I knew Diehl Martin, or Marty as one of the founders of the Free Hardware movement. Like many free software/hardware people I work with, I never met him in person and knew him only online. Almost single-handed, Marty created and maintained the FreeIO.org website, designed, built, and tested numerous GPL’d hardware designs ranging from ISA bus I/O boards to USB development boards. He somehow also found time to promote Linux and other free software, work a full time job, enjoy his Ham radio hobby, participate in competitive shooting, teach Sunday school, and assist his wife with her photography business. For the last several years, Marty has been fighting pancreatic cancer, a disease which has a 100% fatality rate. He beat the odds for a surprising amount of time and continued working and blogging daily until the very end. Marty passed away at 5am on the morning of the 27th. He wrote his final blog entry bidding the world farewell on the 25th. He will be missed.
Exterior of the Inwood Theater, location of the Slashdot party
On Friday night, I attended the Slashdot 10th anniversary party. Well, I attended the one in Dallas, anyway. There were others all over the world. It was a fairly uneventful event. For reasons known only to himself, the organizer chose to have it in a small, noisy bar despite many suggestions of better (i.e. bigger, quieter) alternatives. So for about an hour and half 20 to 30 geeks shared a cramped space and engaged in conversations that went something like:
“Hi, is this the Slashdot party?” “What?” “IS THIS THE SLASHDOT PARTY?” “Yes” “What?” “YES!”
Most people either shouted into the ear of the person immediately next to them or just gave up on conversation as not worth the effort and sat around staring at each other and waited for the organizer, who had the free T-Shirts. He eventually showed up shortly before the event was scheduled to end and passed out the shirts. A lot of people had given up and left already, so there were plenty to go around.
At a couple of points, the loud music stopped long enough to have some quick conversations and I learned that: 1) I was the only one there who ran Linux on my workstation or laptop 2) most people I talked to ran CentOS Linux on their servers 3) Everyone I talked to had tried Ubunutu and hated it 4) In every case where I could get specifics about what they hated, it turned out to be something I do on Fedora all the time (I’m pretty sure most of what they wanted to do could be done easily on Ubuntu as well, so I don’t know why they were having troubles) and 5) I was the only person there who actually wrote code for Free Software or Open Source projects.
Once I got my free T-Shirt, I headed home. It was too dark to snap a photo inside with my phone (no flash) so I shot one of the exterior of the Inwood Theater. The dark, noisy bar is attached to the theater’s lobby.
I haven’t forgotten the Austin Makers Faire. Full account coming soon. Stay tuned.
I’m back from the Austin Maker Faire. It was really, really cool. If you missed it, you should plan on going next year. The preliminary date for next year’s event is October 18-19, 2008. There were lots of robots to be seen as well as many other forms of art and technology
There were lots of interesting people to see and meet. Interesting bands performed throughout the day on several stages, many on homebrew electronic instruments. There were talks and presentations on iPhone hacking, the cultural problems caused by the “intellectual property” mentality, flying cars, and a host of other geeky subjects. Lisa Abbott, Ugobe’s Director of Marketing, showed me a one-of-kind Pleo mod – a white furry Pleo). For more, take at look at my Flickr album of Austin Maker Faire 2007 photos.
Every year, artists from all over the world gather in Marfa, Texas for the Chinati Open House art festival. For a few days the town has more art galleries than any other city on Earth. Lacey, my artist friend in Houston was planning on driving out to Marfa this year because one of her bronze pieces was going to be displayed at Camp Marfa, a gallery of works by Houston and Lubbock artists. I signed on at the last minute as traveling companion. She left Houston by car on the morning of Oct 4 and I flew down to San Antonio that afternoon, where I met her as she passed through.
We stopped briefly at a WalMart in Boerne, where I bought a tent, bedrolls, and assorted other things one might need when arriving in a crowded small town with no hotel reservations. We made it as far as the city of Junction where we stayed in the luxurious America’s Best Value Inn, where each room is provided with all the live crickets you could want at no extra charge.
We later talked to other artists who’d chosen to drive through the night and we were glad we hadn’t attempted it. One driver hit a deer and several others reported close calls with other wildlife. Even driving during daylight, we came within a few feet of hitting a good-sized bobcat that charged across the highway in front of us, probably chasing a jack rabbit. In addition to wildlife, we also passed along side a wind farm with hundreds of huge wind turbines. It was an amazing site but due to the tight schedule we weren’t able to take the time to check it out.
Each of the art collectives is apparently responsible for coming up with their own facility to house their art. The Houston art enclave worked out a deal to use the historic Building 98, part of Fort D. A. Russell. The adobe and concrete building was originally the officers club in the 1920s. During WWII it became a prison camp for German POWs. Interestingly, the Germans painted ornate murals on the walls of the dinning hall, making the building the largest work of art created by POWs in world. What could be more appropriate for use as an art gallery?
Paintings and sculptures were installed throughout the building and one room was used for the multimedia works of a Houston group called Apocalypstick. The building had a large rear patio area where we had a couple of bands playing in the evenings. The Lubbock artists had improvised their own gallery inside of a Ryder truck. They arrived, backed the truck up to rear patio, installed in and out ramps, powered it from the building’s AC and – instant art gallery. There seems to be a lot of creative DIY cross-over between artists and geeks.
Overall we had a blast out in Marfa with only one mishap. On Friday night, Lacey twisted an ankle on the front steps of the building. She was in quite a bit of pain and this changed our plans to walk through the art galleries Saturday, shooting photos and seeing the sites. We ended up sticking to Camp Marfa most of the day and Lacey turned in early, sleeping in the SUV to avoid the party. Did I mention the party? Sonic Youth played a free concert Saturday night for the thousands of art and music fans in Marfa. Somehow, one of the members of the local band playing at our gallery had gotten them to make an announcement that everyone should head over to Camp Marfa after the concert. We had to close off the art areas and route people to rear of the building where our band was playing. And, aside from Lacey, none of us got to sleep until early the next morning.
After a few hours of sleep, Lacey and I headed out about 7am and repeated the inbound journey except with me driving. She felt up to driving by the time we were approaching San Antonio and assured me she’d be okay to drive the remaining distance back to Houston, so I called Susan and she was able to book me a flight back to Dallas. The shocker came a day later when Lacey got her leg x-rayed and it turned out she hadn’t just twisted her ankle, she’d broken her leg. It was a clean break of the fibula and she’s now in a cast. This certainly explained the pain and swelling but not why the pain was all in her ankle when the break was much higher. And I really regretted letting her drive when I heard that. How many people can say they’ve driven from San Antonio to Houston with a broken right leg? Not many I bet.
