What will this become?

Come to The Valley in Christchurch this week (Tuesday!) and don't just find out, make IT/ART happen!

Here's some of the details, check out the event announcement for more details:

The Valley In Christchurch February dinner and hack events

When: 6:00pm Tuesday 19th February 2008
Where: The China Kitchen, on Hereford St, opposite the Flight Centre

And then join us post-dinner for a special TVIC-exclusive Geekosystem session:

When: ~7:00pm—10:00pm-ish
Where: The Physics Room, Second Floor, 209 Tuam Street, Christchurch

Rumour is that some pizza and beverages will be provided while you work on your hardware hacking masterpiece.

Thanks to Adam and the Physics Room for organising this special after-hours session for us!

The photo above (courtesy of Adam Hyde) shows some of the "raw materials" that will be on hand.

Tending Networks: The 5th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium

As it happens, the Geekosystem coincides with the The 5th Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium produced by The ADA Digital Arts Network.

Self-described as "New Zealand/Aotearoa's only digital artists' network. ADA was born of the observation that although new media artists were often highly networked in terms of both their own practice and their professional relationships, there was no national organization drawing together those with a common interest in digital art."

The symposium is an opportunity for New Zealand's digital/new media artists to meet face to face. Check out the upcoming weekend's programme.

I've actually been invited to present a brief overview of some of my Arduino hacking to the group during their "lightning talk" session on Saturday afternoon. A pleasant parallel to the symposium topic is my most recent project has been an ethernet expansion shield for the Arduino. I must write some more on that.

Foo Fruition

Speaking of needing to write more... My presentation at the ADA Symposium and the TVIC/Geekosystem crossover are a direct result of my attendence earlier this month at Kiwi Foo Camp 2008 (a.k.a. Baa Camp) and some people I met there. I must write some more on that. :-)

Further Sutro Tower details can be found—unfortunately it seems no live web cam views now exist. The view from the top must be pretty awesome and somewhat freaky, I would imagine. It is possible to find some links to "satellite" views of the structure on various mapping sites.

Actually, I also just found a construction photograph: (Yay for libraries! :-) )

It's all very Triffid/Tripod-ish...

Kite Photographs

I happened to be looking for the Sutro Tower after I found a reference to this famous picture of San Francisco damage after the 1906 earthquake—apparently taken from a kite-mounted camera:

I'd been intending to track down the photographs after I read of their existence in Adventures from the Technology Underground but then they were featured on Digg.com which saved me the trouble of looking for them.

Here's the puzzle design:

(The reflection in the puzzle pieces is because I took the photos outside.)

And here is the bracket for the WIZ810MJ with a RJ45 in place:

For thoses interested, check out more Ponoko "unboxing" pictures.

Overall I think this has been a successful experiment and hope to be able to use Ponoko again in the future—I think the "personal manufacturing" revolution is only just beginning...