The New Big » Projects

Meet at the Pig: a Seattle geek events blog

stumax — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:55:52 +0000

I’ve been privileged to help organize Seattle Mind Camp over the past couple of years. One of the main reasons that project started was to bring the Seattle tech community together, to create more opportunities for interaction among local entrepreneurs and other passionate technologists. Events like Ignite Seattle, Biznik, and Lunch 2.0, have helped strengthen this sense of community over the past few years. #

But in addition to these well-publicized events, there are dozens of other meetups, workshops, and gatherings going on in our fair city. Despite the appearance of services such as Eventful and Upcoming, there is still no single place on the web where you can discover all these smaller gatherings. That’s why I’m pleased to announce a new blog: #

Meet at the Pig, a Seattle events blog for geeks, techies, hackers, and makers. #

Meet at the Pig is the brainchild and passion of Justin Martenstein, and I’m happy that he asked me to help work on the site. Each week, we’ll track meetups, workshops, lunches, conferences, and other events of interest to the local geek community. We’ll add as many events as we can to Upcoming, and then highlight some of the more interesting events on the main page of Meet at the Pig. #

The title of the blog comes from the brass pig at Pike Market, a popular landmark that’s often used as a gathering point for groups heading out to some downtown restaurant, bar, or event. Eventually, we hope that Meet at the Pig will be the one place on the web where Seattle-area geeks gather to find out what’s happening. Hope you’ll join us there. #

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blog:Meet at the Pig

stumax — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:05:49 +0000

Meet at the Pig is a Seattle events blog for geeks, techies, hackers, and makers. Justin Martenstein and I track local meetups, workshops, lunches, conferences, and other events of interest to the local geek community. We post as many events as we can at Upcoming, and then highlight some of the more interesting events on the main page.

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Meetup:Seattle Podcasting Network

stumax — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 01:10:49 +0000

The Seattle Podcasting Network promotes podcasting in the Pacific Northwest and provides instruction and encouragement for those just getting into the scene. I work with Travis Petershagen, Eric Weaver, and Kevin Maude to plan and organize the meetups and map the direction of the network. I develop and maintain the blog, wiki, and forum, and contribute blog posts and original podcasts.

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Wiki:The Louverture Project

stumax — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:44:41 +0000

The Louverture Project uses a MediaWiki platform to collect and promote knowledge, analysis, and understanding of the Haitian revolution of 1791â€“1804. This unique history project currently holds over 330 pages of information. Inspired by my grandfather’s research, I created the wiki to honor and carry on his work. I currently act as the project’s managing editor.

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civics:Read the Founders

stumax — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:32:01 +0000

Read the Founders encourages bloggers and podcasters to read America’s founding documents and other works of the Founding Fathers.

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lenses:Squidoo

stumax — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:26:54 +0000

I maintain three Squidoo lenses: one on Policital Humor, one on Civics, and another on essential Mac software. My goal is 23 Squidoo lenses. 23. Squidoo. Ha-ha. (That joke killed in 1928.)

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blog:The Sufferable Ass

stumax — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:52:37 +0000

A blog on topics technical, political, and personal at The Sufferable Ass. I design and maintain this for a friend.

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Unconference:Seattle Mind Camp

stumax — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:47:42 +0000

Seattle Mind Camp is a twice-yearly, self-organizing, digitally-minded, entrepreneur-driven, overnight Seattle confab. I’m a founding member of the planning committee, and I contribute to the blog. I also designed the logo.

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The New Big update … Summer ’06

stumax — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:35:03 +0000

I don’t know about you, but for me this summer has flown by. Seems like I’ve been busier than all get-out, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what with. Between visiting friends, attending events, working, and just general life maintenance, it’s been a full and enjoyable few months. #

I thought this might be a good time for little project update. Here’s what we’ve been up to at The New Big: #

Seattle Mind Camp

Andru, Justin, and I met briefly last week to lay the groundwork for Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 in November. Watch the Mind Camp blog and mailing list for announcments about upcoming planning meetings. We don’t have a firm date yet, but we’re looking at the first two weekends in November. #

Seattle Podcasting Network

SPN continues to roll along with monthly meetups. Blog posting has been light for the summer, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been entirely inactive. We kicked off the Passionate Podcasters Contest, offering a Rane MP 4 mixer to the most creative podcaster. #

Travis and I spent some time at the Youth Media Institute last week, giving a group of budding audio and video producers a primer on podcasting. The Institute plans to make oral histories of residents in their White Center neighborhood available as podcasts, and we were thrilled to help give them a little insight into the philosophy and practice of podcasting. #

The Sufferable Ass

I finally got around to updating the look of The Sufferable Ass, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with the result. Along with a new theme, I’ve taken a new approach to information management, by organizing content thematically on the front page, rather than chronologically. This gives the site more of a feel of a magazine or book, while still maintaining the ability for folks to subscribe to the freshest content through the RSS feed. #

I’ve still got a few tweaks to do before everything’s running just right, but I really think that this kind of approach is the way to go for blogs that have a lot of good content but are infrequently updated. It allows a blog to feature the best or most relevant content to new readers. One thing I’d like to figure out now is how to allow subscribers to pick up my RSS feed from any point in my history… sort of like being able to watch a TV series from the beginning if you’ve missed a few episodes, rather than being forced to pick things up midway through the season. #

...and the rest…

The Louverture Project continues to grow beyond my wildest expectations, thanks mostly to the work of “Doe.” I plan to move the wiki up a level in the directory structure, to replace the blog that has gone without updates for many months. #

Read the Founders has suffered from a lack of attention. I’m going to try another push for Constitution Day in September. #

We’ve been in talks with another agent to collaborate on Seattle Real Estate Talk. #

Finally, I found a very interesting site called Dapper which may let me do exactly what I want with Warming Signs. Stay tuned… #