Geek Gestalt

SAN MATEO, CALIF.--One of the great things about being at Maker Day, the day before the gates officially open at Maker Faire, is that every time you walk around the fairgrounds here, everything looks different.

That's because, of course, in the time it takes to make a circuit around the San Mateo Fairgrounds during Maker Day, the annual home of the do-it-yourself (DIY) celebration that is Maker Faire, a whole bunch of new "makers" have arrived and others have added a great deal to the projects they had only just started at the beginning of the circuit.

I was on hand for Maker Day on Friday because I find it's always refreshing to get a chance to see things in process. Also, with more than 80,000 people expected at this year's Maker Faire, I wanted to get a chance to see what some of the makers--the people behind the hundreds and thousands of DIY projects on display here--had worked on, without having to navigate unbelievable masses of people.

That's especially true if you see a really popular project and you want to find out something about it.

For me, that didn't take long. Only a couple minutes after I walked through the gates of the fairgrounds, I encountered a very familiar looking robotic structure. It looked very much like the "Rave 'Raff," a robotic giraffe I had first seen at Burning Man in 2005 and which I had seen several times since then at Maker Faire.

But the Rave 'Raff was white, so this couldn't be it. Yet when I walked over to see what it was, it was indeed the 'Raff, only with an entirely new paint job, it seemed.

In fact, it wasn't just a new paint job (which was now pearl sunset orange). The giraffe's creator, Lindsay Lawlor, told me that he and his crew had completely rebuilt the robot, and it was now well on its way to being an entirely interactive robot. (See video below.)

"We changed everything," said Lawlor. "We basically got out the cutting torch."

He explained that he and his team, with the help of some sponsors, had put about $10,000 worth of work into the redesign, and the end result was a giraffe with all-new hardware, hydraulic pumps made out of acrylic plastic sheets, shock-absorbing struts, and that new paint job. It also has a new hydraulic neck that is operated by a single piston.

It even has 32 "teeth," little rectangular pieces of plastic with embedded LEDs, that mirror the exact number, spacing, and setting of real giraffe teeth.

In other words, when the Rave 'Raff gets going, it's one high-tech giraffe.

Lawlor said that the giraffe also has touch sensors in its ears, eyes, head, and mouth, and that by next year, he expects to have it speaking.

"The idea is to bring it to life like a real giraffe," Lawlor said. "It will follow me around like he's my pet giraffe."

Not far away, some folks from a group called Lightning Temple were setting up "Interactivation," a musical instrument with a musical tesla coil in the center.

Evonne Heyning, of Lightning Temple, told me that the tesla coil in Interactivation is designed to sound more like music coming from a speaker than the traditional sharp, electronic-sounding devices. She also told me that at Burning Man this summer, Lightning Temple, among other things, will be running a tesla coil repair station in case any of the many artists with the huge electronic devices need such services.

Some people have called Maker Faire "Burning Man on cement," but that's not quite fair. To be sure, much of the art seen at Maker Faire has also or will be seen at Burning Man. But Maker Faire has a somewhat different spirit. While it celebrates the DIY spirit, it is much more about showcasing the work of the many makers who trek to the Faire. Burning Man, while also about showcasing DIY art, has a more party-like feel, and is also intended to be for "participants only."

By contrast, Maker Faire is intended to instill the participatory spirit in people, but in a way that they take it with them when they go home. In other words, to turn people into DIYers once they leave.

Back in the Lightning Temple area, Heyning told me that she and her crew are taking some of the things they've done with Interactivation and are working on an iPhone application that would give people a way to experience a collaboration of music composition and energetic research.

Only at Maker Faire
One thing is for sure at Maker Faire--or Maker Day as the case may be. And that's that whimsy is king.

I ran into a couple of friends who told me a story about someone they'd just talked to. The person had had his hand inside a plastic bag in the way that dog owners sometimes do when they take their pooches for a walk. But instead of keeping hold of some dog waste, this person told my friends that, in fact, he was holding onto some condensed moisture from New York State. And that he had to run and give it to someone.

Indeed.

What may seem like whimsy today, however, was once pure practicality.

That much was clear in an extremely beautiful, classic machine I saw sitting quietly on one side of the fairgrounds.

This was a 1917 Case Traction Engine which, I was told by Zachary Rukstela, the chief engineer of a group called Kinetic Steam Works, was the very first model of tractor.

Rukstela's group had purchased the traction engine from a defunct Yuma, Ariz., museum, and was working to completely restore it. He said they were about 90 percent along. And to be sure, this thing was absolutely gorgeous, and looked brand new. But entirely out of place in the 21st century.

That makes sense, however. One thing abundantly evident at Maker Faire the last couple of years has been an overpowering steampunk look and feel. Evidenced by rustic coloring, lots of rivets, brass and leather, steampunk seems to be the official aesthetic of Maker Faire.

And that was definitely true at Maker Day on Friday.

Much the same, some different
Maker Faire is growing, as organizer Sherry Huss told me, and one of the major components of the festival this year is DIY robotics. There are expected to be at least 24 different groups showing off such projects.

But while there is always a great deal that's new at Maker Faire, it's also clear that many of the biggest projects on display are ones that have been to the fair many times before. And that makes sense, I suppose, since things like the Lifesized Mousetrap are huge crowd favorites. The same goes for the Neverwas Haul, a steam-powered Victorian house.

Still, I'd like to see more new big art at Maker Faire than I think I saw.

I guess I need to get working on doing some serious DIY myself.

If you go to Maker Faire: Be prepared for giant crowds, slow traffic, and having to park a ways away from the fairgrounds. Maker Faire is running a Twitter feed that should give steady updates about the traffic situation.

Also be prepared with a hat and sunscreen, and remember to drink lots of water.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation, and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

The submissions came in fast and furious at the deadline, and in the end, only five could win.

I'm talking about CNET News' Maker Faire contest, that is, in which readers were challenged to come up with the best way to use a do-it-yourself (DIY) philosophy to remake America.

After receiving the submissions, I forwarded a numbered, anonymous, set of finalists' entries on to our celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phillip Torrone, who then chose the five winners.

Each winner will receive four tickets to the upcoming Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif., as well as a festival T-shirt.

The winners, in order, were:

• First place, Karen Fraga:

My 90-year-old dad was the first I knew of that was a DIYer. He had coffee cans in his shed full of nails. If anything would break down, he would fix it. If America would repair more items, it would reduce the need to make more items.

I brought out of my closet a game that Dad made over 30 years ago. He re-used the bottom portion of an egg carton, paper towel roll and some felt for rolling the dice in. I think in order to remake America we need to think of different ways to use things that we already have around the house.

Dad would tie up his newspapers for recycling back when no one else was even thinking about recycling. I think America also has been recycling more than when Dad first started but, still, make it part of your daily life.

• Second place, Nifer Fahrion:

As a crafter, I have witnessed and participated in skills sharing salons, from knitting and screen-printing, to computer programming and welding. Skills sharing salons provide infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for people, as well as encourage knowledge exchange, learning, and mentoring. These types of salons also allow for artistic collaboration and experimentation, birthing fresh and creative new ways of interacting with one's world.

Whether skill sharing salons are held as a monthly crafting session, or are more semi-formalized through small collectives, they have the power to change the way Americans have come to interact with their world. By instilling each other with the DIY attitude, we no longer are passive observers of the world around us, but rather are creating what we want our world to be, one stitch at a time.

• Third place, Christopher Pepper:

As a high-school teacher, I am inspired to use the DIY spirit in our schools. I'd like to see our school as incubators and curators for the creative ideas that burst forth from our youth. I'd love to be able to teach about nutrition and actually have a space for students to cook and create meals. I'd love to have students learn about biology and ecology by planting and maintaining a garden. I'd love to bring back some of the mechanical arts--which, like cooking and sewing, have been taken out of many of our schools--and teach students some hands-on skills, like how to fix their own bicycles or how to build their own solar cell phone chargers. I think there's a lot of room for DIY ideas in our own schools.

• Fourth place, Mickey Staudt:

Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. I am a mother of nine and I find that we use a lot of everything in our home. So, it is very important for me to help my family understand this impact on our country's environment. In my small way I teach them this by finding ways to re-purpose items as often as possible. This winter, my twin 10-year-old daughters learned how to unravel old sweaters to use the yarn for new knitting projects. They learned how to felt discarded wool sweaters for new items, like pot holders or wallets/purses. For Christmas, my sons received sweater pillows for their beds. These had some small defects that might have landed them in the trash, but instead they kept them warm all winter. I think kids understand that the need to recycle effects everyone's future, especially their own.

• Fifth place, Jacob Rose:

"Victory Energy Gardens." Grow power at home with little generators everywhere. The same way we standardize energy-eating appliances, there should be a simple plug-in standard for energy producing devices. Update the national electrical code to include this standard, and set a timeline, the same as we did for HDTV. Got a creek? A windy rooftop? A treadmill? Figure out a way to make it spin a standard generator, and plug it in to produce power.

A big thanks to everyone who submitted, to Maker Faire for offering the tickets and T-shirts, and to Torrone for judging.

To the winners, enjoy Maker Faire, and to everyone else, let's keep on using the DIY spirit to remake America, and the world.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

In just 16 days, Maker Faire, the annual do-it-yourself nirvana, will be returning to San Mateo, Calif., and you could be there courtesy of CNET News.

Last month, I posted an entry here offering 20 free Maker Faire passes for the best 150-word submissions on how you would use DIY to remake America. Unfortunately, I didn't receive enough submissions to make it a particularly competitive contest. So we're changing the game a little bit.

Instead of offering 20 people one free pass to the May 30 and 31 event, I'm going to offer five packages of four tickets plus a Maker Faire T-shirt. And if you are one of the people who sends in one of the five most impressive submissions, one of those packages will be yours.

The challenge remains the same: Give me 150 words on how you'd remake America the DIY way. If you've already sent me a submission, don't worry, I still have it.

For everyone else, please send me your submissions by the end of the business day on Monday, May 18.

If you're within striking distance of the Bay Area and you've never been to Maker Faire--I've been to all three in San Mateo, plus the 2007 edition in Austin, Texas, and I can tell you that it's nothing short of a blast--or even if you have, you should definitely be there. And you could either pay $30 in advance for a weekend pass (or $50 at the gate) or you could get in for free.

It's up to you.

Well, not entirely. The actual decisions will be made by my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone. But if you've got a great idea, I'll do my best to nudge him in your direction.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

During the past few years, the world has rediscovered the joys of do-it-yourself (or DIY) projects, and everywhere you look these days, you can see people building things themselves rather than buying them from others.

A big part of this revolution has been Make magazine, and its Maker Faires, festivals--which celebrate the DIY spirit in all its manifestations--which take place each year in San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

To date, I am not really a maker myself, though that's something I regret and am ever exhorting myself to change. But I have been to four Maker Faires, and I've seen some of the wonderful things that people show off there: Steam-powered mobile Victorian houses, incredibly soft Flying Spaghetti Monsters made from felt, wooden iPods, watermelon-launching trebuchets and much, much more.

Well, Maker Faire is coming back to San Mateo on May 30 and 31, and you could be there.

The event's organizers have given me 20 passes to award CNET News readers. And all you have to do to win one is tell me, in 150 words or less, how you would use DIY to remake America (the event's theme).

It's a broad topic, I admit, and I'm sure there are an infinite number of ideas that could win. But in order to pick the best 20, I'm going to turn to my celebrity judge, Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

So, send your 150-words-max ideas to me at daniel(dot)terdiman-*at*-cnet(dot)com by May 8 (please include the words "Maker Faire contest" in your e-mail subject line, as well as your full name in your e-mail), and maybe I'll be seeing you at Maker Faire.

Following on the success of their hit do-it-yourself magazine, the people behind Make will now bring their efforts to public television.

On Saturday, Make: Television will debut, a partnership between the magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television. All episodes will also be available for DRM-free download in HD, on YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, and Blip.tv.

"Make: is the DIY series for a new generation," a release about the new show began. "It celebrates 'makers'--the inventors, artists, geeks, and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The series encourages everyone to invent, revent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode inspires millions to think, create and, well, make."

The show will focus on the same kind of activities and people that have filled the pages of Make magazine. Among those featured in the first episode, for example, are Cyclecide, a group that travels the country putting on a bicycle rodeo; the maker of a cat-feeder built from an old VCR; and the man behind the "laser harp," a musical instrument played by strumming laser strings.

For some time, Make has been producing video content that has been available online. But now, for the first time, it is creating all-new content that is intended for television.

Make is also behind Maker Faire, a two-day DIY festival that takes place each year in both San Mateo, Calif., and Austin, Texas.

The launch of the show comes at a difficult time for media, what with layoffs across the industry and a weakening environment for advertising. But Make senior editor Philip Torrone said that things are going well for the magazine and that it is doing as well as it ever has.

One explanation for that would seem to be that as the economy falters and people struggle to make ends meet, Make helps them learn to do things on their own, without spending a lot on pre-produced goods. And, because it fosters a do-it-yourself ethos, the magazine--and its related media--is attractive to those interested in becoming more self-reliant.

Whether the TV series will be a success is unknown. But the fact that Twin Cities Public Television and American Public Television have decided that now is a good time to launch the show is a sign that people, there at least, believe that the time is right to promote DIY to a larger audience.

SAN MATEO, Calif.--If the hour-long traffic jam leading into Maker Faire wasn't proof that the do-it-yourself festival being held here all weekend is bigger than ever, then maybe the huge crowds gathered around attraction after attraction was.

This is the third year that Maker Faire has packed the San Mateo Fairgrounds with the best and brightest of the burgeoning DIY community--mobile barcalougers, dueling Tesla coils, huge Burning Man art pieces, felt masterpieces, and on and on--and there can be little doubt the success of the previous two years' iterations led to a bigger crowd this time around.

In 2006, the first Maker Faire was a bit of an oddity, yet still attracted 20,000 people for the weekend. Last year, that number doubled and while I didn't hear any attendance figures for this year, I did overhear someone saying that ticket pre-sales had doubled over last year's total. All this is just the math behind the wall-to-wall people moving around the fairgrounds--most of them sporting ear-to-ear grins.

For me, and many others who have been to the previous Maker Faires, this weekend's version was more like a reunion than a showcase of new projects. To be sure, there was an endless supply of new makers on hand. How could there not be with hall after hall of creative people showing off the talents, skills, and wicked good humor that is the hallmark of events like this.

But, there was also a lot on display that had been at previous Maker Faires--and other events, too, like Burning Man, Yuri's Night, Coachella, and so forth. These days, a lot of big interactive art pieces are making the rounds of such festivals and events and some of the artists behind them, people like Michael Christian, Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito, Mark Perez, and others, are becoming known beyond the relatively insular communities they began in.

But, let's be honest: None of that matters when what you see when wandering around Maker Faire is excited kids, happy parents and young, attractive men and women dressed to the nines in period costumery.

And that is really the message that Maker Faire sends: That there are delights for everyone, whether you're a robotics fanatic, a Lego fan, a crafting devotee, a fire artist, a 9-year-old, or all of the above.

Those of us who live in the Bay Area might be tempted to think that this is the only place on Earth where you could find such an eclectic combination of people. Yet, as the very successful Maker Faire Austin last fall demonstrated, there are such folks in many places. What's really needed to bring them out of the woodwork is an event that champions their creativity, glee, and interest that people of all kinds get from hours and hours of playing around with the kinds of things that Maker Faire offers.

So, indeed, what does Maker Faire 2008 have to offer?

I could go on and on and on and on. But in the interest of your time and mine, I'll only go on and on.

One wonderful project was the Buscycle, a fully pedal-powered bus of sorts. You'd see it rolling by all over the fairgrounds, a happy collection of children and adults thrashing their feet, driving it forward. I had seen it sitting idly on Thursday when I visited the fairgrounds for Maker Day--a day for the makers to meet each other and get a bit of a taste for the event before they had to entertain the multitudes--and I'd wondered if it would be special. Question answered: Yes.

Another terrific--and very popular--attraction was the remote-control scale battleship naval wars that were being put on by members of the Western Warship Combat Club. In front of hundreds of people lined up four-deep or standing up on bleachers, these folks ran their little warships around a makeshift pool, firing BBs from ship to ship, trying to sink them. Little ships would get damaged, and then, showing no mercy, those running much bigger vessels would ram their craft into the smaller ones, all to the gasps and "Oohhhs" of the crowd.

There were hourly demonstrations of dueling Tesla coils that, with dimmed lights for full dramatic effect, would build up to a crescendo of commingled lightning bolts crackling away in front of an audience lucky enough to have wandered by at the right time.

In one outdoor area, the Neverwas Haul was attracting a long line of people wanting to climb inside a fully steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house. If that's a concept that boggles the mind, don't let it: A mobile Victorian house is exactly the kind of disconnect that Maker Faire is all about.

That's why, for example, Mark Perez's gigantic, Life-Size Mousetrap was a massive hit this weekend, with hundreds of people lining up to watch and see if a bowling ball could make it all the way around a long path of levels, pulleys, ramps, baskets, ladders, and the like. I never actually managed to see it running because the crowds were too deep. But when I've seen it in place previously, at Maker Faires here and in Austin, and at Burning Man, it's been a thrill to watch it in action.

What else? Well, no story could do the event full justice. But the sublime 2piR was well worth highlighting. This is a fire art piece in which a large circle of propane tanks connected to jets shoots out plumes of fire in time with the movements of people standing on a platform in the middle. The more you move, the more the jets of fire erupt on the perimeter. As the day grew cold Saturday, many people huddled on the outside of that perimeter, hoping that the players in the middle would cause the plumes to erupt near them and warm them up. Sadly for me and my friends, the propane fueling the jet nearest us was empty.

Earlier in the day, I had wandered through the various halls and came across a terrific exhibit of aerial kite photography. An artist named Ben Peoples explained that a small camera suspended from a harness under a kite can be controlled with precise movements and with some practice, can be used to take excellent photos from high above the ground. And indeed, there was a series of the photos on display, and you would never know from looking at them that they weren't taken by a professional with a camera in hand, maybe inside a helicopter or a plane.

Another project I liked was Michael Yates' "Camp Rehab Chevy," a collaborative effort to rebuild a very worn down 1948 Chevy truck and bring it back to life. As I found it, it was still pretty beat up and sad, but a group of people were tinkering around in the engine and inside the cab, and I had no doubt that by weekend's end, this might well be a functional truck.

The point of all this is that Maker Faire is a place where there is almost literally no end of wondrous attractions and terrific little finds. Tucked away in a corner of a hall, you might find some little delight that you'd never think you'd find: someone with a series of LEDs being spun around in seemingly random circles, making gorgeous patterns in the air, like Carl Pisaturo's "Rotating Amusement Device," or Tim Giugni's "Shadow Dome," a terrific exhibit which projected a shadow castle on the wall of a canvas room with a spotlight inside.

It's not likely that if you're reading this story that you'd be able to hop in the car and make it to the fairgrounds before Maker Faire closes Sunday--at 6 p.m.--but if what you're reading here piques your interest and you've never been before, mark the first weekend of May 2009 on your calendar and make a point of coming down next year. You will not be disappointed.

SAN MATEO, Calif.--The best thing about going to Maker Faire a couple of days before the gates officially open is watching it grow.

Walk a couple of times around the fairgrounds here, where the do-it-yourself bacchanalia will welcome tens of thousands of people starting Saturday, and you'll see new projects appear each time you go around: A stream of trucks keeps coming through the gates, each one hauling a new group of people and whatever fantastical art, heavy machine, oddball musical instrument or other insane contents it might be carrying.

Over on one side of the fairgrounds, a large steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house called the Neverwas Haul sat all alone, a single person inside it doing some work. Its guts were visible on one side, something I wasn't used to after seeing the wonderful Neverwas Haul twice at Burning Man and at Maker Faire last year.

Over on the other side, a giant booth was being built for Microsoft, expertly packed boxes and exhibit infrastructure standing out from the rougher, more artistic fare around it.

And then there were three giant human figures made from chains, wood and other industrial detritus in various poses of worship. These were by artists Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito and were originally part of their incredibly ambitious Burning Man 2007 project called "Crude Awakening."

This was Maker Day, a day for the many, many makers whose individual DIY projects are Maker Faire to meet and greet and hear a series of talks on issues near and dear to their hearts: extreme crafting, the future of making, how to make money with open-source hardware kits and much more. And to see these projects come to life.

I was surprised, despite having been through this process last fall at Maker Faire Austin, at how barren the fairgrounds were only two days before the gates open on Saturday. In Austin, I had wondered if a bunch of makers simply wouldn't show up when, even the day before the event began, there were vast swaths of empty space.

But, my experience then was that somehow, overnight on Friday night, the makers magically materialized, and by Saturday's opening, Maker Faire Austin was fully functional and operational. I have little doubt the same will be true this year.

At the very first Maker Faire, here in San Mateo, about 30 minutes south of San Francisco, in 2006, 20,000 people showed up. Last year, for the second go-round here, that number doubled. Now, as the organizers--the event is put on by Make magazine publisher O'Reilly Media--get ready for the third Bay Area iteration, no one knows how many to expect. But given that someone told me that pre-sales for this year's event were double last year's, I think it's safe to say that anyone heading out here this weekend should expect a packed house.

Still, that doesn't mean you will have a bad time. The fairgrounds are huge, and there's plenty of space for everyone. Plus, there will be endless dozens of makers on hand to showcase their insane creations and their brilliant minds.

For Maker Faire organizers like Louise Glasgow, the best thing about doing the event over and over again--this will be the fourth time they've done it, counting Austin last fall--is watching it grow and watching the birth of new makers.

"We're making makers," Glasgow told me Thursday. "There's so many new makers who were (Maker Faire) volunteers last year, or assistants (on other people's projects) or attendees who learned something here in a class."

Indeed, that is one of the great things about this event: people come for the first time, take a tutorial in something like making things with felt, and the next year they return with their own felting business. That was the experience of a friend of mine, who first came to Maker Faire here in 2006 and returned in 2007 with her new concern, NifNaks.

For me, seeing Glasgow pull up on a golf cart, her level of energy cranked way up, was a fun reminder of the several hours I spent with her in Austin last fall as she raced around during the set-up of Maker Faire there, making sure everything was going smoothly. It takes a lot to put one of these events together, and Glasgow and the whole Maker Faire team really seem to have this process nailed down.

Yet, to Glasgow, it's a whole new event each year.

And for the thousands of people who show up here this weekend--even those who have been here before--that's sure to be true. Especially for the many children who will never have seen anything like this stuff before.

One of my favorite people in the world of tech culture has always been Make magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

Over the years, I've done a number of stories about his various exploits, including Roomba Frogger at South by Southwest 2006, his laser-etching business, his jamming of TVs at a hotel in Austin, Texas, and his work in helping organize Maker Faires. Beyond that, I've always enjoyed talking with him, as he's a world traveler, a top-notch intellect, and a world-class culture jammer. He's just my kind of guy.

And there's certainly one thing about Torrone that is evidenced in the things he does for fun and for work: he is not shy about pushing social and cultural boundaries. In fact, based on my personal observations of him, he kind of revels in doing so.

So when I saw a Boing Boing post on Tuesday reporting that Torrone was seen at this week's ETech conference in San Diego with a carry-on bag that has a fully formed imprint of a handgun on it, I was both shocked and not at all surprised.

What I would have given, I thought, to have seen him take that bag through airport security; to see what I'm sure was his straight-faced gaze as Transportation Security Administration personnel encountered the bag.

As Boing Boing blogger David Pescovitz put it in his entry, "Fortunately, (Torrone) made it through security with enough time to catch his flight."

I bet he did.

To be fair, Torrone's bag is a production model from the Dutch firm Vlieger & Vandam, and I'm sure he's not the only person traveling around with one. In fact, the firm makes the bag in three colors and also has one with an embossed knife.

But holy cow! What chutzpah. Especially because we all know that airport security don't take things that make them think of weapons lightly. Witness what happened to MIT student Star Simpson when she wore a shirt with some home-made electronics built-in to the Boston airport last year.

And I'm not at all surprised. If you recall, during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the gadget blog Gizmodo caused a huge uproar when it ran a prank turning off TVs at the show, including those being used for a major Motorola presentation.

Gizmodo took a massive amount of flak for the prank--though its profile was also raised immeasurably--but one thing was lost in the mix.

As Gizmodo itself reported in its initial story on the prank, "when Make offered us some TV-B-Gone clickers to bring to the show, we pretty much couldn't help ourselves...Thanks to Phil Torrone for the gear."

When I read that, I had to smile, especially after the firestorm of controversy that erupted afterward, not one single bit of which was targeted at Torrone. But I knew that somewhere, he was laughing his behind off at what he had wrought.

The reality is, Torrone is one of those people worth watching, no matter where he goes because he's always up to something interesting.

I'm sure there are those who think his brand of humor and sense of boundaries is anti-social and even dangerous. Having been there for the Roomba Frogger episode and having read the many, many comments readers left after I wrote about it, I actually know that for a fact.

But at the same time, I think that society's conventions need a little tweaking from time to time, and it takes people with a little chutzpah to do so, people who aren't afraid of the kind of response their actions will engender. And I also know that Torrone would never actually put anyone in danger.

So all I can say is, if you happen to be heading to Austin later this week for this year's South by Southwest conference--where I know Torrone will be--keep an eye on him. You never know what might happen.

Over at Boing Boing this morning, I see that uber-blogger/novelist/speaker/electronic freedom fighter Cory Doctorow is planning on speaking at the Roboexotica symposium that gets under way in Vienna, Austria, tomorrow.

I hadn't heard of Roboexotica myself until I was in Austin, Texas, last month covering the Maker Faire there. At dinner one night with some of the Maker Faire folks, I Make Things video blogger Bre Petis started telling me about the event. And as often happens when smart people tell me about amazing things, my inner geek got very excited.

If you're not familiar with Roboexotica, this is how it's explained on the official Web site: "Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics worldwide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out."

Now, I don't know what "Lebenswelt" means but I get the gist of it. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that people I know to be serious about things like this were actually traveling to Vienna, I might have thought Roboexotica was a prank. After all, "cocktail robotics?"

But it is real, and I wish I were going.

It turns out that the topics being discussed at the symposium don't all have to do with programming robots to serve gin and tonics--though, since I don't speak German, I'm not entirely sure what much of the program is about.

What I can see on the English version of the festival's site, however, looks pretty interesting. You've got Doctorow speaking about "why consciousness uploading, post-human existence and life after the Singularity are popular today, and why science fiction is always about the present," and Petis is doing his own talk on "the apocalyptic utopia."

Fun stuff.

Now all we need to do is figure out how to get the organizers to do a San Francisco edition of their event sometime in the future, and I can guarantee a rabid local response. Zombies, meet cocktail-serving robots.