Hello all, I'm fairly new to dumpshock but I'd have to start off by tipping my hat to everyone who makes this a great site. The amount of info that I have gleaned from it has been invaluable. But anyway on to the purpose of this post.
This may seem a bit strange but are there any SR style clubs in actual existance? When I say club I mean some place with loud techno/rock (Prodigy possibly) that harbors all of the hacker/outcast/... you get the idea right?

Sure -- except for the metahuman focused ones, naturally.

-Siege

Don't get out much?

I was going to say 'if you don't know, you shouldn't know' but 'probably underage' works just as well.

The true hackers won't be in a club. They'll be in a BBS that isn't on the web and is available only through dial-in to a modem bank.

~J

There's certainly a lot of techno oriented clubs with various "themes" like hell, apocolyps, robot-sci fie, etc. But they are defiantley a minority, and are (I'm told) more common in Europe than Americs. American clubs exist to sell booze, and people go to them looking to convince themselves they might get laid. Or to do / score drugs.

If you check out a hacker convention or a 2600 meeting, you'll see why there aren't hacker nightclubs. There is a certain truth to the dweeby stereotype.

About the closest thing to a 'hacker' club I'm aware of is The DNA Lounge in San Francisco. It's owned by ex-Netscape millionaire Jamie Zawinski and has hosted several parties for 'hacker' groups such as the Mozilla team and FreeBSD. There are few other geeky/hackerish aspects to the club as well. Other than that it's just your basic goth/techno/blah/blah type club. The website has extensive galleries of their shows. Bones might think it's something like what he's imaging.

Those dead-neo-tech clubs are pretentious as all hell, which is why they are only frequented by posers and idiots.

Well, I can't say I've ever been to his club, but jwz's online attitude is about as pretentious as it gets.

Yes, ... Aidley, under age sure. I suppose better that some 30 year old with no life other than video games and RPG's. I only ask because I HAVE been gone for quit a while. 5 yrs to be exact working for the gov over seas. But you probably wont believe that either. Well enough of this " If you argue with idiots and morons you cant win. They will simply bring you down to their level and beat you with experience".
To those of you who did put in a good word or two, thank you.

When I first read the topic I thought that you were going to ask if any clubs in SR are based on clubs in RL. I'm fairly certain that the ones listed in SOTA2063 are, as I have been to the Pulse which the Pulsar is based on.

Yes, ... Aidley, under age sure. I suppose better that some 30 year old with no life other than video games and RPG's. I only ask because I HAVE been gone for quit a while. 5 yrs to be exact working for the gov over seas. But you probably wont believe that either. Well enough of this " If you argue with idiots and morons you cant win. They will simply bring you down to their level and beat you with experience".

bite me. no need to be rude. I wasn't. I wasn't even the one to mention the age thing, i just quoted it.

if you're going to be offended by people making assumptions based on your naivety, why bother dealing with people at all? it'd be much safer to bury yourself in a good book and only come out for meals and toilet breaks.

Actually, annoyed tone aside, that's good advice. Books>people.

~J

The closest thing you'll find to a "hacker club" are techno/raver themed clubs (you can find one in almost every major city). Many clubs like that, rather than devoting to a specific genre as it were will diversify. Numbers in Houston is a good example of this, as one night a week they'll do a techno thing, one night a goth thing, one night a metal thing, one night a "Lady's night", and some live concerts thrown in here and there.

As for true hackers, I know all the ones in this area (friends of friends of friends type thing). They'll usually congregate together and find one another somehow, usually having met years before on some small local BBS (before the web became big, that's how I met all the ones around here).

You won't find them at clubs because, by their nature, the true hackers are antisocial people who spend most of their time learning about computers because either they find them more interesting than people or, as many of them around here do, they have social disorders from spending so much time away from people. I mean seriously, these are people who spend upwards of 10 hours a day sitting in front of a computer every day and make money through doing tech work (web design and repairs, basically stuff that keeps them from having to deal with people in person).

I'm guessing things won't change much in 60 years and you'll find all the posers at the club and all the real hackers gathered in one house filled with empty pizza boxes and Mexican take-out bags, everything that doesn't move (and some things that do) having been used as an ashtray at least half a dozen times, and with half a dozen computer monitors and a TV playing pirated South Park/Family Guy/Futurama DVDs and/or hacked satellite feeds being the only source of light.

The Abstruse One

All the linux-hacker-open-source types I have known (by association) drink at dark, dank, preferably underground pubs within one block of the university where they have thier dark, dank, preferably underground offices. They then retire to dark, dank, preferably underground apartments to consume instant noodles.

Some day I may join them (Rev thinks a university programming job would be fun and easy).

Depends on the Hacker/Cracker, Some are all too social!
In the real Seattle its doubtful you'll find a cracker, doing some illegal cracking at the Vouge (Goth/Metal club in Capital Hill), you may see him at a 24 hour coffee shop though. Clubs are loud thus bad for the "biz" seeing how you have to be able to think. But for a meet or in a secret back room clubs are fine. In downtown Seattle right now if you got a laptop and a wireless reciever you could piggy back you way around from alot of places. The question is getting caught. How brave is this guy? Idealy I think he would be in the back of a van in a parking garage or someother way he could be on the move if nessasary.
rule number 1 - never crack from home
rule number 2 - never crack using anything that can trace back to you
rule number 3 - never let anyone see you cracking

Using those three rules a decker on the job is more likely to be in an alley than a bar. But here in Seattle I have seen people doing there work in bars so... yah never know.

My apoligies Aidley.