Repo! The Genetic Opera -- Go See It at the Tivoli

"In the year 2056—the not so distant future—an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GeneCo, a biotech company that offers organ transplants...for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous Repo Men."

So begins Repo! The Genetic Opera -- a cult classic gothic rock opera released in 2008. And you can see it this Saturday at midnight at The Tivoli, complete with a shadow cast.

If you haven't already seen this movie, go see this movie. Great visuals, post-apocalyptic dystopian worldbuilding, lots of gore, and great songs. Plus, if you are a nerd living in STL you will probably run into people you already know in the theatre.

In conclusion, Zydrate Anatomy:

NatsuCon Next Weekend!

Next weekend July 16-18 is NatsuCon, St. Louis' summer anime convention!

Guests include Chris Patton, Cristina Vee, Leah Clark, The Hsu-Nami, and Tracy J. Butler.

It'll be at the Sheraton Chalet at Westport. And you can still pre-register for the next 2 days and get a discount on your tickets.

Also, be sure to check out my friend, artist Lorenzo Lizana who has a table in Artist Alley.

STL Losing Another Cool Company

Woot.com is closing its St. Louis office after being acquired by Amazon.com, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Woot is an Internet-based seller with a business model of only selling one deeply discounted item per day, in limited quantities. Sounds doomed to failure, but due to some awesome marketing and copywriting on Woot's part, they've built a devoted following, a culture, even.

Woot only employed about 20 people here in town, but its not the loss of jobs so much as the loss of potential. Woot was one more place that young, geeky writers like myself could get work writing about fun, geeky stuff. It was a place that valued innovation above the tried and true, and we don't have enough companies like that.

Woot's loss is just one more example of an ongoing issue -- St. Louis' inability to attract and keep startups.

Currently, the awesome Square Inc., manufacturer of devices that let you accept credit card payments, also has a small operations office here in town. But who knows how long that will last.

Social Media Day

Had a great time on Wednesday at Social Media Club St. Louis' Social Media Day. I took the MetroLink into town, got off at 8th and Pine, then walked around Citygarden for a bit. A bunch of kids were swimming in the waterfall pool and I wished I could join in.

The meetup was at Gio's Ristorante and it was massive. At least a hundred people, but probably way more. I don't know if anyone's released any numbers yet. But I saw a bunch of people I know -- @RossPR, @Jen_L_N, @NickGilham, @ShemTovC, @timotab, @SuntiDesigns, and I am probably forgetting a bunch of Twitter handles. (Comment and I'll edit the post).

A highlight of the evening was when @NickGilham and @timotab demonstrated to @SuntiDesigns and I how to do a bump with their iPhones. Easy, simple, yet so cool in that "shiny new toy" way. I'm hoping to get a bump-capable phone next time I upgrade.

IT Company Unisys Building App Center, Creating Tech Jobs in STL

Sweet. Today Unisys announced it is building here in town a facility with the overly complicated name of the Application Modernization Center of Excellence. The main purpose of the center, according to Unisys, is to have a think tank of geeks creating software applications for government and commercial needs.

But really, once you strip away the marketing speak, basically this means that there will be a company in town where tech geeks can get paid to create apps for the iPhone, iPad, and the rest of Apple's cool nerd toys.

Better yet, the center is expected to create 300 or so IT jobs in the area by 2012, and they are already doing some hiring for people with skills in application development. I'll keep you posted.

WasabiNet: The Key to Bringing Google Fiber to STL?

One of the presentations at the Arch Reactor open house covered WasabiNet, a 2-year-old community mesh network founded by Minerva Lopez and Ben West.

A mesh network is a cost-effective way for people to get Internet. WasabiNet uses about 8 DSL lines to cover 38 WiFi access points, and it covers about 14 blocks of Cherokee Street, and also provides Internet to Arch Reactor itself, near the intersection of Jefferson Ave. and Gravois. Access costs $9.99 per month for residents and $19.99 per month for businesses. Users can also access the network for free, but with speed limits and download quotas.

WasabiNet has been in the news since Friday, as PC World blogger Phil Shapiro cited WasabiNet as a prime reason why Google should bring its Gigabit Fiber project to St. Louis. The RFT interviewed WasabiNet founders Minerva Lopez and Ben West yesterday.

I've heard that KSDK did an interview as well, but I haven't tracked down any video of the interview, yet.

Aftermath: Arch Reactor

Overall, the open house at St. Louis hackerspace Arch Reactor was a fantastic time.

(Although Arch Reactor folks, seriously, you need to have some fricking fans going in your un-airconditioned space when you host an open house and the temp is in the high 90s. None of you highly intelligent people thought of that? Seriously?)

Lack of fans or A/C not withstanding, Arch Reactor had a number of great presentations on member projects, including building sci-fi fandom costumes, Arduino, and community mesh network WasabiNet. There was also a bunch of cool old and new technology to play with: Commodore 64s, an arcade version of Tetris, a 3D printer, a large scale blueprint printer, and a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting.

WasabiNet was especially interesting, as it hit the national media the day before the open house. More details in another post.

If Arch Reactor sounds like your kind of place, but you missed the open house this past weekend, you can visit any Tuesday night after 7:30 pm when Arch Reactor is open to the public.