[Featured in The Oregonian on 2009-01-13 ]

Richard Taylor sees a pattern. The University of Oregon professor of physics is leading the way with internationally recognized research into fractals—curious patterns found in nature that repeat themselves. Taylor's startling discoveries show that these patterns-within-patterns may significantly reduce stress and have interesting implications for psychology, medicine, and even the semiconductor industry. Taylor has applied his studies to art, showing how fractal patterns in the work of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock can distinguish a real Pollock from a fake. Come hear about this amazing intersection of art and science.

Richard Taylor, PhD, is an associate professor in physics, psychology, and art at the University of Oregon. Transforming lives by erasing academic boundaries might be why Taylor was named Outstanding Teacher in Higher Education for 2005 by the Oregon Academy of Science.

This month, James Shore will join us for an informal discussion of Agile estimation techniques. Options include techniques for estimating user stories, making and meeting iteration commitments, and how to make long-term release projections. Your interests will drive the conversation!

James Shore teaches, writes, and consults on Agile development processes. He led his first Agile team in 1999 and was an early adopter of Extreme Programming in 2000. Today, he focuses on helping people who are willing to make dramatic changes in order to achieve great results.

James is an inaugural recipient of the Agile Alliance's Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice and is co-author of The Art of Agile Development (O'Reilly, 2007). You can find screencasts and more of his writing on his "Art of Agile" blog at http://jamesshore.com.

ELC Technologies would like to invite you and a guest to a holiday party celebrating the upcoming launch of our cloud service solution, Maasive. Join us for FREE beer, FREE pizza, live demos on mobile programming with Maasive, and the chance to take home a hoodie at the end of the night!

Maasive is a mobile development platform unlike any other. We've developed an easy way for you to add cloud functionality to your iOS, Android and Windows Phone applications, including native object storage, push alerts, analytics and other services. Compared to other frameworks Maasive is easy to use and more flexible even across multiple platforms. And it's backed by ELC's unique history developing robust, scalable cloud based mobile apps for Fortune 500 companies.

Maasive is free during the beta period, and we're looking for YOUR feedback to help us make it even more reliable and easy to use. Come chat with us during the party and we'll set you up with your own account and show you how to integrate Maasive in your application. In the meantime, if you want to see how easy it is to get started check out this three minute screencast: http://vimeo.com/28125533

The party starts at 6pm December 14th, at Lucky Lab Brew Pub on 1945 NW Quimby Street. Hope to see you there!

P.S.- If anyone is interested in trying Maasive but can't attend, just send an email to [email protected] and I'll make sure you're set up with a user account and the SDK.

Nerd Nite #8 – You Say You Want Some Evolution: Gibbons and Spiders Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Nerd Nite is a monthly event that strives for an inebriated, salacious, yet deeply academic vibe. We aim to entertain, educate, elucidate, enlighten, and other things that start with “e.” Be there and be square!

When: Tuesday, October 8, 2013, doors at 6:00pm, event at 7:00pm Where: Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan, Portland Cost: $8.00* suggested cover at the door

This Nerd Nite will feature the following two talks:

Swinging Between Genomics, Evolution, and Conservation The small apes (or gibbons) are amazing primates living in South East Asia and currently threatened by extinction. They have many distinctive traits separating them from their cousins, the great apes (orang, gorilla and chimp), including the ability to move just using their arms (i.e. brachiation), monogamy, and vocalization to defend their territory. Lucia Carbone, PhD, Assistant Professor at OHSU studying genomics and epigenetics, has been studying the gibbon genome to learn more about these species and primate evolution in general. Her talk will go over her latest findings and highlight a fascinating connection between processes in evolution and human disease.

Spider Venoms: The Evolution of an Arsenal Spiders (all 44,000 species) play key roles in our ecosystems as predators of insects. Without spiders there would be many more insects and fewer plants. Evolution over the last 400 million years has created enormous diversity among spiders in predatory tactics, including web and venom use, which has resulted in a phenomenal diversity of silk and venom chemistry. Greta Binford, PhD, Associate Professor of Biology at Lewis & Clark College, studies diversity and evolution of spiders and their venoms, including the toxic brown recluse and its relatives. She will highlight some of the beautiful biological diversity of spiders’ feeding biology, silks, and venoms, and discuss how evolution has generated a "pharmacopeia" of unique toxins that are rich in potential for human applications.

*A note on the suggested cover: Nerd Nite is completely supported by money collected at the door. We are committed to offering education opportunities to adults who want to learn, so if $8 is a hardship for you, please come anyway and donate what you can.

Check out Nerd Nite on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nerdniteportland

On Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Nerd-Nite-Portland/

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Nerd Nite is a monthly event that strives for an inebriated, salacious, yet deeply academic vibe. We aim to entertain, educate, elucidate, enlighten, and other things that start with “e.” Be there and be square.

When: Tuesday, November 12, 2013, doors at 6:00pm, event at 7:00pm Where: Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan, Portland Cost: $8.00 suggested cover at the door, or available online

This Nerd Nite will feature just one speaker, the unforgettable Scott Burns!

One of the greatest sets of geological events to ever have occurred in North America was the Missoula Floods. Occurring as many as 40 times during the last ice age, the floods were caused by waters released from ancient Lake Missoula that scoured the Columbia River basin, carved out the Columbia River Gorge, and swept across at least 16,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest. At this Nerd Nite, Scott Burns, PhD, http://geology.pdx.edu/node/67, professor of geology and past chair of the Department of Geology at PSU, will focus on the incredible story of discovery and development of the idea of the floods by J Harlen Bretz and will discuss the effect of the floods on the landscape of the Willamette Valley and the area around us.

*A note on the suggested cover: Nerd Nite is completely supported by money collected at the door. We are committed to offering education opportunities to adults who want to learn, so if $8 is a hardship for you, please come anyway and donate what you can.

Check out Nerd Nite on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nerdniteportland and Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Nerd-Nite-Portland/.

Nerd Nite is a monthly event that strives for an inebriated, salacious, yet deeply academic vibe. We aim to entertain, educate, elucidate, enlighten, and other things that start with “e.” Be there and be square.

When: Tuesday, February 4, 2014, doors at 6:00pm, event at 7:00pm Where: Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan, Portland Cost: $8.00* suggested cover at the door

This Nerd Nite will feature two excellent talks:

The Willamette River: A History of Sediment and Change

The Willamette River is one of the most important geological features of this area. With no river, no port. And with no port, no Portland. The river has undergone huge changes since the arrival of settlers and cities. Yet throughout the taming the river by building sea walls, the dredging and channeling to facilitate shipping, and the 100+ years of dumping toxins and waste, the Willamette is still a living river with birds and fish and people who dependent on it. Keith Johnson, Manager of the DEQ Northwest Region Cleanup Program, and Kevin Parrett, NWR Cleanup Section Manager at the DEQ, will give us a visual history of the Willamette and how the river and the city have changed each other.

The Subsurface History of Portland

People have been moving the earth around in the Portland Metro area to suit our needs since the earliest days of urban habitation, and this history of cutting and filling impacts many aspects of living and working in the city. Engineer Stuart Albright from Apex Companies will present historic maps and photos of Portland that he uses to evaluate the location and extent of the earthwork and landfilling that has shaped this area. He will also share the history of the locations of some of the largest historic fills, such as Asylum Creek, Guilds Lake, Tanner Creek, and Marquam Gulch, and how those landscapes affect us today.

*A note on the suggested cover: Nerd Nite is completely supported by money collected at the door. We are committed to offering education opportunities to adults who want to learn, so if $8 is a hardship for you, please come anyway and donate what you can.

We have a new location in Vancouver, WA! Our first event is:

Nerd Nite Vancouver #1 – Lust, Chocolate and Prairie Voles: The Neuroscience of Pleasure and Love

Nerd Nite is a monthly event that strives for an inebriated, salacious, yet deeply academic vibe. We aim to entertain, educate, elucidate, enlighten, and other things that start with “e.” Be there and be square!

When: Wednesday, February 12, 2014, doors at 6:00pm, event at 7:00pm

Where: Kiggins Theater, 1011 Main Street, Vancouver, WA

Cost: $8.00 suggested cover at the door

Come early if you want to order food and drinks and get a good seat!

Is the brain chemistry behind our love for chocolate equivalent to that which drives infatuation with a new lover, the love of a particular song, or addiction? How does the brain sort out pleasure and discomfort? What drives our decisions to stay with one person for life or go from one lover to another, never settling down? This Nerd Nite will focus on these and other questions that reveal much about how neurochemical changes can have major effects on our behaviors—how we love, what we love, and who we love.

Dr. Larry Sherman is a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Neuroscience at OHSU. He was identified as someone who is "Changing our World" by Portland Monthly Magazine and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and he was awarded OHSU Teacher of the Year in 2012.

*A note on the suggested cover: Nerd Nite is completely supported by money collected at the door. We are committed to offering education opportunities to adults who want to learn, so if $8 is a hardship for you, please come anyway and donate what you can.

Please join us the day before DAMA DAY 2017: Agile Data Warehousing Today for a sponsored happy hour with drinks and appetizers at On Deck Sports Bar in the Pearl District.

Hosted by DAMA PDX in partnership with Snowflake and WhereScape.

Quick, what’s the difference between an incubator and an accelerator? How can each one help you? And how are they different from a co-working space? Our panel of experts will break it all down for you. They’ll discuss how to pick the right program based on your start-up stage, how to “win” the application, and more.

You’ll learn

• Key differences between an incubator, an accelerator, and a co-working space
• What support you should expect from each
• How to capitalize on what they offer to build your business