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Ignite Seattle 20 is another Town Hall double feature

Ignite Seattle 20 is another double feature at Town Hall Seattle – Your $5 admission gets you into Ignite and a reading by psychotherapist and author Gary Greenberg.

Gary will kick off Town Hall’s May 16 double feature at 6 pm (one $5 ticket gets you into see him and Ignite!) with an entertaining expose of the new, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — the DSM — the American Psychiatric Association’s compendium of mental illnesses “Bible.”

Gary Greenberg

Since its debut in 1952, the DSM has been frequently revised and, with each revision, so has the “official” view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was classified as a mental illness until 1973, and Asperger’s gained recognition in 1994 only to see its status challenged nearly 20 years later.

Each revision created controversy, but the DSM-5, the newest iteration, has shaken psychiatry to its foundations. The APA has taken fire from all corners — and now from Greenberg — for extending the reach of psychiatry into daily life by encouraging doctors to diagnose more illnesses and prescribe more therapies — often medications whose efficacy is unknown and whose side effects are severe.

Get tickets over on the Town Hall Seattle event page.

Details, details, details…

Ignite Seattle 10 is next Monday! As part of our effort to get organized and make this the most awesome Ignite yet, here is a quick run down of some important details for attending.

  • Ignite Seattle 10 will be on Monday June 14th. Doors will open at 7:00, icebreaker/game starts at 7:30, talks start at 8:30. The bar will be open the entire time.
  • As usual, the event is at the King Cat Theatre, 2130 6th Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98121.
  • 21 only. We know there are younger people who would like to attend, but the venue is just not set up for it.  We are looking at possibly doing an all ages Ignite, and we encourage you to let us know if you would like to help make that happen!
  • Admission is $5 at the door. Cash only (small unmarked bill greatly appreciated). The folks at the door are volunteers, so please be patient with them if they don’t count so well. Yes, you can use your credit card at the bar.

That’s it for now, we hope to see you there for another great Ignite night.

Ignite Seattle 10

Ignite’s Scotto Moore’s Play About Near-Omnipotent Botnets

Scotto Moore has been Ignite Seattle’s Artist-In-Residence for the past year. His latest talk was during Global Ignite Week on the future of pens (Remember, horde pens! You will need them in the future). Scotto has released a near-future, sci-fi play with Annex Theatre (map). It’s called “When I Come to My Senses, I’m Alive!“.

As Annex describes it:

“When I Come To My Senses, I’m Alive!” is a near-future sci-fi story about a technological provocateur who invents a method for capturing emotions as digital information, as part of a project to “chart the emotional genome.” She develops a cult following of fans who download her very addictive “emoticlips” – each delivered with cryptic, poetic file names like “the surprise of an unfamiliar memory” – and play them back in hobby-built receiver helmets. The experience is not full blown virtual reality; instead, emotional responses & sensations are triggered, and each fan experiences something unique. A seedy television executive tries to coopt her technology to syndicate the emotions of TV stars, hiring an elite P.I. to figure out what her weaknesses are when she refuses to sell out… but in the meantime, publishing digital versions of her emotions to the internet has unexpected consequences amongst the botnets of the world.

It’s playing the next two weekends on Capitol Hill. I’ve already seen it (and loved it) — you should go too!

Here’s the trailer:

Ignite Seattle 9 Speaker Order

Here are the speakers for tonight’s Ignite Seattle. The first set goes on at 8:30PM. The second set will take stage at 9:45PM. Doors are at 7PM and the cost is $5.

Speakers: First Set

Jason Preston (@jasonp107) and Mónica Guzmán (@moniguzman) How to Have an Argument
Accomplished contrarians, Ignite alums, and fiancées, Jason and Mónica will share the secrets of how to have an argument that doesn’t involve legal fees. Their talk also marks an Ignite first, a tag team talk.

David Albrecht (@davidralbrecht) Atoms > Bits
My friends and I spent a few months developing a low cost USB peripheral which allows people with cerebral palsy to use computers. I’ll detail our solution, explain our design process and demonstrate how low the bar (financial & technical) really is for getting started with hardware hacking.

Todd Sawicki (@sawickipedia) Things you don’t want to hear from the doctor: Your Wife has Breast Cancer
There’s no real good way to break the news, as Katie and I have learned – we just found out Katie has breast cancer. We’ve been telling the world since well before everyone could see from Katie’s baldness what was going on. And we learned a lot about how to tell people that you or someone important in your life has cancer.

Amanda Koster (@salaamgarage) How I made sense of my trip to Vietnam.
Ranging from chopsticks and fish sauce, to ‘bombies’ and landmine victims; I’ll show how my trip to post war Vietnam can actually be put into a context that makes sense for all.

Becky Anderson (@beckyan) Business Lessons from Star Wars
Running a business ain’t like dusting crops! Without knowing Star Wars, you could fly right through a star, or lose half your staff, and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?

Sol VillarealYou Paid For It – You Might As Well Use It
A quick guide to the City of Seattle from a member of the McGinn Administration

Jeremy Calvert (jcalvert) KiteBot : DIY Kite Energy
Using kites to harness wind energy is getting increasing attention and investment world wide. We’ll breeze through a survey of the field, which has an evident emphasis on elaborate and expensive approaches. Then, we’ll deconstruct the fundamental problems that such a system must solve and present a solution that strives to be scalable, while also being accessible to the hobbyist.

Brian Aker (@brianaker) Guide to NoSQL
Putting your thinking caps on. This talk will be hardcore geek.

Harold Carlton – How robots have revolutionized ball point pen manufacturing
Without robots we’d still be using pencils! Bah! Who wants pencils?

Speakers: Second Set

Ben Huh (@benhuh) Evolution of the Meme
I’ll walk u through the history of viral ideas.

Kathy Gill (@kegill) 5 Reasons To Take a Motorcycle Class (even if you never plan to ride a motorcycle)
A humorous look at two wheelers as commuting option.

Beth Kolko – The King Road Drag, Post-Apocalyptic Scenarios, and Why Sen. Stevens Was Sort of Right About the Tubes
The ability to move information from place to place is the cornerstone of civilization! So, trucks as much as tubes come into play if we want to really think about how creating innovative ways to move bits around can change the world.

Nicole Steinbok (@nicolesteinbok) 22 Minute Meetings
Meetings are a huge productivity & time suck. This humorous talk will explain how to fix that in 9 easy steps.

David Cole (@davidscole) Playing with Fire – Create a metalcasting foundry in your garage.
I’ve recently discovered sand-casting, which is a very cheap and very awesome way of casting metal parts at home. You can make your own car parts, robot parts, science projects or artistic sculptures – anything!

Andrew Lueck – Self Publishing
Four years ago I set out to illustrate, author and publish my own children’s book. Being the impatient “control” freak that I am I quickly realized that the traditional book publishing process was arcane and would compromise my vision, my voice and take a lifetime to complete. My answer, self-publishing!

Evangeline Marzec (@pocketprotector) How Microfinance Really Works
Go around the world with Kiva.org in five minutes or less. War stories from a Kiva Fellow after 6 months in the field, with insights on how, when and why microfinance works – and when it doesn’t.

Dan Reeder (@DanMonsterMan) Papier Mâché 3.0
Renowned author and creator, Dan Reeder brings us the state of the art in papier mâché and the monsters he wants you to make.

Ignite Seattle #9 is this Thursday!

Ignite Seattle #9 is this Thursday! It’s going to be at the King Cat Theatre. Doors open at 7:00PM. To cover rising costs the door price will be $5.

It’s one of 65+ Ignite events happening around the world right now. You can follow the action at http://igniteshow.com and on Twitter with the #giw tag.

Ignite Seattle Details
Ignite Seattle will feature ~15 speakers. Doors will open at 7:00PM. The gumdrop building contest starts at 7:30PM and the talks will start at 8:30PM. We have had our venue costs go up significantly and we will be charging $5 at the door.

Synapse!
We’d like to welcome Ignite Seattle’s first sponsor! Synapse designs nifty products.

Sponsor Ignite Seattle
We are looking for more sponsors. You’ll be put on the website, tweeted about, thanked profusely at the event and have the heart-warming knowledge that you helped make Ignite possible.

21+ Only
Unfortunately, due to pressure from the State Liquor Board the King Cat is no longer able to support a mixed age crowd. This sucks. We know it sucks, however we can’t expect the venue to risk losing its license. Right now the King Cat is the only venue in town that is feasible. If you know of another let us know.

Global Ignite Week
What started in Seattle has spread around the world. During the first ever Global Ignite Week there are ~65 events happening on 6 continents. On Thursday there will be over 30 events.

http://IgniteShow.com/Seattle
Ignite has launched a video portal. There are almost 40 cities represented with several hundred videos aggregated together. Start with Seattle, but definitely check out other cities’ talks.

Top 10 Reasons You Should Go To Ignite
Mashable wrote up a very insightful list of reasons to come to Ignite. If you need help getting your housemate to join you for the evening, send it to them.

Speaker Line-up
Randy has posted them.

Stay in the Know on Ignite Announcements

There are many ways to stay up-to-date on the newly revived Ignite Seattle.

Ignite Mailing List – We have an announcement list for keeping you uptodate. We only send out 1-2 mails per month. The content is limited to Ignite news and other similar events from the Ignite community. You can sign up here. Only Ignite organizers can send mail to this list.
IgniteSea on Twitter – If 140 character sound bites are more your speed, follow us @ignitesea.
Ignite Seattle Blog – You’re reading this post on the blog. You can also subscribe via RSS.
Local Seattle Blogs – Seattlest, Seattle 2.0, The Big Blog and Techflash all let their readers know that Ignite was happening.
Ignite Site – Ignites are happening around the world every week. You can keep track of all of them (including Seattle) on the central Ignite site.

See you soon!

Ignite Seattle 6 Schedule

Ignite Seattle is this Wednesday, 4/29, at the King Cat Theatre. Ignite is free. We’ve got a great line-up of speakers. Here’s the evening’s schedule:

7PM – Doors Open

7:30 PM – Paper Tower Contest Begins – Build the tallest tower you can out of just 5 sheets of paper and tape (See Details)

8:30 – First Set of Talks
Hillel Cooperman (@hillel) – The Secret Underground World of Lego
Dawn Rutherford (@dawnoftheread) – Public Library Hacking
Roy Leban (@royleban) – Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer’s
Shelly Farnham (@ShellyShelly) Community Genius: Leveraging Community to Increase your Creative Powers
Dominic Muren (@dmuren) – Humblefacturing a Sustainable Electronic Future
Jen Zug (@jenzug) – The Sanity Hacks of a Stay At Home Mom
Ken Beegle (@kbeegle) – Decoding Sticks and Waves
Maya Bisineer (@thinkmaya) – Geek Girl – A life Story
Scott Berkun (Scottberkun.com)- How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk

9:45 PM – Second Set of Talks
Scotto Moore (Scotto.org)- Intangible Method
Secret Guest Speaker from Ignite Portland
Mike Tykka – The Invention of the Wheel
Jason Preston (@Jasonp107) – Goodbye Tolstoy: How to say anything in 140 characters or less
Chris DiBona (@cdibona) – The Coolness of Telemedicine
Ron Burk – The Psychology of Incompetence
Katherine Hernandez (@ipodtouchgirl) – The Mac Spy
Jamie Gower JamieGower.com) – I Am %0.0002 Cyborg
Beth Goza (@bethgo) – Knitting in Code

Pre-Ignite Contest

Back when Ignite first lit up the Seattle scene, Bre Pettis used to run a pre-ignite contest just to get things warmed up. We are bringing back that tradition for the next Ignite, and everyone is invited to participate.

The game is simple, the rules are few, and it will be a contest of pure creativity and engineering prowess.  Your materials are 5 sheets of paper, a roll of tape, and a pair of scissors. Gather your team and start cutting, folding, rolling and taping until you have the tallest freestanding tower you can manage. When time is called, step away and cross your fingers!

There are only two rules:

  1. you can’t use anything other then the paper and tape provided
  2. your construction cannot be taped to the floor (or any other part of the theater for that matter)

Whichever team has the tallest structure standing when the Judges come around wins, and there will be prizes.

We will provide the tape and paper, just bring some friends and a pair of scissors (no running please). Contest will begin at 7:30  so you will have time to finish and clean up before the talks get started at 8:30.

Ignite Seattle 6 Speakers

We’ve got a bunch of great speakers this time! Check ’em out below. Ignite Seattle 6 will take place on 4/29 at the King Cat Theatre. Doors will open at 7PM and talk will start at 8:30PM. We are very grateful to be getting sponsorship from Google, Biznik, and Phinney Bischoff Design House.

Roy Leban (@royleban) – Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer’s
When the time came to move my father-in-law into an Alzheimer’s facility, I approached the problem as I approach any technical problem — I needed to meet the needs of the user, even if he didn’t know them and couldn’t express them. I crafted an experience (a UX) for him in his new home which meets those needs and I worked to make sure that the actual move itself did the same.

Ron Burk – The Psychology of Incompetence
Why does software suck so bad? Is it possible that a lot of us really smart computer programmers are, in fact… incompetent?

Dominic Muren (@dmuren) – Humblefacturing a Sustainable Electronic Future
We geeks love our personal tech. iPhones, Kindles, and Netbooks — these are the things we are quick to buy, and quick to trade up to stay on the bleeding edge. But in our wake we leave mountains of discarded, useless, and toxic ex-electronics. But must this necessarily be the case?

Jason Preston (@Jasonp107) – Goobye Tolstoy: How to say anything in 140 characters or less
Twitter’s greatest contr. to society is: any idea can be shared in 140 chars or less-beyond that, it’s just drivel. See how & why in 5 mins.

Jamie Gower – How to Set Up a Machinima Studio for $20 (or Hamlet: Armed and Dangerous)
The startling true story of the production of the climax from Hamlet that defied sanity—staged entirely in Starcraft: Brood War, a deeply-discounted, 11-year old computer game!

Chris DiBona (@cdibona) – The Coolness of Telemedicine
Remote medicine is coming a long way. Chris will run us through the latest.

Ken Beegle (@kbeegle) – Decoding Sticks and Waves
Yesterday’s breakthrough solutions are today’s historical curiosities. Such is the case of stick charts, which were once used to navigate the Marshall Islands. By observing the waves, wind and stars, select Marshall Islanders were able to find their way across the water. In 1898, Captain Winkler of the German Navy began decoding the stick charts, allowing us to understand how and why the charts worked. Using his experiences as a lens, we can look at the maps we’re building today and ask what type of historical curiosities will they become.

Maya Bisineer (@thinkmaya) – Geek Girl – A life Story
From being a tomboy, secretly hiding away my cousin’s hot-wheels cars at 5 yrs of age all the way to imposing geekiness on my own 2 year old by refusing her pink dresses :). I WILL make a claim that we are a special breed of people that need special privileges in order to save our creed.

Dawn Rutherford (@dawnoftheread) – Public Library Hacking
Money tight? Want to save more for a rainy day? If you aren’t fully utilizing your public library, you might be wasting thousands of dollars a year!Librarian Dawn Rutherford will give you a quick trip through all your public libraries have to offer, and how to make the most of it, using tricks and tips gleaned from someone who has spent over half her life working or volunteering in them.

Mike Tykka – The Invention of the Wheel
It seems Nature has beaten man to almost every “invention” of his: Helicopters, Submarines, Electricity, Video Cameras, Supercomputers, etc. For the longest time i thought one notable exception was the wheel – seems hard to do out of flesh: think blood vessels; How do they attach? Then i started studying biochemistry and learned about proteins. Turns out nature has invented a full blown, reversible, proton driven turbine engine, many tens of thousands of which churn away in every one of the billions of cells in a human body.

Beth Goza (@bethgo) – Knitting in Code
Remember the joy of writing your first Hello World application? Do you still have a copy somewhere so you can gaze upon your coded baby steps into the world of binary goodness? In knitting, creating something beautiful is just like binary, with a series of knits and pearls you can dream up the most sophisticated of patterns. In the spirit of hi-tech meets hand-tech, I will show you how to convert your binary Hello World app into a pattern of stitches (think kint =1 pearl = 0), so that you can create, mount, frame and hang your Hello World genius for all to see.

Hillel Cooperman (@hillel) – The Secret Underground World of Lego
Get a glimpse of a thriving user generated content ecosystem that’s been around since long before the web. See an incredible example of a community, and how a large corporation has completely let go of control only to find incredible success despite and maybe because of the economic downturn.

Shelly Farnham (@ShellyShelly) Community Genius: Leveraging Community to Increase your Creative Powers
We’ve all heard that it’s a myth that creativity occurs in isolation. We’ve even heard about *group genius*, the ability for group with “flow” to create ground-breaking works of art or technology. Well, in this brief talk Shelly Farnham, social scientist and leading expert in community technologies, will take it to the next level and provide tips for how to leverage *community genius* to improve your creative powers.

Katherine Hernandez (@ipodtouchgirl) – The Mac Spy
I made a last minute decision to attend a meeting I somehow caught wind of. Assured of its importance, I flew down yet again, not even a month after MacWorld, to see what would happen at this 25 year reunion of the Berkeley Mac User Group.

Scott Berkun (Scottberkun.com)- How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk
To give a good talk you want to have a story. You have to be able to frame it. If you’re going to give an Ignite talk you have to do this really, really quickly.

Scotto Moore (Scotto.org)- Intangible Method
A digital fairy tale about a young woman who realizes that first person video footage from her own life is being posted to YouTube – before the events actually occur in real life.

Jen Zug (@jenzug) – The Sanity Hacks of a Stay At Home Mom
Drawing from her real life as a stay at home mom (as opposed to her imaginary life as a bar tender on Cape Cod), Jen Zug shares her parenting hacks to staying sane when the majority of her day is spent discussing the merits of Optimus Prime over Buzz Light Year.

Thingamajiggr II: Friday Night in Seattle

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Just a reminder that we are throwing another Thingamajiggr party to celebrate the innovative tech community in the Pacific Northwest. It will combine great speakers, innovative technology, geek inspired art, VJs, DJs, bar, and creative technologists. The second Thingamajiggr is happening in Seattle the evening of June 13th, 7:30pm – 1am. It will be held at the 911 Media Arts Center in South Lake Union. All proceeds will go to benefit the 911 Media Arts Center. It will be co-hosted by Waggle Labs and O’Reilly Radar. Tickets can be purchased for $10 presale, 15$ at door, 21+ only. Details on the program are below.

We’ve just added a silk screening workshop so bring a shirt or jacket to decorate while you are there. It’ll be in the same room that you get your free LED Throwie.

Speakers

(8:00pm – 9:30pm):
After opening up with some Ignite talks we’ll hear from

john mendina uw

John Mendina – Do you drive while talking on a cell phone or read e-mail while talking on the phone? Come hear Dr. John Medina, author of “Brain Rules,” a developmental molecular biologist, explain why the brain can’t multitask. He is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. Visit www.brainrules.net, see Dr. Medina’s news coverage or watch his Tech Talk at Google.

dan savage

Dan Savage is a nationally syndicated sex advice columnist and author of several books. He’s taken the local weekly The Stranger to a national level, slogged his way onto the net, and has been blamed for destroying podcasting. Dan will be telling us where he thinks the publishing industry is going wrong.

Party

(9:30pm – 1:00pm):
Entertainment:


Workshops: Join a workshop!

  • LED Throwies by the Dorkbot Overlords
  • Knitting 2.0: How “hi-tech meets hand-spun” is changing the face of this traditional craft, by Beth Goza. Learn more.
  • New: Silk Screening for the Masses – Bergen McMurray of Deviant:Design will be on-hand to guide you through the process.

Art:

  • OBViouS video sculpture, a five-artist show curated by 911 Media Arts Center Affiliate Curator Steven Vroom
  • Power Tool Races Installation and Conversation Piece by Hazardfactory
  • The Ionization Clock — where every passing second is another step into obsolescence — by Simon Winder

It’s a Seattle Tech Community Weekend!
Technophiles, this the weekend for you. Be sure to check out our friends, including:

Sponsored by Voyager Capital, Identity Mine, Pathable, and O’Reilly Radar.