Maker Movement Gaining Recognition There have been a number of stories in mainstream media recently recognizing the “Maker movement” exemplified by our own magazines Make: and Craft: and online sites like Etsy and Instructables. (Disclosure: O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures is an investor in Instructables.) This past week’s article in Business Week, Arts and Crafts Find New Life Online is a great example. (There was also a great article in the NY Times a few weeks ago, entitled Handymade 2.0.) Many of these companies say they trace their lineage to the open-source technology movement formed in the ’90s by computer programmers who wanted to create software anyone could build upon. One of the things that the article didn’t pick up on, though, was the crossover between technology and craft. I still remember my surprise and delight at the first Maker Faire. That’s a big tent! I wrote about this idea in detail in 2000 in an article entitled Remaking the Peer to Peer Meme.
Making 'MakerCulture: Taking Things into Our Own Hands' Check out the blog, wiki, podcasts, photostream and YouTube channel and feature stories, all part of a new series on The Tyee. Behind the scenes as 45 students create the MakerCulture series. For 12 weeks in the fall of 2009, 45 online journalism students at Ryerson University and the University of Western Ontario worked together to document the evolving Maker Culture community. Maker Culture? That's coders, fabricators, foodies, artists, educators, activists, citizen and even scientists grabbing the Do-It-Yourself ethic with both hands and changing our world in the process. These are people who aren't just making things, they're making a point of sharing what they've learned, what they've made, and why. Makers are responding directly, locally to globalization, commercialization, copyright and central command and control. Sometimes they even helped it grow. Multi-media, multi-parts, multi-audiences Photos: Check out our photostream. Videos: On our You Tube channel. We hope you enjoy it.
Hand-Crank USB Charger Step #1: PrevNext I'm taking a trip to China soon, and last summer we spent a week without power due to downed trees all over the state. Let's just say it was a rough week. So I wanted to find a way to charge my USB stuff without using those battery packs. Step #4: Finally, solder the red and black leads to the rectifier and the resistor as shown in the picture in the previous step. Making Society | Adventure in the makers community of San Francisco
31 How to Sites Must Check Home » How to » 31 Best How To Sites To Learn Everything You Need To Know In Internet you can find lots of site which helps you to learn lots of thing that we use in our daily life. But the question is where to find it and and how to learn lots of thing and guides free. In our daily life we are doing lots of thing such as using computer, learning web design and more and more. If you’re looking for information on How to repair a hard drive, How to Clean PC, How to Design Website, how to use web services, how to make videosor any other questions, you’ll find it in my picks for the best how to sites on the Web. These are some of the best How to websites which will really help you a lot. How To Sites To Learn New Skills 1. CNET Online Courses Free online how to classes and tutorials on everything from car technology to digital photography or Tips and tricks. 2. eHow eHow 3. wikiHow WikiHow 4. Instructables 5. How Stuff Works
Unconsumption – Page 1 Autonomous robots to be used in keeping dust off solar panels in Israel’s biggest solar field, reports timesofisrael: Most solar energy farms are located in deserts, where there is plenty of sunlight — which solar panels, of course, need a lot of. But the desert also has a lot of dust, which clogs up the photovoltaic components of the panels, making them less effective in collecting sunlight for conversion into energy. Panels have to be cleaned on a regular basis, but water in the desert tends to be expensive, if available at all — and the use of water to clean the panels raises the costs of production, making solar power too expensive to be considered anything more than a novelty…. Instead of using water to clean panels, Ecoppia’s robot cleaners are equipped with microfibers, with each robot assigned to a row of PV panels.