Nerd Nite East Bay

Poster designed by Jeanette Yu.

We’re glad you’re here and learning stuff while getting drunk
And we hope you’ll do it all again next month
You’ll get a drink or two
We’ll talk nerdy to you
About when one plus one is more than two (synergy! Buzzwords!)

Doors/bar/food are at 7. We’re pleased to feature Chickpea Chick and Shades of Sugar. Ann-Marie Benz’s Detention (our social program before the talks) starts then too. This month: Games of Chance.

As always: Rick, Rebecca, DJ Citizen Zain, and the Oakland Public Library will ensure the good are odd.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+.

Monday 7/25/2016
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. Any left for the door will be $10.
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).

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Probability, Outside the Textbook by David Aldous

Can probability contribute to “science fiction” style issues like the Fermi paradox?
Were there improbably many candidates for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2012 and 2016? How can I give an exam which can be graded objectively, even though no-one will ever know the correct answer to any of the questions? How many topics like this, from my UC Berkeley course, can I cover in 20 minutes?
David Aldous likes the description “aging gentleman scholar” rather than “math nerd”. Aside from research, teaching and advising the 400 UCB Statistic majors, he reads The Economist and science fiction, putters around the garden, and plays killer volleyball with people half his age.

Songs About Science: Emergence and Getting By With a Little Help From Your Friends by The Ten Thousand Ways [Trisha Stan and Greg Bentsen]

We’re glad you’re here and learning stuff while getting drunk
And we hope you’ll do it all again next month
You’ll get a drink or two
We’ll talk nerdy to you
About when one plus one is more than two (synergy! Buzzwords!)

Then we’ll sing a song
It’ll be about science
We’ll take a Beiber hit
And we’ll science that shit

It might get weird (real weird)
We hope that you’ll join us
Don’t disappoint us
Bring your friends (or your tinder date)

It’s July 25 yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

The Ten Thousand Ways writes original folk/americana songs and performs creative covers. Ridiculous music in the style of pop songs based on recent papers? Miley Cyrus + reproducibility? Yes!

Trisha and Greg are also two of the co-hosts of the podcast Gogggles Optional and are both passionate about science and science communication.

The United States Government is a Shitty Parent:A Brief Amateur History of the Juvenile Justice System by Cat Willett

How did a program meant to keep American children from an Oliver-Twist-like existence evolve into the juvenile justice system we know today? Have teenagers ALWAYS existed?Are superpredators real? Can a court raise a kid? Come learn how a program meant to protect youth spawned the foster care system, juvenile jails, and the concept of adolescence from a professional do-gooder with absolutely no background in law.

Cat Willett is definitely not a lawyer. She is, however, a nerd for all things youth justice and works in the Richmond community, offering restorative practice and mental health first aid trainings. In her spare time, she spends more time in public libraries than may actually be reasonable, and is perfecting her breakfast taco recipe. It has been recommended, on more than one occasion, that she talk less about prisons in her OK Cupid profile.

With thanks to:

Poster designed by Jeanette Yu.

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).

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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.

Poster designed by Rebecca Cohen.

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).

tickets
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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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

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).

tickets
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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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

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.

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.

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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

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).

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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.

Poster designed by Cindy Wang.

October’s Nerd Nite East Bay is one week early. We’re taking over Alcatraz as part of the Bay Area Science Festival, but we wanted to ring in our third anniversary with a regular event at Club 21. See how dams burst, enjoy a tour through Tiki Culture, and learn about how cannabis is grown.

There will be a contest for the best Aloha shirt and for the best Tiki mug. All participants will get a discount code to use at our November event. The winners will get prizes from Otto von Stroheim.

Doors will open promptly at 7. The bar opens then and we’ll have eats for sale from the Grilled Cheese Guy.

Rick, Rebecca, DJ Citizen Zain, and the Oakland Public Library will be lighting the Jack-O-Lanterns.

Be there and be square.

This event is 21+. Any door tickets will be $10.

Monday 10/19/2015
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.
Any door tickets will be $10 (cash or card).
21+
tickets
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Dam-nation: The fascinating end life of dams by Ann-Marie Benz