Nerd Nite Calgary

The Locked Room and social event for this Friday June 19, 2015 is live and open to everyone now. Please go to the Eventbrite site and reserve your time & room. After you have done that, then send your $23.60 per ticket in via email transfer to frank(at)nerdnite.com <– (at) is @. I’m doing payments this way this time just to save you a couple bucks on service fees.

Remember only 20 spots are available total.

Tickets are on sale for our epic Nerd Nite Calgary Season 2 Finale on Thursday, June 11!

When: Thursday, June 11, 2015 @ 7pm
Where: The Wild Rose Brewery Taproom
Tickets: $10 online

This is an 18+ event.

Beer and Education … who could ask for anything more? This is the last event of season 2 of Nerd Nite Calgary … let’s send it off with a bang.

SPEAKERS

An Iconic New Horned Dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta
Dr. Caleb Brown, Royal Tyrrell Museum

Dr. Caleb Brown

This talk documents the steps involved in the discovery, excavation, and description of a brand new species of horned dinosaur. This new animal is known from an impressive and nearly complete skull found along the Oldman River in southwestern Alberta. Unexpected features of the horns and shield-like frill reveals new data on the evolution of horned dinosaurs.

The Changing Brain
Manu Schuetze, PhD student
Keelin Rivard, MSc Candidate

Keelin Rivard & Manu Schuetze

Our brain is the most complex organ in our body, allowing us to think, feel, reason, learn, believe, talk and so much more that makes us human. But what happens if something goes wrong? Follow Manu and Keelin on a journey through different stages of life and how disorders such as Autism, Depression and Alzheimers are related to changes in our brain.

Be all you can’t be – What is LARP?
Cory Fliegel – Alliance Alberta LARP

Love Game of Thrones? Have you watched all of the Lord of the Rings? Want
to participate in stories like these and not just watch them? Live Action
Role-Playing is what you need! Meet Cory Fliegel, owner of Alliance
Alberta LARP. He will be explaining what LARP is and how to get involved
in a fast growing segment of nerd-dom.

Tickets for Nerd Nite Eta are now available! Our last three events sold out, so get your seats now to avoid disappointment:

When: Thursday, March 12, 2015 @ 7pm
Where: The Wild Rose Brewery Taproom
Tickets: $10 online

This is an 18+ event.

Chicken Soup for the Common Cold
Curtis Dumonceaux, University of Calgary

Curtis Dumonceaux

Everyone has heard things like: “Feed a cold, starve a fever;” “There’s no cure for the common cold;” “Do up your coat or you’ll catch cold.” Fact? Fiction? Globally, very few researchers perform the kind of in-depth research with the Human Rhinovirus that Curtis’ group does. He will delineate between fact and fiction, show what is happening in their research, and give insight about what happens to us when we get sick.

The Flight of the Electron
David Cramb, University of Calgary

David Cramb

Ever wondered how the universe looks from an electron’s point of view? You will be taken on a journey through the wild, wacky and wavy world of the confined electron. You WILL play dice with the universe. You WILL play favourites with photons. You WILL interfere with yourself. You WILL be trapped in a nanoparticle. How do you escape?

Between the Devil’s Cut and the Angel’s Portion:
Things Not Everyone Knows about Whiskey
Adrian Schuster, Alberta Distillers Limited

Adrian Schuster

This talk will leave teach you some facts that will make you sound like a connoisseur of all things whiskey!  Find out: How’s it made?  What’s it made from? How’s it aged? What makes a whiskey ‘Canadian’? Why do cattle farmers love distilleries? And plenty more…

Tickets for February 11* Nerd Nite Zeta event are now available! Our last two events had sell out attendance. Due to unforeseeable circumstances with our venue, we have had to change the date of Nerd Nite to WEDNESDAY FEB. 11. But, for this event only, we’re offering tickets for free via Eventbrite.com, with an option to “pay what you can” at the door if you choose.

Our last two events sold out, so get your seats now to avoid disappointment:

When (*DATE CHANGE): Wednesday, Feb 11th, 2015 @ 7pm
Where: The Wild Rose Brewery Taproom
Tickets: $10 online FREE (offered for this event only)

This is an 18+ event.

What rhymes with “Need More Pita” … that’s right it’s Nerd Nite Zeta!
February 12 we’ll learn all about bones, and cosplay.

SPEAKERS

Bone, Not Just a Stick
Hayley Britz, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary

Hayley Britz

Bone is more than just pieces of a skeleton that we use as levers with muscle attachments in order to move. It is a metabolically active tissue that is capable of adapting its structure to stimuli and repairing structural damage. For this reason, bone is not just a stick and prone to a variety of diseases. In this talk, Hayley shows us how bones work and how disruptions in this process can lead to diseases, specifically, osteoporosis.

Shawn Trainor

What makes someone decide to turn sheets of foam and fabric into their favourite hero or villain? Who enjoys bringing video game or movie characters to life? How does wearing a costume change social interaction? People don a mask for many different reasons: the desire to create a living work of art, to overcome social anxiety by becoming someone else, or even how using a cultural icon can inspire people to give to charity.  Shawn Trainor, veteran cosplayer and Commanding Officer of The 501st legion’s Badlands Garrison, discusses what cosplay is, the reasons why people become a particular character, and how the use of a living avatar can alter the way a person interacts with those around them.

Nerd Nite Epsilon.  Beer and Education … who could ask for anything more? 

On Thursday, January 15 Nerd Nite Calgary is back at the Wild Rose Brewery! Explore fascinating topics like: Exoplanets, where why and how we find them? How do palaeontologists know things? And, the Dark Knight Origin of the Man of Steel.

When: Thursday, January 15th, 2015 @ 7pm
Where: The Wild Rose Brewery Taproom
Tickets: $10 online

This is an 18+ event.

Speakers

Dark Knight Origin of the Man of Steel
Richard Harrison

Richard Harrison

Superman and Batman, Kal-El and Bruce Wayne: ever since they first teamed up in the 1940s, they have been seen to be two heroes drawn together in common cause from opposite sides of the superhero spectrum. Where Superman is the triumph of hope against all odds, Batman is the hero of the unwinnable war. We love them both. And have made much of their difference. However, the two share more than this portrait implies. The origin story of a superhero takes time to tell, and gets reshaped with its retelling. Over the years, as the classic shape of Superman’s origin story emerges, we can see how it, as the property not of its original tellers, but of DC comics, becomes blended with the beginning of DC’s darkest knight.

Exoplanets: Where, Why, and How We Find Them
Jason Nishiyama – @evilscientistca

Jason Nishiyama

Astronomers have postulated about extra-solar planets, also known as exoplanets, for hundreds of years but it is only since the mid 1990s that we have actually found planets orbiting about other stars. Jason asks: How do planets form? How do we find them around other stars? How do we work out how big they are? And finally, is it possible for us to determine if there’s life on these other worlds?

Hot-Blooded Gluttons: In Favour of Messy, Speculative Science
Adrian Currie, PhD – https://sites.google.com/site/adrianmitchellcurrie/ 

Adrian Currie

Lots of people think the scientific method is simple. Frizzy-haired eccentrics in white coats test theories by running carefully planned experiments. The results—unadulterated truth—are then presented to a grateful world. Things, of course, are not that simple. Indeed, science is a very human endeavour: it is complex, idiosyncratic and creative. Hear Adrian defend the view that the scientific method is messy and speculative—and that this is a good thing. In doing so, Adrian examines recent work in paleobiology: both pack-hunting Tyrannosaurus rex and hot-blooded, gluttonous sauropod dinosaurs will get a look-in. As we shall see, mess and speculation actually drives scientific discovery.

Tickets are selling out quickly — get yours fast!

… see, a simple name this time …

Nerd Nite Delta is going to be epic, folks. Check out our amazing speakers and great new location with Calgary’s best microbrew!

When: Thrusday November 20th, 2014 @ 7pm
Where: The Wild Rose Brewery Taproom

Tickets: $10 online or $15 at the door

This is an 18+ event.

Speakers

Sustainable Space Settlement: How we can “live off the land” …in space.
Bryan Versteeg – SpaceHabs

Bryan Versteeg

Will there come a day when more people live off of the earth than on it? Bryan will talk about why he thinks that’s a good idea, and how it could happen. Bryan Versteeg is a self professed nerd/geek/artist hybrid who works as a conceptual designer with 20 years of experience in the architectural and engineering industries. The images and design work from his studio Spacehabs.com are regularly featured in publications like National Geographic, New Scientist and Discovery Channel in support of space exploration and settlement projects. Bryan is the concept designer for Mars One and one of the founders of the space resources company Deep Space Industries.

Tyler Stewart

When you think of a visit to a museum, what do you picture in your head? Most times, it’s a quiet place of inner contemplation, but the new National Music Centre (NMC) aims to thrill visitors with an experience more like a music festival than a museum. NMC exhibitions manager Tyler Stewart tells us about bringing musical stories to life in a dynamic and compelling way that will change visitors’ expectations of what a museum can be like.

What places make Calgarians happy?
John Lewis from Intelligent Futures and #happyyc

John Lewis

NERD NITE CALGARY OCTOBER 9

Nerd Nite Charlie/Gamma/#3 (we’ve really got to stick with a naming scheme…) is happening October 9th at the National Music Centre.

When:  Thursday, October 9 2014 – Doors open at 6:30 pm, event starts at 7:00 pm.
Where:  National Music Centre – 134 11 Avenue SE
Tickets: $10 in advance only via Eventbrite
Note: No tickets sold at the door; this is an 18+ event.

Our first speakers are artist Jeff de Boer and technologist Shannon Hoover. Jeff and Shannon explore the idea of Art Directed Technology. They’ll share insights from developing the Tech Tie, a wearable technology developed with partners Intel and Seeedstudios, that incorporates art, fashion, social interaction, and just plain fun.

We’re also very excited that Geoff and Julie from Calgary’s own Buy Nothing Year will be presenting at our October Nerd Nite. You’ve likely heard about Buy Nothing Year in the news, including this recent Forbes article.

Photo credit: Julie and Geoff from Buy Nothing Year.

We’re extremely excited to announce that Dr. Christian Jacob from the University of Calgary will tell the story of The Giant Walkthrough Brain, and show the 3-dimensional, interactive computer model. We’ll see first-hand demonstrations of the software, as well as snippets from the three performances at the Banff Centre and during Beakerhead. Learn why a computer nerd can get excited about the human brain!

Giant Walk-through Brain, Copyright LindsayVirtualHuman.org

Be sure to email us () to secure your tickets* for our October event! If you’re already a member of Nerd Nite Calgary (i.e., you’re on our email list…), you can purchase tickets on Eventbrite for $10 per ticket.

*Note: there will be no ticket sales at the door due to the liquor license regulations. Also, please note the event is private and only open to Nerd Nite Calgary members and invited guests. It’s easy to become a member! Just email  to be placed on the group’s email list, or sign-up in the righhand column of this page under “Stay in Touch Here.”

June 12, 2014
Doors open at 7:00 pm – Event starts at 7:30 pm

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Beta software is usually buggy and not ready for public consumption.
Nerd Nite Beta contains no bugs and consumption is encouraged.

At Nerd Nite Alpha I learned that there are more nerds in Calgary than I expected!   So for Nerd Nite Beta I have moved us to a new location – the National Music Centre.  A cool venue that should have lots of room for all the nerds out there that want to attend.

I have 3 speakers lined up that will again educate us on 3 very different topics.  So bring out your friends and enjoy some nerdness.

When: June 12, 2014 – Doors open at 7:00 pm, event starts at 7:30 pm.
Where: National Music Centre – 134 11 Avenue SE
$15 in advance only – includes one drink (available here)
No tickets sold at the door.
This is an 18+ event.

Notes about the new venue:  One change is that at the new venue we have to run our own bar so due to liquor license rules there will be no entry tickets sold at the door.  Tickets will be $15 online only but do include one drink.  There will be no kitchen also but our caterer will have baked goods and one food dish available (Cashew Chicken Curry with basmati rice).  There is a large parking lot on the other side of 11th Ave.

As we require a liquor license for this event, please note the event is private and only open to Nerd Nite Calgary members and invited guests.  To become a member please email to be placed on the groups mailing list.

Bitcoin From Scratch
Matt Lonsdale

Between the wild fluctuations in value, the FBI raids, the bankruptcies of high-profile firms and the botched attempts at investigative journalism, Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies get a lot of press these days. Unfortunately, these news stories rarely spend much time on one basic question: how does Bitcoin actually work? This talk will attempt to answer that question, progressing from the basic concepts of a decentralized currency to the technology which makes it possible and the attempts by government to regulate the whole thing.

Biography:
Matt Lonsdale is a lawyer and unapologetic geek. Before getting into law, he earned undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics from the University of Calgary. He spent six years working as a Linux/UNIX system administrator and interned with the the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.He is currently the Copyright Advisor at Mount Royal University, where he also teaches a course on Intellectual Property law in the Continuing Education department. He spends more time than is probably healthy thinking about the intersection of law and technology and wishes he’d bought more bitcoins years ago.

Bigger on the Inside: Fandom, Materiality and the Limits of Participation
Benjamin Woo

In Batman (1989), the Joker famously asks, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” A better question – and one painfully familiar to the film’s fannish audiences – might be where he keeps them. Growing collections of toys, books, DVDs, and other mementoes are an almost intrinsic part of participating in geek culture, but when they have to be stored, managed, and maintained they also become a limit on participation.

In this presentation, I’ll discuss geek culture from a material culture perspective. Material culture studies is a perspective in the social sciences that attempts to understand human behaviour through the physical artefacts that we use. For instance, although we often talk about fandom in terms of emotional states like “interest,” “enthusiasm,” or “passion,” fandom is also intimately involved with material objects, objects that enable certain actions but also become problems we have to deal with.

Bio:
Benjamin Woo (@wooesque) is a currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of English at the University of Calgary where he has been conducting a study on working conditions in the comic-book industry. He did his graduate work at SFU’s School of Communication, writing an award-winning dissertation on one city’s “nerd-culture scene,” and will begin teaching in Carleton University’s Communication Studies program this fall. With all this moving around, he’s had to make some tough decisions about his own collections.

The Breathtaking Effects of Obesity on Breathing During Exercise
M@ … aka: Matthew David Spencer

Some obese individuals experience shortness of breath during exercise, whereas others do not. This talk will outline some of the potentially damning effects of this breathlessness, and will also provide a glimpse into what may lead some to feel the discomfort, while others do not. 100% truth… no hot air!

Bio:
Matt is currently working as an Eyes High Postdoctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He previously spent time in some research capacity at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (Dallas, TX), Kobe University (Kobe, JP), and earned his doctorate from the University of Western Ontario (London, ON). On his own time, Matt thoroughly enjoys coaching basketball; after spending 12 seasons as an assistant coach with the high school girls’ team in his hometown of Antigonish, NS, he then spent two years with the UWO Mustangs women’s team, and a month as a guest coach with the Kobe University Seagulls while in Japan. Matt joined the University of Calgary Dinos coaching staff as an assistant last year, and lately has donated loads of his “nerdiness” to the program by conducting an advanced statistical analysis of the team’s performance. After the Nerd Night experience is over, Matt plans on focusing his attention toward his next failed comeback to distance running!

May 8, 2014
7:30pm

Hello Calgary, Nerd Nite begins!

In almost 80 cities around the world, nerds congregate in bars, pubs and theaters to listen to talks that are educational, fun and sometimes even a little ridiculous … add in a little alcohol and you have a great combination.

For our inaugural event, I’m proud to present our topic line up of floating dinosaurs, one way tickets to mars and the Flintstones as history.  Come on out and bring your friends!

When: May 8, 2014 – Door open at 7:30pm
Where: The Belfry Gastro House – downstairs (102-630 8 Ave SW, Calgary)
$10 in advance (available here) SOLD OUT
$13 at the door
This is an 18+ event.

Sauropod dinosaurs – the colossal corks of the Mesozoic
Dr. Donald Henderson

The tiny-headed, long-necked, long-tailed sauropod dinosaurs were the largest land animals to have evolved on Earth. They were around from the earliest Jurassic until the very end of the Cretaceous, a period of about 145 million years, and can be considered one of evolutions success stories. The smallest of them weighed about a 1 tonne, but most were in the 10-20 tonne range, while exceptional ones may have weighed as much as 60 tonnes. These animals showed many skeletal adaptations to reduce the amount of bone needed to form their skeletons, and they also developed a very elaborate system of air sacs in the spines, neck, chest and abdomen to assist with breathing and cooling. As a result they had a mean body density less than that of water, and this leads to the idea that they would have been very buoyant in water. The modern interpretation of sauropods is to have them as land-living, herbivores, but most land animals will take to water occasionally. This talk will look at the consequences of light and airy sauropods being immersed in water.

Bio: Dr. Donald Henderson is Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. He has a BSc in geophysics from the University of Toronto, but got fed up with solving computer hardware and software problems, and not doing much science. He subsequently earned a PhD in vertebrate palaeontology and biomechanics from the University of Bristol in England. He spent 5 years as a post-doc, research associate, and instructor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary, before joining the Tyrrell Museum in 2006. Despite his dinosaur title, he also collects and studies ancient marine reptiles (plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and mosasaurs), and also studies pterosaurs – the ancient flying reptiles that co-existed with the dinosaurs. His main research interests are understanding how the large and mysterious animals of the past functioned as living animals, and he does this with his math, physics and computing knowledge.

The Flintstones are Real!
Christine M. Shellska

In this journey through rhetorical mayhem, I will attempt to persuade you that The Flintstones cartoon is a historically accurate portrayal of a young earth! Pay no attention to the mounds of scientific evidence that soundly refute the claims of Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC), and never mind what philosophers of science have to say about how we demarcate science from pseudoscience: after briefly positioning the so-called “controversy” surrounding evolution and arming you with some basic critical thinking tools to aid your navigation through this “scientific debate,” I will deploy some of the rhetorical strategies advocates of IDC use to engage students, citizens, and others to mistrust and reject science, and to convince you (hopefully unsuccessfully) that The Flintstones are real!

 Bio: Christine Shellska is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Communication and Culture, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Calgary, Canada. Her research involves studying the rhetorical strategies employed by the Intelligent Design Creationism movement, and her areas of focus include history, philosophy and sociology of science, Actor Network Theory and rhetoric. She is a Secular Humanist Liaison at the Faith and Spirituality Centre at the University of Calgary, a member of the Board of Directors for Atheist Alliance International, and a regular co-host on the Calgary-based Legion of Reason podcast.

Settling Mars: The next chapter of the human saga
Graham Blair Christensen

An Albertan Mars One candidate tells the story of his lifelong love of science and adventure, calling the red planet home and of the deep past and possible future of humankind. The talk will focus on Mars One’s plan to send 40 people on a one-way mission to Mars which is set to launch the first settlers in 2024 and will begin training the candidates in 2015. Graham will share his personal story of obstacles and triumph in his effort to reach the red planet. Along the way, he will introduce us to Mars of the past and present and share his thoughts on the Neanderthals and human evolution, Mars as a stepping stone to the establishment of a galactic civilization and the potential diversity of a cosmic biosphere.

Bio: Graham Blair Christensen is one of Mars One’s 1,058 worldwide candidates for a one-way mission to Mars which plans to launch the first human settlers in 2024. Graham has lived in Alberta all his life where he has pursued his interests in astronomy and paleontology and his love of outdoor adventure. He has some formal background in electronics but is largely self-educated. As a seasoned fossil hunter Graham has made many fossil discoveries in Alberta’s badlands and mountains. His lifelong love of astronomy is expressed through astrophotography, nightscapes and time lapses.