Last year I was fortunate enough to attend Tinkerfest at the Chabot Space and Science Center, high in the hills of the East Bay. One of the fun things about it was that I ran into an old friend from HacDC, who is very involved in the amateur radio ballooning community out here. Their specific thing (because everybody seems to have a Thing out here) is launching and tracking pico balloons - high altitude balloons with super lightweight payloads (they weigh less than an empty coffee mug) that stay aloft for weeks to months at a time and broadcast telemetry in …

We're just coming off of another heat wave in the Bay Area; temperatures have returned to a comfortable low-to-mid 70's Fahrenheit and humidity is hanging out around 30% (or so my weather station tells me). Temperatures in the 80's and 90's don't sound like much unless you don't have air conditioning (which many Bay Area homes don't) or insulation (ditto). This means that, under such conditions, life kind of sucks because there isn't much in the way of a breeze or a way to cool off unless you go somewhere that has decent AC (and if you work during the …

If you've never been to Makerfaire, it's a rite of passage for geeks of all kinds. In fact, I'd recommend that everyone attend their nearest Mini-Makerfaire at least once because you'll see all manner of weird, wonderful, and inspiring things on display. I ran a table at the one in Silver Spring, Maryland back in 2013 with HacDC and had a ball. Anyway.

I had a chance to attend the original Makerfaire in the Bay Area a few weekends ago and, though it was a significant journey on BART and on a shuttle bus it was well worth it. There …