This is part 2 of my post on Ignite Waterloo 4. For part 1, click here!

Alright people, lets continue talking about more of the awesome 5-minute presentations I witnessed on last Thursday!

Doug Moen: The 3-D Printer Revolution

Doug brought us the terrifying topic of 3D printers, what they are, how they work, and why they’ll spell our doom. Okay, I might have exaggerated that last one, but seriously – these things are creepy. A 3D printer is basically a device that can print three dimensional objects – layer by layer. Imagine if you took rapid horizontal cross sections of an object, and then stacked them ontop of each other? Thats sort of what a 3D printer does, but instead of a stack, you something very closely approximating the original object. The best worst part? There are 3D printers that can print the requisite pieces to make a new 3D printer. That’s right, our technology is self replicating. Its only a matter of time before Skynet is formed and we’re all doomed. Doug is associated with KwartzLab, a local hackerspace. I couldn’t find his twitter handle, but you might be able to get a hold him through KwartzLab!

Brydon Gilliss: Change the World

Brydon (twitter: @Brydon) gave a talk that was hilarious, entertaining, and rather enlightening. You see, Brydon realized that by drinking beer, he was slowly killing the environment. Apparently, not much glass from a beer bottle is actually recycled. So Brydon looked to solve this problem, one pint at a time. By installing a beer fridge, ordering a keg of beer a month, and storing said keg inside his beer fridge, Brydon knocked his beer consumption price to about 2 dollars a beer, with zero beer bottles (after initial setup costs). Now I can’t say how, but he also mentioned that you might be able to get local breweries to give you a better price on kegs.

Jonathan Fritz: Intellectual Property and Bill C-32

Jon (twitter: @jonathanmfritz) spoke about the pesky Bill C-32 and the problems it brings to Canadians who want to back up their media in a digital form. Apparently Bill C-32 would prevent you from backing up your media if there is any from of Digital Rights Management on it – even if you legally own a copy of the media and are just trying to watch it on your PC, iPad, etc. Jon also attempted to decipher some of the legalese surrounding copyright, how long it lasts, and what it means for new artists. Jon mentioned that he only broached the tip of this topic’s iceberg and encouraged the audience to get in touch with him to learn more! So if you want to know more, check out that handy twitter ID I supplied to get in touch!

Melanie Baker: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Melanie (twitter: @melle) debriefed us on how to survive the zombie apocalypse. Apparently, Plants vs. Zombies is not a very good indication of what to expect. Some key pointers were that most literature on the topic is mostly useless, and that common sense and a certain level of physical fitness would help you just as much. Lessons learned? Aim for the head, destroy the brain, water is good (slows down the zombies, natch) and Batman will still be around to help!

Wow, Those Sounded Great!

They were great! And I didn’t even touch on all of presentations, all of which were really interesting and thought provoking. I’m glad to have been able to share some of my experiences from the event, but the best way to learn about this stuff isn’t to read about it on blogs (but please, don’t stop visiting my blog!) but to come out to these events yourself! I’m just doing my part to get people out to awesome events like these. Hopefully I’ll see you at Ignite Waterloo 5!

Update [2010-11-24]: The videos have been posted! Find ‘em here. Thanks again to Philip Bast!

This post also could have been titled “why you should come to ignite waterloo 5″. I’m hoping that I will convince you to do so by retelling a few of the presentations I saw at Ignite Waterloo.

First of all, you may be asking what is Ignite? Ignite conferences are a series of 5 minute talks on anything, accompanied by slide shows that auto advance every 15 seconds. Their mantra is “enlighten us but make it quick”. Sound interesting? Keep reading.

There have been three Ignite Events in Waterloo  (aptly labelled Ignite Waterloo 1-3). I had tickets to the last one, but I ended up bailing the day of due to illness. I now wish I’d just sucked it up and gone anyways.

I showed up around 6 o’clock when doors opened, and got a chance to chat with Mark Connolly who is one of two the co-creators of uxWaterloo. About an hour later I grabbed some seats for my good friends Jon and Tyler, and started snapping pictures of the crowd. At 7:30 my friends had arrived and the presentations started! I’m not going to highlight them all (the full list is available here), but once the videos get uploaded to YouTube by Philip Bast (the volunteer videographer for the event), I’ll update this post with links!

Mike Shanks: Combining Passions

Mike (twitter: @mikepgww) gave a talk on comining passions. In his case, he wanted to combine his passion for running, with his passion for drinking beer. Apparently, there are like minded individuals who participate in something called the beer mile. This involves chugging a beer, then running a quarter-mile, chugging another beer, then running another quarter-mile, a beer, a quarter-mile, abeeraquartermile and you’re done. Mike walked us through this process, including such descriptive phrases as “Shit! Beer is carbonated”, “burpin’ around the corner”, and “Shit! Beer is still carbonated!”

Sean Puckett: The Smart Camera

Sean (web: http://photi.ca) presented us with the evolution of the camera from a dumb instrument – one that does only what its user asks of it – to a device combined with the power of 1/10th of a super computer, and a connection to the internet. Turns out 1/10th of a super computer is a whole hell of a lot, and a connection to the internet affords you “the whole of human knowledge”, allowing you to do crazy things like live translation of text written in one alphabet to another, or take a picture of someone and find out who they are, or overlay information about whatever you’re looking (folks in the biz call this augmented reality, I’m told).

Cari Howard: Garbage In, Nothing Out: It Doesn’t Go Away!

Cari (twitter: @ariesamazon) informed us of the fact that the Waterloo region’s land fills have about 20 years left. 20 years. Thats not a lot of time. After that, where are we going to put our garbage? She implored us to reduce and reuse before recycling. Turns out that even though recycling is a good thing, its not nearly as efficient as reducing or reusing your goods. Also interesting, was some details she shared on future technologies to deal with waste disposal. The short version is they use something called a plasma torch to shoot a bolt of lightning into the garbage. This apparently produces no harmful waste except some gases, which can fortunately be collected and used to charge your next bolt of lightning! Very cool.

Linda Carson: Art: WTF?

Linda Carson (twitter: @lccarson) went to art school so we didn’t have to. This amazingly titled presentation began with a picture of Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God. This, as Linda told us is a type of art called a vanitas. A vanitas is, as I understand it, a piece of art meant to remind us of our mortality. It started out with depictions of skulls, then depiction of skulls in ways that you can only see them from a certain angle. Then partially butchered animal carcasses, then partially butchered human carcasses. Then, in 1987 (I was totally born that year!) Canadian artist Jana Sterbak created a vanitas of a woman wearing a dress made of meat. Sound familiar? Yep. Lady Gaga was not just being strange, she was referencing years of art history. At the very end of her talk, she told us what I told you at the start: Linda Carson went to art school so we didn’t have to.

Oh God There Were More?

Yes, and they were all good. In fact, the ones I’ve covered here are only a sampling from the first half of the presentations! I’ll try and get more reviews up here, but this post is long enough for now. Stay tuned for part 2!

Update [2010-11-23]: Part 2 has been posted, and is available for your reading pleasure here.

Update [2010-11-24]: The videos have been posted! Find ‘em here. Thanks again to Philip Bast!