A long road from Hardware Wars

A while back I discovered a great quarterly periodical, MAKE, about accessible technology that you can make on your own. MAKE is published by the O'Reilley publishing group, so it is no secret that the theme of the publication is demystifying technology and making it available to anyone (a recurring theme on this blog, too!). So you can expect to find discussions ranging from cardboard robots to open source software therein. What I didn't expect to find was a short piece catching up with Ernie Fosselius. Who is Ernie Fosselius? Shame on you! The Director of Hardware Wars? Porklips Now? A contributing member of the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo? Ernie has retired from filmmaking and now devotes his time to carving wonderful kinetic woodcarvings that have a visual pun or message. I can see the conneciton with MAKE.. the idea and the construction are simple enough but the overall effect is hilarious.

Check out BI-POLAR BEAR, whose head rotates from happy to sad as you turn the crank:



Or this one, called "April 15"



(the meaning is obvious)

Or the donation machine, with a hand-cranked mesmerist:



(laughing) I'd give you money, Ernie!

In any event, here's the rest of them, as a FLICKR slide show! That's Ernie in the bowler, and his cool little bicycle powered car he built. Here's his interview in MAKE.