Archive for January, 2008

UW Surplus Property Store and Auction: Maker’s Paradise

Saturday, February 2, 8am – 10am
1137 NE Boat Street, Seattle
Or online via Proxibid.com

Now that the Boeing Surplus Store has closed in favor of online sales, what’s a poor tinkerer or hobbyist to do? Well, one option is to check out the UW Surplus Property Store and Auction. The next auction is coming up on Saturday morning, and the list of items for sale is enough to make a Bond villain tremble with excitement. Some stuff that caught my eye:


  • A metal sphere

  • Miscellaneous cutting tools

  • Video cameras and lenses

  • Palettes of Macs and PCs and Suns

  • Barcode readers

  • An injection molding machine

  • A drill press

  • A liquid nitrogen freezer system

The store is usually pretty well stocked, too. You won’t find the big industrial machines or lab equipment there, but you can get decent office furniture, industrial kitchen supplies, computer, monitors, peripherals, and cool doodads, parts, and pieces. The store is open two Tuesdays a month, and on Saturdays after an auction. Keep an eye on our calendar page for dates and times.

A good week to be at Town Hall

I’d just like to pile on to Justin’s post below about the George Dyson talk at Town Hall to say that you could do worse than spending your entire week of evenings at the Hall this week. To have to choose between the dynamic educator Rafe Esquith and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright—both speaking at the same time in different rooms in the building on Tuesday—is a truly tough call. Wednesday poses a similar dilemma between physicist Peter Freund and ecological economist Robert Costanza. Fortunately, George Dyson has no similar competition on Thursday, and neither does Friday’s appearance by the brilliant essayist Richard Rodriguez. Kudos to Town Hall for continuing to pull together such a rich variety of presentations.