Wednesday, 9/16/15
Doors at 7, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
SOLD OUT – a limited number of tickets may be available at the door
When your underwire is pinching, Dothraki hasn’t made it to Duolingo, and reality is getting a little too actual: Don’t despair! Tikh hazze akka tikh square! Guest MC Kishore Hari–director of the Bay Area Science Festival and 3-time NNSF alumnus/pinch-hitter–will preside over a night of untold wonders, unfettered beer taps, undaunted disc jockeyism, and unusually delicious grub.
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“The VR Minute” by Norman Chan and Will Smith of Tested
“Why Klingon, Elvish, and Dothraki Should Be Considered Real Languages” by Trace Dominguez of DNews & TestTube & more
“The Ridiculously Complex World of Bra Sizing” by Sarah Harrison
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo
Plus: You’ll be able to don some headsets and enjoy VR demos by STEAM Carnival!
UPDATE in the days after: Whoa, that was a good show! Here are some links for your further delectation:
The VR Minute
Tested’s Flight on Birdly
Tested review of HTV Vive
Tiltbrush from Google
The Verge’s history of VR
Invented Languages from Trace Dominguez
DNews
David Peterson’s Constructed Languages
Learn Dothraki
The Klingon Hamlet
Bra Sizing from Sarah Harrison
Sarah’s UX site
A Revelation in Fit (Oakland Bra Shop)
History of Bras (National Geographic)
Steam Carnival
Event 11/6-8
Two Bit Circus
Tag your clown nose photos @SteamCarnival
Hangovers and regrets are the things we, your humble Nerd Nite hosts, associate most with absinthe and the conquest of the Western frontier. You won’t have any regrets about these talks, however! No promises about the hangover, though. Join us for these two talks, plus one more TBA, and plenty of beer, music, librarians, and the company of hundreds of other nerds. Be there and be square!
UPDATE: The third talk is no longer TBA!
Wednesday, 8/19/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
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“Absinthe-Minded: Exploring the Science Behind History’s Most Notorious Beverage” by Kat Powell
“Frontier Myths and Rogue Science in the American West” by Heather Yager
“Don’t Cook Your Balls and Other Stuff You Should Have Learned in Sex Ed” by Sara Naab
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
With transnational bondage, borderline personalities, and banned hybrid weapons, this month’s Nerd Nite deals with some blurred lines. We’ll help bring them into focus with three lectures and plenty of beer, plus music, librarians, food, and nerdery. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 7/15/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
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“Converting Labor Abuse to Sushi” by Brendan Rogers
Nobody signs up to commercial fish for free. It’s dangerous, grueling work, with long stints far from home. Yet many job-seeking migrants are basically tricked or forced into becoming slave fishermen. “Sorry, Charlie”, indeed. We’ll look at how this system works, how this fish ends up on your plate, and what can be done about it.
Brendan Rogers grew up in the Mission District and enlisted in the US Coast Guard at the age of 19. In addition to his continued service in the Reserve, he is the Training Officer for the SF Public Library and serves as a San Francisco Veterans Affairs Commissioner.
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“Borderline Personality Disorder: On the borderline of what?” by Sara Landes
Borderline personality disorder – a mental health problem with such a vague and undescriptive name that even some mental health professionals have difficulty defining it and explaining how it develops. What the heck is it? What are people on the borderline of? How do you even get a personality disorder? And why should you care? Come find out!
Sara is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating suicidal behavior and severe emotion dysregulation and researches how to implement treatments for these problems.
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“The History and Outlaw Status of Sword Canes” by Erin Simon
Delve into the early history of the dapper gent’s most lethal accessory! Marvel that so many people still try to sneak them on planes! Laugh at the California law that calls them out by name (the wrong one)! By looking at ngrams, silly pictures, and even sillier laws, we’ll learn about sword canes, how a ballistic knife is different from a lipstick case knife, and what California law has to say about boobytraps. The pen may be mightier, but the sword cane is way more fun.
Erin Simon is the product counsel for Google Books, Scholar, and more. When not researching obscure weaponry, she makes pictures and pointless robots.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Behold a digital wonder of the world, a modern Library of Alexandria! Marvel at the 4th state of matter (chronologically-speaking, it’s actually the 1st)! And get lost in the intricacies of processing address data! All this plus beers, DJ Alpha Bravo, librarians, tamales, and learned conversation. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 6/17/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
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Starring:
Alexis Rossi and Tracey Jaquith from the Internet Archive
Laura Berzak Hopkins and Luc Peterson, plasma physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Brian Seitel, software engineer who thinks an awful lot about addresses
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Plus: San Francisco Public Library‘s finest will dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
And: Deliciousness available from Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas.
We’ll take a swig of beer and puzzle over the act of swallowing it, then swallow 2200 years of puzzle design. Finally, properly fortified, we’ll bleach pig hearts for DIY science. It’s a night of lectures, drinks, librarians, music, and nerdery. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 5/20/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
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“Hard to Swallow: Diagnosis and Treatment of Swallowing Disorders” by Rachel Gold
What happened to that pill that got stuck in your throat yesterday? What happens when your drink goes down the wrong pipe? How many pipes are even in there? What does a giraffe have to do with this? Come try to enjoy a beer and some food while we explore what is happening inside of our throats when we eat and drink, when we lose the ability to effectively swallow, and what we can do about it.
Rachel has been a Speech-Language Pathologist for over 8 years and a nerd her entire life. She currently works at an acute rehabilitation facility helping adults with brain injuries and strokes recover their ability to speak, understand, remember, and swallow.
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“(What the hell is) Metagrobology and You: An Interactive Journey through the Past and Future of Puzzles” by Nate Martin
Over the last 2200 years, puzzles have changed both tremendously and almost not at all. Let’s take a stroll through the history and evolution of puzzles. The conversation will be peppered with interactive puzzles and challenges so that you can prove to your friends/loved ones how smart you are. We’ll also discuss what the next 2200 years might have in store for the world of puzzledom.
After careers in software, poker, and video games, Nate co-founded and became the CEO of Puzzle Break, the first American-based Escape the Room company.
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“Of Mad Scientists, Ghost Hearts, and Bio-Hackerspaces” by Patrik D’haeseleer
Last year for Halloween, we decellularized a pig heart. We got a nice bleeding heart, hooked it up to some plumbing, stripped out all its cells with enzymes and detergents, and then bottled the thing in Everclear. Because every mad scientist’s den deserves to have a Ghost Heart in a jar! This is what we do for fun; you should see what we’re up to when we get serious. Come join the DIY biology revolution at one of your friendly local community labs!
Patrik is a mild-mannered scientist by day, biohacker by night. He is a member of BioCurious and co-founder of Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, where he tinkers with bioprinting, ghost hearts, bioluminescence, real vegan cheese, microbial batteries, urban ecosystem exploration, bio art, and more.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 4/15/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
First we took away Brontosaurus (and no, dear readers, it is not back. Yet.), and now we’re going to tell you that dinosaurs probably don’t even look the way you think they do. That will go over well, we’re sure. Then we’ll school you on schooling (fishes) and finally give you the buzz on bees! So come enjoy lectures with drinks, music, grilled cheese, librarians, and the company of your fellow nerds. Be(e) there and be(e) square!
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“Extreme Dinosaur Makeover” by Brian Engh
Most of the dinosaurs you see in media are highly speculative and their accuracy and realism is often fiercely debated. Using a newly discovered species of dinosaur called Aquilops americanus as an example, I’ll take you through the painstaking process of reconstructing dinosaurs as accurately as possible, starting from scrappy bone to a complete life restoration of the animal behaving in its environment.
Brian is an artist, animator, filmmaker and monsterologist. His depictions of prehistoric creatures have been published in scientific papers and blogs, and soon to be in several museum exhibits, an interpretive trail in Moab Utah, and in a book on Australia’s ancient inland sea published by the Melbourne Museum.
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“Socializing Through a Fisheye Lens” by Ray Engeszer
Social systems and interactions are central to our lives as human beings, and yet they just won’t let us perform controlled experiments on people! Not even children! Ridiculous, I know. So I tried to use a small fish as a model system to answer questions about how social groups form.
Ray Engeszer knows quite a bit about schooling beyond fish, having a bachelors in Integrative Biology from U.C. Berkeley and a doctorate in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from U.T. Austin, and is now a high school teacher.
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“Sex, Wax, and Pollen: The Honeybee Super-Organism” by Ryan Smith
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Why bees are a (hu)man’s best friend
Bees are highly industrious dance fanatics who have a knack for mathematics and are obsessed with pleasing their queen. These goddesses of the garden have helped humans for thousands of years to make candles, get drunk, sweeten our lives, and most importantly: put food on our plates. But as global populations of honeybees are declining, we are scrambling to find out the roots of the imbalance. We will fly into the hive to understand the big story of this tiny bug and how we can keep the sweetness flowing. Come find out what honeybees mean when they dance and what the world looks like in bee-vision!
Dr. Ryan Smith is a laser physicist, musician, seasoned beekeeper, and physics professor at Cal State East Bay. While his bee-keeping interests began in the Southeastern U.S., he is now an advocate on the sweet west coast.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Sammies available for purchase from Grilled Cheese Guy.
Plus: The librarians will be here! The librarians will be here! SFPL’s finest will dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.