This last September, La Machine hit the streets of Liverpool. Enlivening discussion, stimulating the creative juices of the public, and generally building community awareness of the arts, La Machine acted as a brilliant tool for the active imagination.













Extracted from the La Machine website.

La Machine has come and gone…

Thousands of delighted onlookers lined the streets of Liverpool, waiting to greet the fifty-foot high spider dubbed ‘La Princesse’ by her creators, French theatrical engineers La Machine. Vast in scale and spectacular in execution, this breathtaking new commission was undoubtedly a highlight of the City’s European Capital of Culture celebrations in September 2008.

From the moment when astonished commuters discovered the giant arachnid clinging to a building next to the railway station, to the spectacular finale five days later, the creature stopped the city in its tracks and captured the hearts of Liverpudlians and visitors alike. Will she ever return?

La Macine comes from the creative brain of Artichoke Productions

This is the stuff of inspiration. From gizmodo.com

Georgia Tech actually has a Robotic Musicianship Group in its Center for Music Technology, which means that some lucky so-and-so's are getting government funding to form hippie drum circles with an array of artificial companions. In the video above, two robots demonstrate their ability to listen to grooves laid down by living breathing meatbags, and jump in on their own instruments when the mood strikes.

Read the whole article here.

Below is an improved slide-show of photos from Maker Faire Austin 2008.

The following is a brief slide-show of my experience at the 2008 Austin Maker Faire.

This coming Saturday and Sunday, Maker Faire will be hosting over 300 "Makers". Here's just some of the commercial exhibitors from the Maker Faire website (not that I expect you to read every single one of these, but just skim the list, you'll some pretty notable and interesting names):

• Austin Chronicle
  

• The Austinist
  

• Boing Boing
  

• CLIF BAR & Co
  

• CraftStylish.com
  

• Crafty Chica
  

• DREMEL
  

• Ecology Action
  

• Edible Austin
  

• Epilog Laser
  

• Estes-Cox
  

• Everywhere Mag
  

• Fallbrook Technologies,Inc.
  

• Freelancers Union
  

• Geek Squad
  

• Goodwill Computer Museum
  

• JPG Magazine
  

• Laughing Squid
  

• MAKE: Magazine
  

• MAKE: Television
  

• McSweeney's Publishing
  

• Microsoft .Net Micro Framework
  

• Nuts and Volts Magazine
  

• OnlineMetals
  

• O'Reilly Media
  

• Parallax, Inc.
  

• San Francisco Flower and Garden Show
  

• SERVO Magazine
  

• ShopBot Tools, Inc.
  

• Singer Sewing Co
  

• SparkFun Electronics
  

• Stout Tool Corp
  

• TAP Plastics
  

• Trotec Laser
  

• Whole Foods Market
  

• You Gizmos
  

• Yahoo!

Groups and associations include:

• Austin Alternative Photographic Group

• Austin Children’s Museum

• Austin Community College

• Austin Craft Mafia

• Austin Cycle Circus

• Austin Cycling Association

• Austin Enchanted Forest

• Austin Film Society

• Austin Green Art

• Austin Lace Makers Guild

• Austin Farmers Market

• Austin Modders

• Austin Museum of Digital Art

• Austin Technology Council

• AustinEV

• Backyard Ballistics

• Barcamp

• Calcars

• Center for Community Based NonProfit Organizations at Austin Community College

• Central Texas Engineers Week

• City of Austin

• Cyclecide

• Dorkbot

• Ecology Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• First Night Austin

• League of Technical Voters

• IEEE Central Texas

• IEEE Consumer Electronics Society

• The Robot Group

• Social Media Club

• South by SouthWest

• Sustainable Food Center

• Swap-O-Rama-Rama

• University of North Texas, School of Visual Arts

• University of Texas Austin

• University of Texas Robotics and Automation Society

• Velocity Motor Vehicles

• Weavers and Spinners Society Austin (WSSA)

Finally, for those of you with insanely fast internet connections you can watch the following promo clip entitled, "Maker Faire Austin in the 21st Century (The movie!)".

For up-to-date info visit the Maker Faire blog. This is the kind of stuff nerds get pumped up about. This is the kind of thing that when ordinary people attend, they discover that they're secretly nerds. Unless you have some really good excuse not to be there, then you should go. This is the now.

I recently came across this sketch from Ben Caldwell imagining what retro, cyberpunked Nazgul from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would look like.


If you look closely you can see the rich details on the the bottom "steed". The decals eerily resemble an eye falling from the sky. The top craft though, seems more fitting for "General Grievous" from Star Wars.