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Based on the sports bar concept, but a "science bar" instead. TVs surrounding the bar would be tuned to science, learning, aviation, auto and motorcycle, do-it-yourself, etc., channels. Theories and concepts would be debated rather than sports teams and players.
An added feature would have a large
glass window in the bar that looked in on a hot rod shop, or wood working shop, science lab, or even a hands on science museum (if the lighting was correct a one way mirror could be used for the science museum in order to prevent children from seeing in the bar if necessary).
A Good Night at The Science Bar...
http://basecampeart...g/exp2/clayhome.htm [jurist, Oct 23 2005]
What the Hack
http://wiki.whatthe...index.php/Main_Page Hackers gathering every 4 years [rrr, Oct 23 2005]
The Exploratorium
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ Science demos and available after-hours for parties [csea, Feb 03 2006]
Appropriate glassware.
http://www.kleinbot...ug_klein_bottle.htm Complete with topology gags. [squigbobble, Dec 17 2006]
Cafe Scientifique
http://www.cafescientifique.org/ I was happy to recently locate this link thanks to Bill at http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amasci.html#am [Sunstone, Dec 20 2006]
Science and suds
http://seattlepi.nw..._beerscience28.html Washington State University and the University of Idaho and are teaming up with a brew pub to try a new teaching method: mixing suds and science. [Sunstone, Dec 28 2006]
Science Cafes in the US
http://www.sciencecafes.org/ (Lecture series, not a fixed establishment.) Mentioned recently on NPR. [jutta, Apr 15 2007, last modified Aug 25 2008]
The Return of Amateur Science
http://www.good.is/?p=14293 The most recent Maker [Amateur Science] Faire, held in 2008, had over 60,000 attendees [Sunstone, Dec 24 2008]
Atlanta Science Tavern
https://www.meetup....lantaScienceTavern/ [Sunstone, Jun 20 2017]
[link]
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I've yet to find a really good "geek" bar, although there are probably one or two near JPL that I haven't investigated. I have, however, visited a few ambitious brew-pubs which featured large picture windows overlooking their gleaming stainless steel microbrewery operation and loquacious hops-masters who loved extemporizing on their craft. Does fermentation science count? |
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I would consider visiting your "Science Bar" a second time if at least 30% of the patrons observed on my first visit were of the opposite sex and registered "ALIVE" on a Stanford-Binet test. |
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Actually, you've pretty much put your finger on the attractiveness of this site: some wide-ranging discussions that are frequently about practical science, ready access to authoritative links and side-splitting illustrations, and a few bright minds to put the "shiny" back on our outlooks and insights. |
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Sort of baked at hackers meetings for as
far as the DIY-culture goes. The
professional scientists find each other at
conferences and drink together in the
lobby of their hotel. The only group not
being served is the Discovery-channel
watching middle-class. |
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I have always dreamed of opening a
nightclub with a science theme. As an
undergraduate at MIT, my sister and I
attended a party thrown by the
department of Ocean Engineering at the
New England Aquarium and had a blast.
Guests could roam freely through the
exhibits, drink in hand. Entertainment
included a private dolphin show and
slide lecture by Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute undersea
explorer Dr. Robert Ballard on his
recent discovery of the Titanic
shipwreck. |
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About 15 years ago, my employer hosted a 25th anniversary party at the SF Exploratorium [link]. Excellent food and drink were catered, and the best was not having to wait in line to play with the exhibits. |
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It would be cool if there were such a place to visit on a regular basis. |
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In the mid-late 1980's, the Library Bar in Houghton, MI (home of Michigan Tech) would qualify for this, as the "Virtual Saturday" group gathered there. (Unfortunately, the Library bar burned down in the 1990's and was replaced by a damn yuppie brew pub) |
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In 1987 (-ish) there was an article in the Detroit Free press called "Snow How" (MTU is in Michigan's frozen upper peninsula). In one part of the article the reporter was in the Library bar and mentioning overheard bits of a conversation among a group of geeks at a table. When the article came out, the snippets of conversation were *VERY* familiar to me. I was in the group that the reporter was evesdropping on. |
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Really like this one.. much better than a puppet bar! kudos |
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Great idea! I'm a physics student, so drinking and science go hand in hand! |
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I think even a bar with just whiteboards and markers would be good. That way all the theories that make so much sense when drunk wont be forgotten and can be examined the morning after! |
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why not just turn a lecture hall into a bar one night a week, or do a byo, take a carton of bundy's and get hammered, while someone yaps on about interesting shit, and not sport, bun. |
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I like the idea. I think it would also be a good idea to have rotating exibits of new inventions around the bar so people could show off their work and the other people would get a chance to test out their inventions. I also like the whiteboard Idea. |
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i love the idea, its great!!! then i could go there and get pissed and explain my new invention!!!!! also if you had a large amount of beer tasting non-alcoholic drinks then you could discuss science all night |
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bun!
I would totally go... drinks + edumacation = good times! |
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Excellent idea. Can we have some electronics bits, batteries, mechano, van de graf generator, Tesla coil etc etc to play with whilst drunk. |
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Perhaps a reinforced "explosion room" where we can make bangs and flashes, drop Na into acid, blow things up etc in drunken safety. |
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Great idea! Especially since almost everyone feels smarter after a few drinks. |
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The ultimate geek bar! I like it! |
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Good place to experiment with drinking. |
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How many halfcons would be held here? |
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[RayfordSteele]; all of them, if possible... |
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The keyboards would have to have clear protectors over them, in case Mr. Dorkomatic dumps his beer when chatting excitedly about string theory... |
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I mean, you would have to have computers, or the scientific discussions/arguments would turn into brawls, right? We need databases and google just to settle disputes. |
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Yeah a voice activated google would have to be there (I mean, having something with 100+ buttons in front of a drunk guy isn't the best idea). |
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I'll second the whiteboard tables (or perhaps something like thos magnetic drawing boards kids have so your drink doesn't wipe them off). |
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The screens would also have to randomly display beautiful women thinly disguised as aliens (or alternatively in the tightest/most revealing lab coats you can find) as well. |
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Incidentally Ra, the HalfBakery is pretty similar to this idea, but without the booze. I can't figure out how you thought it wouldn't be a hit on here. |
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I'm with you Ra, this sounds like a sad, sad place. [-] |
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What about a stirling engine science bar, where when people heat up and expand on the dance floor, they press against sliding wall (that does not quite touch the walls on either side) -- just trying to escape to someplace less populated. They walk around the wall, behind it, where there are exhibits on nanotubes and custard, and all the cool boring science geeks already there, clustered into tight little groups, find themselves surrounded. About this time they see the wall is sliding back and so some of them head back around the edges of the wall and onto the dance floor. |
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The wall is attached to a flywheel which drives an margarita mixer, party lights, and a They Might Be Giants CD. |
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... playing Particle Man, of course. |
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I love this idea (+). Beer, free WiFi, a couple of big screen TV viewing Discovery Channel, and a couple more set up as monitors with voice command microphones which should be fun when people get drunk. Tables are either SS lab tables or round acrylic tables with a leather outer edge, put a rotating LCD screen below the center of the table and those LED projected keyboards that projects torwards who ever the screen is facing. Oh and throw in some video conferencing rooms. |
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The tough part is finding the right location and finding a good firewall so people aren't just looking at porn on the big screens. Might be a hit in a college town. |
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Bun and Bun. I haven't liked an idea this much since the first time I found out about this site. |
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Nothing wrong with having themed bars, except this:
How are people who spend their entire adult social lives staring into their drinks or the floor to avoid social contact supposed to enjoy themselves in a crowded room full of people just like them? |
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A) they'll all stare through the window at the woodshop. |
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//How are people who spend their entire adult social lives [etc.] supposed to enjoy themselves in a crowded room full of people just like them?// |
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Same way we do here, perhaps. |
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I've heard of (but not yet observed) a tradition among Aboriginal men that, when a person speaks to you, the polite thing to do is not to look at them, but to look where they're looking. If this is true, then the essence of their conversations would be not 'look at me' (like most conversations in bars), but 'look at that'. |
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That's a very nerd-friendly convention, and could perhaps be adopted as a house rule in this bar. |
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//How are people who spend their
entire adult social lives staring into their
drinks or the floor to avoid social
contact supposed to enjoy themselves
in a crowded room full of people just
like them?// |
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They only do that when they're around
people who don't share their interests,
which is about 95% of the population.
Nerd bars are fun, nerd girls are fun,
and getting drunk with nerd girls in
nerd bars is fun. |
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Bar association meetings and football
parties parties are what wear me out. |
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Oxygen, rather than alcohol, served at the bar. |
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Can I order 50 mL of titrated Captain Morgans magnetically stirred on ice? [+] |
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// Can I order 50 mL of titrated Captain Morgans
magnetically stirred on ice?// |
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Have you got your risk assessments for that ethanol? it's
neurotoxin you know? Also, you'll observe that the
magnetic stirrer is reserved through to Sunday, there's a
perfectly clear sign up sheet posted behind the calendar,
the reservation is sort of scratched in because there's no
good pens. The ice machine is 2 floors down in a lab
owned by a notoriously cantankerous protein biochemist,
most people go up 3 floors to the nice Russian lab, but
that one will be empty now because there's a tissue prep
on. Anyhow, we've decided you were taking far too long
about this whole rum-based experimental series, frankly
it's barely publishable now, so you've got until the end of
the day before 8 people funded directly by the Chinese
government will need to occupy your space. Please don't
forget that it's your turn to empty the 11 chemical waste
bins. |
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The bar will have realism if I run it... |
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// there's no good pens. // |
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Sounds real enough ... presumably due to budget cuts. And all the whiteboard markers have dried up, but that's irrelevant because someone wrote on the whiteboard with black indelible marker, then someone else tried to clean it off with the contents of an old BDH jar labeled "Whiteboard cleaner (?)" hand-written in pencil on a faded label, which caused contact dermatitis, caused the whole surface of the board to craze and crumble, and killed every green plant within 150 metres. |
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//clean it off with the contents of an old BDH jar labeled// |
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No budget for proper stationary. The average grad student
shuns $3-5 cleaners as needless expense. Instead, just slosh
a bit of the Uber-Hyper-super pure acetonitrile on it. It's
only $10/ml, and actually likes being opened frequently.
Cleverer folk might be tempted to use a little of that
chloroform from the 70's that is simultaneously illegal to
buy, keep, use or throw away and won't burn. |
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//chloroform from the 70's that is simultaneously illegal to buy, keep, use or throw away// Yes, what is it with chloroform? Why has it suddenly become unbuyable? |
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// simultaneously illegal to buy, keep, use or throw away and won't burn. // |
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Damned useful stuff, and so easy to make just with very basic reagents and equipment. Dichloromethane is great for cleaning paintbrushes, and carbon tetrachloride's even better. |
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The Science Bar should have a small glass distillation setup where patrons can bring in their own feedstock, watch it be distilled (making sure no fuse
l oils etc. end up in the product) then share the results. |
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