Coming Soon: The Personal Blimp

Well, maybe not soon. But for those of us who dreamed of the airships of Barsoom as kids, this report on the Make: blog about some physical world hackers (aka makers) building a personal blimp has got to send shivers up your spine. I want one.

Personal Blimp

Apart from the personal “how cool,” I also want to note just how grateful we all need to be to the garage enthusiasts who take on projects like this, far from the potentially lucrative enthusiasms of Silcon Valley. The hacker/maker impulse is behind so much progress — and people who are passionate about what they do are a gift to the world. Part of what I like so much about Make: magazine is not just that it’s giving us an amazing view into the coming future where computing increasingly intersects not just cyberspace but the real world, but also a view into the world of the garage-shop mechanics, sometimes on the fringe, who are so often on the forefront of innovation.

(Thanks to my brother James for reminding me of Barsoom when I sent him this link.)