Update from the Maker Faire
Underwater robots, fiery steam engines, a life-size game of mousetrap. William Gibson would have been pleased. Legos everywhere, and not just the chest-high city-scenes I snapped with my incredibly lame, blurry photo (see above). No, there were L.E.D. Legos, robot Legos, and something combining them both: http://mindstorms.lego.com/
Some of the coolest work I saw was done by the Oakland-based designers Because We Can (http://becausewecan.org/). Presidentially silhouetted chairs, a light-sensitive, interactive, coffee table & hand-carved robots everywhere.
3D cardboard sculptures by http://www.323d.com/ are definitely a gift item this year (watch out!)
Of course there was a man with a beard and glasses playing a Theremin.
I gravitated to a corner where the folks from The Long Now Foundation (http://www.longnow.org) held court. Characteristically, they explained their massive clockwork machinery at a comfortable, leisurely pace. Amazing stuff.
Besides the incredibly expensive draft beer prices (at $9 a pop, who can afford more than 5?) and the lack of a cheap, decent hot dog, I have no complaints. There were plenty of transistor-based lifeforms to engage the smart people and enough automated dinosaurs to entertain the rest of us.
Makes me want to grow dreads, tattoo that encryption key on my back and start working on the time-machine I always knew I could make.
Maybe next year.
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