It was billed as "San Jose's own Mini Maker Faire". Food trucks and live variety show with lots of booths and kiddie activity. I figured "why not?" and headed down there. My first surprise was that some old friends were doing the BIKE VALET thing. There was plenty of space in their lot for my bike to.

After dropping off my bike I proceeded around to the various booths browsing their contents. Lots of kiddie activities, some crafting supply sources. When I got to the food trucks I figured out I needed a pad Thai. What a coincidence! That was all the Thai food truck had left in the plate of food for $9 category. I continued around the festival. There was a lot to see, but it was mostly a private crowd.

  

When I got to the Hotel Museum where the bike history stuff had been the last time I was here there was now an exhibit about the history of media with a focus on local stars, meaning stuff that was manufactured around here. San Jose was represented all the way back to when a radio station was a hobby type thing for a few radio heads. The first thing that inspired me to take out my camera was that bugged woman, but the story started at the beginning.

  

They started back at the dawn of the electric age, when the first light bulbs where people could see them generated interest in all things electrical that inspired a great age of innovation.

     

The whole radio system evolved rapidly after that.

Just as our grandparents bicycles were identifiably like the modern versions, their radios for listening to broadcast information are doing about what modern ones are. Maybe the fidelity has gotten better, and likely the speakers have gotten a lot better. Our entertainment choices are also more sophisticated then the ones they had.

  

  

The movie was a great introduction to vacuum tubes. Go see it if you get the chance. Allow at least twenty minutes to see the whole thing. It was playing on endless repeat from a DVD player.

Radio transmitters rapidly sized up in power, efficiency, and performance.

  

The technology in the exhibit faded out about where espionage got interesting. There was a movie warning us about audio capture bugs you could hide in a room but weren't undetectable. Hello? Today's cell phone is easier to hide than those things were. We're living in a world they were barely able to warn us about. Too late to turn back now!

  

My recommendation: See this exhibit if you get the chance. It will be there for a while.