Science Comedian

Science Comedy at the Purple Onion, San Francisco

August 9th, 2010

Thurs­day, Sept. 23, 2010

An evening of sci­ence com­edy – and a cou­ple guests on the show.  More details com­ing soon!

San Francisco’s Pur­ple Onion, in North Beach, is an awe­some venue with a lot of history.

140 Colum­bus Avenue
San Fran­cisco, CA 94133
(415) 956-1653

Sacramento Comedy Spot

August 8th, 2010

Fri­day, Sept. 24, 2010

Sci­ence Com­edy at The Sacra­mento Com­edy Spot

1050 20th Street
Sacra­mento, CA 95811
(916) 444-3137

More details soon!

Tim Westergren of Pandora & the Music Genome Project

June 2nd, 2010

My newest video for Time Mag­a­zine is about Pan­dora, the inter­net radio ser­vice.  I vis­ited the Oak­land offices of Pan­dora and spoke with founder and Chief Strat­egy Offi­cer Tim West­er­gren.  We dis­cussed var­i­ous rec­om­men­da­tion engines used by other com­pa­nies and what makes Pandora’s Music Genome Project different.

Link to the Pan­dora video on Time’s website

H+ Summit @ Harvard

May 20th, 2010

I’m thrilled to be speak­ing at the H+ Sum­mit @ Har­vard. An amaz­ing lineup of 50 speak­ers includ­ing Ray Kurzweil, Stephen Wol­fram, and Aubrey de Grey.

The H+ Sum­mit @ Har­vard is an edu­ca­tional, and sci­en­tific out­reach event that cov­ers the themes of the impact of tech­nol­ogy on the human con­di­tion. It is hosted, and orga­nized by the Har­vard Col­lege Future Soci­ety, in coop­er­a­tion with Humanity+.

June 12-13, 2010.

TIME 100′s Elon Musk

April 30th, 2010

Time Mag­a­zine has announced the Time 100 – their annual list of the most influ­en­tial peo­ple of the year.  It’s divided into four main cat­e­gories:  Lead­ers, Heroes, Artists, and Thinkers.

One of those Thinkers is Elon Musk, co-founder of Pay­Pal and cur­rent CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX.

Jon Favreau – direc­tor of the Iron Man movies – wrote the entry on Musk, hav­ing used him as a model for the bil­lion­aire Tony Stark char­ac­ter.  David Clair and I made a new video about him:

Here’s the new video on Time’s site.

For a more in-depth piece, check out our pre­vi­ous piece about SpaceX and pri­vate enter­prise in space:

Space: The Pri­vate Frontier

Crow’s Nest, Santa Cruz

April 19th, 2010

I will be per­form­ing at the Crow’s Nest in Santa Cruz, CA, on Sun­day, April 25, 2010.  Show­time is approx­i­mately 9pm.  It’s on Santa Cruz time.

SkeptiCal 2010 Science & Skepticism Conference

April 19th, 2010

I will be speak­ing at Skep­ti­Cal 2010, the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia Sci­ence & Skep­ti­cism Con­fer­ence in Berke­ley, April 24.

Other speak­ers include Euge­nie Scott, Seth Shostak, Kirsten San­ford, Brian Dun­ning, and more.  See the list of speak­ers.

• Date: Sat­ur­day, April 24, 2010. 9AM to 6PM.
• Loca­tion: Brower Cen­ter, Berke­ley, California.
• Spon­sors: Bay Area Skep­tics and Sacramento-Area Skep­tics
• Tick­ets: Tick­ets are $40 for the reg­u­lar reg­is­tra­tion and $55 for reg­is­tra­tion and a t-shirt. See the fan­tas­tic t-shirt design by Ranch7 Cre­ative. This event is expected to sell out, so please reserve your ticket as soon as possible!

Green Vanity License Plates

April 1st, 2010

I’ve been per­form­ing stand up com­edy for two decades. I get all the stage time I need.  But I real­ize not every­one has such an out­let. And, yet, humans are such com­pli­cated, emo­tional crea­tures.  They have so much to express!

That’s why I’ve always been fas­ci­nated with van­ity plates and bumper stick­ers.  And I’ve always lumped them in with answer­ing machine out­go­ing mes­sages and Karaoke.  I think, for some peo­ple, these might be the only out­lets they have through which to express them­selves to the world.  They have so much to say – and so lit­tle space!  But humans are creative.

And humans that drive the Toy­ota Prius Hybrid Vehi­cle in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area…  well, they are par­tic­u­larly cre­ative.  And con­sis­tent with their mes­sage.  I keep see­ing hybrids with green-themed van­ity plates.  Not every one below is a Prius, but most of them are.

Have you seen any other van­ity plates with envi­ron­men­tal themes or mes­sages?  Let me know!

Thanks, as always, to Tara for photo touch-up and editing!

The Secret Life of Flies

February 22nd, 2010

If you know me, you know I like my insect pho­tog­ra­phy. I pri­mar­ily shoot (and release) live insects. But who amongst us hasn’t seen a dead bug pos­ing while repos­ing in death and felt the need to cap­ture that macabre Kodak moment?  If my eyes are the only eyes of the uni­verse to observe this detail, am I not oblig­ated to record it?

Any­way, that’s how I feel about it.  So, I’ve shot a few dead flies.

But this guy at Muhr Pho­tog­ra­phy takes it to a new level, com­bin­ing real live dead flies with sim­ple line draw­ings. And I think they’re hilar­i­ous. I applaud the idea and the exe­cu­tion.  I’m jealous!

After you start the slideshow – click the icon in the lower left cor­ner to make it big­ger so you can see the titles  (in some cases, it helps you appre­ci­ate the image).  Or you can see this gallery and oth­ers here.

Giant Insect Ambassadors for the Rainforest

October 21st, 2009

For our newest video for Time.com, I vis­ited an old friend, Norm Ger­shenz of SaveNature.org, to dis­cuss some of their pro­grams for rais­ing aware­ness and sav­ing pre­cious habi­tats that are home to strange and beau­ti­ful crea­tures like the giant thorny phasmid.

Find out more about the Insect Dis­cov­ery Lab and how you can bring it to your Bay Area classroom.