I’ve got quite a bit of free time this summer before I start my teacher training in September, so I’m going to hang out at the LowTech.org access space in Sheffield when I don’t have any paying work. Basically they’ve got a load of zero cost machines discarded by industry running free software on Linux of course. I don’t quite understand yet what keeps it going… but they let you use the Lab as long as you contribute to the community.. So its not just a place to check your email. It’ll be interesting to find out what their business model is ie. how they survive. I have some ideas with respect to community media, blogs and podcasting that I think would be good to do down here. Hey, I would like to learn about video. I’m sure these guys would be pleased to do anything that would create content – it will promote what they are doing.
Also I’m keen to play with Linux again. I’ve loaded it up at home recently, but its frustrating when you’ve got no one to get you started with the most simple stuff, like getting your sound card working and getting Audacity downloaded. On the subjet of sound, there are a lot of guys down here playing with sound, so hopefully something will rub off.
There are some teenagers around the Space with the covers off machines and harddrives and cards lying about. This is the way to learn about technology. Schools have labs of up to date machines and pay people to support them just like businesses do. Why don’t they have trash technology labs in schools and let the kids loose with them, let the kids support the lab, you could even pay them. No restrictions on software, download and use what you want. Learn to work in groups, you might have to enlist the support of someone with the technical information that you need. And then when you go home you have all the same tools there at your disposal. Hell take a machine home, there are loads around here, all stacked up under the desks, all “worthless”.
It’s fitting that this is happening in Sheffield. One of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution and now industrial decline. Its like nature growing up again through the cracks in the concrete. According to Doc Searls open source software grows on trees, you just have to go and pick it, its free. Its like living in the forest which provides for all your needs. And using the industrial castoff machines as the soil in which the software can grow is at last organic, from an industry that doesn’t recycle physically.
Posted by richard 
