DimSumLabs

We started with laser cutting parts for a model of the squatter house ruin visited during our session in May. There were five participants, Simon and his two children as well as Effy and Victoria. Meanwhile I gave an introduction to living architecture and to our site.

In the second part of the workshop, participants used their imagination to design a bamboo structure on top of the ruin. In its remote location at Ark Eden on Lantau Island, the main purpose of the building is that of a…

Arachnia introduced us to the Game of Life, which she had implemented in Processing for an art installation. Afterwards, we tried out various patterns on our touch screen, to see how they evolve. Of particular joy was the evolution of the QR code pointing to our lights.

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. The “game” is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial…

Dim Sum Labs was packed for this presentation by our special guest Andrew Crowe. He introduced us to electronically switchable smart glass, also known as privacy glass. There are many cool things that can be done with it! Andrew is technical director of MetaObjects, a digital studio based in Hong Kong and London.

Watch the video on:

• archive.org
• Youtube

Ever wondered how to get funding for your project and turn it into a startup? To get an answer to this question, we invited Jenny Au and Wilson Tai, founders of FundFluent to Dim Sum Labs. During a fun evening with friendly people from all walks of technology, they introduced us to various funding options in Hong Kong.

On a Saturday morning, we met at Mui Wo Ferry Pier. It was just two of us. Another hacker wanted to join. Unfortunately, he went to the wrong pier. Saturday morning’s are not the most convenient times to meet, but we had to take what we get. The site is nearby private land, and coordination with the owner was required.

Ciara pointed out that the house was probably built by illegal immigrants who were hiding in the hills. Locals would prefer to live closer to the sea, or in boats. The…

Our first presentation since Covid was well attended. After an introduction to the topic, Felix presented real world examples, from Baubotanik in Germany to the living root bridges of Meghalaya, India. When explaining the history of this emerging field, he touched on arborsculpture.

Not all living architecture is started by humans. Having just come back from Penghu, Taiwan, Felix showed photos of trees overgrowing houses in the wild, as well as a photo of a seemingly impossible banyan,…

During the Hackjam of the 30th of November 2021 we had an informative conversation about bitcoin. Thanks for Irivan for his resumé of the talk he shared on our IRC channel on libera.chat. Here is a copy:

1. The weakest and the only way to break the Bitcoin is 51% attack. It has to be maintained by 51% of good miners. If bad miners reached at 51%, that will be a risk to lose money.
2. It solved issue of printing money crazily by Government e.g. Vietnam
3. It could replace the currency that we hold if…

Our Business Facebook page got compromised. We tried to get it back, but Facebook has a system in place for you to get back your personal Page, and got NOTHING for getting back your Business Page. We did provide them with a lot of information such as owning the domain name, address proof, pictures, but no, it is not enough; in short Facebook does not care about the Business Pages – who care about the right owner as long as there are advertisement on the page!

I would suggest you to do the…

Dim Sum Labs is a physical space. Dim Sum Labs has been around for over 10 years next month (November 2021) thanks to the generous contributions from its members and supporters.

Dim Sum Labs has monthly operational costs of approximately 16’000HKD or 2’000USD. This amount covers the rent of the ‘office’ space and the utilities (water, electricity, internet, …).

Finances have always been tight and the ongoing pandemic poses additional challenges. Our current…

The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up as mooncakes and lantern specials are all around us.

Let’s hack the traditional inspiration by re-imagining the handmade lantern with LEDs and recycle materials!

Workshop Dates:

• Saturday the 18th of September 2021 from 13:00 till 18:00

At this workshop, the children and their parents will hack the traditional Mid-Autumn lantern to design and make their own laser-cut lantern in an environmentally-friendly way.

Objectives:

• Safe Visit of Hong…