Which comes first, the music or the video? The question is moot now that artisan Ben Lewry of Visionary Instruments, has built an LCD video display into his guitar. After several prototypes, his custom video guitars now can run visualizations or movies by simply popping in a USB thumbdrive into a back panel. Visualizations can even be triggered with MIDI signals by playing the guitar. Steven Wilson, of Porcupine Tree, was so taken by Ben’s designs that he’s now rocking a video guitar to sold out shows around the world.

Episode links: Visionary Instruments, Porcupine Tree, Diane Nitschke [photos], Maker Faire

It’s true. The future is here. Really. Anything you can dream in 3D can be made real. MakerBot’s affordable Cupcake CNC, a slightly larger than a breadbox 3D printer, will take your 3D modeled dreams and make them manifest. MakerBot’s Bre Pettis, a man who knows how a lot about making robots and dreams come true, gives Irina the skinny on what MakerBot is and how it works.

Episode links: MakerBot, Bre Pettis, Thingiverse, Google SketchUp, Blender, Forkbot, Martha Vader, Maker Faire 2009

You may not want to run up to legendary American TV actor Todd Bridges and yell “What’choo talkin’ bout, Willis?” (in case you were born in the 90’s, Bridges played Gary Coleman’s older brother Willis on the historic TV series “Diff’rent Strokes” — the molestation episode is classic!) For the past few years, Bridges has joined the ranks of professional wrestling. If he gets annoyed by Willis fans, he just might body slam them! Bridges is known in the ring as Mr. Not So Perfect — and if you check out the internets, you’ll see his grown up days have been exactly that, including some serious criminal charges. That’s why we love him so. Building his own computers from the ground up, playing PC games, and talkin’ smack online, Willis identifies as a true computer geek. Watch the interview to hear his politcal thoughts on Cary Coleman’s run for governor and the current California Governator. Also, watch for his online gamer tag so you can wrestle him yourself! Don’t forget to peep past the credits for a special challenge from the Slutsky.

Episode links: Todd Bridges, Fog City Wrestling

For our third installment of TechCab Confessions we have uber nerdcore rapper (the one who coined the term!) MC Frontalot take the hot seat, err, back seat of the taxi. For those of you joining us in medias res, GETV’s TechCab series takes geeks for a ride while they confess their technological sins to a live streaming camera for all the world to see. In this episode, we are honored to have Front — as he’s known to his fans — take a break from performing at SXSW and promoting his latest album Final Boss to tell us a whopper of a story for which, we are happy to say, the statute of limitations has TOTALLY and COMPLETELY expired. A great hacker caper of yore, involving the inaugural Lillith Fair, the Levi’s website and an amateur musician’s online contest — all this, and someone ended up in jail after all! We’ll just leave that to the great nerdcore rapper and elegant hacker to tell you the rest.

Episode links: TechCab Confessions, MC Frontalot, essence, Lilith Fair, guest editor: Madge Weinstein, photo credits: jeans, cookie, steel barbie, angy barbie, stiff barbie, pants down, seattle coffee

This is rewind week as we delve back into the archives to pull out this favorite geek gem from 2006. We attended a hoity toity Segway Polo match for charity with GETV alums Steve Wozniak and Victor Miller where GETV Guest Segway Sportscaster Nicole Shipley (daughter of Veritas Software founder Dale Shipley) asked hard hitting questions about a serious issue with the Segway. The match was part of the 22nd annual Polo in the Park and the money went to the James S. Brady Riding Program for Special Children ? so all kinds of horseplay went on. Yeah, we do hang with chopped liver. MMM, chopped liver. Special thanks to Diego?s Umbrella for the soundtrack. We?ll keep our pants on, thanks.

Episode links: SF Polo in the Park, Segway HT Polo, Victor Miller, Steve Wozniak, Segway of Oakland, Diego’s Umbrella

Now for a second installment of our Tech Cab Confessions series, we have none other than NonSociety’s Julia Allison, who answers Irina’s never-ending query of how geeks have “destroyed themselves of others” on the internet. In case you are new to our Tech Cab, Irina drove around Austin, picking up her victims, oops, we mean fares, who confessed live on camera their deepest secrets and sins to you, our fair viewers. Julia Allison has written for Time Out New York, Star Magazine, Huffington Post, and has reported for MSNBC and Fox. In this confession, Julia drops her guard and dishes on her ex-boyfriend Jake Lodwick (one of the founders of Vimeo), her non-relationship with Kevin Rose, her decision to quit self-promoting herself, her realization that people were laughing at her and not with her, and gives advice to little girls about to embark on a career in internet fame. What a confession, what raw material for guest editor Richard Bluestein to mold into an episode. Who’s Richard you ask? Why, he’s Madge Weinstein, host of Yeast Radio, one of the most popular podcasts in the history of the internet. We think Madge and Irina were related in a prior immigration experience, but they’re all hush hush. They definitely share at least one organ, but they won’t say which one.

Episode links: TechCab Confessions, Julia Allison, NonSociety, Madge Weinstein

Thanks to our friends at Intel, Irina and editor Kevin flew to Portland where not only did they get to tour the top secret chip-making labs (no camera’s allowed) but they met some disprutive tech guys in the realm of CAPTCHAs. You may not know what a CAPTCHA is, but we’re pretty sure you’ve used one or two or three. OK, so if someone asks you what’s a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and you wanna sound annoying and smart just say, “It’s a reverse Turing test.” Hee. Basically, it’s a way for the computer to tell if you’re a human or a bot to prevent comment spam on blogs (or on YouTube, etc) or, more importantly, to prevent bots from infiltrating consumer sites. Since the average failure rate of traditional CAPTCHA technolgy is about 20 percent, bots can mess up a lot of shopping. We’ve heard that Ticketmaster loses as much as 12 percent of their sales to potential ticket buyers who drop out because they can’t get past the CAPTCHA. So, if you can ignore Irina’s combover hairstyle in this episode, we check in with the guys from Vidoop and hear what they have to say. Oh yeah, this subject would not be complete without referencing a little Blade Runner and the Voight-Kampff test.

Episode links: CAPTCHA, Vidoop, Voight-Kampff

For our 200th episode, we get sorta serious with the subject matter, but dont worry, there’s still LOLcats involved. We talk to a very esoteric and smarty-pants guy, Columbia University law school professor Tim Wu (he’s hot too! but married) — he’s the guy who even the FCC trusts to help them make fair laws about such things as the AT&T and BellSouth merger. Professor Wu is credited with popularizing the concept of “network neutrality” in his 2003 paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. In 2006, he co-authored the book, Who Controls the Internet? Network neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity and economic innovation in America, so if you use the internet — or at least, if you watch porn on the internet — here’s your chance to learn exactly why you should care. Also, after you watch this episode, you can sound super smart at all those parties you go to with your social networking friends. During 2008, Wu served as an adviser to the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

Episode links: Tim Wu (wikipedia), Tim Wu (personal), network neutrality

We know in your drunken stupor you all forgot that you went to SXSW and Texas last month, never mind what you confessed to Irina as she drove you around in our gloriously luxurious TechCab …. But guess what, it’s all on tape for ever and ever and ever on the internet! After our newest editor Kevin and intern Calum (he lives in Nova Scotia!) slaved over hours of footage, we’ve put together a few precious secrets that fell only on Irina’s lovely door-knocker-earringed ears….and the entire internet! First, we start off with our own and dear blip.tv coder Justin Day (next to him is blip.tv’s money man Ryan Chambers) — Justin recounts how he tortured his fellow students in college with spontaneous eruptions of solitaire. Cali Lewis, a queen of geeks if ever there was one — takes a ride with Irina and Eddie in her pajamas with her miniature daschund Zoe and explains how she dissed Jason Calacanis. Cali is SO not sinful, I had to give her a little nudge there. Rudy Jahchan and Casey McKinnon take a ride during which Rudy describes how — through hacking skills — he drove a colleage 1) out of his department and 2) insane. See if you can guess which tech celebrity videoblogging god Steve Woolf is talking about in his confession. Ellie Rountree’s story from Rocketboom involves a bottle of wine, breaking NY State law and Justin.tv —- and its still available online! TechCab fun for everyone.

Episode links: TechCab Confessions, Justin Day, Cali Lewis, Rudy Jahchan, Steve Woolf, Ellie Rountree

So we all know RZA is one of the greatest rappers of all time. But did you guys know he’s a total geek out gangsta? At another of RZA’s Hip-Hop Chess events, we ask him to tell us his thoughts about technology and the internet. And the Wu Tang leader schools Irina, telling her to GO OUTSIDE. That probably won’t work. Also at the chess party, Rakaa of Dilated Peoples reflects about the first time he “touched” the Internet and Irina reveals that in 1997 she used to hide out in chat rooms and spit rhymes, pretending she was a boy. Besides the internationally known rappers, we also hear from a local young musician who has never lived without the internet. He is 18-year-old V, and he loves to help his mother with Microsoft Word. Enjoy the joy! (Big thanks to Kevin Zupancic for his shooting and editing skills on this episode!)

Episode links: RZA, Wu-Tang Clan, Hip-Hop Chess Federation, Rakaa, Dilated Peoples, WuChess, John O’Connell High School (San Francisco)