Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!

 Ready for some Tesla action? How about Arc Attack playing a geek favorite?

Like the beloved Doctor, I am bumping back and forth in time. I shot the video on June 28, 2013 at the Kansas City Maker Faire. Semi-fascinating detail: the video jumps in the first thirty seconds. Electrical resonance is an interesting thing. The vertical posts on one of those small crowd control barriers was aligned with the coils. They were toasty and tingly. The people leaning on the horizontal top rail didn't notice a thing.

Through the miracle of Blogger scheduling, I'm writing this blog entry on August 17, 2012.  Really, is it possible to plan Tesla Day too far in advance?

Here in August of 2012, what reminded me about this was an article in the Guardian UK about a fund drive to buy the famous Wardeclyffe property.  Agfa film spent millions cleaning up the toxic mess left by a company it had acquired.  It is on the market and the owner of The Oatmeal website is leading a Kickstarter drive.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Fast forward to June 30, 2012...

It happened! The Oatmeal indeed raised enough money to purchase the property and have some seed money left for a museum.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum_saved 

Here are some photos of Tesla coil awesomeness to tide us over until next year. Get yourself to an area Maker Faire or hacker space. You will not regret it! The full photo album live on my Google+ account. Join, Plus1 and share. It is a pretty groovy place; especially for the photo inclined.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114811329730901691376/albums/5894763227867797185

The name of this band is Arc Attack.

15kW and 600,000 Volts of pure, high frequency Tesla goodness. The streamers on this design travel around ten feet.

If you want to enter Arc Attack's Faraday cage, you have to promise to dance. In their words: "Dance, cage monkeys, dance!"

We are happily on vacation in a far away land. Your comments are not lost, but they may not be moderated until July 15th. Thanks for reading!

Semi-creative Copyright Statement: Use these words and images for commercial use with permission, you shall. All original content is Copyright DwayneF of Vintage Technology Obsessions. Like, link, repost, Plus1 and share the Blogger love. We have implied threats beyond legal remedies involving Tesla coils - just an FYI.

Awesome Things Seen at the Kansas City Maker Faire

Welcome to the Kansas City Maker Faire! I took my younger daughter, the Gingercat, to the pre-show party Friday night before the show and the first day of the show. These are a few of the things we saw. A larger collection is located on my Google+ stream at
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114811329730901691376/albums/5895075333409105857

As is typical in geek events, cosplay characters roamed the show. The Iron Man entourage was a big hit! The female Iron Man was a little scary.

Gingercat was wielding my old Sony NEX-3. She now has a weapon to shoot back when she catches me aiming a lens her way!

Last year, I posted about a great IBM Selectric conversion. It has been updated and no longer needs a laptop to drive it. See version one at http://vintagetechobsessions.blogspot.com/2012/07/maker-faire-kc-part-1-printing.html

Behold the little Raspberry Pi processor that now drives this beast.

The creator had fun wandering around is costume as well. The Hammerspace makerspace and the Cowtown Computer Congress shared space and projects at the show.

And in the fun and weird category, here is a creation from one of guys at Hammerspace. He built this contraption in two weeks out of scraps laying around the shop. Children fish for babies to feed to the mother. No worries; new babies come along just as quickly.

Inky goodness! The lino cut print goes in my office. The best part about Maker Faire is getting to meet and talk with people about their projects.

This sculptor does large scale bronze. His pantograph device is pretty amazing!

Maker Faire wouldn't be complete without PowerWheels racing! This is what you get when you mix adults, battery powered kiddie cars and a whole bunch of modifications. They staged racing heats and endurance runs over the two day show.

We were happy to see Super Awesome Sylvia and her Dad, the Tech Ninja. Sylvia was showing her home brew WaterColorBot. She earned a spot at the White House Science Fair and got the run of the house while the parental units chilled.

This one is for Richard P on the current state of 3D printing. I reread his comment from last year regarding 3D printing. It was everywhere and is barely a novelty among the maker crowd today. Later this year, Staples will carry a household printer for less than $800. Kinkos may start printing services in stores. People are using Google Hangouts to collaborate on countless useful projects including mechanical hands, artificial limbs, machine parts and casts. Auto parts are made out of sintered, printed metal and MIT is experimenting with printing entire buildings.

Kansas City even has its own R2D2 builders club. These are not your run-of-the-mill models. Note the machined joints. Gorgeous!

Members of the Airship Noir group ran a little experimental station. I think this guest is being reprogrammed. Be sure to read the sign on the Jacob's ladder.

With almost 300 makers in the house, Union Station is getting pretty crowded with overflow in the parking lot and most of Science City. We almost didn't stop in one of the side rooms. Good thing we dropped in or we would have missed this cool device. What a great way to use unloved analog technology!

The photos here and on Google+ don't even scratch the surface. The show is a phenomenal success. The maker movement is strong in Kansas City with abandoned buildings being turned into maker hives. There is a reason why Google chose Kansas City for its first fiber Internet project. For more technology and artistic greatness, checkout #makerfairekc on Twitter.

I'll leave you with one of the headliners taking one of Nikola Tesla's inventions to the next level.

 Yet another Copyright notice *sigh* Yep, the words and images are Copyright DwayneF of Vintage Technology Obsessions. Having tired of vague threats, I will simply remind the reader that all content creators deserve their due. Please like, share, post, Google +1, etc. and share the social love. Follow and I will likely follow you back. Commercial use requires prior written authorization from the Copyright holder. And so on...

Typewriter Day Pronouncement: A Recent Convert!

Oops. That would be "altar". That's what I get for typing late at night.

Happy Typewriter Day to all of you! May you attract many new converts to the cause and may the typewriter of your dreams show up at a thrift store for five dollars. Miracles do happen!

Before I sign off, I have to share two images from our day at the Art of the Car Concours in Kansas City. It was, after all, our distraction from the awesome that is Typewriter Day.

Image the First: My other daughter has taken to photography like a duck to water. She has excellent situational awareness and likes being on the other end of the lens about as much as I do.

 

Image the Second: Because she was enjoying the cars and taking loving photos, some owners struck up conversations. One couple invited her to sit in their drivable show car (the best kind in my opinion).

Yes, the cars were a distraction, but I hope they made you happy, anyway. As always, thanks for visiting my little corner of the Internet.

Geek Pride Day! The 2013 Edition

Happy Geek Pride Day!

Today we recognize one of the defining moments in modern Geekdom that was the release of Star Wars on May 25, 1977. As with last year, I will celebrate by featuring the some of the awesomely geeky things I have featured on this blog or photographed in the last year.

Sometimes I even surprise myself. What kind of a geek put this blog together, anyway?

This is the Army that turned the tide in the war against the Mayan Destructors.

Could it be the Mayans came up with that world ending calendar concept as an elaborate means to introduce a new typewriter acquisition?  Anything is possible in tinfoil hat conspiracy land.

The Christmas Squirrel is an astute military commander.

The freakingly amazing Curiosity!

Celebrating a special birthday.

Experts in green inspect a repainted machine.

Zombie on the streets of Kansas City. I hope no one steals their coffee.

The House Full of Nerds viewing the Transit of Venus.

Typecasting on vacation.

I got to see five separate Shakespeare performances since Geekday 2012.

A Maker, making.

You never know what will turn up at the local Maker Faire. Go, you must.

Your career at NASA

The Vintage Technology Obsessions crew visits San Francisco for Greenbuild 2012

Godzilla put up a valiant fight against the Mayan Destructors. Thank goodness the world didn't end!

The absolute highlight in my year in Geekdom was staying up to watch the livestream of Curiosity landing on Mars. This bit of awesome was brought to us via the great, modern disruptive force known as the Internet. It is gratifying to see personalities from the mission team become media rock stars. Really, we live in the Golden Age of Geek.

Photographing my screen.

That's without mentioning the amazing photos from the ISS courtesy of Chris Hadfield (my daily Twitter fix) and all of the awesome news rolling out of Elon Musk's technological market disruption empire. Tesla just became the first auto maker to fully pay back its government loans and is attempting to circumvent the dealer franchise model of selling cars. SpaceX completed the first commercial mission to the ISS. Geeks, without a doubt, are on a roll!

Oh, and thanks to Yahoo, Flickr and digital imaging, everyone is now a professional photographer!

Prom photos at the Duke University Gardens last week. Sure, Yahoo's CEO rolled back the snarky comment about professional photographers, but it appears she really meant it. Does that mean every 12-year-old that makes an app is on par with a Google system architect?

On a personal note, I am especially proud of my Geeklings. They have had an amazing year full of music, drama and obsessive academic over-achievement. Highlights include Geekling the Elder playing Curtis in a school production of "Taming of the Shrew" and Geekling the Minor (aka: gingercat) being recognized in the Duke TIP 7th Grade Talent Search.

 

In case you are interested, the 2012 parade of geek that is Vintage Technology Obsessions is at http://vintagetechobsessions.blogspot.com/2012/05/geek-pride-day.html

Thanks all for reading this little blog of mine! I would probably do it without anyone looking, but the hit counts (approaching 50,000), Google Plus Ones and comments from people like you are gratifying.