SADLY, WE HAD TO CANCEL. Refunds have been provided.
We love nerdy games, so dust off your copy of Cones of Dunshire, grab a Yellowhead beer, glass of wine, and/or cup of joe and settle in for a night of nerdy competition during our first Nerd [Game] Nite.
We’ll provide the tables (first come first serve) and a beverage on the house. You bring a game and perhaps a friend or two.
There will be door prizes and, perhaps most exciting of all, we’ll crown the champion of our inaugural Nerd Nite: Jenga Master of the Worldverse tournament (signup also first come etc.).
So get your gaming pants/dress/skirt/skort/shorts/kilt/lederhosen on, pack your 72 sided die, and prepare for a gametastic night, because learning is not the only thing that is more fun while drinking.
Date: August 21st
Time: 6:00pm-11:0pm
Fee: $10
Location: Iconoclast Koffiehuis – 11807b 105 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta
6:00 – Doors
7:00 – GAMES!
It’s been a sensational year of nerdy talks paired with moderate indulgence. Join us as we toast a year of nerdery with our final Nerd Nite of the 13/14 season. As always, three speakers will delight and titillate your brain pieces, plus, there’s booze.
When: June 12, 2014 (doors @ 7:30pm, show @ 8pm)
Where: The Club (Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Avenue Edmonton)
$15 in advance (Tickets Available Here SOLD OUT)
$18 at the door
[Children 17 & Under Will Not Be Admitted]
Music and mythology, Einstein and Astrology
Philip Paschke
Now, this is the story all about how Nerd Nite got flipped-turned upside down and I’d like to take twenty minutes – just sit right there – I’ll tell you how I came up with a theme that’s so square. In a presentation that’s half music history, half music theory, and half pop culture revelry (and one third math), I’ll show you how the Nerd Nite Edmonton Theme Song might just be one of the nerdiest tunes out there. From Dr. Who to Doogie Howser, M.D., learn about the subtle and not-so-subtle geek-references in this piece through an exploration of TV Themes that have been stuck in your head since the 80s.
Bio: Phil Paschke has a Bachelor of Music in Theory and Composition from the U of A and once took a two-week film scoring course from the guy who scored Robin Hood: Men in Tights. While his day job as Communications Manager for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Winspear Centre keeps him busy, he sets aside a bit of time each year to scoring Team Awesome Video Club’s annual entry in the 24/One short film contest, and a lot of time to watching TV.
Where Dead Things Go
Jeffrey Newton
Considering the number of creatures that die every day, why aren’t we swimming in a sea of cadavers? When asked to conjure up an image of “nature,” most will imagine a lush forest or maybe a lion stalking a wildebeest in the Serengeti. However, there’s a darker side, one that we, as a society, prefer to leave in obscurity; the decomposition of dead things. Not only is it smelly, there are usually lots of maggots too. None the less, decomposition occurs through the gratuitous services of an army of volunteers. Meet the decomposers!
Bio: Jeffrey’s biologist impulses were nurtured growing up on St. Maarten (Caribbean). To the chagrin of his parents, siblings, and anyone in smelling distance, he insisted on picking up (and keeping) any dead insects, frogs, lizards, birds, or mongoose he could find. This set the stage for later in life when he decided to do a study on cadaver decomposition during his MSc at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Since then he has come to Canada where he completed his PhD in Soil Ecology/Zoology. Today he runs the Edmonton branch of the Alberta Science Network and spends his time either doing science outreach or getting other academics and engineers into K-12 classrooms.
The Anatomy of Unexpected Political Results
Chris Henderson
What motivates people to vote for a particularly candidate or party? What motivates them to vote at all? In the 20th century, hundreds of billions of dollars have been directed to trying to understand voters, trying to shape their opinions and creating the conditions to make particular voters vote. However, elections often end with a wholly unexpected result that few could predict. We’ll look at a handful of elections that ended in a way that still surprise us and haunt campaign teams.
Bio: Chris Henderson is a public relations consultant at Calder Bateman Communications, and has been an advisor for a variety of municipal, provincial and national campaigns over the last 10 years.
There are over 4500 species of cockroaches and at our next Nerd Nite we won’t be discussing any of them. Our presenters will however regale you with amazing tidbits about our planets and the folks who live here. So, escape the cockroaches in your basement and join us for a tantalizing slice of knowledge pie (note: there will be no food) and beer.
When: May 8, 2014 (doors @ 7:30pm, show @ 8pm)
Where: The Club (Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Avenue Edmonton)
$15 in advance (Tickets Available Here) SOLD OUT
$18 at the door
[Children 17 & Under Will Not Be Admitted]
Math: Inspiring madness for almost 5000 years
Samantha Marion
Allow me to introduce you to my good friend, Mathematics. I think you’re really going to like her. Like most people worth knowing, she is quirky, mysterious, seductive, and altogether just not what she seems. Forget the horrifying recurring nightmares you have of fractions and long division and meet the sparkling wonder that has captivated men and women for millennia. But why does she have such a hold on us? Why has she inspired madness, murder and self-mutilation? I’ll throw some deep, philosophical questions at you and I won’t expect you to answer them.
Bio: Samantha Marion has a master’s degree in pure mathematics from the University of Alberta. For two years, she ran the U of A math department’s outreach team, tirelessly advocating math to unsuspecting grade school students. Currently, Sam is a Staff Scientist at the TELUS World of Science in Edmonton where she is constantly pestering her co-workers and visitors with statements like “math is fun!” and “deep down, we’re all mathematicians”. One day, her bosses at the science centre broke down and allowed her to organize a MathFest. It was the greatest day.
Life and Death and Death and Death in Virtual Worlds
Aaron Clifford
In February 1962 a starship exploded across the screen of a PDP-1 computer. In that moment, Steve Russel, creator of Spacewar!, became the first person to kill a digital being; today the digital body count is in the billions. Are these deaths meaningless just because they occur in a game? There are millions of players engaged in massive virtual worlds. Many of the players interact socially through in-game characters, often over many years. In the 52 years since Spacewar!, it has become possible to witness the death of our [digital] selves. When the time comes for our characters to pass into the Great Backup in the Cloud, how do we remember and memorialize them?
Bio: Aaron is Technical Team Lead at RED the Agency and an independent game developer. He has been playing video games since Pong and has experienced every kind of digital demise available. He has bartered his love of video games into a career in interactive experiences. He has worked on electronic learning software for NATO Flight Training of Canada, wireless controllers for the original PlayStation, and Raspberry Pi controlled radar guns for Partners in Road Construction Safety. He has a 5-year-old son and two, 3-year-old daughters who he hopes will follow in his nerdy footsteps — but will love even if they end up hockey players. He loves cycling, social media, photographing insects, and the amazing sound of his wife, Carolyn, singing.
How on Earth Did We Get Here: Chemical Thoughts on the Origin of Life
Juli Gibbs-Davis
With all of the recent (well-deserved no doubt) hype about the first few moments of the universe, one might think that our understanding is so great that the big questions about life on our planet are pretty well understood. The truth, however, is that what we don’t know much about the origin of life on earth. How did the prebiotic soup made up of tiny molecular building blocks lead to highly organized assemblies of molecules that make up cells, which are enormous in comparison? (Molecules are to bricks what cells are to cities.) I will present the big questions that we still don’t understand about how life on earth began and how the simple molecules present on early earth could have evolved to form the complex machinery of life.
Bio: Juli originally hails from Northern Arizona. After completing a B.A. in chemistry at Arizona State University, she attended Northwestern University for her Ph.D. and postdoc in materials and surface chemistry (where she met fellow Nerd Nite Presenter John Davis). She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta working on developing DNA self-replicating systems that shed light on origin of life questions and have potential in disease diagnostics. Her group also uses lasers to study the chemistry of environmental surfaces.