September: Gettin' Involved

With work slow and still under the weather, I took Tuesday off to avoid spreading my germs throughout the office. I was inspired to see Contagion on Friday the 16th, which was sort of awesome really. It kind of whimpered out, and the people I spoke to who saw it really didn’t like it, but I thought it was Soderbergh doing what Soderbergh does best: mixing the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Essentially, it was a “documentary” about what would happen if a fictional disease began to spread in today’s society. It was exploratory, educational, unbiased, and I felt very accurate. The best part was the total crazy guy in the theater across the aisle from me, who kept laughing hysterically at every single preview. I was cringing, thinking of the hassle we were going to have to go through to call security and remove this guy. Luckily when the movie started, there weren’t any laugh-out-loud scenes, so he was docile. Unless you consider watching Gwyneth Paltrow’s scalp flopping over her dead face a laugh-out-loud moment.
Saturday the 17th was Maker Faire, a San Francisco import that allows tech nerds, design nerds, and steampunk nerds to come together for one glorious weekend to share what it is they do. And they do so much! Let us take a walk down my gallery.

Our first stop was Lali Ghuras in Queens, where I took Mary for Himalayan food. Sadly, because we went early in the morning, all the kitchen had was some thali and some momos, but as usual, the momos were super delicious. I could probably eat nothing but Nepalese and Tibetan food for the rest of my life and be super cool.
Above, Mary South poses with a plate of thali. Very similar to what you would see in Indian food: rice, lentils, potatoes, etc. Everything is just a little bit spicer, and the flavors a bit less complex.
These are momos! Glorious Chinese-style dumplings stuffed with curry and chicken, then steamed. Served with a very spicy, creamy sauce. Again, I cannot stress enough how these have changed my life. The South's eyes were watering because of the spicy smoke coming from the kitchen, so you know it's good.

Then, over to Flushing Meadows we go! After some finagling with security, South and I were able to get the comp tickets our friend Dave so nicely set aside for us.

First impressions: joy. There is an overwhelming sense of excitement and creative energy at Maker Faire. Families bring their kids to learn how to pick locks and make circuits. Artisans show how to make bicycles out of bamboo or 3-D printers out of old electronics. Computer programmers show how to turn conductive paint into an interactive light switch, or program a knitting machine to create a fractal-patterned scarf. Amazing!
The first area that greets you at the South entrance is the SteamPunk wing. Most of Maker Faire is practical and ingenius (ie, things that actually work), while the other half is whimsical and fantastical (meaning it will not work but the idea might). This is the SteamPunk outhouse, which seemed to fall into the later category (I think it was supposed to use the waste as fuel? and it was also a boat?). Still, points for presentation guys!

The Steampunkers brought a whole cadre of bikes with them, which they let the kids try out. I can't tell you how delightful it was to see an entire swarm of kids wizzing around on a bunch of oddly shaped bicycles. If I ever have children I can't wait to do stuff like this with them.

This table was dedicating to teaching children how to hack radios. This boy is perhaps a little young to be learning the fine art of circuit welding.

In addition to selling the usual awkward corsets and leather top hats, the steampunk kids were getting crazy with screenprinting. Above is a tie company with some of the greatest patterns I've ever seen: everything from chemical structures to sharks to circuit boards.


One of the biggest things at Maker Faire was this 3D printing the kids are talking about. Mark and I heard a whole lecture on it back in April 2010 for DIYDays: essentially, you can use a blueprint online to assemble a Makerbot out of inexpensive parts, then feed it different materials (plastic being the most popular). The Makerbot melts the plastic into whatever form you program into it (via a USB port I assume?). Above is a child watching the Makerbot "print" the image of a globe from the computer into a 3D replica.

Some people get very creative with their 3D printing technology. This is an elaborate and very delicate creation from one person's custom Makerbot. Other people had replaced the plastic with chocolate and were printing chocolate (or cheese even) in different awesome shapes.

This woman made some of the most interesting jewelry I've seen in a long time. Using a computer program, she makes highly mathematical (yet slightly irregular) shapes based on fractals, then prints the negative space around the shape, creating a mold. She then pours gold, silver, or acrylic in, making her jewelry. I bought a ring from her (similar to the one she's wearing on her middle finger) and I can't take it off.

This poster for afternoon activities reminded me of Nickd: Soft Circuits for Burning Man Enthusiasts and Candy Ravers. I mean, how could you not want to attend that workshop?

This is a random sculpture over by the circuit area. There was some elaborate scientific process for how the artist breaks up and reassembles the planes of the face, but I'm a girl so bah science! I just really liked the way it looked.

This is our friend Dave, who was at Maker Faire debuting his History Erasure near the LifeHacker area. Essentially, by manipulating various knobs and frequencies, you could change the course of small, repetitive events (like brushing your teeth) or big, unique events (like an assassination), with various repercussions depending on your settings. He made it with his dad. Pretty precious.

Around lunchtime, we found ourselves intrigued by the idea of a Grill Tub Time Machine and Meat Jacuzzi. Sadly, we found this to be much less interesting than advertised.

Instead we went to the Food Courte (hey, if we're going to add arbitrary "e's" we should do it everywhere, eh Maker Faire?) and grabbed some pizza. Doesn't it look delicious? It was. It was very delicious.

These giant paella pans were the biggest of their kind I had ever seen. Are you looking at them? Who even manufactures pans this big for paella? It's just a burnt rice-fish stew. I don't get it, people, I really don't.

On the way to the crafts and games area, we found this guy with his "solar sewing" machine. (Although there were also people riding a stationary bike to generate electricity for his sewing machine, so maybe "solar" was a bit generous?) Either way, his very elaborate programmed designs were mind blowing. I wanted both the red supernova and the blue jellyfish.

Not sure what this was: a dragon house? a repurposed home? An homage to How to Train Your Dragon? What I do know is, the kids loved this thing: it was a metal, fire-breathing dragon that you could climb on, complete with chairs and couches to chill and yell at the people below you. I've never seen kids flip out for anything the way they flipped out for the dragon house.

Inside, the South and I briefly visited the light technology room. Lots of fun with bluelight, shadows, and perception. This dress reminded me a lot of Diane Eng's line from 2009.

Afterwards we watched a coke-and-mentos explosion demonstration, then wandered around the crafts area. I was a big fan of this little guy here: look how expressive his face is!

This artist had an entire series of zombie and unicorn themed items. I know both are played out, but I still like her spin on both. This one says "I will have an army of clones. We will be so charming." Not pictured: the South's tote bag: "Zombies are crap at knitting." Truth: they totally are.

Because no awesome event can occur without a corporate sponsor, GE was there to make sure everyone realized how awesome and progressive they were. We're just like you, Maker-Faire kids! We care about the future of tomorrow! That's why we decided to take a picture with this humble engineer: because we found his presence SO INSPIRING for the future of innovation.

Sunday the 18th, I continued doing my part to be gettin' involved, for srs. That meant getting myself up at 7am and getting on a bus to New Jersey with several hundred other Mormons to take part in the New Jersey flood clean up. Although Hurricane Irene was a bit of a whimper, New Jersey saw it's third year of consecutive flooding, and much of the area was so badly damaged that FEMA had to step in.

If there's one thing Mormons excel at, it's getting organized in a crisis situation. Man, when we arrived in Caldwell, everything was like a well oiled machine: snacks, drivers, vehicles, tools, supplies, schedules, teams. We were divided into teams of 10, and then subdivided into groups of 2-5, then sent to various neighborhoods or particular houses where people had requested help. I scrubbed the kitchen of a Ron Paul advocate, took down drywall and cleaned a bathroom of a 100 year old house, played with kids, dragged out wet lumber, all that stuff. The mildew was so intense, and the mess so overwhelming, I could imagine how much I would panic if I were in that situation. Water gets into EVERYTHING, and it's water with hair and mud and trash mixed in, so every corner of everything has to be scrubbed, or pulled out, or stripped.

But what's great about service work like this is how rested you feel after doing it. It's like, if I worked that hard cleaning out my own apartment, I'd wake up Monday morning completely exhausted. But when you do it for someone else, someone who needs it and is grateful for the help, it's like you've spent the whole day resting in bed. That said, it's one thing to do this kind of physical volunteer work once a month--I can't imagine what it would be like every week, or even every day. Hopefully I'll be able to get the chance to find out one day