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Maker Faire Storms Newcastle
krou writes "The BBC is reporting on the first Maker Faire in the UK, in Newcastle. The event saw an incredible gathering of tech DIY enthusiasts showing off their robotic wares. Maker Faire is firmly established in the US; the 4th annual running in the Bay Area begins on May 30. The BBC video shows the fire-breathing horse, Rusty, and Titan, an eight-foot tall fully-animated robot that likes scaring kids. Elsewhere, the Faire also had Ian Sharp's physical realization of the Lunar Lander computer game, low-cost multi-touch displays, and one of the oldest-ever case mods, made by veteran computer enthusiast John Honnibal, who also showed off his old over-clocked kit computer. Pictures from the Faire are also on Flickr, and videos on YouTube."
I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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Fire-breathing Horse + Newcastle (the 6-pack variety) = Epic
It's taken me years, since the boyhood fascination took hold.
But, really, I hate fu*cking robots!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Smoke a fag after
all good
Don't forget to pay your $699 licensing fee, you cock-smoking teabaggers!
Seriously, the only thing worth making at home is beer, or perhaps wine.
depending on how it goes, it can also have explosive properties, chemical warfare applications, or just really offensive flatulence.
T'was a very good day. Loads of interesting ideas, and enthusiastic visitors. Hope they do it all again, in Newcastle or elsewhere in the UK.
Much easier to get to than San Fran.
Steve
I think they called it the "cornfucker".
It all seems so innocent when all 'it likes' is to scare little kids.
Then before you know it, it 'would like' to nuke all mankind.
KILL IT WITH FIRE
All I get is a fucking empty page with a stupid gradient background.
If it's made in Flash, Java or Silverlight, don't call it a fucking website.
I've never understood why there now seems to be so little interest in DIY in the New England area. It used to be at one time we were the "Silicon Valley of the East" - nowadays, unless one is enrolled at MIT and you tell someone you're into DIY electronics around here and you get looked at strangely and comments are made such as "DIY? Hmm. That sounds like something poor people do. Why don't you get a well paid job?" For all of Boston's talk of being a cosmopolitan, hip, trendy cutting-edge city, it's really not unless your definition of being cutting edge is having lots of overpriced bars and nightclubs. Once the college kids are out of town one realizes that this area has very little going for it anymore in regards to technology industries - even cities such as Salt Lake City and Albuquerque are way ahead. I'd love to see a Make event in the Boston area, but I won't hold my breath.
While the links provided in TFS are nice (and I mean that in the most banal of ways), I really wanted to see the cheap multi-touch displays and get more information about them as well as the first ever case mod - does anyone have links?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
I'm really annoyed that I missed that. I live here, right in the centre. Why couldn't you have told me about this a week ago?? Shit!
One of the reasons I give to people who asked why I moved to the west coast after grad school is the "Sports Bar" culture. As in, what you're supposed to do with your spare time, esp. with co-workers.
There seems to be a kind of aversion to creative weirdness on the east coast. I am/was a game designer, a wannabe SF writer, and a builder and flyer of high-powered rockets. I knew lots of the same back east. But talking about hobbies like that to relatives and co-workers drew blank, slack-jawed stares, or disbelieving laughs. (ASIDE: OK, your from Boston, right? Right now, picture a kid from Southie laughing at another kid for, say, reading a book. Some of my cousins and co-workers sounded like that, even though they were from Long Island.)
My co-workers in California and Oregon sing in operas, have bands, build furniture, write, hang glide, scuba dive. For all I know, the folks I worked with back East did that too, but I doubt it. And if they did they sure as hell wouldn't admit it.
I brew, LARP, enjoy my model rocketry, tan leather, have taken up shoemaking, knit, dabble with my electronics, blow glass, and am working on a forge to take up blacksmithing, and quite a few others...
Now, I use it as a gauge. For every ten people that mock that, I find one that find one of the things above interesting and want to find out more. If more people were willing to take a few ribs, then we would slowly be more mainstream. Hell, I refer to LARPing as "my silly little game in the woods", and my co-workers have not only stopped looking at me with blank stairs, but because of my self assured nature over it being a good time, and light-hearted joviality over the subject, I've actually been able to rope quite a few into the hobby.
Don't be defensive about your hobbies; flaunt them. There are plenty of people like you, but in the closet on the issue. Help bring them out. If you brew, hand out a few bottles. If you like rockets, always offer with a smile to come out to a launch.
Embrace your hobbies, embrace yourself, and be tired of fitting in the crowd. Its not high-school any more. You are not going to be beaten to a pulp in the hallway. You might be laughed at, but if someone is so bent on laughing on you for being, well, you, are they even worth knowing?
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
its a bloke in a suit. unless a few chaps with 50p to spend have outdone the entire japanese walking robot community by a factor of 200x.
im going to the next one disguised a computer to appear as a natural language filter to the web. and i'll bloody scare kids as well :D
(Logged in this time.)
Hey, you're assuming I DIDN'T try to fry my freak flag back east. I did. I tried. Really.
I embraced my hobbies and my freak flag by getting the hell out of New York. It made a big difference.
Mention I was into computers back east, and people assumed you worked for a bank or an insurance company. In Silicon Valley, they'd wonder what startup I came west to work for.
Mention you launched rockets back east: "Yeah, what kinda bomb ya putting in it? Why do you paint em for if they blow up?"
Mention rockets to a co-worker in the Silicon Forest: "Oh, what kind of instrumentation are you putting in it?"
It's cultural, it's real.
I hope Newcastle Brown Ale was served, it's my favorite English brew.
-Eric
Very nice event up in Newcatle, but exhausting!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/makerfaire_uk/3355610023/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/makerfaire_uk/3355610023/
We had a ton of fun. The physical lunar lander game was really excellent, and Paka's horse was a terrifying lump of lumbering metal - really one of the most impressive animal robots I've ever seen. Great times.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,