are you ready to roll … DICE !?

In preparation for Stranded’s Forbidden City party this weekend, I recommend you brush up on your DICE skills – do you know about the game of Cee-Lo (pronounced See-Low)?

These YouTube videos are a hoot – two COMPLETELY different ways to describe how to play Sì-Wŭ-Liù, the first by Windy Challey from Games of Berkeley, on a proper game board with MAGIC over her shoulder; the second by U-God of Wu-Tang Clan in some stairwell probably in Brooklyn, with a wad of cash money in hand!

Written on September 2, 2010 at 5:00 pm, by nick

the 38.11.15-th Dorkbot NYC

with presentations by Chris Woebken, Simon Burton, Kunal Gupta & Syed Salahuddin. It was a really wonderful season opener, it was good to see Douglas and Levi and thanks as always to Location One for hosting the event.

see the full lineup and get more details here.

Chris presented “animal superpowers” which included this helmet & optic-glove system that allowed the wearer to see what an ant might see, as it magnified objects in front (right hand) and below (left hand) by 100x to a screen inside the helmet!

Simon presented telephone telepathy and some of the theory behind this controversial subject:



this last shot was pretty genius, it was Simon’s “2 second lecture” on quantum mechanics, or physics, or whatever he was talking about! loL!

Kunal and Syed are from Babycastles and build and demo indie games – they’re like the zines of big-label game companies, they only do “local” gaming:


including this body-armor-esque suit with an embedded screen and a keyboard that the wearer holds out for the gamer, in an attempt to run a track-and-field.

Written on September 2, 2010 at 12:00 pm, by nick

oh yeah, so I moved out of Flux Factory

Yeah, so that happened. I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to write about it, and very little time to think about it, and NO time to reflect on it (I’ll do that in October, this month is Maker Month!).

But I moved my studio out of Flux and into this cute little cottage of a space:

We’ll see how it holds up in the winter and there are some already-emerging issues with the basement, but it HAS a basement, a front yard, and an 18′ apple tree. Very cute.

More on the cottage life in the months ahead – for now: MAKER MONTH HAS BEGUN!

Written on September 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm, by nick

Help Long Island City get a Weeke Vantech CNC router

NY Designs and Length x Width x Height are two LIC-based design firms housed in the former IDCNY building at the foot of Queens Boulevard and down the block from LaGuardia Community College. NY Designs focus on uplifting new small businesses who have an emphasis on design and technology – and they basically provide a giant co-working floor for business to interact with each other and cross-pollinate activities and ideas; LxWxH are helping establish a general membership fabrication shop (from chopsaws and table saws to laser cutters and CAD software). Both things that really help establish Long Island City as an incubator of creative design and production. But it could be better!

stiles are having a social media competition to give away a Weeke Vantech CNC router – and NY Designs are in the running! (that dog is the secret weapon!)

To help their chances of entering the Final Round of the competition, just click below to view the original video and hit that “LIKE” button below the video! And see some of the people and projects you’ll be helping support if they win this thing!

here’s a link to more info on the contest

Written on August 31, 2010 at 2:30 pm, by nick

the new @Materials4dArts hallway

It seems like you can’t take a trip to Materials for the Arts without some bucket of awesome being splashed all over you! I recently went to MFTA on an off-shopping day just to see about retrieving some cardboard boxes for moving some studio supplies (which I got – thanks MFTA!), and was greeted with not one or even two walls but an entire winding hallway of graffiti by “ART DE CLARKO” – whom when I google search looks like they maintain a Flickr account. So the next time you go shopping there give yourself some extra time and be sure to give this mural the attention it deserves… bucket of awesome!

Written on August 30, 2010 at 6:35 am, by nick

Join the World Maker Faire Street Team!

So here’s the skimmy. The World’s Largest DIY Event needs some DIY assistance to help spread the word. NYC is made up of five boroughs, each of which are cities in their own right. We have a lot of territory to cover! You help us with a couple minutes of your time, by going to the places you already go and dropping off some postcards and putting up some posters, and we’ll reward you with two adult single-day passes, a $50 value. Want more tickets? Just tell us what you’re willing to do, what neighborhoods and sites you’ll cover, and we’ll work something out!

It’s easy. We will send you a packet of 25 flyers and 200 postcards and you go to all the places you already go (maybe a few more) and pin or tape a flyer on a bulletin board or in a window and a small stack of postcards on the front counter. Of course you will need to ask permission first! Then in a few of the places snap a picture for us and when your done send us a few so we can see the great work you have done.

When your done let us know and we will send you two Adult tickets to World Maker Faire. You won’t have to wait in line for your tickets, save a little cash and you will have helped us spread the word about this great event within your community.

Here are some great places to consider:

Bookstores
Colleges
Coffee shops
Cafes
Toy Stores
Hobby Shops
Craft Stores
Restaurants
Scrap Stores
Community Centers
Hacker Spaces
Tech Shops
After School Programs
Garden Centers
Thrift/Vintage Stores

1)To join, email us your name, address and phone as well as the area you’ll be covering to: streetteam@makerfaire.com
2) We’re looking specifically to cover the following neighborhoods. Have another place in mind? Email us!

Neighborhoods to cover:

Park Slope
Gowanus
Sunset Park
Ditmas Park
Kensington
Williamsburg
Bushwick
Greenpoint
NYU
Parsons/New School
Hunter
SVA
Columbia
Pratt
East Village/Lower East Side
Long Island City
Sunnyside/Jackson Heights
Astoria
Ft. Greene
Navy Yard
Jersey City
Hoboken

While you’re out:

1) Snap and send us 3 pictures of locations you have placed World Maker Faire flyers and/or postcards. We’ll post ‘em up here!

2) Please don’t post flyers/postcards at any location w/o asking permission or if not permissible

3) Please don’t post flyers/postcards all in one place. We are trusting that you will be a good World Maker Faire street team member and will spread these materials out throughout your community

source photo from Free Williamsburg

Written on August 19, 2010 at 9:35 am, by nick

the weather around me is: