Ignite LA & the LA Geek Dinner July 21, 2009

This month we kick off the inaugural LA Ignite with Brady Forrest and Dan Gould. Read the announcement post: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/ignite-los-angeles-on-721-subm.html

6:30pm Geek Dinner starts (with drink specials from 6:30-7)
8pm-9:30 Ignite talks
10pm Cinespace opens to the general public for Dim Mak (you're welcome to stay for the band)

About Ignite
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.

Ignite site: http://ignite.oreilly.com/

About the LA Geek Dinner
The Geek Dinners are a monthly gathers of Internet and technology lovers in Los Angeles. Anyone who has an interest and passion for technology, the internet, internet technologies, software or you just know you’re a geek is welcome.

GEEK DINNER ON THE WEB (please share!)
Twitter ==> @lageekdinner
Blog ==> http://www.geekdinner.org/
Announce only mailing list ==> la-subscribe@geekdinner.org
Facebook Group ==> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2396233804

Special thanks to Girls in Tech Co-Host
Girls in Tech is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.
http://girlsintech.net/
http://girlsintech.net/2009/07/17/ignite-your-passion/

Our Speakers are:

Thomas Edwards (@mpeg2tom) - Getting Physical over IP

The Internet has mainly been about moving text, images, audio, and video around the planet. What about physical interaction? Can we move touch, breath, heat, cold, and pain over the Internet? Yes!!

Ron Evans (@deadprogram) - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles You Can Make At Home

Unmanned aerial vehicles are not just for the military anymore. Thanks to open source hardware and software, you can build your own homebrew UAV's starting for less than $100. From your living room, to the edge of outer space, the sky is the limit... or is it?

Allen Hurff (@allanhurff) - Uranium

Just Uranium.

Jeff Hester (@jeffhester) - A Secret World: Communities Behind the Firewall

For every geek working in the vibrant sunshine of the internet, there are a dozen working behind the veil of an enterprise firewall. What goes on behind that curtain? How are communities thriving in spite of IT bureaucracy? What does social media have to do with any of this? And does it make for good business?

Dan Tentler (@viss) - Hacking people - your brain is a usb stick

People are essentially robots. You can program them! You can make them get things for you, you can make them think whatever you want! You can make them hand you their wallet and keys - willingly!

Cliff Atkinson (@cliffatkinson) - The Rise of the Backchannel

The backchannel has been around in geek circles at least as long as IRC, but now mainstream audiences are drinking the Twitter Kool-Aid and speaking out against boring PowerPoint and lecturing presenters. Good or bad? The beginning or the end? Stay tuned to find out....

Anthony Citrano - Cultural analyst & Entrepreneur

Heather Knight - Turning AI gurus into Comets and Star Field Explosions

We'll give you a quick run through of how we turned the attendees of this year's IJCAI conference into flying comets and exploding asteroids. We'll aslo reveal the ingredients! We used Processing 1.0 for the graphics, we'll talk about machine vision techniques such as frame differencing, background subtraction, planar homography to capture your victims, and finally, we'll reveal our object-based functions for collision detection and direction of movement. Very rapid videos and demos!

Kellee Santiago -- Calm games

Al Seckel - Illusions

For your eyes and ears.

Jacki Morie (@skydeas1) - Are you real, or a bot?

A virtual world with no other people is BORING, and maybe even CONFUSING. Am I right? In our virtual worlds within Second Life we make intelligent agent characters that ensure your visit is interesting. What do these virtual people do? Serve as active villagers, tell cool interactive stories, show you how to do interesting things, guide you to areas that interest you and even yell at you. Can YOU tell the agents from avatars piloted by actual people?

Evonne Heyning (@amoration) - Sparking Intimacy & Lightning Up A Community

Do you fall in love at geek events? Push boundaries with your creative colleagues? Work with your partner? Master clear communication, defined roles, visual mapping for network culture flow. Connections that magnetize and grow new ventures require a great deal of passion and determination -- how do you keep sight of yourself in the process? ORGANIC & REFLEXIVE ARCHITECTURES facilitate healthy balance. Lightning Temple creators share one example of passionate interactive art in process, created in collaboration....this is our five minute love story.

Howard Seth Cohen (@HSCactor) - The Bubble net Besiji: HUMPBACK WHALES and FILM CREWS

...are they both on to something? Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae,) are an incredible species of Baleen whale. Not only do they have the largest appendages of any marine mammal, they mobilize collectively to hunt for prey. Utilizing a technique called "Bubble Net" feeding, groups of whales as large as 25 individuals have been observed engaging in this repeated communal hunting.

While the event is free, you are responsible for paying for your own food/drinks from Cinespace if you want 'em. This will be the first Ignite in Los Angeles; it is co-hosted by LA Geek Dinner. Please RSVP to the Geek Dinner list on Upcoming.

Official Website: http://www.geekdinner.org