Author: Nerd Nite East Bay

On the last Monday of every month, we take over The New Parkway theater in Oakland. Grab some beer and learn some stuff!

Nerd Nite East Bay #42: A-Bombs, Bugs Bunny, Cholera

NNEB-2016-05

Poster designed by Rebecca Cohen.



Spend your Memorial Day with Nerd Nite East Bay. Alumnerd Vincent Tanguay will explain how nuclear weapons work, our own Rebeca Cohen will talk about the history of Bugs Bunny, and former Doctors Without Borders volunteer Patrick Maguire will talk about how it isn’t just MDs who fight epidemics; a bit of engineering helps too.

As usual, doors/bar/food (Lumpia Co.) are at 7. As is Ann-Marie Benz’s Detention (our social program before the talks). We will study the complexities of paper airplanes. Make airplanes out of our pre-printed paper, our blank paper, or bring you own airplane. We’ll spend time making the planes, then see which type goes the farthest.

Rick, guest DJ Rubberband Girl, and the Oakland Public Library will get that wascally wabbit.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 5/30/2016
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 are $8 (or less if you take advantage of our Early Nerd discounts) and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Any door tickets will be $10 (cash or card).

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Atomic Bombs for Dummies by Vincent Tanguay

This past January, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear weapon test and claimed it detonated a hydrogen bomb. This controversial claim has sparked debate over the nature of the test: was it a fission bomb, a fusion bomb or maybe something in between? Let’s explore the difference between these different devices, how they work and how they are made. We’ll discuss some of the scientific breakthroughs that led to the bomb from the late 19th century to the Manhattan project. Unfortunately, because of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, there will be no live demos.

Vincent Tanguay, Ph.D. (has been known as “Dr. Explosion”) has a background in explosives and detonations. In his former life, he worked as a scientist in a Canadian National Lab.

Devil May Hare (The Evolution of Bugs Bunny) by Rebecca Cohen

Who is Bugs Bunny, really? Cartoon character, cultural icon, skilled drag performer, intergalactic basketball star… Bugs has played many roles in his 75-year history (76 in July). This talk will examine Bugs’ early history, specifically how the character came into existence and how he evolved from almost unrecognizable origins to become The Rabbit we all know and love. Along the way, we’ll get a healthy dose of close textual analysis surrounding the Bugs-Elmer dynamic, because Rebecca didn’t get that master’s degree in Film Studies for nothing, folks.

You probably already know Rebecca as co-boss of Nerd-Nite East Bay. She also writes and draws webcomics and is kind of a little bit internet famous for that. She definitely made that thing about feminism and/or cats you saw on your Facebook feed. Check out her Twitter (@gynostar) for links to all the comics stuff. With a BA in English from Cal, an MA in Film Studies from NYU, an MST in elementary education from you don’t care where, and a bartending certificate, Rebecca’s hobby is collecting useless pieces of paper. Her day job is the pursuit of educational equity through the Oakland-based nonprofit Aspire Education Project (donations pls?). While she has introduced and watched many Nerd Nite presentations, this will be the first Nerd Nite talk Rebecca’s ever delivered herself.

Fighting Cholera with Engineering by Patrick Maguire

Cholera outbreaks kill tens of thousands of people every year, and infect millions more. Providing medical treatment for cholera patients, while crucial, is only one part of effectively combating outbreaks. Just as important are effective logistics, construction, and sanitation – moving tons of medical supplies around the world at the first hint of an outbreak, hiring and training hundreds of staff, and quickly building sanitary treatment centers from scratch that don’t result in more infections than cures. Come learn how plastic sheeting, 2x4s, and hydrogen chloride save lives, and why Doctors Without Borders needs engineers as well.

Patrick Maguire is one of those extremely rare individuals – a software engineer in the bay area. Prior to selling his soul, he got a degree in civil engineering, taught science as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, and worked with Doctors Without Borders and a technical and construction logistician, first in South Sudan and then Haiti. He looks forward to the day when people will stop assuming that as he worked for Doctors Without Borders he must be a doctor.

Nerd Nite East Bay #41: Fake Fish, Cyborgs, and Warming

NNEB 2016-04

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.


April’s Nerd Nite East Bay includes one of our funkier line-ups to date. First, Stuart Gripman will teach you about the fake fish concocted by the notable naturalist John James Audubon. Then, Kara Platoni will speak about some of the ways people are hacking their perception abilities. Finally, the Exploratorium’s Lori Lambertson will give a light-hearted look at some of the grim repercussions of global warming.

As usual, doors/bar/food are at 7. Grilled Cheese Guy will be slinging delicious sammies. Ann-Marie Benz and Will Johnson wil run the Nerd Nite Detention pre-show: Lego Love – show your nerdiness by creating fake fish, cyborgs, or anything else you can think of at our Legos table. All the toys, none of the children. We’ll also have Books Inc., who will have copies of Kara’s book for sale.

Oh. And fan (and boss) favorite Matthew “Herbie” Harman returns as a guest MC!

Herbie, Rick, DJ Ion the Prize, and the Oakland Public Library will (still) be the April Fools.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 4/25/2016
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 are $8 (or less if you take advantage of our Early Nerd discounts) and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Any door tickets will be $10 (cash or card).

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Audubon’s Phony Fish by Stuart Gripman

The story of how naturalist Constantine Rafinesque, a self-described “odd fish” was goaded by John James Audubon (yes, that Audubon) into publishing descriptions of fantastical and wholly fabricated fish.

Stuart Gripman writes very serious database books that have cartoon dogs on the covers. He consults and speaks throughout the Bay Area and spends weekends perfecting trombone lubricant. That last bit is a lie.

Perception Hacking for Cyborgs (That Means You) by Kara Platoni

Humanity has never been closer to machine than we are now — and it’s only about to get weirder as we increasingly bring technologies onto, and into, our bodies in our eternal quest to alter our perceptual experiences, give ourselves superpowers and (maybe) hack ourselves a sixth sense. From the bionic eye to the thought-controlled robotic limb; from augmented and virtual reality gadgets to biohacker implants, it’s time to consider what comes next in human evolution, and whether we can do it ourselves.

Kara is a science reporter who works the Nancy Drew beat, going anywhere there is a possibility of a weird adventure involving pirates, old clocks or (ideally) ghosts. For her book, We Have the Technology, she sofa-surfed through four countries and eight US states, visiting any lab, military base or biohacker basement that would let her get in on an experiment on the cutting edge of sensory science. She teaches narrative writing at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, is one of the hosts of the (temporarily-on-hiatus) Field Trip Podcast, and was a staff writer at the East Bay Express for many years, where her main interest was covering con artists.

We’re All Fucked: A Cool Look at the Warm Future by Lori Lambertson

Welcome to the Anthropocene, the proposed name for our current epoch, which is characterized by the impacts of human activities on earth’s geology and ecosystems. Come find out how we have fucked with the carbon cycle, which is changing our atmosphere and so much more.

Lori Lambertson likes to swear among friends, and is a teacher at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. She has been sharing her love of data and environmental science with Bay Area science teachers since before the word Anthropocene was first coined in 2000. When she isn’t teaching science or swearing, you can find her studying marine biology and wave dynamics from her surfboard.

Nerd Nite East Bay #40: Hashashin, The 1st Amendment, and Addicted to Love

NNEB-2016-03

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.



This month, we’re running early nerd specials. Get your tickets early.

March’s Nerd Nite East Bay features three tales of madness with no basketball involved. First, learn about early assassins from Arthur Kay, then look into the first amendment with James Wheaton, and finally: the neuroscience of love by the Exploratorium‘s Alex Pinigis.

Doors will open promptly at 7. Ann-Marie Benz may run Nerd Nite Detention again (more details to come).

The bar also opens at 7 and Plate Craft Catering will sell food.

Rick, Rebecca, DJ Citizen Zain, and the Oakland Public Library put the Madness in March.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 3/28/2016
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 are $8 (or less with Early Nerd discounts) and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Any door tickets will be $10 (cash or card).

tickets
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Kill Smarter Not Harder: The Story of the Hashashin by Arthur Kay

At the height of the Crusades, from roughly 1100 to 1250, a small but devoted group of weirdos was able to carve out an area of relative peace in the Middle East. It was not a perfect peace, but for a hundred and fifty years they encouraged scholarship and agriculture, and held their own against both the Christian crusaders and Saladin. History knows them as the Hashashin, the original assassins. They were feared and hated, and much maligned, and this is their story.

Arthur has a Master’s degree in research psychology, a JD, and is a fellow with Odd Salon, which is how he comes to be giving nerdy talks in the first place. He knows where the Black Dahlia is buried, here in Oakland, just about five minutes away from where a Romanoff princess and Dr. Blood are buried. He has a lifelong passion for outré history, which is basically an endless ocean that we get to sail in tonight for a little while.

Why is the 1st Amendment First? by James Wheaton

The First Amendment to the US Constitution is probably the best known amendment. Free Speech. Religious Freedom. Freedom of the Press. Right to Assemble. Right to Petition. There a lot packed in there. But why is it there at all — why was it added so soon after the Constitution was written (and why was it left out of the original)? And of the first ten amendments that we call the “Bill of Rights” why is the First, well, the first? Encomiums have been written and spoken about its primacy of place, but it’s all hooey. Let’s find out why it was added, and why it is first.

James Wheaton is a lawyer and a kayaker and a Burner and a professor, plus he owns a piece of NNEB’s former location — The New Parkway Theater. He runs two non-profits in Oakland, including The First Amendment Project, a public interest law firm for activists, journalists, artists and other trouble makers. He comes by his Nerd cred for realz: he is adjunct faculty at the Graduate Schools of Journalism at Stanford and Berkeley where he teaches the Journalism Law seminars (when the Big Game is played he always roots for the home team). He is also a proud member of Burning Nerds. He’s been named Lawyer of the Year three times by California Lawyer and was recently named one of “California’s Top 100 Lawyers”; his gf already knew he was a top but was glad to see it confirmed in print.

Addicted to Love: The Neuroscience of Love and Addiction by Alex Pinigis

Most are familiar with the thrill of new romance, but probably fewer of us have felt the rush of cocaine or amphetamines. Joins us for a quick-and-dirty tour of the brain and the neural networks involved in these and related sensations. Learn how they are similar, how they are different, and whether Robert Palmer is full of shit when he tells you you’re addicted to love!

Alex Pinigis can’t say exactly when he got his first hit of science, but they certainly got him early. He’s been jonesing for his next fix since at least middle school. In high school, he started getting it free by working as a High School Explainer at the Exploratorium, a local supplier. He got his BS (Big Score) in Neuroscience at Cal, and after working as a producer at a retinal neuroscience lab on the Berkeley Campus for a year, eventually made his way back to the Exploratorium. Alex currently works there as a biologist, making sure we get the next generation hooked early.

Nerd Nite East Bay #39: Great Vowel Shift, Bee Habitats, and Jugger

NNEB 2016-02

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.



A Nerd Nite East Bay on Leap Day! We’re celebrating with three great talks and booze. And you?

Join us to hear from two-time NNSF alumnerd Brian Seitel about the great vowel shift, UC Berkeley’s Lauren Ponisio on habitats for local pollinators, and finally Evan and Valkyrie Savage on Jugger, an unusual and violent sport dreamed up by David Peoples of Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys fame.

Doors will open promptly at 7. Ann-Marie Benz will run the preshow again. This month will be Speed Friending, a giant icebreaker for everyone that attends. During the event you will quickly talk with multiple people and not stay in a conversation with any one person too long. Nerd Nite has the most interesting people attending it, including you, and this way we can all say hello. Bring business cards, or we’ll have paper for you to get the info of anyone you want to contact. We think this will be great fun for the first couple-of-dozen people. So come early to chat with old friends or to make new ones.

The bar also opens at 7 and Chickpea Chick will sell food.

Rick, Rebecca, DJ Ion the Prize, and the Oakland Public Library will accept all Bachelor’s Day dance requests.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 2/29/2016
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 are $8 and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Door tickets are $10 (cash or card).

tickets
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The Great Vowel Shift by Brian Seitel

Somewhere between Chaucer and Shakespeare, the way the English language was spoken changed almost completely — and no one knows why! This phenomenon is known as The Great Vowel Shift. Over the course of the talk, Brian will answer all of your burning questions about linguistic history, such as: Do vowels really shift? What does that mean? Was Chaucer really a dirty old man? And what is a dipthong, anyway? By the end of the night, you’ll know how to talk like Chaucer while also discovering a new appreciation for another book that is one of the most widely printed books of all time.

A two-time Nerd Nite San Francisco alum, Brian attended Jacksonville State University in Alabama. Armed with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and a Masters in Secondary Education, he crammed knowledge down the throats of high schoolers for two years before relocating to the Bay Area. Oddly, he somehow wound up in the world of startups and software engineering. His ultimate goal is to change the world. Results pending.

On-Farm Habitat Enhancements in Agricultural Landscapes for Pollinators: Bringing Bees Back to Ag by Lauren Ponisio

The unintended consequences of our agricultural food system – polluted air and water, dead zones in coastal seas, soil erosion – have profound impacts on human health and the environment. In particular, agriculture is one of the leading drivers of biodiversity loss. To slow the rate of global species loss, it is imperative to understand how to restore and maintain wildlife in agricultural landscapes. Recently there has been a shift toward promoting wildlife in these landscapes for the “services” they provide to agriculture, like pollination or pest control. The underpinning assumption is that we can have our cake and eat it too – that the same techniques that enhance services are also those that help to restore species of conservation concern. It is unclear, however, whether this is actually possible because the species that provide the services may not be the ones that are most threatened. Using decade long study of on-farm habitat restoration in the form of native plant “hedgerows” in the intensively managed agricultural landscape of the Central Valley of California, we ask whether we can conserve diverse native bee communities while also enhancing pollination services.

Lauren Ponisio’s greatest loves are bees and statistics. In addition, as a native of the Central Valley, Lauren has a personal connection to issues concerning the sustainability of agriculture, and her primary life’s goal is to make agricultural systems better for people and wildlife. As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Lauren investigates strategies for designing agricultural systems to promote biodiversity conservation, and the links between conservation strategies and improving livelihoods.

Jugger: A Brief History of People Gently Hitting Each Other WithSticks by Evan and Valkyrie Savage

Jugger is a fast-paced team field sport akin to Capture the Flag with big foam swords. The sport comes from a post-apocalyptic film written and directed by Berkeley local Dave Peoples (screenwriter for Blade Runner and 12 Monkeys). Depicted therein as a ruthless bloodsport, it was later adapted for real-world play at two separate times: once in Germany by Berlin’s post-wall punks, once here in the US by existing LARP and boffer sports communities. We’ll explain Jugger through images and live game footage, dive into these parallel evolutions of the sport, and speculate wildly about how it rose to popularity in Germany while languishing in obscurity in America…until now.

Evan and Valkyrie Savage founded Jugger California in 2014 after a serendipitous brush with the sport abroad several years earlier. They have taught hundreds to play Jugger at Bay Area festivals, birthday parties, and club practices; and competed in the first international tournament held on American soil as part of the East Bay’s Berkeley Riot team. By day, Valkyrie is a PhD student at Berkeley working on design tools for 3D printing, and Evan is a consulting developer building personal data visualization tools with Intel.

Nerd Nite East Bay #38: Killer Robots, Irish Mythology, and Gumbo

NNEB 2016-01-new

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

UPDATES:

  • Sarah Strand has cancelled her talk. In her place, Sarah Houghton will present on badass Irish gods and goddesses.
  • Join us for Nerd Nite detention when doors open at 7. Hosted by Ann-Marie Benz!

The first Nerd Nite East Bay of the new year will have three amazing talks. NNSF and Nerd Nite Global alumni Jacob Ward (though I suppose you may also know him from Al Jazeera America and/or his stint as editor-in-chief of Popular Science) will shock you with tales of killer robots. Nerd Nite North Bay co-boss and librarian extraordinare Sarah Houghton will discuss the subject of one of her other masters degrees: Irish mythology. Finally, Lawrence McKendell will discuss the vast glory that can be found in gumbo.

Doors will open promptly at 7. We’re doing something new, so show up then for Nerd Nite Detention! This support group will be an opportunity to learn stuff before the talks, meet other people, and play “I’ve Never”. Grab a drink, bring a friend, and talk nerdy.

The bar also opens at 7 and ToliverWorks will sell food (they’re considering roasted butternut squash soup, lentil+green salad, and coconut corn bread. Yum!).

Rick, Rebecca, DJ Citizen Zain, and the Oakland Public Library will pilot the drones towards the groundhogs.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 1/25/2016
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 are $8 and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Door tickets are $10 (cash or card).

tickets
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Robot Murder: Automation of Life and War in the US and Around the World by Jacob Ward

That robot vacuuming your carpet and guiding your car into a parking space was born in the military. Research into robotics in the United States and around the world is most heavily funded by military agencies, because of a simple truth: a robot ready for war not only keeps a human out of harm’s way, it keeps the human from getting in the way. Already, robotic weapons systems have removed human beings from the death-dealing decisionmaking process, and it’s going to get worse. Jacob Ward, science and technology correspondent for Al Jazeera America, describes the rise of killer robots, and how they’re poised to change conflict and the balance of power around the world.

Jake is the science and technology correspondent for Al Jazeera America and former editor in chief of Popular Science. He’s written for The New Yorker and Wired and starred in past Nerd Nite talks in SF and New York.

Evolution of Religion by Sarah Strand


UPDATE 22-JAN-2016
Sarah Strand has cancelled this talk. You can see her deliver it on April 14th at LASER in Davis or on YouTube.

Why has religion been present in human society since the dawn of mankind? Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection will provide a spring board for a description of the evolution of ideas, culture, and religion. Sarah will discuss the psychological origins of religion, showing that human brains are built to believe that “agents” are at work in the world. The presentation will conclude with evidence of how religion has “survived” by expanding and adjusting to changes in culture.

Sarah Strand is a behavioral neuroscientist, Psychology professor, and a lecturer on Neurotheology, and a triathlete. She’s a Minnesota-native, living in California, by way of Iowa and Massachusetts.

Celtic Mythology: The Most Bad Ass Mythology

You think you know Celtic mythology? Nope. Think fairies are cute little pixie dusting wish-granters? Wrong! They will steal your soul. Think the name CuChulainn has a “ch” sound in there somewhere? Uh-uh. Think Thor is the coolest thunder god? You will think Thor is a whiny punk after this talk. Thanks to the Irish Renaissance at the turn of the 20th century. we have access to a wealth of Celtic myths that were close to annihilation before the renewed interest in their cultural value.

Sarah Houghton is the Director of the San Rafael Public Library. She’s the co-founder of Nerd Nite North Bay and has Master’s degrees in both Irish mythology and library and information science. Sarah has blogged and consulted about technology, ethics, and the future of libraries for over a decade as the Librarian in Black.

The Art of Gumbo by Lawrence McKendell

What makes this magical elixir the quintessential dish of Louisiana?
Lawrence will discuss the New Orleans region, the history of gumbo, the ingredients and the steps to make a delicious pot of gumbo.

Lawrence McKendell has enjoyed many a bowl of file (Fee-Lay) gumbo. He was born and raised in California, but has family Creole roots going back to New Orleans’s 7th ward and the French quarter and possibly dating back to Jean Laffite the pirate…or was it pepe le pew? Either way he has deep roots in New Orleans. His fascination with gumbo comes from years of working in and around New Orleans and became more ingrained watching his mother and now his sisters meticulously prepare an always amazing pot of gumbo for the many family gatherings throughout the year. He runs mckendell design, an award winning graphic design company specializing in advertising and branding design for startups, legal, healthcare and wineries. Something you may not know…Lawrence wants to film a full-length movie using only the backup camera of his Toyota Prius.

Nerd Nite East Bay #37: Swallowing, Oakland Geology, and Language of Birdsong

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.


December’s Nerd Nite East Bay offers drunken education with three great talks: Lo Scheiner will discuss how we swallow (and how, sometimes, we don’t), Andrew Alden will teach us about East Bay geology, and Madza Y Farias-Virgens will relate birdsong to human language. And alumnerd/expert-of-pi-day Matthew Herbie Harman triumphantly returns as guest MC!

Doors will open promptly at 7. The bar opens then and Jellicles will offer vegetarian indian street food.

Rick, DJ Citizen Zain, and the Oakland Public Library will toast the chestnuts.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 12/28/2015
Doors (+food,drink) at 7 pm, show starts at 8 pm and ends at 10:30 pm
Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland
(two blocks from the 19th St BART)

Advance tickets are $8 and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Door tickets are $10 (cash or card).

tickets
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[INSERT BLOWJOB JOKE HERE]: A Serious Talk About Swallowing by Lo Scheiner

Swallowing… everyone does it, but almost no one thinks about it. How does it work? What happens when it goes wrong? How do we fix it? What in god’s name is a bolus? All this and more… everything you didn’t know you wanted to know about swallowing!

Lo is a speech and swallowing therapist. She graduated with her Master’s from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and has been working in the Bay Area ever since. She’s worked with people of all ages, but now primarily works with geriatric adults who have speech, language, cognition and swallowing disorders.

Diversity in Deepest Oakland: Rocks of the Town by Andrew Alden

Oakland is a diverse city; that’s what makes it wonderful. And its diversity goes deep — right down to the bedrock. Sure we’ve got shale and sandstone, who doesn’t? We’ve also got serpentine, our state rock. Plus stuff you probably never heard of: Argillite! Blueschist! Metabreccia! Amygdaloidal basalt! And what we don’t have naturally is abundant in our building stones. I’ll give a tour of the surprising wealth of rocks we have and make the case that, square mile for square mile, Oakland is the most lithologically diverse city in America.

Andrew Alden is a longtime writer on Earth science who is busy exploring Oakland’s rocks and landscape for his blog, Oakland Geology. His mission is to share some of the useful and pleasurable insights that geologists give us — not just facts about the deep past, but an attitude that might be called the deep present.

What is in a Tweet? Birdsong and the Evolution of Human Language by Madza Y Farias-Virgens

Speaking is a skill that comes so naturally even to the youngster among us. We take in sounds, we repeat them, and we learn to talk. And yet, we do not know the origins of speech. Researchers studying the evolution of human speech have long been held back by the lack of animal models. Fortunately, those times are over, and birdsong might be the key for it.

As it turns out, there are remarkable similarities between how bird brains process song and human brains process speech. A consistent set of around 50 genes show similar patterns of activation in areas of the human brain that are important for speech, such as areas that control the larynx, and areas of the songbird brain that are crucial for birdsong. So, even though humans and birds are separated by millions of years of evolution, the genes that give us the gift of gab have much in common with those that lend our feathered friends their inspiring melodies.

In his book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote “The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language”. Was he right? So far, the evidence points to “yes”- but to which degree can the evolution of birdsong teach us about the evolution of speech in our own species?

Madza Y. Farias-Virgens is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, studying biological anthropology. Initially inspired by a renowned Brazilian telenovela, “O Clone”, she got lost among ATCG sequences and made proteins wiggle, during her studies in medical genetics. While those were some good times, she is now using this background to study how speech evolved. Considered a “bird brain” by some of her colleagues, she has now discovered that bird brains are complex, and more similar to human brains than anyone might have guessed, and so takes this as quite a compliment.

Nerd Nite East Bay #36: 20K Leagues, Scrabble, and Human Senses

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.


Nerd Nite East Bay returns to the last Monday of the month in November. We’ll shake you out of your turkey-day food coma with a presentation that was voted as one of the best from Nerd Nite New York: David Shuff will recall the rise and fall of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride. Cesar del Solar‘s treatise on competitive Scrabble will help you balance your rack. Finally, NNSF alumnerd and Inquiring Minds co-host Indre Viskontas will dismiss the myth that we have five senses.

Doors will open promptly at 7. The bar opens then and The Lumpia Company will sell their tasty bites.

Rick, Rebecca, DJ Ion the Prize, and the Oakland Public Library will keep everything on the up-and-up according to the OSPD4.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 11/30/2015
Doors (+food,drink) at 7 pm, show starts at 8 pm and ends at 10:30 pm
Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland
(two blocks from the 19th St BART)

Advance tickets are $8 and are available until 3PM the day of the show or until they sell out.
Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC.
Door tickets are $10 (cash or card).

tickets
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A Journey Through Liquid Space: The Disney 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Ride by David Shuff

In 1971, Disney unveiled the greatest theme park attraction ever: the 20K ride. For decades it inspired, delighted and scared the crap out of anyone with half an imagination. In 1994, the ride was temporarily “closed for maintenance,” but it was a lie, lie, lie. In fact it never sailed again, and after laying fallow for a decade, the decrepit ruins were unceremoniously demolished in 2004. But the story—and the dream—doesn’t end there. David Shuff has dedicated himself to keeping the memory and magic of 20K alive; in spite of riding it only once when he was 3 years old. Sharing rare photos, video and actual crew member accounts, he will helm a spine tingling adventure through the rise, fall and surprising afterlife of the 20K ride—the lost 8th wonder of the world.

David Shuff is a well-rounded human being with a healthy dislike of most things Disney. Always drawn to the mysteries of the deep, as a child his dream was to be a marine biologist and his nightmares were about giant squids; it only dawned on him recently that he had the 20k ride to thank for both. Though marine biology was not to be, he’s happy engaged otherwise as a video creative at AKQA in San Francisco. Beware the plush giant squid behind his couch.

War of the Words: A Fascinating Glimpse into Competitive Scrabble by Cesar del Solar

In 1938, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Butts created the game we now know as Scrabble. By painstakingly tabulating the letter distributions of words in the New York Times, he created a great game that has withstood the test of time and gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. The first National Scrabble Championship was played in New York City in 1978 and won by David Prinz, who then retired from the game and went on to form Amoeba Records. This talk will focus on those among us who have decided to take up this game competitively. When we’re not furiously memorizing word lists or obsessively analyzing prior losses, competitive Scrabble players can be a pretty personable bunch! At the highest levels, Scrabble becomes more of a game of math, probabilities, and spatial reasoning. While this is not what some casual players may have in mind when talking about Scrabble, I hope to expose the beauty in this game and the many lifelong friendships that have resulted from it.

César Del Solar is a software engineer residing in the East Bay since 2014. He received a degree in Electrical Engineering from Caltech in 2004; while there he became obsessed with online Scrabble. In 2005 he played his first tournament in West LA and became hooked, and since then he has played more than 100 tournaments around North America (and won more than 20 of them). In April of 2015 he was (very) briefly ranked number 1 in the state of California and is trying to regain that status. César currently works as an engineer and CTO of a data visualization startup named Leftronic.

Everything You Learned in Kindergarten Was Wrong: You Don’t Have Five Senses by Indre Viskontas

The idea that we experience the world through five senses is so ingrained in our culture that entire preschool educational methods are built upon it. The magic number five has a lovely order to it- corresponding to our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. And when we talk about some sensation other than what can be captured by these body parts, we call it a ‘sixth sense’. But the truth is that we have way more than five and even those senses don’t work alone: what you see is what you smell, hear, taste and touch.

Dr. Indre Viskontas is a neuroscientist and opera singer. She holds faculty positions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of San Francisco. Her course 12 Essential Scientific Concepts was released by The Great Courses in 2014 and her second course, Brain Myths Exploded: Lessons from Neuroscience will be released in 2016. She edits Neurocase, co-hosts Inquiring Minds, and makes one heck of a Dr. Krieger.

Nerd Nite East Bay #26: Urban Farming, Pipe Organs, and Use-Based Taxes

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.


Grab a beer! We’ll blast the tunes from the farms-to-the-roads in January’s installment of Nerd Nite East Bay.  Pilar Reber shares how she is growing the urban farming community, Don Crawley (an alumni from Nerd Nites Seattle, Vancouver, and Kansas City) will pull out all the stops in describing pipe organs, and Amber Crabbe will drive us through how Oregon and California plan to charge you per mile that you drive.

With those puns out of the way, hosts Rick and Rebecca, DJ Ion the Prize and the Oakland Public Library will be celebrating the joint birthday of Douglas MacArthur and Paul the Octopus.

Monday 1/26/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show starts at 8 pm, show ends at 10:30 pm
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
Tickets
FB
g+

Farming.biz: On the Frontlines of the Urban Farming Movement by Pilar Reber

Pilar Reber was a teenage pesticide applicator. Hear her contrast this experience with conventional farming with her current approach to urban farming, where growing and nurturing a community is just as important as planting broccoli.
A first-generation farmer, Vernay ‘Pilar’ Reber took her first formal job in agriculture at the age of 19, in Florida, where, in a full hazmat suit, she spent all day spraying toxic chemicals on plants. She graduated from the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems program and founded Sunnyside Organic Seedlings, a seven-acre organic farm in Richmond. Yes, a farm in Richmond. Today, Sunnyside supplies all-organic vegetable, fruit, flower and herb starts to many Bay Area nurseries. Pilar’s menagerie also includes dogs, chickens, geese, sheep, the fish that feed the gorgeous lettuces grown in the farm’s aquaponic system, and her husband, Rick Wesson, an internet security expert.

Coon Huntin’, Pipe Organs, and a Cigar Flute: A Passion for Musical Pipes by Don Crawley

How can “coon huntin'” be used in the same sentence with “pipe organ”? And, what on earth is a cigarflute? What could be more nerdy than the world’s loudest, non-amplified musical instrument controlled by hundreds of keys, buttons, drawknobs, pedals, and toe-studs? In this talk, you’ll be introduced to the instrument Mozart called “The Kind of Instruments” and go behind the scenes of a giant pipe organ to discover its inner secrets from bellows, to 64 foot long pipes, to giant fan blowers, a cigarflute, and more.

Don R. Crawley is a lifetime geek, plus speaker and author of six books ranging in subject from Cisco to Linux to Compassionate Communication. His focus is on helping IT and other technical staff to master the arts of customer service and communication. In addition to being an author, he has spoken before audiences in all 50 states and Canada, plus the United Kingdom, Australia, and Oman. In his spare time, he plays the pipe organ, watches the ships on Puget Sound, and laughs with his family.

Welcoming Government Into Your Backseat: Say Hello to the Tesla Tax by Amber Crabbe

State and federal gasoline taxes continue to tank as the dollar declines and vehicles become more fuel efficient.  Raising the gas tax is about as popular as a turd on the BART escalator, but people still need roads and transit — what are the bean counters to do?  One possible solution is to charge drivers directly for their use of the road, similar to water, electricity, or lap dances.  A road usage charge, or “Tesla Tax”, represents a new way of thinking about how we pay for our transportation infrastructure, but many questions still remain.  Like: how do you convince the public to let Big Brother into their ride?
Amber Crabbe has been a transportation nerd since she spent her teenage years hanging out in airports just for fun.  After receiving degrees in civil engineering, transportation engineering, and city planning she worked in the advocacy world before switching to the public sector nearly a decade ago.  She currently serves as Assistant Deputy Director for Policy and Programming at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority when the toxoplasmosis isn’t making her dote on her cats.

Nerd Nite East Bay #25: Bruce Lee, Disco Clams, and Lawsuits

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.


Nerd Nite’s first event at the New Parkway was two years ago this month. We plan to ring in the anniversary with a fantastic live event. Hear about the Wong Jack Man/Bruce Lee fight from Sifus Rick Wing and Greglon Lee, learn about what gives disco clams their sparkle from Lindsey Dougherty, and navigate the world of litigation with Katelyn Knight.

DJ Citizen Zain and Rick will pull crackers and the Oakland Public Library will be there with a reading list and to issue cards. Be there and be square.

Monday 12/29/2014
Doors at 7 pm, show starts at 8 pm, show ends at 10:30 pm
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
Tickets
FB
g+

SHOWDOWN IN OAKLAND (AT THE NEW PARKWAY….): THE STORY BEHIND THE WONG JACK MAN – BRUCE LEE FIGHT by Rick L. Wing and Greglon Lee

Many say this fight was the most important fight in the life of the famed martial icon Bruce Lee. True or not? You be the judge. Many say that the fight between Wong Jack Man and Bruce Lee in 1964, spurred Lee on to create his personal art of Jeet Kune Do. This talk describes the context within which the fight occurred, how it all happened, why it happened, and what happened afterward. It is also a glimpse into the kung fu world of San Francisco Chinatown in the 1960s.

Sifu Greglon Lee is an accomplished martial artist, having learned from noted martial arts men such as his father, James Yimm Lee, Bruce Lee, and Wally Jay, among others. Bruce Lee (yes, that one!) moved into his house in Oakland in 1964 and stayed there until late 1965. As one might imagine, Greglon has a certain insight into Bruce Lee that others might not have. Greglon has given many seminars in kung fu, with an emphasis on the art of Jeet Kune Do. Greglon has also co-authored the books, The Dragon and the Tiger, Vols I and II, and also Remembering the Master. These books describe the beginnings of Bruce Lee’s personal style, Jeet Kune Do.
Rick L. Wing is a student of the noted kung fu master, Wong Jack Man. Wong Jack Man was the legendary kung fu master who battled Bruce Lee in 1964, a “fight” which has grown into mythical status, and was a major turning point in Bruce Lee’s martial career. This fight is an integral part of an upcoming movie entitled Birth of the Dragon. Wing has written the most complete version of this story. His e-book, Showdown in Oakland, goes into great detail on the events which lead up to the match, the actual match, and what happened afterwards. Wing has also written other martial arts books such as Shaolin #1: Open the Door, the Northern Shaolin Sparring Set, Shaolin #8 Uprooting Step, The Classical Three-Sectional Staff, and, among others.

DISCO (CLAM) ISN’T DEAD: SILICA BALLS CREATE FLASHING GLAM CLAMS by Lindsey Dougherty

When people think of clams, their minds often go to chowder (possibly accompanied by Pavlovian salivation). “Disco clams”, however, aren’t your average bivalves. These Indo-Pacific creatures are contrasted from their dull-gray, mud-living, soup-making brethren by their bright red tentacles, coral reef homes, and a vivid electric-looking flash that goes back and forth across their mantle. Originally thought to be bioluminescence, the broadband flashing is actually the result of reflection from silica nanospheres that are ideally tuned for the light wavelengths that dominate their environment. The purpose of this flashy display is still unknown. We’ll explore whether the flashing attracts a mate, scares away predators, or lures in prey. Or, perhaps, if the clam is just keepin’ the beat.

Lindsey Dougherty is a PhD candidate in the Caldwell lab at UC Berkeley. Growing up in land-locked Colorado, her childhood aspirations naturally centered around SCUBA diving. With a goal of someday owning a dive shop, she studied business at CU Boulder, and was soon offered her first post-collegiate job… as a toner salesman. Desperate to move to the coast, she accepted, and made >2x what she does as a grad student. Teaching honeymooners how to SCUBA dive in Zanzibar made her realize that research was a better excuse to dive than commercial ventures, so she got a second bachelor’s in biology and studied artificial coral reef systems in Indonesia, where she met and fell in love with the “disco” clam.

NAVIGATING THE LEGAL SYSTEM: JURISDICTION, PROCEDURE AND THE AVERAGE LIFE OF A LAWSUIT by Katelyn Knight

Around 200,000 new unlimited civil cases are filed each year in California’s Superior Courts, that is cases where the amount in controversy exceeds $25,000.  The Courts clear these cases at a rate that doesn’t quite keep up with new filings, resulting in more and more crowded dockets.  But what happens once a lawsuit is filed?  Why does litigation take so long, and why is it so expensive?  We’ll walk through the life of a civil suit in the California Courts from filing to termination…hopefully no more than a year or two later.
Katelyn Knight is a Senior Associate in the Law & Motion practice group of Murchison & Cumming, LLP.  Her practice is primarily defense-side civil litigation including employment, injury, and general commercial matters.  Ms. Knight was named a “Northern California Rising Star” by Super Lawyers Magazine for the past 2 consecutive years.

We’re official

It has been an exciting couple of weeks for us!  We had barely accepted the responsibility of bringing the bay area more nerdiness (and more beer) than our amazing big sister nerd nite announced our existence to the world, catapulting the fame of our facebook page and earning us early media coverage in the Oakland Tribune (and, like some evil Mandelbrotian butterfly, that had other unexpected side effects).  Thanks for your support.  We know that it seems like our actual in-bar launch during the Bay Area Science Festival is eons away, but we enjoy being the biggest vaporware since Textmate 2.0.   Sign up for our mailing list and check out our social media pages over there on the right and we’ll touch base soon!