Nerd Nite Hong Kong: Edition #11
Event: Nerd Nite Hong Kong: Edition #11
Date: 26th March 2018
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Mezcalito; 27/F, 18 On Lan St, Central.
Entry Fee: Free! Thanks to the support provided by the venue! You just got to buy your own drinks!
Speaker 1: Mr. Ralf Mayet
Topic: AI 2018: Memes for convolutional teens, or the end of humanity?
Quick Nerdisms: With the most recent breakthroughs in statistical machine learning, Artificial Intelligence has moved out of it’s winter sleep back into the mainstream, this time with massive industry backing. This talk explores the significance and limitations of recent advances, sheds light on what it means to be a machine learning researcher today, and talk about the hard problems we haven’t yet solved.
Nerd Cred: Ralf Mayet is a nerd, researcher and engineer. He has a degree in Computer Science from University of Technology in Graz, studied at Istanbul Teknik and currently lives in Hong Kong. With a research background in swarm robotics, self-regulating systems and emergent intelligence, his current focus is exploring human cognition and language through interaction and play. At the OpenCog foundation he is researching the synergy of learned statistical representations and symbolic reasoning. At Hanson Robotics he is working on social robotics, and the integration of perception and action into dialogue systems.
Speaker 2: Mr. John Scott Daly
Topic: Below the line: ‘othering’ the poor in Benefits Street and YouTube comments
Quick Nerdisms: ‘The Big Short’ is a film about the 2007/8 financial crisis. At the end, one of the characters suspects that, although it seemed like an opportunity for real change, soon we would do “what we always do when the economy tanks: blame immigrants and poor people”. My PhD investigates this; specifically how people receiving government welfare are blamed for society’s problems and ‘othered’ in a British documentary and the YouTube comments attached. For Nerd Nite, I have removed all the boring stuff and, surprisingly, there is still some stuff left, so I’ll show you that.
Nerd Cred: John Scott Daly prefers to be called Scott. He left the UK in 2003 and, before coming to Hong Kong, worked in South Korea, New Zealand and Qatar. He is currently experiencing a permanent sense of anxiety about his PhD at HKU.
Speaker 3: Mr. Bryan Ervin Bentley
Topic: A Study in Stereoscopic Imaging
Quick Nerdisms: Have you ever wondered why putting on those wacky glasses to watch “3D” movies makes you see “into” the screen? This talk will walk you through the history, biology, and psychology of stereoscopic imaging as well as examine the tools and techniques that professionals and hobbyists use to produce these images.
Nerd Cred: Bryan Ervin Bentley is currently the Professor of Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design’s Hong Kong Campus.
Previous to this role, Bryan served as a creature technical director for Industrial Light and Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment, in Singapore. There he had the opportunity to work on such films as Transformers 4, Pacific Rim, and Warcraft. Before moving to ILM Singapore he worked at Industrial Light and Magic’s main branch in San Francisco on Rango, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.
Previous to working at Industrial Light and Magic Brayn worked at Rhythm & Hues studios, in Los Angeles, on The Golden Compass, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Alvin and the Chipmunks which has the 5th highest Christmas opening in cinema history, and HULK a revision of one of Marvel comics most popular franchises.
Bryan has a Bachelors of Science in Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University and a Masters of Fine Arts in Animation from Savannah College of Art and Design.
At Purdue University he was awarded the black caucus and faculty award twice and made the dean’s list. Also while attending Purdue Bryan was granted to opportunity to instruct at the collegiate level at the University of Technology in Rezerwowe Poland. He also served as a Part-Time Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Bryan’s areas of specialty include; Character Rigging, Cloth and Softbody Simulation, Python Programming, Rigid Simulation and geometry fracturing for Destruction.
Previous to this role, Bryan served as a creature technical director for Industrial Light and Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Entertainment, in Singapore. There he had the opportunity to work on such films as Transformers 4, Pacific Rim, and Warcraft. Before moving to ILM Singapore he worked at Industrial Light and Magic’s main branch in San Francisco on Rango, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.
Previous to working at Industrial Light and Magic Brayn worked at Rhythm & Hues studios, in Los Angeles, on The Golden Compass, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Alvin and the Chipmunks which has the 5th highest Christmas opening in cinema history, and HULK a revision of one of Marvel comics most popular franchises.
Bryan has a Bachelors of Science in Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University and a Masters of Fine Arts in Animation from Savannah College of Art and Design.
At Purdue University he was awarded the black caucus and faculty award twice and made the dean’s list. Also while attending Purdue Bryan was granted to opportunity to instruct at the collegiate level at the University of Technology in Rezerwowe Poland. He also served as a Part-Time Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Bryan’s areas of specialty include; Character Rigging, Cloth and Softbody Simulation, Python Programming, Rigid Simulation and geometry fracturing for Destruction.