DesertStandard

Have you submitted your presentation yet? This is the last week to get your name in the hat. If you have something to say in PHX this is your chance.

I just sat through a conference where the format is similar to how the Ignite presentations will be done. I can tell you now that a good Ignite presentation will not be a business presentation. It needs to be more fun than that. Open yourself up let us know what your questions are, where do you need help. What works and what doesnt. Either way get your submission in. If we dont choose you now there will be another in a few months, I can feel the momentum carrying over for sure!

Just sat through the presentations at AZ Tech Council Partnering Conference. It was a short/micro presentation format with 14 speakers in just under 2 hours. Very similar to how Ignite Phoenix is going to be done.

The speakers were all businesses and some were more interesting than others. I tumblr’d them here. Overall it was a good time and its good to see more tech stuff happening here in PHX.

Via Jmoriarty’s suggestion I went to the Tech-e Tuesday which was up till recently known as Tempe Tech Oasis, which is slightly confusing but we all know about name changes.

Anyway it was a good time. The main speaker was Ed Koeneman of Kinetic Muscles Inc. He went over the fun of starting up a Tech company in Arizona: grant writing, prototyping, and sales. They started off using a reseller but have since shifted to running that in house. They create devices that help people recover from strokes, which is a really good thing.

Everyone got 20 seconds to introduce themselves so I pitched Ignite Phoenix really quickly. There were at least 30 people there. It was at some bar that used to be a Pita place by the Tempe theater.

I was then able to circulate a bit and talk to a few people I thought would be good presenters for Ignite. The whole thing is put on by Herb Finkelstein of ASU’s R&D Services in the Engineering School. Oh and the next one is also on the same night as the first Ignite Phoenix. Doh!

You wouldn’t really be able to guess that Phoenix is the 16th largest city for tech jobs in the country if you were to read the traditional media here. In the 41 stories published to the Phoenix Biz Journals RSS feed this week 6 of them talk about tech in the valley.
Yet there is this story:

Tech jobs spur some growth in Phoenix area:
The Phoenix area's technology community has seen some growth after shedding jobs for most of the decade, according to a study by the American Electronics Association.

Where is the info about what companies are driving this growth? What are they doing? Who are they?

Of these 6 stories only one of them actually talks about a specific company: Unicorn Media which is a startup by some of the folks who did Limelight Networks.

Where is the story about Limelight’s current issues with patent Lawsuits with Akamai?

This is more and more reason for the grassroot/groundswell action that Refresh, Social Media Club, Tempe Nerds, Refactor, and Ignite Phoenix to name a few.

There has been a severe degradation in my posting frequency as of late. This is due to a few external factors that have thrown my routine off a bit.

The biggest shift has been away from cycling, at least for the time being. This is mainly due to the recent rash of severe temps seen in the PHX area. Over 10 degrees above normal temps along with some mild heat stroke a few weeks back have forced me to hold off on the bike for a while.

In its replacement I have started back into the yoga quite extensively. I have also found a new studio in the Central PHX area: www.gravitycenteryoga.com taught by Erica. This place rocks, it is literally just a studio, no lounge or retail action here. Just a floor and restroom. Erica is over 10 years experienced in a number of Yoga traditions and works well with novices as well as experts. She loves to kill the abs, which I need, and really adds a lot of variation to the routine everyday.

I am off to Vail for a wedding this weekend so there will probably be little coming from me till next week. So keep the rubber side down and hold them mudras!

From my weekly newsletter at Dollar Stretcher Tips:

Instant Weed Killer

Weeds that grow between bricks on your walkway or sidewalk are
unsightly and can easily be killed without weed killer. Simply
boil water in your teakettle and pour it on the weeds. This is
better for the environment, too.
Kristel W.

A close friend recently broke her elbow and I was able to practice my search capabilities for doctors. Now I discovered PubMed which appears to be a government database of health articles. I did a search at Hakia’s PubMed section for Elbow Fracture and got the following:

Fractures of the lateral column of the elbow involve radial head fractures or capitellum fractures. As the biomechanics of the elbow have become better understood, the importance of the radiocapitellar joint in stabilizing the elbow has been emphasized. Preservation of the radial head has gained importance. For nondisplaced radial head fractures, good results are generally obtained with a short period of immobilization followed by early range of motion. In managing displaced radial head fractures, improved techniques and more versatile instrumentation have helped make preservation more feasible. Excellent results can be achieved with ORIF. In cases in which ORIF is impossible, prosthetic replacement of the radial head is a sound alternative. Successful results have been obtained with arthroplasty, and with second-generation modular systems, the facility of performing this procedure should increase. Treatment of capitellar fractures has also benefited from improved fixation systems. If the fragment is large enough, reduction and fixation with small screws or Kirschner wires have had good success. Excision works well in patients with fragments that are too small or not amenable to fixation, especially if the other structures of the medial elbow and forearm axis are competent.

Apparently using Hakia fixes some issues with PubMed’s built in Search feature. Got all this via CenterNetworks.

Fractures of the elbows lateral column radial hea…[Hand Clin. 2002] - PubMed Result

Well that settles that debate, looks like wikipedia is the winner.

As much as the world might need something like this, one can see ardent Wikipedia supporters decrying Encyclopaedia Britannica’s move, since it attempts to make private what Wikipedia makes public (information ownership). If that’s the case, Britannica editors may have their hands full wading through bogus submissions.

Encyclopaedia Britannica To Follow Modified Wikipedia Model | Epicenter from Wired.com

Good article on the rise of public transport use in AZ. Interesting to note that fares only cover 25% of the operating costs. So while it is cheaper to ride than drive this is because it is subsidized by our taxes. Is there a market for a private company to start up a commuter line?

In soon to be relevant news for me there is a new Express route from Chandler to Scottsdale debuting this summer!

Bus ridership soars in Arizona

I am being very immature today but this made me chuckle.

On a serious note this is a new situation to consider when using Cox Internet. I dont use bittorrent a lot but it is useful for a number of legitimate things.
Contentinople - Jeff Baumgartner - Report: Cox Blocks P2P Traffic