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

[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.