… 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Themes are hard to come up with, especially when our nerdy community is so diverse, so we’re going for a generic title. However, there is nothing generic about our nerds this month. We intend the blandness of the title to act as an ironic indicator of how non-generic our speakers are. Did it work?
When: February 23, 2023, at 7:30 pm
(Doors & bar open at 7:00pm and the Fringe Grounds Cafe is open until 8:00!)
Ron Byers: Capturing and Sharing Edmonton’s Queer History
Founder and Co-Director of Rainbow Story Hub Ron Byers will share the journey of capturing our 2SLGBTQ+ communities’ history in Edmonton and the people, projects and organizations who have brought this to life over the years. He will also give some insights into some new projects and the future work of bringing our rich history to life in ways that the public can access, understand and celebrate. It is important that our challenges and achievements in becoming an equal and respected part of society be recorded for the youth of today and the future.
Ron Byers is a community leader, storyteller and Queer historian. Decades of work in Edmonton’s non-profit sector have given him an extensive resume of community service and a unique viewpoint on our city and its history. With a professional background in Customer Service Management he has shared his skills in several City festivals and organizations. Ron has been actively involved in the 2SLGBTQ+ community for over 50 years. He has seen our Queer community evolve from congregating behind closed doors to dancing and parading in the streets. And has celebrated as we grow closer to being treated as equal under the laws yet acknowledging the inequities we must still overcome. Ron is the founder of the Rainbow Story Hub Foundation which has allowed him to share stories on Edmonton’s queer history with insight and passion.
“In 1980 a friend showed me a dog-eared copy of The New Conquest of Central Asia written by the explorer Roy Chapman Andrews. The official narrative of the Central Asiatic Expeditions, a hefty 678-page volume, was exciting to hold. The exquisite foldout photo-panoramas of Mongolian scenery excited my imagination, and I enjoyed his unpretentious, quick-paced style. I wanted to know more – what else did he write? Searching and collecting ever since, the answer grew from twenty-two books and more than 200 magazine articles to original photographs, letters and artifacts. I have built the world’s largest private collection related to Roy Chapman Andrews, his expeditions and contemporaries, and have worked at many of the places Andrews pioneered. It has been observed: put enough similar books and related materials together in one place, and they take on a life of their own. What began as simple accumulation, became meaningful beyond the sum of its parts. Now, it’s time to consider – what do I do with my collection when I too inevitably shuffle off this mortal coil? This is the first public sharing and airing of my passion [mania?] where I will endeavour to give a sense of why I did it, how I did it, how much fun it has been, and reflections on lessons learned along the way.
A founding member of the team that built the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Clive has been a professional dinosaur hunter for 43 years, and now runs Dino Lab at the University of Alberta. His work has taken him through Asia, Europe and South America. When not in the field or laboratory, Clive is most often found in antiquarian bookstores or art supply shops pursuing his other deep passions.
Crista Gamage: Farts in Space
Why did NASA once try to stop astronauts from farting? Why does staying healthy become so difficult in space? What does the microbiota of astronauts tell us about our future in the stars? Come find out more at my talk on “Farts in Space.”
Crista is 39 trillion microbes in a trench coat. She’s a card-carrying member of the Alberta Mycological society, a huge microbiology nerd and an advocate for the importance of public health. She is currently a student at MacEwan University working towards becoming a science communicator.
