The premise: speakers submit talks on any subject they could possibly imagine. They have to create 20 slides projected for a total of 15 seconds each, no exception. Quite literally when their five minutes are up, they're done. Ignite is a purely volunteer-run event originating in Seattle (but is spreading like wild-fire across the world) and sponsored mostly by O'Reilly (yes, the acclaimed tech book publisher) and Make: Technology on Your Time. It's held every three months or so at the King Cat Theater on 6th downtown. The attendees were numbering in the few hundreds for a while, but now beginning to grow exponentially. At Ignite 10 there were somewhere around 800 people gathering to revel in their geekiness and tonight you can be part of the action. more ›

Seattle-area tech geeks will already be familiar with the DIY quarterly Make magazine. You know it's full of ways to void warranties, reuse old gear, and manufacture new things that the Powers That Be haven't seen fit to provide to the marketplace. The fact that the guns are likely to be of the soldering rather than the glue variety is not the only thing that separates it from something like Ready Made; there's an underlying hacker ideology that welcomes you to take control of your technology and bend it to your own will. Is it our Whole Earth? Maybe not yet, but that's the path it seems to be on. (Ahem, this hyperbole is heartfelt, but we do have a few bylines in early editions of the magazine.) more ›

Seattle needs real world, technology-focused get togethers. Desperately. Microsoft does some things and so do some of the other larger shops in town but they tend not to be general attendance-type events. There's Mindcamp. There's the Penny Arcade thing, sort of. There might be a few others we're not thinking of right now, but come on, we feel like we should be able to name a dozen or so events. more ›

--We're suckers for wretched snowman. They start off dirty and withered and get melty and small before they disappear entirely in 24 hours. This one's actually got a great snow hat. more ›

Seattlest survived Mindcamp yet again. This installment, the third, ran with a familiar form of organized mayhem, and that familiarity removed a lot of our enthusiasm for the event. While we still met a few interesting individuals and heard some interesting talks, we couldn't help but to spend far too much of our time at Mindcamp wondering if we should have joined one of three different caravans of friends in going up to Vancouver for some Canadian shenanigans. more ›

Mark Frauenfelder of the awesome site Boing Boing and the awesome magazine Make Magazine (which Seattlest has contributed articles to) will be in town tonight at the awesome Seattle gallery Roq la Rue. "Retrorama!" opens at the gallery this evening and Mark has some paintings in the show. We sent him some email asking about it and his replies are below. more ›

--The first college basketball poll is out, and the Huskies are ranked #16. more ›

Man, is there a LOT of Bumbershoot stuff on Seattlest right now. If you're anything like Editor Dan you're hoping for a break in the Bumber action; a contributor's recounting of a trip to Lake Chelan, a reaction to a dunderheaded Seattle Times editorial, or even some lame PR survey naming Seattle 16th Most Fashionable City West of the Rockies. Anything! Well, you can hope for something different, but your hopes will be dashed because this is another Bumbershoot post. more ›

-"I love greasy Dicks," and similarly lame jokes have existed since the drive-in first opened in 1954. Looks like a new restaurant on the Ave wants some of that action. more ›

Seattlest has another podcasting event we want you to attend. We really want to hear you out there, apparently, so if you produce or know of a podcast that's Seattle-related in content or dialect you should post it in the comments or email Seattlest. Our all-seeing eye is currently sweeping the internets for some new additions to our links section and we want to make you famous. more ›

Seattle musicians, if you can tear yourselves away from scanning threeimaginarygirls.com for any mention of your name for just a second and focus here we'd appreciate it. We know you're out there. We also know you're not working and right about now you're wondering how you're going to spend the day. Man, you lazy bastards. Hit the cafe again or just go straight to the bar? Just kidding - We know you're still in bed. As soon as you wake up and see this, though, grab your guitar, that crate of jumbled cord and pedals you haul everywhere, your Marshall head and your girlfriend's ibook and start convincing one of your sucker friends that they need to leave work immediately and drive you to Portland. They'll do it! No one can deny the power of the get-back. more ›

Boeing is currently working hard to keep you connected during the dead air you now experience during flight. Seattlest, personally, is gratefull for the one window of opportunity we have to turn off our cell phones. Not muted. Not vibrate only. Off. Man, is that sweet. Boeing, don't take away our in-flight naps. They're all we have left. more ›