[dorkbotnyc-announce] dorkbot-nyc -- next meeting: 04 February 2009

[douglas repetto]

The 4706th dorkbot-nyc meeting will take place at 7pm on Wednesday,
February 4th, 2009 at Location One in SoHo.

The meeting is free and open to the public. Please bring snacks to share.

We're always looking for (and playing) more dorkbot theme songs! Bring
or email one and we'll play it at the meeting.

dance-techTV is experimenting with streaming and archiving dorkbot 
meetings. So if you can't make it in person, tune in!

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Featuring the beautiful of the face and unswervingly patient:

     	
Benjamin Caras: CNC for artists
I am an artist who has broken out of traditional creative realms and
engineered a simple CNC machine utilized to make art that is capable of
many tasks (more and more every day). In its current configuration it
can be set up to plot on a large scale or to run a plasma cutting
machine. Built (against advisement from professionals) from parts that
are available at most hardware stores and capable of results that rival
cnc machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars. All for under $750.
I will also be discussing improvisational mechanics/engineering, a DIY /
"who needs you?" approach to outsourcing digital fabrication, organic
knowledge bases, and open source ideas and methods.
http://www.artdoxa.com/benjamin
     	
Thessia Machado: synf
An analog synthesizer based on a quad nand oscillator and a divider
chip. Synf is a portable and somewhat unpredictable racket-maker in a
handy package, complete with built-in amp and speaker. Also, some
thoughts and images on a work-in-progress involving "harvested" lcd
screens and more oscillating frequencies.
http://www.thessiamachado.com
     	
Hans-Christoph Steiner: Reware
We are surrounded by gadgets, from iPods to phones to PDAs. These little
black boxes are in fact full-fledged computers and are eminently
hackable. Yet these devices are locked down to try to prevent you from
doing anything but consuming: consuming media and consuming minutes. On
top of that, we discard these devices at an alarming rate. Thanks to
many hardcore hackers, you can now run the Linux kernel on many of them.
We are building on top of that work to turn these devices into an
Arduino-like platform for hacking. We are starting with Pd and Python
firmwares, now available in alpha releases.
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/reware/wiki/Reware