Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless is deeply concerned about the implications of the Government’s proposed Communications Data Bill (news passim). Yesterday the secretary (aka the chief scribe. Ed.) has had the article below posted on local news website on Bristol24/7. In June of this year, the Government published its draft Communications Data […]
The Joint Committee of MPs and Lords today published its report into the draft Communications Data Bill, otherwise dubbed the Snooper’s Charter. The Committee has spent six months scrutinising the proposals, receiving a substantial amount of oral and written evidence. The final report is available from the Joint Committee website. As predicted yesterday (news passim), […]
About this time 10 years ago, Bristol Wireless made its initial tentative appearance online. The very first item we posted online was the holding page (complete with the obligatory typo! Ed.) in the image below. The image comes courtesy of Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, which regularly trawls the web to archive its constantly changing face. The […]
The Open Rights Group is jointly hosting an event on the Communications Data Bill with Index on Censorship in London from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm on Saturday, November 24 2012. The venue is the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R (map). This event will gather campaigners and activists to explore and explain […]
Regular readers will recall that some time ago Bristol Wireless wrote to its local MP, Dawn Primarolo about the draft Communications Data Bill, aka the Snooper’s Charter (news passim). We have now received a reply from Dawn, which states the following: Thank you very much for your letter in connection with the draft Communications Data […]
Today, 16th October is Ada Lovelace Day, which is a worldwide event about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians and has the aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics […]
On Wednesday evening, the families and friends of Sam Rossiter and Naomi Smyth, plus a few Bristol Wireless ne’er-do-wells, paid a fond farewell to the couple as they sailed off into the future under the Redcliffe bascule bridge to the strains of The Ambling Band. Sam has been a Bristol Wireless volunteer of many years’ […]
On Monday the advance crew – by now known as the tat-down team and consisting mostly of Bristol Wireless volunteers – arrived back tired but satisfied from the rural Barncamp site up the Wye Valley. Our journey began the previous Wednesday afternoon, when the advance crew got to site after a frantic best part of […]
When: Saturday 19 March 2011. Arrive at 9.40 a.m. for a 10.00 start, continuing until 4 p.m. Lunch will be provided. Where: Room 1.06, Merchant Venturers School of Engineering, Woodland Road, University of Bristol, BS8 1UB (map) What: A non-technical event for individuals and organisations interested in working with Wikipedia and its related projects. Explore […]
Sexism in free and open source software (FOSS) culture has been increasingly discussed and documented over the past couple of years. However, little has been done about it. Moreover, the lack of women contributors to projects such as Wikipedia has been highlighted by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (news passim) and in Australia, Collective Action is […]
News reaches the lab (hat tip: Lugbikaner) that Nigeria now has its own open source advocacy group called the Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON). According to OSFON’S website, its mission is The mission of Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON) is to promote and educate decision makers in government, educators, NGOs, businesses and citizens […]
One of the joys of this year’s BarnCamp (news passim) was the banter around the campfire in the evening (in some instances the campfire conversation was redolent of this recent xkcd cartoon. Ed.). And for the following we’re indebted to Asterisk enthusiast Naomi for reciting round the flames on Saturday evening: Our father, who art […]
Today is the last day to sign up for BarnCamp 2010, which will be staged in the beautiful Wye Valley from 11th to 13th June 2010, courtesy of Hacktionlab, a regular convergence space where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, online video distribution, free software or any other form […]
Georg Greve, founding president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, has received the Cross of Merit on ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz am Bande). Georg received this high award from the German President for his work on Free Software and Open Standards. “FSFE is very proud to have a ‘knight’ among its […]
News arrives in your correspondent’s inbox and via the South Bristol Digital Neighbourhoods (SBDN) blog that a series of WordPress workshops has just got underway. Both SBDN and ourselves run WordPress (“both free and priceless at the same time“) to publish our news and a free WordPress blog from WordPress.com is an easy route for […]
At 6 pm on Friday 3rd April, Bristol Wireless is jointly hosting a talk entitled Nowtopia at St Werburghs Community Centre (map here) in conjunction with our friends from Bristol Radical History Group and Bristol Anarchist Bookfair. The event will be of interest to radical historians and futurists, permaculturalists, free-skillers, open sourcerers, class warriors, transition […]
The Wireless Community Weekend (WCW) hosted annually by Freifunk is taking place at the end of May (22.-24.05.2009) and will be staged once again at c-base in Berlin. The event programme has not been firmed up yet and will be arranged by participants. Proposals for the programme can be submitted before the event. Further details […]
On the morning of Saturday 29th five Bristol Wireless members arrived at the Red Factory social centre off Portland Square, Bristol armed with one of our mobile LTSP servers, 3 of our posher LTSP client laptops, one of our 30 quid Linux PCs and some bumf about free software and BW to assist in the […]
On 31st July our mobile Internet suite set out from St Werburgh’s Bristol en route to this year’s Camp for Climate Action, pitched up near Hoo St Werburgh, on the Hoo Peninsula betwixt the Thames estuary and Medway river in a great big 30′ x 45′ marquee that would be the camp’s Be The Media […]
BRISTOL INDYMEDIA COMMUNITY ARTS DAY (Sat 12th / 1pm start) Back for a second year – This whole day event is a unique opportunity for people to come along, learn new skills and discuss issues surrounding grass-roots media. The line up this year includes DIY radio workshops, how to make your own magazine, DIY record […]