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The Tech of Burning Man
Marc Merlin wrote:"Some of you have probably heard of burning man, but most of those
who haven't gone probably don't know that saying that it's just a
bunch of naked hippies meeting in the desert to smoke pot, is a
very unfair description of the event. I have been writing reports of it for the last 4 years now (akin to
the linux show reports I used to do), and my 2005 report is the biggest one yet (1440 pictures, and a fairly complete overview page, showing the highlights) You can also look at the burning man index page (with pictures from the sky), and look at my first 2002 report for a view as a first timer."
Er, most christian festivals are from the pagan festivals, yes including Christmas. And the one that people think is a dirty pagan festival but is in fact christian is Halloween! Check wikipedia if you want...
Coral cache seems to work fine.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
In 2002 I had the distinct pleasure of attending both Siggraph in San Antonio and, about a month later, BurningMan. I found them both to be amazing examples of what the human mind can do.
If you go to Siggraph just looking to see the people who made Spideman's butt look tight, that's all you'll see - but the hundreds of tiny forums and sessions with researchers exploring the edges of science is both enlightening and frightening.
BurningMan may look like a big party in the desert, but unless you go, you just cant understand the experience. The most striking and important thing about BM is the "gift economy" - aside from ice and coffee, there is no money-based commerce. It's not even a barter economy - you can almost always find whatever you want or need, and quickly find yourself getting engaged in the societal lovefest. Even the law enforcement officers we met (and had to deal with after an assault in a neighbooring camp, a very unusal occurence there) were outstanding examples of restraint and respect. The only time Ive seen that level of public harmony and effort outside of BM has been in disasters, my personal experience being the volunteers for the Columbia Debris efforts and here at home on Houston, the Katrina relief efforts.
That said, technologically, BM is a treasure trove of ideas and thoughts - there are many amazing technologies, it's many of the same people that I saw at Siggraph, but this time using their advanced knowledge and resources to delight and amaze their fellow citizens of Black Rock City.
Siggraph and Burningman - I recommend both heartily and without reservation. Look for the beauty, it's not hiding at all.
Burning Man is one of those things that's very hard to describe, mainly because it's pretty unique. Trying to stereotype it into a "naked hippies" thing is sort of like stereotyping Slashdot into "geeks who can't get laid" -- probably accurate for a small percentage, but not all that illuminating.
This year was my second time there. It was different, calmer, but that's because of me not the event. Last year was mind-blowing -- and no, I didn't do drugs there (apart from a few random joints and lots of alcohol). This year I spent a lot more time socializing at camps and less time with the art, which left me feeling a bit art-deprived (but not too much).
My impressions of this year? Less dust storms, I almost missed the constant whiteouts. Great art, better than last year. Cool stuff -- a small dome in the middle of the playa with a microphone and software that played harmonics based on the feedback. Hard to describe but very cool. A huge 3d cube "screensaver". Burning windmills. A very moving & emotional Temple, proving size does not matter. Lots of very cool people. The Group W bench (and Math Camp). The Moroccan double-decker bus from the always wonderful Bee People. The Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro.
In other words: total gibberish to people who haven't been there. That's the way it is. It doesn't translate, even through pictures.
It's an experience. Most people will hate it, it's not an easy "entertain us!" event for idle spectators and attention-deficit mindsets... and hey, camping for a week in the desert can get tough. At times you could scream about the playa dust getting everywhere. But for the people who love it, it's worth it many times over.
Things I would change: the fucking motorized scooters. Annoying and they raise dust. Get rid of them. Also get rid of the tourists, the people who arrive just before the burn with videocams for shots of naked chicks. I'd tar & feather the bunch of them if I could. Spend the whole week there and get involved or keep out. It's not supposed to be an easy, convenient weekend experience.
Oh, and Center Camp should only sell ice, not coffee. Dammit. :)
Er, most christian festivals are from the pagan festivals, yes including Christmas. And the one that people think is a dirty pagan festival but is in fact christian is Halloween! Check wikipedia if you want...
OK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries (along with Christmas and Easter, two other traditional northern European pagan holidays) and given a Christian reinterpretation.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The originally did it on Baker Beach. Lots of gay and Silicon Valley nerd content in the beginning. Then they dot.com arts scene joined. It got to big to do in S.F. and migrated to the Nevade desert.
Cut them some slack! You can't set up for and clean up after 20000 people without money. Its leave-no-trace ethic is unparalleled in any other festival -- even the Bureau of Land Management, who's been trying to squeeze them out for years, had to admit that the desert was impeccable 2 months after the event. The net profit from ticket sales goes to art endowments and the local school system.
And as any Burner knows, the cost of the ticket is a drop in the bucket.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
Ok, at the risk of burning my server down, here is my article and photos of Burning Man.
Not really tech related, but it offers my virgin experience at Burning Man this year, so some of you may enjoy another perspective.
It comes from my heart:
http://lecter.org/fotos/BM05/
Enjoy!
Jim
You sir have no idea what you are talking about.
Burning Man is NOT anarchy and has never claimed to be. Its not a free market, quite the contrary. Rules exist for a damned good reason, and this one in particular is supported by an overwhelming majority of participants. Until people think its "cool" for Fox News to broadcast live coverage from the Playa, until people think its "cool" for 2-bit pornographers to shoot footage of naked people for profit, that rule is not going to change. People go to Burning Man to have fun, not to be the animals in a media circus.
Yes, Burning Man is a (non-profit) corporation. They annually raise and spend millions of dollars on the event. They deal with nasty legal problems and miles of beurocratic tape to make it happen. Comparing them to Disney is totally absurd.
If you don't agree to the terms then don't go there. Everyone knows the rules. They are published well in advance on their website. If you don't agree, then don't go. Its called a choice. If you are a pro photographer and you want to shoot naked people in funny costumes without rights-encumberment, then hire some models.
After that everyone started going and covering it. That this dimwit even dares to mention 'I have been covering it for the last 4 years!' as if it was something to be proud of, instead of admitting he was in on it way too late, way after everyone else knew about it, it's embarassing.
This is a lot of very interesting home-made tech out there.
I resisted the urge to build any large-scale project, though I did do a couple little things. I built some custom lighting for our two bikes, using a couple handfuls of LEDs and a little microcontroller and already-present wheel sensors (from those little bike trip monitors) to switch gradually between different colors as we ride.
We stayed with a camp called Burnstream court. They had a sign that'd broken. They had a mail list, which we'd been on much of the year, and the guy who was working on repairing the sign was using little light bulbs and dreaming of someday "animating" them. Being an electrical engineer (and not being able to resist a cool project), I broght a little microcontroller board that I had solder several high current MOSFETs (and associated circuitry) into a prototype area. On the second day out there, he was working on putting all those little lights on the sign, and I gave them the board, hooked all the lights up to it, and wrote some code to sequence the lights. Everyone in the camp was really excited about the flashy sign. It was cool. It was fun.
Yeah, I'm into creating stuff. Geeky, perhaps? (as opposed to the other geeky... playing video games... or ooggling over shiney new products).
Thousands and thousands of other creative and highly inspired people (must moreso than me) so there every year. And you just can't imagine all the amazing and wacky things they create and build out there.
Well, maybe you can sit back and imagine all sorts things. Surf though the tens of thousands of pictures people post, and feel like you know. But it really is something to see in person.
There's amazing displays of technology, like the cubetron art piece, which had a 9x9x9 cube of LED-lit pingpong balls suspended on wires in a big cube shape, which lit up in mulitple colors in all sorts of interesting animated patterns. There were many, many other very interesting things people created and brought out there, and made work in such an unforgiving environment. It really is quite amazing.
So if you're the sort of person who see tech and wonders "that's really cool, how'd they do that", or "I should of thought of that", or "I'd love to make something like that"... then you'll probably really like burning man. But if you're one of those people, who I personally wouldn't call true geeks but saddly inhabit slashdot, who sees tech and thinks "I can get that cheaper at walmart", then burning man is defintely not for you.
Burning man is also about lots of other things than just building art and viewing and playing with art (much of the art is intended to be played with, unlike traditional art).
For many people, burning man is about partying all night long. There's lots of people who set up bars, which give out free drinks when they're open (pretty much when they feel like it). There's also lots of camps that set up night clubs with lights and large sound systems. Perhaps hundreds of little ones for about 20 to 80 people to party, and on the ends of the city, dozens of huge ones where hundreds of people are dancing and partying all night long.
For others, it's a more mellow social gathering. Lots of people hang out, play some musical instrument or just lounge around and be mellow. It seems like there's some pot smoking, but the cops to drive around and mionitor from the streets, so any drug usage is well out of ordinary sight.
Some people, mostly those who've never been and will never go, just can't seem to see past nudity. Yes, some people go around with little or no clothing during the day, others wearing something provocative. And some are even "hotties" by conventional mass-media standards. But it really isn't that big a deal.
There is a hippie
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The festival is about many things, but I tried to capture the art (for the most part).
My online gallery is here.
Truly, the art is largely done by a bunch of geeks -- from the 9x9x9 "display" of ping-pong balls with three LEDs in each that can display any color on the rainbow, running a whole slew of programs that showed off the three-dimensional aspect of the project (Cubatron) (think rotating planes in the XYZ axes in three colors all at once) to the otherworldly Alien Semaphore, whose light/arm movements were user-programmable through a control panel near the front. Or The Machine whose top would rotate and arms slowly raise when all three turnstyles were rotated in the proper direction simultaneously through a tremendously complex system of gears. It was all simply incredible.
I've been to Burning Man, and it's not that easy to write a "fair description" in 100 words or less. Although I saw the "nuked" page, and it seems fair, the pictures are great, and he probably uses more than 100 words. (wait for the slashdot effect to cool off, the site will recover). It's tempting to say "These are not the droids you are looking for, move along...", but you asked nicely, so I'll try to offer a short description.
Burning Man is gathering of about thirty-five thousand people for a week-long art festival on a dry lake-bed in the Nevada desert. The alkaki dust doesn't form dunes, and no bug or blade of grass can live on it. Miles of flat dry mud form a blank canvas, fresh every year.
Participants bring amazing sculptures and structures of all kinds to the desert, some huge projects, like towering temples and mazes full of art, a gigantic Tesla coil throwing unbelievable lightening bolts, giant sculptures made of laser-light, and thousands of small creative expressions everywhere, crazy costumes and ad-hoc fire-spinning and music jams. I've seen huge vehicles that look like a 100-foot long fire-breathing dragon or a full-sized pirate ship with dozens of people and a rocking party on top. Some people play dance-music or drums late into the night. Earplugs are recommended.
You must bring with you everything you need, not just to survive, but to thrive. And when the event is over, you take everything home, and leave no trace. Just planning your packing list for a week in the desert can be enlightening, but learning to "leave no trace" can be equally educational. No exchange of money is allowed during the event. (with minor exceptions) And although it's a simple concept, I believe it has a profoundly liberating effect on attitudes of participants. This is one of those things that really can not be adequately described in 100 words or less, but really has to be experienced.
Buring Man is a celebration of each individuals' uniqueness, amazing diversity, creativity, skills, humor and generosity. The experience of becoming a participant, not just a spectator, is what really makes Burning Man different. The process seems simple, but Burning Man has subtly changed how I think about my own creativity, self-expression, and citizenship. Perhaps trite, but true, more than almost anything, what you get out of Burning Man totally depends on what you put into it, and every person's experience will be different.
It actually moved out to the Black Rock desert in 1990, well before the dot-com boom. Dot-commers were very well represented during the boom, though, largely because they had scads of imaginary money to spend on supplies.
Here's a timeline. Note that they were only at around 800 people when it got too big for Baker Beach.
My favorite phrase from this year's burn: "Burning Man nostalgia isn't as cool as it used to be."