Asklemmy

My nVidia-branded plastic "sculpture" with a laser-etched 3D Eiffel tower and an actual pre-production GeForce 3 GPU embedded.

In the early 2000s I worked for a small game studio and got the attention from Nvidia for how we used their graphics cards. They wanted us to adapt our game to their new secret GeForce 3 project which was the first programmable GPU (as in shaders).

It was a crazy time with a lot of stories to tell. We got invited to the press conference for the new card, which was held in the Eiffel tower. Yeah, they actually rented the Eiffel tower.

As a thank-you for the work we'd done their developer relations representative had these made for all of the external game developers involved.

Maybe my little DIY walnut cased ESP32 universal remote

This little bronze orc:

It was a gift from my father, who in turn received it from its sculptor, Sterling Lanier. Lanier was a family friend and an editor at Chilton Books, where he insisted that a book he had read in Analog Magazine be published despite it having been turned down by a score of other publishing companies. The book was initially such a commercial failure that Lanier was ousted from Chilton--a grievous injustice, as the book in question is Frank Herbert's Dune.

I used to paint back in college but I haven't touched the brush ever since. I just don't have the drive for it I guess.

So I'm trans. And what I would bring is the Christmas ortament I got from a friend after coming out that says "Name's first Christmas".

My radial arm saw.

If the timing is right, I would bring a mushroom grow bag with mushrooms sprouting.

If not... probably my radiacode gamma spectrometer and some of my radioactive items. Maybe a clock with radium painted dials and a piece of trinitite. I think that there are many different points of discussion that can be of interest to a broad audience (radioactivity, spectroscopy, electronics, US labor law story of the radium girls, nuclear explosions, background radiation.... etc). As a bonus I can bring a UV flash light and show the radium fluorescence. Adults love UV flash lights.

Probably my wheelchair. It's a pretty nifty little chair that has quite a few unique features. Also I would need it to get there anyway. Otherwise maybe one of my drawings.

An amethyst crystal I found in my (gravel) driveway a full 4 years after moving in. It's a good 8 inches/20cm long, and shaped like a tear drop. It's amazing and I love it.

My custom designed, fully 3D printed analog keyboards (which use 3D printed switches and stabilizers)!

https://imgur.com/CmaEsP6

That's my AHEK-95 (typing on it every day) which was reviewed by a semi-famous keyboard YouTuber 😁

https://youtu.be/iv6Rh8UNWlI?si=vsgg9F5dr1fBagyU

I'd also show off my Low Poly Rose Twist Vase design:

https://imgur.com/bdxnr27

Somethings ESP32 related. Meshtastic radios, a controller I am building to add some features to my car.

My Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators.

I fuckin love these things. I used to feel left out when my friends would try to play music together, but then I found a way to be involved with a few mini-electronic-drumkits.

You can sequence a bunch of them together and sync them, easily, as well.

Teenage Engineering makes a bunch of other cool shit, too. I'm not much of a musician, though, so most of it is way beyond me.

Probably, my grandfather's blades as they tell pretty incredible stories. In order of when he was received them:

• USMC Kabar knife. He was issued the knife when he joined in WW2. He was lucky to avoid combat. Really, really lucky. He was on a troop transport en route to Kyushu when the surrender was signed on the USS Missouri and Operation Downfall was cancelled.

He went on to join the rubber industry, working for a major manufacturer in Indonesia. He kept his Kabar with him and used it a lot but never in violence. The combat knife became a tool of agriculture. The original leather rotted away in the tropical heat and humidity, was replaced with an improvised aluminum one. He was an avid gardener in his retirement and continued to use it somewhat like a hori-hori. The aluminum handle is falling off at this point, so, I'm going to eventually replace it with one made from olive wood to complete the "swords to plowshares" symbolism physically.

• Indonesian Parang. This blade is similar to a machete in design, about 20-24in (~51-61cm). My grandfather was given this blade at the rubber plantation by a deeply despondent man. The man had been pressured into taking part in an honor killing but didn't have a violent bone in his body. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to murder another human being, he came to my grandfather who was well-respected in the community (he was ceremonially adopted by the local tribe). They came up with a solution. If he didn't have his parang, he couldn't perform the killing. So, he left it in my grandfather's hands, making him promise to never return it.

While that man is probably long gone, I keep that promise myself and strive to ensure that the blade is never used for violence. Perhaps I'll see if I can figure out a good mount for it to permanently prevent its removal from the scabbard. Its continued existence, to me, provides tangible evidence that there's always another way.

My favorite rock. Its just neat.

I can think of three options:

My crossbow. I am not a hunter but I thought it would be super cool to learn how to use one. SO got it as an anniversary gift for me.

My horse hair embroidery sculpture things... I am not sure what to call them yet, but I like unusual art and these fit the bill.

My succulent collection . I have many different kinds and love propagating them.

Ps. I don't know how to upload pics to lemmy. Everytime I try an error pops up.

I would bring a bunch of fossil rocks & Petoskey stones!

Or my enormous collection of rare (not gonna say the brand) plushies! I'm one of the handful of people who have a special "good community citizen" plush from them!

Or my dumb lizard who was born without scales. I like to educate folks on why they should never get one.

I'd probably bring this. It's the actual award that the Movie V for Vendetta won for being certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

I would bring all the different handicrafts I tried... From crocheting animals (amigurumi), needle felting, diamond painting, miniature building kits, tatting (tho I haven't have much experience with this), cross stitching, polymer clay, bracelet making, braiding (Kumihimo), beading, "light" jewelry making - depends how much time I have :D

BTW I am open for more craft ideas - I do try to find new ones I haven't tried before. :)

I have a jar of tar sand from the BP oil spill

I’d roll up in my classic car that I’m restoring.

I would bring my modular synthesizers. I brought my eurorack set up to a synth meet up and it was the most popular station next to the theremin

I have a couple ideas though I'm not sure how good they would actually be. I guess anything you use for a hobby or are interested in could be used.

A 3D printer was already mentioned but would probably be the most fascinating (and bulky) thing I could bring. In that case I would probably talk about the workflow that goes into making a part, what to look out for when printing and how a print is actually made.

For simpler stuff I have 2 ideas. Firstly, I am kind of fascinated by pocket watches and have one that belonged to my great grandfather or something and is probably ~100 years old at this point. My grandmother gave it to me on my 18th birthday. The scale of the parts inside such a watch and how they work really interests me but I don't dare take any of the watches I have apart since the parts are so small (though still larger than modern mechanical wrist watches). Did you know there are so called "railroad grade" pocket watches? They were used by train conductors and had to have a certain minimum accuracy since time differences in planning could otherwise lead to train collissions.

The second small thing I could talk a bit about are fountain pens. For that I also have an older pen (A Pelikan 140 which was manufactured some time in the 50s or 60s) which is a piston filler pen, meaning it requires using ink bottles to refill. This allows usage of some really nice looking inks. Interestingly, the color of the ink on the paper can vary greatly depending on various parts of the pen (Nib thickness or the feed of the pen impacting the wetness) and the paper which may be more or less absorbant. I have a nice green ink which will have a red shimmer on wetter line parts if I use the correct paper. On other paper types it is just green.

My Bad Dragon collection!

Wait, how adult are we talking?

I built one of those Ben Eater 8 bit breadboard computers, which I'm pretty proud of.

my Akai MPC 2 I've played a bunch of instruments my whole life but this thing was the missing piece that allowed me to record full songs. Wish I knew about it a decade ago so I like introducing it to people.

My gitlab repos. There are over 100. Most of which are useless, but those are the fun ones. One of my favorites is called grubbed grub. It's a bash script that adds a picture of a hollow knight grub to your bootloader.

My kids. "LOOK, I made these myself!"

I was about to answer that I don't really have anything to bring, but the many pointy bits of metal I've stuck in keyways and the many hours I've spent watching defcon talks actually has me ready to give a whole presentation on security

I'm bringing my lockpicks and showing how easy it is for someone to rake a standard kwikset lock. Be aware of your security's limitations. Even if you have the best lock on the world, you do not have plexiglass windows. If you don't have a security system beyond a simple lock, and there are a lot of break-ins in your area, it's time to invest in an electronic security system, and then put a sign out front advertising a different system.

My board game prototypes! Can always use more playtesters :)

I'd bring an amateur radio. Fun device that gives you access to an alternate method of communication. They're old fashioned, but amateur radio gets used here and there in emergencies. I think it's more of a precautionary thing from a practical perspective, but it's still cool.

Fired and unfired pistol, rifle and shotgun ammo. I think I could give an interesting talk on the differences and the history of various cartridges, no fine details, only a broad overview. To keep it fun, I'd sprinkle in lots of things most people probably don't know.

For example, did you know an AR-15 round is actually kinda wimpy, especially compared to a typical hunting round? In some states, ARs are illegal to hunt with because the bullet is deemed too small to make a clean kill. It's basically a hauling ass .22.

And .22s are a neat topic by themselves. There's crazy variety out there, even tracers!

I have a fair amount of crap, but not a lot of it is of much interest to most people.

Unless someone out there wants me to show up with a laundry basket full of Fumos and subject them to an unsolicited three hour lecture on Touhou lore...