Maker Faire a geek's dream

SAN MATEO, Calif.--It's a good thing I don't have much hair, because the huge plume of fire that just blasted out of the top of the fire engine a few feet in front of me would likely have burned off a real mane.

I'm at the Maker Faire here, a geek and hacker's dream of a crafts fair, and the brainchild of Make Magazine, the do-it-yourself quarterly that's like a Web 2.0-era Popular Mechanics.

Maker Faire, which is taking place all weekend in this city about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, has drawn many hundreds or even thousands of the types for whom the insides of a torn apart computer are something to smile over.

Befitting a celebration of the do-it-yourself spirit, everyone in attendance is invited to get up close and personal with the projects. And that's why, as I'm talking to a woman from The Crucible--the Berkeley, Calif.-based nonprofit that teaches fire art, welding and all kinds of metal art--the organization's fire-spewing fire truck, known as the "Educational Response Vehicle" is shooting fireball after fireball into the air, heedless of the blasts of heat that are overwhelming anyone in the area.

Freshly baked, I make my way into one of the exposition halls at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, and I'm greeted by wall-to-wall stimuli. On one side is a gorgeous white metalwork giraffe, known as the "Rave 'Raff," which is spewing out electronica and attracting kids left and right who walk right up and touch its head.

On the far side is a life-size Simon, the '70s-era machine from Milton Bradley, which tasks players with punching one of its four colored bars in the same order that they lit up. And now, at the urging of a friend, I'm bouncing up and down on its red, yellow, green and blue trampolines, trying on the one hand to repeat the proper order the lights flashed and on the other not to make a complete fool of myself.

But the truth is it's too much fun to worry about how it looks. So I forget about being bashful and concentrate instead on getting the sequence right. And I relish in the occasional compliments I hear from the gathered crowd when I stick a particularly hard combination.

Just outside this hall is the one thing that everyone at Maker Faire seems to want to try, but can't: Segway polo. Just as it sounds, Segway polo is polo played on, well, Segways, the super-cool, gyro-stabilized two-wheelers invented by Dean Kamen. And right out here, in front of everyone, a team from the Bay Area Segway Enthusiasts Group is holding exhibitions every half hour or so.

Art and industry heavyweights
Hidden amid the group of players, wearing what looks like a bicycle helmet and a blue shirt with black short sleeves, is none other than Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, and it's heart-warming to be at an event where such an influential and famous man can go fairly unnoticed.

Indeed, Maker Faire has attracted a significant number of tech industry and art world heavyweights. Among them, Google co-founder Larry Page--or so I was told by someone who claimed to have been standing in front of the megabillionaire in a food line, as well as some of the biggest names in the world of Burning Man art. And that's not even to mention the Make Magazine crew, among them Mark Frauenfelder, Dale Dougherty and Phillip Torrone, who are heroes in this crowd.

[Nocturnex]

lol tearing computers apart

i wonder if i should post a picture of my room up, think of a camping table laden with that stuff in the middle of it and a bunch of casket cases in the closet in one corner my bed in another corner computer heaven, microwave minifridge and dual moniters included =D

[Nocturnex]

lol tearing computers apart

i wonder if i should post a picture of my room up, think of a camping table laden with that stuff in the middle of it and a bunch of casket cases in the closet in one corner my bed in another corner computer heaven, microwave minifridge and dual moniters included =D

[Heimdall G.]

A high-tech Burning Man?

Your lead-in says "Imagine a high-tech Burning Man without the naked people and more conveniently located off a freeway."

Well, our only child (our son) died at the Burning Man "Festival".

Best you don't glorify, even by inference, something you don't really understand!

Believe me, if I could, I'd shut down those Flaming Anuses, to prevent someone elses' child from dying!

But of course, you didn't know and wouldn't really have cared in any event....

[Heimdall G.]

A high-tech Burning Man?

Your lead-in says "Imagine a high-tech Burning Man without the naked people and more conveniently located off a freeway."

Well, our only child (our son) died at the Burning Man "Festival".

Best you don't glorify, even by inference, something you don't really understand!

Believe me, if I could, I'd shut down those Flaming Anuses, to prevent someone elses' child from dying!

But of course, you didn't know and wouldn't really have cared in any event....