Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 2:40PM Jennifer Granick, the Civil Liberties Director at the EFF, gives an enlightening speech at Noisebridge about the legal difficulties that one might face as part of a hacker space. The speech is pretty free-form and Granick entertains questions throughout.
Granick talks for over an hour so pour yourself a cocktail, find a quiet place, and enjoy.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 9:21AM Sugru is the thing you've been wanting your whole life but never existed. Well it didn't exist your whole life, did it? It just came out last Wednesday!
If you've ever looked starry-eyed upon a brand new virgin packet of Blu-Tack in the store and fantasized about squidging it in your hands and then having it stay in the shape of whatever you designed well then that product is Sugru. And Sugru comes in four rad colors of silicone-rubber awesomeness!
What's even better about this material is the philosophy behind it: repair, recycle, reuse, and their motto, "hack things better." The champion of Sugru, Jane, has hit the ball right out of the park with this stuff. I've never clicked BUY SOME on a website faster!
Now which fantastic company or individual wants to sponsor the Sugru people to come to Durham in the Spring for the Maker Faire? They're on Twitter and Facebook too.
OMG WANT, crafting, hacking, making, materials, recycling, tools in Maker Culture, SCIENCE! | By: Maker Faire:NC Friday, November 13, 2009 at 11:30AM Allow me to exercise one of my new-found writing talents harvested from @FakeAPStylebook: Big Ups to the Wall Street Journal's Andy Jordan for pointing me to this article by Justin Lahart. Mr. Lahart eloquently describes the blossoming Maker movement. When you spend your days at work and devote your evenings to your various projects it's easy to miss the size of the trend.
Mr. Lahart has interviewed luminaries from many (US) hackerspaces, clubs, and universities and provides us with a forest-level view of what many of us might think is a small niche.
For the local slant and for some more on the rise of the tinkerer class read Marc Maximov's article in The Independent published back in September. Mr. Maximov goes beyond the somewhat vanilla content in Mr. Lahart's article and attempts to determine the all-important why of the movement.
"It's been suggested that the developed world's modern, passive lifestyle—in which we're fixated on computer screens and tethered to our desks—squelches our instinctual drive to make things with our hands and contributes to depression." Maximov
Maximov also cites Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford as someone urging the case for working with your hands: something real. Crawford's book digs far deeper and does an excellent job of reasoning that, essentially, to know you must do.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 2:11PM This short video attempts to define what a Fab Lab is. Spaces like Fab Lab, NYC Resistor TechShop, and Hacker Spaces worldwide all share the same DIY & Maker spirit.
