8-18-2014 Tech Meetup

There is a first class tech meetup that is held once a month.  This is one of the few that you have to pay for and it is 10 bucks for beers and food.  This time they had Chinese.  The format is Awesome and goes like this:

• 1 hour of networking, eating, and drinking soda or beer
• a lineup of people all get a chance to announce upcoming tech events
• for 30 seconds everybody that is looking for a job stands up
• for 30 seconds everybody that is hiring stands up
• 5 - 5 minute presentations with 2.5 minutes of questions each.
• adjourn to the big bar across the street for more networking and frivolity

The two guys that put it on do a first class job!

The talks this time were

1. autoapp - this is a new startup in Portland that makes it easy to buy and sell cars.  part of the charm is how it integrates with the vin tag to give you recon on the car + allows you to search in all sorts of cool ways.
2. cinder - they are a tech company in Portland that will build you electronic stuff
3. ryan smith - a professor in cryptography with nothing to sell, but he explained how increased computing power will render normal passwords obsolete.  with off the shelf componants a computer today can try all possible 8 letter combinations of a password in under one minute.
4. beeminder - a time tracking app that ties financial loss to the failure to accomplish a goal
5. instacart - a new service that will shop for you and deliver it for 3.50 per use.  It is like Uber, but for shopping

As the meeting let out I was struck by how much activity there is on a Monday night.

The line at VooDoo Doughnuts at 9:00 on a Monday night