Becky Stern bills herself as a DIY Guru and head of wearable electronics at Adafruit Industries, itself a company founded by a former MIT student known as Lady Ada. I got one of those ear to ear grins when I saw this one, and as I know some geeks that do cross stitching, I had to post this for them. If you would like to create one of these for your own, you can download the instructions in PDF format and check out their instructions page for additional background and support. Of course, you can also pick up the kit if you don’t already have the materials available. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the heads up on this one.
The Art of Video Games is a new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with a collection of 80 games, interviews with the creators, quite a bit of history and background, and a whole lot more. So I am sure not many will be surprised to learn that the folks from Think Geek are making a run to attend the event this weekend , and they are inviting everyone along for the fun. It works like this: meet up at the F Street lobby no later than 12 noon on Saturday, the 26th, to gather and be identified as part of the event. Of course, you might want to sign up ahead of time so if you are one of the winners they know where to send your prizes. At 12:30PM everyone will have been split up into teams of three and start cruising the exhibits, where you will want to pay plenty of attention. Finally, at 2PM, reconvene in the F street lobby to answer questions about the exhibit and the games for a shot at the prizes. This gathering should be a lot of fun, but if you already have plans this weekend the exhibit runs through September 30th, so you still have plenty of time to see it.
This is the man who invented the Florescent Light off the top of his head, and then came up with a system for delivering electrical power to it without using wires, 4 years before Tommy Edison started trying to make his employees figure out how to make an incandescent light bulb. This is the man who invented AC power, the electric motor, and audio speakers, all of which he patented. He invented a bunch of other stuff he patented (Marconie’s “invention” of radio relied on 17 of Tesla’s patents to make it work), but he also invented some stuff the patent office couldn’t figure out how to process, like broadcast energy, wireless charging of batteries, Ball Lightning, Radar, and oh, yeah, that earthquake machine he almost sank Long Island with (he had to move to Colorado and build another lab to avoid going to jail for that one). Yet another great site in a long list of web pages honoring the genius of Nikola Tesla is Oatmeal Comics: Tesla. I recommend you read it and begin to learn what a true geek he was. Another site worth checking into is The Man Who Electrified The World, as is The New Prometheus. Each of those sites has their own perspective on the man and his works, but what I find interesting is the things they are forced to agree on by the historical record. I personally only ever had 5 heroes in my life, and Nikola pretty much tops the list, with Albert Einstein coming in a very close second.
This example of Furby Modding was put together by Julie Watai, a woman who isn’t afraid to pick up a soldering iron and commit surgery on small innocent cute creatures. Even when reprogramming them means skinning them first, with the possibility of damaging the hide to the point where reskinning might be problematic. This particular version includes English subtitles to make it easier to follow along, and for more fun projects see the Hardware Girls segment of her site. And then, just because it was there, a bit of animation she was involved with.
According to the official Doctor Who Experience web site, Matt Smith proposed to his girlfriend in front of the Tardis, and she accepted. Of course, it was a totally different Matt Smith, not the actor playing the Doctor at all. But how many folks would have read the whole article if I said that bit in the headline? *grinz*
Kickstarter is a way to mobfund projects that might not otherwise ever get made, a social media variation of the good old Begathon that public radio and TV go through all the time. In it’s simplest terms, if there is a project you think should be done, you can vote with your wallet, offering as much or as little as you think it deserves within the limits of your own budget. Some of the projects entered are just silly, and some of them will be world changing if they get the correct backing. As usual, most are somewhere in between, offering an interesting result if enough people are willing to contribute.
Since nothing of value ever happens in a vacuum, many of these projects have rewards, with different returns for different levels of monetary commitment. The fail-safe here is that you can only achieve these rewards if the project actually gets fully funded and goes forward. If a project does not get fully funded, it does not go forward, you do not get billed for your contribution, and there are no rewards to share in. To date there are something like 20,000 projects that have been funded and created, with many more failing the test of support.
Yes, all of that was just the intro, and most of it you probably already knew even though it will be new to some of those reading here. I made the preliminary comments to give you the background, because there are some projects I think will be worth your time to consider, and today I have two of them for you to think about.
The one that could be a real game changer, or at least a first class creators tool, is in fact a game creation toolset called Storybricks. If they are allowed to bring this into the world, you could find yourself in possession of software that could potentially allow you to create your own online interactive RPG environment on a par with anything Steve Meretzky ever cranked out, at least in terms of game logic and environmental consistency. Assembling a game that was interesting enough to draw an audience would still be all up to you, of course. I have already contributed to this project, because I would love to have this toy to play with.
A different kind of Kickstarter project is Project: 13, an animated music video attempt where the music will drive the animation, 3 songs done as 3 music videos. The desired result being a video, the appeal for funding is also a video since that is what the creators understand, as you can see below. There are thousands of additional projects all hoping for funding over at Kickstarter; check them out, find the ones you want to support, and pass the word along. This kind of crowd sourcing is how we help create the future we want to live in, and support the people and groups who are trying to make that future happen in the way we want to see it come down.
