Author Archives: tmw2010

Compassion, Human Condition, Humanity, Philosophy, Society

Keep Your Hands & Feet Inside the Car at All Times

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
-David Bowie

Life is a roller coaster ride, a wobbly high wire act, at best. For all the self-help books and therapists and support groups and gurus, in the end it’s just a crap shoot. Life is anyone’s guess.

Even though I know all this, and my mantra, for the last few years at least, has been “Keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times and remain seated until the ride comes to a complete stop” – even though I’m no stranger to disappointment, failure and heartbreak, and I know better than to let my guard down,  it’s still ridiculously easy to grasp onto the faintest pattern of twists and turns and adjust to the ride with expectations born of habit, especially if the ride becomes comforting and familiar.

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Culture, Humanity, Maker, Social Justice, Uncategorized

Back for the Future: Makerspaces that Matter

Resharing this post from Eureka Factory, for which I originally wrote it.

When we first embarked on the library makerspace journey a few years ago, the concept was still relatively new.  3-D printers were all the rage, Maker Faires were the new state fair,  and makerspaces in libraries were cutting edge.

Six years down the road,  3D printers are still cool, and prices have dropped. But beyond rapid prototyping and small business uses, hobby use hasn’t gotten much beyond key chains and the ubiquitous plastic octopus.  Attendance has waned at the name brand Maker Faires, although independent maker festivals like Gulf Coast Maker & Comic Con have sprung up worldwide.  And makerspaces in libraries – well, they’re pretty common these days but mileage has varied and they’ve proven a bit too cutting edge for some libraries, where they’ve been scaled back to arts and crafts programming, or high end computer labs.

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