Tonight I am camping downtown at the ATDC in the Centergy building of Gatech 5th street after a fun 6 hours listening and learning about various cool subjects.
The night started with barbecue before the opening credits to the cool sponsors like Microsoft, ATDC, TechDrawl, and an insurance co.
I was a little confused at first with the room setup (there were 8 rooms available – but better to be prepared) and scheduling was sort of quick and on the fly. So on the fly that my seminar got moved to the front when somebody needed a projector later on (on the bright side, I got to see Sherry’s presentation on social media (more to come later.)
Inside a Peltier
The first thing to know about my presentation is that I planned to have maybe 5 minutes to present with a projector and a quick q&a, but instead, I had 30 minutes to present (luckily I undid this by finding the room about 5 minutes late.) My presentation was on Peltier Junctions, thermo couples, and an ideation session into Micro-tech producing a ceramic paint with magnetically align-able junctions. Unfortunately, I only had two attendees and one was a little on the ADHD side of things. The important thing though is that we were involved in the exchange of ideas; one of my guests expressed a great idea where peltiers could be used: water towers – because the water is chilled (and this takes energy, and the top of the tower is exposed to sunlight – a peltier could insulate and help provide electricity at the same time!
Next, @sherryheyl from concept hub inc showed us her ideas on social media marketing and different revenue models. Some of the more interesting ideas were that “Knowledge is no longer power”, “Knowledge is free” based on the example of Good Will Hunting learning all that he knew for $1.50 in late charges from the local library. She also talked about the issue of financial advisors not knowing how to use technology, so monetize advisors by training them and certifying them to use your site.
Here you see the blue and black corset with a zipper.
Then I went to the Duct Tape Corset session (how to make duct tape clothing)
which was over-hyped on twitter by the likes of Stephen Fleming (the competing session) and Keith McGregor, but was still interesting with the 3 people who did show up to discuss it, including a man wanting to make a vest. I think that using paper towels or cotton for the foundation for these is a much better idea for breath though (than a trashbag.)
Next, I went to a more casual conversation on micro appliances where THE MICROSOFT HATER (he yelled against the MSFT sponsor to start the night) presented us with three of his more mobile devices – a nokia mini laptop, a psp type device, and the gameboy mini (showing how the loader would load any
rom catridge inserted. These discussions lead to topics concerning screen size, typability, batter life, and I even talked about my netbook. BTW, I got a lot of comments about my mini 10, and a lot of people are impressed by its size and the hd decoder chip. The conversation was really educational, and the guy presenting works with the it at GPC.
The Microsoft Hater passing around his cool mini devices.
Chris, somebody that I’ve met through Ajai and the GT Young Entrepreneurs and SOBreakfasts from Fandomu.com who runs MomoCon (a free anime convention held near gatech) presented on creating more community with your social network. We did sidetrack a little into getting together a “skeptics” group and a lot of the ideas were based on little things that people will save for to spend on at a convention and using local resources, having short inventory items (food/tshirts) and working with similar ideas to co-op or otherwise provide adequate spacing to provide.
It was about 11 now, and I walked in on the “end” of @stephenfleming’s QA session on the energy grid, alternative energy, and solar power on the tail of the Hydrogen Myth. My question as to whether we really should look at the smart grid technology or more toward independent generation led to an interesting discussion with Michael about the Russian micro nuclear generators that were liquid lead cooled (so automatically contained if overheated) that could power a neighborhood, be plenty safe and maintenance free underground for ~ 20 years in the size of a meeting table. The conversation continued until the 11:30 spot and ventured into how Georgians want Atlanta destroyed in flooding and a history lesson into Milton County (which I contend if it does split off again will only be doomed to eventually repeat history eventually because Atlanta is where all of the people complaining about being taxed from work – I don’t care how long ago something happened, if it happened for a legitimate reason, that could legitimately happen again – these citizens shouldn’t complain about supporting the lower half of the county now, when 70 years ago it was the opposite, because 70 years can happen again pretty easily. ) Then we talked about the brain train and the idea that it might take 25 years for the beltline to be really begun, when the property and old tracks are already there and just need some cement trucks to get started.
Chris Talking
The last session I went to was Tim talking showing how reverse engineering with IDA can help find security issues or otherwise audit programs to ensure, or just see what types of comparisons and api calls a given program is making. We reverse engineered code, found a map to where a comparison occurred in a password program, and then rewrote that line to accept any password. One example is to bust the myth of paranormal activity sensors for iphones … see if they’re just random or if they do actually call api functions to the gps, microphone, or g sensor.
A few suggestions for the event would be a chance to get to the schedule, groupthink with people and decide which presentations would be best. I’m not sure than an online schedule would work the best, but it could, so I could figure out who i want to go listen to while listening to a presentation.
Some presentations that I hear were good were “How to Stare at Women” by Sean, a craft homebrew beer session by MSFT Hater dude, a MakeBot cheap 3d printing (plastic) presentation by http://www.ericweinhoffer.com – and Michael Mealling’s space talk.
Late night is getting late (and dang, wordpress wants an update. ) Here I am camping in the middle of the ATDC room, with somebody snoring nearby. Goodnight, I look forward to tomorrow. Maybe I will present about using ffmpeg for your multimedia application/ service tomorrow.
Other late night activities included talking about histories and hobbies with guns (yeah I talked about my 5 in a dime with a 22 and shooting a black powder rifle) under the veil of the Zombie Apocalypse and playing some Call of Duty 4 with some startup modded Xbox controller (sometimes I really wish that I was into video games.)
Finally, a big thanks to the sponsors, Microsoft, the insurance group, tech draw, and ATDC. Learning a lot.
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