Join our mailing list! Jordan Schwartz, a speaker at our first Ignite (he gave the great talk on SMS services), pointed out that our mailing list is hidden on the site. I’ll change that soon, but for now here’s a link to the sign-up page.
Bre and I use it to announce Ignite events & news. There’s no spam and almost no traffic.
We were lucky to have Hillel Cooperman (pictured) of Jackson Fish Market join us at Ignite Deux. He agreed to join the lineup the night before the event (thanks Hillel!) and gave an amazing presentation entitled “Life is Short: How to Make Every Meal an Opportunity for a Memorable Experience”. Hillel’s talk was based on his food blog Tasting Menu, one of the top food blogs in Seattle. A video of his talk and his slides will be available soon (at the same time as everyone else’s).
Here is a second update on the speaker list for Ignite Deux. Marc Hedlund of Wesabe and Radar was originally scheduled to speak at Ignite. He was not able to make it. He told me this well in advance and I just never made an announcement on the blog (sorry!). We hope that he will be able to make it to a future Ignite. (someone asked about this in the comments and I realized that I hadn’t made this announcement — sorry for the bait-n-switch.)
Update: I have removed this photo of Hillel Cooperman. I hadn’t checked the rights on the photo before posting (sloppy of me) and the photographer has asked that I remove it (well within his rights!) as he has them marked for non-commercial use only all-rights reserved. Sorry Michal!
We packed over 400 people into the CHAC last night to watch 32 Egg Slams and 22 talks. 20 eggs were broken and 436 slides were shown. Thanks to everyone who attended, volunteered, slammed, sponsored, and/or spoke.
The videos and presentations will be available for download shortly. In the meantime upload your photos to our Flickr Group.
We heard your feedback and we will have more room next time. We also have some ideas for how we can tighten up the program. If you have any feedback put it in the comments.
I just wanted to layout the night’s schedule again and make sure everyone knows the details:
5:00 - The space opens. There is WiFi, food (at Crave), and drink in the building. (We may ask you for help with set-up)
6:30 - Egg Slam begins!
8:30 - The Ask Later talks begin (See the schedule)
9:30 - Second Round of Ask Later talks
10:30 - Third Round of Ask Later talks.
And to re-iterate some things:
That’s right the Seattle Podcasting Network will be out in force at Ignite tonight. Make sure to say “Hi”:
Once again this month, the Seattle Podcasters’ Meetup ventures out of the friendly confines of Pyramid Alehouse and into the friendly confines of the CHAC, the Capitol Hill Arts Center. We’re taking the opportunity to attend one of the coolest new events in Seattle, and we’re giving our members a chance to get hands-on with the podcasting gear, and up close and personal with the local Geekerati.
Ignite Seattle is a series of geek events hosted by O’Reilly Radar’s Brady Forrest and Make magazine’s Bre Pettis (a Seattle Podcasting Meetup-er). The premiere Ignite event back in December was a blast. Over 200 people packed into the lower level of CHAC to build popsicle-stick bridges and watch a PowerPoint presentation format called Ask Later. Now, if the idea of watching a PowerPoint slide show doesn’t excite you, consider that each speaker has only 5 minutes to present 20 slides, and the slides are automatically timed to advance every 15 seconds. 24 different speakers will present their ideas over the course of an evening, so you’re sure to find one or two topics that will really catch your attention. (Check out the video archives from the first Ignite Seattle here.)
For those of you who’ve been thinking about trying out podcasting — as well as those of you with established podcasts who want a chance to create a podcast that wouldn’t be appropriate for your regular site — we invite you to come out and help contribute to SPN’s “podcast coverage” of what is sure to be a terrific event. Bring your own audio gear or borrow some of ours and conduct roving interviews onsite — to be edited and posted to the SPN podcast and blog later in the week. There is no experience necessary and this will be a great way to get your feet wet in podcasting.
Click on over to our meetup page and RSVP. Hope to see you there!
With the help of Chris DiBona and Barry Brumitt (speaker) I am pleased to announce that Google is also sponsoring Ignite tonight. As I’ve mentioned on Radar, I use Google for search, mail, and docs (formerly Writely). Using those products certainly made producing Ignite a lot simpler. Thanks Google!
Here’s some more on what Barry Brumitt will be discussing:
Processing and transforming large data sets can be cumbersome and slowon a single machine, while using multiple machines can require significant custom infrastructure to see the advantages of parallelism. Google has many such data sets which are used to build the indexes that provide rapid responses to the very high query rate observed on its web sites. Google engineers nigh-universally use The “Map-Reduce” framework to process large (Gb, Tb, Pb?) datasets across thousands of machines simultaneously. A 20-line program is all that is necessary to perform a simple transformation across a very large cluster. In my work over the last year, I’ve been using Map-Reduce to process large geographic data sets which describe the earth. At IgniteSeattle, I’m going to introduce MapReduce and describe a couple ways it can be effectively used when working with typical geographic data sets.
We have twenty-one awesome talks and speakers for you this time. The talks range in subject matter from tech to community to art to business and then back to tech with a little law and science thrown in. Each series of talks will begin at the bottom of the hour. Since the talks (should) last only 35 minutes (five x seven = thirty-five) there will be plenty of time for networking and socializing.Each talk is 20 slides long and each slide is on for only 15 seconds. If a topic bores you, go get a drink! Chances are it will be done by the time you get back.
First Set of Talks (8:30 PM)
Second Set of Talks (9:30 PM)
Third Set of Talks (10:30 PM)
Ignite Seattle is a geek event that combines on-site geekery, sharing, and innovation (and drinking). The next one will be held upstairs at the CHAC on Tuesday, February 13th. The Make Contest (Egg Slam) will begin at 6:30; the Ask Later talks will begin at 8:30. Videos and photos from the previous Ignite are available. Admission is free.
Ignite Alum and a founder of the Darfur Wall Jonah Burke alerted me to an upcoming benefit in Seattle. Here are the details:
LIGHT
A Benefit for Darfur
This March, DJ Darek Mazzone, DJ Rhythma, and special guest DJ Starterkit will be dropping the hottest global beats to help stop the cold-blooded crisis in Darfur. Join us for this night of unchecked revelry. All proceeds benefit The Darfur Wall.
The Baltic Room
Saturday, March 3
10:00 p.m.
More info and RSVP (optional): http://darfurwall.org/party
Scott Beale of Laughing Squid has offered to sponsor Ignite! You’ve probably seen some of his amazing photos if you have checked out our Flickr Group.
Scott happened to be in Seattle for the last Ignite. He found the event on Upcoming and came by on a lark. Scott won’t be with us physically this time, but he will be with us in both spirit and sticker (make sure you get one!). Thanks Scott and Laughing Squid!
Laughing Squid, run by primary tentacle Scott Beale, focuses on art,culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond.
Update: I’ll be testing firing contraptions this week, wait to build your egg drop safety container until after Friday so that you can see the firing contraption in the podcast. Rules may change at that time to accomadate something like a giant crossbow!
On February 13th, Brady and I will be hosting Ignite Seattle, a Maker/Geek event here in Seattle. We’re going to be having an egg drop. You make an egg-safety device that is smaller than an 18″ x 18″ x 18″ cube and less than 3 pounds. You bring it to the event at 6:30 PM at the CHAC upper level on February 13th and we’ll put it in a giant slingshot and smash it against the wall. If you’ve done an egg drop event and have any advice for me, drop me a note in the comments!
You can make your own egg safety container on your own time or since you can come and work on your design as early as 4:30 if you want. I’ll have popsicle sticks, hot glue, and newspaper there for you to make your own. If you have any other ideas for supplies to have there, drop me a note in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. No matter what, all building stops at 7:30 so that we can put the eggs into a giant sling shot made of a lot of surgical tubing and fire them at a (plastic protected) brick wall. No metal or glass allowed since we don’t want to break the place.
Did you do an egg drop in school or have a brilliant idea for an egg cushioning device? If so, you can help out by uploading a picture of your cushioning strategy or drawing a diagram and upload it to the MAKE: flickr pool. I’ll be putting some of these pictures in the Weekend Project podcast this weekend which will be all about egg drops and I may even try and use one of the uploaded strategies.
What is an Egg Drop? - Link
