While Adam Savage was in DC recently for the Apollo 50th Anniversary celebration (and to do the final assembly on the wonderful Project Egress NASA escape hatch project), he visited the Smithsonian's Office of Exhibits Central (OEC). Read the rest
Macabre artist and crafter, Christine McConnell, has a new YouTube series, From The Mind Of Christine McConnell. I felt robbed when her Netflix series, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell, was given the axe after only one six-episode season. I loved this quirky, bizarre genre-buster which mixed equal parts The Addam's Family, Martha Stewart, and The Muppets, with a little Dita von Teese mixed in. Literally. Dita, a friend of Christine's, appeared as a ghost living in Christine's bedroom mirror who dispensed fashion advice.
I have always had a special fondness for offbeat, weird, and tongue-in-cheek crafting shows, like Brini Maxwell, At Home with Amy Sedaris, and Making It with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. McConnell's work is a goth-y twist on such offerings and "From The Mind Of Christine McConnell" is no different.
She has posted two episodes to YouTube so far, one where she converts a musty old pull-out couch into an ornate Edwardian sofa-bed, and one where she constructs a jaw-dropping ginger bread replica of the Winchester Mystery House using a quarter-ton of ginger bread.
Christine has also created a Patreon page to help support her channel. I, for one, will be signing on. Read the rest
It is perhaps in the spirit of our anxious, rickety age that antique tool, machinery, and toy restoration videos are becoming increasingly popular. There is something oddly comforting and therapeutic about seeing the old, the forgotten, the previously reliable (now seized with rust and neglect) being lovingly restored to life.
These videos are simple, quiet (usually with no spoken narrative), and most of the restoration process is carefully shown, from disassembly to cleaning, sanding, repainting to re-assembly and testing. This is a world in which time, Evapo-Rust, a wire wheel, and some rattle-cans of enamel paint can repair the past to near show room luster.
I can't get enough. And for makers, there are lots of great repair and restoration tips embedded in these videos. Here are a few of my favorite channels.
In this new 14-minute mini-doc from Noisey, Brian Eno, his music-therapist brother Roger, and producer/musician Daniel Lanois, discuss their 1983 writing and recording of Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, their soundtrack for the Al Reinert film, For All Mankind. They also talk about the newly remastered Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks – Extended Edition and the 11 additional tracks they created for it.
There is some wonderful stuff in here, like Eno revealing that the country music influences on the record were inspired by him learning that many Apollo astronauts took country with them on their missions. He loved the idea of space frontiersmen carrying the music of an older frontier and decided to try creating a cosmic, psychedelic version of country. He and Roger also talk about how they tried to assume the character of the astronauts as they composed, for example, imagining being Mike Collins staying behind in the command module, and translating that feeling of isolation and awe into music.
There is also a touching moment when Roger chokes up talking about when Armstrong set foot on the moon, and how it seemed that, in a moment, humanity itself had jumped into a different mode, a more hopeful future, and how we now seem to have lost that leap. And that hope.
In case you've forgotten how glorious Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks actually is, here's the remastered version of "An Ending (Ascent)." In the Noisey documentary, Eno reveals that this final version of the track is actually the original piece he was working on played backwards. Read the rest
The wonderful comedienne, Tig Notaro, doesn't watch a lot of TV or films and doesn't really keep up with popular culture. As a result, she doesn't recognize celebrities. She's turned this liability(?) into a fun show, called Under A Rock with Tig Notaro. Well-known celebs come on and she (aided by her announcer, Amazon's Alexa) questions them in an attempt to guess who they are and what they are famous for. I've gotten a big kick out of the first three episodes.
As you may have heard by now, news began to break Friday night that Maker Media, home to Make: magazine, Maker Faire, and Maker Shed, was folding up their big top and calling it quits (though founder Dale Dougherty has vowed to attempt a resurrection in some form). As the sad news began to thread its way through social media, the sense of shock, grief, and confusion was palpable. As when a beloved artist, entertainer, or other famous figure dies, people began posting pictures of themselves with the deceased, sharing peak experiences at Maker Faire, and sharing stories of the impact that Make:, Maker Faire, and the maker movement has had on their lives. Many of these have been quite inspiring and moving.
As someone who worked with or at Make: since its inception in 2005, my inboxes began filling up with people asking me if I was OK, if they could do anything to help (bring over cake and whiskey?), and they too began pouring out their feelings to me. Several people shared stories on social media and asked me to share some of mine. This made me immediately think of an essay I wrote for my 2014 memoir, Borg Like Me. Called "Make vs. The Blob," in it, I attempted to capture some of the magic and inspired sense of wonder I experienced while working at Maker Media and attending nearly all of the Bay Area, New York, and the two Austin Maker Faires. As part of that piece, I shared three particularly enchanting tableaux from the 2007 Austin Maker Faire. Read the rest
Writer Nicole Tersigni posted this amazing meme thread on Twitter where she juxtaposed well-known classic art images with the sort of common and clichéd sexism that modern women are all too familiar with.
"Calm down"
"There probably just weren't any qualified women for the job."
"Thanks, I'm gay now" by Norman Rockwell.
"Let me explain your lived experience to you."
See the entire thread here. Read the rest
I love it when really smart people, especially those well-versed in science, technology, and DIY, sit down and ramble on about whatever's currently tickling their proverbial fancies. In this video, Adam and Norm from Tested.com chat with the always-informative Kevin Kelly. While the conversation is free-ranging, there is a loose theme about learning-on-demand, knowledge sharing, and the power of tools to inspire possibilities.
Here are a few useful take-aways from the discussion:
Being your own signal-to-noise ratio – Kevin and Adam chuckle over instances of searching on a subject online and mainly scooping up what they’ve written about that subject. E.g. Kevin looking up “superorganism” for a talk he was giving and finding out that the Wikipedia definition was taken from him. Adam talks about the joys of lifelong curiosity and the time that Richard Feynman and Danny Hillis were trying to have dinner together but got sidetracked when the two of them became fixated on the physics of breaking dry spaghetti (i.e., how the pieces never break cleanly in two; there's are always multiple fractures). BTW: You can find out more about this here. To learn more about a product your are interested in, search for the highest price of that object on eBay to find out the broad landscape of the object, from the most expensive, feature-rich, highest quality expressions of it, on down. Use the Incognito Mode on Google to experience something you are searching for without your previous interactions influencing the search algorithms. The trio talks about how great it would be if YouTube’s algorithms were better at taking you to new places with suggested videos (rather than the same “murder’s row” of channels that you already know about). Read the rest
There are so many things to love about Stephen Colbert. For me, his unapologetic nerdiness is high on that list. His obviously large and tender heart is, too. These two impulses come together in this Critcal Role video, done as a fundraiser for Red Nose Day, dedicated to the fight against childhood poverty in America.
In the 52-minute one-on-one D&D adventure, Matt Mercer does a masterful job of taking Stephen, as the half-elf bard, Capo, and his bee sidekick, Eric, on a harrowing adventure in search of the Crimson Sphere of Generosity.
Besides the fun D&D adventure and the do-gooder intent of the episode, we also get to see Stephen play D&D for the first time in some 30 years. His joy and sense of wonder are palpable. He even has to stop to tell Matt how much he's freaking out as childhood memories of playing with friends overwhelm him. "I can feel the chest hairs growing as we speak," he jokes. At one point, Stephen laughs at one of Matt's colorful descriptions of a gory encounter with an undead beast. "I haven't heard the word ichor in over 30 years."
We also learn more about the origins of Stephen's gaming past. He was a Metamorphosis Alpha player before D&D and he got in on D&D early. He even says that he went to GenCon the year that the first AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide was released. And he admits that he still has his friend's copy (they got switched at the con) which was signed by Gary Gygax. Read the rest
Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat BattleTech Beginner Box Catalyst Games, $60 (core set), $20 (Beginner's Box)
Catalyst Games was kind enough to send me a bundle o' new BattleTech goodies. They sent the new BattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat (the core game), the BattleTech Beginner Box, the BattleMech Manual, and the Map Pack expansion.
The Beginner Box is positioned as a convenient and cheap way of getting people into the game at a third the price of the new core box. In the Beginner Box, you get 2 Mech miniatures and 8 cardboard standee Mechs. The stater rules are somewhat streamlined with no heat management/Heat Phase, no Internal Structure Diagram (ISD), and no torso movement. All of the movement and attack modifiers are retained from the original game. The rules still have those clunky and crunchy old-school mechanics under the hood, but like OGRE and Car Wars, for those of us with fond memories of this game, however cumbersome, that's maybe now part of its old-school charm.
The hardbound Mech Manual is lovely, well-designed, and laid out for easy reference. The Core Box comes with 8 beautifully sculpted Mech miniatures, a 56-page rule book, a 16-page Universe Primer, Pilot stat cards, a pad of Mech record sheets, two terrain maps, dice, and additional standees and terrain markers. The core system does retain the ISD, heat manangement, and torso movement rules. Both boxed sets also include novellas, which is kind of a nice way of immersing oneself, especially newbies, in the BattleTech universe before play. Read the rest
I have a new piece on Better Humans exploring some of the main considerations when planning, designing, and outfitting your own home shop or personal makerspace. In the piece, I talk about the benefits of a public makerspace/hackerspace, namely high-end and cutting edge tools that many consumers still can't afford (3D printers, CNC machines, laser cutters, electronics equipment) and the learning and community aspects of joining such a space. But for those who would rather work alone, many of these technologies are now reaching price-points for more widespread adoption. For this reason, I use the term "personal makerspace" to refer to this type of high-tech home workshop. And I talk about setting up home workshops in general. I cover planning and design, basic tools, specialty tools, "maker tech" (3DP, CNC, etc.), storage, workbenches and carts, lighting and power, workshop as sanctuary, and more. Here is a brief excerpt:
Read the restDon’t Hate on the Harbor Freight
In the maker community, it is something of a sport to make fun of the cheap tools found at Harbor Freight. While it is true that a lot of Harbor Freight products are on the cheaply-made side, if you’re careful, discriminating, and do your homework, you can get perfectly fine workbenches, storage tech, hand tools, and even some respectable shop machinery and equipment for hundreds less than higher-end brands.
For starters, Harbor Freight workbenches, work carts, and storage systems are perfectly fine, especially for a home makerspace on a budget. I just bought their multipurpose sheet-steel workbench for $99.
David Kaufman wanted to create a design tool that would make it easy to create repeating patterns that could be used in laser-cut (or other CNC or 3D printable) designs. The result is the Polygonia Design Suite. This free web-based app allows you to draw a few lines, and the Polygonia software clones and mirrors those lines to create your design. You can then save your design to your desktop as an image or vector drawing. From there, the design is ready to use or you can continue working on it within your favorite design software.
On the development of the project, David writes:
I have been working on a project to make it easy to create symmetrical patterns for laser cutting. It all started in May 2017 when I visited the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington, DC, where I saw an exhibit by an artisan from Afghanistan who made wood panels or screens of triangles, hexagons, and squares. I wanted to make my own using the laser cutter at my local makerspace, Nova Labs. So I got out a pad of paper, brushed off my high school math skills, and got to work. My goal was to create an online app that generates a symmetrical pattern based on the lines I draw, calculates the intersections of the lines, connects the lines, and generates a vector output file that I could use on a laser cutter.
The program is fun to play around with, doodling designs, whether you plan to render them out in the real world or not. Read the rest
Our friend Donald Bell put together an excellent little tour of some of the game designs from the alt.ctrl showcase at last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
And here's a handy link list that Donald provides to the game projects covered:
HELLCOUCH: A Couch Co-op Game (Carol Mertz, Francesca Carletto-Leon) Continuum Bacterium (HNRY) Machinaria (Black Mamba Studio) HOT SWAP: All Hands On Deck (Peter Gyory, Clement Zheng) More details on Mechamagnets More on Alt.Ctrl Game highlights of Alt.Ctrl 2018 Make: Coverage of Alt.Ctrl 2019 Read the rest
This is so wonderful. Hikaru Davis is the son of the late session drummer, Dennis Davis, who died in 2016. Among many others, Davis played with Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Roy Ayers, and Iggy Pop. But he is most famously remembered as one of David Bowie's drummers, playing on Bowie's 70s records, from Young Americans to Scary Monsters.
When Davis died, his son, then ten (now 13) decided that he wanted to know more about his father and what made him a great drummer by interviewing friends and fellow musicians who'd worked with his dad. The result is HD Projects, a YouTube channel presenting these interview videos as they're finished.
In the most recent upload, Hikaru interviews producer and longtime Bowie collaborator, Tony Visconti. In the video, Tony breaks down Davis' drumming on Bowie's Lodger track, "Look Back in Anger."
Here is Hikaru's statement about his documentary project and interviewing Tony Visconti:
Read the restAfter my father’s passing, I didn’t want to hear anybody say his name. It was not because I wanted to forget about him. It was my way of mourning. It made me sad, angry, and depressed to hear his name from someone. I wanted to keep him only inside of me. Maybe I was too selfish. But I was only 10 years old.
After a while, I started looking at social media to see what people were saying about my father. And I saw an article in Rolling Stone Magazine about Dad’s death. That’s when I saw Mr.
Two years ago, I reviewed Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt's highly-recommended Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC, a collection of deep-nerding conversations between these two musicians about beloved XTC tracks. While that book was a wonder, it understandably focused on Andy and his contributions to the band. While deepening my admiration and appreciation for the band, it left me hungry for more.
Enter What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book. I didn't think I could love an XTC book more than Complicated Game, but this book just keeps inspiring and surprising me every time I poke my nose into it. This is a delightful and dizzying collection of XTC exploration, analysis, and devotion that should stoke the soul coal of any hardcore fan of the band.
Put together by Mark Fisher, editor of Limelight, the 80s XTC zine, this book is a collected conversation between dozens of musicians deconstructing XTC songs, interviews with ALL of the band members (including their Spinal Tap-worthy causality list of drummers), kids and young music students reacting to XTC music, home studio recording tips from Andy Partridge, Andy on music theory (or lack thereof) and songwriting. Contributors include Rick Buckler (The Jam), Chris Difford (Squeeze), Debbi Peterson (The Bangles), Steven Page (Barenaked Ladies), Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa), Peter Gabriel, and many more.
Also included are a piece on drummers breaking down some of Terry Chambers more brilliant moments, members of XTC tribute bands around the world talking about their music, a cultural studies professor on the genius of Colin Moulding's lyrics, a piece about a German YouTuber who's covering his way through the XTC catalog, and the (apparently) obligatory photo tour of Swindon, England (the band's beloved home town). Read the rest
Barb Noren, of the highly-recommended YouTube maker channel, Barb Makes Things, has a fun and easy new project video. In it, she turns a Rainbow Dash My Little Pony toy into Rainbow Flux, the soldering unicorn. Read the rest
Rudy Rucker shared a link to this wonderful and idea-rich piece from Stephen Wolfram's blog. In the article, entitled "Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure," mathenaut and "undisputed king of the computerites" (Rucker) shares some really useful tips and ideas on personal workspace hacks and his ideas on productivity and workflow.
...I found out that by putting a gel strip at the correct pivot point under my wrists (and putting the mouse on a platform) I can comfortably type while I’m walking. I typically use a 5% incline and go at 2 mph—and I’m at least fit enough that I don’t think anyone can tell I’m walking while I’m talking in a meeting. (And, yes, I try to get potentially frustrating meetings scheduled during my walking time, so if I do in fact get frustrated I can just “walk it off” by making the treadmill go a little faster.)
I’d actually been thinking about walking and working for a long time. Twenty years ago I imagined doing it with an augmented reality display and a one-handed (chorded) keyboard. But the technology didn’t arrive, and I wasn’t even sure the ergonomics would work out (would it make me motion sick, for example?).
Read the rest...Last spring, I was at a fancy tech event, and I happened to be just out of the frame of a photo op that involved Jeff Bezos walking with a robotic dog. I wasn’t personally so excited about the robotic dog. But what really interested me was the person walking out of the frame on the other side, intently controlling the dog—using a laptop that he had strapped on in front of him as if he were selling popcorn.
