Random Maker Faire 2012 Shots.

Qu-bd

I have not seen this machine work. But, it's now moved up to be the most promising candidate I've seen.

It is a combination 3D printer/CNC machine. It roughly prices at 2200.00. Depending on which motor you want.

I am not a huge fan of combo machines. In my experience they don't do anything exceedingly well. Yet, they do everything marginally well.

Still, this was the smallest CNC machine I've ever seen. I'd buy it just for that because you can cut metal.


Metal heat sync.






Here is a link to their website. Which isn't live yet.

Maker Faire 2012 - part 3.

Shapeways and Cubify continue to be my 3D printing platform of choice. They have the best finished and professional looking product. However, there were a lot more companies this year. And at least one company might move up to the top spot. But I don't have room in this post.

There were so many new players this year, that I'm starting to believe this is going to be a real technology sector.

Shapeways also prints incredibly delicate stuff that moves and is multicolor.





The Cubify van was there. Which I think appeals to your pre-teen market. And girls. It's the best looking 3D printer.

Maker Faire 2012 - part 2.

There was enough new 3D printing stuff, I'm going to have to break these up into several posts.

I believe all this stuff was printed from a makerbot. They've reached the simple toy stage.

Maker Faire 2012 - Part 1.

When I first got to Maker Faire on Sunday, I immediately started to melt down. The first two buildings I went into - I wasn't sure if I was at Maker Faire, or a County Fair. And I'd already waded through a sea of Prius's with Obama stickers telling me to Coexist.

There were booths teaching kids how to make fire survivor style.



There were booths teaching you how to raise chickens. Despite numerous city codes telling you that this isn't allowed.



They had tiny houses. Which I don't understand the appeal of. It's like no one has ever seen the inside of a camper. I guess those are city dwellers for ya. Maybe the shed exterior confused them into thinking it was something else. It's just a camper that looks like a shed!



They were popping popcorn with the sun. Which takes a lot longer than you would expect.



Oh, and then they had the lock picking booth.

Now, what I know about lock picking is really stale at this point - but I used to have a very good locksmith friend until he found a girlfriend.. And there were tons of rules about this kind of behaviour.

Not to mention, if there is anything young boys come standard with - it's knowing how to set fire and break into things. And besides, who picks locks anymore? You just run down to the hardware store and buy a lock cutter. Problem solved.

First I have to tell you about the De Lorean.

To tell you the truth - I hate these cars. They are not rare. There is one at every car show.

I don't understand what men see in this whole boat car thing. Or the flying car thing. I am not even sure I've seen that movie all the way through. They aren't even a fast car! I've never seen one on the road. I hate em.

I was trying to get some shots of a bike. Getting a clean shot at these events can be challenging - so it can take a couple of minutes. Usually Mr S. will wander.

All of a sudden he walks up to me and says - they have a hovercraft De Lorean.

Me - Nooooo! Lets go see that.

There is suppose to be a youtube video, and as soon as I track it down I will add it to this post.

Maker Faire 2012 tease.

I laughed, I cried. I wanted to punch people with double wide strollers in the neck.

It's going to take me a little while to unpack my stuff, and figure out what pictures I like enough to post. I can tell you right now though, it's going to involve a lot of 3D printing.

soft like babies

I thought this was sort of an interesting concept. Especially if The Cloud really does become widely adopted. Companies are going to have these huge server farms spitting out heat that they need to control.

This company Green Revolution takes liquid cooling to a whole nuther level. With baby oil. And I'm sure some other patented process to keep the mix pure.

Right now they are in the demo phase, and are renting out these small enclosures for roughly 300 bucks a month. This stuff isn't suppose to hurt your components at all.

No toxic chemicals. If you spill any - you can just pop out a blow up pool and rent a couple of girls in bikini's. Problem solved. (That's my add)

Yesterday, to gain visitor access at a corporation, I had to sign a non disclosure agreement. Which is standard.

BUT - I also had to sign an agreement to recycle. Two separate signatures. Seriously.

To be honest, I didn't read the whole recycle part added onto the NDA because my eyes were locked in the up position. So, I wasn't sure if I had to recycle anything I came into contact with. Or commit to a life of recycling.

I seriously had a half full coke and I was paralyzed on what I should do with it to throw it away. It's recyclable, but it's wet. Uuuuuh. Fuck!

Pictures I should have posted.

It's an awesome time to go IPO.
Never been a better time. Oh wait, thats real estate.

One of the rarest cars on earth.

Oh. I can tell you were expecting a super car. Just because it's rare, doesn't make it good!

This is a Think electric car. I believe there are only 400 of these in existence. The car is long on drama though. I am glad to have seen it. It is rare. Most of the other cars are in government fleets. Maybe in a basement in Florida.

Notice the plastic body. It looks like you could run into anything and it would pop back out trash can style.

"We've said we're out to make Indiana the electric vehicle state. It's beginning to look like the state capital will be Elkhart County," Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said in January 2010 in announcing government incentives used to lure Think to his state.

Instead, the Hoosier state's big bet has been a bust. The plant is devoid of activity; there are just two employees. A Russian investor who recently purchased Think's bankrupt parent in Norway has been silent about its future. A government-backed Indianapolis battery maker that was to supply Think wrote off a $73 million investment in the car company and on Thursday declared bankruptcy. Two unrelated electric truck makers Indiana planned to nurture have yet to get off the ground.

Indiana's foray into electric vehicles is a cautionary tale for states in hot pursuit of high tech manufacturing jobs. Think's story illustrates how politicians so badly wanted to stimulate job growth that they showered it and the battery supplier with tax breaks and incentives while at the same time failing to determine whether there was a market for the car: a plastic two-seater with a top speed of about 65 mph and a price tag approaching $42,000.


" Read the whole article here.

Lately.

I feel like I need ever greater sources of fun stimulus to offset the constant stream of bad news. And when it doesn't happen I fall into a funk. It feels really dysfunctional, but I know why I do it. You almost can't go through daily life without noticing the really crappy ways the world has changed. Knowing full well that will only get worse.

Sure, you move on with your life. And I can be distracted for hours, but by the end of the day that feeling of dread creeps back. A constant feeling that the world could break at any moment.

I know the world is depressing, and every day I try to strike a balance between posting stuff that will distract my readers, and posting the stuff that is agitating me with the world. It just seems the world is kicking fun's ass by a large margin and winning.

It's magic.

One of the most fascinating new technologies I saw last week was called electroadhesion.

I have to admit - when I saw this at SRI International last week, I didn't quite understand how it worked. I understood the application they were trying to use it for. Minimizing product damage from supply chains. Also minimizing damage of materials in the manufacturing process.

The fascinating thing is - it will temporarily adhere to pretty much any surface through electro static. Square, round, wood, concrete.

Ultimately I assume they want to marry this product to robots. Maybe to create sticky fingers. I'm making that part up - because I can see a lot of applications for it, but I don't know what their real plans are for it. Right now it just looks like magic.

This first video shows it adhering to a round object. The second video explains more how it works. If you have ADD like I do - skip to around the 7 minute mark.

Vgo

Pronounced Veego.



Last week I saw this telepresence bot and I wanted to post about it because it was the first such bot that I could see inside my house. I didn't even care what it did - I loved it so much. I figured the brains could be updated.

The style was simple and sleek. Most of the other telepresence bots look like mop heads or are giant beasts of a machine. This Vgo bot looked like it was tailored to a house setting rather than an office building.

The only things I wanted to know was how easily it tipped (because it reminded me of Serge the butler bot from Caprica), and how much it cost (6 grand).



Luckily I found a youtube vid which talked about it capabilities.

Things I didn't know.

Last night my town had a pretty good power outage. Someone took out a transformer. Which means I got to learn something new about Solar!

Apparently - if you own solar, you are not protected against blackouts unless you have a "very unusual off the grid type installation". The National Electricity Code states that you can't have a solar system that feeds electricity back to the grid as not to electrocute some poor lineman who thinks the grid is dark when some systems are feeding electricity back to the grid.

The grid connected power systems have to include a feature that guarantees they will shut down as soon as the grid drops power and must stay shut until the grid has been stable for 5 minutes. Which eliminated any reason I would buy a solar system. And, I bet a lot of people don't know about this because power is fairly stable until it isn't.

This is also interesting because California has two nuke plants down at the moment.

So, here is to hoping we won't have an above average summer for heat. Because you know - California is famous for it's rolling blackouts.

The ultimate douche mobile.

I saw my first Chevy Volt in the wild today. And, it just really made me burn.

We have an Obama 2012 sticker, a 99% sticker, and a "Thanks Barry" license plate. The only thing missing is a Solyndra parking lot pass.

Who knew?

A couple of days ago I found myself at a conference for remote presence bots.

One of the things that surprised me is - Rubbermaid is in this sector now. I haven't checked the stock in a while because it is one of those languishy stocks.

I might have actually told you more about what Rubbermaid has to offer, but I got one shot off and I could see the salesman in the back immediately hone in on me.

You don't want me to take pictures I said. No, he replied. I have to talk to you, he went on.

I was sure this was going to be the first time I was going to be asked to remove a photo that I'd taken. He finished talking to the person he was having a conversation with, then told me I could go. I seriously thought I was being lightly detained. So - I'm free to go, I asked him. It was really weird because all the other exhibitors were very open and wanted the world at large to see what they had to offer.

After the Rubbermaid salesman figured out I was not a threat I asked if I could get a long shot of people using it. After convincing him I wasn't trying to steal his IP. It was the most bizarre thing.

Yet, I bet every single person reading this post didn't know Rubbermaid is in this sector. Which is why these companies should welcome bloggers.

I show you the future.

Mobile Xray technology.

I didn't know this was a "thing" until yesterday, and now I am in love with it. Instead of having to go to a hospital to get Xrays - an Xray machine will come to you.

The machine from MinXray made me the most excited. It completely folds up. One person can transport it. And it will fit in your average Nissan Cube. It doesn't even need a van. Sadly, they don't have a youtube video up, or I would have taken video while I was there.

The sales guy said they are already using these in many applications like mines. Normally if someone gets hurt they have to fly them out and back. If it isn't a serious injury, it can be pretty expensive. Now they can tell if it is just a sprain right on the spot.



Canon makes a ruggedized version called RadPro to drop out of planes for the military.



And you might start seeing these cars around. They aren't transporting finished Xrays, they are making them right on the spot. No toxic chemicals. All digital.

What's not to love?

To you, with love - from my inner tard. END.

I get men (presumably) coming to my blog all the time looking for pictures of cars with flat paint jobs. I am only posting these pictures to let them know - flat colors are so 2011. The new trend is - effing giant.

And the reason I know this is because almost every exotic sports car maker is coming out with a behemoth of an SUV. I think even Bugatti is going to have one. Which resulted in this conversation with Mr S.

Me - Wouldn't it be great if they stuck those giant sand tires on it!

Mr S. gave me the "no - that would be horrible - look"

Me - Oh, my inner tard went too far? Sarcastically of course.



I don't know my the color balance of some of my shots came out really blue. It annoys me. So don't say anything about it.