Program

(RAW DATA, will be updated soon)
Felix Becker
Travelling light
I want to share what I use to take when I live "nomadic" or go travelling — optimized by practice. Focused on gadgets and gears besides the clothes — so the tent, the GPS, the note-taking, the batteries … may be inspiring for others, hands-on possible.
+1 PW +1 PE +1MK +1KM + MZ
[cancelled]

Piotr Bielecki
Is science something to believe in?
What is science and what makes it a better source of knowledge then voodoo or astrology? I’ll present some of the most important ideas in the area of philosophy of science. Caution: this talk may result in a conclusion that most scientific truths are based not only on logical reasoning but also on a belief in unprovable assumptions.
+1 PE +1MK + MZ

Daniel Borek
Cognitive aspects of cinema
What the cinematic images tell us about the way we perceive world around us? How we could better understand the way they influence us by using the cognitive neuroscience machinery?
[cancelled]
+1 DK +1 PE +1MZ +1MK +MZ

Living with psychiatric disorder - stereotypes, stigma, discrimination
Weronika Boruc
Eksperymenty oparte o teorię gier - wątpliwości (i zachwyty) humanistki
Opowiem o kilku eksperymentach opartych na Teorii Gier i o moich związanych z nimi wątpliwościach. Skoncentruję się na grach koordynacji, ale na początku powiem też parę słów o klasycznych grach (dylemat więźnia, ultimatum, etc.)
+1 PW +1MK +1KM
Theoretical aspects would be also interesting

Zuzanna Borzymowska (only if we will have enough time)
Living with psychiatric disorder - stereotypes, stigma, discrimination
About ways our society makes it even harder to cope with mental health issues
+1 MG +1 PW +1 PE +1MZ +1SK +1MK +1KM +MZ

Przemysław Etz
Rise and fall of civilizations through the ages
Looking at the history of human development, we can see the succession of cultures and empires expanding, going through golden ages, collapsing or evolving into new forms. What's the story behind the success of some civilizations and the failure and disappearance of others? Can we try to assess the impact of underlying political, cultural, economic and environmental factors? Is there a lesson for the modern world in these past stories? A way to predict the future looming over us? I'll try to address these questions.

1 DK +1 PP +1 MG +1 PW +1 +1MK +1KM

[cancelled (hopefully postponed to next Offtopicarium)]

Marek Golonka
A talk about talking - a researcher's guide
A not-very-serious guide to a very important thing in a researcher's and scientist's life: how to talk about your scientific passions with people from outside your field and even from outside academia. I want to share my own experiences about sharing my current research on musical theatre with people who never thought they could be interested in such a thing and more general observations about how people try to connect their academic and social lifes.

1 DK +1SK +MZ

Magdalena Góralska
In science we trust. On virtual spaces of agency, political engagement and changing definitions of expert knowledge
It will be a talk on my research topic - the transformation of expert knowledge with the development of digital society. The digital society did mark the rise of new ways of knowledge legitimization, and a subsequent inevitable redistribution of social power, along with the increased distrust in expertise of dominant authorities (p.e. Academia). The Internet became a space for alternative narrations (and some of them are best known as "pseudosciences") on knowledge and sciences in a number of crucial topics, of which the most noticeable seem to be the issues of food, nutrition and health. On the examples of GMO and Zika discourse I will try to outline the most important aspects of the problem, focusing on social dynamics of the knowledge production on-line.
+1 ZB +1 PW +1MZ +1MK +1KM +MZ

Pseudoscience or alternative knowledge systems? On the emic and etic perspectives in understanding what actually is going on
It will be a short intro into the history of what pseudoscience might be, from where it comes from, and how to talk about it without offending anyone.
+1SK +1MK

Gabriela Górska
The world of creative NGOs in Poland; critical approach and admiration
+1 DB
[cancelled]

Maciej Kozubal
Physics on heaven and earth (straightforward physics)
(from 30 min to 1 hour talk)

The presentation would encompass myriad of breathtaking (or at least astonishing) physical phenomena, which are not well known. Main part will concern atmosphere but we will also venture through geosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere to finally touch the stars.
+1 PW +1 PE +1SK +1KM +MZ

Dominik Kufel
Is reality real?
In every second we receive a great amount of information from world around us. To avoid brain overload, human senses capture only a tiny fraction of nature. Our social character created person-independent type of reality: hyperreality. Meanwhile evolution tends to promote some of the mental attitudes than others, thus putting additional constraints on shape of our perception.
Therefore, do we live in the "real world" or maybe it is only an authentic fake?
+1 PP +1 PE +1MK +MZ

Krzysztof Maczyński
Irreversible privatization
I'd like this to take a standard slot of half an hour, but be mostly filled with discussion, sharing knowledge and ideas, asking questions to which it won't necessarily be me answering in each case. I'll take the first few minutes to give an introduction sketching the general ideas of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, other applications of blockchain technology, collaborative economy, e-voting, distributed autonomous organizations and autonomous robots. I'll have more information prepared to throw in as needed, but most importantly questions aimed at broadening our common understanding and envisioning what kinds of marketplaces, business models and economies are likely poised to become ubiquituous with emerging technologies.
+1 ZB +1 PW +KwZ +1SK +1MK

Live radio show
At a convenient pre-announced moment (preferably at 9 p.m. on Sunday, unless almost everybody leaves before that, in which case Saturday would be better) I'm going to go live with an irregular installment of my bi-weekly (or something about that) radio show „Epicentrum” which is devoted to science and technology, in a broad sense, and I'm inviting all willing participants of Offtopicarium to join me, talk about our interests, topics discussed and events during the Offtopicarium, and about Offtopicariums in themselves, among us as well as with listeners (as it's a live show) who may call in and ask some (unforeseen) questions. This should take about 1 hour. I can also, if there's interest, show and explain how I do it. We'll be live on Internet radios KonteStacja and Enklawa, possibly also Etercast (if they manage to restore their stream to operiational state by then).
+KwZ +MZ

Piotr Migdał
Side projects, part II
All of my best projects were side projects… but also I've failed at many of them (half-baked, forever in my dreams, etc). I want to share my stories and thoughts. And I am curious about your experience with side projects.
My post on it: http://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-like-side-projects/ (made it to the HN frontpage)
Now I see that I already spoke about it: https://speakerdeck.com/pmigdal/side-projects-and-off-topics; this time it will be more about focus, collaboration, motivation, etc.
+1 AB +1 MG +1 PW +1 PE +KwZ +1MZ +1SK +1MK +1KM

Convolutional networks
I will be happy to talk about neural networks in the free time. But out of the two proposals I will go for "side projects".
How do they work? Why are they generating fake art, recognizing faces and synthesizing dreams?

+1 ZB +1 DK +1 PP +1 PW +1 PE +KwZ +MZ
FAKE art? ;)
I used word "art", but almost got lynched by a few artists & graphic designers. Better safe than sorry. Besides, for me its value is in being interesting than artistic.

Jakub Piątkowski
Organellar genomes – what are they good for?
The ancestor of all eukaryotic organisms possessed mitochondria. Many eukaryotes also possess plastids. Both structures originated via endosymbiosis and most still contain highly reduced genomes of their own. What is the evolutionary advantage of such arrangement? Why is the organellar genome inherited only maternally in so many eukaryotic lineages? Therefore - is the evolutionary success of organellar and nuclear genome always one and the same?
SK: A little too specialist, maybe?
MZ: I think it could be presented rather in a pop-science way
+1MK +1KM +MZ

Artur Piróg
Molecular evolution
I would like to give a short talk about molecular evolution - how we can observe evolution in action(real or simulated), what are constraints of natural evolution, and how we could overcome them, at least at molecular level.
I would like to stress on basic concepts of observing evolution in action, and what limitations the mechanism of evolution has.
+1 PW +1 PE +1KM +MZ

Paweł Przytuła
Where is my tram? Warsaw public transport data analysis
+1 ZB +1 PM +1 AB +1DK +KwZ
Some visualizations? :)
Why diode tables indicate wrong times? Is it so hard to find a tram?

Magda Zena Sadurska
The art of listening

In a short presentation I would like to talk about the importance of listening in communication and show how and why listening is often neglected. I will share some insight from my psychological practice but in line with the main point it would be great to hear your thoughts on the topic so I hope there will be a bit of time for a discussion.
+1 SK +1MK

Leszek Siemiński
Facebook's surveillance capabilities*
Everybody knows that Facebook knows a lot about every user, but it's surveillance capabilities are clearly underestimated. I am going to describe what information are collected to be used for targeting the ads and what does it mean for our everyday life.
*Preferuję język polski (kwestie terminologiczne).

Anna Siennicka
How can genome sequencing influence your life?
Human Genome Project started in 1990. It took 13 years and 2.7 billion dollars to sequence the first human genome. Today you can sequence your own genome in Warsaw in one day. And it's not only tremendously cool thing to do. We know a range of gene mutations leading to a development of specific types of cancer, other are connected with rare genetic disorders and some are responsible for drug metabolism which hugely varies between people. I'll describe how information entailed in our genomes can be used in practice.
I will also expalin how personalized medicine may soon become a reality with doctors prescribing therapies tailored to individaul genetic needs.

Krzysztof Stasiak
The Whole Earth, yippie parties and Steve Jobs farewells: Understanding the people who shaped modern times
A 15min talk on the subject of The Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand, the people who laid the ideological foundations for the "cyberspace" of today, and the counterculture of the 60s and 70s. Basically, it's a talk about the ideas that - in my opinion - shaped some aspects of modernity, while at the same time they were partly forgotten and never fully realised. This obscured them to the common folk, but at the same time kept away the corporate machine that would ruin them. It's not a simple topic and I'm not idealistic, yet I'd like to try to convey to my audience some of the creative, energetic feel of those long gone days.

If allowed, I'd like to spend the last 2-3 minutes of my time on stage to agitate about the FabLab movement and invite everyone over to the 5th Maker Night in Łódź. My last year's talk at Offtopicarium was about the fablabs and I think that the Offtopicarium crowd received it well.
Sure!

Kamila Stępniowska
Building global project - across time & cultures.
I would like to share my experience on building Geek Girls Carrots, Women Who Code, as well as Machine Learning workshops in the US, Europe and Asia. The base for my talk will be a sociology of organizations and one of the concepts of social networks.

Piotr Warchoł
Garage of Complexity - a science makerspace at the Jagiellonian University
I will describe the idea, history and projects of the Garage of Complexity.

Mexican buses and the secrets of universality of random matrices
Random matrix theory is often called the probability theory of the 21 century. It is a valuable tool in physics and other basic sciences. Its omnipresence can be traced to a property called universality which I will try to explain through examples. One of them will be the case of the bus system of Cuernavaca in Mexico.

Adam Zadrożny
Law and as a graph
in the talk i would like to show latest results from my project about analysing the law as a graph. Law can be represented as a graph with legal documents as nodes and links between them as edges. My main focus lies now on polish law and tracking changes introduced to law by newly added acts. Based on where on graph new act is added introduced changes might be negligible (borders of graph; see plots) or affect big parts of the law (centre of graph).
Some plots:
A. Legal acts 1918-1939 (II Republic of Poland) - https://www.dropbox.com/s/kol490nvdbamtwu/Graf_DU_1918-1939.png?dl=0
B. Legal acts 1990-2014 (III Republic of Poland) - https://www.dropbox.com/s/vjq0j3ftza397ti/Graf_DU_1990-2014.png?dl=0

Gravitational waves and what they can tell us about universe
in the talk would like to briefly summarise what we know up to date about gravitational waves from its first detection (GW150914 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102) and show what impact might have future detection on our knowledge about universe. (Gravitational waves are my main field of research)

Krzysztof Zieleniewski
Does AlphaGo mark the beginning of the Age of AI?
This month a computer program beat a top human player in Go - a feat long considered as a very hard problem for machines. Why Go is so special? How it did do that? What consequences are for us in 5 or 50 years?

Marcin Ziemniak
How to build a model of cell from scratches? (hard science)
Scientists dedicated a significant body of work to unravel structures and interactions of many biomolecules (proteins, nucleic acids, sugars etc.) but still we are lacked in understanding of their shape and interactions within the cell. Most of these structural studies were done in laboratory conditions and their may not show “real” properties of biological molecules in the living organism. Currently biologist start to develop a new approach, which they called morphome. It means how the living matter is distributed within a biological system such as cell in more innate conditions. I would like to say a few words about new methods allowing to collect 3D data in a systematic and quantitative matter, which ultimately allow us to create a model of cell having almost atomic resolution. The talk will be definitely in pop-science convention without going deep into biological and biophysical details.

A short talk about ultramarathon runs (hobby)
I don’t think that many people have some interest in this topic. However, if some were interested I can say a few words about running longer distances. Here, “longer” means at least marathon run – there is a lot of more challenging sport events called ultramarathons. Some of them take place in mountains or even less hospitable places such as Death Valley in California. Up to now I took part in two such events and I am preparing to start in a next one this year.

Aleksandra Hamanowicz
Once in a lifetime adventure (short talk)
Travelling alone to the distant place to combine science with amazing holidays? Choose Australia! I will tell you about my experience in the Land of Kangaroos, the amazing people I met, upside-down life I have combined with astronomy and travelling to most amazing places! Photos included!

Anka Szarla
Botulinum Toxin in Medical Practice

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