My friend Federico turned me on to these great videos that show how things work by taking them apart and building working models of them.
They are a bit dated, and very British… but what Maker could resist Tim Hunkin’s The Secret Lives of Machines? They are made available via the Exploratorium web site.
The thumbnails are of [...]

In case you had not heard one of my classmates from grad school and a founder of GRL, James Powderly, is currently detained for 10 days in Beijing. His goal is to offer technology solutions to artists and protesters to help get their word out. They were detained before they did anything.
Updated info on fffff.at

From the Instructables site:
After an indefinite hiatus, Instructables Build Night returns! Starting June 19th we will be holding bi-monthly build nights at our brand spanking new San Francisco location.
For the first meeting, bring whatever it is that you’re working on, would like to work on or are thinking about working on! If you’re not working [...]

TechShop Open House, BBQ and Pot Luck

Saturday, 5/31/2008

10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

TechShop Menlo Park

We’re having an open house at TechShop Menlo Park on Saturday, May 31st from 10:00AM to 5:00PM, and everybody is invited.
See Our New Tools and Equipment
You’ll be able to check out all the tools, machines and workspace and see how TechShop [...]

This special ATC event is a benefit for the continued
recovery of Todd Blair who was injured in Amsterdam
after an SRL show. Suggested donation at the door is
$10-100. http://toddblair.wordpress.com
——————————————————
The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium
of the Berkeley Center for New Media announces:
Attention Depiction Disorders
Naut Humon, Recombinant Media Labs, SF
V. Vale, REsearch Publications, SF
(with special guest Perry Hoberman)
Monday, [...]

Thursday
6 March 2008
2:30 – 5:00 pm
Intel Research
2150 Shattuck Ave (Penthouse Suite)
Berkeley, CA 94704
(map)
Once a year Intel Research hosts their “Open House” featuring many of our research projects with interactive demonstrations, posters, and prototypes.  This year the Urban Atmospheres group at Intel Research will be debuting a series of new personal mobile environmental sensors and tools [...]

Jonathan Barcan one of the co-curators of “Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008″ contacted me to let you know about a call for artists.
The event is Saturday, April 12th from 2pm – 2am… submissions are due by February 8th.
I will post the call to artists/makers in the Comments section of this post.

[ February 4, 2008; 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm. ] Greg Lynn (UCLA & Angewandle, Vienna)

Part of The Art Technology, and Culture Colloquium at UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media.

Monday Evening from 7:30pm to 9:00pm
160 Kroeber Hall 
UC Berkeley

I don’t have much more detail on this… if you do, please feel free to add it to the comments!

Olafur Eliasson
“Take your time”
At SFMOMA thorough February 24th
If you can read this and you are anywhere near the Bay Area DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW. The physical and light installations are pretty phenomenal. It’s quite inspirational and thought provoking from a how’d-he-do-that Maker perspective.
It’s a lot of fun, too. I may add more to [...]

I’m adding a new category today called “Inspiration“. The goal is to link to events and sites featuring art or artists in the Bay Area who are doing interesting work in the area of electronics, hacking, science, community or some combination of each… it may just be inspirational… I’ll know it when I see it.
If [...]