Nerd Nite Houston

Just a hair over one week out and we’re all set for the first Nerd Nite Houston of 2015 to kick off. Same deal as last year: Last Thursday of the month, Notsuoh’s bar downtown at 8:00, no entry fee, awesome presenters. This month we have speakers covering topics on Russian history, ultra-short timescale observation, and the highlights of being a professional student.

Russian History – Colin Allen was out before and gave an enjoyable talk on cultural quirks and oddities of historical Russia. We are glad to have him back out again to talk further about material he wasn’t able to cover last time and answer all the questions you may have about what makes Russia, well, Russia. Colin is a graduate in European History from University of North Texas with a focus on Russia, Germany and the 20th century.

Ultra-fast measurements – Dan Mittleman got his BS from MIT and his PhD from UC Berkeley. He’s been a member of the Rice faculty since 1996. His expertise is in ultrafast optics and its application to terahertz science and technology. The presentation will be entitled “A brief history of time resolution… or, why my entire PhD thesis contains only 0.00000000001 seconds worth of data.” In it, I will discuss the state of the art in time-resolved measurements: what is the fastest thing that humans can measure, how did we get to that point, and why did we bother?

Humorous Highlights: Professional Student – Andrew Guy (A. Guy [not a real name]) has been haphazardly stumbling through an engineering education for 7 years. He is currently in his 3rd year of PhD work and looking to graduate within the next two years before applying to medical schools. In this presentation he will remove all of the boring educational parts of that process and focus solely on the most hilarious missteps, lapses of judgment, and pure accidents from selecting an undergrad program to the 3rd year of a PhD. When he is not working in school, Andrew is a circus performer (juggler and aerial straps), long distance runner, and avid home chef. There is an inverse relationship between level of education and time for hobbies so by the time he does get job it’s very likely he will be unable to run, juggle or cook at all. Armed with this knowledge, Andrew is attempting to finish his PhD as slowly as possible.

We’ll see you this coming Thursday, the 29th. Be there and be²