NerdNite[19]: Savant fonts and musical mysteries!
Come on down to your friendly local Nerd Nite and throw back a couple of LUCID’s finest cocktails while enjoying the nerdisms of our fabulous speakers and your new nerdy friends. Be there and be square!
Nerd Nite Seattle
Monday, June 17th | 7:30 Talks (Doors open at 6:30)
$5 Cover
LUCID Lounge
Talk #1: Savant fonts – Dr. Kevin Larson
Are certain fonts easier to read than others? Is Comic Sans the perfect email font? Join Kevin Larson, PhD, nerd, of Microsoft’s Advanced Reading Technologies Group to discover how optical illusions in some popular fonts make text easier to read, and how the design and appearance of text can make you more cognitively creative.
Kevin Larson is a researcher on Microsoft’s Advanced Reading Technologies team. He works with type designers, psychologists, and computer scientists on improving the on-screen reading experience. Recently Kevin has been working on the legibility of individual letters, both studying how to design letters within a font, and working with models of human vision to optimize letter rendering. His PhD work at the University of Texas was on reading acquisition, and he can sometimes be found at The Pacific Science Center giving talks on topics such as electrons, learning theory, and El Niño.
Talk #2: Beethoven: The Man, the Music, the Medical Mystery – Mihwa Kim
Put on your sleuthing hat and travel back in time to April 11, 1814: Ludwig van Beethoven is making his final public appearance as a pianist — and it sounds terrible. Luckily and unluckily, he may not have even heard it. Piecing together clues from his life backed by modern science, we’ll be playing detective and dissecting “deafness.” What did Beethoven hear, how did it affect him, and, two centuries later, how can we even tell? Stay tuned for discussion about Beethoven’s big head, his penchant for heavy metal, and maybe even some syphilitic slander.
Mihwa Kim is a graduate student of audiology at the University of Washington, learning all about ears and the crazy cool things that go on, in, and between them.
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