Nerd Nite: Geeky Lectures in a Rock Club | Rickshaw Stop

Submitted by the Event Organizer

POSTPONED: Nerd Nite: Geeky Lectures in a Rock Club (Rickshaw Stop)

Starting in July 2022 we don’t see any more events on their calendar. Hopefully Nerd Nite will be back, soon!

What happens when geeks take over a rock club for an evening of drinking and presentations? Find out at Nerd Nite, a monthly lecture-in-a-bar series.

They get smart and interesting people, give them lots of free drinks, and put them on stage in front of a couple hundred tipsy nerds. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s salacious, and it’s always nerdy.

Nerd Nite
Every third Wednesday | Doors at 7 pm; Show at 8 pm
Rickshaw Stop | 155 Fell Street, San Francisco
$15 | All Ages

Nerd Nite resumed in San Francisco on July 21, 2021

Last Update: 8/10/21 – Event Link

Wednesday, May 18, 2016
POSTPONED: Nerd Nite: Geeky Lectures in a Rock Club (Rickshaw Stop)

“Submarine in the Abyss: Exploring the Ocean from a Tiny Metal Tube” by Erika Bergman

We hope you are wearing clean socks, because you are about to kick off your boat shoes and climb into a deep-sea submersible! Explore an underwater world dominated by giant tube worms, heat-tolerant shrimpies, vast bioluminescent networks, shipwrecks, and…beer bottles? The ocean makes up 90% of the living space on the planet, and we’re not the only weirdos down there.

Erika is a mechanic, tech enthusiast, and explorer for National Geographic. She founded theGEECs.com, whose first program is Girls Underwater Robot Camps, and hopes to hire all the little girls who don’t yet realize they are destined to be engineers and explorers.

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“Microwaving Proteins with X-Ray Lasers and Galloping Horses” by James Fraser

In 1872, Leland Stanford gave photographer Eadweard Muybridge the task of proving that all four of a horse’s hooves are off the ground at the same time during a gallop. Little did he know he’d be setting in motion (ha!) early cinema, with the concomitant improvements in camera shutters and film emulsions. Fast-forward to today and discover the surprising geographic and scientific parallels between the first “movie” and current efforts to make molecular movies of proteins using the world’s first X-Ray Free Electron Laser.

James is a professor at UCSF–where his lab studies the structure and dynamics of macromolecules–and consulting professor at SLAC National Lab, as well as an advocate for the beer-and-tacos approach to scientific publishing, wherein work is made immediately accessible to a wide audience via preprints and eventually also peer-reviewed by traditional journals.

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“Hidden Histories of Affordability in San Francisco” by Michael Epstein

Remember when a housing upgrade was as simple as physically moving your house from one part of San Francisco to another? Or when you could just plop a house on a barge and pay a modest slip fee? Or when foraging tribes would spend their winters in the hills and summers by the Bay creating huge shell mounds from the remainders of seafood feasts? Affordable living has a rich history in San Francisco, and, if you know where to look, some vestiges still remain. This presentation will reveal several hidden landmarks of SF affordable housing and speculate on how they may inform current efforts to keep the city economically diverse.

Michael teaches location-based media courses at the California College of Art and produces apps for urban exploration with Walking Cinema.

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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.

Food: Delicious hot goop between crispy slices of bread, brought to you by the scientist of the sammie, Grilled Cheese Guy.

Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.