It's only fitting that a drone blew out the birthday candles for Burlington's Generator on its second birthday last Saturday. The young organization — which provides local makers with the tools and community to push their ideas to fruition — is a focal point of Burlington's creative tech environment. 

The "Tech and Tux"-themed party was well attended: By 6:20 p.m., Generator member/volunteer Brook Martenis had tallied 252 heads. One of the primary attractions of the night was the photo booth, equipped with props — think laser-cut wooden ties and glasses and sculpted cardboard masks — made by Generator members.

David Sengeh is no stranger to amputation. While the biomechatronics engineer — who will receive his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this spring — has all of his limbs, thousands from his native Sierra Leone are not as fortunate. (Amputation was a common form of brutal intimidation employed by the Revolutionary United Front during the country's nine-year civil war.) 

That's one reason Sengeh devoted his graduate career to solving a globally applicable problem: the fact that most prosthetic sockets, where the limb attaches to the prosthetic, are incredibly uncomfortable. Last night at Champlain College, as part of Generator's ongoing BIG Maker series, Sengeh spoke about his work in that area. 

Gloria Steinem recently opined that young women favor Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in Democratic presidential primaries not because they identify more with his progressive politics or find his grouchy fire inspiring, but because, well, they're looking for dudes.

"When you're young, you're thinking, Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie," she said on the HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher."

The feminist icon's remarks were widely criticized as being patronizing to young liberal women. But is it possible she was onto something?

Nope, not at all. Steinem's comments were ill-advised and insulting — not to mention heteronormative — by any measure. But a new dating website, BernieSingles.com, does suggest that maybe Bernie-boosters are indeed looking for love in addition to social justice, income equality and political revolution.    

Devin Wilder knows a thing or two about hearing loss: The 22-year-old, who graduated with a BA in studio art and English from Saint Michael’s College in May, was born unable to hear in her right ear. She had a bone-anchored hearing aid implanted when she was 13, but side effects dissuaded her from using the device.

That’s not the only reason Wilder, a current maker-in-residence at Burlington’s Generator, has used her two-month stint there to develop an interactive installation she calls “Seeing Sound.” In a freak accident at Red Rocks Park last summer, Wilder lost hearing in her left ear, too. “It was a 10-foot jump and a flip, and I landed wrong,” she says. “I came up out of the water and it was just quiet.”

Wilder had her eardrum “patched up” at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, close to her native Beverly, Mass. Afterward, she could hear out of her left ear again. She’s still deaf in the right, but the doctors told her she didn’t have to be; they “introduced me to the new hearing aids, and the technology was unbelievable. I could hear,” Wilder says.

“But when they sit you down to try it on, they give you a disclaimer: Insurance companies don’t give you any support,” she continues. “It’s five grand out of pocket.”

Last fall Vermont PBS announced that Victoria Taylor, former organizer of the popular "Ask Me Anything" forum on reddit, would be the face of its new tech-focused show, "InnoVaTe." The six-episode mini-series, which features Vermont's tech entrepreneurs, launches in its entirety online on Tuesday, January 19.

Each 10-minute episode takes viewers behind the scenes of tech-centric companies such as Generator, Burlington's maker space; and Logic Supply, the manufacturer of compact industrial computers. Seven Days' annual Tech Jam gets a spot, too. 

When reporter Ethan de Seife wrote about Taylor's new gig in October, he called her an "ideal choice" to host the show because of both her love for public television and her tech savvy. Find out more at Vermont PBS, and watch the promo below:

Vermont, prepare yourself for death and decomposition — the good kind. On Thursday, November 12, in Burlington, Jae Rhim Lee and Mike Ma will discuss their work creating a sustainable, eco-minded "death suit." Their presentation is the second installation of Generator’s "Big Makers" series, to be held at the Champlain Ballroom (163 South Willard Street). Drinks at 7 p.m., talk at 7:30.

For the last six weeks or so, every time I get bored, or check Facebook on my phone, I've also opened up the mobile messaging app Yik Yak. Unlike Facebook, it forces all its users to be anonymous. Yik Yak lets you share your anonymous posts — called yaks — with other users within a 10-mile radius.

I'm way too old to be using this app, I know. Yik Yak is supposed to be for college students, and I'm pushing 40. I downloaded it because I wanted to see what the local students were saying — about life, about Burlington, about each other.

It was a fun experiment. I was mostly checking it from Winooski, or Burlington, where the yak scene is pretty active. I compiled a long list of memorable yaks that made me smile, or gag. I up voted and down voted enough of them to rack up about 400 points of "yakarma" — you get a point for every vote, so that gives you a sense of how active I've been. I wrote about my findings for this week's Seven Days Sex Issue.

I also wanted to include a transcript of a late-night thread I found one when I woke up early one Friday morning, but I didn't have room in print, so I'm presenting it here online. It reminded me of the "finds" I used to see in Found Magazine.

When Rango came out a few years ago, my friend Pam and I saw it independently and compared notes afterward. We were both surprised by how we liked it. She remarked (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Yeah, who woulda thought that the schmuck who made those stupid Pirates of the Caribbean movies had something like this in him?"

I felt the same. The Pirates movies are, in my opinion, pretty dumb: big, needlessly complicated and bursting with messy and overwrought computer animation. Even the great Bill Nighy couldn't redeem those movies for me. But Rango is smart, funny and exceedingly enjoyable. Not long after seeing it in the theater (which, memorably, had a leak in its roof — a hilarious coincidence, given that the film's story revolves around water), I purchased the film on Blu-Ray, and have watched it several times since.

I don't know about you guys, but my awkward family photos tend to just gather dust on the mantel. I see them, I cringe, I walk away. Not Mike Bender, the 1997 Middlebury College grad behind the popular website awkwardfamilyphotos.com. 

In April 2009, the Los Angeles-based screenwriter — who penned the script for Not Another Teen Movie (2001) and several seasons of the MTV Movie Awards — traveled home for a vacation and spotted his mom displaying a ski vacation photograph. He admits that his first impulse was to cringe. 

"At first, I couldn’t understand why she was memorializing what I thought was an awkward moment," Bender recalls.

Then inspiration struck: "I sat down with my writing partner [and childhood friend Doug Chernack] at the time and told him about it. He was like, Oh, my God, my house is full of those. We thought if we had them, everyone must have them. So we launched a website to see if people would submit theirs."

If you frequent Twitter or Facebook, chances are the catchy name of a new website — Ello — flitted across your screen recently. The social media website toggled from stealth mode to widespread sensation over the course of just a few days this week: For a time yesterday, the currently invite-only website shut down the ability for existing users to send out invitation codes. The explanation: "Ello has gone viral." 

But Ello has been brewing for months — in Vermont, of all places. The company is based in Burlington and funded by Vermont venture capital. 

If you're still scratching your head about what the hell-o is Ello, don't worry; we've got you covered. 

1. This is social media with a manifesto.

The site's motto is "Beautiful, Simple and Ad-Free" — and Ello, at first glance, delivers on the promise. The site is clean and spare, with plenty of white space — think a sort of Facebook/Tumblr hybrid, redesigned by (and populated with, if the user profile photos are any hint) hipsters. You can post messages, add photos, reply "@" ("at") your fellow-Ello-ers and invite friends to join — fueling the site's exponential growth. 

Ello promises to do more than look good. The site's manifesto declares, "Your social network" — read: Facebook — "is owned by advertisers ... You are the product that's bought and sold." Ello sets itself up as the alternative: 

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.

Given the site's explosion in popularity and hype in recent days, the message is striking a deep chord. 

2. Yes, you heard right: Ello is based in Vermont.

Cofounder Paul Budnitz, who teamed up with Colorado-based design firm Berger & Föhr and hacker collective Mode Set, lives in Shelburne, and splits his time between New York and the Green Mountain State. Budnitz is one of seven cofounders, who collectively own a majority share in the company. According to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Ello shares the same address — 47 Maple Street, the home of the Karma Bird House and a number of start-up companies — as Budnitz's high-end bicycle company, Budnitz Bicycles. 

3. Cofounder Budnitz is a serial entrepreneur — and a successful one at that.

As Sarah Tuff wrote last year for Seven Days, Budnitz is no stranger to good design. Before Budnitz Bicycles (the self-proclaimed maker of the "lightest, fastest, and most elegant city bikes in the world"), he started KidRobot, a creator of art toys, fashion apparel and accessories. Several of KidRobot's creations are in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

4. Vermont venture capital funding played a big part in launching the site. And that's provoking some consternation in the peanut gallery.

Shelburne-based FreshTracks Capital invested $435,000 in seed funding in Ello in January. When that news broke yesterday in a post on the new website itself, critics immediately alleged Ello had made a pact with the devil. How could the site, they wondered, maintain its ad-free promises with a venture capital firm looking for a return on its investment?

According to a story at Gigaom.com, a site devoted to news about emerging technologies, FreshTracks partner Cairn Cross met Budnitz about a year ago in Vermont. "Budnitz pitched FreshTracks on his ad-free social network concept, monetized with a freemium plan where users would pay for added features, and Cross was intrigued," according to the tech site.

According to Gigaom, Cross wasn't concerned about allegations that big VC would push Ello to the dark side.

“We practice venture capital in a way that very few people practice it. We’re really small-town venture. We’re patient, we have long exit horizons, we’ve had some successes, we’ve been around for awhile,” Cross told the website.

FreshTracks partners declined to speak with Seven Days for this story, instead directing us to Budnitz himself, who was unavailable for an interview today. 

5. The site's timing is great.

Part of the buzz surrounding Ello has to do with the most recent backlash against Facebook, this one having to do with the so-called "real name" policy. Facebook insists that users set up profiles under their legal names — the one that appears on a passport or credit card. The site is cracking down on users who don't comply. It's riled members who use pseudonyms on the site for a variety of reasons; think drag performers, queer or trans individuals, musicians, roller derby competitors or professionals who want to keep their professional and private lives separate. 

Ello doesn't have the same requirement. 

6. In particular, the site is said to appeal to gay and lesbian users "fleeing" Facebook.

"Is Ello the Anti-Facebook ... We've All Been Waiting For?" asked the site queerty.com in one headline. Over on the Daily Dot, a similar headline reads: "The Great Gay Facebook Exodus Begins." When Daily Dot writer Taylor Hatmaker asked Budnitz about the so-called exodus, Budnitz confirmed that Ello has seen an uptick in interest from LGBTQ users.

"Yes, we’ve been hearing about the Facebook drama too over the last few days," Budnitz said. "Ello welcomes the LGBTQ community and we’re very excited to see so many people moving over! "

After a group of Radical Faeries signed up a couple of days ago, Budnitz has been watching an uptick in queer users joining Ello—"which makes us very happy," he notes. "There does seem to be a bit of an avalanche since then."

7. That said, not everyone is convinced that Ello is a be-all, end-all solution to the perennial hand-wringing over Facebook. 

There are plenty of doubts already brewing about Ello — including the aforementioned uneasiness around the site's funding. The site's in beta mode, which means while Ello is promising more features as the site expands, there's still limited functionality right now. As Tech Crunch reported yesterday, the site lacks privacy controls, or the ability to block abusive users. 

And users and pundits alike say it's too soon to know if Ello can last. Ello isn't the first upstart to take on Facebook: "We’ve seen Facebook alternatives, like Diaspora, come and go. Or ones like Google+ come then fall flat," wrote Tech Crunch. "Ello might be onto something more organic. Diaspora was certainly too geeky and probably way too early. Perhaps it’s Ello’s time?"

Only time will tell.