DorkBot PDX 0×01: An Event Review

DorkBot PDX 0×01

When: Sunday, March 30, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 PM, and, like most geek events around Portland, tends to have the addition of spontaneous speakers, finish about an hour later as a result, and use way too many commas in a paragraph.

Where: PNCA Graduate Studios, one of PNCA campuses that’s located beside REI, wherein my journey to get to the said place can be described as thus: 1) Left a friend’s apartment nearby, 2) Approached main campus, 3) Attention diverted by two guys talking in front of the PNCA entrance across the street, thought that the event might be held there, proven wrong, 4) Walked across the street to the main campus, asked receptionist, directed to “the building across REI,” 5) Went to the instructed building, which was in the same block as the one where I asked the two guys, 6) Instructed that I approached the wrong building again, and that the phrase “across REI” really meant “across from REI’s side entrance,” 7) Realized mistake/silliness/bad sense of direction, 8.) Proceeded to the correct building, wherein a ‘DorkBot PDX’ sign was conspicuously posted on the inside window, set in all caps (typeface: probably Helvetica), each letter printed on a sheet of paper. Entered with glee.

What It’s About:

• Lego robots built by highschool girls to make art, thereby ensuring that “web developer” and “computer engineer” were firmly planted as their future career choices. The most concrete and decidedly un-geeky out of all three presentations.
• Biologically inspired robots that also make art, but were composed of $1 processors, conceived and explained by the founder of Wiki himself, Ward Cunningham. In Mr. Cunningham’s own word: “I make stuff that’s simple enough, the whole thing can be illustrated in ASCII art.” Bonus: robot that waves flag around (that I truly regret for not having any evidence thereof.)
• Constructing your own programming language from FORTH. Based on a premise that if “all human languages are convivial, why aren’t all computer languages?” Bonus: ASCII-style presentation in a text editor (!) on Linux.

Technicality: ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: if the premise of an all-out vi–Emacs war doesn’t give you an instant hard-on, you’d be better off staying home.

Interestingness: ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: I loved the concept, but wasn’t geeky enough to get it.

What I Learned From The Event In Six Words:
Intelligence +2, Wisdom +2, Charisma -2

Things I Twittered Today From Breakfast To Bed—

• 11:51 @turoczy, I’m starting up a series of review on local creative/tech event—including Startupalooza (tinyurl.com/2s3xq4) #
• 11:53 Thanks to Rael, am integrating Sandy more closely into daily schedule. Perfect for someone with an equally bad short and long term memory. #
• 12:05 Heading out to Christine Vo’s, stopping by Wild Alchemy’s office after syncing up my macs. Oy vey. #
• 18:11 Am running to dorkbot!! #
• 19:07 Ward Cunningham talks about "What If Bacteria Designed Computers." Interesting… #
• 19:23 "I make stuff that’s simple enough,the whole thing can be illustrated in ASCII art." -Ward Cunningham #
• 19:26 "This is not the way engineers design circuits,but it’s pretty cool." -Ward Cunningham,on designing computers that imitate organic,livin … #
• 19:27 The term is "biologically inspired." #
• 20:28 "Convivial tools are not always easy to use,but it allow users to invent their own processes." -David Frech #
• 20:29 "All human languages are convivial,why aren’t all computer languages?" -David Frech,on the perils of industrialization #
• 22:00 Am getting some Twitter follows from people I met at Startupalooza + etc. Always excited to meet new people. #
• 22:15 “The web is turning writing into a conversation.” –Paul Graham, How To Disagree (twurl.cc/ii) #
• 22:16 @truemors Hannah Montana LOST? Ha! #pulseofpdx #
• 22:17 The Paul Graham essay, by the way, I found via Daring Fireball. (tinyurl.com/3da9xk) #
• 22:33 Catching the bus home by biking from Flanders to Pine.Whew! #
• 23:22 @gracerodriguez: there are tons of project mgmt tools. Depends on the size of your org and complexity of your projects #
• 23:59 @gracerodriguez
  Personal favorite, works like Basecamp: projectpier.org/
  Also: redmine.org and openproj.org/ #
• 00:01 @gracerodriguez – Google “open source project management” for additional sites. There are so much more stuff out there that I don’t know #
• 00:09 @verso – with a name like crowdfavorite + high five favicon, you can’t go wrong Thanks! Am going to recommend it to @gracerodriguez #
• 00:11 @gracerodriguez a good one we are using in my office is TasksPro frm crowdfavorite.com but it’s $30 for one user and $125 for 5 but it ROCKS #
• 00:12 @gracerodriguez: the tweet I just sent you, I got via @verso #
• 00:13 @verso – just realized that twitter should have a forwarding service! Copying, pasting, copyfitting & forwarding your msg took too a while #
• 00:16 @verso – No learning curve, you say? #
• 00:20 @siliconflorist – Am wondering if the SocialMap technology comes from the same folks who made Unthirsty and KnitMap? #
• 00:23 @verso – thanks for the tip. I’m now convinced that TasksPro is ‘wrapped in bacon’ good #
• 00:26 @gracerodriguez – “retweets”? My fear of adopting tools like Twhirl is that, much like with IM clients, I probably will get distracted #
• 00:28 @ gracerodriguez much thanks for the tip, though. In my profile page is a short conversation with @verso about how easy TasksPro was for her #
• 00:38 @gracerodriguez Ha! You’re right. It was no different from constantly Alt-Tabbing to go to Safari Will try out the app later. Thanks. #
• 01:28 @alderina: hey, your ‘Y!’ is gone, wha happened? #

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Startupalooza: An Event Review

Startupalooza

When: Saturday, March 29, 2008, 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM, conveniently followed by a happy hour wherein the good folks at Vidoop kindly picked the tab up.

Where: CubeSpace, which, unlike the previously reviewed venue, had a clearly written sign on its front that was actually readable (props for using Helvetica)—although still without the traffic-facing billboard. Thanks to them, this event boasted one of the nicest cat herders, foamiest beers and largest concentration of ergonomic office chairs in the nation—not to mention one of the most prominent acknowledgments of geekiness in the open.

What It’s About: stories of successes, mistakes, struggle and perpetual ramen dinner from brilliant start-uppers who fell in love with Portland. Also, product demonstration that was guaranteed to keep you in the loop (and keep your inbox filled with beta invitations.) Bonus: an inside joke created in 5 straight minutes, involving trembling hands and a poke at SXSW’s blunder.

Technicality (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: half-and-half. The talks and panel discussion were fairly accessible, and the demos were pretty technical.

Interestingness (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: if learning from and having conversations with Portland’s greatest innovators (and, in some cases, even luminaries) for a whole day failed to excite your mind to want to create something bigger than yourself (a startup, collaborative, group, side project, community activity, etc.), I don’t know what else will.

What I Learned From The Event In Six Words:
Portland’s Creative/Tech Renaissance: so overdue.

Beer And Blog – Scott Kveton On Implementing Openid On Your Blog: An Event Review

Beer And Blog – Scott Kveton On Implementing Openid On Your Blog

When: Friday, March 28, 2008, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Where: Green Dragon Bistro & Brewpub, a place that had no sign sticking out of the building whatsoever (although it was both painted green and decorated with a dragon)—a sign which can inform prospective visitors and event participants who may have circled a block only fifty feet away from the bar for twenty full minutes and is now late to the event—but one that also boasts great atmosphere and a humbling, full-on brewery on the back, and a set of bathrooms wherein someone who had been drinking too much that evening may interpret the symbol in front of its door as an inverted exclamation mark.

What It’s About: so you’re a totally rad, cyber-savvy sleuth who had, like, two accounts each on MySpace, Facebook, Digg, del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, Ning, Stumbleupon, Netvibes, Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, iGoogle, Microsoft Live, Alltop and IconBuffet (you fully know about the fact that this one doesn’t allow more than one identity per person, but you happen to be very, very good at concealing it, so what the hell.) So, two accounts: one for your collection of Truemors and The Onion kind of news and your more reserved side of personality, and one for everything under the sky that will make your significant other jealous.

And say you had just opened an online banking account, and the password’s gotta be different because hello, it’s your/your child’s entire play/college money that’s in there. But you can’t possibly create and be asked to remember another 16-digit randomized password. Your brain know this.

So what do you do? You open an OpenID (ironically registering and generating another set of password while doing so) so now you can log in on almost all of the sites I mentioned above simply by hitting “login with OpenID” and then entering something like “brampitoyo.myopenid.com” or “brampitoyo.myvidoop.com” (where ‘MyOpenID’ and ‘Vidoop’ are the OpenID providers) in the box and clicking “allow” in the window that opens afterward. Doing this will then leave your brain with enough room to memorize that 16-digit combinations. Problem solved.

Bonus: imagine if I can shorten that URL even more—say, to “brampitoyo.com”—just by following a simple, ten-minute tutorial.

Technicality (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: even though I didn’t understand all of the stuff that was presented (note: Scott Kveton, the presenter, was a Terminal beast who, by some kind of a divine grace, is connected to everyone that matters in the ’net,) I should had I host Link En Fuego myself. In other words, if you’re an active blogger working on WordPress, you should be able to understand it.

Interestingness (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: Boy, is this a small town. I got to meet people who also went to the iPhone SDK event last monday, and will most likely meet again at the Startupalooza.

What I Learned From The Event In Six Words:
Two lines are all it takes. Yeah.

Friends of DemocracyLab: An Event Review

Friends of DemocracyLab

When: Thursday, March 27, 2008, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Where: East Burn, which has a bar downstairs, restaurants upstairs, patio outside, and a private meeting room so enormous, complete with two large tables and a yellow-tiled pantry, that contains within it several more private meeting rooms, and within it several more meeting rooms, and yet even more rooms within the aforementioned rooms—ad infinitum.

What it’s about: DemocracyLab, to put it simply, is a politically-centered wiki-meets-forum with a tiny bit of social networking thrown in that aims to shake down political apathy by splitting seemingly hard political issues into smaller, more understandable parts (values, positions, policies.) It’s a concept that even I had trouble of fully grasping because of its sheer complexity (even though it’s going to be dead simple to use) and mindset shift that will need to happen. Anyway, thanks to all this, and several other projects involving Oregon150 and school districts around Portland, DemocracyLab needs all the help that it can get. Bonus: Like everything else in Portland, it’s open source, community centered, and filled with some of the nicest and most brilliant individuals on earth.

Technicality (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ½
Translation: accessible to everyone. DemocracyLab was trying to get as many people into the game as possible. I put three-and-a-half up there, because the event got one or two fingers up until we discussed how the site should behave, wherein everybody went crazy with suggestions and critiques. All good.

Interestingness (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: I learned from firsthand account that night that the desire to be politically active is dismal, not only among the educated and well-off, but also among the poor and underpowered. About the only people who care about politics are politicians and lobbyists and people with special interests—and, hello, not enough regular citizens.

What I Learned From The Event In Six Words:
With complexity comes possibilities, great ideation.

The First In A Hopefully Ongoing Series About My Learnings From Various Creative And Tech Events Around Portland

All this in a column that I would call, somewhat bluntly, the Portland Creative/Tech Event Review (PC/TER).

Here goes nothing.

Mobile Portland

When: Monday, March 24, 2008 at 6:00 PM

Where: eROI conference room, perched atop what felt like climbing up fifteen flights of grey stairs in an otherwise nondescript and very cramped hallway—this, after incidentally bumping up into one of their staff at the place that they would sometimes mutter among themselves at lunchtimes and email litmus testing parties to be the “secret entrance.”

What it’s about: iPhone SDK and the ongoing debate whether how open or closed the platform really was, or is going to be. Bonus: a two-minute iPhone simulator demo that was met with a lot of cheer and desire to see more.

Technicality (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝ ½
Translation: if you don’t know the technicalities of Cocoa and the zen of writing in Objective C, you’d be better off going next door. Either Backspace or Ground Kontrol will do and be infinitely more entertaining.

Interestingness (on a scale of 1 to 5): ☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
Translation: I’m a wannabe geek who desperately want to get in the Portland tech community even though I have to lie my heart off. Just kidding. Actually, even though I’m not a developer/coder by nature, I am very interested in the prospect of using the iPhone platform to evolve the data collection/aggregation part of Account Planning.

What I Learned From The Event In Six Words:
Jailbroken by NerveGas, Sanctioned By O’Reilly.

UPDATE: much thanks to Jason Grigsby (@grigs) whom I met tonight at PDXWI’s Publishing Platform Wars and had let me know that he linked to this review firsthand, which then brought more attention.

Lesson of The Moment: The Most Successful Letter In the History of the World

This is proof that good copywriting can not only produce good result, but is also timeless. It also brought me to the realization that, in print ads, I almost never remember the visual but only the headline (ie. “Remember that ad with a small VW car on the grey page that ran a long time ago?”, “Oh, it’s called ‘Lemon’ isn’t it?”)

Today, we see ‘no copy’ ads practically running the Advertising/Design Annuals afoot (no pun intended.) Of course they’re great. And they have ‘big ideas.’ And they’re clever as hell. I’ll give you that. But if you ask me now, I can’t remember a single instance of those ads.

I suspect that a missing headline might have something to do with it.

Found via Signal vs. Noise.

The Critics Agreed, Muxtape Is An Exercise In Elegant Restraint

It only needs to do one thing, reviving the mixtape tradition, and that it does with grace—eschewing the amount of collected informations (ie. username, password, d.o.b, to a bare minimum in favor of allowing you to upload, organize and display your playable mix online as promptly as possible.

Here’s what I did in 30 minutes (this includes nearly 20 minutes spent on deciding whether putting in a contemporary tribute to Get The Funk Outta Ma Face in the mix was a good idea or not.)

Found via Daring Fireball and Signal vs. Noise.

Q: Convince Me To Stop Using Facebook

A: Allright.

Q: Can You Prove The Influence That Pokémon Has On The Presidential Primary?

A: Yes.

Compared to

Via Raven Zachary’s Twitter.