WHYcast transcript episode 35
| WHYcast episode | |
|---|---|
| Episode Nr. | 35 |
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 episode 35
Nancy: Hi and welcome to the WHYcast episode 35. I'm Nancy.
Ad: I’m Ad.
Nancy: And we are the hosts of the only podcast about a hacker camp in the universe. This volunteer-run event will take place this year in the Netherlands, approximately 42 kilometers north of Amsterdam, from August 8th to 12th—which is coming closer!
Nancy: So, Ad, what are we talking about today?
Ad: We have some news, a cool interview, where to hack, vacancies of the week, and a listener question.
Nancy: Yes. I guess we’ll start with the news. Seventy-six days left.
Ad: Yeah, it’s really getting close now.
Nancy: That’s about eleven WHYcast episodes—and still a lot of work to be done. We have around 350 tickets left, although I’m not sure exactly, since payday is coming this week in the Netherlands. From past months we’ve seen ticket-sales bumps at the end of pay periods. I expect a boost this week, though we’re recording before Friday’s release, so I might be wrong.
Ad: We’ll see what happens—keep an eye on the stats.
Nancy: Another very important deadline coming up is the closing of the Call for Booths this Sunday, Towel Day, May 25th. The Call for Booths closes at midnight—so if you’ve been waiting to submit your proposal, do it this weekend.
Ad: Click the button. If you’re not completely satisfied, send it in anyway—it’s just a proposal, and you can always edit it later. Leave a note like, “Okay, this bit I want to expand on later.” As long as your outline is there, reviewers can at least take a look and make a decision.
Nancy: A nice example: we plan to submit a proposal about why we started a weekly podcast and what goes on behind the scenes of the WHYcast. Of course we haven’t finished our presentation yet, but we’ll send in the CFP and show how it’s done. Or maybe you want to propose a discussion on Telegram versus Instagram or Signal—even a workshop about repair—anything. Just send in your proposal before the deadline.
Ad: Almost!
Nancy: From my side I’m in high season with my company, so I’m doing only the bare minimum for the WHYcast—because we love it so much. I’m also working on permits. No party without a permit! The bureaucracy can be a bit Kafkaesque, but we’ll manage—we have willing people on the other side: fire department, police—they want to know what we’re doing. It’s needed and important or we won’t have an event.
Nancy: On to more fun stuff: in about four weeks we have the next in-person organ meet—June 21st in The Hague at REFspace. Thanks to REFspace for hosting us again! We’d love to see as many of you there as possible to share updates and work our final sprint. Note that a NATO summit starts the next day, so traveling in or out of The Hague may be tricky. Please sign up on the wiki so we can arrange food for you. If you plan to join the organ meet, register on the wiki; you’ll find all details there.
Ad: That was the news for now. We could go straight into the interview with Vito.
Nancy: Yes. I’ll do a quick intro. Vito was modest about his contributions, but every hour someone puts in to make this event happen is valuable. It’s not a competition; every volunteer matters. Vito is putting in a lot of time, so he’s too modest about his work. Thanks to everyone volunteering—no one volunteer is more important than another.
Ad: We need all 42 teams working together, the cogs of the machine spinning, to get an event!
Nancy: So let’s listen to what off-site logistics means and what Wino is doing for it.
— Interview with Wino begins —
Nancy: Today with us is Wino. How long have you been going to Dutch hacker camps?
Wino: The first edition I went to was HAR 2009. I fell in love immediately and have been at every Dutch hacker camp since.
Nancy: You’ve never missed one?
Wino: No.
Nancy: This will be your fifth camp, then.
Wino: I think so, yes.
Nancy: Have you always worked for the same company?
Wino: I started at my employer in 2006, and we as a company have attended hacker camps. Possibly one colleague was at HIP ’97, but I’m not certain.
Nancy: So have you been involved in organization before this camp?
Wino: No, this is my first time volunteering in orga. I have done angel shifts—parking, sign-in desk, ferry – which was nice for meeting people and helping out.
Nancy: A shout-out to first-comers: please sign up for angel shifts. It’s part of the experience and makes your camp better.
Wino: You meet lots of people with different stories and get a peek behind the scenes.
Nancy: This time you signed up for organ meetings and even became a team lead.
Interviewer: Can be anything that you need to bring to camp but aren’t able to bring yourself?
Wino: Exactly. I’m team lead for off-site logistics. We prepare transports before camp to get equipment to the terrain, and a few days after camp to return it. We handle pallets of various team gear—signage, knock-team IT stuff, deco materials—whatever orga needs transported. We don’t transport village tents or chairs; villages must handle their own gear. So far requests have been within the Netherlands, though we could cross the border to Belgium or Germany if practical. Please collect items at a single location for efficiency.
Nancy: And you’ll coordinate trucks and schedules.
Wino: Yes, we reserve trucks, make the schedule—we haven’t had a full team meeting yet, but some members are non-Dutch and remote. We’re collecting information now from teams who need to ship things.
Nancy: How has it been as a first-timer in orga, on your fifth camp?
Wino: Very welcoming. I’ve listened to WHYcast a lot and people say it’s always the same—yes, it’s true. Everyone’s friendly, happy to help. Other team leads advised me, which helped a lot.
Nancy: If you think someone’s still in doubt about attending, what would you say to them?
Unknown: I can’t imagine anyone regretting going to a hacker camp. It’s a creative community with endless things to learn. At HAR 2009 someone built a flying ostrich drone—amazing then. At another camp there was a wind-powered installation that made music and light responding to proximity. I heard Dan Kaminsky present his DNS cache-poisoning exploit—that’s a highlight, too. You’ll see things you can’t imagine.
Nancy: Be ready to be surprised. Thank you so much, Wino, for the interview. We’ll see you soon—at the organ meet or in August.
Wino: Thank you very much, and good luck with preparations, everybody!
— Interview ends —
Nancy: That was a lovely interview with Vito. Now: where to hack.
Ad: Next weekend, you and I will both be at FOSDEM—and not just us. Many open-source and WHY-minded people will be there. I know Hub of Room will be there. We’ll have a WHY stand with stickers and tiaras—if you’re lacking white gear, come by! If you have WHY-related questions, me or Hub of Room or others can answer them. Also, there’ll be cool talks about open source.
Nancy: FOSDEM is the technical Dutch open source event. If you want to meet Nancy, come on Saturday; to avoid me, come Sunday.
Ad: One of the biggest open source projects is Home Assistant; they have a Community Day tomorrow all over the world. At least one in Utrecht—tomorrow they celebrate open source home automation. If you’ve never heard of it, check home-assistant.io/community-day. We’ll link it in the show notes. There are 42 events in Europe—find your nearest.
Ad: If you’re in Belgium, try Hack The Future in Ghent at the hackerspace gent—they’re starting today. “A newline character marks the end of a line and moves the cursor to the next one,” says their description. Cool, right? All details at hackerspace.gent.
Ad: We find events on foss.events, which covers international hacker events, and hackeropuit.nl for Dutch gatherings. You can add events via pull request. FOSS.events features WHY2025 and promotes our CFP—thank you! Follow them on Mastodon and check out events like Chaos Feminist Convention or PostHaven Forum. They’re made with love in Europe.
Ad: Now, vacancies of the week. Team Parking still needs help. Netsmith and Goldeneye have done great work, but parking maps and traffic flow need final drawings and coordination—both before and during the event with shifts announced on Team:Volunteers. A few extra hands would be very helpful.
Ad: Team:Merch also needs helpers, especially during the event to distribute merch, and prior to the event to coordinate deliveries. Reach out to Netsmith or see the link in the show notes for vacancies. We still need volunteers to manage angel shifts: parking, bar shifts, audio/video work in tents, and food for helpers. Contact Team:Volunteers; all info is on the wiki. Look under the Vacancy tab and individual Team pages like Team:Shuttle Service for visitor info.
Nancy: If you want more information, send us or Team:Info a message. We love listener questions and may use them on WHYcast.
Ad: We got a listener question: How quiet is it at night?
Ad: There is a mandatory quiet time per our permits—everyone should be decent and keep noise down so people can sleep. But with 3,500 people, some noise will happen. A CTF team might cheer a solved puzzle, someone might swear over a soldering mishap. It won’t be absolute silence, but quieter than daytime. If you’re really sensitive, consider a backup plan. Check the noise-gradient map on the wiki to choose your camping spot: party areas are louder, family zones are quieter.
Nancy: That sounds fair.
Ad: And with that, we’ve reached the end of our list. If you have feedback or questions, drop them in the “doobly-doo” below this video or email us at whycast@why2025.org—like Vito did, resulting in a cool interview. Please like, subscribe, hit the bell, and rate us five stars if you can—it helps the algorithm and spreads the word about all the cool things happening at WHY.
Nancy: Hope to see you next Friday on WHYday.