http://makerfaire.com/

Pyrotechnics, robots, explosions, lasers, tesla coils, solar powered Arnold Schwarzenegger chariot.

I spent this past Saturday at the Maker Faire in San Mateo. The Maker Faire is a huge overwhelming spectacle of the most creative people in the bay area. I spent 10 hours there and still did not see everything it had to offer. I will try to recap some of the highlights:

This nightmarish thing:

An armada of cupcake people:

Some hotdogs cooked using lightning coming off a 25' tall tesla coil. Sorry, no video for this one just imagine lightning striking a hotdog and jumping from hotdog to hotdog down a 20' pole. As it got more intense the lightning began vaporizing the hotdog - this vaporization pulled hotdog bits into the arc and the color changed from brilliant purple to a vivid orange!

Posted by Eric Thurston at 3:00 PM | Permalink

If I were you, I'd get me some Sockbaby. It's a trilogy of short films made by some Modesto community college students. These have everything you've ever wanted in a quality film experience: a 1960's kungfu guy imbued with the power of James Brown, a sock-puppet messiah, some fedora wearing aliens and a cyborg named "Burger." It will change your life... perhaps not meaningfully or for the better, but still.

Posted by Eric Thurston at 2:46 PM | Permalink

So yesterday I took my first parkour lesson. For those of you who don't know, parkour is a French sport which combines running and gymnastics in urban environments. The underlying idea is that our bodies can do much more than just walk around on a horozontal plane as we do everyday. Instead those who practice parkour, called "traceurs" try to find the most efficent way to interact with their physical environments.

This video shows David Belle - the founder of the sport - performing some really advanced and showy parkour for a BBC commercial:

Continue reading "Berkeley Parkour Club" »

Posted by Eric Thurston at 3:55 PM | Permalink

So there's this guy in the Netherlands named Theo Jansen. He's a kinetic sculptor which means that he builds huge moving pieces of art. His sculptures are strange mechanical interpretations of the biological world. Watch this video to see an example of his work in action:

Continue reading "Theo Jansen's Biomechanical Sculptures" »

Posted by Eric Thurston at 3:32 PM | Permalink

The yuletide relaxations have been concluded and now our hero set forth to smite his final semester at UC Berkeley. Last semester was a mind bending decerebrational dropkick of sub-epic proportions. This semester he will surely be transformed into a photo-phobic corpse of the benevolently peering sort. Yay philosophical zombies!! Speaking of which you should all submit to Jonathan Coulton's Re: Your Brains.

Posted by Eric Thurston at 3:03 PM | Permalink

This weekend I went to the Tech Museum in San Jose to see Body Worlds 2. A singularly strange experience. For those who don’t know what Body Worlds is, it's this exhibition of human bodies set up by a German anatomist named Gunther von Hagens. They use a process called plastination to change the composition of the human body from 65% water to 65% plastic resin. The end result is tantamount to an artistic anatomy lesson and a traveling freak-show. Much of what is to be seen is simultaneously beautiful and repulsive - breathtaking in more ways than one.

Learn more about the whole visceral thing

Posted by Eric Thurston at 3:30 PM | Permalink

Last night was the coolest thing I've gotten out to do in months. It all starts out last week when I was wandering around the Philosophy department building waiting for a meeting with a graduate student. I looked up at one point and randomly posted on a wall was a free ticket for two to see the Darjeeling Limited! As any Life Aquatic fan would, I grabbed it down and pocketed it at once. "What luck I thought" Only after my GSI meeting did I get to examine my prize more closely. The ticket was not only to see the movie but also to participate with in a Q&A/discussion with the film's director Wes Anderson.

Continue reading "The Darjeeling Limited or I love you, but I'm gonna mace you in the face!" »

Posted by Eric Thurston at 2:15 PM | Permalink

Hey Everyone!

If you're looking for something fun to do on Friday at 7 then check out the Campus Movie Fest. The program works like this; when you sign up they give you a laptop and a digital camera and you have one week to complete a 5 minute movie. The work of the Berkeley film makers will be premiered at the event. $3 for students $5 for GA.

Movie Fest Details

Posted by Eric Thurston at 2:59 PM | Permalink

So here at Cal we have these things called DeCal classes. DeCal is short for democratic education at Cal and the classes are really a lot of fun. This semester I’m thinking of taking two DeCals: archery and swing dancing. I going to get course credit for swing dancing and practicing archery! I went to the swing class last night and more than a hundred people showed up but the class only seats 50. Wish me luck. I think I’ve got a good shot at it because I’m a lead with 9 months of Ballroom experience. Alas, there are about 5 girls to every boy, seems like I've got a moral imperative to dance with these girls. How very hard my life is... ;{p

Decal classes are nice ways to round out a schedule and take your mind off mind bending academic loads and because decals are only 1-2 units pass fail they can help you meet Cal’s semester minimum of 13 units. Three academic classes and one decal makes for a manageable and non-psycho semester. Learn more at http://www.decal.org/

Posted by Eric Thurston at 2:16 PM | Permalink

I spent last night a poetry open mic in the city. My friend Josh was featuring. It was a little bit different from his usual slam performance. Check out the madness:
Joshua Walters Myspace

Posted by Eric Thurston at 11:39 AM | Permalink

Earthquake last night, 4.2. No damage but being woken at 4 in the morning by all of ones cabinets smashing open and closed is no fun.

On a completely unrelated note, I've uploaded some pictures of my recent adventures:

Eriq's first burrito after his trip around the world:

There is something singularly transcendental going on here.

This is a 45 foot tall cyclopean tripod monster. I made friends with it.


A huge flaming robot snake head.

Huge flaming robot snake body

Posted by Eric Thurston at 2:00 PM | Permalink

Too many adventures not enough time to chronicle them all. In recent memory I've been to the Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland. Its unlike anything else I've ever been to, imagine a micro-burning/mad max kind of vibe with 45 foot tall flaming robots and a "fire-opera" rendition of Homer's The Odyssey.

They had some really astounding stuff there; maybe you've heard of the grease-nerd phenomenon called Dance Dance Revolution? At the Fire Arts Festival they had something at the Fire Arts Festival called DDI - Dance Dance Immolation! It works just like Dance Dance Revolution only the players wear asbestos suits and are shot in the face with flamethrowers when they screw up! It looks like this: click me for nerds on fire.

I had an amazing time just learning about the crucible itself having once myself been keenly interested in learning how to weld. Basically The Crucible is a co-operative non-profit group of artists that teach metal work and pyrotechnic arts to interested parties. I want to take these courses and sometimes I feel like I need to take these courses and that is why they are dangerous!

Check it out:
http://www.thecrucible.org/

Posted by Eric Thurston at 12:55 PM | Permalink

The search for another non-crappy, non-slummy, sunny, amazing apartment continues and things are looking good for our heroes! It's as if some mighty god of craigslist finally saw fit for there to be more than a scant few apartment listings posted each day.

While Jason and I scramble around to extricate ourselves from a less than amazing roommate my brother Eriq has been globe trotting! Points to anyone who can guess where these pictures are from!

Continue reading "Rent Quest and UCB vs. UND Round 2 " »

Posted by Eric Thurston at 12:35 PM | Permalink

This makes one full year that I’ve been living on my own here in Berkeley and recent circumstances have made me inclined to share my knowledge on the topic of finding apartments here in Berkeley. Timing is everything; the end of the spring semester marks the best time for finding apartments in Berkeley. My roommate Jason and I found our place with about two weeks of craigslist assisted searching in mid-June last year. So if you’re going to be a student in Berkeley late April to early July is when you really ought to be signing leases, unless of course you’d rather be subletting part of a cardboard box on Telegraph from a degenerate hobo/street preacher.

Here are some quick guidelines for a happy apartment in Berkeley:

1. Look early.

2. Avoid Everest Properties – very shady stuff going on behind the scenes here. (Check Yelp) These are the folks you talk to if you’re into the cardboard box duplexes and abhorrent treatment.

3. Don’t get attached to any one place. The competition is fierce and things go off the market quickly.

4. Roommates can help make rent more manageable but be very careful who you sign a lease with; the rent control laws are so beefy that many renters are frightened to get involved with any tenant disputes.

Goodluck!

E

Posted by Eric Thurston at 11:04 AM | Permalink

Hello Everyone!

I'm getting to the serious business of enjoying summer; so far I've collected sand dollars at Ocean Beach, rowed a boat around Stow Lake, and gone disco bowling in San Mateo.

Also, I’ve made a photo journal on Flickr to chronicle my summer adventures; pictures coming soon!

Eric's Flickr Photo Journal

E

Posted by Eric Thurston at 1:26 PM | Permalink

Finals are here again and everything is just flying along! I dispensed some justice on my Philosophy 114 final. I’ve gotten through two of them and have still two more to go. After finals I’m taking my friend Jessica to explore golden gate park before she has to fly back to Colorado. I’m going to take off to Monterey for the weekend for a weekend of aquariums and adventure!

For my DeCal final project I decided to make a zombie movie. We shot it in one day and it was pretty chintzy but the class loved it anyway! Check it out on youtube: The Baking of the Dead.

Also, I learned something interesting about Berkeley. Every semester at the end of classes the campanile plays a ballad based on the Rudyard Kipling poem called “Danny Deever.” Then the tower goes silent until the end of finals. It’s been this way since 1930. The song is about the execution of a solider. What do you all make of it?

“What’s that so black agin’ the sun?” said Files-on-Parade.
“It’s Danny fightin’ ’ard for life”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
“What’s that that whimpers over’ead?” said Files-on-Parade.
“It’s Danny’s soul that’s passin’ now”, the Colour-Sergeant said.

Read and Listen: Danny Deever

Goodluck everyone!

Posted by Eric Thurston at 9:34 AM | Permalink

When I got into UCB, Eric took me for a flight over campus.

You can see my house and the CNR building in this shot.

San Francisco from high above the East Bay...

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung..."
-John Magee

Posted by Eric Thurston at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Eric recommends that you read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. Extra points if you do so while listening to Pearl Jam's Yield.

http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/dp/0553375407/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-8212426-3222264?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174327067&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Yield-Pearl-Jam/dp/B000002BYD/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8212426-3222264?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1174327125&sr=8-1

Posted by Eric Thurston at 10:55 AM | Permalink

So maybe you’ve heard that our school is getting 500 million dollars from the multinational energy company formally known as "British Petrol" for the development for alternative fuels? "BP" seems to be as nice as you could hope a faceless multinational company would be - on the one hand they are the worlds leading producer of solar cells in the world, and on the other hand they've just extricated themselves from a very dodgy situation in Columbia involving paramilitary forces and local farmers.

I got a chance to attend a student round table discussion with Dean Ludden of the College of Natural Resources. A lot of the CNR students are really upset about this deal. From what I heard at the meeting some of the money is earmarked for the bioengineering of new enzymes to pull more fossil fuels out of our drying wells and 10 BP employees will become faculty here at Berkeley. Tenure track, student instructing, public statement issuing faculty. O_O Boy, this certainly doesn’t seem like a morally ambiguous situation!

The discussion was moderated by Professor of Bioethics, David Winickoff. He recommended the formation of a student ethics group to watch over the program. I’ve got a meeting on Monday with him to talk about what can and ought to be done. It's hard to keep up, this past week has been somewhat psychotic, midterms and papers and exploding roommates for days.

"One if by land, two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm."

Posted by Eric Thurston at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Aldo Leopold was a forester, conservationist, ecologist- I think philosopher of axiology ought to be added to this list. Axiology is the philosophical branch concerned with ethics and aesthetics and, for Leopold, ethics in land use and conservation are key to understanding our place in not only human communities but also in the biotic community at large. In 1949 Leopold published The Land Ethic, in which he outlines a very different way we ought to understand our relationship with nature.

He argues that man had an obligation to the land rather than a dominion over it. He says:
"Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." We ought to practice sustainability because we are above all things beholden to the land. Leopold's ecological ethic is a sad contrast to some of the wholesale exploitation that persists 58 years later. The Land Ethic is deeply sensitive and thoughtful ethical theory. It's foreruns both the modern conservation and deep ecology movements.

A worthy read, neither for the overstimulated nor the short of attention, can be found here:
The Land Ethic

Posted by Eric Thurston at 12:42 PM | Permalink

Berkeley is, by far, the best place that I’ve ever lived. It’s this incredible fluxing nexus of youth, culture, and art, somehow lodged in a small city. I’m from Belmont, a sleepy little burg about 40 miles south of here. It’s nice digs for the elderly and young couples eager to start families, but it’s not quite idyllic for a college age guy looking for high adventure. Accordingly, when college acceptance letters came in, my brother (oddly also named Eric, henceforth referred to as Eriq) and I were both quite excited as we’d both been accepted to our schools of choice; UND with it’s unmatched aeronautics department for Eriq, and UCB with its unmatched reputation for progressiveness and liberal forethought for me.

We’ve both spent considerable time exploring our new surroundings and I figure it’s about time to explore one of the burning questions that keeps me up late at night; if the UCB and UND (along with their surrounding areas) were to morph into giant fighting robots/monsters (with the associated laser eye beams/kung-fu grip action) who would win? Prepare yourselves my intrepid readers, as we explore the good, the bad and the ugly in this epic grudge-match. (Yeah…uhhh... big school rivalry here, sure!) Two giant-school-robot-monsters will enter the thunder-dome but only one will survive. While I will seek to keep all bias out of the proceedings, readers with sensitivities to lopsided ass-whoopings may wish to leave this weblog and never return!

Posted by Eric Thurston at 1:10 PM | Permalink

CNR is a tight-knit college with great programs that encourage students and faculty to work together. It also has a terrific Student Resource Center.

Posted by Eric Thurston at 12:25 PM | Permalink