I have been a fan of Howard Rheingold for a long time. His ideas about computers as mind amplifiers are as relevant (and revelatory) today as they ever were. He has the consciousness-expanding optimism of Timothy Leary tempered with a good deal more critical thinking. He and I dig many of the same people in computing including Myron Krueger and Brenda Laurel (how many of you knew there were TED Talks in 1998?). Some years ago, I had the good fortune of enrolling in Howard’s Introduction to Mind Amplifiers course, and I still think about and use much of what I learned there, to this day.
Recently, Howard has been making a variety of magical objects brought to life by Arduino microcontrollers—their magic leaning more toward the numinous (and luminous!) than sorcerous. Check these out:
There are more videos of these objects on Howard’s YouTube channel, also some Arduino tutorials and other good stuff.