"This machine is a server. Do not power it down."

Reminds me of the notes I would leave to make sure my Mom didn't turn the computer off (or make a phone call and thus cut the dial-up connection) when I was doing something as I left for school. /backinthegoodoledays

Really impressed at this hack, but I think the coolest part of these Github blog posts is just how useful and powerful something as simple (relatively) as Hubot can be when connected to a communication medium like Campfire.

Food for thought for more hacks, I suppose.

The inspiration for the sign, outside the obvious purpose, was the note on the first web server:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server.jpg

> how useful and powerful something as simple (relatively) as Hubot can be when connected to a communication medium like Campfire.

I thought so too, so I figured I'd create a hosted version of hubot, so you can get it up and running quickly without much hassle: http://www.getinstabot.com

3D printer with a MacBook Air server at GitHub HQ... I think my hipster detector was just overloaded.

Can of Pabst wearing a trucker hat while listening to The Rapture... Oh wait, that's 2003...

Fixed gear bicycle wearing an ironic Christmas sweater waiting in line for a fried catfish sandwich under the Williamsburg bridge... Sorry, that's 2007...

Chambray shirt drinking a cocktail made with hand picked elderberries reading MissionMission on an iPad... Nuts, that's 2011...

Can we all agree that the term hipster doesn't mean anything?

Seriously, I've seen the term bandied about for a decade now and its definition changes every 9 months.

It's basically a way for those who don't have an interest in cultural changes around them to deride others. Fads and trends are actually fun; they bring new music, culture, and experiences to our lives. Deriding people for collectively discovering new angles on life is dumb as shit.

It's basically a way for those who are secure in their own identity to inform others of the essential pointlessness of their existence. Fads and trends are actually a con-trick; they bring new cults of personality to our lives. Deriding people for not buying into your neurotic bullshit is dumb as shit.

Let me quote you two of the many definitions of "hipster":

>a person who is keenly interested in the latest trends or fashions;

>a person who is hip.

I think that, by definition, the meaning of the word is to change oft.

Hipsters are a type of avant-garde mainstream, that takes symbols, styles and other things from subcultures they don't belong to (e.g. Fixies are from the New York messenger culture). Because they do all this to not be in the mainstream and the mainstream adopts many of their things, they're constantly changing.

It seems to me that Norman Mailer used the term in the 1950s, praising hipsters, and that William Styron, likely in response, damned them in one of his novels about that time (Set This House on Fire?). But however cool and ironic it might be to be seen reading Styron and Mailer in 2013, I don't think I'm up to it.

It changes with its subculture. The word "hipster" is always used chiefly by members of the subculture to describe what they themselves aren't.

Hipsterism is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

With apologies to Oscar Wilde (and to hipsters everywhere)

> Seriously, I've seen the term bandied about for a decade now and its definition changes every 9 months.

That's the main point of it i guess.

>We've been using make-me to power all of our 3D printing needs including decorating our office with various prints and making useful trinkets.

Pardon my ignorance, but is this really necessary? It seems like an office toy.

"Necessary" is a fun word.

Have we, to date, printed anything in our 3D printer that helps us deliver Git repositories in a quick and timely manner? No.

Have we built something that kept 140 employees happy and excited in the company because they're exploring technology they hadn't used before? Yes.

Have we built something that helps everyone at the office learn and understand a major technological shift that might be useful in the event we'd like to build a product around this in the future? Yes.

Is it fun to print cool shit? Yes.

So yeah, I'd say it's necessary, at least for us. It makes the company a better place, both from a cultural and a business perspective. Your mileage may vary, naturally.

This is the difference between a regular company and a company with a great atmosphere. It might seem a waste to some people but building an atmosphere like this makes me want to work at github. And that's a very big advantage in the tech industry.

It's quite shocking how little you _have_ to give employees, but in the end people will not be very happy if you only care about the number of hours spend at the office and not about the person spending them there. Also; things like this are a great way to encourage your employees to think differently and get their creative juices flowing.

Nothing in an office is necessary aside from some desks, some chairs and some computers. The rest is set decoration that can be skipped, but sometimes a little expenditure improves the quality of life for all people.

Something like a 3D printer is ridiculous in the context of most office buildings, but the people at GitHub having one might lead to an interesting side project that becomes something valuable, or helps to consolidate 3D printing repos like they did for code. Never know when a toy might become something useful (see the Aeropress people, made boomerang toys, fiddled about with another concept, ta-da Aeropress).

Sorry, but you sound like a real wet towel to be around. Shall we take away the coffee makers, too, since those are unnecessary?

Let them have a bit of fun at the office.

Maybe I am a bit of a wet towel. Part of this is because I work in science where funds are scare (and we're trying to do really helpful and good things). Part of it is because I've been in the situation where I've had managers invest in frivolous items and it's frustrating. It's made my peers and I lose confidence in our manager's ability to estimate value in the workplace. It reminds me of the days when I would hang out at SGI as a kid and they'd throw endless amounts of money down the drain.

Plus, that kind of money could get you a nice espresso machine. Try to print that.

It may be that they are not against fun at all, but just didn't follow that the use of the word "necessary" was meant tongue-in-cheek, and were asking out of sincere confusion.

Fair. The second sentence hurts that suggestion, though.

I suppose instead of someone flying cargo planes full of rubber dog shit outta Hong Kong, they can at least print their own and save SOME airmiles...

So cool, makes me wanna work there..

Makerbot Replicators only cost $2.2k. Not nearly impulse purchase range, but affordable for most engineers (well, assuming metro/urban USA), especially if you go in on it with a couple of other local hackers. I'm somewhat surprised 3D printer co-oping isn't more of a "thing" since the price is right for that and for most people they aren't something you need physical access to on a daily basis.

And of course there are even cheaper options, down to about $500 though obviously YMMV on quality/materials/etc.

In my experience, most major North American cities have a hackerspace or two, and they nearly always have 3D printers.

I'd say that's a "thing", as much as one would expect, given the limited quality and utility of them as of now.

If you're suggesting this isn't a good reason to want to work for GitHub I think you're missing the point, which is that GitHub seems like a fun place to work in general.

I think that's the point :P

That's what books are used for nowadays.

Ah, so that's why it took so long to get github back up last time it was down ...

I work for a mechanical engineering firm that has a 3D printer. It is used for the engineers to prototype mechanical designs (you'd be amazed just how much easier it is to design even simple mechanisms with a model in your hands), and also for creating promotional items: scale models of the company's physical products.

Therefore I was confused by why Github wanted one. Were they going to prototype their software in realspace, or start selling people 3D models of their repositories?

Turns out it is just for fun, which is cool in itself, and a real sign of how the cost of these things is coming down. Think ours came in at about $20k.

What about using a Raspberry Pi to be the server? Thought about doing this hack at a hackathon but it was during the weekend of Art Basel in Miami. Make me/print me over the cloud but I love the hunt integration

A raspberry pi wouldn't be a bad idea! We'd need to hook up some web cams though and print an enclosure for it :)