Wednesday, January 21
7pm doors
8pm first presentation
Bottom Lounge (Upstairs)
1375 W Lake St, Chicago, IL 60607
OH HEY DERE, CHICAGO!
We’re bringing you extra excellence with our next Nerd Nite!
We’ve got a low, prime number of presenters ready to edutain you, and we’re stoked to be putting them onstage at the large, excellent UPSTAIRS space at Bottom Lounge. In additions to sweet, sweet knowledge, you can get great beers and good food at this joint!
Dry T-Shirt Contest
We’re doing another of our DRY TSHIRT CONTESTs! Wear your nerdiest T and compete for the validation of our admittedly rather arbitrary panel of judges! Woooo! Arbitrary!
Experimental Nerd Quickies!
Got a fascinating factoid? Filled with a mini-rant on an obscure topic? We’d like to hear about it, and we’d like to hand you the mic for a quickie, 2-minute pitch. If the audience likes it, or, hell, if the Bosses do, you might get to become a nerd nite presenter at the next nerd nite!
Finally, the milkshake that brings all the nerds to the yard:
Did the eyes give me away?
Effective Affect
by Michael Maloney
Emotions are messy, disorganized and don’t help us make rational decisions. Right? Then why do we have them? Scientists have gone through great lengths to study emotions including electrical shocks to the face, torturing dogs, botox injections, conversations with cannibals, use of the postal service, and inappropriate use of a No.2 pencil. What are the findings of all this research? Presentation may even include an adorable picture of a baby gorilla taking a bath, but that is just to get an emotional reaction from the audience.
Michael is a research counselor (yes that is a thing). He is a recovering comic book collector with a superhero complex. While he does not know if he has a super power (YET), he does know his arch-nemeses are chandeliers.
From Here to Utopia
by Nate Noonen
From Yogaville, VA to Galt’s Gulch, Chile, groups of overly optimistic people decide that they’ve figured what a perfect society looks like and made it themselves. Join us for a a dissection of what can make a utopian ideal become a reality, and the many ways things can so spectacularly wrong.
Nate Noonen is a Christian, a husband to Kimmy and a father to Charlotte. He has been arguing Calvinistic vs Wesleyan theology with his dad since he was a child and loves a good debate, preferably over as many beers as it takes for him to tell you how much he loves you. He has a few nuanced loves: the oxford comma, hip-hop, and cooking.
Taxonomic Tanglz: How to Spend a Nice, Quiet Evening with a Tomato
by Matthew Knisley
Matthew’s talk, which is about this, that, and the other, is a kind of presentation. Sometimes a tomato is a fruit… or is it a vegetable? Depends on whether you’re a bureaucrat or a Supreme Court Justice, a botanist or a cook. Pay attention; there will be a quiz.
Having been named the Illinois State Champion in Vegetable Display at the age of 13, it’s no coincidence that Matthew will be talking to us about incredible edibles.