Poster designed by Jeanette Yu.
Your East Bay lecture-in-a-bar series powers into the summer! Mary Roach will discuss her new book, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Then, J. Kenji López-Alt will share some myths about cooking steak and his James Beard-winning book The Food Lab. Finally, self-proclaimed queen-of-shitty-robots Simone Giertz will share the why behind her art.
As usual, doors/bar/food (GCG) are at 7. As is Ann-Marie Benz’s Detention (our social program before the talks). This month, we’ll build some shitty robots!
We’ll also have Alameda’s Books Inc. out with copies of both Mary and Kenji’s books. Please support this great local independent bookseller and enjoy the two amazing works.
Finally: Rick, Rebecca, DJ Ion the Prize, and the Oakland Public Library will eat nachos with our pants off.
Be there and be square.
This event is 21+.
Monday 6/27/2016 Doors (+food,drink,"Detention" preshow) at 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland (two blocks from the 19th St BART) Advance tickets were $8. They sold out this month. Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC. We will allow an extremely limited number of people to enter after we can estimate no shows for $10 (cash or card). fb
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach
How can science keep human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war? Find out in Grunt. From how the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team studies hearing loss and survivability in combat to the fashion design studio (neither zippers nor velcro make great fasteners for a sniper), Mary Roach takes a light-hearted look at very serious business.
Mary Roach is the New York Times best-selling author of five works of nonfiction including Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She lives in Oakland.
Steak Myths from The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt
Just in time for summer grilling, Kenji will teach us how to cook proper steaks. He’ll explore some common misinformation surrounding the process and subject some popular cooking superstitions to experimentation. When should you sear your steak? When should you salt it? Does the starting temperature matter? How about the specific cut or how many times you flip the steak? How can you tell when it is finally done? Do you really have to let it rest before tearing into it. These carnivorous conundrums will be answered.
J. Kenji López-Alt is an alum of MIT and America’s Test Kitchen. He is currently the managing culinary director of Serious Eats. His book The Food Lab explores better cooking through science and, weighs more than two average tri-tips put together, and won a James Beard Award.
The Importance of Building Useless Things by Simone Giertz
Have you ever tried teaching yourself something but lost the motivation early on? If you’re not a super human, you most probably have. This presentation is about how non-superhuman Simone Giertz, taught herself hardware hacking by building fun, but virtually useless, things.
Simone Giertz is an inventor who’s been given the dubious title “Queen of Shitty Robots” by the internet. She runs a Youtube channel about robotics and DIY electronics and her videos have been seen over 100 million times.