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Detroit Maker Faire Was Kinda Awesome 138

I was excited to have a chance to go to the Detroit Maker Faire this year. I've always wanted to attend such a thing, but the stars never aligned. I saw an entire tent filled with DIY 3D Printers making strange objects including the coolest polyhedral dice ever. Utilikilts held in place with suspenders! Haberdashery! Quilting! Blacksmithing! Books! A Cupcake Car! Gomp! Beer! Remote control turtles! A giant hay bailer! Numerous strange pedal powered forms of locomotion, and an entire garrison of Star Wars costumes... Besides, it's not often you have the opportunity to witness a giant steel dragon blow fireballs in a parking lot. I've shared a giant collection of photos if you want to see these things and more for a taste of the inspiring insanity I can't wait for next year... and between now and then I have some projects to tackle.
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Detroit Maker Faire Was Kinda Awesome

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  • by seven of five ( 578993 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @07:59AM (#36946046)
    As opposed to... monohedral?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:02AM (#36946078)

    I'm older than most Slashdot readers, so I'm lucky enough to remember when these sort of fairs were commonplace throughout the United States. They truly were hubs of innovation, discovery and amusement. They'd happen at least monthly in most regions.

    The so-called "free trade" of the past 30 years has killed all of that. It drove out the true grassroots innovation that made America a powerful and prosperous nation. The jobs, abilities and skills necessary to make anything of value were shipped out to third-world hellholes, and the engineering skills necessary to design the factories and the processes to create such goods left soon after.

    Older folks are well, well aware of the sad state of the American economy today. We saw it when it was better. We lived through times when poverty was at its lowest levels ever. This was because America produced real wealth at the time, rather than the only jobs being serving coffee, putting foreign-made clothes on racks, collecting shopping carts, and producing bullshit "financial instruments".

    In many ways, it's not surprising that we're seeing this sort of grassroots innovation in the Rust Belt states. They were the first to, dare I say it, suffer from the utter molestation caused by "free trade". Some places, like Detroit, have themselves fallen to third-world living standards thanks to "free trade" and the movement of industry to Mexico, China, India and Vietnam. It would be true justice if these places were the first to bring industry back to the United States, becoming extremely prosperous in the process.

    • by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:14AM (#36946216)

      It's not "Free Trade" that killed innovation in the US. It's regulation. You can't start a company out of your garage anymore. There are health codes, environmental regulations, tax and accounting standards to be met. Plus, quite a lot of regulation is designed to protect incumbent interests, squeezing out any potential competitors before they even get to market.

      • by _0rm_ ( 1638559 )
        And I thought I was a conspiracy theorist. There are plenty of ways to get out of the garage, you just have to know where to look. For example, as much of a gold-rush as it is, how many have made "that one great app" for mobile phones and struck it rich? Use those funds to work with the system and then work to change it.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          The only people making it "rich" from $1 mobile apps are developers living and working in India, or some other rather shitty country, where $1 goes extremely far buying inferior, locally-produced goods and locally-grown fruits.

          Even a wildly successful mobile app will often only provide income for an average North American, Western/Northern European, Japanese or Australian developer equivalent to a year or two's salary. That's not "striking it rich". That just means they'll need to reproduce that same level

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:26AM (#36946334)

        Regulation isn't the problem. Some degree of regulation is necessary, and it provides some very real benefits. The higher standards when it comes to the safety of manufactured products and the treatment of employees is what helped make America a first-world nation, versus the third-world shitholes that we find around the globe.

        "Free trade" is as harmful as it is because it allows goods to be made in countries that have standards and regulations that are far, far below even the minimum standards in America. This is the only reason that China and Mexico, for instance, can produce goods far more cheaply than in the US. Their workers aren't any more productive than American workers would be, and are often much less productive due to using primitive manufacturing techniques that pre-date those used in America decades ago. They don't produce products that are better than those made in America (having used both, the third-world goods are far, far inferior, quality-wise). They aren't any more skilled than American workers were, even 30 to 60 years ago.

        America should only trade with other first-world nations that have similar standards. We're basically talking about Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Canada and the Scandinavian countries. Every other nation should be shunned until they raise their standards to the level of the civilized nations.

        • by clintp ( 5169 )

          "Every other nation should be shunned until they raise their standards to the level of the civilized nations."

          You are an elitist, selfish, and reasonably-argued racist snob. If you didn't also represent the views of others I've met, I'd just consider you a not-clever troll.

          Please crawl back under your diamond-covered lily-white rock and don't come out again until Asia, Africa, and most of South America has reached the prosperity levels of Europe, the US and Canada. And without trade with more prosperous n

        • by tebee ( 1280900 )

          Every other nation should be shunned until they raise their standards to the level of the civilized nations.

          But that is what free trade will eventually accomplish. It's starting to happen in China now. Some of the money we spend buying those consumer goods ends up in the hands of the workers producing them. They spend a bit more in their country and a whole support structure appears there supplying them with their consumer needs. Eventually they start wanting more, looking for higher wages and maybe even political reform.

          Even if the US as by this time moved on to the next country with even cheaper labor, then the

          • by Anonymous Coward

            It's ironic that a poster child of the right wing - free trade - has done more for re-distribution of wealth from rich to poor counties than all the socialist ideals put together.

            Not quite. It has redistributed wealth, but it has taken it from the poorest Westerners and given it to the richest foreigners.

            The end result is that many people in Western nations have become far worse off than they would have been without free trade. (This, of course, further harms the domestic American economy, but that's another issue.)

            Furthermore, the foreign workers doing the work aren't better off than they were before. They get paid roughly the same, and live a similar lifestyle as before. It's the

          • here here.

            While arguments can be made around the edges of specific free trade arrangements, these arrangements are good for everyone in the long run. The emerging middle class in China well soon have the political clout to start demanding REAL reforms and REAL environmental standards very soon. Their domestic consumer demand will catch up to their production and then you can start bitching that there are no more cheap imports and you will have to wait a bit while your domestic production ramps back up.
          • by jira ( 451936 )

            It's ironic that a poster child of the right wing - free trade - has done more for re-distribution of wealth from rich to poor counties than all the socialist ideals put together.

            It's not that much ironic as it redistributed wealth from the lower classes in the west. During the last 30 years real wages for middle and lower income workers stagnated. But the top 1% are making much more.

        • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          > Regulation isn't the problem. Some degree of regulation is necessary, and it provides some very real benefits.

          Some regulation *is* necessary. I don't think we need the FDA issuing 10-page edicts on what constitutes Swiss cheese. Or government-granted monopolies on wireless spectrum, or internet access etc.. Not to mention how broken the patent system is. Or licensing requirements that have nothing to do with safety or hygiene (licensing for interior decorating?)

          > This is the only reason that China a

          • by hawguy ( 1600213 )

            Some regulation *is* necessary. I don't think we need the FDA issuing 10-page edicts on what constitutes Swiss cheese.

            But without some definition of what "swiss cheese" is, how do you know that what you are buying is really "swiss cheese" and isn't some Mexican Asadero cheese with holes poked into it?

            • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

              I bought some oddball Iberian cheese from a local shop a couple of years ago. It was supposed to be some mild blue cheese. It was really intense, and I thought it had gone bad. I took it back and they gave me a credit, and I bought something else.

              Crazy, right? I managed to fix the situation without the government testing all the cheese in the counter to make sure it isn't bad, is what the label says it is, and is what I thought it was going to be.

              The guy at the shop said he had a couple people return that c

              • by Anonymous Coward

                Read "The Jungle" you'll learn why the FDA was necessary (and possibly never be able to eat sausage again).

                In short, no the free market does not handle food processing well, as the worst dangers from food are difficult for the consumer to detect and link to a source. Even if they do figure out who's rat poison laden sausage killed you, it's too late for you to start boycotting them.

        • This is the only reason that China and Mexico, for instance, can produce goods far more cheaply than in the US. Their workers aren't any more productive than American workers would be, and are often much less productive due to using primitive manufacturing techniques that pre-date those used in America decades ago.

          I would argue that this isn't true at all. It has been shown many times that Americans won't be as productive because they feel entitiled to higher wages to work harder. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/07/the-fruits-of-immigration.html [marginalrevolution.com] The article focuses on immigration, but the results are the same. We have a 10% unemployment rate and Americans turning down jobs because they don't want to do the work for the pay, yet it is looked down upon to use immigrants or send the work elsewh

        • Every other nation should be shunned until they raise their standards to the level of the civilized nations.

          A bit extreme. Standards could be applied on a per manufacturer basis rather than the whole country. Make it mandatory that manufacturers are audited by an approved authority before they are allowed to import goods into your country. It's beneficial to both nations that way.

        • by ErikZ ( 55491 ) *

          Really? You don't see the endless, literally ENDLESS, amount of rules and regulations to be detrimental?

          There is no "Safe". You will be constantly creating new rules and regs to try and get there, but never will.

          And you keep on piling these problems on manufacturers. So what do they do? What any sensible human being would. THEY FLED THE COUNTRY.

          Your solution? Well, obviously we need to take over the world and apply our laws to every possible square inch. Let there be no escape.

          No wonder you posted as Anonym

      • by vlm ( 69642 )

        Plus, quite a lot of regulation is designed to protect incumbent interests, squeezing out any potential competitors before they even get to market

        That's not a "plus", that's the entire purpose.

        • Plus, quite a lot of regulation is designed to protect incumbent interests, squeezing out any potential competitors before they even get to market

          That's not a "plus", that's the entire purpose.

          That's not the entire purpose. That's how the purpose got hijacked.

        • *WOOSH* I think that was plus as in "in addition to"
      • I think I am going to call BS on this. There are a lot of small business groups that will give you free advice on all that stuff in most communities, not to mention if you speak with an attorney or an accountant when you incorporate or choose not to incorporate, you should get a good head start on that advice. I can only speak for Florida, but the main limitation is that you can't actually do it cheaper than your 3rd or 2nd world manufacturing hub. I'll give you a real world example. I ran a business for
        • by Artraze ( 600366 )

          But why do you think that is?

          From the GP:
          > There are health codes, environmental regulations, tax and accounting standards to be met.

          The fact the China lacks is almost completely unregulated is why they're so cheap, even when importing nearly doubles the price. We've got nearly 10% unemployment but we can't hire those people because of any combination of taxes, minimum wage, health care, and disability/unemployment insurance, which only get worse if the workers unionize. On top of that, the factory wil

        • I'd argue that you made the economically wise choice.  However, the exchange rate, kept artifically low, allows us to externalize our labor and despite higher real cost (to the environment, to labor, increased transportation, etc.), society paid a higher price.  Right or wrong--our system just externalizes those costs effectively.
      • I wonder who helped to write those regulations? Would it have been lobiests paid by larger corporations? There is a long-standing tradition of re-writing the rules to your favour in many countries. It'd be interesting to know. From personal knowledge, I can say that the US's recent health care "reform" bill was written largely by and for the insurrance companies and larger hospital groups. Or did you think that the "death-panel debate" had any real bearing on the bill being wri
      • Yes, bring back the good days where you could dump toxic waste into the drinking water and put lots of lead and mercury into your products.
      • "quite a lot of regulation is designed to protect incumbent interests, squeezing out any potential competitors before they even get to market."

        Nail.Head.Hit.

        The other stuff is all window dressing for this.

      • by Gotung ( 571984 )
        Hogwash. For a couple hundred bucks or less you can get yourself an actual fully legal corporation registered with the state and everything. At least in Ohio, but I doubt the process in other states vary all that much.

        Hold one corporate meeting with a quorum of officers in attendance a year, and take notes, and you keep your corporation fully legal in perpetuity.

        If that is too much regulation for you to handle, I suggest you stick with your day job.

        Until you are making decent money, turbotax online
        • by lysdexia ( 897 )
          Has anyone reading this come in contact with a hog's bath water? I guess 4-Her's might have ...
        • by ErikZ ( 55491 ) *

          That is too much regulation. And that's ON TOP OF the regulation he's talking about.

          No one is willing to risk their house to berserk environmental regulations. No one is willing to risk their savings because they hired some kid to move some stuff around, and now they're responsible for their health care and unemployment.

          As to the snide t-shirt comment. Yes. Yes I am pissed. This is a legitimate business and because it's not *pretty* enough for you, you don't care if someone in the US is doing it.

          You should

      • by AshtangiMan ( 684031 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @10:37AM (#36948184)
        How does this tripe get modded up? I have started a company out of my garage . . . for a while we only had a PO box, and we had prime contracts with DoD. There were no regulations keeping us down, and I went through a DCAA audit and passed with flying colors using quickbooks. If you're unable to figure out how to get it done, it might be your problem. I read about successful small business startups regularly: T-shirt companies, bike shops, software shops, solar system installers, furniture makers, accounting services, law firms, etc, and have several friends who have started several out of the previous list and none of them have been hampered in any way by regulations.
      • by eigenstates ( 1364441 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @11:15AM (#36948648)
        Yes let's do this. Let's have one of these imbecilic discussions in the face of someone who has found joy. This is a great idea.

        So here we go. I know for certain what killed America- it was Obama. He did. All by himself. No wait, maybe it was the Tea Party... no... taxes, yes that was it, taxes punched America in the nuts. No, Kevin Smith. Cop Out FFS? No, it was Gingrich and Reagan- the original tax and spenders. No, it was dogma (not the Kevin Smith movie- well- wait, it could have been that...) Wait, it was religion. Religion killed the whole world and Obama is it's Rosicrucian overlord. Wait, George Bush- he is still killing America and in league with the Trilateral commission which is a Masonic plot to immanentize the eschaton.

        What were we talking about?

        Jesus Christ. Perhaps it was a bad fu$&ing attitude that is killing America?

        The author found inspiration and hope in a place without a whole lot to spare. Let's, perhaps, for once, applaud and foster that.

        I do remember my(the) first Maker Faire. It filled me with the same exuberance as the author- took tons of pictures, talked to people and got encouragement about a few ideas I had milling about in my brain, made some great friends, met the makers of the flame spitting serpent, saw kids engaging and creating in a way that I would hope they could in school. It all left that fire in me not just of self worth but of hope. It's still with me. It reinforced my belief that there are more people who want to do and share and be part of something than those who don't.

        Rock the f#(k on CmdrTaco.
      • by guanxi ( 216397 )

        It's not "Free Trade" that killed innovation in the US. It's regulation. You can't start a company out of your garage anymore. There are health codes, environmental regulations, tax and accounting standards to be met. Plus, quite a lot of regulation is designed to protect incumbent interests, squeezing out any potential competitors before they even get to market.

        I thought it was too little regulation that allowed our banking system to collapse, greatly reducing funding for risky, innovative new ideas, as well as basic research.

        You'll note that the regulated economies are the richest ones. The developing and poor nations have much less regulation.

        • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          > I thought it was too little regulation that allowed our banking system to collapse, greatly reducing funding for risky, innovative new ideas, as well as basic research.

          The banking industry is regulated eight ways from Sunday. You can argue that, through the backing of the government, the banks felt that they could take on huge amounts of risk, as well as being pressured to do so by the fed keeping interest rates very low reducing the profit banks made on their core businesses. In other words, the gover

    • by Artraze ( 600366 )

      Free trade has it issues, but what you're saying isn't one of them. People still learn engineering... hell, people _come_ here to learn engineering.

      The major reason that grass roots innovation is dead is because technology has just gotten more difficult to keep up with. In electronics you've got to use tiny pitch SMD's and most high end chips require BGA packages which are almost impossible for the hobbyist to work with. Mechanics have fared a bit better, but material prices have gone up and so have mach

      • by himitsu ( 634571 )
        Just by the way here, comparing the Makerbot to a mill is not valid. The Makerbot has a 2'x2'x2' footprint and can sit on a coffee table.
    • Pure, plain, and utter rubbish.... It isn't the country or innovation that has made changes for worse, it is change you've not been able to leverage. All this BS about how everyone has destroyed everything I loved is pathetic. The world changes; we still have the largest economy is world, by far. 30 years ago Alvin Tofler wrote about the changing economy and how countries shift from one economic base to the next; it wasn't a surprise and it wasn't bad.

      So, instead of complaining about the lack of innovation,

    • When you go to a Maker Faire or read Make Magazine or even read /. you can tell the urge to create and innovate are not yet entirely gone from this country. It is on life support, but it's still there. We have about 10 years before it really will be too late, though. We need to take certain steps now to make America a cradle of innovation again.

      Government and Big Business have put a massive stranglehold on American innovation. Regulations aren't bad by themselves; they were introduced to counter the abu

      • Even worse than regulation, though, is the utter lack of capital to invest in start-ups and small businesses.

        Judging by the insane amount of money being poured into social companies, I'd say that the problem is not the lack of capital, but the lack of vision of most VCs. Most VCs just run after the latest flavor of the month ($1.3 billion valuation for AirBnB? really??), and most definitely shy away from industries they don't understand. Since a lot of VCs are clustered in Silicon Valley, guess what gets funded. It certainly isn't steampunk dragons. Unless, of course, they're delivered over the Internet.

    • The Rust Belt states are the places most in need of grass roots innovation, and I'm really glad to see that the Maker Faire there has appeared for a second year running.

      But FWIW, MAKE has very California roots. The magazine is published by O'Reilly, and the first and longest running Maker Faire is held in San Mateo. And there's a joyous hippie transgressive vibe to it that must seem very alien to old-school manufacturing hubs but is unmistakably west coast.

      The next "big" Maker Faire (there are mini faires a

    • I remember way back when the poverty was at its oldest level- through the mid90s. That's ended just one DECADE ago! Hopefully the Makers can bootstrap themselves back into a decent economy, using entirely new technologies, as all the old avenues seems to be completely locked up by MegaCorporMartIncCo.
  • Steampunkland (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:03AM (#36946102)

    The Henry Ford museum is a steam junkies nirvana. Giant, two-story Edison power plant engines the size of a large ranch home. Original beam engines. An *enormous* Allegheny locomotive engine inside, used to haul mile-long coal trains up mountains. Compressed-air operating engines inside. Operating steam trains (burning coal) outside, along with various steam powered engines and tractors. There's an intact Edison substation, an operating workshop run on an overhead belt system, a working roundhouse where you can watch them work on the engines....

    • For those in a different location, the transportation museum in Spencer, NC has running diesel and steam train and a working roundhouse as well.

    • I do believe the 55 foot steampunk pig is still only a few miles away: http://steampunkcostume.com/2011/07/20/steampunk-pig-for-sale/ [steampunkcostume.com] ...oh, wait. You meant real steam...
      • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        Other side of the state, but still cool. That thing is startling to see walking around a corner for the first time. Grand Rapids has a really cool art competition that has huge installations scattered through the city. I think the steam pig was a winner one year.

    • by mrdogi ( 82975 )

      My wife used to work in the Benson Ford Research Center, I used to volunteer there. That operating machine shop is more operational than you might think. Greenfield Village gives you the option to take a ride in an original Model T. These things break down on occasion, and need replacement parts. Well, the BFRC has the original schematics for all of those parts, and generally they machine the needed parts in that shop. How's THAT for cool?

      One or two of those Model T's aren't exactly original. They wer

  • by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:18AM (#36946264)

    Quit nut hugging the Canadian boarder for once and come down south, we make stuff here too

    • by Aladrin ( 926209 )

      It looks like there's a couple people trying to bring something like this to Florida...

      http://minimakerfaire.us/ [minimakerfaire.us]

      http://b3nmedia.com/blog/2010/05/27/bay-area-maker-faire-2010-pics/ [b3nmedia.com]

      I hope they succeed. I think it would be an awesome thing to attend, but I just can't travel that far for it.

    • by vlm ( 69642 )

      Quit nut hugging the Canadian boarder for once and come down south, we make stuff here too

      I've often wondered why they never go to Huntsville AL. Twenty years ago when I last visited, that was the high-tech-redneck capital of the south. Pretty much the "Eureka" TV show, but with a sweet iced teas, pecan pies, and grits flavor. Yes I'm well aware of Alabama's legendary average scholastic performance; Huntsville was kind of like Austin is today, ten thousand PHDs per square mile surrounded by a seemingly infinite sea of proud grade school dropouts. None the less it was a cool place to spend a

      • The gov't is still here + more from BRAC movement, Nasa in whatever form it is, the heat still sucks, .. and it's whether'd most downturns (if not all since about ~1950). We use to have IEEE/Computer fair here open to anybody during the 90s that was pretty cool to me as a kid with lots of simulators and VR stuff (Sun, NEC, SGI were probably the biggest showers on average.). Now, it's like a computer swap meet.

        It's a good place for family, but high school to college kids find themselves very bored (hence t

    • by quetwo ( 1203948 )

      Didn't realize that the Bay Area was near the Canadian border (or boarder, as you called it). I must be holding the map upside down.

      Maker Faire has typically had two official events -- San Mataeo and New York (added a few years ago). They added Detroit last year as an annual event. There are local offshoot events in various other localities. If you want to run one of the offshoot events, O'Reilley would be more than happy to help you set it up.

    • by CompMD ( 522020 )

      I guess you missed the one in Kansas City last month.

  • by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @08:32AM (#36946414)

    "...suspenders! Haberdashery! Quilting! Blacksmithing! Books! A Cupcake Car! Gomp! Beer! Remote control turtles! A giant hay bailer! "

    Ah, I see CmdrTaco took the Maker course in Exclamation-Smithing.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    If you're really interested in 3D printers, take a look at this one [blogspot.com]. And especially this page [blogspot.com] where there's a comparison between FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) and Digital Light Processing printing.

    The DLP is so much easier to build, the results are so much better and it prints so much faster that I wonder why so many people are still working on FDM.

    • The DLP is so much easier to build, the results are so much better and it prints so much faster that I wonder why so many people are still working on FDM.

      The cost of the substrate material. Volume for volume, ABS is so much more cheaper than the light-curing resins needed for DLP.

    • by MBCook ( 132727 )

      I've got a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic, and it's quite a bit of fun. I can tell you that I bought it for two reasons: it was a kit, and there is a large community around it.

      DLP seems like a nice way to go, but it also seems quite a bit more complicated. As far as I know, no one is selling ready-to-build kits so the time investment is quite a bit larger on startup.I'd also imagine that due to the additional complexity they'd have trouble competing with the Makerbot on price. While the quality is much higher, if

  • That was only 45 photographs.
    Friends and relatives could supply more photos than that in the days before cheap digital cameras.

    That was a few photographs, it took 2 minutes to view them.

    • Thank god it was only 45. One of the bad things about digital photography is that it's easy to puke up 100's of worthless pictures and some folks just don't use good judgement about sharing. Every couple of months my sister sends me an email from Snapfish that says "Check out these 197 new photos of my granddaughter." Of the 197 maybe 3 are worth looking at.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by lysdexia ( 897 )
      Yeah, but this one was powered by a steam engine. It had a huge reciprocating compaction arm that looked like it would grind you into monkey beef in about half a second. Truly terrifying machine. :-)
    • by Anonymous Coward

      A new innovation is plastic-wrapping them automagically so you don't waste 6" on the outside of the bale from moisture and decomposition.

      New innovation?? I grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota and our round baler had that ability in the late 80s. Oh and there are different sizes of round bales, most of the ones up here are 5x6 and will weight 1200 to 1600 lbs.

  • Burning man in Chicago...

    - Dan.

    • by paimin ( 656338 )
      At least it gave the burners something to do other than annoy the shit out of SF 11 months per year.
  • Went twice. Awesome sauce.
    So sad when it left for Detroit.

  • Don't forget the Power Racing Series (Power Wheels vehicles modified for adult riding insanity). My hackerspace here in Chicago (http://www.pumpingstationone.org [pumpingstationone.org]) started the event two years ago and has been organizing races at Maker Faire events in Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Detroit (with a lot of help from the respective local hackerspaces). This year, we had almost 25 cars competing over the course of the season and the Detroit Maker Faire was the finale racing event. It's a lot of crazy fun. Here's a Y

    • by lysdexia ( 897 )
      Any shots of me leaving a greasy pink stretch of my forearm all over the pavement when I wrecked my Super Cub?
  • by NixieBunny ( 859050 ) on Monday August 01, 2011 @10:05AM (#36947662) Homepage
    I was there displaying my video coat [cathodecorner.com], being a human television. We had to run to catch a flight at Detroit Metro, so I didn't have time to pack my gizmo, so went to the airport wearing it.

    Now I know what Cory Doctorow was talking about in his novel "Makers" with regard to the excessive searching applied to people who create stuff. As far as they're concerned, a dad with a family in tow, wearing a coat with wires and circuit boards on it, is a human bomb. I was just laughing throughout the whole extended search.

    We got on our plane OK, because I didn't give them actual shit, but my kids got a good lesson when I said out loud, "This is the land of the free", and the nice TSA lady said, "Not any more."
    • by Xacid ( 560407 )

      This gave me a good hour of entertainment while at work (via the rest of your projects as well).. Thank you, sir!

  • I brought my two nieces, age 11&13, to the Maker Faire on Sunday. We arrived early at 9:30am and spent the entire day there. The girls had so much fun doing all of the hands on crafts, blinky lights soldering how to, IMAX movie, rides, mentos coke demo etc. They told me they wanted to make sure we go both days next year so we wouldn't miss anything. You can't ask for a better location to hold the Faire than the Henry Ford Museum. You can easily spend a day there just walking around the museum and Gre

  • How did some clown's vacation blog get in?

    Out here in Silicon Valley, most of us have been to Maker Faire, which has been around for years, and many of us have shown there. It's now full of people selling flea-market level craft junk. I don't go any more.

    • Thank you for completely validating my point you jaded internet neck beard.

      F*5k now I am doing it.

      Someone, anyone rescue the world from this incessant hypercycle commentary. Let the world breathe.

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