An unorthodox electron microscope installation process in progress In some cases hundreds like their recently acquired electron microscope. Fueled by Japan’s declining manufacturing industry, Hacker Farm has acquired and repaired a variety of test equipment most of which would have cost tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago. With a focus on repairing used equipment, a difficult proposition at most modern startups.
This freedom has also meant that tools can be acquired slowly. At Hacker Farm members share technical skills, tools, and co-working spaces equipped not only with electronic and scientific test equipment, but also tools used to renovate local abandoned structures for use by Hacker Farm members. Many of Hacker Farm’s members have fled the pressure filled life of the Tokyo tech workers. At present 4 families have relocated to the area with more on the way, and the occasional long term visitor. The finest example of this model is perhaps Hacker Farm a Hacker community centered around a small village in rural Japan. One critically difference: projects that might only provide pocket money in the metropolis can provide a sustainable living in the countryside where rents are low. Solutions to this problem take many forms, from migrating to a tech center for a few months a year or remote contracting, to developing and selling projects in low volume (either via their own online stores, or a sales channel like Tindie). This means industrious hackers have to find other ways of making money. While fresh local produce, and restaurants catering to the tourist economy help entertain, a more important limitation is that technical jobs are not in abundance. There’s no local Starbucks to pop into, and the nightlife is mostly limited to the occasional nocturnal visitor in the form of a badger or fox. Rural living of course has its trade-offs. Groups of Hackers in rural communities with low cost lifestyles and access to the world’s best technical talent and equipment that would put the best startups to shame. And Hackers became locked into their expensive lifestyles eyes firmly focused on the promised million dollar payoff and the eternal dream of an “exit”.įor some though, the freedom to Hack is more important than that million dollar exit and so a new model is emerging. With the influx of cash the demand for skilled Hackers rose, increasing wages and further focusing tech talent around these hubs. Venture capital, rather than bootstrapping became the norm.
On the flip-side tech centers were changing too.
Hackers across the world, regardless of location could communicate. Shortly after that the Internet came bringing its Eternal September. Young Hackers could learn to program (as I learned C) from textfiles posted on BBSs and exchange knowledge linking national communities. The technological hubs that so many rural hackers had migrated to began to connect the world. And Hackers flocked to these centers where innovation flourished while Hackers exchanged knowledge and tools.īut then the world of the rural Hacker began to expand. So, as had been the case for the preceding 1000 years, innovation clustered around technological hubs, San Francisco, Cambridge, and Tokyo among others. And knowledge was locked tight within expensive textbooks, which even if you could afford them might take weeks to arrive. A (usually national) periodical would give its monthly injection of technological curios. We scratched around for whatever we could find. In the 20th century the life of a rural hacker was a constant hunt for technological innovation. This is the Japan of rice farmers and fields, fresh fish and wild boar, electron microscopes and gigabit fiber, SMD assembly and 500Mhz 5 Gigasample oscilloscopes. This isn’t the Japan of LEDs, Otaku and maid cafes, or that of wage slave salarymen collapsing from exhaustion. On the far side of the Boso peninsula lies Kamogawa.
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