Science Comedian Riffs on Hydrogen and Helium at Ignite

Our Ignite presentation is up on YouTube and the O’Reilly Media Ignite Show page.

Tara and I created the presentation – with me doing most of the writing and her doing most of the graphics. Our friend Michael Capozzola hand-drew the final slide for us (primitive technique but effective!).

We attempt to tell a 14-billion year story in five minutes: “A Tale of Two Elements” takes us from the Big Bang to the Earth and touches on a problem that many people are not aware of – the helium shortage (a local problem). Enjoy!…

What is Ignite?

The evening consisted of about fifteen 5-minute PowerPoint presentations.  Each presenter gets 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.  Within those limitations, you create a presentation that should be of interest to geeks.

Since Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis started Ignite in Seattle in 2006, events have been happening all over the world and hundreds of presentations have been given.  Recently, they started putting them online, one per week, with some post-production added.  Ours is Episode 11.

It was presented on April 1, 2009, at the Ignite SF event, which was also a party for the Web 2.0 Conference going on that week (hence, the 2.0 reference in the piece).

Links:

Brian Malow – Ignite Presentation – “A Tale of Two Elements”

Brian Malow on Hydrogen and Helium at O’Reilly’s Ignite Show page

For more information about Ignite, visit http://ignite.oreilly.com/show/

Ignite on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/ignite

7 thoughts on “Science Comedian Riffs on Hydrogen and Helium at Ignite”

  1. I think you are devastatingly clever as well as dashingly handsome, and you clearly have some kind of delightfully creative force behind you.

  2. I love it, and I learned something.

    I had only one nit, that “earth was losing market share…” only producers lose market share, not consumers or coincidental hosts or holders of a commodity; in that case, they are considered “assets.”

    However, it’s eminently engaging. Nicely done, and very original.

    The scripting must have been very tough, as the synching of the media. Not to trivialize by using a phrase that I use all the time, but, “BRAVO.”

    -AceS

  3. Well, no, revisiting the topic, earth is a producer through the decay of U235, but, it’s not the same. I think I just have a problem with my own wording 🙂 Not the first time. But, it’s not a producer on the scale of a star, as you point out. Perhaps I just like to babble.

  4. We all like to babble! That’s why we’re here.

    But… I don’t think I said that Earth was losing market share. I meant to say that Hydrogen and Helium do not enjoy the market share that they do elsewhere in the universe.

    That makes sense, yes?

    Anyway, thanks! I always appreciate your feedback!

  5. Pingback: Shai Agassi: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars | Electric Cars in Ireland

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