Do you like or dislike the outdoors? Nerd Nite #73 is for you. Do you vote or not vote (holy crap please go vote)? Nerd Nite #73 is for you!
When: Wednesday May 24th, 2023, at 7:30 pm (not Thursday!)
(Doors & bar open at 7:00 pm and the Fringe Grounds Cafe is open until 8:00!)
Where: Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
Fringe Theatre Arts Barn, 10330 84 Ave NW, Edmonton
How much: $25
Featuring
Our DJ for NN#73 is Kena Léon, co-founder of Sapphic Speakeasy, which promotes safe dance spaces for female-identifying people on the spectrum.
Trent Wilkie: The Wilderness Lie
To some, the outdoors is a challenge; something to be conquered. The writing trope of ‘man vs. nature’ comes to mind. It is inherently a toxic relationship. The reality though is that any personification of outdoor pursuits can be dangerous. To paraphrase Madmen’s Don Draper, “The natural world is indifferent”.
Trent Wilkie is a writer/performer in Edmonton. Trent has written for CBC Radio, Fangoria Magazine, Exclaim Magazine, his blog/podcast The UnDad, and was the editor of several publications that are now defunct (a coincidence, he thinks). As well, he has written close to 100 sketches for collectives such as Mostly Water Theatre and The Regretzky Entertainment Group. Trent has also been a professional canoe guide for over 15 years and has paddled all over Canada.
@thetrentwilkie – Bird App
@thetrentwilkie – Instagram
Michael Ross: Whose Vote is it Anyway? Where the election system’s made up and your votes may not matter
Voting is fun and (usually) safe. But the way ballots are analyzed can directly change the results, allow for dishonest strategic voting, or even punish you for voting honestly in the first place. For one night and one night only, let’s take a deep dive into ways to vote, ways to count votes, and discover the single best voting system ever developed.
Michael Ross is allegedly a professional engineer, gets too excited by overanalyzing things with excel, and likes board games more than most people.
@mikerobe007 – Bird App
@mikerobe007 – Instagram
Scott Hebert: How Video Games Will Save Education
What is gamification? Why will it save education? How is life an RPG? All of these questions, and more, will be answered in this talk!
Scott Hebert is an educator of 12 years who has made it his goal to eliminate the stereotype that school is boring. In an effort to do this he has been recognized both provincially (Alberta Excellent in Teaching Award in 2013) and Internationally (Best Gamification in Education Project Globally in 2015 and Global Teacher Prize Top 50 Teachers in the World 2020) for his efforts towards promoting Gamification in the classroom. He lives by the message, “Would you want to be in your classroom?” and strives to achieve this goal daily. He is a single dad to two kids, lives in Fort Saskatchewan and teaches in Sherwood Park out of Elk Island Catholic School.
@MrHebertPE – Instagram
… and so do we! We promise. Well, at least once a month. And it’s on the day of Nerd Nite. Speaking of Nerd Nite, this month’s show is, as always, on the last Thursday of the month.
When: April 27, 2023, at 7:30 pm
(Doors & bar open at 7:00 pm and the Fringe Grounds Cafe is open until 8:00!)
Where: Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
Fringe Theatre Arts Barn, 10330 84 Ave NW, Edmonton
How much: $25
Featuring
Our DJ for NN#72 is Kelly Spriggs, aka. Triggs. He co-founded Umbral Sound System and is big in Edmonton’s Bass community.
Eliza Odyjewski: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Superstitions on Steroids Alongside a Faulty Alarm System
Eliza’s talk will address common misconceptions as portrayed in mainstream media about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). As someone with OCD, she will use analogies, visual aids such as comics, and humour, to re-educate the audience about OCD, and in doing so, she hopes to remove some of the stigma toward OCD and other mental health disorders. She will also provide a list of resources at the end of her talk.
Eliza is a Jane of all trades in the realm of creativity. She is a visual artist, designer, photographer, interior decorator, amateur comedian, aspiring musician, and professional nap-taker. The topic of mental health is important to her because she feels that mental health knowledge and treatment should be accessible to everyone, and no one should have to struggle alone.
Stephen Raitz: Why walking and rolling matters in an auto-centric city
Sometimes it feels futile to advocate for better active transportation infrastructure in Edmonton when our transportation system is so focused on moving by automobile. But, every journey in Edmonton includes a walk and roll includes at some point. It’s the most fun, active, and sustainable part of our commute. Making it the safest and best option available has major positive repercussions for our communities.
Stephen Raitz is a Registered Professional Planner and is currently a Law Student at the U of A. He has been a part of the Paths For People Board since 2018, always equipped with a lot of enthusiasm for ensuring that everyone can walk, roll, or cycle around our city safely. Stephen is also an improviser with Rapid Fire Theatre.
@pathsforppl, @stephenraitz – Bird App
@pathsforpeople, @raitz.runs – Instagram
Rebecca Calder: From The Arena to Tanagra: The Feminisation of Starfleet
Okay so in 2267, Captain Kirk is marooned on a planet where he has to fight a giant lizard man. In 2368, Captain Picard is marooned on a planet where he has to team up with a lizard man. In 2014, I used this as an excuse to write an academic paper on how Star Fleet as an organization moved from relatively less feminist to relatively more feminist organizational structures (I got an A, obviously). In 2023, I’m going to be shoving this down your throat.
Rebecca Calder is a currently unemployed raging feminist who thinks she is extremely funny and that you should be grateful for the opportunity to hear her speak. The provided photo is one of her hosting Nerd Nite 69 (Nice) with two other Nerd Bosses cropped out. You’re welcome.
@beccstrats on Instagram and, Riker help us, TikTok.
“I guess we don’t have to come up with a stupid reference no one else understands every month for our title, right?”
When: March 30, 2023, at 7:30 pm
(Doors & bar open at 7:00 pm and the Fringe Grounds Cafe is open until 8:00!)
Where: Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
Fringe Theatre Arts Barn, 10330 84 Ave NW, Edmonton
How much: $25
Featuring
Our DJ for NN#71 is Harry MacDonald (@heymacmusic). He is a Liquid Drum & Bass producer and we are super jazzed to have him!
M is for Math – Wes Maciejewski: How many shapes are there? The answer is two.
What makes one shape different than another? For elementary shapes like triangles and squares, the answer is simple: how many sides do they have? But what about shapes like that of the earth and of the universe? This idea of understanding the essence of “shape” spurred a great deal of philosophical thought for millennia. It took a 19th century polymath to give us the right way of thinking about this: does the shape have a hole in it or not? This led to one of the biggest unsolved problems known to humankind…and to this presentation.
Wes is a mathematician. This is odd because he, growing up, never knew this is something people do. He became mathematician because he found math to be the most wonderful playground of ideas created by humans. He finished his undergrad sometime ago at the UofA, went on to a Master’s at the UofC, then a PhD at Queen’s. Since then, he’s held academic positions in Vancouver, Auckland, and California, presented at conferences all around the world, and is happy to now be back in his home province as a faculty member at Red Deer Polytechnic.
M is for Mastodon – Chad Ohman: The Accidental Community: Reimagining Social Media
Curiosity kills the cat, and if it doesn’t it makes it stronger. How an experiment grew to a community of over 35,000 members in the span of a month and how it’s managed to reshape how we interact with each other online.
Chad runs the massively popular Mastodon instance mstdn.ca.
@chad@mstdn.ca – Mastodon
Chad Ohman – LinkedIn
@ChadOhman – Bird App (Twitter)
M is for Misdirection – Heather Hutchinson & Elyse Colville: No One is an Island: The Misdirection of the Individual Climate Impact Narrative
Heather and Elyse have fallen ill and will be rescheduled, so instead our third talk will be:
M is for Marc-Julien – Marc-Julien Objois: Subtractive Synthesis: The Circuits that Make Music
Marc-Julien is a software architect by trade, photographer and musician by hobby. He has had a long relationship with science, skepticism, and Nerd Nite Edmonton. He never passes up an opportunity to write about himself in the third person.
Synthesizers come in many forms, but many of the sounds you hear in music from the last 60 years come from circuits generating oscillating voltages that get turned into sound. You’d be surprised at the simplicity of the origins of the sounds you hear, and also the rich variety that can be achieved. Marc-Julien will talk about how synthesizers from manufacturers such as Moog, Korg, and Roland make the bleeps and bloops you enjoy.
@mobjois – Bird App
@mobjois – Mastodon
