UDLS
The Un-Distinguished Lecture Series
Welcome!
The Un-Distinguished Lecture Series (UDLS) is a series of free, casual lectures on a variety of topics held Fridays at 5:00 in the 8th floor boardroom (X836) of the ICICS/CS building at UBC, Vancouver. These are given by and for students, staff, and faculty at UBC. Although they have been from computer science primarily, all are welcome.
The series has included over 200 lectures since it first began in early 2007 (see History of UDLS).
Want to learn more?
Email Prashant Sachdeva [sachdevp]
at cs [dot] ubc [dot] ca
Date
Title
Speaker
Apr 12, 2013
How to Hide your Money in the South Pacific
Matt Brehmer
Apr 5, 2013
The Kivu conflict in the eastern Congo—When bad people fight bad people for the wrong reasons and innocent people die
Árni Már Þrastarson
Mar 22, 2013
Transporters, Translators, (FTL) Travel… oh my!
Sara Bainbridge
Mar 15, 2013
Patents!
Sancho McCann
Mar 8, 2013
The Placebo Effect
Matt Gingerich
Mar 1, 2013
Homemade Liqueur and Infusions: The Basics
Jessica Dawson
Feb 8, 2013
Curling: Shuffleboard on Ice
Jillian Slind
Feb 1, 2013
Robotic Sports
Christopher Head
Jan 25, 2013
Team Handball
Árni Már Þrastarson
Jan 18, 2013
Language and Human Nature
Prashant Sachdeva
Jan 11, 2013
Neti Pots and Other Fun Cleansing Techniques
Peter Beshai
Jan 4, 2013
Quaint European Towns (outside of Europe)
Matt Brehmer
Dec 7, 2012
Makers Making Making Machines: The Magical World of DIY CNC
John Harris
Nov 30, 2012
UFOs
Vignesh Sankaranaray
Nov 23, 2012
Future Transportation
Mihir Nanavati
Nov 16, 2012
Drawing Games
Sara Bainbridge
Nov 9, 2012
Baking
Mark Spear
Nov 2, 2012
Sprint Canoe
Diane Tam
Oct 26, 2012
December 21, 2012: The Mayan Apocalypse
Michael Firmin
Oct 12, 2012
Homebrewing
Patrick Colp
Oct 5, 2012
ABCs of Brewing Coffee
alexandru totolici
Sep 28, 2012
Human Pyramids Worldwide
Matt Gingerich
Sep 21, 2012
Board Games
Jill Slind
Sep 14, 2012
The Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Evan Morien
Sep 7, 2012
Vancouver’s Live Music Scene
Matt Brehmer
Jul 6, 2012
Serial Killers: bet ’cha can’t brutally murder just one
Ben Jones
Jun 29, 2012
Urban Gardening 101: Grad Students Edition
Jessica Dawson
Jun 15, 2012
Orienteering
Louise Oram
Jun 8, 2012
“This Will Not End Well”: Dystopian Literature
Matt Brehmer
Jun 1, 2012
25 Years in 25 Minutes
Mihir Nanavati
May 18, 2012
Is Pinterest Legal? US Copyright Law and Fair Use of Digital Works
Sancho McCann
Mar 16, 2012
Coffee Vs. Chocolate Battle Royale: War of the Chemical Stimulants
Mihir Nanavati & Nathan Taylor
Feb 10, 2012
Musical Avant Gardin’ 2: Spectral Boogaloo
Nathan Taylor
Feb 3, 2012
Strength Training for Novices
Sancho McCann
Jan 27, 2012
Molecular Gastronomy
Mihir Nanavati
Dec 9, 2011
Metalheads & Headbangers: 30 mins of Heavy Metal
Suman Mukherjee
Dec 2, 2011
Locksport 101
alexandru totolici
Nov 25, 2011
An Introduction to Contemporary A Cappella
Crawford Doran
Nov 18, 2011
Cricket
Vignesh Sankaranaray
Nov 4, 2011
Vlad Tepes
Matt Brehmer
Oct 28, 2011
Different Ways to Make Stuff
John Harris
Oct 21, 2011
Algorithmic and Computer-Composed Music
Nathan Taylor
Oct 14, 2011
Breakfast Cereals
Ian Dewancker
Oct 7, 2011
Swordplay: Taste of the Renaissance
Mark Spear
Sep 30, 2011
What Is Love?
Ben Humberston
Sep 23, 2011
Rush
Murray Patterson
Sep 16, 2011
Dodgeball 101
Juliette Link
Sep 9, 2011
Aristocrats, Backpackers, CouchSurfers
Ron Maharik
Sep 2, 2011
Famous and Successful Grad School Dropouts
Nathan Taylor
Jul 29, 2011
The Habit-Changing Lecture
Oana Sandu
Jul 22, 2011
The Invisible Armpit: The world’s most bizarre economies
Ron Maharik
Jul 15, 2011
How to build a bicycle, and some other neat stuff about bikes
Evan Morien
Jul 8, 2011
Electromagnetic (and Other Esoteric Means of) Eavesdropping
alexandru totolici
Jun 24, 2011
The Golden Age of Personal Computers: The Apple II
Jeff Sember
Jun 17, 2011
Digital Currencies
Chris Head
Jun 3, 2011
Spiders
Suwen Wang
May 27, 2011
2012 Republican Presidential Candidates
Ben Jones
May 20, 2011
Amateur Economics
Jerome Li
May 13, 2011
Teenage Paranormal Romance Novels
Nathan Taylor
May 6, 2011
Go (the game, not the programming language)
Essex Edwards
Apr 29, 2011
A Random Photographic Journey Through India
Mohan Rajamanickam
Apr 15, 2011
Behind Enemy Lines: Espionage and Covert Operations
Mihir Nanavati
Apr 8, 2011
Light and Color
Mikhail Bessmeltsev
Apr 1, 2011
Mashups
Ben “DJBJ” Jones
Mar 18, 2011
The HeLa Cell Line
Matt Brehmer
Mar 11, 2011
Avalanche Safety: on playing hard and reducing risk in the backcountry
Ron Maharik
Mar 4, 2011
The Loudness Wars
Evan Morien
Feb 25, 2011
Boston, California: The Vancouver Film Industry
Nathan Taylor
Feb 11, 2011
Bounty Hunters
Ben Jones
Feb 4, 2011
Minimal Living
Sancho McCann
Jan 28, 2011
City Planning
Ron Maharik
Jan 21, 2011
Psychoneuroimmunology
Leon French
Jan 14, 2011
Amorality
Nimalan Mahendran
Jan 7, 2011
A History of Hardcore in 30 minutes or Less
Evan Morien
Dec 3, 2010
The Companions of St. Nicholas
Ryan O’Connor
Nov 26, 2010
The Darwin Awards
Mihir Nanavati
Nov 19, 2010
Debunking Death Panels: A Foray into Health Care Systems
Ana Crisan
Nov 12, 2010
Minecraft: Games Without Goals
Nathan Taylor
Nov 5, 2010
A Rough Guide to CBC Radio
Matt Brehmer
Oct 29, 2010
Impress Your Friends with Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic
Leigh-Anne Mathieson
Oct 22, 2010
A UDLS that words cannot describe
Jeff Hendy
Oct 15, 2010
Racing, the Legal Way
John Chia
Oct 8, 2010
Rock Climbing
Simona Radu
Oct 1, 2010
Social Media: Trends & How to make them work for you
Andrej Karpathy
Sep 24, 2010
Ultimate Frisbee
Ben Jones
Sep 17, 2010
Sour Beer: Brewing Beyond Brewer’s Yeast
Ryan O’Connor
Sep 10, 2010
Masterpieces in 4096 bytes: the Demoscene
Nathan Taylor
Sep 3, 2010
Chocolate
Benjamin T. Cecchetto & Michael Constant
Aug 27, 2010
0x5f3759df the magic of FastInvSqrt()
Ben Jones
Aug 20, 2010
A Culture of Bricks (A UDLS about Lego)
Matt Brehmer
Aug 13, 2010
TAZE ME BRO!
John Chia
Aug 6, 2010
The Undersea Internet Backbone
Ron Maharik
Jul 30, 2010
Starcraft craze: the funny, the interesting, and the disturbing
Andrej Karpathy
Jul 23, 2010
What happened in Toronto and why it matters?
Masrour Zoghi
Jul 9, 2010
Memes
Ben Jones
Jun 25, 2010
FIFA
Nick Wiebe
Jun 18, 2010
Diets: From Stupid to Smart or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fat
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Jun 11, 2010
An Early History of Rails and Things That Run On Rails
Matthew Dockrey
Jun 4, 2010
The Constitutional Context and Ramifications of the Afghan Detainee Scandal
Masrour Zoghi
May 28, 2010
Canadian Forces
Sancho McCann
May 21, 2010
Unironically Terrible Artists
Nathan Taylor
May 14, 2010
Fractals
Andrej Karpathy
May 7, 2010
Napoleon
Mihir Nanavati
Apr 30, 2010
The Voyages of Captain Cook
Ron Maharik
Apr 23, 2010
Tool Assisted Speedruns
Ben Jones
Apr 16, 2010
Pre-Refridgeration Meat Preservation
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Apr 9, 2010
How to Not Kill Fish: the Saltwater Aquarium Hobbyist
Cody Brown
Mar 26, 2010
Sailplanes
Sancho McCann
Mar 19, 2010
Coffee
Tom Hazelton
Mar 12, 2010
A Curious History of Medicinal Cannibalism
Matt Brehmer
Mar 5, 2010
Snow Monkeys, Onsen, and Other Fun Things
Valerie Ishida
Feb 5, 2010
The History of Westerns
Nathan Taylor
Jan 29, 2010
Synthesizers
Landon Boyd
Jan 22, 2010
Aussie Rules Football
Patrick Colp
Jan 15, 2010
The Cricket
Srujan Kumar
Jan 8, 2010
Baseball
Ben Jones
Dec 4, 2009
The Longboarding
Nimalan Mahendran
Nov 27, 2009
An introduction to Vancouver Craft Beer
Ryan O’Connor
Nov 20, 2009
The Fangirl Obsession with Girly Men
Ana Crisan
Nov 13, 2009
Language Isolates
Evan Morien
Nov 6, 2009
Evolutionary Psychology
Elan Dubrofsky
Oct 30, 2009
Super Ben Cecchetto Talk For People Who Can’t Take Pictures Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too Fighter II Turbo Revival
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Oct 23, 2009
Genealogy
Mary Muir
Oct 16, 2009
Lindy Hop
Oana Sandu
Oct 9, 2009
Dubstep
Sancho McCann
Oct 2, 2009
Limited Speed Motorcycles
Tom Hazelton
Sep 25, 2009
Haiti
Michael Welsman-Dinelle
Sep 18, 2009
Sailing Part Deux
Doug Bateman
Sep 11, 2009
A Random History of Mining (and thus the industrial revolution)
Matthew Dockrey
Sep 4, 2009
Tea
Valerie Ishida
Aug 21, 2009
Nothing!
Allan Rempel
Aug 14, 2009
One Hundred and Eighty Random Wikipedia Pages in One Hundred and Eighty Decaseconds
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Aug 7, 2009
Weightlifting
Ian South-Dickinson
Jul 24, 2009
Those crazy Dictators
Kevin Swersky
Jul 17, 2009
Fundamentalism
Nick Wiebe
Jul 10, 2009
How to Appreciate Modern Architecture
Michael Welsman-Dinelle
Jul 3, 2009
Heuristics for Cognition
Elan Dubrofsky
Jun 26, 2009
Conspiracy Theories
Clayton Ashton
Jun 19, 2009
Spring Framework for Java
Doug Bateman
Jun 12, 2009
Geohashing: the funnest application of MD5
Elizabeth Patitsas
Jun 5, 2009
Dungeons and Dragons
Benjamin Cecchetto
May 29, 2009
How To Ruin The Economy: Housing, Banking, the Man, and You!
Cody Robson
May 22, 2009
Mixed Martial Arts
Sancho McCann
May 15, 2009
The Joy of Drumming
Tom Hazelton
May 8, 2009
Random Stuff I Find Interesting
Matthew Dockrey
May 1, 2009
The Hinduism
Srujan Kumar
Apr 24, 2009
Technical Interviews (my experience at Microsoft)
Brad Swerdfeger
Apr 17, 2009
Why voting sucks and how to fix it, learn about the BC-STV referendum
Mark Crowley
Apr 10, 2009
Alternative Medicine
Elan Dubrofsky
Apr 3, 2009
Japanese Dating Sim Games
Valerie Ishida
Mar 27, 2009
Road Cycling
Landon Boyd
Mar 20, 2009
Marathons
Jen Fernquist
Mar 13, 2009
Horror: From the Dark and Grim to the Weird and Unknown
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Mar 6, 2009
Finding a Supervisor Help Session
Dave Meger
Feb 27, 2009
Mayan Glyphs
Matthew Dockrey
Feb 13, 2009
Mass Transit
Michael Welsman-Dinelle
Feb 6, 2009
Psycho-Accoustics
mconst
Jan 30, 2009
Debunking Biology—The Kingdom Protista
Yana Eglit
Jan 23, 2009
Things Every Human Who Lives on Earth Should Know
Jeff Hendy
Jan 16, 2009
Bollywood Remakes of Hollywood Movies
Pooja Viswanathan
Jan 9, 2009
Spinning Rifles
Valerie Ishida
Dec 12, 2008
Epic collaborative UDLS experiment
Matthew Dockrey
Nov 28, 2008
Mountain Biking
Marius Muja
Nov 21, 2008
Pareidolia: One way our Brains Eff with Us
Elan Dubrofsky
Nov 14, 2008
Winnipeg
Sancho McCann
Nov 7, 2008
Ben Cecchetto Talk For People Who Can’t Take Pictures Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too
Benjamin T. Cecchetto
Oct 31, 2008
Canadian Politics
Patrick Colp
Oct 24, 2008
Lessons from the Life of Richard Nixon
Nick Wiebe
Oct 17, 2008
Brasília
Lucas Rizoli
Oct 10, 2008
US Election Update
Cody Robson
Oct 3, 2008
Popular French Culture 101
Oana Sandu
Sep 26, 2008
Go’in Sailing
Doug Bateman
Sep 19, 2008
The Art of Shaving
Tom Hazelton
Sep 12, 2008
Dude, where’s my spaceship?
Kevin Swersky
Aug 8, 2008
The History of Clockmaking
Nick Wiebe
Aug 1, 2008
Mind-Altering Parasites
Ian South-Dickinson
Jul 25, 2008
Bollywood
Ashiqur KhudaBukhsh
Jul 18, 2008
Arizona
Jeff Hendy
Jul 11, 2008
What makes people ridiculously good-looking?
Brad Swerdfeger
Jul 4, 2008
Logic Puzzle & Games
Ian South-Dickinson
Jun 27, 2008
Discourses Upon “Discourses Upon Livy” (and also Livy)
James Wright
Jun 20, 2008
The Global Food Supply
Michael Welsman-Dinelle
Jun 13, 2008
Thoughts on the use of Analogies in Understanding and Solving Complex Problems, Muthafuckaz
Lucas Rizoli
Jun 6, 2008
Cognitive Dissonance
Dina Tsirlin
May 30, 2008
Fermi’s Paradox
Matthew Dockrey
May 23, 2008
Baby Seals
Patrick Colp
May 16, 2008
Psychological Disorders
Rebecca Strautman
May 9, 2008
Electro-acoustic Music and other WTFs
Jeff Hendy
Apr 25, 2008
A cross-country tour of Canadian music
Elan Dubrofsky
Apr 11, 2008
Vimy Ridge
Helen Surkova
Apr 4, 2008
What everyone should know about teaching others
Beth Simon
Mar 29, 2008
Chinese Philosophy
Clayton Ashton
Mar 14, 2008
Wikipedia (rerun)
Sancho McCann
Mar 7, 2008
The Stock Market
Kevin Swersky
Feb 29, 2008
Navigation Techniques That Don’t Rely on General Relativity: How We Got Around Before GPS
Matthew Dockrey
Feb 15, 2008
The World Bank
Lucas Rizoli
Feb 8, 2008
(Not necessarily) Great Philosophers
Brad Swerdfeger
Feb 1, 2008
Mario Made Me Do It: Violence and Video-games
Dave Levin
Jan 25, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court
Nick Wiebe
Nov 23, 2007
Ancient History of Russia (IX-XV centuries)
Evgeny Maksakov
Nov 16, 2007
.NET Orientation For Academics
Brent Williams
Nov 9, 2007
Processed Foods and Food Processing
Patrick Colp
Nov 2, 2007
Beer 101
Kevin Swersky
Oct 26, 2007
2008 US Presidential Election
Cody Robson
Oct 19, 2007
Logical Fallacies 101
Elan Dubrofsky
Oct 12, 2007
Archaeolmetallurgy
Matthew Dockrey
Oct 5, 2007
Cross-Platform OpenGL Graphics with GLUT
Matt Baumann
Sep 28, 2007
A Review of Linear Algebra
Emtiyaz Khan
Sep 21, 2007
Our Victorian Now
Lucas Rizoli
Sep 14, 2007
A History of Vancouver
Lloyd Markle
Jul 27, 2007
Did Medieval Disasters Cause Modern Technical Progress?
Evgeny Maksakov
Jul 20, 2007
Wikipedia
Sancho McCann
Jul 13, 2007
On Google
Lucas Rizoli
Jul 6, 2007
Canada vs. Germany: Une réflection
Marcus Rohrbach
Jun 22, 2007
The Pacific Theatre of WW2
Matt Baumann
Jun 8, 2007
Brain-Computer Interfaces
Emtiyaz Khan
Jun 1, 2007
The ABCs of the Bible
Lloyd Markle
May 25, 2007
Clouds
Sancho McCann
May 18, 2007
Signal Compression and JPEG
Emtiyaz Khan
May 11, 2007
Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Immad Naseer
Apr 20, 2007
Slipping the Surly Bonds
Allan Rempel
Apr 13, 2007
Human Nature and its Consequences
Marcus Rohrbach
Apr 5, 2007
Top Super-models of Computer Graphics
Gordon Wetzstein
Mar 30, 2007
Proportional-Derivative-Integral (PID) Control
Sancho McCann
Mar 23, 2007
A Brief History of Cryptography
Florian Deckert
Mar 16, 2007
Eigenvalues in a Nutshell
Marisol Flores Garrido
Mar 9, 2007
SMART Goals and Feedback (Project Management)
Marcus Rohrbach
Feb 16, 2007
Peer-to-peer Systems
Uwe Schmidt
Feb 9, 2007
OS Mélange
Mayukh Saubhasik
Feb 2, 2007
C Code and the Art of Obfuscation
Lloyd Markle
Jan 26, 2007
Probability Theory
Emtiyaz Khan
Jan 19, 2007
Communication is Viral
Lucas Rizoli