Nerd Nite Philly

Dear Nerds,

Join us for the August edition of Nerd Nite.  It will be creepy, crawly, delicious and magical!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012
doors at 7:00, show at 7:30
Frankford Hall at Frankford & Girard
$5 cover

On tap for you:

“Grow. Cook. Teach.” by Danny Gerber
Danny has been teaching nutrition in Philadelphia for the past 18 years and he’ll be sharing some of some of the hands-on, interactive food systems lessons developed at the Urban Nutrition Initiative over this time.  Along with some stories from the field, this workshop will provide an overall picture of what’s wrong with our food system and how you can get involved in the movement to transform it.  Time permitting there will be an awesome hands-on food prep demonstration with opportunities for audience participation!

“How the $%@# Did You Do That? (Why Magic Tricks Work Best on Smart People)” by Francis Menotti
We always ask how magic tricks work. Perhaps a more pertinent question is why they do. Grab a drink, watch some magic, then learn a bit about psychology of misdirection and deception that magicians use to fool your senses. Maybe even learn a trick or two in the process!

Francis Menotti does the impossible. OK… he creates the illusion thereof.  A full-time magician based out of Philadelphia, Menotti also writes, creates and directs magic for other magicians, theatre, film and television. Steve Martin calls his work “very clever,” and Teller has referred to him as “the future of magic,” but what do they know?

And featuring: magic by Francis Menotti and music by Carol Cleveland Sings

Dearest Nerds,

Please do join us for the next Nerd Nite:

Wednesday, July 11, 2012
doors at 7:00, show at 7:30
Frankford Hall at Frankford & Girard
$5 cover

“BEER MYTHS DEBUNKED!” by Suzanne Woods of Allagash Brewing Co. and Mark Weinman of Great Lakes Brewing Co.
Let’s debunk some beer myths.  Why are triples lighter than dubbels?  Why the fancy schmancy chalice for the aforementioned beers?  Who put sugar in my beer?  Why the skunk?  I’m bloated and it’s all beer’s fault!  Dark beer = strong beer.  Suzanne will debunk some age-old myths and hopes to help people to become better beer lovers, tasters and activists.  Mark will share his brewery’s story – What makes Great Lakes so, well . . . GREAT.   He will execute a tutored tasting of the Wright Pils and Dortmunder Gold which Frankford Hall runs regularly.

Bios: Suzanne Woods has been slinging and singing about beer in Philly since 2001. She founded In Pursuit of Ale, a lady-centric beer clubs in June of 2005. She judged the World Beer Awards in 2007 and won the 2009 Memphis Taproom “Mystery Beer weekend challenge” by identifying 27 out of 30 beers. In other words, she drinks A LOT. She spends her days cruising I-95 as the Mid-Atlantic market manager for Allagash Brewing Co.  Mark Weinman is the regional sales manager for Great Lakes Brewery.  People appreciate him for his love of beer and soccer but resent him for graduating from St. Joes.  He knows a lot about water and isn’t afraid to admit it.

“What is Float Glass?” by Jill Betters
Listen people, the stuff in your doors and windows just didn’t appear out of thin air. Come on down for a brief introduction to the materials and manufacturing processes of float glass, the sexiest building product out there today. There’s enough material to fill at least three hours, so bring tomatoes for the 20 minute mark.

Bio: Jill Betters spent five years working in the glass industry not using her Chemistry degree. She knows entirely too much about the insulating properties of spacer systems and fenestration heat transfer. Most of her nerding is now done via articles in Scientific American and beer “research”. Jill lives in Fishtown and spends a lot of her free time wreaking havoc in the neighborhood association.

“Traumatic Brain Injury? Technologically Beyond It!” by Thomas Dixon
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been labeled the “signature injury” of the Iraq war because of the concussive forces at hand in explosions, which soldiers are surviving through in greater numbers due to improvements in body armor. Apparently, being hit by a car can lead to a similar presentation of symptoms, as had happened in my case. I ended up with an episodic memory deficit (i.e. difficulty with being able to keep track of my life’s events), while all other areas of functioning remained intact. In this talk, I aim to show how certain strategies, in light of currently available technology, have allowed me to both compensate for and go far beyond what is possible in organic episodic memory function.

Bio: One of Philly’s nerdy native sons, Thomas Dixon kept himself busy during college with mood disorder research in child and adolescent psychiatry at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and teaching ESL to immigrants. After coming back from teaching middle school students in S. Korea, and while preparing to enter medical school, his life changed drastically on a run on 11/22/10…

AND:
Music by Beta Test, a small ensemble playing contemporary classical music, video game/geek soundtracks, and rock music.

Dearest Nerds,

Fast on the heels of the nerdtasticness that was the Apcocalypse 2012 Nerd Nite, we bring you the next edition, sure to delight:

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

doors at 7:00, show at 7:30

Frankford Hall at Frankford & Girard

$5 cover

Dear Nerds,

The next Philly Nerd Nite is part of the Philadelphia Science Festival, a city-wide celebration of science.  We are thrilled to be a part of it, and we’re even more thrilled to offer you a scholarly ode to 2012 apocalypse mania.   Should you like, you may buy tickets online, but we will also be selling them at the door as always.

Note that Nerd Nite is on a Thursday this month and that the talks will start at 8:00 instead of 7:30.  Right before Nerd Nite will be “Meet and Geek“.  Admission to that gets you admission to Nerd Nite.  So many nerdly possibilities . . .

The haps:

Philly Science Festival Nerd Nite

Thursday, April 26th

Doors at 7:30 / Show at 8:00

Frankford Hall / $5 cover

We have three great talks and two performances by the West Philadelphia Orchestra lined up for you:

“The End is Not Nigh: Fact and Fantasy in the Maya 2012 Phenomenon” by Simon Martin

We’ve all heard that the world is going to end in a fiery cataclysm, or that a galactic alignment is going to herald a new world order, or perhaps that they’ll be a rain of pink elephants come 21st, or 23rd, December 2012. Moreover, whatever it is that’s going to happen, the Ancient Maya predicted it because their calendar comes to shattering conclusion on that date. We can dismiss the ideas of self-declared experts of this “ends of days”–even though they can be fun to listen to–but the science questions in this are: How did we get to this?  What did the Ancient Maya actually believe? Using hieroglyphic texts–including some only recently unraveled–we can form a real picture of ancient Maya beliefs about time-reckoning and the cosmos, and the 2012 phenomenon they have inspired.

Bio: Simon Martin, Co-Curator of MAYA 2012: Lords of Time and Penn Museum American Section Associate Curator, is an expert on Maya writing and specializes in Classic Maya history and politics. His work has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, Science, and Archaeology Magazine. He appeared in the Nova television program “Cracking the Maya Code” in 2008 and has collaborated on shows for Discovery and the History Channel.