Category: Uncategorized

Just a quick note. My publisher, No Starch Press, is having an across-the-board sale for Father’s Day. You’ll save 40% on *everything* if you use the coupon code “DADROCKS” ADDED BONUS: Most of their hardcopy books include the DRM-free digital version for FREE (usually in PDF, ePub, and Kindle format–so that’s basically another $10 to $30 of value right there).
My book is obviously a pretty good fit for dads, but since most blog readers likely already have a copy, I also suggest these titles:
FOR GUN-NUT LEGO DADS

FOR PEACE LOVING LEGO DADS


GENERIC NERDERY

FYI, I’ve reviewed a few of these titles in detail here.
(Sorry that the “Generic Nerdery” is sorta thin. I’ve seen pages for a few really exciting programming books No Starch has coming out aimed at kids, but those are still in pre-order, so I’ll leave them for later.)

A Virus That Helps Charge Your Cellphone – NYTimes.com

The article is actually surprisingly detailed, and even includes a short (and possibly somewhat cryptic) video:

And here’s another really lovely orbital water experiment with Don Pettit:

Aside: My mom is here to watch my newish baby while a friendly giant crushes my basement floor in order to swap out a collapsed sewer line. Mom glanced at this video and exclaimed, “He’s on the moon?!?” When I explained that, no, he was on the International Space Station, Mom was visibly let down. Guy standing on an inert hunk of rock and playing the digeridoo? *OMG!* Guy sitting in the crowning technological achievement of our species and playing a didgeridoo? *Menh.*
In a nutshell, this is everything that’s wrong with the Baby Boom Generation, folks.
(via here and here)

Continue reading “Astronaut Don Pettit Plays Didgeridoo in SPAAAAAAACE!”

A gentle nudge: If you’re looking for a Dad’s Day gift for a fella with school-age children, you can do worse than my book SNIP, BURN, SOLDER, SHRED: Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make with Your Kids. Fully certified dads have said stuff like:

and

and

(That last one’s from Rob Malda, founder of Slashdot.org, and really nice cat.)

If you really want to stick it to The Man, you can always order directly from the publisher. You’ll get the ebooks (including a Kindle version) *FREE*, and if you use the coupon code SHRED you’ll save 35 percent.
Order soonishly from whoever and the book is sure to arrive in time for Father’s Day.
Alternately, if your dad or hubby is into clockwork sex robots, maybe try this steampunk novella on Kindle–or the supercool, handmade print chapbook.
So, that’s my pitch. Thank you, and goodnight!

I’ve worked with Bilal Ghalib in the past (we hosted one of his “Pocket Factory” 3-D printing crash-course workshops at Workantile), so it was a delight to see him pop up out of the blue with something new and rad:

Yup: He’s using the MakeyMakey USB keyboard interface (a Kickstarter project I geeked about a few weeks back; it’s now funded at 1,700% [!!!] with 6 days to go!) to play with his food. Nice!
This is precisely the reason I jumped on the MakeyMakey funding bandwagon: Obtuse interfaces for musical instruments inspire all sorts of crazy new ways to rock out, and I *love* that. Here’s another great MakeyMakey ad hoc instrument:

FYI, I’m just now starting in on my second DIY book with No Starch Press. This time around it’s going to be all musical instruments, mostly electronic; expect lots of janky little synths with nary an equal-tempered keyboard in sight, and inappropriate uses of conventional technologies. Also at least one ukulele.

I came to steampunk writing fiction, so when I started occasionally going to cons and speaking on panels, I was caught flat-footed by the whole dress-up end of the movement–which actually seems to be the genre’s dominant facet (which was news to me, which is why it’s sorta shocking that people invite me to speak on panels). I’m not a huge dress-up guy myself (although I’ve got a childhood soft-spot for Ren Festivals, and am as impressed by bodiced/corseted decolletage as the next human that’s into ladies), but the handy-craftsmanship folks bring to their steampunk garb is eye-catching. Beyond sewing (little of which is simple), there’s a whole universe of leather-working, woodworking, metalworking, soldering, tinkering, and scavenging necessary to make these costumes. And, man, then there’s the *hats and goggles!*

I’m sort of inclined to write off the dress-up end of any artistic movement as foppish preening, but it’s been interesting to see elements that start out just being costume-ball frippery filter back into the literature. For example, you see that breather mask? As near as I can tell, these came into steampunk fashion from some backwater tribal-industrial post-Burning Man rave-scene affectation. I find them creepy, and kind of assume they have Mad Max sexual overtones. Whatever your opinion, they aren’t abundant–or even notable–in canonical steampunk lit. But I’m now seeing breathers like these show up in *stories*, the rationale being that *if* you had the Industrial Revolution lead directly into high-level computation, then you’d have exponentially increased the consumption of fuel–which was all wood and coal–and thus brought on the complete blighting of London, for example, much, much more quickly.
I spent a lot of time kicking around the merchant hall at the World Steam Expo last week, pawing fancy hats and generally making a pest of myself. Now, maybe I’m jaded, but when I’m looking at a huge display of hundreds of funky leather hats, my inclination is to say “Man, there’s some crazy Upton Sinclair nightmare of a factory in Shenzhen where 10-year-olds crank these out for nickels!” But then I ended up talking with the sales folk–who it turned out were *actual* milliners–and I was just gobsmacked: They crank these out from scratch in Fremont, OH. The company that made the pith helmets in those pics is Blonde Swan, and their janky website doesn’t even come close to doing justice to the variety of their hats, or the craftsmanship of those lids. The Universe where I’d pay $150 for a hat that *can’t* save my life or grant wishes is far, far away from here, but I’m gonna level with you: These hats are *cheap* at that price. The gal I was talking to (not pictured, sadly) was a cutter–whole days spent cutting leather to make top hats, twenty at a time. And they’ve got seamstresses there that can crank out those hats as fast as she can cut the leather. This is an all above-board, all-American operation. That there is this kind of demand for leather top-hats with brass gewgaws stitched to them, in this economy, simply boggles the mind.
Likewise, I spent a goodly amount of time talking to Abbey Manalli of Altered History, from whom I bought these patches:

(my boy claimed the monocled lion, but I get to keep the Navy squid)
First glance: they’re nice designs competently wrought; a solid buy. But then you pick them up, and discover that they’re not your standard-issue glue-backed embroidered patches (which are sort of a post-WWII technique), but rather an embroidered design on wool felt. Why’d Manalli bother? Because that’s how insignia were made in the late 19th and early 20th Century. She wanted to be period to a period that doesn’t exist, so she tracked down the only wool felt producer in the US (located in rural Massachusetts) to source the material, and then hooked up with a crazy embroiderer in Milwaukee who was into the aesthetic, and thus willing to futz around with a material no one had used in mass producing patches since my *grandfather* (now of blessed memory) was born.
So, there’s no big point here, except for to say that there isn’t a Hot Topic for steampunk fashion yet; even if someone’s togs are strictly store-bought, there’s still a helluva lot of good ole American elbow grease[*] in the making.

Continue reading “Steampunk and DIY”

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 on Vimeo

Gaiman offers *excellent* advice for *any* sort of freelancer at the 14-minute mark. The rest is good if you like Gaiman, or writing, or fiction, or comix, or art, or English accents, but the minute starting around 14:00 is *vital* of you roll freelance. The bit at around 18:40 hits me in the right place as well, because I’ve been pretending like I am what I am for a solid 20 years, and it’s more-or-less working.

Jeri Ellsworth and her Commodore Bass.MOV – YouTube

This crazy C64 SID-enhanced bass is *awesome!* Her achievements are *crazy!* (Yeah, she doesn’t have my looks, but it seemed sorta petty to bring that up, so I’m letting that go.)

MaKey MaKey: An Invention Kit for Everyone by Jay Silver — Kickstarter

I hate to come off as a hyper fanboy, but this is so fantastically *RAAAAAAD!!!* Both a graceful and powerful wedge for folks to use to peel open the human-computer interface. So cool!

Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate, letterpressed cover – a set on Flickr

Last week Fritz Swanson and I printed these *awesome as Hell* new covers for the “patrons-only” print edition of “Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate.” These covers are handset using a mix of antique lead type and wooden poster type (i.e., the kind used on Old West *WANTED* posters), with a few modern elements (like the graphic on the back, which is a magnesium block Fritz had made a few years back). They were printed using Fritz’s century-old Chandler & Price New Style letterpress–which we hauled back to Michigan from New York a few years ago, and were almost crushed by (long story; immaterial here). (FYI, the letterpress shown in that Wikipedia entry is Fritz’s *actual* press in his Manchester, MI, workshop. NOT SHOWN: Me off in the corner cursing my damn stupid eyes as I realize I’ve once again set all of the type completely backwards.)

This print edition–which runs 70-some pages–has letterpress-printed covers and laser-printed interiors with original illustrations by Chad Sell. Each book has a hand-sewn binding and is individually distressed, signed, and numbered.
If you just want to read the story–which is well thought of, if poorly publicized–you can drop a buck or two and buy it for Kindle through Amazon or pick-what-you-pay for the DRM-free ebook (including a Kindle-compliant mobi file, PDFs, digital extras, and more). But if you want a unique steampunk curio–perfect for giftifying or stashing in a very confusing time-capsule–then the Patron’s Print Edition is the way to go. Want a customized message or dedication? Just mention it in the “notes” when you pay.
As for the story itself: