Nerd Nite November
November’s #NNBoston will be our last at the Middlesex. The past 4 or 5ish years have been a sweet and successful partnership. We wish the bar all the best as it changes format (and are open to suggestions for a new home if you’ve got ’em). For this last hurrah at the lounge, join us as we celebrate our people, the rare birds who thrive in the space where intelligence, obsession, and social ineptitude meet.
Talk 1 – “Romance for Nerds: an Introduction to the World’s Most Popular and Least Understood Genre” by Jennifer Webb
Porn for women? Tool of the patriarchy? What are those books with buff men and swooning ladies on the covers? Who reads them? And why? Romance fans, like comics geeks and fanboys/girls, are viewed with suspicion by mainstream culture. Jennifer pulls back the embossed covers and talks about the good, the bad, and the unrealistically attractive in the world of romance novels.
Jennifer is a librarian, life-long book nerd, fandom lurker, and pop culture aficionado. She may be found on Twitter at @eviltwinjen and Tumblr at eviltwinjen.tumblr.com.
Talk 2 – “The Art and Science of Simulated Soda” by Will Brierly
In recent years first person soda simulation has expanded to mass markets worldwide. From the beginning, Soda Drinker Pro has been the leading innovator in pushing the boundaries of this technology. This talk will cover the past, present, and future of simulated soda drinking technology and its broad societal impacts.
For the past 14 years Will Brierly has run Snowrunner Productions. He has worked with Grammy Award winning artists, Emmy Award winning TV shows, NY Times best selling authors, international government agencies, video games and more… He is also known for creating the first FPS (first person Soda drinking simulation) Soda Drinker Pro which has hundreds of thousands of players worldwide and has been featured on CNN, Mashable, Game Informer, Kotaku, Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of other media outlets.
Be there. Be square.
Middlesex Lounge | 315 Massachusetts Avenue | Central Square, Cambridge | 8PM | $5