Gaming and Culture

If you're one of the millions of people who have shed your dignity to rock out to Guitar Hero and you've been waiting to find out what songs would be included in Harmonix Music System's forthcoming Rock Band, wait no more. I've got you covered.

(Credit: Amazon)

We're talking dozens of hit songs here, and mostly not the sound-alike covers included in many of these kinds of games.

The track list starts with the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter, continues on with David Bowie's Suffragette City, the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go, Metallica's Enter Sandman, R.E.M.'s Orange Crush, Radiohead's Creep, and many others.

All told, the game will include 58 songs, most of which are the original versions.

Rock Band is slated for release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 20, and for PlayStation 2 on December 18. And with Guitar Hero III just now hitting the market, be prepared for bars all over the world to be taken over by a new round of head-banging air guitarists whaling away on OK Go's Here it Goes Again.

God help us.

A screenshot from the film U2 3D. According to Real D, the number of theater screens using 3D technology will jump from 100 to more than 1,000 in less than two years.

(Credit: U2 3D)

A few months ago I wrote that one of the hottest tickets at this year's Cannes Film Festival was U2 3D, a 3D concert film about the popular band made using the technology of two companies helping to make 3D films a regular part of the movie going experience: 3ality and Real D.

Now, U2 3D is set to be accessible even to those of us who couldn't make it to the Riveria to hobnob with Leo and Bobby and the rest of the gang.

According to a release I got this morning from National Geographic Cinema Ventures, the outfit plans to make U2 3D its first "major international" release, and expects the film to hit theaters equipped to show 3D movies in January.

I'm kind of excited by this, even though I'm not a huge U2 fan. I think that this is exactly the kind of movie that could really get people to see the value of 3D, and that's in spite of evidence that the market for such films is taking off in a big way.

Okay, I admit it: I want an iPhone.

I'm surrounded by them these days, it seems. On the bus. On the streets. At work. Everywhere I go, I see people pulling them out and the gadget hound in me is suffering a little bit.

Since the iPhone came out, and since Apple announced the iTouch, I've been parroting a standard line when anyone asks when--not if--I'm going to get one: I say, either when the iPhone is available on Verizon, my carrier, or when the iTouch has a 60 GB hard drive. Whichever comes first.

But, I feel my resolve weakening. I met some friends for breakfast yesterday and one was fiddling around with his iPhone, showing his collection of photos, and it looked so good. I started thinking, "Well, $175 isn't that much to pay to cancel my Verizon service."

But then I realized that before I would ever even think about switching to an iPhone, I'd need to know if AT&T's EDGE network works at my house, which is not in the best service area as it is.

So I said to my friend with the iPhone that I really needed someone with an iPhone to come to my house and find out what the reception is like since there's no way I'm spending all that money if I can't get online using AT&T's network, Wi-Fi or no Wi-Fi.

In essence, I need someone to come by and test the service for me.

Another one of my friends at the breakfast said that he, too, had been wanting the same thing.

And it suddenly struck us that there's a golden business opportunity here, borne of Apple's unfortunate decision to marry their lovely device with AT&T: iPhone Buddy. They'll come check service at your home or office and let you know whether switching is right for you.

Obviously, this is kind of silly, but what the heck? I know there are a lot of people who want iPhones but are outright suspicious of AT&T. But since most of us don't have the tech chops to unlock the phones, we're stuck with what Apple's offering us.

And in spite of ourselves, we still want one. It's sad, but there it is.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--I'm down in the Valley on Thursday for the RoboDevelopment conference, and, having been to a few other robotics events, something seems very different.

In the past, I've been to RoboNexus, a show aimed at presenting kids and adults alike with the latest developments in robotics technology. And I've been to RoboGames, a display of pure robot-on-robot battle fury.

And there's no doubt that Robo Development is different. For one, it's smaller. For two, there's no pervasive grinding sound from the gnashing teeth of gears and claws and, well, saw blades that you might find at RoboGames. And there are no kids, like you find en masse at RoboNexus.

Dexter, a humanoid robot from Anybots, has a bipedal platform, autonomous dynamic balance, and walks, runs and jumps. Anybots says Dexter can go wherever people can go, including climbing stairs and ladders.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

So, what is RoboDevelopment?

"There isn't an event designed for robot technology professionals," said Dana Kara, the president of Robotics Trends, the media company putting on this confab. "For people building robots for sale, there's nothing out there."

Until now, that is.

RoboNexus and Robo Business, both shows run by Kara's company, cover a broad range of robotic technology. But he said that after surveying the robotics conference landscape, he concluded there was nothing geared toward giving the people building robotics infrastructure technology a place to gather and showcase their work.

So, that's what RoboDevelopment is. (For more pictures from the show, see "Photos: Robots for all occasions.")

"Robotics is much more difficult than IT," said Kara. "It requires software engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, so it's much more difficult to build things for the real world."

So, for example, the keynote speeches here Thursday have such titles as: "Low Cost, High Impact Enabling Technologies for Mass Market Robotics"; "The Emerging Robotics Industry--Catalysts and Next Steps"; and "A Robotics Development Platform from Kindergarten to Rocket Science."

This is heady stuff, and the conference itself definitely feels that way.

After all, as Kara put it, this is an event where the providers of "enabling technologies like development environments, sensors, meters and actuators and power" come together to help the creators of robots aimed at the consumer market get on their way.

One other thing that Kara pointed out struck me, and that was the reasoning behind holding this event here.

In the past, he said, most serious robotics conferences have been held in Boston or Pittsburgh because of those cities' proximity to specific universities or military research in the field.

But now, by bringing RoboDevelopment to San Jose, Kara's company is hoping to bring the field of robotics development for commercial products to a place rife with venture capitalists looking for new entrepreneurial fields to invest in.

"This could be a huge market if they get their act together," said Kara.

Still, I didn't entirely understand what the show was about. But Kara had the answer.

"Any graduate student can build a robot that can vacuum your floor," he said. "But how do you do it for $200?...That's where these people are."

Since I'm kind of an airplane nut--of the amateur variety--this is somewhat of a Homer Simpson moment.

Mmmmmm...A380.

Singapore Airlines flew the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 Thursday. And it was apparently a big party in the sky.

(Credit: Pascal Parrot/Getty Images)

Singapore Airlines flight SQ380, from Singapore to Sydney, took to the air Thursday and in the process made aviation history as the first commercial flight of the long-awaited mammoth flying machine, the Airbus A380.

I've never seen one of these planes up close. But I'm longing to. It recently made its first (test) flight into San Francisco and I was out of town. And sadly, neither Airbus nor Singapore Airlines invited me to take this first flight today.

But for those who did take it, it sounds like it was quite the celebration.

"The flight was spectacular, just truly awesome," Thomas Lee, reached by cell phone as the plane pulled into the gate at Sydney Airport, told the International Herald Tribune. "I'm thrilled beyond words, actually. Just extremely excited. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put it at 12."

Lee actually has a claim to aviation history that I am rather in awe of. He was on the first commercial flight of the 747, in 1970, the Herald Tribune reported, and now was on the first A380 passenger flight as well. (For a look at the plane, including its luxury suites, see "Photos: Airbus delivers the A380, finally.")

That's pretty cool.

The A380, if you've not been following plane porn like I have, offers 50 percent more floor space than a 747, and can carry as many as 853 people. Of course, that would be in an all-steerage configuration. A more likely scenario would be somewhere in the 500-plus range.

The Airbus Web site hasn't been updated to reflect the news that Singapore Airlines made the first passenger flight of the A380.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Still, that's a lot of airplane. And it just looks huge, too, what with an entire second level and the appearance of a flying monstrosity.

And while the Singapore flight had paying customers, it still wasn't a regularly scheduled flight. That won't happen until later this week. This flight consisted mainly of people who bought their tickets on eBay, with proceeds going to charity.

Of course, all this could be a lie. That's because, according to Airbus' own Web site, it hasn't delivered any of the planes, and none are in operation. Whoops.

Okay, I kid Airbus, but only because I'm really a huge 747 fan.

One of the things that separates the new News.com personal blogs, like this one, or Declan McCullagh's The Iconoclast, or Caroline McCarthy's The Social, from the larger, impersonal News.com blog, is that they are a place for us to write not just about what's going around us, but also what we're doing ourselves that's relevant.

In my case, that's pretty easy because I live a lot of the things I write about. So there's a never-ending supply of blog fodder. And you get the benefits of that. Insert smiley here.

Well, one of the things I've been doing for the last seven months is working on a book, and it was published on Monday. The title is The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life: Making Money in the Metaverse, and, as the title implies, it's a guide to planning, building and maintaining a profitable entrepreneurial venture in the popular virtual world.

My book, 'The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life' was just published by Wiley. The book explains how to build a profitable business in the popular virtual world.

(Credit: Wiley Publishing)

Now, I know that a lot of people are skeptical these days about whether it's even possible to make money in Second Life. Much of that skepticism stems from the fact that there was a huge amount of hype over the last year about big companies coming into SL and setting up six-figure builds, only to discover that they don't quite know how to make them pay off. The media value for such things was there in the beginning, but isn't now.

Further, there aren't an endless number of individuals or small groups making money. But there are, without a doubt, some. And in the book, I talked to more than 50 of them, many of whom are earning their full-time livings with the businesses they've developed in-world.

These are fashion businesses, real-estate operations, construction ventures, toy makers and so on. And yes, adult-oriented businesses.

Lest anyone say that I am giving people unreal expectations, let me douse them right now: You can only make money in Second Life if you are totally serious about it. You must have a plan, be committed to that plan, put in the time, have the technical skills, the design eye and many other intangible elements. Most such businesses will fail. But for those that put in the time, that have the talent and who stick to their plan, there is a great deal of profit opportunity in SL.

I wrote the book because no one had fully told this story yet, even as a growing number of people were learning how to develop these businesses. And so, it seemed like a natural book to write.

It's true, of course, that I've never been a successful Second Life entrepreneur, although since one of the categories I discuss in the book is making money blogging about SL or writing about it in some form, I guess I qualify at least a little bit in that regard. And anyway, my role is journalist, not builder.

Beyond the book itself, I've also started a blog related to the topic of entrepreneurship in Second Life. There, I'll be writing regularly about such issues, as well as bringing in the voices of some of the leading experts on the subject.

It's been an exhilarating process, turning out an entire book in seven months, from writing the first word to having a box delivered to my house on Monday, and all on top of writing full-time for CNET News.com.

But now that I have the book in hand, and it's about to go on sale in bookstores everywhere (it's already available online), I have to say it is exciting and very much worth it.

Thanks to my good friends over at GameSpot, I can now finally let out my breath: Spore is going to come out next spring.

For nearly two years, Spore, the next title from The Sims mastermind Will Wright, was all people in the video games industry could talk about. Well, OK, maybe not the only thing, but one of the major ones.

Then, suddenly, people stopped talking about it as its launch date slipped and slipped and no one knew when, or even if, it would come out.

But according to GameSpot, Wright went on BBC Radio Five Live yesterday and issued the kind of proclamation that, to video game fans, is matched only by major news events like the end of World War II and the Apollo 11 going to the moon.

'Spore' has one of the most imaginative and intuitive character-generation systems in video game history.

(Credit: Alice Taylor/WonderlandBlog.com)

So, perhaps I exaggerate a little bit. But maybe only a little. Spore represents a new generation of games, the so-called massively single-player game, and countless people have been very eagerly awaiting the opportunity to get their hands on its incredible character generator, to play in its exponentially evolving levels, as your sporelike character joins a colony and then a village and then a city and then a whole planet and then leaps into space and so on and so on.

I've played with Spore a little bit and I love it. Who knows what the game will end up being like, but what I've seen so far, I've been blown away.

Accuse me of being a cheerleader, but I say Wright and his team get the benefit of the doubt.

However, it was troubling that Electronic Arts kept delaying and delaying the game's launch. It was originally supposed to be released this year, but the date kept slipping.

So, it was reassuring that EA is finally willing to let Wright talk about a release date.

According to GameSpot, the BBC quoted Wright as saying Spore would be "roughly available in six months' time."

And as for why the game was delayed in the first place, Wright seemed to indicate that he had been putting it through some pretty rigorous testing, all in the hopes of reaching a mainstream audience with it.

"I'd like the people who played The Sims to be able to play Spore," Wright told the BBC. "I don't want it to be just (for) hard-core gamers."

If you want to watch a bunch of A-list bloggers and business folks at big-name news sites go a little ape, I recommend observing them when their Google PageRank takes a hit.

According to blogger Andy Beard, a number of high-profile blogs and news sites have had just that happen to them in recent days.

Some examples, according to Beard, include Engadget, which saw its PageRank drop from 7 to 5; Joystiq, from 6 to 4; and SFGate, Forbes.com and WashingtonPost.com, all of which had their PageRank drop from 7 to 5.

What's behind this?

Well, speculation in the blogosphere today has it that Google has decided to punish popular sites that accept paid links to lesser sites. As Valleywag puts it, "Google's bean counter, naturally, would prefer that you pay Google for sponsored links instead."

I'm working on getting comment from Google, but so far no luck. I'll update this post if I do get some comment.

Anyway, part of the buzz about this move is that some of the sites that are taking PageRank hits are the very sites (Search Engine Journal, Copyblogger, Search Engine Guide and the Blog Herald, among them) that cover search engine optimization issues, and some suspect that perhaps the search giant is punishing them for being critics.

Is that possible? Well, who knows?

But as Beard points out, not all the sites that saw PageRank losses engage in the practice of selling paid links. Instead, many of them are part of blog networks that have plenty of internal links between sites. For example, Engadget, which is part of the Weblogs Inc. network.

The guidelines that these sites may have abused? "Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to Web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the Web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

The real question is, what has changed? It's hard to imagine that all these sites suddenly changed their practices overnight. So for all these sites' PageRank rankings to have changed at once does indicate somebody over at Google is playing with slide rules or something.

AUSTIN, Texas--The most important thing right now is to make sure no one gets hit by flying watermelons.

Maker Faire show producer Louise Glasgow (left) talks intently with a crew member.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Under usual circumstances, this might be an odd concern. But I'm here in the Texas capital for Maker Faire, and the three organizers--Dale Dougherty, Louise Glasgow and Sherry Huss--just want to be sure that there are no safety issues with the fruit-launching trebuchet that has been set up on the west side of the event.

I've been riding around with Glasgow, Maker Faire's event producer, for a little while, hoping to see what she encounters in the course of the first day of the event, which took place Saturday and Sunday at the Travis County Fairgrounds.

After spending only a little time with her, one thing has already become clear: This woman is all about business.

It's not that she can't enjoy herself. Rather, it's that from the minute I hopped onto her golf cart, she has been a blur of motion, zipping from one place to the next, weaving in between attendees, talking on her radio, stopping to check in with crew members, and then repeating the whole process.

When I first got on, she is in the middle of trying to drum up participants for a parade of art bikes and other moving sculpture. Then, just like that, she has moved on to try to ensure the trebuchet isn't going to conflict in any way with the model rocketeers. Conflict, in this case, would be a Maker Faire version of Patriot missiles shooting down Scuds.

This is the third Maker Faire, but only the first in Austin. So while Glasgow and her fellow lead organizers have institutional memory to work with, they're also new to this city and want to be sure they get it right.

After months of planning and days of setup, it's finally the moment of truth.

And it looks like it's all paying off. Glasgow seems quite pleased as she notes, perhaps to herself, perhaps to me, "It's like a constant flow (of attendees) coming in now, which is nice."

By now, we've been joined by Huss, Maker Faire's director, and we're continuing the mad pace around the fairgrounds. You'd be tempted to think that Glasgow's just patrolling randomly, but it actually seems very much like she's a woman with a definite plan.

Maker Faire organizers (from left) Dale Dougherty, Sherry Huss and Glasgow discuss safety measures involved in a trebuchet that launches melons hundreds of feet.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

As we approach a fence separating the fairgrounds from the parking lot, we encounter Dougherty, the editor and publisher of Make magazine and the co-organizer of this 48-hour celebration of do-it-yourself culture, hacking, carnival silliness, fire art and so much more.

Every other time I've run across Dougherty during the time I've been here--I came two days early to Maker Faire Austin to play the role of "embedded reporter"--he's been in a largely jovial mood. Now he's agitated, complaining that the two parking lot attendants on the other side of the fence are not adequately directing attendees to the entry gates.

Glasgow assures him she'll take care of it, and she, Huss and I head in that direction to solve the problem.

We approach the two attendants, who apparently don't speak English, and Glasgow proceeds to engage in a half-English, half-pantomime attempt at conveying the proper instructions. They nod their assent and we drive off. Whether they actually understood was not entirely clear to me.

All summer, Glasgow has been visiting Austin, checking out other events at the fairgrounds and visiting other venues around town in a bid to understand what works and what doesn't in this entertainment-crazy town.

She and Huss have also been working hard to build relationships with the vendors for the event, as well as with institutions and communities in town to help drum up interest for the Maker Faire and ensure they don't breach important protocols.

Rich Bailey, chief of staff for the mayor of Austin (center), offers a mayoral proclamation declaring Maker Faire weekend in the city.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

"I look at it like I'm setting up 20 rows of dominos, then making sure" they fall the right way, Glasgow says. "If something goes off track, we know what track it's going to fall into."

Among the organizations that the two have reached out to are South by Southwest, the Austin City Limits music festival, the Burning Flipside regional Burning Man event, the Austin Children's Museum, the local video game development community, the University of Texas radio station--all in the hopes that each group could build bridges to the overall Austin community.

By now, we've found our way to the head of the parade route, and we've stopped momentarily to watch.

Just when it seems that Glasgow has forgotten her frenetic countenance, she spots a normal car parked up ahead along the parade route and suddenly we're off to intercept it.

We actually move so quickly that as we hit a bump. Huff's radio falls off the cart. No matter, Glasgow approaches the poorly located car, has a quick conversation with its driver and then grabs a nearby crew member to deal with the situation.

For the most part, Maker Faire is made up of exhibitors who come to demonstrate their mad science or show off their wares or educate the public. But the event is also "anchored" by some major groups hired by the Maker Faire. In Austin, that included two previous Maker Faire anchors--Cyclecide, a carnival bicycle rodeo, and the Life Size Mousetrap, a version of the kid's game on human growth hormone--and now a third group, the self-described freak show 999 Eyes.

Glasgow talks to a driver about moving her car out of the way of an approaching parade.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And as we drive in between 999 Eyes and the Mousetrap, Glasgow hits the golf cart's brakes as the sheriff, or at least a deputy, walks up. They begin talking. Though I can't hear very much of what they're saying, I can tell it's largely friendly.

"I could tell from the first time I met you," Glasgow says to the officer, "that I wanted you on my team."

Further, she adds, he should make sure to mark his calendar for Maker Faire Austin 2008, next October.

That's the first I've heard specific mention of there being another Maker Faire here next year.

But it's not hard to see why. By the end of Sunday, Huss tells me that she estimates total attendance for the weekend in the low-20,000s, which is almost exactly on par with the first Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif. That venue, in its second go-round this May, hit 40,000-plus. So things look good for Austin.

I ask about the 2008 event, and Huss says that it had already pretty much been assumed that there would be a second Maker Faire here, and that, in fact, you pretty much have to go into putting something like this on with the understanding that it's a multiple-year project.

One measure of success for Maker Faire Austin was its ability to create a good relationship with law enforcement.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

For the most part, Huss and Glasgow seem very happy. There are at least a few things they'd like to see be different.

From Huss' perspective, the most important might be getting more sponsorships from local major corporations. That's particularly so, she said, because Maker Faire is not a profitable venture, even in California. She said the Bay Area events just about broke even, and that Austin is not assured of even that. So, clearly more money would be good.

Another thing she'd like to see is a "food makers" section in which the so-called Makers could sell their food. That's because, currently, Maker Faire can only sell food made by approved vendors.

"Our audience doesn't want corn dogs," Huss says.

To be fair, there are other choices, like fajitas, but her point is well taken. If people were able to make and sell whatever they wanted--within reason, of course--there could be a much more interesting selection.

Finally, we pull up in front of the main Maker Faire building, where Harrod Blank, the spiritual leader of the art car movement, has gathered several examples of the genre, including one that was donated in perfect, normal shape, and which is being actively permanently decorated by participants. By now, it looks amazing, and shows a lot of promise to get even better.

As Huss and Glasgow get into a friendly conversation with Blank, I decide that this is where I'll get off.

As I walk away, I'm reminded of something Glasgow said to me during the ride.

Talking about the infrastructure of the event and her experience putting it all together for what is now the third, mostly successful, time.

"It's like building a house," Glasgow said. "There's certain things that won't go up without a foundation."

Maker Faire safety officer Joseph Pred talking to Star Wheel creator Paul daPlumber about any safety issues that might come up with the bicycle-technology-powered carnival ride.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

AUSTIN, TEXAS--Joseph Pred is carefully eyeing the giant rolling ferris-wheel-like carnival ride as it begins to head down the first hill it has encountered since being built three years ago.

Known as the Star Wheel, the bicycle-technology-powered ride is glorious fun. But since it carries three pedaling people in its interior, Pred is very interested in making sure that the Star Wheel's creators are in control of it as it starts to head down the hill.

Pred is the safety officer for Maker Faire, the weekend-long celebration of do-it-yourself culture that's wrapping up here today. He's in charge of making sure that the million moving parts that make up such an event don't result in things going wrong and people getting hurt, or that at least if someone does get injured, it's not because of negligence on the part of the organizers or the exhibitors.

And right now, his focus is entirely on the Star Wheel and its initial encounter with degrees of incline.

"They're testing it because they've never done it on a grade," says Pred as he watches the wheel's progress. "They're testing the tolerances. My job is to observe and help them figure it out and give them a nudge. And they're doing a good job."

I've come here to Austin to report not just on Maker Faire--as I've done before--but also to write about what goes on behind the scenes. So talking to someone like Pred, who is invisible but crucial to the countless artists and attendees at an event like this, seemed natural.

This role is no stretch for Pred: He's played the same role at both of the previous Maker Faires, in San Mateo, Calif., in May 2006 and May 2007. And though he's based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the show's organizers have hired him to come to the Texas capital with them because he offers an irreplaceable combination of technical skill, long-term relationships with many of the people who are exhibiting, and an understanding of how to interface with government agencies like the sheriff and the fire department.

But as much as you might think that the safety officer's job would be filled with tales of gory incidents and exciting adventures, Pred says the reverse is actually the reality.

"My job is basically to make things not happen," Pred, who runs the Bay Area company, Mutual Aid Response Services (MARS), says. "A lot of the work is involved with pre-planning, being proactive, reviewing safety plans, and making sure that the artists and the (exhibitors) just have common sense....But the makers are, by and large, responsible for the safety of their projects, and to be fair, the makers are generally experts at what they're doing already, so it's not a big stretch."

One reason he knows this is that he has worked with or known many of the artists for years, either through previous Maker Faires, or through Burning Man--for which he works part-time by running emergency services--and other events. And that experience with many of the people involved in putting on Maker Faire here breeds the kind of familiarity necessary to break down the communications barriers that might otherwise arise when trying to instruct artists on safety issues.

"It's about relationships...(being able to) walk up to someone and address them by their first name," said Pred, who, incidentally, has been a friend of mine for some time.

Besides his knowledge of the people and of the art projects here, Pred explains that having someone whose job is specifically to seek out safety concerns is crucial to the success of an event like Maker Faire.

"I'm that safety net for both the makers and the organizers," he says. They're "focused on production and their projects, and they can get tunnel vision, and so having somebody (like me), this is a standard position in a lot of organizations, having someone focused on safety, so preventative measures can be taken before something happens."

Part of the job of the safety officer is to work alongside agencies like the fire department in setting up expectations of safety on the part of the artists. Once that position is established and respected, and the community has those expectations, they can become self-enforcing, and the job of Pred, or someone else like him, becomes supportive.

Still, there are real practical considerations.

"We review all the general descriptions of the makers (and their projects), and we highlight those that involve known hazards," Pred explains. "It could be something as simple as a glue gun or soldering iron. Maybe there's a small but known threat to someone who doesn't know how to safely handle one....It starts a dialog, really. And that dialog is just intended to show that we understand their project, and they understand our expectations. The goal is to enable them to do their projects to share their delight and passion for what they do."

One of the things that Pred feels he offers organizers of events like Maker Faire, and the participating artists, is a different approach than what many are used to. That's important when you're talking about artists who are used to working within their own constraints and guidelines and for whom any rigid law-enforcement rules would be anathema to doing their art.

"I think a traditional approach to safety has been very much a 'no, you can't do that' sort of approach. It's very conservative and not in any way permissive. But with a community like this, it's more like, 'yes, you can do that, and let's figure out how to do that safely.'" said Pred. "The primary difference is that authorities generally are more concerned about a code of regulations...that doesn't account for community or the values that a community is looking to share."

As a result, one of Pred's core contributions to everyone involved in putting on Maker Faire is what he terms as "translation."

"I'm the liaison to all the agencies we might deal with, to free the production staff to deal with the production, and I can speak to the agencies' mindset," Pred says. "And surprisingly, that's a very difficult translation for the different parties to make with each other. Agencies tend not to understand the communities, and the communities don't always understand the authorities, because it's different languages."