Last weekend I saw a mini glass flameworking (lampworking) workshop at Mini Makerfaire in Vancouver.  I didn't get a chance to try it, but it looks like fun, and something that is perfect for a place like the MakerSpace, here in Victoria BC.  The workshop and materials were provided by ootay glass.

The craft involves heating glass rods (and beads?) in front of a torch, and sticking different coloured pieces together.  Here are some nice results from wikipedia:

Here are some people doing it at Mini Makerfaire Vancouver

The workshop providers had an array of materials.

I was at Mini Makerfaire in Vancouver last weekend, and I came across a booth presenting a very interesting vest.  The Point Locus Wearable Tactile Pathfinder is a vest which reads GPS data, and vibrates on the wearer's shoulders to indicate the direction they should take along a path to a destination.  The vest should be used in tandem with a guide dog or some other tool to navigate obstacles, whenever the device is used by the blind.

In BBC's World Service News on June 23rd, 2011 at minute 23:09 there was an interview with a representative, Charles Hall, of Georgia's Food and Vegetables Grower's Association.  Here is a shocking quote from the interview:

BBC: So, if you can't get your seasonal people to pick the crops, why can't you just get locals? ... I would also assume there are plenty of people out there looking for work, what's wrong with crop picking?

Hall: Well the unemployment rate is 9.6% right now. Our US worker and most US citezens cannot withstand the type of jobs that are needed in the field.  These are jobs where you are going to be working 8-10 hours a day it's hot, it's 98 to 100 degrees, temperature wise, lifting, stooping, bending, very physically demanding type of work.  And when we have used domestic workers, they just can't stand up under this kind of work environment.

... they talked about guest worker program and Hall said that growers would prefer US workers, but it is infeasible.

BBC (in conclusion):: You're gonna just have to find some americans who stoop and bend as well as foreigners can.

Hall: Yes but we haven't found those Americans yet.

Hear the whole thing at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/globalnews/globalnews_20110623-0320a.mp3

Walking past the theatre yesterday, I saw they were showing

THOR 3D

I laughed out loud, and continued walking.  But thinking back over the last year or two, I can make the obvious  observation that every movie titled

<insert title here> 3D

is on the same intellectual plane as THOR 3D.  These movies are self-declared unintelligent!  Tough, perhaps THOR 3D deserves more Ds.  I propose this as a rating system for film festival lovers, and I think THOR 3D should be renamed to

THOR 10D