06-29, 11:30–11:50 (America/Los_Angeles), Prime Dome
Futel is keeping payphones alive by rescuing them from the scrappers and installing them in public locations, where they provide free calls, telephone services, interactive experiences, and live operator assistance. We currently support 17 phones in Portland, Detroit, and Ypsilanti.
Keeping the project alive and reliable for nine years has required learning and applying skills in many fields, IT engineering, social engineering, municipal engineering, whatever. How do we do it? And why?
The technically interesting parts of the project are about coordination and motivation. Why do we do it? We are always trying to find ways to turn our stupid obsessive quests into something that brings us advantages, whether imaginary or real.
To keep the project alive and reliable for nine years we have had to learn and apply skills in many different fields, IT engineering, social engineering, municipal engineering, whatever. As hackers, this has been its own reward, but for the project to be sustainable it needs to benefit its workers.
This talk will discuss how we find these advantages and use them to motivate ourselves and our cohort to achieve our goals, and how those goals have shaped the project. It will then devolve into our approach to technological art and public service, and how the constraints of the hardware gives us the freedom to reach or at least confuse people.
