Nerd Nite Edmonton #91

Streetcars, Space, and State-Serving AI

When: Thursday, March 26th at 7:30pm

(Doors & bar open at 7pm, with drinks available all night)

Where: Westbury Theatre Lobby

Fringe Theatre Arts Barn, 10330 84 Ave NW, Edmonton

How much: $30

Rhonda Shand — A History of Edmonton’s Streetcars – They Still Live!!!

Ever wondered how Edmonton started with using streetcars and light rail vehicles as a form of mass transit? Well look no more! In 1908, regular streetcar service began in Edmonton at 7 a.m. on Monday, November 9th, with both Cars 1 and 2 operating between the car barns on Syndicate Avenue (95 Street) and 21st (121) Street. Strathcona service began Friday, December 4th and used the Edmonton Inter-Urban Bridge (now called Low Level Bridge). Streetcar service ended on September 1, 1951 with a ceremonial “Last Run” with invited guests on Streetcar Number 1 from 97 Street and Jasper Avenue to the loop at 109 Street and 84 Avenue where almost 1,000 people gathered to bid farewell in wet rainy weather. Regular streetcar service continued for a few hours thereafter. Then on September 2 at around 1:00 A.M., Car 52 made the final run across the High Level Bridge with five passengers ending almost 43 years of streetcar service. In the time between then (starting in earnest in 1980) and now the Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) has been acquiring, rebuilding, restoring, and operating fully operational vintage streetcars at both Fort Edmonton Park and the High Level Bridge.

Bio: Rhonda Shand is a proud member of the Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) and will become more active in operations, maintenance, and project restoration later this year. Rhonda is qualified to operate 50% of the streetcar fleet including the “crown jewel,” Edmonton #1 at Fort Edmonton Park. This is an independent presentation sanctioned by the ERRS where Rhonda will talk about the present streetcar collection plus future plans for the two routes and the fleet. Self described as the “Jedi Enchantress of ALL Things Electron,” Rhonda is an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Alberta and is a Wiccan, moonshining electrical engineer with a ham radio licence and military reserve background. Relevant work experience includes the Edmonton Valley Line South East presently in operation and the Edmonton Valley Line West presently being built, as a Lead Systems and Integration Engineer with Parsons.

Mackenzie O’Neill — “A Child of Earth and Space:” How Soviet Propagandists Humanized Space Technology During the Space Race

This talk explains how Soviet propagandists humanized space technology, such as probes and rovers, during the Space Race. I outline the history of the Soviet Space Program and trace how journalists and graphic artists anthropomorphized machines such as the Lunokhod-1 Rover. My research also argues that this tactic of imbuing life into space technology was not a consistent trend but changed in frequency throughout the course of the Cold War. I analyze articles from Soviet newspapers and examine caricatures by graphic artists within the USSR to demonstrate how such machinery became “human.”

Bio: Mackenzie O’Neill is a Graduate Student in History at the University of Alberta. He focuses on the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, as well as the Soviet-Era Russian History.

Nathan Lamarche — Are you sure?

We may be strangers, yet a part of you cares, because any relationship has a level of empathy. Where some individuals in the government might care, Canada, the state, has no capacity for empathy. Generative Artificial Intelligence is a representative of the state and the elite class, yet acts like it has empathy. My talk will focus on state-fueled certainty, uncertainty in rebellion, and how AI exploits empathy and manipulates certainty in order to exert the control of the state.

Bio: Nathan Lamarche is an Otipemisiwak Michif Master of Arts student in English at the University of Alberta whose research interests revolve around empathy and understanding, including Indigenous perspectives and experiences in fiction, subaltern and queer literature, and the disenfranchisement of the working class in post-imperial landscapes. In their spare time, they tend to their several thousand isopod friends, and when not otherwise writing or doing research, you can probably find them buried days deep in the mountains backcountry hiking, cooking very strange meals, and brewing mead out of pinecones.

• $30.00 inc $4.00 fee
• March 26, 2026
• 180 minutes
• 19:30
• Fringe Theatre Arts Barns
• Lobby
• 18A