This week, 4/14-20, we present a few stand-out events among a huge roster of Earth Day, Easter, and 420 festivities, including Nerd Nite, a Tenderloin walking tour, a comedy-dating show, and a spirituality and psychedelics conference.

Thursday

• Nerd Nite SF celebrates its 150th show at the Rickshaw Stop this month. Explore the universe, unravel modern evil, and debunk pelvic health myths in one unforgettable evening. Talks include cosmic origins with physicist John Groh, a sharp look at societal darkness from teacher Parsa Moein, and a myth-busting pelvic health session with Dr. Karah Charette. Plus: tunes by DJ&Jelly and a pop-up from SF Public Library.

Friday

• At the Love Isn’t Blind comedy-dating show at the Foundry, silent bachelors compete for one lucky bachelorette through games like unlocking their phones and calling their moms. Audience members join the fun with relationship-status wristbands and help from a roaming wingcouple. “Let's judge a book by its cover,” proclaims the event’s tagline.

Saturday

• Historian Linda Day’s Hot Pads, Cool Town: Living in the 1920s walking tour delves into the Tenderoin’s post-1906 rebirth through its architecture and vibrant nightlife. Learn how residents “lived large” in small spaces, creating a rich cultural scene in early 20th-century San Francisco. (You’re sure to see many Rousseau buildings along the route.) Tour tickets also include admission to the Tenderloin Museum.
• Celebrate Earth Day at Yerba Buena Gardens on April 19 with live music, hands-on eco-activities, and a Green Business Expo featuring local sustainable vendors. Enjoy family-friendly fun like tree planting, nature tours, and giveaways. Free and open to all—RSVP encouraged!
• Sea-loving youngsters should head to the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park for Junior Park Ranger Day, a free day of hands-on fun exploring maritime history and culture. Try activities like boatbuilding, ropemaking, scrimshaw, and catch the returning Mermaid puppet show. All ages welcome.

Sunday

Sunday is jam-packed with a slew of the usual spring festivals and Easter events, including the Cherry Blossom Parade and Festival, Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race, and the beloved Hunky Jesus Contest.

• While 420 was canceled at Hippie Hill, there’s an adults-only 420 Easter egg hunt over in Oakland on Sunday as part of the Spirituality & Beyond 5 + Oakland Psychedelic Conference. This two-day gathering at the Kaiser Center features psychedelic pioneers, spiritual leaders, and community voices exploring the intersection of consciousness, culture, and plant medicine. Expect keynotes, cannabis-friendly zones, and a free outdoor fair with vendors and live programming.

Here's a little break from the election and the apotheosis of the Chicago Cubs: Vox made this video summarizing Elon Musk's (and others') theory that we are, all of us, our doughnuts, delusions, and all, living in a computer simulation. Certainly you've heard your nerd friends go down this rabbit hole while stoned or drunk once or twice, or perhaps you have yourself, and movies like The Matrix and shows like Westworld help feed the popular imagination about how VR and AI advancements will, certainly, have to reach a point when a simulated reality is no different than what we believe is reality-reality.

The notable takeaways here are:

1) Musk is mostly parroting a theory made by Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes there is a 20 percent chance we are living in a computer simulation, and that some post-humans could ultimately be running ancestral simulations "of our evolutionary history" — or otherwise we are going to just go extinct, as a species, before reaching such a "post-human" moment.

2) Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 - c. 230 BC) first posited an idea that reality is probably not as it seems, in addition to being the first to put forth a theory that the sun was another celestial body like the stars, and our universe revolved around it.

3) Musk and his brother, who have likely been having some version of this conversation since they were 12, have now vowed not to get into the AI/simulation topic while in hot tubs.

These days just talk about how much sunscreen they'll need on Mars.

Related: Video: How Elon Musk And SpaceX Plan To Get A Rocket To Mars In 80 Days Or Less

Forget the forefathers of American democracy and financial systems: The next hit Broadway musical could take its cues from the forefathers of the PC and the Mac. As the New York Times foreshadows in its opening night countdown coverage, Nerds, a new Broadway production that first saw the stage in North Carolina, bills itself as a "A Musical Dot-Comedy" and seeks to capitalize on much-belated Jobs nostalgia in addition to renewed interest in musical theater as Hamilton hysteria sweeps the nation. That hit show, by the way, graces San Francisco in March 2017.

Casey Hushion directs Nerds which has been delayed slightly — as it sounds from the Times coverage, casting Jobs was not so easy — so previews at the Longacre Theatre don't begin until April 1st. That's according to Broadway.com, who also note that opening night is set for April 21st.

Of course, the Steve Jobs story has been pretty fully canonized by now, told a great number of times and in a great variety of ways. Notably, in its latest iteration, the film Steve Jobs, even Michael Fassbender couldn't arouse much public interest and the production was pronounced a box office flop. But maybe by including Gates' story in tandem with Jobs', a story of nerdy rivalry will recapture our attention.

Last, of course you remember that Jobs could command a stage during Apple launch events. But how about Gates? Have a look at this dynamite find from the Windows 95 launch.

Let's hope that the musical has the rights to the Stones' "Start Me Up," a so-bad-it's-good computer pun.

Previously: 'Hamilton' Comes To SF For Five Months Starting In March 2017, LA After

Did you know that a "sport" involving lightsaber "combat" has come into being in Europe and that there were now dork-filled lightsaber "battles" with actual rules and winners? Yep. If you've tired of suiting up for Ren Faire sword fights and really want to up the ante in your dorkdom, this is just the sport for you.

This of course isn't the first time anyone has tried to legitimize the pretend lightsaber battles of your childhood and make them seem like perfectly acceptable activities for adult men — SFist even attended a SoMA-based lightsaber "training academy" back in 2012 just for shits and giggles (see photo below). But it seems that this branch of the lightsaber-battle-as-sporting-event came into being in Italy in 2006, and has evolved to include a training academy that teaches seven forms of combat, arriving in the UK a year and a half ago. The outfit behind all this nonsense, LudoSport, has developed a "an ad hoc technique ... that can be used specifically and only with the instruments and the presumption of the existence — in imagination — of a light saber or more commonly a saber." Further, "This instrument is a weapon with a weightless blade, with a 360° edge that cuts everything except itself."

Like with actual fencing, specific rules have developed under LudoSport around the "validity of strikes," with certain strikes to the body considered winning or "mortal" targets. Also, "Pupils start with a blue bladed lightsaber. Later on, they will choose their path and, consequently, the colour of their blade." If you reach the third level of Sith/Sith Knight/Sith Master, you get to use a red lightsaber.

Not to be confused with the occasional, just-for-fun lightsaber "battles" that have been convened in major cities the last few years, like the one in SF in December that apparently resulted in some damaged grass, these saber battles actually require appropriate "uniforms" for each combatants level of prowess, and "certified" competition judges who may or may not still live with their moms.

The first ever San Francisco lightsaber battle with rules and judgements and winners will take place January 30 through February 1, though no location is given in the video above or in the release we received by email. Interested parties should probably reach out to info@ludosport.net.

And, take note, this appears to be a legit (or semi-legit) business, with franchisees buying in at a starting cost of 20,000 Euros, which includes 15 lightsabers for "academic purposes."

Previously: Using The Force, SFist Attends Lightsaber Training School

A group of space enthusiasts in Mountain View, California, with cooperation from NASA, have taken control of a 36-year-old decommissioned satellite that was originally put into orbit to study solar weather. The ISEE-3 satellite was launched by NASA in 1978 and has not been in use for about 20 years — its battery died decades ago, but it was equipped with solar power and it just returned to Earth's orbit after many years floating in space and being forgotten. Now, as BetaBeat reports, via some crowdfunding and an industrious team led by former NASA employee Keith Cowing, the ISEE-3 has become the first civilian-controlled satellite which will continue to beam publicly accessible data of multiple kinds for the next several decades.

The ISEE-3 Reboot Project, which raised well over its $125,000 goal, now has a control center in an abandoned McDonald's in Mountain View near the Ames Research Center, which the team has named McMoon's. Google helped them build a website called SpaceForAll.com which shows off some of the capabilities of Google Chrome, and Cowing helped assemble the simple, relatively low-tech equipment needed for communicating with and controlling the satellite.

He also had some help from Bob Farquhar, one of the retired NASA researchers who originally worked on the ISEE-3 and knew that it could probably be brought back to life pretty easily. Getting back into Earth's orbit would turn out to be impossible, though, and they've put it back into orbit around the sun. It'll return to proximity to the Earth in 2029.

Their new control center, dubbed “McMoon’s,” fit all of the criteria they needed: the doors locked, and it was free. For their console, they pulled a broken flatscreen TV from a government dumpster and fixed the power supply. The other pieces are from eBay, including a Mac laptop and some radio parts.

With just those bare-bones pieces, they were able to MacGyver a computer-radio hybrid that made contact with the ISEE-3.

Once they were able to communicate with the satellite, they established a new orbit around the Sun, slightly larger than the Earth’s orbit. It’ll remain close enough to the Earth for a while, allowing the crowd-sourced community to run tests for a long time.

And on Sunday, August 10 at 2:16 a.m EST, the very first Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission took place, collecting data near the Moon with a simultaneous Google Hangout to watch the satellite's progress.

You can now watch a live view of the satellite's location at all times, and check out the data that it's collecting, which will remain accessible to anyone in the world who wants it. And here's an illustration of where the satellite's been over the past 36 years. Below, some video explaining the project.

Pretty cool.

[BetaBeat]
[UniverseToday]

The gaming world is full of dicks, and not in a good way. Gay guys and women (especially women) aren't typically welcome within this fascinating world of digital dorkdom. (Your SFist editor's own experience trying to play Halo back in the day with a bunch of straight dudes didn't go over well, either. Alas.) But this weekend in San Francisco, GaymerX, the world's first ever LGBT gamer convention happens on Saturday and Sunday.

"There's a lot of bullying and homophobia in the gaming community," GaymerX cofounder Matt Conn tells Mashable. "Part of our mission is to help that change."

This weekend's kickoff will boast gaming panels, booths, concerts cosplay, parties, and more. Noted supporters include EA, Xbox, GLAAD, The Trevor Project, dot429, and Straight But Not Narrow.

More than 2,000 tickets been sold. Tickets run $45 online or $60 at the door.

Rejoice, interlocking block enthusiasts and fans of infamous NASA mohawk guy: LEGO has just announced that it will be producing a Mars Curiosity Rover replica that children and lovable nerds can erect in the comfort of their own homes.

The LEGO model was created by Stephen Pakbaz, a mechanical engineer who worked on Curiosity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and is a LEGO enthusiast. The design reached the final round of LEGO's fan-backed vote and beat out a Portal project and a pretty rad UCS Sandcrawler to get the green light for production.

Pakbaz combined his first-hand experience with his LEGO hobby to create a LEGO model that was as faithful to the actual rover as possible in terms of accuracy, details, and mechanical function, all in the civic-minded name of science:

The primary purpose of this effort has been to contribute to the educational outreach for this incredible mission. It is my hope that this model encourages the public support that is integral to the continued development and exploration of outer space.

No word yet on cost or when the LEGO rover will be available, but we're hoping it'll be here by the holidays so we can win the which-relative-gives-the-coolest-gifts prize from various nieces, nephews and eccentric uncles.

[PC Mag]

We're not sure if this counts as funny, but we suppose it's funny to those involved the way similar efforts by a college fraternity to make a viral video are funny to those on the same campus. Behold this new rap video, meant as a way of attracting investors, in which some members of 500 Startups join forces to make a tone-deaf, fairly awkward ditty in which they brag about raising VC funds, closing their rounds, and "making products." (Note: It's a 'parody' of Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop,' titled 'Thrifty Startup.')

Startups featured include letsfea.st (a source for online cooking classes), sverve.com (a female social-media-marketing thing), SeMeAntoja (a Mexican restaurant network, in Mexico), and Geekatoo (a local geek computer-repair network). And much like Macklemore, none of them have any flow, or any obvious talent for this, and it's a little painful to listen to.

But something tells this might work for them, anyway.

[Valleywag]
[TechCrunch]

Some nerds got together, via the blog Questionable Skills, and just went through the dictionary and created a sports-style bracket for every letter of the alphabet, trying to determine the best words in the English language. These aren't necessarily the prettiest words, or the most meaningful, but they are sort of the most fun. In the end, the final four, by a highly objective process of elimination, were gherkin, kerfuffle, diphthong, and hornswoggle. Kerfuffle beat out gherkin, for obvious reasons. But in the end it was no match for diphthong with its silent H.

By way of example, below is the P bracket. In our opinion, peccadillo really should have won out over phlegm.

[via The Atlantic]

Facebook honeybees recently painted a 42 foot wide QR code on the roof of the company's new headquarters in Menlo Park. Ta-da. Laughing Squid points out, "The QR code arose when CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a company-wide "space hackathon" for the new campus." Oh, and the QR code will direct you to fbco.de."

And, there you have it.

[Laughing Squid, via Tech Crunch]

Part of what makes Apple's fandom so rabid is the act and art of opening up a new Apple product. Like mainlining heroin, it's a quick high that the buyer can never reach again no matter how long or hard they use the doohickey itself. Apple is smart like that. A first look at the new iPad being unboxed, touched, and caressed comes to us from Vietnam, where users got their hands on an LTE-capable model days ahead of Friday's official launch, notes Apple Insider.

"You can feel free to hate the geeks at the Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn, who always seem to get their hands on new Apple products early," reports Venture Beat. "The site has published the first unboxing video for Apple’s new iPad, and while it doesn’t seem all that different from unwrapping past iPads, it’s still fun to live vicariously through the thrill of Tinhte.vn’s crew.":

Salivate below:

When we first caught word that San Francisco had its very own lightsaber training school, two thoughts popped into our heads: First, "Ha! Look at those nerds!" Followed by, "...so where can I learn how to wield a lightsaber?" To investigate what it takes to become an amateur pretend Jedi, we spent an otherwise sunny Sunday afternoon swinging LED-equipped swords around a dimly lit SOMA dance studio.

Learning the lost art of lightsaber play should require at least some Yodaesque effort on the part of the student. so you'll have to make a short pilgrimage through some shady blocks from the Civic Center BART station to Studio Garcia, tucked down an alleyway off Eighth Street in SOMA. (Luke Skywalker had to go all the way to Dagoba, remember. San Francisco, thankfully, tends to have much better weather.)

After meeting your instructor — in our case: Golden Gate Knights organizer Alain Bloch, dressed in full Obi Wan getup — first timers get to take their pick of lightsabers. Just as there are people who have spent days studying fight choreography from a movie that is a quarter of a century old, there are plenty of people who have spent countless hours building real versions of the fictitious weapons by hand for the sole purpose of looking neat while they duke it out on the floor at Sci-Fi conventions. And may the force be with all of them. There is really nothing quite like swinging around a glowing laser sword* as your excuse for Sunday afternoon physical activity.

As for the class? It's a three-hour-long hybrid of an introductory yoga class, live action role-playing and dance lessons. Like a first time deal at a yoga studio, a class at Golden Gate Knights is designed to help the student get over that barrier for the practice. In the case of this incredibly nerdy but altogether satisfying sport, that barrier is really just the price of a lightsaber and a practice partner. The number of people who want to spend time pretending like they are Luke Skywalker ranks significantly higher than the number of people willing to spend significant portions of their paychecks on toy swords and custom tunics. Some people just have different hobbies, is what we're saying.

Instruction begins with some light stretching and calisthenics. You'll probably feel pretty goofy doing calisthenics led by a man in a cloak and tunic, but then again you're also not the one wearing the cloak and tunic. After warm-ups, you'll be twirling, swinging and flipping your lightsaber around for a solid hour. If that sounds intense, it really isn't.

After warmups and saber-handling basics, attendees get to spend the last hour or so of class going through choreographed motions and crossing swords with an opponent. (Or, more accurately: the friend you convinced to come with you.) The thrill of getting all up in someone's face while lit by the green glow of a lightsaber is pretty much the only reason we all showed up in the first place, so after a few tries getting the steps and saber swings timed right, we found ourselves completely lost in an imaginary duel with fellow classmates. Really, the hardest part of the whole class is trying to avoid making embarrassing lightsaber noises with your mouth.

Finally, class ends with everyone seated on the floor with the lights out for a five minute meditation session by saber-light. It's geeky, sure, but at no point did the class ever feel like the instructors or our classmates were taking this too seriously. By which we mean: no one was complaining about Jar-Jar Binks or cursing George Lucas for introducing Ewoks. (At one point, chief Jedi in charge Alain even asked if his tunic made his butt look big.) More than a Star Wars event, lightsaber classes are one of those things San Francisco is so frustratingly good at: using grown-up budgets and know-how to indulge in long-lost childhood whims.

Classes are taught Sundays at 12 p.m. at Studio Garcia, on 19 Heron Street in SoMa. RSVP is recommended due to increasing popularity. Check out the Golden Gate Knights website or Facebook page for more info.

*And, to be clear: these things are fairly substantial. You'd have an extremely difficult time slicing off someone's hand with one, but you could probably leave a nasty bruise if you accidentally clocked your sparring partner with it.