I attended the Detroit Maker Faire this past weekend. Quite fun! Amazing and inspirational geekdom. A combination computer show, robot demo, tech consciousness raising, Scout jamboree and university recruiting fair. Vehicles with real flames. The crowd? Mom, Dad and the kids, regular geeks, geeks with tats and corsets. Cast your own cannonballs from scrap iron. Life-size Mouse Trap game. Guitars. Marshmallow guns. For a buck, you could buy a kit and sit down at a station to solder your own blinking LED merit badge, and dozens were doing that continuously. EepyBird did their Coke and Mentos show. Quite a few Arduino-powered gizmos. MakerBots with various heads like 3D printing with melted ABS plastic. There was one guy who'd made his own CPU from the ground up, with an Altair-era style front panel. About 250 booths, I believe. Overall, I thought it was quite inspirational. A wide range of ages and abilities in play, all enthusiastic about making things, learning to repair things, hacking in a playful way. I think any classic computer exhibit would be well-received. I don't think Detroit was as funky as it gets when the MF is in San Francisco. On the other hand, it took place in the parking lots of the Henry Ford Museum / Greenfield Village, so there was plenty to see in terms of old machinery. By some great coincidence, the kids watched a special on Nikola Tesla on the History Channel shortly before we went to Greenfield Village, so they could see through the endless pro-Edison material. While admiring the steam locomotive roundhouse, Air Force One flew overhead. Being in Detroit also gave me a chance to spend a little time with my old friend Sheldon Leemon ("Mapping the Commodore 64") and his wife. - John