OpenSpace on Arduino, soldering, and makerbots (possibly with practical demonstrations)

What is (bring mine)

• soldering
  - flux
  - lead-free or notlead free
  
• an Arduino
  Show it off. Microcontroller. It has its own dev language.
• a makerbot? (I only wish that I had one of these)
  - prints plastic, can make shapes that modern manufacturing can only do in many steps
  - prototyping
  - ideally self-replicating
• hackerspaces
  - there's one in pretty much every city, and usually several
  - PS1 in Chicago
  - Janga in Bangalore http://www.jaaga.in/bangalore-hackerspace

What would you do with one?

• Everyone say an idea

And then we will discuss... I expect it to be over relatively quickly (especially considering that not that many people are signed up for it...)

Airport thoughts

I'm sitting in an airport (again, still always) and am researching two things:

1. Drinking water test kits
   Conclusion: If you want to test more than one thing, it gets damn expensive. There must be a better way. It may be time to buy some agar and petri dishes, because it really is just that simple.
2. Arduino projects for non-newbs
   Conclusion: there are a lot of newbs. Also, I need to figure out what I actually want to do with this thing. Ideas: door-opener sensor. Robot (of course) that moves around in my apartment and puts my roommate's pets back where they belong. Alternately, squirts them with water. ...that might be a little complicated for a first project.

Not having much luck yet with either, but it's early times yet.

Soon I'll work on the code test that I'm writing in C#, which I don't know.

Midway airport (MDW, Chicago) Southwest terminal has no pornoscanners and no patdowns. They also didn't see fit to ask me about the two large containers of JB-weld in my carryon.

The embroiderable Arduino

To continue the theme inherent in my annoyance about the word "babydoll" as it refers to t-shirts that I wear...

What is this nonsense? Well yes, it's a boingboing article.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/04/lilypad-microcontrol.html

It appears to be a similar-to-Arduino microcontroller that can be used in... embroidery projects!

I would like to have us take a minute to think about this. Do you know any women who embroider? (Your answer does not count if you don't know any women.)

I think that this chip is cool. I think that it has lots of uses. Personally, I'd mount it on the back of a black leather motorcycle jacket and hook LEDs to it that will turn into a giant arrow signaling which way I want to turn. Well, I would if I weren't lazy and likely to cut off my finger with a needle.

I think that this chip has many uses, some yet to be discovered. but why is it being presented as connected to embroidery? Is that the only thing that someone could think of to appeal to women? Is this how an appeal to women- even a genuine and heartfelt one- should be phrased?

I wonder what the thought processes behind this were, and I hope that they were well-informed, intelligent, and possibly even sardonic.