As both Amazon and Google start opening up their infrastructure to outside parties, the phrase on everyone’s lips is cloud computing. Systems like EC2 (from Amazon) and Hadoop (open source implementation of Google’s tools) are making the construction of scalable, distributed architectures ever easier. Virtual hardware is becoming so much of a commodity that you can order up any chunk of processing power or storage, specifically catered to your needs. Now’s your chance to get up close and personal and learn all about this new wave of distributed computing.

Aaron Kimball is a PhD student at UW and a consultant on scalable Hadoop systems. He’ll be speaking at the Google campus in Fremont on cloud computing, and some of the search giant’s specific implementations. The event is unfortunately already at capacity… but you can email the WTIA directly to get on the mailing list.

Wish I’d found out about this earlier, but it just came across my inbox an hour ago. If you’re anywhere near the UW campus around 3ish today, then head down to the Electrical Engineering Building, room 105, to see Leah Buechley speak. Buechley is a post-doc researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder, investigating ubiquitous computing and e-textiles. She’ll be focusing specifically on a super-cool toolkit called the Lilypad Arduino, which allows everyday folks to build wearable “soft computers” by sewing differnet modules (microcontrollers, sensors, etc.) together with conductive thread. Drop whatever you’re doing, leave work and head down there right away!

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.