The Maker Faire

The Maker Faire is one of the largest "do-it-yourself" gatherings in the world. The annual event took place last weekend at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, with about 1000 exhibitors and over 100,000 attendees. The event has grown explosively in the seven years since its founding, and is now in several other cities as well. I went with my camera crew to record material for an upcoming episode of Future Talk and was not disappointed. From homebuilt helicopters and submarines to robotic kits used for making your own robots at home, to 3-D printers and soldering classes for kids, there were ingenious devices and eye popping art and sculpture as far as the eye could see. It's all part of the Maker movement (which some prefer to call the Maker subculture), which also includes a flagship publication, Make Magazine. The goal is to encourage people to master technology, learn from each other, and "do-it-themselves". It wouldn't surprise me if some really useful inventions were to come from the people who exhibited at the Faire.

Thinking About Thought

Doing research on artificial intelligence has got me thinking about thought. What are thoughts? Are they mere electrical impulses, or something deeper? Perhaps thought is one of the basic substances of the universe, more basic than matter or energy. Perhaps matter and energy come into being through the action of thought, rather than the other way around. 


If this is true, it might open some interesting avenues of inquiry. For instance, how do thoughts connect to one another? Can we program our minds to attract the thoughts we do want and reject the thoughts we don't want? Is "inspiration" the process of being receptive to ideas that are already floating around us?  And why do certain types of undesirable thoughts, the kind that lead to conflict and war, appear to be so contagious? Gaining insight into these questions may be more important than many of the other things we spend billions of dollars to study.