Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #10- Orbital Junk and Internet Research!
Tuesday January 28th, 2020
DOORS at 7pm, TALKS at 7:30pm
The Tabard Theatre
29 N. San Pedro St, San Jose
Validated parking in San Pedro Market Garage
FREE
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #10
Grab a drink and see science fiction turned into science fact! Ever wonder about all the stuff that’s been launched into Earth’s orbit? Do you REALLY know how to “Google” something? You’ve got questions, our speakers have answers! Be there and be square!
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #10
Grab a drink and see science fiction turned into science fact! Be there and be square!
27,000 Kilometers Per Hour in the Wrong Lane
Since 1957, what goes up does *not* necessarily come down. With more than half a million pieces of space junk whizzing around the planet at 30 times the speed of sound, how are we still able to go to space? As satellite mega-constellations are poised to connect the world, commercial space operations are booming, and NASA plans for the moon and beyond, let’s dig into the laws of man and nature that determine how long our luck can hold out and what are we doing to avoid the orbital debris catastrophe that could put an end to the space age.
Preston is a tech policy lawyer specializing in extending law into novel domains. He co-hosts Synapse Synopsis, a monthly science and culture salon in SF.
Asking the Internet: using Google Artificial Intelligence to research your way through life
We do online research for just about everything in our lives: Thinking of going vegan but not sure how? Google it! Wanna know which detergent is safest for your little kid? Look it up! What kind of car should I buy? Ask the internet. But did you ever really learn HOW to do online research? Most people think they’re great at it, but in fact there’s a lot of room to improve. Dan will show you how to be a brilliant online researcher, and why Research really should be the 4th R of education (beyond just Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic).
Daniel Russell is Google’s Senior Research Scientist for Search Quality and User Happiness in Mountain View. He earned his PhD in computer science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence. These days he realizes that amplifying human intelligence is his real passion. His day job is understanding how people search for information, and the ways they come to learn about the world through Google. Dan’s current research is to understand how human intelligence and artificial intelligence can work together to better than either as a solo intelligence. His new book, The Joy of Search, tells intriguing stories of how to be an effective searcher by going from a curious question to a reliable answer, showing how to do online research with skill and accuracy.
Keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, or our contact form, and subscribe to our email list (just announcements, max two emails per month).
About our hosts
Founded in 2001, The Tabard Theatre Company is committed to making a difference in the community through the arts by presenting professional-quality shows. They are making theatre affordable and accessible for all, a goal they meet through their various outreach programs.
Tuesday October 29th
DOORS at 7pm, TALKS at 7:30pm
The Tabard Theatre
29 N. San Pedro St, San Jose
(Free validated parking across the street)
FREE
Nerd Nite is a boozy, playful, and educational lecture series found in cities all around the world. Enjoy 30 minute talks from scientists, historians, game designers, and other nerds over drinks.
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #9
Grab a drink and see science fiction turned into science fact! Learn how the ancient Greeks envisioned the fantastic technologies of the future, and how dreams of building a tricorder led a modern-day engineer to create incredible sensors for biotech. Be there and be square!
Killer Automatons and Evil Fembots of Ancient Greece
Driverless cars, ships powered by thought, killer robots and replicants, sexbots, fire-breathing bronze bulls, eagle drones, giant animatronic mollusks! Modern Sci-Fi? Nope. All these techno-marvels and more were dreamed up 2,500 years ago in ancient Greek mythology.
Adrienne Mayor, research scholar in Classics and History of Science at Stanford, is the author of “Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology,” exploring how automata, self-moving devices, human enhancements, and Artificial Intelligence were imagined in antiquity.
Giant Mag-neato-resistance
A (hopefully) humorous talk about an incredible technology that enables both the reading of memory in computers and the detection of biomarkers in blood. From a Nobel Prize in 2007 to plasma patient samples in 2019, this talk will cover how these ingenious sensors came about and my vision for their impact on the future of biotechnology.
Dana Kralicek is a high-spirited and gregarious engineer, who loves coffee, ska punk, Star Trek, and scientific outreach. Motivated by her dream of developing a tricorder, she earned a BS in Optical Science and Engineering from the University of Arizona, and now she creates biological tests for point-of-care settings, like roadside DUI stops, home testing, and remote clinics. By picking up on incredibly small changes in magnetic fields from magnetic nanoparticles, she uses magnetically-sensitive sensors to quickly detect DNA mutations as well as small molecules (like drugs, steroids, and hormones) in non-invasive biological fluids (like saliva, urine and blood). She is currently a PhD Candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University.
Keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, or our contact form, and subscribe to our email list (just announcements, max two emails per month).
About our hosts
Founded in 2001, The Tabard Theatre Company is committed to making a difference in the community through the arts by presenting professional-quality shows. They are making theatre affordable and accessible for all, a goal they meet through their various outreach programs.
The nerdiest of all happy hours returns. This month we’ll hear the tale of the Winchester Mystery House, and learn about the sharks of the SF Bay!
Tuesday September 24th
DOORS at 7pm, TALKS at 7:30pm
The Tabard Theatre
29 N. San Pedro St, San Jose
(Free validated parking across the street)
FREE
Nerd Nite is a boozy, playful, and educational lecture series found in cities all around the world. Enjoy 30 minute talks from scientists, historians, game designers, and other nerds over drinks.
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #8
Come and face your fears! We’ll take a virtual visit to the famously haunted Winchester Mystery House with their house historian, and then dive deep into the lives and ecology of Bay Area sharks. Cocktails, lectures, history and science — be there and be square!
“Sarah Winchester: Guilt-Ridden Gun Heiress or Creative Philanthropist?”
Janan Boehme, Historian & Special Projects
Winchester Mystery House
“Sharknado, Shark Week, Ninjas, and Beer: Enough Said!”
Vicky Elena Vásquez, Pacific Shark Research Center
Keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, or our contact form, and subscribe to our email list (just announcements, max two emails per month).
About our hosts
Founded in 2001, The Tabard Theatre Company is committed to making a difference in the community through the arts by presenting professional-quality shows. They are making theatre affordable and accessible for all, a goal they meet through their various outreach programs.
This month we have two wonderful speakers, plus drinks, laughs, and all you nerds!
Tuesday August 27th
DOORS at 7pm, TALKS at 7:30pm
The Tabard Theatre
29 N. San Pedro St, San Jose
(Free validated parking across the street)
FREE
Nerd Nite is a boozy, playful, and educational lecture series found in cities all around the world. Enjoy 30 minute talks from scientists, historians, game designers, and other nerds over drinks.
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #7
This month we ask the questions you never knew you had, but now really want to know the answers to: What happened to all the prehistoric giant insects? Was Han Solo on the right side of the law when he shot first? We’ll blend mad science, sci-fi, entomology, and the law for a night of cocktails and lectures!
“You’re Going to Need a Bigger Net: The Evolution of Giant Insects”
Christopher Beatty, evolutionary biologist
“Star Wars Law!”
Joshua Gilliland, blogger at The Legal Geeks and attorney
Keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, or our contact form, and subscribe to our email list (just announcements, max two emails per month).
Be there and be square!
About our hosts
Founded in 2001, The Tabard Theatre Company is committed to making a difference in the community through the arts by presenting professional-quality shows. They are making theatre affordable and accessible for all, a goal they meet through their various outreach programs.
This month we have two* wonderful speakers, plus drinks, laughs, and all you nerds!
Tuesday July 30th
DOORS at 7pm, TALKS at 7:30pm
The Tabard Theatre
29 N. San Pedro St, San Jose
(Free validated parking across the street)
FREE
Nerd Nite is a boozy, playful, and educational lecture series found in cities all around the world. Enjoy 30* minute talks from scientists, historians, game designers, and other nerds over drinks.
Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #6
This month we’ll go on a crash course of computing history to contextualize modern day debates like Net Neutrality or breaking up Facebook. And then we’ll learn about the surprising history of that bedroom companion, the vibrator, from one of the Bay Area’s best sexologists. That’s right, like peanut butter and chocolate, two great topics that are even better together: the internet and masturbation!
“A Brief History of Cyberlibertarianism, 1989-1999”
Jonathan Pace, PhD, from the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford
“Great-Great-Grandmother’s Little Helper: The Unexpected History of the Vibrator”
Carol Queen, PhD, author, activist, and sexologist for Good Vibrations
*We’re shaking things up this month! Rather than having 3 speakers in a 2+ hr program, we’re trying out having 2 speakers and giving them each a little bit more time in a 90min show. There are pros and cons to both approaches, but we want to give it a shot. Let us know what you think!
Keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, or our contact form, and subscribe to our email list (just announcements, max two emails per month).
Be there and be square!
About our hosts
Founded in 2001, The Tabard Theatre Company is committed to making a difference in the community through the arts by presenting professional-quality shows. They are making theatre affordable and accessible for all, a goal they meet through their various outreach programs.