HOME – Nerd Nite LA

Next Nerd Nite LA

is Tuesday, November 10th!

PRESENTATION LINE-UP:

PRESENTATION #1: An Era Exploding, a Century Spinning (The People Called it Ragtime)
By Grace Deppe-Waldschmidt

Summary: “Ragtime: The Musical” is a 1998 musical based on a 1978 novel set in 1906, and has never been more relevant. Find out how an upper class white woman, a young Black family, and a Jewish immigrant change each other’s lives and what their stories can teach us about current events. And enjoy Joshua Henry’s stunning baritone along the way.

Bio: Grace Deppe-Waldschmidt is a writer and performer with unrelated passions for disability advocacy, musical theater, and ghosts. She’s written for DreamWorks’ “Dragons: The Nine Realms,” and Disney Jr’s “RoboGobo,” and recently wrote and produced her own web-pilot currently awaiting rejection from the festival circuit. None of this makes her particularly qualified, but it does make her feel better about herself.

PRESENTATION #2: Fanfic, Pastiche, and Spec: A Fanfiction Primer
By Lin Codega

Summary: Fanfic has been mainstream for nearly two decades, but many people still don’t know how to talk about it — or what they’re talking about. Lin Codega, fandom journalist, will take us through a brief history of fic, and discuss its place in society as counter cultural artistic power fantasy. They will also discuss the current state of fic and discuss the contemporary tagging system. RPF? Omegaverse? HS AU? Dead Dove? We’ll decode all these fic terms and more.

Bio: Lin Codega (they/them) is a journalist, author, and screenwriter who has spent the past 20 years of their life writing fanfic. And writing everything else as well. They are the co-founder of Rascal News, a TTRPG news outlet, and are an editor at Fansplaining. They have published two (original) fantasy novels: Motheater and Pasha the Storm, available wherever books are sold. Their most recent fic for The Pitt went semi-viral and it was deeply embarrassing.

PRESENTATION #3: Where’s My Robot Butler? : Investigating Flaws of Current Robots and What to Do About Them
By Naomi Fitter

Summary: Academic presentation? Roast of modern robots? Why can’t it be both?! You know a little about robots, and, from the news, more than you’d like about AI. Come work through these feelings with Naomi Fitter, a professional roboticist, who agrees that sometimes robots are nudniks. The robots of science fiction have been around for over a century, but personal robots to date have failed to take off. What is holding these systems back? We will talk will touch on flaws of current robotic systems and what to do about them. Or in other words, make yourself feel better by learning more about what challenges robots still face before they can achieve world domination!

Bio: Robotics professor and comedian Dr. Naomi Fitter, recently tenured (will they regret it after this talk?), has worked with greats like Aparna Nancherla, Don McMillan, Laurie Kilmartin, Whitney Cummings, and Steve Hofstetter and performed in the All Jane Comedy Festival. Naomi runs her shows Naughty but Nerdy and Singu-hilarity all over the West Coast, and she has been featured on Live Wire with Luke Burbank and the Dork Forest with Jackie Kashian. Her comedy has also been featured in TIME Magazine. Additionally, Naomi boasts at least two unusual claims to fame: she has appeared on NPR for both robotics research and comedy, and she created the wildly popular robotic stand-up comedian Jon the Robot back in 2018, when ChatGPT was a mere twinkle in OpenAI’s eye.