As some of you may or may not know, in addition to writing here, I am also a no-good ink-flinging word-wrangler. In other words, that most prestiged of useless proffesions, a cartoonist.

This next week I will be coming to Seattle for Emerald City Comic Con, where I will be exhibiting what comics I have left after a fairly devastating roof leak at my studio- a long with a new compilation. I'll be at artist alley table A-12- you should come visit!

In case you can't make it, I still have plenty of stuff up at my Etsy store.

I ran across this book while on ebay while looking for, well, egg cups. At first I only kinda wanted this book, but now I really really want this book. The tite of the auction says 'occult, rare, magician' which turned me off- those tags are way overused and rarely true. On further examination, however, it's actually more about using 'magic tricks' to teach basic scientific principles.It's beautifully illustrated, and even has a loving dedication to the authors son, encouraging him to love science as he did.

Just looking at it fills me with a glee. I want to be able to pull it down from my shelf, giggle at the fun, and love the F out of it.

Coming up soon! 

The Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition will be happening march 12-14th in Emeryville, CA and looks like it will be a blast- they've got some amazing tallent and projects coming in to exhibit and strut their stuff.

(image: Kevin Rolly, AKA Kevissimo, seen here as SteamMonk)

Friend and co-BurningMan-conspirator Kevin Rolly is a fantastic photographer- He often paints and collages photos, creating an otherworldy beauty.

Link is to his Flickr site, which has some NSFW images.

Beautiful single-nixie clock made by Flickr user Blue_Metal. I really love the elegant way the circuitry is laid out.

(via Hackaday)

I've been sitting on this one for awhile and I can't tell you how excited I am to tell you about it. Quite possibly the coolest way to way to make weird noises, Marv is a MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone created by Tim O'Keefe, Michael McIntyre, and Brock Roland at the SFSU School of Engineering.

Marv is made up by several large banks of solenoids- both for striking and dampening the keys. Marv is an extremelly well documented robot- the site has extensive technical details as well as tons of photos, links, diagrams, and videos.

I chose the above video- the night of Marv's "birth" (first succesful run) because I love, and can sympathise, with the feeling of the late night in the lab, windows dark, everyone else gone home, anxious and terrified to see if with a single press of a button, your creation will come alive.
 

Our own Meredith Scheff is having an art sale to help in acquisition of a place to live. Meredith work is strange and wonderful, it manages to be colorful and dark at the same time.

This is all original art, go check it out here:

http://ladycartoonist.com/

I have found myself in the UK for the holidays- more specifically, I am in Oxford with side trips to London. I'm really excited to finally get to see the Steampunk Exhibition In Oxford, as well as the Wellcome Museum in London.

The week after Christmas, however, I will be making my way to Berlin for the 26th Chaos Communication Congress (AKA 26c3). I've never been, and though I'm sure to be overwhelmed I'd still love to hear from any readers who have suggestions for the city.

If'n you're in the SF bay area, I hight suggest checking out this group show bennifiting RoboGames 2010. (Disclaimer: I am in the show, but so are a heck of a lot of other great artists).

Automatic for the people.

Do sentient machines dwell on the existential circuit that leads to the spiritual 404 error?

Does being a machine mean just being a device: literarily, artistically and literally?

Or does everything just boil down to everyone’s deep-seated need to crush all humans and plot eventual total world domination? Find out at Automatic!

November 19, 20, 21, 2009
Exhibit: 5pm-8pm / Beer and wine reception 7pm-12pm on Fri & Sat
@ The lowerDeck Gallery – 2295 3rd Street (below Sundance Coffee in San Francisco)

Robot Paintings and Sculptures from the prodigious talents of: Doctor Popular * Josh Ellingson * I-Wei Huang * Simon Cox * Nils Jawa * Jonathan Foote * Camp Peavy * Alice Koswara * Max Chandler * Eliot K. Daughtry * Adam Davis * Patrick Lake * Phoneticontrol * Mike Hales * Bill Robinson, Liz Mamorsky, Meredith Scheff and many many others!

*”My God, it’s full of robots!” 

I made a little watercolor for you guys. It's a lady and her marshmallows..and welding gear.

you can see various stages of the painting on my ustream channel.

It's up for sale in my Etsy Store.

[Larger version behind the cut]