User:Nthmost
Naomi Most aka nthmost — Member since August 25, 2009
Contact: nthmost on Discord | Slack | GitHub
Currently
Working on guild structure as a model for distributed authority, restorative communication practices, and helping Noisebridge navigate community dynamics.
Old hacker on a rocking chair sessions: 5:55pm every Tuesday until the Tuesday meeting. Hear stories, meet other members, ask all the annoying questions you're too afraid to ask your own anarchist mom or dad.
Recent writing: Anarchy Paralysis • Excellent Hacker Fallacy • Restorative Communication • Open Letter
🦆 Rubber Ducky Guild 🦆
The Rubber Ducky Guild is my flagship guild concept at Noisebridge.
The premise: explaining your problem to a rubber duck (or any patient listener) often reveals the solution. This guild practices:
- Listening without fixing - Sometimes people just need to talk it through
- Question-asking as an art - The right question unlocks understanding
- Psychological safety - No judgment, no mockery, just presence
- Debugging life, code, and everything - Works for technical problems AND emotional ones
Status: Active concept, seeking interested practitioners
See also: Rubber duck debugging on Wikipedia
Background
Languages: Irish/Gaeilge 🇮🇪 (fluent) • French (business fluent) • Japanese/日本語 (conversational) • English (native)
Academic: Math & Linguistics • Bioinformatics • Data Analysis
Noisebridge: A Conceptual Timeline
2009-2012: Learning to Be a Good Member
Became a member in 2009. Founded Security Working Group, Community Working Group, and Fractal Working Group to address infrastructure and social dynamics. Learned by doing.
(Success metric for Fractal WG: we haven't had a single meeting yet)
2012-2013: The Post-Occupy Period
[work in progress]
2014: The Reboot
Major community intervention: CONTROL-ALT-DELETE. Sometimes you need to turn it off and turn it back on again.
2015-2017: A Period of Relative Peace and Prosperity
[work in progress]
2018: The Year Mitch Got Bullied Out
Several members bullied out. Space became eerily quiet. Those responsible also left, but the damage was done.
2019-2020: ❄️ Nuclear Winter
Membership severely depleted. Had to find a new physical space. Saved by anonymous donation of 1 Bitcoin.
Created Guilds concept with Mark (Arity) to address social fractionation and provide structure for stakes-based ownership of maintenance.
2020-2022: ✨ A New Hope
LX creates NB Discord. Liz Henry provides leadership as new folks arrive. I decrease involvement due to exhaustion and ongoing grief from 2018, but keep tabs on #bravespace. Discord usage ramps up.
2023-2025: 🌑 The Dark Ages
My participation drops considerably while attending to multiple losses. Mcint creates monastic tradition with infra meetup. Space requires multiple physical and costly social interventions that seriously impede recovery from 2020 move. Much of the glory of 2169 seems lost.
2025-Now: 🌅 Renaissance???
With multiple hardships cleared and heroic levels of "holding it down" achieved by those who remain, the way is paved for visionary rebuilding.
Current work:
- 🦆 Rubber Ducky Guild - Flagship guild concept
- Restorative Communication practices
- Essays documenting patterns: Anarchy Paralysis, Excellent Hacker Fallacy, Open Letter
Open Source Work
Python libraries & tools
| Project | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| metapub | PubMed/NCBI research access library | 100s of ⭐, cited in papers |
| illuminate | Bioinformatics toolkit | In use at CDC |
| secureconfig | Secure configuration management | Active |
| sensate | Sensor data toolkit | Active |
All projects: github.com/nthmost • pypi.org/user/nthmost
Tech I like
AMQP • liquidsoap + icecast • Asterisk PBX • Raspberry Pi • Python (obviously)
Community Patterns & Systems
Documenting what I've learned about how hackerspaces work (and don't work):
- Hackerspace Community Dynamics - General patterns
- Guilds - Distributed authority as solution to recurring problems
- Anarchy Paralysis - Why communities fail to act on harm
- Excellent Hacker Fallacy - Why technical brilliance doesn't justify harmful behavior
- Restorative Communication - Framework for addressing conflicts before they become crises
Project Graveyard
Projects past but not forgotten 🪦
Streaming Radios
Hosted various internet radio stations
Live studios:
Algorithmic stations:
Stack: liquidsoap to sculpt the station, Python to wrap it, icecast to stream it.
Miscellaneous
Voluntary Public Embarrassment
Public Keys