Hey Nerds! August – so much good in August! 1) the Nerd Nite Global Fest up in Brooklyn from August 16-18 featuring our own Rocky Parker talking about serpent scents and sex and Trevor McElroy talking about Dolley Madison and beer brewing in Revolutionary times. We are so excited to have two Philly reps! 2) Heck yeah!! We’ve been nominated for a Philly Geek Award in the category of Event of the Year! Thanks so much to everyone that wrote in to nominate us. The awards ceremony is on August 17th, and we’ll be there. 3) The August Philly Nerd Nite is Wednesday the 7th, and we have a great show planned. Details:
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 doors at 7:00, show at 7:30 sharp Frankford Hall at Frankford and Girard $5 cover gets you a night of nerdy fun, plus food and drink specials
The lectures at hand:
“The Industrial Uses of Fungus” by Samuel Bledsoe
When people hear “Mushroom research” their automatic response is either drugs or the black mold that grows in the shower. However, people have been using it to help make things for centuries, such as food and beer. I’ll be focusing on 6 species – Aspergillus niger and oryzae, Trichoderma Reesei and harzianum, Rhizopus stolonifer, and Pencillium chrysogenum. They are used for bio-control, bio-chemistry, medicine, and food, and play an important part in our daily lives.
“The Psychology of a Cosplayer” by Jo Pincushion
You’ve seen them at comic shows, Star Trek conventions and pretty much everywhere else nerds gather: cosplayers. But what inspires men and women of all ages and backgrounds to dress up like their favorite pop culture characters? In this speech, Jo Pincushion — a cosplayer herself — explores the mindset of those who enjoy transforming their appearance into that of their comic book and celluloid heroes. Bio: Jo Pincushion is a Philadelphia area writer/performer who regularly contributes to Geekadelphia, The Real Stan Lee, Things Women Want, Quirk Books and Rock on Philly. She is also the host of the Pincushion Podcast, and will be teaching night courses on Tim Burton and horror films at Main Line School Night in the fall. For more information on all of her endeavors, visit
http://www.jopincushion.com“My Life, My Digital Memory, In Over 11,000 Tweets” by Thomas Dixon
Just over one year ago, the Nerd Nite audience bore witness to my talk, “Traumatic Brain Injury? Technologically Beyond It!”, in which I shared both how I had developed episodic memory loss in light of having been hit by a car while I was on a run AND my extensive use of technology to replace my episodic memory function. Essentially, I have used my iPhone’s calendar as a prospective memory aid and my private Twitter feed as a retrospective memory aid, tweeting my life’s events as I see fit. These strategies provide so much information about one’s own life, particularly as there are now ~11.5k tweets over the span of two years, seven months, and eleven days (or 954 days, but who’s counting?), that it felt fitting to dig into the details of my “digital memory” to present what’s in it. Also, the question arises: Will we all make the switch to digital memory someday?
Bio: He’s back! Thomas Dixon returns to Nerd Nite with this talk, just over a year since his last NN appearance. He has since kept himself occupied with his Masters of Education program in educational psychology at Temple University (and it’s over half-way done now! He can see the light!), resuming his New Year’s Eve trips by being in Amsterdam for NYE 2013, and joining an archaeological survey team in Belize for the excavation of Mayan ruins for two weeks this past month. While all of that is exciting, it’s for returning to Nerd Nite that this nerd is excited!
And! Featuring Chiptunes by Storm Blooper aka Chris De Pew
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Tags: cosplay, fungus, geekadelphia, memory, psychology, technology, weird science