WHYcast transcript episode 25
Disclaimer
This is the full transcript generated using AI tools and some human oversight. It may contain errors. Please review and correct obvious mistakes before publishing.
Transcript 25
Nancy: Hi, and welcome to the WHYcast episode 25. I'm Nancy.
Robert: I'm Robert.
Ad: And I'm Ad.
Nancy: And we are the hosts of the only podcast about a hack camp in the universe. This volunteer-run event will take place this year in the Netherlands, approximately 42 kilometers north of Amsterdam from August 8 to 12, 2025.
Nancy: So, Ad, what are we talking about today?
Ad: Well, like every week, we will be talking about the news, where to hack. We have an interview with Robert, who is already present here. We also have another cool video sent in by Dimitri. And we have some listener questions. And, of course, we have the vacancy of the week.
Ad: But first.
Nancy: But first, we have a guest.
Robert: Hi.
Nancy: Can you tell a little bit about yourself? We will do the interview later, but maybe it's interesting to already explain a little bit.
Robert: So, my name is Robert—also known as Number3. I’m currently helping in Team:Info, and I’m a board member of IFCAT. I’ve been at these events for over 20 years now, so I’m really looking forward to the next event and helping out.
Nancy: You’re a veteran hacker.
Robert: I’ve been there a while.
Ad: And he still looks like 25.
Nancy: He does. He does. Thank you. You look so great, especially in this light.
Nancy: Well, okay. We will talk again later in the show, and for now we’ll dive into the news.
Nancy: One of the things I would like to tell everybody is that April 5 will be the field day. That’s an on-site meet on the field at a location called Manege Beukers. Information is on the wiki—just click “Field Day” in the left menu. There’s a place to sit and discuss things with your team, and you can also walk the fields and see what’s going on.
Nancy: It won’t have a sleepover like last time; this year it’s just an afternoon. There will be lunch and dinner—but please sign up, because otherwise we cannot feed you.
Nancy: By the way, our friends from the UK—Simon—will be there. It’s his birthday. I hope he’s not listening, but there will be cake.
Ad: Yet again. Yet again. Last in-person meet we had cake, and now this one too. Cool, cool, cool. But do sign up on the wiki—a link will be in the show notes down below.
Nancy: Right. Can you tell a little bit about merch sales, since you’ve been in contact with Netsmurf?
Ad: I did. Merch sales are steadily rising—they’re still ongoing and will continue until at least the end of April. But somewhere in early to mid-May we’ll need to close the shop so we can order from the supplier in time.
Nancy: It has to be produced, and that takes time. There will be a hard deadline for ordering merch. If you want anything, go to tickets.why2025.org, order your merch there, and check the wiki for sizing labels and measurements.
Nancy: Cool.
Ad: And note that merch is pick-up only at the event—you need a ticket to the event, then you can pick up your order.
Nancy: Very useful addition—thank you. It won’t be shipped to you, so please remember to collect it onsite.
Nancy: Also, I’ve been talking with Team:Sponsors at the last physical meets at Hack42, and this team needs a little bit of love. They need sponsors—lots of them. Sponsoring can be tricky to explain to companies unfamiliar with our event model, so they created a new sponsor brochure for companies that are basically clueless about what WHY is.
Nancy: I’m also working with sub-team promo on social-media carousels to explain what it means to be a WHY sponsor—it’s not about recruitment or publicity; it’s about fostering a community with financial support, which is quite different from other events.
Nancy: Team Sponsoring has been working very hard to clarify this, and we already see some new sponsors. However, we still need a couple more to cover costs.
Ad: We’ll put the sponsor link in the show notes. If you think your boss should sponsor WHY, show them the brochure and tell them, “I want to go here—these are my friends, my people. Help us build this community and have a great time. Happy employees make happy employers.”
Nancy: Absolutely. Also, extra sponsorship funds can be used for friends tickets—tickets for those lower on funds. I’m planning a joint blog post with Team:Info about the balance between generous nerds—those who pay more to fund friends tickets—and those who benefit. Our head of finance, Henry, will contribute, though he’s too shy for the mic. We love you anyway, Henry.
Nancy: It’s great to see bosses happy to cover tickets—then purchase corporate tickets so we have extra funds for friends. That’s core to our community: looking out for each other and having a great time. For example, listening to talks or participating in workshops—
Ad: Have you sent in your CFP?
Nancy: No—well, sort of. It’s possible Crystal already submitted a CFP that I’m part of, so I need to check that—guilty as charged. But I know CFPs are coming in—we’ve surpassed 70 submissions. I spoke with some people at Women in Cyber last Friday, and many were hesitant to submit. Thankfully, Daniella and Piiindakaas were there to encourage them: “Please do, we want to hear your story.”
Nancy: Hopefully more people will send CFPs; we still need content for talks and workshops on any tech-related topic.
Nancy: I just spoke to Josh earlier today from Team:Content—he questioned my CFP entry because “you’re not doing enough yet,” and his only response was, “Just hit the button.”
Nancy: So, just submit your CFP. Josh told us to, and it’s not only for yourself but also for the volunteers on that end—they have to review all proposals, and if everything comes in on May 24th, they won’t be happy. Let’s keep our Content Team volunteers happy.
NancyCool.
Ad: You already mentioned the Cyber Women event
Nancy: it was very cool, about 60–70 people. It was organized by Lucinda, who hosts a Dutch podcast called All the Cyber Names—sorry to non-Dutch speakers for the English title. There were inspiring women on stage around the theme of International Women’s Day and diversity in tech, plus many male allies. It was empowering; we handed out pink tiaras because All the Cyber Ladies is very pinkish. For viewers, I’ll show my All the Cyber Ladies sticker and pin.
Nancy: I met new people, including someone from ZCERT who’s organizing a “Hack the Health” village—health hacking. She wants to be on the podcast soon, which is great to get extra perspectives.
Ad: And if I look at your travel list, you’re all over—even Sweden. You do international speaker gigs?
Nancy: That’s what my LinkedIn says—I’ll be in Sweden from April 7 to 9. I land in Stockholm, then head to Örebro (forgive me if I butcher the name; I’ll correct it in the show notes). I’ve visited makerspaces in Stockholm and Örebro; it’s at a university, so I can put up posters.
Ad: Posters and stickers—great.
Ad: And if any Swedish listeners are offended by your pronunciation, have them try “Geestmerambacht” back home.
Nancy: Fair enough.
Nancy: Each week we share where to hack. This weekend, someone from Team:Waste (Bus BastiUs) and Bookworm will be in Berlin at Hackaday Europe. If you go to the event website, you’ll see Bookworm presenting “The History, Future, and Importance of Dutch Hacker Camps.” She’ll bring posters, stickers, and buttons from Robert and me—so look up “Crystal” in the program for WHY merch and chat with her. Good luck!
Ad: And last week we mentioned the annual Open Hackerspaces Day on the 29th—please reach out to your local hackerspace. If you don’t know one, check hackerspaces.nl for Netherlands spaces; other countries have similar sites.
Nancy: We have someone here who knows a lot about hackerspaces’ origins—Robert, can you tell the story?
Robert: How did I get here? You asked at Bitlair: “Where did modern hackerspaces come from?” Together with my son Jim, we spent a weekend chasing the truth. It’s not simple.
Robert: If we define modern hackerspaces as spaces with shared keys, open access, and collaborative creation, the explosion in the Netherlands around 2009 coincides with these early efforts.
Robert: One story is “Hackers on a Plane,” initiated by Nick Farr in 2007—visiting spaces like Metalab in Austria and Seabase in Germany to shape what a hackerspace should be. Mitch Altman confirmed that Nick seeded many of these spaces.
Robert: Around the same time, hackerspace.org started, allowing people to list their spaces. By late 2007, presentations like “Hackerspaces Design Patterns” at CCC (26C3) codified best practices and anti-patterns.
Robert: In 2008, Noisebridge officially launched with Mitch Altman as founder. There’s no single direct link to the Dutch explosion, but the visibility and shared templates encouraged people to start spaces.
Robert: In summer 2009 during the HARDcamp, a panel called “Hackerspaces Everywhere” featured Esther Schneeweiss and Mitch Altman. That talk inspired many to launch spaces afterward.
Robert: I spoke with Aldert, a former HXX chair, who confirmed that the momentum was collective—many Dutch spaces like RevSpace, Hack42, Bitlair, Random Data, and others sprang up between 2009 and 2011. Most funded notary costs and initial setup through donations, kick-starting the movement.
Robert: Even before that, spaces like TD Venlo evolved from youth clubs, and in the 1990s the squatting-era Crackers’ Pond in Amsterdam functioned as an ad-hoc hackerspace—open, communal, though without shared keys.
Robert: So there’s no single founder—multiple initiatives aligned around 2009, the “stars aligned,” inspiring community initiatives that persist today. Hackerspaces and hacker camps remain closely intertwined.
Ad: That’s why almost all our in-person organ meets occur at hackerspaces, except field days.
Nancy: Absolutely.
Nancy: Robert, do you have questions about the future?
Unidentified: I have a question for you about something else—oh my god, I can’t imagine all the information you gave. We’ll need a huge effort to make show notes because you covered so many events and spaces.
Robert: I mentioned a while back that transcribing podcasts and turning them into blog posts would be great for accessibility. I played around with Whisper for audio-to-text and then used AI (GitHub Copilot) to build a pipeline. In about an hour and a half, I had a working tool to transcribe, clean up filler words, summarize topics, and produce conversational blog posts. Over the weekend, I transcribed all episodes, created blocks, and now we just need to upload to WordPress.
Nancy: That’s so cool. I saw someone in our Signal groups mention how one person’s idea sparks someone else to build something—like Chantal and me creating WHYcast, and now you’ve built this transcription tool. That’s do-ocracy in action.
Robert: Do-ocracy is one of the original hackerspace design patterns—those who pick up a task lead it, resolving conflicts if others disagree.
Ad: I had no idea there was a word for that—do-ocracy. I’ll link the original “Hackerspace Design Patterns” by Jens and Lars (2007) and Mitch’s 2.0 talk (2015) in the show notes.
Nancy: Is there anything else you’d like to add—why should people go to WHY?
Robert: If you’ve never been, just try it. You’ll find your place—there are so many tracks, communities, and workshops. Twenty years ago, attending “What The Heck” felt like coming home. It’s about community and finding your thing. You never know where it leads—just do it.
Nancy: A podcast was on my bucket list for a long time—here we are at episode 25 already (or 26 if you count zero, which we do).
Ad: Definitely.
Nancy: Robert, you’re also part of a village that’s been around for 20 years. We have 60 villages registered on the wiki—awesome!
Ad: Then we can sit around the fire—the firewall? Do we have a fire?
Unidentified: Yes.
Ad: Earlier this week I saw a new Signal group join my phone at 2 AM—when I woke up, there was a thread with prototype videos and photos from Dimitri. Let’s play that clip now.
Speaker 1 (Dimitri’s Video): “Okay, first test of the new flamethrower—put in some liquid. You can see the tube is clear. I’ll turn it on and prime the pump…. [detailed equipment testing and bloopers] …three hours later, we have a flame unit. It’s eight meters and 40 centimeters high—three… two… one… go!”
Ad: If you were just listening, this might be confusing. You really should watch it on YouTube—it’s worth it. We can also make a shorter highlights reel so you don’t suffer through a half-hour of leaks and retries.
Nancy: Yes, that six-minute clip of flamethrowers is the one to watch. Dimitri says the next iteration will use copper tubing and better couplings to prevent leaks—if there’s another update, we’ll share it in the next podcast.
Ad: With that, we’re almost at the end. Let’s move to the vacancy of the week…
Ad: We’re looking for a Team Parking coordinator. Reach out to Team:Parking; info is on the wiki and linked in the show notes.
Nancy: Have you checked the mailbox for listener questions?
Ad: I have. One listener said, “I’m not ready to pre-order merch, but I don’t want to miss it.” If you order before end of April, you’re fine. Ordering in early May might be close—but we’ll announce any hard deadline on WHYcast and across our social channels.
Nancy: And while you’re there, if you haven’t grabbed your tickets yet—same shop. We have 939 tickets left as of recording day.
Ad: With that, I think we’re at the end of the show. Robert, thank you very much for joining us.
Robert: No problem—it’s been great fun. Thank you all for listening and watching. If you have comments, suggestions, or feedback, leave them below or email us at WHYcast@why2025.org. Press share and like buttons—that’s good for the algorithm. Hope to see you next Friday—WHY day!
Nancy: WHYday!