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Detroit Maker Faire Was Kinda Awesome
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.
As opposed to... monohedral?
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.
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....
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Quit nut hugging the Canadian boarder for once and come down south, we make stuff here too
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.
"...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.
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 nascent consumerism it started there can fire up the start of that country's own economy.
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.
And I for one don't think it's a bad idea.
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
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 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 elsewhere.
I was there displaying my video coat, 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."
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
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 abuses of the Trusts (Read: Monopolies) of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But now they've been twisted to prefer Big Business and those who can afford the armies of lawyers to interpret and apply them.
Even worse than regulation, though, is the utter lack of capital to invest in start-ups and small businesses. Every bit of wealth that isn't locked down and most of what was supposed to be locked down have been ripped away and given to the big banks and ultra-wealthy to squirrel away in their offshore accounts. Unless you are one of the 0.000000000001% who is connected to those ultra-wealthy, it is impossible to access any of that capital.
So unless you can spin a revenue-making venture out of thin air with no seed capital whatsoever, it doesn't matter how useful or amazing your innovation might be because you will never be able to bring it to market.
Perhaps it would be possible to figure out to spin revenue making ventures out of thin air, but I sure haven't been able to find any place that can teach you. All that exists are people who will help you write a business plan (for a small fee), which is not remotely the same thing--angel investors and venture capitalists will only invest in a business that is already generating revenue, thus neatly clipping any clever venture in the bud.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.