KU events this week: NPR host, pizza and comedy, the coming (or not) computer uprising

Posted by Matt Erickson February 18, 2013 at 11:43 a.m.

KU events this week: NPR host, pizza and comedy, the coming (or not) computer uprising

Your weekly KU campus events roundup:

• Author and radio host Peter Sagal will speak at 7 p.m. today in the newly remodeled Kansas Union ballroom, on the fifth floor. Sagal is the longtime host of the NPR quiz show "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" and his talk tonight is on "Current Events: Why Satire is the Only Reasonable Response to the Times We Live In."

• That talk was organized by the Student Union Activities group, and it's a busy week for the students down there. At 7 p.m. Tuesday in Woodruff Auditorium at the Union, SUA will sponsor a "Comedy and Pizza Night" featuring the improvisational comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade (founded by famous super-funny person Amy Poehler). You can watch the troupe perform and eat some pizza for free if you're a student with a KU ID card, or for $5 if you're just a regular person. And then at 8 p.m. Wednesday, the professional step dance company Step Afrika! will perform in the Union Ballroom. That one is also free for KU students or $5 for others.

• Also on Wednesday is what sounds like quite the interesting debate about technology and some hefty philosophical ideas. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in The Commons at Spooner Hall, a visiting philosophy professor from Dartmouth will debate a KU computer scientist about our increasing dependence on computers and technology and what that means for our future. James Moor, a professor of intellectual and moral philosophy at Dartmouth, will present a dystopian perspective on the issue. Perry Alexander, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at KU, will counter with the more optimistic utopian perspective. Will computers rise up and destroy us, are they our best friends forever or is there some more nuanced conclusion? It's probably that last choice, but this talk should be interesting nonetheless.

As always, I can't hope to sum up everything happening on campus this week here. So if there's anything you'd like to add, post it in the comments below. And keep those news tips coming to merickson@ljworld.com.

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merickson 3 months ago

One addition to the list, courtesy of the KU Honors Program:

6 p.m. Thursday in the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium will be a screening of the flim "Codebreaker," originally shown on TV in the U.K. last year. It's about Alan Turing, who broke codes during World War II, was an early computer scientist and did many other things, too. Patrick Sammon, the film's executive producer, will be there to introduce it and answer questions afterward. And Perry Alexander — a busy man this week, it would appear — will introduce him.

More info:

http://www.honors.ku.edu/film-documentary-screenings

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