Global Ignite week is now in full swing, and we get our turn at the firehose here in Salt Lake City this Thursday. Doors at the Stateroom open at 6pm, with 18 speakers and tons more on tap.

Ignite is best described as “geek culture” — an awesome mix of technology, nerd references, inside jokes, and off color topics that you’ll never find at any other tech show.

Here’s who we’ll see light up the stage Thursday:

Session 1

• James Young, “You sunk my Battleship!”
  Twitter: jamesyoung6979
• Jessica Watts, “Wasatch Roller Derby” This is the stuff great Ignite presentations are made of. Jessica, aka “Moxie Rotten” of the Wasatch Roller Derby, makes me ask one hell of an introspective question: why haven’t I been to a SLC roller derby game?
  Facebook: moxie.rotten
• Dean Cheesman, “Procedural Art Generation” is basically computer-driven artistic shenanigans.   That might sound like a nerd alert, but you should first check out these pictures of Dean in action.  Not sure which one is him, but based on that alone I’m betting this talk will kick some tail.
  Blogger: deanandyou
• Ana Collins, “I’m Not a Mexican: Enchiladas, 5 de Mayo, and other stuff I wouldn’t know about”
• Jason Vance, “15 things to remember when dating in a post Apocalyptic Zombie Environment” Of all the zombie instruction manuals, this is the only one to address the truly necessary.  Even if you’re married, chances are your significant other will bite the dust at the hands of a dirty zombie.  Or if you’re the zombified, your special someone will no longer tolerate your advances.  Hence, this guide.
  Twitter: studio1909
• Jessica Petersen & Marci Vasic, “Life is Tweet” My first reaction is to go off on how played out putting “tw” in front of everything, how sick I am of these tweetups and tweeps and twoohaas, but Jessie “KittyGutz” Petersen is a local legend and Twitter fiend, so whatever she wants to put a “tw” in front of is just fine by me.  My bet is this is gonna rock.
• Robert V. Bolton, “Utah Culture Shock or: Why I gave up everything I know and love to move to this frozen waste land.” If there’s one talk this week that I most identify with, it’s Rob’s. But first you should know something.  The dude works for the Center for High Performance Computing at the U.  He’s legit.  He also says his talk is “an in depth comparison between the South Carolina’s laid back Low Country and the busy lifestyle of Utah’s Wasatch Front.”
  Twitter: RobertVBolton
• Matthew Reinbold, “Super-Empowerment, Networked Tribes, and the End of the World as We Know It” Matt runs a SLC Cold Fusion shop, is a long-time Ignite sponsor, and comes to the show this year as a speaker. He says he wants to explain “a diverse business ecosystem made up of parallel economic tribes with semi-permeable membranes based on shared belief.”
  Twitter: libel_vox
• Jeremy Hanks, “Curve-Boulders” Jeremy’s given the best Ignite talk I’ve ever seen, Ignite #2’s Blowing Minds and Melting Faces.  The dude is extreme, having camped out for the SLC In-n-Out opener and being crushed by a boulder.  I’m convinced this talk is about one of those two.
  Twitter: jeremyhanks

Session 2

• Matthias Shapiro & Jason Alderman, “Mobile App Dev RAP BATTLE” Matthias is a data visualization guy, having given several Ignite talks already, and as of November was working with CNN doing some crazy ass videos.  Regardless, anything labeled “rap battle” has my vote.
  Twitter: matthiasshapiro and justsomeguy
• DJ Waldow, “DUDE” As a frequent user of the word, this could go one of several ways.   Either he lambasts people like me, he makes me look like a champ for using it way past its prime, or he completely ignores me and goes for Jeff Bridges.
  Twitter: djwaldow
• Joey Wilson, “How to see through walls” This dude researches Radio Tomographic Imaging, a way to track moving objects with simple radios.   I’m hoping for some Bioshock-style plasmid abilities, but 5 minutes may be too short for that.
• Deb Henry, “Does Widening Roads Cause Congestion?”
  Twitter: heydebhenry
• Chris Adzima, “Ensuring species continuation during an extended undead cataclysm” This guy appears to not exist online, and is the 2nd talk on zombies.  You put those pieces together.
  
• Misty Fowler, “I’m a Coder and You Can Too (Or Why Programming Is Just Plain English)”
• John Dilworth, “The Power of Inaction” That’s John’s slide up there, and he says his talk is “based on the principle of inaction found in Chinese Philosophy.”  Whatever this is, I’m really hoping to improve my inactivity, especially at work and around the house.
  Twitter: johndilworth
• Kellen McAffee, “How to tell your friends that you’ve seen a Sasquatch.” Another soon-to-be gem.  Where else do you get these kind of tips?

This unique 20 slides / 15 seconds-per-slide format proves hilarious, a sort of open mic night meets NASA meets Weezer show.  Or maybe a zombie meets derby girl meets sasquatch thing.  Either way, count me in.