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The alpha geeks are into transforming old-world technologies into geek-friendly forms. The field I'm personally familiar with is desktop manufacturing. Robotics

by Kliment 16y ago

The alpha geeks are into transforming old-world technologies into geek-friendly forms. The field I'm personally familiar with is desktop manufacturing. Robotics used to be expensive and arcane. Machinists used to be either old graybeards or undereducated trade school graduates. Custom plastic parts were something you got made in China at great delay and expense. Now, there is a new wave of machinists who read Make and have 3d printers and buy lathes for their garage. There's people with a software background putting robots together out of hardware store parts and arduinos. The whole field is transforming from high-capital professional only to geek and hobby friendly. So I think that geekdom has moved out of computing and software to some degree, into the rest of the world because frankly, computing for the sake of computing is a solved problem, a boring field, now.

aufreak3 16y ago
Spot on! I posted the same thing without reading yours (now stands deleted 'cos it was more or less a duplicate). I'll just add this - Even MIT's famous formerly-known-as-SICP course is now around programming real world asynchronous machines - robots. A big meld between electronics engineering and software as far as I can tell.
jcromartie 16y ago
Exactly. > the rest of the world This is what fascinates me. I want to know how to get my programs to reach out into the world and do something "real." That's been the most interesting thing to me for a while.
- asmithmd1 16y ago
  What would qualify as "real" to you? Do you want to turn lights/AC/heat on and off or are you talking about cleaning up the kitchen? I want to make a MVP for a web developer who wants to start affecting the real world but I am not sure how much would be enough. Please get in touch with me http://gadgeteer.org http://gadgeteer.org
- Kliment 16y ago
  Grab an Arduino. Make it blink things. Then make it move things. Then make it move itself. Then make it interact with the things around it. Then your creativity's the limit.

by Kliment 16y ago

aufreak3 16y ago

Spot on! I posted the same thing without reading yours (now stands deleted 'cos it was more or less a duplicate). I'll just add this - Even MIT's famous formerly-known-as-SICP course is now around programming real world asynchronous machines - robots. A big meld between electronics engineering and software as far as I can tell.

jcromartie 16y ago

Exactly. > the rest of the world This is what fascinates me. I want to know how to get my programs to reach out into the world and do something "real." That's been the most interesting thing to me for a while.

asmithmd1 16y ago
What would qualify as "real" to you? Do you want to turn lights/AC/heat on and off or are you talking about cleaning up the kitchen? I want to make a MVP for a web developer who wants to start affecting the real world but I am not sure how much would be enough. Please get in touch with me http://gadgeteer.org http://gadgeteer.org
Kliment 16y ago
Grab an Arduino. Make it blink things. Then make it move things. Then make it move itself. Then make it interact with the things around it. Then your creativity's the limit.