dorkbot!

[trochee]

Last night I went to Seattle Dorkbot's 24th meeting (my first!) and had a blast.

I arrived late to CoCA, but they were still introducing the night's events. The announcer plugged the beer upstairs, and as she wrapped up the introduction and minor announcements, I grabbed a beer and settled in for the talks.

These talks were really entertaining -- a kooky idea for using speech as a source for MIDI melody design; a collection of bizarro ideas out of the warped mind of Bill Beaty, and a company trying --seriously!-- to build a space elevator.

All this was followed by "Open Dork" -- basically, show and tell -- which included discussion of Seattle Mind Camp, some guy's theory of why the earth has a magnetic field (um, "the air has charge", more or less), various cool tools (universal joints -- in Lego!) and Dave (last name unknown) presenting his attempt to reconstruct his hippie dad's psychedelic light machine, which involves incandescent light, polarizing filters, and differentially-polarizing cellophane cylinders on turntables.

Fun. So nice to spend some time with geeks who love their thing and aren't afraid of it -- just playing, and without a sense of competition. I'm going back.

Comments

[xaosenkosmos.livejournal.com]

why the earth has a magnetic field (um, "the air has charge", more or less)

Electric Universe, maaan!

And did you actually get to see Bill Beaty? If so, does he seem sane, or out there? It's really hard to tell from his webpages. I have a lot of respect for him, he designed the static electricity motor i used for a science fair project one year. To power it, i used his TV static collection technique, which hurts like a motherfucker. Still a really fun idea, though. I should try making one again, now that i'm old enough to do a decent job of it.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yes, Beaty was there.

no, I don't think he's crazy -- just a little intense. He's certainly a serious hacker, but in the physical domain not the digital one.

Actually, I really liked him. I talked to him for a little while afterwards.

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

Awesome. That's like me wanting to go to the sheep and wool festival, to be around people who understand why I am so excited :)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I think that is an excellent simile.

(You and lapartera should talk about knitting!)

knitting and also...

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

I think I am going to add her -- didn't know that she was a midwife, something that I am still considering for a career move down the road, perhaps...

Re: knitting and also...

[trochee.livejournal.com]

hee hee.

In addition to being a midwife, lapartera is also my mother. She is neat, and I think you'll like each other.

Re: knitting and also...

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

I know, I remember you saying that in the past. I think that is cool that she is on LJ. I set my mom up with an account, but she is too confused to figure out how to use it, or even to sign in to read my protected entries :) I am going to visit my parents, maybe I can give them an in-person tutorial.

Re: knitting and also...

[trochee.livejournal.com]

heh. yes, I am privileged to come from a technologically-gifted family -- lapartera and all her brothers are very tech-savvy, especially when compared to the rest of their generation.

[mythalethe.livejournal.com]

So how will they launch the elevator? Seems like it would be a bit hard to lower the nanotube ribbon from space and hit the ground site, and I can't imagine how you would bootstrap it from the ground without a serious tower of babel!

(I'll join you for the next one if you want company!)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

their crazy idea is to lower it from space. yes. I think the goal is to do it from geostationary orbit, slowly, (where "slowly" means only 200 mph) and then catch it at the bottom.

I found the whole thing quite marvelous if unlikely. It would be fun to have you come along -- I'll be sure to publicize the next one more.