The BC Wireless project is a project to bring free community networks to communities throughout British Columbia. BC Wireless There’s a great resource for finding network connectivity in Vancouver, by cafe, neighbourhood, or main street. There’s even a map. Coffee and Wireless in Vancouver  Read →

OK, after we get the boffers done, we can get into more child-friendly swordsmanship with these instructions for how to build a lightsabre with common plumbing parts for about US$33. It looks pretty cool, too. Then we can use these rotoscoping instructions and the Crimson application (designed just for rotoscoping lightsaber effects) to film the kids having a nice healthy duel. Crimson is OS X only, and has trouble running under Tiger, but it’s open source, so I’ll try to get in and fix it. Some of the Windows lightsabre rotoscoping tools (yes, it’s a whole category of applications now) also add neato features like sound effects and flashes (from the blades touching), which would be fun to add as well.  Read →

Boffers are foam swords for safer swordfighting. Here’s how to build boffers easily. Make Simple boffers  Read →