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Detroit hacker colony?

Seth Nickell and I (mostly jokingly) chatted ages ago about setting up a hacker colony/coop in Detroit, and that was when houses were merely cheap and not practically free. Looks like some artists are going through and doing basically the same thing we were thinking of, with a green twist to boot. Maybe that is what I should do with my ‘free time‘. :)

Comments closed — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Thursday, March 19, 2009, at 11:56 am by Luis Villa. Filed in misc., personal.

9 Comments

  1. jorge

    I’ve heard Mako talk about this same exact thing (with robots with lasers from MIT to protect the geeks from crime).

    He has the whole thing planned out in his head … down to the most minute detail.

    There’s something wrong with all of you, really.

    Posted on 19-Mar-09 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
  2. Sean

    Honestly, I’d love to have a hacker community in Detroit. Otherwise, there’s _nothing here_. This state is dead. :/

    Posted on 19-Mar-09 at 3:52 pm | Permalink
  3. http://gregdek.livejournal.com/

    Do it down in the lower 9th ward of New Orleans. Better weather, more culture, just as troubled.

    I’ve seriously thought about this idea too. That’s the crazy thing.

    Posted on 19-Mar-09 at 5:31 pm | Permalink
  4. Jaime Hemmett

    AWESOME. I’ve always had this in my mind too, it would be so great, internet everywhere. Imagine all the creativity and productivity :).

    Posted on 20-Mar-09 at 2:42 am | Permalink
  5. http://dgh.livejournal.com/

    Seems that lots of people have been thinking about this, myself included. It would be a lot of work, but it would be frickin’ awesome.

    Posted on 20-Mar-09 at 3:34 am | Permalink
  6. Biella

    This was plan B for me… I still fantasize about living in Troit, as I like to call it.

    Posted on 20-Mar-09 at 6:19 am | Permalink
  7. Stormy

    I have to agree the weather is better in New Orleans than Detroit. That said, where ever it is, you’d have to be ready to improve the infrastructure … wireless, coffee shops, restaurants, …

    Posted on 21-Mar-09 at 2:03 pm | Permalink
  8. Luis

    When Seth and I were talking, we weren’t concerned about coffee-houses and restaurants; we were thinking more ‘live dirt cheap, 60s-hippie-colony style.’ Practically off-grid, to the extent that hackers can live off-grid. There was much discussion of how cheap chili could be. But agreed that obviously network and power infrastructure would be an issue.

    re: climate, Detroit has the admirable quality that CPU heat is a benefit rather than a problem ;) But obviously this Miami boy would be more likely to be happy in NO…

    Posted on 21-Mar-09 at 2:27 pm | Permalink
  9. Russ Wolfe

    Hey everyone i stumbled across this convo. via google and had noticed that you were talking about Hacker Spaces in the Detroit area. We currently have an active build of a Hacker space in the Metro Detroit area. We currently meet every tuesday evening at 7:00 P.M at the Coffee Beanery in Berkley on woodward ave. We are still growing our member base which is growing each week. If you would like to join us we would love to have you. Visit us at http://www.i3detroit.com for more information or contact us.

    Thanks

    Posted on 07-May-09 at 8:38 am | Permalink
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