Category: Nerd Fun

Nerd Fun from Heather Classen

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Nerd Fun Boston

Nerd Fun Meez

After hosting and attending 346 meetups since 2007* the time has come to step down from running Nerd Fun Boston. 

I started the Nerd Fun Boston Meetup in 2007 because couldn’t get my “normal” friends to go to the local events that I wanted to go to, so I figured I’d collect fellow nerds from the internet to go with me.  The first event that I hosted was a Michael Palin book signing, and no one showed – it was just me and my meetup sign. I went in to the venue alone and had a great time creating the lifelong memory of making Michael Palin laugh.

My second event was also a treat because people actually showed up! (See photo of boyfriend below, I met him that night. 🙂 )  The Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was having their monthly public observatory night, and never having been I figured I’d collect some random nerds and go check it out. If you’ve never been I highly recommend going. Their monthly public lecture and telescope evenings are consistently the most popular Nerd Fun Boston events I’ve run.

And so it began… 11 years of connecting people to educational and otherwise nerdy events around town. It’s 2018 now and I can easily say that the Nerd Fun crowd has become my community. My world expanded by making new friends, meeting their friends, and then bringing them along for more fun. We’ve all learned new things, met new people, and relaxed knowing that this crowd is completely ok with you giving a damn about 18th century history, or natural science, or the Kepler mission, or the latest medical advances, etc.

The time has come for me to pass the reins to someone new. Times have changed, but the need for people to connect in real life is now more important than ever. So I hope others will pick up where I left off and continue to connect, educate, and entertain.

I do suspect that in the future I may be up for running the occasional event as there’s always something intriguing going on in Greater Boston. But personally committing to hosting at least two events per month is finally wearing on me as I begin focusing on new things.

I’ll finish below with some ideas and tips for running this or any Meetup group. But here is the most important thing that I learned from founding and running Nerd Fun Boston: the most rewarding experiences are the things that take the most courage to do.

Be well, stay curious, and Nerd On, <3

Heather

* ~ 2.6 meetups/month !?!

Things I know from running Nerd Fun

  • Nerd Fun Boston has the nicest, most intelligent, most authentic people anywhere. As a group our members see the term “nerd” and ignore the associated social stigma, “meh, who cares”. Instead they’d rather connect with people who are also intrigued with the world. They all get it, our conversations are rarely small talk. The name of the group, coined by my friend, Susan, self selects really great folk. I’ve seen other people roll their eyes and back away when I tell them that this here group of people is a Meetup group called Nerd Fun. They don’t want the association, and they physically step back. Self selecting. It’s awesome really.
  • Protect the email list. It’s a large group, nearly 15,000 people, and everyone who knows the first thing about “promoting an online bizness” finds the largest Meetup groups to spam the organizers to get their products and services in front of many people for free. I’m not gonna lie, I enjoy saying “no” to these people. I truly think people will leave the group en masse if the email list gets spammed. Protect it, for it is sacred.
  • Being an organizer is the best way to meet new people. The people that take that bit of courage, step up and rally other people to attend a lecture, tour, walk, or event enjoy themselves while being themselves and always end up with a crew of new friends. I’ve seen this over and over.
  • Keep politics out of the group. No political events. Nope. None. It’s everywhere else, that’s not what we are here for.
  • Run events that you’d be going to anyways. If no one shows up you won’t be disappointed. My first event going to see Michael Palin is an example, I would have gone anyways, and had a great time regardless.
  • Find events everywhere. Surf the calendar pages of the local colleges that we’re lucky to have here in Boston. Check out the calendars of the local museums. The walking tours at Boston by Foot, Historic Bostons, and the National Parks are spectacular. Fred Hapgood emails a weekly list of lectures around town and has a great list of sources at his website. People that run events love having interested people in attendance, don’t be afraid to reach out and tell them you’ve got a group showing up.
  • The organizer has to attend. Don’t leave people high and dry. It’s a responsibility. It’s worth it. But it’s a responsibility.
  • People are not good at RSVPing reliably.  People always have a hard time committing to attending. We had a forum post about it with a good discussion of why people RSVP yes and then don’t show up. It comes down to people “wanting to have gone” to an event but not having the will to show up. I mean, we have some shy people, I get it. Also I am aware some people may show up and then not feel strongly about connecting to say “hi” to the group. I’m convinced there’s nothing you can do about how members RSVP, so I tried not to let inconsistent attendance bother me. When in doubt, expect 12 people will attend. It’s usually 12 that attend anyways, no matter how many people say they’re going.
  • Meetup.com is changing. Social media has so overtaken our discourse in the past ten years that people are reacting to sites like Meetup differently. Also, since WeWork bought Meetup they have taken on the “upsell” business model. They took advertising space away unless you upgrade. They mismanaged turnover, the site is a hybrid bug-fest now. The old stuff is there, the new stuff is pinned on over it, the app tries to hang on to the pertinent info, email goes out unreliably… it goes on. In short: Meetup in 2018 is not as fun as it was in 2007. When I bring people on a walking tour and get people talking it’s still the best. But lectures and bar talks are chaos, connecting with people at such events nowadays can be difficult. I don’t know the answer here, other than wait and see how Meetup.com adapts.
  • Courage = Rewards. To reiterate, personally, the things that I have done that have required the most courage have turned out to be the most rewarding. Starting and running this group took a bit of gumption, I had more than a bit of doubt as to whether it was worth the trouble. Ultimately, there is no question that my life is worlds better than it would have been had I not started the group. No question.
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Online Learning

white book in white table near yellow wall

Education is everything: learn, know, understand, so easy now with online learning. We live in a wonderful time where we can get classes about anything and everything online, and usually for free. Like with exercise – challenging yourself mentally keeps your brain bright and active throughout your life.

“no pain no gain”

I plan to keep a list of the online classes that I’ve taken and recommend here in this post, as well as the classes I am currently taking. The classes are at different levels, different colleges, different websites, etc.

Helpful for indy designers and crafters:

Bookkeeping for Crafters with Lauren Venell • A pragmatic guided tour through business accounting for people setting out on their own craft business for $79. There are a lot of good classes over at Creativelive.com, many of which they run for free if you catch them streaming on their “onair” page.

For Knitters:

Lace Shawl Design • This class by Miriam Felton gave me traction when it came to creating my very first design, the Hoo*Bert Shawl.

Graphic design basics:

Adobe Illustrator: Mastering the Fundamentals • There are always new techniques and tricks, this free class at udemy.com is worth the two hours of time to absorb illustrator basics.

In my queue right now:

Become a Game Developer/Designer : Complete Master Series • Getting my feet wet in game development and this one looks worth the time. This is another udemy offering, $10 at the time I signed up with a New Year’s deal good til January 10, 2017. $200 normally.

Game Theory • Free without a certificate at coursera.com, taught by professors at Stanford University and The University of British Columbia. A topic always intriguing to me, but I’ve never spent the time to wrap my head around it.

Game Design: Art and Concepts Specialization • A series of reasonably priced classes in game design at coursera.com from CalArts.

Learn drums • I know I said education is everything, I lied. Education and music is everything. Figuring this one will challenge my musical abilities in ways I hadn’t imagined.

NOTE: Coursera, Edx, and Udemy all have apps so you can keep up with your classes on the go.

Wait a minute, hold up… I almost forgot to list

PODCASTS to feed your brain.

C-SPAN History lecture videos • Learn about history so we don’t repeat it.

Livestreams

Observatory Nights at the The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) • I attend in person usually, but they have them all at Youtube. The best in astronomy information. Here is their Night Sky Report.

Let me know what you take, how you like the classes. And please help me encourage people to catch the online learning bug.

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Patriot’s Day, why I love it here.

After this most difficult winter, we Bostonians have Patriot’s Day. Since mid-April is when we can finally step outside without suffering, here it comes, the celebration of Massachusetts’ contribution to the creation of the United States of America. So glad they waited to start the revolution ’til the weather got good.

You can’t swing a dead cat around these parts without hitting a Revolutionary War Reenactor.

But I have to say, my favorite thing about all these re-enactors is when you see people in historical clothing mixing in with modern-times. For example, my boyfriend has a photo of a minuteman carrying a leaf-blower, which he really needs to have online somehere.

Or like Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow.

SH218_05_godsword

Here I have this sneak-over-the-shoulder #selfie thing: Minutemen, in line for a port-a-potty.

MunroeTavernSelfie

Priceless. There should be a name for this mash-up of modern and 18th century, a hashtag, something.

so anyways

I had driven by Munroe Tavern, where the British set up their field hospital after that first night of the Revolutionary War, a hundred times. This time we finally stopped in. Here are some iPhone photos that I took. (Aram’s awesome photos  are here.)

Red coats getting ready for the battle re-enactment at Tower Park

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After the war President George Washington visited the Munroe family for tea, to thank them for all their troubles during this battle. The family saved everything he touched. He sat in that bigger chair in the middle, and the cup he used is in a display case nearby. Gotta love the love people had for the pertinence of these items.

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I would be remiss if I didn’t post a photo of the flax spinning wheel. Making linen from flax was important in the avoidance of buying British cotton goods in the 18th century.

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Inside the Munroe Tavern.

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And here are the lobster-backs getting ready for their part of the re-enactment on the front lawn of the tavern. This Tower Park battle today (Saturday) actually took place after the famous battle of Lexington Green (Monday), they just do it on this Saturday beforehand to get everything done in the weekend.

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So much fun nerdy stuff going on around here right now. Can’t miss it if you try, get out there and see some of it.

Thanks for reading and Nerd On – H

P.S. And if all this isn’t marvelous enough: we finish on Monday with the The Boston Marathon.

MarathonMile18

<3

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What is the sound of two multiverses clapping?

Had my eye on the World Science Festival for a few years now. 2013 was the year the forces of the cosmos aligned and I was able to go. Fortunately I didn’t have to twist my BF’s arm to take the trip to NYC for this event, as he is a big nerd too.

We attended 4 events, had to get tickets ahead of time because things seemed to be selling out (yay, science!). Signed up for Spooky Action: The Drama of Quantum Mechanics – Thursday 5/30/2013 8pm, Infinity – Friday 5/31/2013 8pm, Destiny and DNA – Saturday 6/1/2013 3pm, and Multiverse: One Universe or Many? – Saturday 6/1/2013 8pm

The whole thing, ‘cept for the big broadway performance from Brian Greene, was down at NYU, near Washington Square Park.

Washington Square Park

Spooky Action: The Drama of Quantum Mechanics – Thursday 5/30/2013 8pm

I don’t have any photos of this event as I followed instructions and didn’t take any inside the theater, tho if you search instagram and flickr you can find plenty of other people’s photos of the show. 🙂

Going in I was expecting the typical panel discussion, even though we were in a swanky legit Broadway theater. Turns out it was Brian Greene doing rehearsed stage schtick about Quantum Mechanics, spooky action, quantum entanglements, etc, with 3 other actors and a nice multimedia show projected behind him. My nerdly self was thrilled. Through this show they got complex ideas across as well as taught a bit of the history of how physicists like Einstein and his contemporaries worked through these game changing ideas.

next we attended:

Infinity – Friday 5/31/2013 8pm

The theater waiting for “Infinity” to begin.

How do I say this? Truthfully, “Infinity” my least favorite talk. The description for this one said “Does infinity exist? Can it be found in the physical world? What types of infinity are there?“. Really the group ended up speaking about the last question: “What types of infinity are there?” One guy was working on infinity past the highest number you can count to, another guy was working on the infinity that exists between numbers 3 and 4, i.e. 3.11111111111, 3.1415927, 3.99999999998, etc. Interesting to think about, in and of itself, but I felt like the group of guys was arguing a point without having that point defined, and so no one came to any conclusion. The whole discussion was nebulous, and I felt like I was watching a pissing contest where no one knew what they were aiming for.

I, an aetheist, found myself agreeing most often with the person representing philosophy and religion, Philip Clayton. He cut to the heart of the matter a couple of times, finding a point to the discussion where the others were often speaking about their own research as an answer to a question that wasn’t explicitly asked.

then it was:

Destiny and DNA – Saturday 6/1/2013 3pm

If you watch one video from this post, watch this one, as it will give you information that will help you understand things happening in medicine right now, and more widely so in the next few years.

Epigenetics.

The premise of this talk was that, before recently, scientists believed that we inherit our DNA cleanly when we are conceived. Turns out this is not the case, we instead inherit our DNA with our specific markers already turned on and off depending on the lives our parents and grandparents lived. Different genes and traits are favored by the software that runs on the hardware of our DNA.

There was a NOVA on this topic, btw, which, of course, explained the topic beautifully.

Things like a predisposition to be overweight, or to be stressed, or to be super fit, or the ability to live to the age of 100, are influenced by things including the nutrition and stress levels of parents. The speakers were always very careful in how they spoke, because they realized there can be implications if, say, someone decided to go out and sue their own mother for being stressed and therefore causing them to be unhealthy.

All of the members of the panel had their own interesting research to share, as well as ideas on more research that could be done.

And then, members of the audience asked the best questions, my favorite being about culture and such influencing the health profiles of entire populations.

and lastly,

Multiverse: One Universe or Many? – Saturday 6/1/2013 8pm

oop, look, here’s Brian Greene again introducing the discussion.

Brian Greene introduces the talk about the Multiverse

This talk was very good, basically because of this guy, John Hockenberry.

John Hockenberry moderated the Multiverse discussion

John Hockenberry (great name!) kept everyone grounded and added just the right amount of snark to keep the tone of the discussion in the realm of accessibility by the audience.

The discussion was between Andreas Albrecht, Alan Guth (MIT!), Andrei Linde, and Neil Turok. Each working on different theories on the origins of our universe including the possibility of other multiverses, the “uni” goes away when we open up to the possibility of having more than one. Three of the four were working with the theory of the existence of multiverses, and one, Linde, landed on the side of ‘nope, just the one’.

My favorite part of the talk (besides Hockenberry carrying us nicely through the discussion) was towards the end when Turok opened up the possibility that there’s not one, nor many, but TWO multiverses that exist in tandem, constantly influencing each other. Guth laughed at Turok’s video, calling it two universes clapping, and dismissed the theory outright… ‘cuz what is science but the proving and disproving of theories with experiments and calculations… or just outright mockery. The moment was funny because it was fun seeing the scientists “throw down” over REALLY abStRacT concepts. My own opinion would be to give the two multiverses clapping theory a chance, yeesh.

Oh, and check this out, people getting the physicists’ autographs.

Physicist signing autographs

Good times, to summarize: go to this event. The World Science Festival is a wonderfully unique experience connecting brainiacs with the curious public.

Nerd on!

– H

Click here for all my photos of the trip.

P.S. & as a post script let me point out the three places I got tasty gluten free food at while we were down there. Nizza, just west of Times Square in Hell’s Kitchen, had great dinner and brunch, completely gluten free savvy, reasonably priced, and delicious. Bareburger, near NYU, served just what you’re looking for when you order a hamburger. And Pie by the Pound, for GF pizza downtown, yum.

Yes, I let my BF have some of my root beer float at Bareburger.

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NYC for The World Science Festival

I got to go! The World Science Festival is usually on the same weekend as the Squam Art Workshops, so I hadn’t been able to make it in the past. My life is normally about Nerd Fun without enough art and creativity so I will always pick SAW over the WSF if lucky enough to have the choice. Here are my photos of the trip, I’ll do another post with details on the WSF events that we attended. Took AMTRAK, pretty relaxing so long as the train stays on the rails. Shot and edited with my iPhone5, fun shots of Queens on the way into town.

AMTRAK in NYC
Queens from the train
Queens

We showed up in NYC for the first weekend of the invasion of Citibike. We hemmed and hawed about using the bikes to get around the city all weekend. We are accustomed to seeing this sorta thing in Boston already, and thought it might be fun. We walked around Midtown and Times Square, visited the International Center for Photography (does no one take museum worthy photographs when they’re happy? whole? away from warzones? not bleeding? just gimme just one happy picture??), visited a friend who works in the city… all while thinking about going in for Citibikes. The ICP is near the lovely Bryant Park where we saw four fellas playing Pétanque (kinda like Bocce) AND, there was a girl, maybe 10 years old, doing tumbling runs on the grass, cartwheels, back-flips, all sorts of gymnastic awesomeness… didn’t take a picture, since it was a girl and this IS the internet, I mean, duh. But, wow, she was fantastic.

Pétanque in NYC
Pétanque

Still tho, Citibike? do we or don’t we? After pricing bike helmets knowing we each had helmets at home that we didn’t pack to take with us, we decided to get a two day pass for a hop-on-hop-off tour instead… more photo opportunities, more witty tour guide commentary, and more cool air (it was in the 90s and humid).

NYC Bus ride on a hot day.

I took a vertical panorama Times Square from the bus.

Vertical panorama from the bus

The Empire State Building from the bus.

vertical panorama with the Empire State Building

City shots … from the bus.

City Shot from the bus
City Shot from the bus

Eataly.

Eataly

Marimekko over Madison Sq as seen from the bus.

Marimekko over Madison Sq as seen from the bus.
city street panorama

We hopped off the bus at Battery Park with the intent of going directly to the Skyscraper Museum. Now, Aram and I are pretty lucky in the stuff we happen upon. And by lucky, perhaps I mean intrigued by a lot of what we find, where maybe other people don’t give a damn. So then we found this: The National Museum of the American Indian, which is an offshoot of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington that we didn’t get to see when we were there last…in we went. So worth it.

Not to mention the building itself, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, is lovely to visit.

The National Museum of the American Indian
Skyscraper Museum

And inside World Trade Center area … the Freedom Tower is almost complete. The memorial is such a beautiful design

Freedom Tower
Memorial at the World Trade Center NYC
World Trade Center Memorial

beautifully done

World Trade Center Memorial
Woolworth Building Ceiling
Vertical Panorama of the Freedom Tower

After the WSF talk that night we checked out this insideout project in Times Square. Showed up for its last night, right before midnight. Stationed ourselves on the red TKTS stairs and watched the crown for a reaction.

Inside Out Project Times Square
Inside Out Project Times Square
Times Square for the Inside Out Project

People kinda didn’t notice.

Images Changing in Times Square for the Inside Out Project
Inside Out Project Times Square

And so we watched the Statue of Liberty shake down tourists for $5.

Statue of Liberty shaking down tourists for $5
Times Square is perfect for these vertical panoramas.
Times Square
Spiderman telling a Danish woman that he couldn’t really hang upside down from the post.
Batman with Chewy and Ironman
Times Square Vertical Panorama
The Woolworth Building
Ad for the Fung Wah bus (it’s shut down now, no?)

Over the Manhattan Bridge

Manhattan Bridge entrance in black and white

Going to Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge on the top level of a double decker bus is no problem. Coming back there’s no apparent railing, cable, fence, gate, protection of any sort that I could tell to keep tourists from plummeting from great heights into the East River. I spent the trip back over the bridge petrified, but trying to recall seeing any news stories about tourists getting dumped into the river… couldn’t think of anything… so I just focused on Manhattan Island and the guy in front of me… who also schooched his way towards the center aisle after he looked over the edge.
Glad I got a lot of shots on the way out of Manhattan ‘cuz I didn’t get any on the way back in, even if only for the fear of loosing grip of my smartphone.

Loved this building, btw. Reminds me of e.e. waveforms.
And here’s a few more shots from around NYU and Washington Square while we were coming and going from the WSF events.
Detail on the “bow” of the Flat Iron building.
The last thing we did was see Alan Cumming in MacBeth… he played all the parts in the play by himself, including the three witches, and it is a travesty that he wasn’t even nominated for a Tony. He was crazy awesome (literally).Most of the rest of the time was at the WSF lectures, which will be a separate post.’til the next adventure…

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Tea Time-Lord Cozy

Tea Time Lord Cozy

This one has been in my queue for a while. I have always wanted to make a tea-cozy but didn’t want to do the regular one everyone expects to see. And I’ve always wanted to knit up the tardis chart by Penwiperbut didn’t want to have a stuffed plush around collecting dust.  It all came together when I found this white Denby teapot.

Tea Time Lord Cozy with Denby Teapot
Tea Time Lord Cozy with Denby Teapot

It knit up rather tall, even with edits to the orignal chart, but it worked out in the end because I can fit my square tea tin in the top to fill it out so it stands up right.

Tea Time Lord Cozy with Cup
Tea Time Lord Cozy with Cup

Yeah… luv it. 😉

Tea Time Lord Cozy
Tea Time Lord Cozy

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Nerd Fun and Tea 101

Wednesday, 27 May 2009 15:17

as posted on Nerdabout.com

Nerd Fun and Tea 101

May 26, 2009

Back in March, Boston blogger-at-large Heather showed us all that was happening in the Beantown nerd scene. Now she’s back with a report on enjoying a cuppa in the land of the Boston Tea Party.

By Heather Classen

Since the last time I checked in with Nerdabout my meetup group, Nerd Fun Boston, has been nerding all about Beantown. The Cambridge Science Festival brought us countless events, Galileo’s 400th anniversary brought us more, and there’s the regular local events like Maple Sugaring, WGBH talks, the Museum of Science, and all that MIT and Harvard have to offer the community. All quintessential nerd fun.

A couple Saturdays ago we did something a bit different. Assistant organizer, Amy, brought us to afternoon tea at the Park Plaza hotel where tea sommelier Cynthia Gold hosted a tea tasting, teaching us all about the world of fine tea. Instead of ordering off of the tea menu Cynthia brought us five different teas along with scones and tea sandwiches and a tea infused port … so good. The first tea was “Steep Towards a Cure”, a lovely mix of white tea, green tea, and cherry blossoms, mixed especially to support breast cancer research, this is the only of the teas we had that were for sale, and $5 of the $15.50 price is donated to Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Research. She explained how she plans a mix of tea, looking for a dominant flavor, and then complimentary flavors. Then the mix needs to sit for 3 to 7 days for the flavors to blend, but not longer so the tea remains fresh. This particular mix was inspired by the anti-oxidant qualities of the ingredients.

Next up was the World Tea Expo award winning St James Ceylon tea, my favorite, followed by Aria Estate Darjeeling, followed again by an 18 year old Chinese Pu-erh from Yunnan province, ending with a Bohean tea from Anwi province in China.

Cynthia explained the tea harvesting process, and how the fine tea is hand picked to get the best leaves. We learned that the same estates that produce the mass market machine harvested tea also produce this fine handpicked tea. And, that over the next twenty years the world of fine tea will most likely become very expensive as fewer and fewer people are interested in doing the skilled harvesting work. The estates had set up a system where they provided education for the children of the tea pickers, and subsequently with education the children rarely want to follow their parents into the family business.

We also learned about the origin of black tea. White and green tea sent in ships from South Asia to Europe would go bad by the time it arrived in port. The estates learned to dry and ferment the tea before packing it onto the ships bound for England, and even now black tea is still the most widely used in England and the United States.

The Bohean tea that she served with dessert is the same type of high end tea that was thrown into Boston Harborin 1773. The fermentation on this and the Pu-erh tea were definitely noticable. An aquired taste, but fantastic to try.We asked if tea were grown in the U.S., and she mentioned American Classic that was grown in South Carolina, as well as some tea being grown in Hawaii that seemed promising. Tea needs varied climate with dry and wet cycles, good draining and high elevation that steep hills provide, Cynthia explained.

Thanks, Cynthia!

Check the Boston Park Plaza web site to see when they have the next Tea 101.