode—but we’re here with Dani. Can you please tell us some more about yourself and the team?
Dani: Yes, okay, hi, I am Dani—that’s a short form of Daniëlle, but umlauts in names still go wrong in so many systems, so it went on to Dani. I am in Team:Content, so we are working on the CFP and making sure that we have some nice speakers on the event. I’ve heard a lot of people ask me, “What does CFP stand for? What does it mean?” It’s a call for papers or a call for proposals, or a call for presenters. Basically, if you want to talk at WHY, you send in a proposal—call for proposals—saying, “I want to talk about this subject,” and you describe what you’re going to cover. Very cool.
And do you already have an idea of what type of content we are looking for at WHY?
Yes. We want talks that connect to our event and connect to our scene. We have four streams of topics. We have Wonderful Creations—everything that you have created from scratch: art, software, hardware, anything that fits. Cookies are fine too if you have the greatest cookie recipe. We have Adfluencing—everything you’re doing with what somebody else did. Then we have Hacking—anything where you fixed it, broke it by fixing it, fixed it by breaking it, or just doing something that hacking is about: software, hardware, humanware, whatever. Then we have Yearn for a Better Future—that is all about building a better world with political talks, self-improvement, environmental stuff, things that will improve the world or people. If those three streams don’t fit, we also have a Square Hole where anything can go. Those are the four main streams of content we want. There’s a longer description on the website; if you go to the CFP site you see a bit longer description already. We’re working on a long-format blog post about the entire idea and philosophy. The CFP is live as of Fallfest today at cfp.WHY2025.org, and you can send in your proposals until Zawel Day, which is May 25, 2025. That’s a very long time—you’ve got a lot of time—but please, please, please don’t wait until May next year to send in your proposals because we have to read through them, and it’s a lot of work to read all that stuff. WHY is completely organized by volunteers, so these are actual people who give up their free time to go through all the proposals. Please be nice and be early and be complete. If you have any questions you can also email us at content@WHY2025.org for help with the CFP form—we’re here to help as well.
Does Team:Content also need more volunteers?
At the moment we are good going onto the event. We’re going to need some more reviewer people to review all the CFPs and rate them—“I want to see this, I don’t really want to see that.” Of course we also have subteams for the speaker desk and stuff like that for on the event itself. We can still have some people who want to help on the event. Herald is also one of our bits—heralds are people who announce speakers, which is great fun and might be nice for later next year. If you want to be a herald, get in touch with Team:Content—find us on the wiki or find our email; we arrange that as a subteam. Go look at our CFP page because there are some special things we’re hoping to get around; it’s alluded to in the CFP. If you read that you will find it, and we’re still working out the details if we can make this happen, but it’s going to be awesome.
Nancy: Thank you so much. And go for it. Okay, so that was the amazing interview with Dani, and we have more in store for you this episode. Like, for instance, we have a history lesson about something cool happening at a former camp by the Adinfluencer. And what else, Ad?
Ad: There’s also an interview with Dave Borghuis from Hackfest—that is something where you can hack, Sue. But I think we’ll start off with the history lesson.
Nancy: Yes, tell us some more about the history, Odd.
Adinfluencer: Each episode we’ll be diving into a piece of history—something special from the predecessors of WHY2025. So that could be from the Galactic Hacker Party in 1989, Hackers at the End of the Universe in 1993, Hacking in Progress 1997, Hackers at Large 2001, What the Hack 2005, Hacking at Random 2009, Observe Hack Make 2013, Still Hacking Anyways 2017, May Contain Hackers 2022. This week we will be taking a look at the Stone Age computer on display at Hacking at the End of the Universe in 1993: an interactive art installation made by Mathilde Mubey, or “Microprocessor” as it is stylized. It was on display in several locations dressed up differently each time, tying in with the organic feel of this artwork. It was meant to bring people back from the kilos of manuals involved with using computers back to nature. It is designed like a Japanese garden. As we read on her website from 1993—and I quote—“Get into the primitive mode: hit the Stone Age keyboard where rocks represent the keys; squeeze the water sacks dangling along the keyboard representing the simultaneous keys Alt, Shift, and Control; get the feeling how you push your data through the computer.” End quote. So you had to squeeze the water sacks and mash the Z key when you did something wrong, and you should also not forget to water the keyboard as it is laid in actual soil with living plants and moss. According to stories I’ve heard, this is the event where the computer actually got hooked up to one of the eight phone lines available at the camp, so it could have an actual dial-up connection to the rest of the world. For people watching on YouTube, there will be some pictures flashing on screen from Mathilde’s website; the link will be in the show notes. It is also featured on the cover of a book about data communications. This wasn’t the last time Mathilde would show up with an interactive art piece, and that might be something for a future episode.
Nancy: So let’s look at one of the vacancies of the week. We have a team called Volunteering, and this is kind of a meta thing we have at hand here.
Ad: You mean that team Volunteering? Volunteers is looking for volunteers to look for volunteers?
Nancy: Yes, that is what I mean. We need volunteers to look for volunteers to have more volunteers, because we can never have enough volunteers.
Ad: Yeah, and it’s not only during this organizational phase—it’s also during the event, because there’s the whole angel system with volunteering during the event with simple but very necessary tasks. We also need people for the volunteer kitchen, because if you participate in the angel system and volunteer for a couple of hours a day, you get a meal.
Nancy: Absolutely. And it’s also about making sure everybody stays hydrated. It’s about all kinds of different things at the event itself. But prior to the event, it’s also talking to other teams: do you still have vacancies? Do you need help? Do we need people to help out with the finance team, the fire team, the shuttle team? Do we need more shuttle drivers to take people from the station to the event and back again? So yes, Volunteering is a very important team for finding volunteers to help volunteers.
Ad: So check them out on the wiki or send them an email at volunteers@why2025.org.
Nancy: Yes.
Nancy: Each week we will share where you can find why-minded people—where to hack. So here with me today is Dave, and Dave is going to tell us a little bit about where we can hack.
Nancy: Dave, thanks for joining the WHYcast. Maybe you can introduce yourself, what you’re doing organizing Hackfest, and a little bit about what you intend to do for WHY.
Dave: So yeah, my name is Dave. I am also a volunteer at WHY—this year I’m helping with the permits part. I was also a volunteer in previous camps: one camp I was lead of lights and audio; another one I had my own village called Retro Village with the Commodore 64 and Amiga and stuff like that. I love computer stuff. On September 28th and 29th of this year, I’m going to organize Hackfest, and it’s going to be in the Drukpers Hall.
Nancy: Drukpers Hall—we’ll put a link in the show notes.
Dave: It’s a very old building where previously newspapers were printed—a big space, very high, very industrial—so very suitable for a Hackfest. It took a little effort to get it organized, but we’re going to do the festival itself. Hackfest is two days—Saturday and Sunday—in Enschede, near the German border. All Germans are always welcome, of course, everybody is welcome.
Nancy: Can you tell me a little about the content—what will happen when I look at the speakers program, for instance?
Dave: I have several parts. It’s kind of a traditional Maker Faire: hobbyists show their own projects, tell a little about what they did and maybe explain mistakes they made. That’s always interesting. Saturday evening we also have a part of the demo scene because I’m active there. The demo scene originally started when people cracking new software wanted to brag, “I made this,” and it became more complex with music and real-time graphics. It evolved into its own scene; people still make demos for Commodore 64 or Amiga or other old platforms. There’s even a category called 4K—not resolution, but size of the executable: 4,000 bytes. What they make with 4,000 bytes is crazy amazing. So on Saturday evening we’ll show a little history of the demo scene, then we’ll have a live-coding part with the ZX Spectrum—Tech80—and after that a DJ playing a bit of music. During the day the exposition and speakers are there; one of the speakers, Mitch Oldman, is going to talk about hackerspaces and why they are important. I’m also the founder of the hacker space in Enschede called TuxLab—I don’t sleep much, but I do promote hackerspaces in general. I maintain the Xspaces.nl site mapping all the spaces, including fab labs. We’ll have Mitch, MQTT talks, some workshops like soldering, a lock-picking village that’s normally at hacker camps, sessions on how to create your own digital ID, and a Hacker Lounge where you can sit with your laptop and hack around and be social or not social—whatever you want. That’s the program for both days; the demo-scene and live-coding are only on Saturday evening. The full program is on our website. There are still tickets left, and if you come in full cosplay you get free entrance—as a nice excuse to dress up again. I’d probably go steampunk, but to be honest I’m not that creative so people say I have other qualities—like organizing crazy, cool events. We’ll see. Also, the computer museum is coming, making badges for the coming white gap. Some people will make music with 3D-printed instruments or laser-cut instruments. Demi from the laser-lights team might bring some fire, and we’re working out the permits so he can do his thing. If it happens it would be awesome. For the rest it’s all about hardware, software, or open-source tech, with introductions for people not familiar with it. There’s enough to do for everyone.
Nancy: Great. Well, Dave, thank you so much for telling us more. If you have time, please go to Hackfest—sounds like a very cool program for anyone interested in the hacker community. Thank you so much.
Ad: So those are some cool stories by Dave. See you at Hackfest—I’ll be there, I’ll be on stage actually, so if you have something to ask or share, please come up to me. If you have feedback on our podcast, send us an email at WHYcast@why2025.org. We want to thank Bigs for giving us our intro music. If you want more information about the event, the different teams, or this podcast, look at our wiki at why2025.org. You can also mail Nancy or the podcast itself. Send an email to WHYcast@why2025.org with any cool stories, hacker events, and historical effects so we can have more cool things in the episode with the influencer.
Nancy: Thank you so much for listening. Indeed. And see you next week.
Ad: See you next week.