• February 4 – RVAsec badge planning (weekly)
• February 6 – Noise Night (bi-weekly)
• February 7 – Open Hack Night (weekly)
• February 9 – Movies at hack.rva (?!?!?!)
• February 12 – Resume Workshop for IT Pros (one-time!)
• February 14 – Open Hack Night
• February 16 – Soldering 101 with hack.rva (one-time!)

So the old freezer is gonna’ be a busy place over the next few weeks. If you’re part of at least some of it then you’re missing out. Come by and get involved!

• All supplies are provided, just bring your open mind and your enthusiam!
• Lunch is available next door at the Dairy Bar, nearby restaurants, or your own arrangements.
• A light breakfast will be provided, as well as refreshments throughout the day.

On Tuesday, February 12, at 7pm we will be having Jennifer Henderson, Recruiting Director for the Richmond Consultant Shop Ironworks, to give a talk and even some hands-on assistance with Richmond IT Professionals who aren’t exactly sure what their resume should look like these days.

Refreshments will be provided. Bring a current copy of your resume, business cards if you have them, and something to take notes with.

See you then!

There are now more members on the books than ever before.
Hack.rva is incredibly close to having a positive cash-flow for the first time in its history.

To help push us over the edge, we have the following offer:

FOR THE NEXT FIVE (5) PEOPLE TO JOIN HACK.RVA ($30 or $50 monthly level) AND USE A CREDIT CARD TO SET UP MONTHLY AUTO-BILLING, YOU WILL RECEIVE A FREE RASPBERRY PI

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Already an existing member? We haven’t forgotten you, and we can’t thank you enough to help make hack.rva financially solid. Once we hit that magical number, we have something planned for all members that will come out soon.

Thanks!

So dust off your crayons, oil pastels, watercolors, Inkscape, or whatever your chosen medium may be. Come up with a kick-ass design and and submit it to jamie.e.duncan@gmail.com. All designs will go up on a poll for voting.

The top 3 vote-getters will get a free t-shirt. All other members can pick one up for a minimum $10 donation.

So lets see your artistic chops, geeks!

Some of the stuff we’ll have coming up in early 2013:

• The tech lab side of the hackerspace will be getting an overhaul
• We should be having at least one workshop, designed by the new Workshop Team, prior to Frostfest 2013
• We will have a table at Frostfest 2013
• We’ll wrap up the laser cutter and get it functional
• We’ll begin work on converting the engraver to a more usable CNC platform
• The main room will get some added workbench space for the 3d printers and other work
• Soldering and Microcontroller workstations will be coming to life

So if you’re a member, new or old, thank you. You are what is keeping hack.rva moving, and now gaining momentum.

If you’re thinking about joining, 2013 is going to be an awesome year. Come be a part of it.

Happy Holidays, everyone. See you in 2013.

Thankfully, hackers did what they do best. We worked together to solve a large problem.

The number of hackers, new and old, who are stepping up to take on more responsibility is truly inspiring. Some of the challenges we are working on as we walk into 2013:

• Marketing – getting our mission and our faces and our work out there. We’re exploring all sorts of new avenues, including relationships with the Virginia Science Museum and also WRIR, our community radio station.
• Finances – we’re finally getting on top of the money situation. A membership drive to reach solvency may well be followed up by a Kickstarter (or similar) drive for operating capital and some new equipment.
• Facilities – A group of people who are dedicating their time to making our hackerspace one of the coolest hackerspaces around.
• Equipment – Teaching and making sure people know how to use the more advanced equipment in our work room, and making sure that equipment is in top notch condition
• Workshops – A new approach to having workshops, handled by a team of people
• Tech Lab – re-vamping the tech lab to make it more approachable and feature-rich

I’m sure there’s more that’s escaping my caffeine-deprived mind on Saturday morning, but I think it’s obvious that 2013 is going to be a great year for hack.rva. If you’re not a part of it, you really should be.

-jamie

TL;DR Version – Know the small print before you go. Don’t volunteer information that will invalidate your argument. Be persistent.

http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/0c64cce9-913f-41f5-bd99-47a96b278894/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-for-pc#34

Tonight after finding this deal (Skyrim for PC (and others) $9.99 at Toys R US) I immediately set off for the local Toys R US. I checked the website and found the nearest one and drove the 20 minutes to get there… I immediately noticed the big sign was off. When I got closer I saw that the the place was empty and a sign on the window said they’d moved and the new store opens next week. I drove home beat and started coming up with my next idea.

I googled the Walmart Ad Match policy and saw that it does indeed say that you don’t need a copy of the ad. I familiarized myself with the ‘small print’, considered printing it out, and drove to Walmart. I shopped for a few other things then marched to the electronics department and got BF3, Diablo III, and Skyrim and put them in my cart. I went to the electronics counter and the salesman (who happens to be that same guy that shot down my last price match deal) asked me if I needed to check out. The electronics counter was closed so I imagine he was going to send me up front to the half-hour lines. I told him that I needed a price match and started to explain. When I told him the amount he said he needed to get a manager.

A young man in a Walmart shirt and tie came over and heard my case and immediately said I needed the print ad. I told him that I reviewed the price match policy prior to coming to the store and that I had it up on my phone and it explicity states I don’t need the print ad. He said that you may not need to have it, but the price must be IN A PRINT AD. I told him that I had reviewed the policy on corporate.walmart.com and I didn’t see that anywhere in the price match policy. I began to list the limitations that I remembered. He told me that Walmart didn’t have a “pricematch policy”, they have and “ad match” policy and he knew the ad match policy and I didn’t need to tell it to him. I said, “Okay, that’s good because I read it too so we both know it.” He said they don’t match internet prices. I told him it was a price on the toysrus.com website but that the product had to be purchased at the physical store, and even the product details said that it IS NOT available online. I told him it couldn’t be shipped but that I would have to go to the store in person and buy it and that if they were open at 11:00 at night that is what I would have done, but they are closed so I came to Walmart knowing they had an AD match policy. I asked him if they had the internet on the store kiosk so I could show him the webpage. He said it only went to Walmart.com but if I had a smart phone I could pull it up. I whipped it out; my handy smart phone that is, on my crappy mobile provider started loading toysrus.com. During the 5 – 10 minutes it took for the website to come up he also went to the site on his phone. He pulled up Diablo 3 and started looking over the page.

About the time mine finally came up, and amidst small talk about what carrier he was on, since I hardly get signal in the store he told me that the problem is that it was below their cost for the product and there was no way he could sell me over $100 worth of games for $30. He said ultimately it was managers discretion. I told him that I understand that, but I’d like to think that if it meets the ad match criteria then the ad match policy would be honored and I didn’t see anything in the policy indicating that a certain percentage of cost had to be met as a condition of the ad match. His retort was that it was ultimately Managers discretion. I responded that, if the ad match criteria is met and Walmart doesn’t match the price that destroys the integrity of the entire ad match policy. “Nuh uh”… Though he already had it up on his phone I showed him the webpage clearly showing the retail price and the sale price. He told me that the problem is that this had to be a special promotional item and they probably got it highly discounted from the manufacturer. “For example”, he said, “all of the black friday stuff are specials SKU’s that they don’t even sell most of the year and the ad match policy says it has to be the exact same item.”

At this point I was fairly certain I had won.

I said “So, if I can find the SKU on the website and it’s the same item, you will match the price?”
He said that he had just looked at the website and didn’t see the SKU. I said let me take a look on my phone and see if I can find it and while I looked I saw him pull out the key to “open” the register. I think he knew at this point I had won as well. One tab over, under details it showed the SKU for Diablo 3.

IT WAS THE SAME!

I showed it to him and he was already clicking away at the register working the Walmart dark voodoo to change the prices for me. I asked him if he needed to see the other SKU’s because it would probably take me a minute to pull them up. He said he didn’t need to see them and rang me up. He had to call someone else over to undo the security tag on Diablo 3 but after a short, tense wait, my receipt in hand and FEARING that before I had my items in the bag and out of the building he’d find some loophole and invalidate my sale… I waited… the Jeopardy theme going in my head… but finally, the siege was over. My items in the bag with receipt, and the rest of my items rangs up, I said “Thanks for honoring the ad match policy” and walked quickly for the exit.

SCORE!