[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events
George Mokray
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Nov 20 19:26:40 PST 2011
Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most
Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater Boston
area that catch the editor's eye.
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events
email gmoke at world.std.com
---------------------------------------------------------
************************************************
Occupy Green http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/16/1037270/-Occupy-Green
---------------------------------------------------------
************************************************
Monday, November 21, 2011
Constructing Industrial Hazard and Pollution: The Nineteenth-Century
French State's Vision
Speaker: Genevieve Massard-Guibaud, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales
12:00p–2:00p
MIT, Building E51-275, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History Special Speaker
brown bag lunch
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): STS, History Office
For more information, contact:
Margo Collett
253-4965
history-info at mit.edu
--------------------------------
Monday, November 21, 2011
Glyoxal as a Probe of Atmospheric Oxidation and Aerosol Formation
Processes
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915
Speaker: Frank Keutsch (University of Wisconsin)
MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar (MASS) Series
The MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar (MASS) is a student-run weekly
seminar series within PAOC. Seminar topics include all research
concerning the atmosphere and climate, but also talks about e.g.
societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars usually take
place on Monday from 12-1pm.
Web site: http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/mass-seminar-frank-keutsch-univ-wisc
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars
For more information, contact:
Diane Ivy
mass at mit.edu
-------------------------------
Monday, November 21
12 p.m.
"A Media Lesson from the Financial Meltdown"
Diana Henriques, senior financial writer at The New York Times and the
author of The Wizard of Lies.
Harvard, Taubman 275, 5 Eliot Street, Cambridge
------------------------------
EBE Seminar
Monday, November 21, 2011
12 pm
Boston University, BRB 113, 5 Cummington Street, Boston
Effects of climate and landscape change on butterfly population dynamics
Elizabeth Crone, Harvard Forest
Ecologists are increasingly asked to predict effects of changing
landscapes and environments on biodiversity. Can simple ecological
theories make meaningful predictions in the absence of detailed
biological knowledge? I explore this question based on studies of
butterfly populations and communities in Oregon, Massachusetts and the
UK. Key results include climate-driven changes in butterfly
communities of Massachusetts during the past 20 years.
Lunch to follow in BRB 117
Please contact CECB for questions or comments:
cecb at bu.edu /// 617.353.6982
----------------------------------
Monday, November 21, 2011
"Fukushima Disaster Response" Robot Competition
2:45p–4:45p
MIT, Building 3-370, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
The students of 2.12, Introduction to Robotics, will be competing for
the term project robot contest. This year's theme is "Fukushima
Disaster Response". Please join us to see semi-autonomous robots that
can enter a damaged nuclear reactor building, deliver cooling agent to
critical spots, and shut down failed pipes.
Refreshments will be served.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Mechanical Engineering Dept.
For more information, contact:
Sucharita Berger Ghosh
253-4038
sbghosh at mit.edu
-----------------------------
Metro West Farm to School Initiative
Monday, November 21
3-5 p.m.
Weston High School Media Center, 444 Wellesley St, Weston, MA.
Please join us for the Metro West Farm to School Initiative on
November 21: We will be hosting a panel discussion focusing on the
supply and demand challenges and opportunities facing farms and school
districts who are trying to bring more farm-fresh produce into school
lunches in the Metro West area. Our panel of farmers, food service
professionals and local government representatives will address
questions such as:
Are there benefits to collective purchasing?
Can small-scale community farms grow specially for schools?
Can school gardens complement school efforts?
If you have any questions please email Greenpower at landssake.org.
Please excuse any cross listings.
-------------------------------------
How Finance Went Wrong, and How to Fix it: Some Worthwhile Canadian
Initiatives — A Special Seminar To Celebrate the Publication of "Re-
Creating Canada: Essays in Honor of Paul Weiler"
WHEN Mon., Nov. 21, 2011, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE East Dining Room, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street,
Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences,
Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Canada Program, Weatherhead Center for
International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) Randall Morck, Stephen Jarislowsky Distinguished Chair in
Finance, University of Alberta
COST Free and open to the public and off the record
CONTACT INFO Canada at wcfia.harvard.edu
NOTE This is a special seminar to celebrate the new publication of
"Re-Creating Canada: Essays in Honor of Paul C. Weiler."
LINK http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/seminars/canada/schedule
------------------------------
Monday, November 21 2011
4:00PM to 5:00PM
Refreshments: 3:45PM
Location: MIT, Building 32-G882 (Stata Center - Hewlett Room) 32
Vassar Street, Cambridge
How Can We Measure Social Life? New Approaches for Studying Social
Interactions and Relationships from Everyday Conversations
Izhak Shafran, Oregon Health and Science University
For over 50 years, social psychologists and social scientists have
relied on subjects' self-reported answers to carefully designed
questionnaire as the primary tool for measuring social interactions,
relationships and behaviors. While these tools are valuable in
capturing subjects' perspective, they are notoriously unreliable,
especially, in probing subjects' with cognitive impairments. Moreover,
there are clear limitations on the temporal and contextual details
that even high functioning adults can recall.
This talk will trace recent advances in developing complementary
objective measures and will delve into our recent work whose goal is
to study the relationship between social life of older adults and the
rate of cognitive decline. In this preliminary study, we collected a
comprehensive and naturalistic corpus comprising of all incoming and
outgoing telephone conversations from 8 homes over the duration of a
year. We utilize limited metadata to develop an automated score for
characterizing the social nature of telephone calls from their
content. To gain further insight into the nature of natural telephone
conversations, we analyze our corpus from multiple perspectives. For
example, we show that 30-words of openings are sufficient to predict
the type of conversation. This is in comparison to 30-word closings,
which were found to be no better than random segments -- a result
contrary to what one might expect from prior assertion from social
psychology that pre-closings differ significantly in personal and
business conversations.
This work has wider applications in designing smart user interfaces in
portable devices and in social network analysis where links can now be
augmented with weights that relate to nature of social relationship.
Izhak Shafran is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Spoken
Language Understanding in Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU)
in Portland. His primary research has been in large vocabulary speech
recognition. Recently, he began investigating novel methods for
assessing cognitive and social abilities in the context of
neurodegenerative diseases. Before joining OHSU, he was a research
faculty at the Center for Speech and Language Processing in Johns
Hopkins University and a research member at AT&T's Research Lab in
Florham Park. He received an NIH Career Development Award in 2010.
Contact: Marcia Davidson, 617-253-3049, marcia at csail.mit.edu
--------------------------
Monday, November 21 2011
4:00PM to 5:00PM
Refreshments: 3:45PM
MIT, Building 32-D463, Star Conference Room, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Internet of Things is around the Corner
Speaker: Yrjö Neuvo, Aalto University (formerly Helsinki University of
Technology)
Future development of embedded systems can be seen as a one way
street, we move towards more and more complex systems where embedded
intelligence plays an ever increasing role. The systems will be more
and more interconnected and cooperative. The Internet together with
the very fast growth of wireless data speeds and coverage is the key
enabler of this development. Car and smart phone are good examples of
how increasing system interconnectivity enables innovative smart
applications. Internet and embedded intelligence in home appliances
provides significant savings in energy consumption. The low cost of
wireless connectivity has made it possible to have even single light
bulbs connected to Internet. Internet of Things has been around in
science fiction style discussions for slightly over a decade.
Interconnected large scale embedded systems are now making Internet of
Things real. The role of Internet of Things in addressing our global
scale challenges like energy and climate is significant.
Bio: Yrjö Neuvo received his Ph. D, degree from Cornell University in
1974. Currently he is Professor and Research Director at Aalto
University (formerly Helsinki University of Technology). He was Chief
Technology Officer and a member of the Group Executive Board in Nokia
in 1993 – 2005. His responsibilities included managing mobile phones
R&D. Before joining Nokia, he had a 19 year academic career as
Professor of Signal Processing at Tampere University of Technology, as
National Research Professor at the Academy of Finland and as Visiting
Professor at University of California, in Santa Barbara, USA.
He has been Chairman of ARTEMIS Joint Technology Initiative Governing
Board 2007 – 2008, Bureau Member of European Science and Technology
Assembly (ESTA) 1994 – 1997. He was General Chairman of the 1988 IEEE
International Symposium on Circuits and Systems of the IEEE
International Conference on Communications (ICC 2001). Currently he is
Member of Governing Board (and its Executive Committee) of European
Institute of Innovation and Technology. He is also Board Member of two
listed companies Metso and Vaisala as well as three high tech start-
ups. He has received four honorary doctorates and is Life Fellow of
the IEEE. Asteroid 1938 DN carries his name.
Contact: Mary McDavitt, 617-253-9620, mmcdavit at csail.mit.edu
---------------------------
Heat Transfer
Nathan Myhrvold (former Microsoft CTO; co-founder and CEO of
Intellectual Ventures; and author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and
Science of Cooking)
When: Nov 21, 2011 | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Where: Harvard, Science Center C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Speaker Biography:
Nathan Myhrvold founded Intellectual Ventures after retiring from his
position as chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft
Corporation. He earned a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical
physics and a master's degree in mathematical economics from Princeton
University. He is author of “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science
of Cooking,” was released in March 2011.
Host:
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Contact: Christina Andujar
candujar at seas.harvard.edu
-----------------------------
Monday, November 21, 2011
7:00p–8:30p
MIT Building 26-100
MISS REPRESENTATION Film Screening
GWAMIT and WGS are very excited to announce that we will be hosting a
screening of the documentary Miss Representation at MIT! The film
exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of
women in positions of power and influence in America. The film
challenges the media's limited and often disparaging portrayals of
women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve
leadership positions and for the average women to feel powerful herself.
The film premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and has been
showing at sold-out screenings around the country. There will be a
screening and short moderated discussion afterwards about the film.
Web site: http://missrepresentation.org
Open to: the general public
Cost: FREE
Sponsor(s): Women's and Gender Studies, Graduate Women @ MIT
For more information, contact:
Lindy
lindy_l at mit.edu
------------------------------------
Population Aging and Its Macroeconomic Consequences Around the World
WHEN Mon., Nov. 21, 2011, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Center for Population and Development
Studies
SPEAKER(S) Ronald Lee, Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Family Professor
of Economics, professor of demography, director, Center on Economics
and Demography of Aging, University of California, Berkeley
----------------------------------------
November 21, 2011
6:00pm
Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, 1515
Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required for those attending in
person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/11/palfrey#RSVP
Reception to follow
Intellectual Property Strategy
John Palfrey, Berkman Center Faculty Co-Director and Vice Dean for
Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School
Special guests will include Terry Fisher, Eric von Hippel, Lawrence
Lessig, Phil Malone, Jonathan Zittrain, and more
Entrepreneurs, corporate managers and nonprofit administrators should
look at intellectual property as a key strategic asset. Most managers
leave intellectual property issues to the legal department, unaware
that an organization’s intellectual property can help accomplish a
range of management goals, from accessing new markets to improving
existing products to generating new revenue streams. In his new
book,Intellectual Property Strategy (MIT Press), intellectual
property expert, head of the Harvard Law School Library, and Berkman
Center faculty co-director John Palfrey offers a short briefing on
intellectual property strategy for them. Palfrey argues for strategies
that go beyond the traditional highly restrictive “sword and
shield” approach, suggesting that flexibility and creativity are
essential to a profitable long-term intellectual property strategy--
especially in an era of changing attitudes about media.
Join us for a discussion on the book and a demonstration of an iPad
app that will offer interactive media features with leaders in the IP
field, and showcase new ways in which innovative organizations and
people can employ multiple intellectual property approaches .
The book is part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, which
presents short, accessible books on need-to-know subjects in a variety
of fields, written by leading thinkers.
About John
John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for
Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. He is the co-
author of "Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital
Natives" (Basic Books, 2008) and "Access Denied: The Practice and
Politics of Internet Filtering" (MIT Press, 2008). His research and
teaching is focused on Internet law, intellectual property, and
international law. He practiced intellectual property and corporate
law at the law firm of Ropes & Gray. He is a faculty co-director of
the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Outside of Harvard Law School, he is a Venture Executive at Highland
Capital Partners and serves on the board of several technology
companies and non-profits. John served as a special assistant at the
US EPA during the Clinton Administration. He is a graduate of Harvard
College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School.
------------------------------
From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Dialogue about a
world without nuclear weapons
WHEN Tue., Nov. 22, 2011, 8 a.m. – 7 p.m.
WHERE Rotunda, Taubman Building, Harvard Kennedy School, 5 Eliot
Street, Cambridge, MA
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Exhibitions, Social Sciences, Special
Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Kennedy School India Caucus, Harvard
Kennedy School Student Government, SGI-USA
COST Admission is free
CONTACT INFO Erendro Singh (Erendro_singh at hks12.harvard.edu),
Michelle Dow Keawphalouk (keawphalouk at fas.harvard.edu), Teesta Jain (Jain at bbri.org
), Yumi Masui (masui at fas.harvard.edu)
------------------------------
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
10 a.m.
Boston University, 8 Saint Mary’s St., Room 339, Boston
Refreshments will be served outside Room 339 at 9:45 a.m.
The New Silk Roads for Technology
Professor Fiorenzo G. Omenetto, Tufts University
The New Silk Roads for Technology
The use of silk as a material for technological applications has been
introduced over the past few years. Silk is now finding new
applications as a useful biocompatible material platform with utility
in photonics and electronics, ranging from nanoscale optical lattices
to metamaterials. Professor Omenetto will provide an overview on how
purified silkworm silk can be reassembled, among other things, in a
multitude of high quality, micro- and nanostructured optical and
optoelectronic elements largely or entirely composed of this organic,
bio-compatible and implantable protein matrix that truly opens a new
silk road that brings together the biological and high-tech worlds.
For more information: http://www.bu.edu/ece/calendar
------------------------------
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Rule Britannia: The Rise and Rise of UK Offshore Wind
Speaker: David Parkin, Head of Offshore Renewables at Atkins
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E51-372, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
MIT Energy Club Lecture Series
David Parkin, Head of Offshore Renewables at Atkins, a UK Engineering
consultancy and a current student at Sloan, will tell the story of UK
offshore wind. He will cover early projects and the introduction of
the Crown Estate leasing process, which has resulted in the most
ambitious development plan in the world with a planned capacity of up
to 50GW. His talk will be broadly non-technical and will cover areas
including the development process, engineering, construction,
financing and the regulatory environment. He will conclude by looking
at the challenges facing the industry in the UK, and drawing some
lessons for the development of an offshore wind sector in other
countries.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact:
MIT Energy Club
energyclub at mit.edu
--------------------------------
The Spanish Revolution & the Internet: From free culture to meta-
politicsMayo Fuster Morell, Berkman Center Fellow
Tuesday, November 22, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2011/11/morell#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast
at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.
From Mayo:
In the context of multiple crises – ecological, political, financial
and geopolitical restructuring – large mobilizations are taking place
in several countries.
In the Spanish case, we have seen some of the largest demonstrations
since the country transitioned to democracy in the 70th with massive
occupations of public squares, attempts to prevent parliaments
functioning and citizen assemblies of thousands of people taking place
in spring and autumn 2011. Furthermore, the free culture movement
(FCM) played an important role in the rising and shaping of the
mobilization. The campaign agents "Sinde Law" (on Internet regulation)
in December 2010 and its afterworld meta-political derivation into
"Don't vote them" campaign (referring to do not vote the parties which
approved the law) are considered a starting point of the mobilization
cycle. Additionally, FCM has influenced the agenda and organizational
logic of the protest for a "True Democracy Now" (particularly in terms
of the use of the new technologies); even if the mobilization has also
caused an split between two sectors of the FCM itself.
The presentation will be based on a qualitative research analysis and
aims to open up a debate on the similarities and contrast between the
Spanish case and the mobilization that emerged in other places (such
as Arab Countries, Iceland, Greece, Portugal, Israel, Chile or New
York City).
About Mayo
Mayo Fuster Morell has developed research in the field of the Internet
and politics; social movements (Global Justice Movement, Free Culture
Movement and recent mobilization wave of "indignated" in Spain);
online communities; common-base peer production; and public policies.
She specializes in online methods and action-participation research.
Mayo recently concluded her PhD thesis (Title: Governance of online
creation communities. Provision of infrastructure for the building of
digital commons) at the European University Institute in Florence
(2006-2010) under the supervision of Professor Donatella della Porta.
She analyzed models of governance of common-based peer production and
the relationship between governance, participation size and
collaboration complexity. She combined a large N statistical analysis
and case study comparisons (World Social Forum, Flickr, Wikihow and
Wikipedia).
-------------------------
Tuesday, November 22
4:00–6:00 pm
MIT, Building E19-623, 400 Main Street, Cambridge
Blind children see and in turn teach us neuroscience.
Pawan Sinha, Associate Professor of Vision and Computational
Neuroscience, MIT
----------------------------
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
4:00 PM (reception following),
MIT, Stata Center, Room 32-141, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
The next level of modeling social interaction: How to detect, quantify
and utilize emotional influence . . . Abstract & Bio
Frank Schweitzer, ETH Zurich, and LIDS, MIT
Abstract: Models of (bounded) rational agents failed to predict, or
even capture, recent collective phenomena in social and economic
systems. Ranging from the current financial crisis to the Arab spring,
social "ingredients" such as herding, (dis)trust, empathy, agression,
or other forms of positive or negative emotions seem to play the major
role in amplifying critical situations.
Do we have tools to detect and to quantify such emotions? Online
datasets (written text from fora, microblogs, or reviews) can be used
to apply sentiment analysis algorithms and to map the writer's
emotions along the dimensions of valence and arousal. But what do we
learn from that analysis, beyond the nation's mood in the morning? How
do expressed emotions affect the response of other users in the
cyberspace? Can we develop an interaction model of emotional agents to
reproduce the stylized facts observed? Could we even manipulate
cyberemotions? (and can I answer all these questions in less than one
hour? -- I'll try at least)
http://www.sg.ethz.ch/research/social_organizations/collective_emotions
Biography: Frank Schweitzer is Professor and Chair of Systems Design
at ETH Zurich, one of the leading research universities in the world.
Starting out as a theoretical physicist, he received a second Ph.D in
philosophy of science, before turning his scientific interests on
social and economic systems. Currently, he is a visiting professor at
MIT.
-----------------------------
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Energy 101 : Oil and Gas
Speaker: Dr Dan Burns
12:30p–1:30p
MIT, Building 3-133, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Energy 101 lecture series
Energy 101 presentation on the the oil and gas industry : scientific,
technical and economical aspects.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact:
Aziz Abdellahi
aziz_a at mit.edu
------------------------------
Cultural Survival Bazaar
WHEN Fri., Nov. 25, 10 a.m. – Sat., Nov. 26, 2011, 6 p.m.
WHERE Cambridge College, 1000 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Cultural Survival
COST Free
NOTE The Cultural Survival Bazaar is a festival of Native arts and
culture from around the world, featuring Native artisans, performers,
and handmade products benefiting the livelihoods of artisans, fair
trade, and Cultural Survival's nonprofit work throughout the world.
The bazaars will be every weekend from Friday, Nov. 25, to Sunday Dec.
18, at four different locations (many offering free parking).
LINK http://bazaar.culturalsurvival.org
---------------------------
Monday, November 28, 2011
Webinar: Start-Up Thinking: How Systems Thinking Helps Entrepreneurial
Ventures Start, Grow, and Mature
Speaker: Sorin Grama, Founder and CEO, Promethean Power Systems; SDM
Alumnus Sam White, Founder and Vice President for Business
Development, Promethean Power Systems
12:00p–1:00p
Location: Virtual - registration at http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_112811/webinar-grama-entrepreneurial-ventures.html
MIT SDM Systems Thinking Webinar Series
The MIT System Design and Management Program Systems Thinking Webinar
Series features research conducted by SDM faculty, alumni, students,
and industry partners. The series is designed to disseminate
information on how to employ systems thinking to address engineering,
management, and socio-political components of complex challenges.
Soon after a business plan is hatched and long before manufacturing
ramps up, start-ups begin to apply systems design principles to create
their breakthrough products. It turns out that systems engineering, an
art developed and perfected in large organizations, applies just as
well to small entrepreneurial ventures. What can start-ups learn from
the likes of Ford and Boeing? Sorin Grama and Sam White, who launched
Promethean Power Systems just after Grama graduated from SDM, will
discuss how systems thinking shaped their start-up journey and helped
them address social challenges while developing their first product.
Website: http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_112811/webinar-grama-entrepreneurial-ventures.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Engineering Systems Division, MIT System Design and
Management (SDM) Program
For more information, contact:
Lois Slavin
617-253-0812
lslavin at mit.edu
---------------------------
Monday November 28, 2011
8pm
Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge
In Central Square
$5
Featuring Nerd-appropriate tunes by Claude Money
Talk 1. “On the vices and joys of machining at home: Blue collar
aspirations of white collar men.”
by Tom Trikalinos
Talk 2. “What Art Can Tell Us About the Brain”
by Brandon Moore
Contact http://boston.nerdnite.com/
-------------
***********
Upcoming
-------------
***********
OpenCourt: Transparency in the Court
Tuesday, November 29, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2011/11/opencourt#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast
at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.
OpenCourt aims to create a model for judicial transparency in the U.S
as envisioned by our Founders. This Knight News Challenge pilot
project streams live daily coverage and posts it onto the Internet
daily. The inherent tension in this project is between the First and
Sixth Amendments -- the press’ right to free speech and citizens’
rights to a fair trial.
Our streaming and archive videos represent a firehose of information.
How do we increase the value of this raw footage -- by helping people
use it, by contextualizing the content and meta-data such as subject
tags to better organize and increase access to the information gathered.
Other challenges we face are how to scale up beyond a single courtroom
and how to make the project sustainable.
John Davidow, Executive Producer
John Davidow was named WBUR’s executive editor of new media in July
of 2009, where he has overseen the growth of the award-winning
wbur.org. John joined WBUR as news director/managing editor in 2003
after spending more than two decades as a journalist in Boston.
John’s work has been recognized with national and regional awards
from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Associated
Press and UPI. He has also been the recipient of a number of regional
Emmy Awards. Davidow graduated from Tufts University with a
bachelor’s in economics.
Joe Spurr, Director
Joe Spurr is a multimedia journalist and a web developer. Before
coming to WBUR, he was the staff web developer for San Diego’s NPR
station, which he helped completely overhaul in 2009. He pioneered the
station’s adoption of Twitter and Google “My Maps” which
culminated during the 2007 California wildfires, built layered,
interactive maps to help track the drug-related murder surge in
Tijuana, and produced in a roving, three-person skeleton crew from the
DNC and RNC in 2008. Joe is a Boston native, a graduate of
Northeastern University, and a former freelance reporter at the Boston
Globe.
Val Wang, Producer
Val Wang is an experienced writer and multimedia producer who has
worked for Reuters Television, NBC News, and UNICEF in both New York
and Beijing. She has also developed and produced documentaries airing
on PBS, National Geographic Channel, and The History Channel. Val
graduated from Williams College and has an MA from the Writing
Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University. A recent transplant to
Boston, she is excited to get an in-depth look into a unique corner of
the city as well as into our nation’s judicial system.
-------------------------------
Tech Tuesday: Meet the Rockstar Developers of Massachusetts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
5:30 PM to 9:00 PM (ET)
MicroSoft NERD Center, 1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA
MassTLC is hosting the region's colleges and universities for a night
of networking and pizza with the area's hottest developers!
Registration Opens at 5:30pm. The event will start at 6:00pm sharp!
Register at http://1129techtuesday-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=13
Moderator: Vinit Nijhawan, Managing Director, Technology Development
Office and Lecturer School of Management & Director Enterprise
Programs, ITEC, Boston University
Panelists:
Walt Doyle, CEO, WHERE
Eran Egozy, Founder, Harmonix Music Systems
Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder, HubSpot
Jeremy Wertheimer, Founder, ITA Software by Google
We’re kicking off this unique night with a group of powerhouse
developers who have successfully built companies and cool technologies
that have powered a generation. We’ll discover the decisions that
influenced the trajectory of their careers, from an idea through
development, implementation and success. They’ll share their insights
on triumphing and the lessons they learned along the way.
Next, developers from some of the region’s hottest companies will
give a 20 second shout out on the cool technologies they’re working
on and why you should learn more. Students will then get a chance to
network with the developers and visit their demos.
This is a must attend event for students and developers looking to
connect with amazing technology companies in Massachusetts – from
start-ups to well established enterprise – the opportunities for
students in Massachusetts are endless!
Did we mention give aways? We will be giving away two $150 AMEX
giftcards to students only! Details to come
--------------------------
Harvard Fall Freecycle
Wednesday, Nov.30th, 2011
9am-10:30am: drop off items
11am-2pm: browse, take and celebrate
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin, 1st Fl. Lobby, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Freecycle is back! Don’t trash your office leftovers, freecycle
them! File folders, cabinets, printers/cartridges, books, lamps and
other office supplies. Please, NO: TVs, computers, large electronics,
or large furniture. Save big items for Craigslist, the ReuseList or
Harvie.
Please bring items to donate on the day of the event (9-10.30am). All
leftover items will be donated to local charities.
-------------------------------
“Winning the Clean Energy Race”: Dr. Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of
Energy
Wednesday, November 30, 12:00-1:00pm
Morss Hall, Walker Memorial
Registration: www.mitenergyclub.org
Lunch will be served following Secretary Chu's remarks.
The MIT Energy Club and MIT Energy Initiative are pleased to welcome
U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to MIT who will be giving an
address on November 30, 2011 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm EST on "Winning
the Clean Energy Race."
Registration is now open at www.mitenergyclub.org and we highly
encourage you register as soon as possible to guarantee a spot. The
event is open to all MIT personnel, student and faculty from other
neighboring universities, professionals, and other members of the
community.
Speaker Biography
As United States Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu is charged with
helping implement President Obama's ambitious agenda to invest in
clean energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, address the global
climate crisis, and create millions of new jobs.
Dr. Chu is a distinguished scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics (1997). He has devoted his recent scientific career to the
search for new solutions to our energy challenges and stopping global
climate change - a mission he continues with even greater urgency as
Secretary of Energy.
Prior to his appointment, Dr. Chu was the Director of the Department
of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where he led the lab in
pursuit of alternative and renewable energy technologies. He also
taught at the University of California as a Professor of Physics and
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology. Previously, he held positions
at Stanford University and AT&T Bell Laboratories.
--------------------------------
Noam Chomsky: Democracy in America and Abroad
Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 7:00 pm
Tufts University, Cabot Intercultural Center, ASEAN Auditorium, 160
Packard Avenue, Medford
----------------------------------
Smart Grid Webinar Sessions on December 1st
11:00AM EST
12:00PM EST
http://www.virtualenergyforum.com
Attend this complimentary event to learn from leading smart grid
experts. Speakers will discuss DOE smart grid initiatives and share
the latest research on how utilities should articulate the value of
smart grid investments.
US DOE Smart Grid Perspectives & Implementation Experience
The Value of Smarter Energy: Making the Case for Orchestrating the
Network
Dan T. Ton
Program Manager, Smart Grid Research & Development
U.S. Department of Energy
Bridget Meckley
Energy & Utilities Leader
IBM Center for Applied Insights
------------------------------
The Fate of Civic Education in a Connected WorldA "Fred Friendly"
Seminar
Monday, December 5, 6:00 pm
Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, 1515
Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required for those attending in
person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/12/civiceducation#RSVP
Featuring Professor Charles Nesson as Provocateur and Ellen Condliffe
Lagemann (Bard College), Peter Levine (Tufts University), Harry Lewis
(Harvard SEAS), Elizabeth Lynn (Project on Civic Reflection) and Juan
Carlos de Martin (Berkman Center) as participants.
Civic education is the cultivation of knowledge and traits that
sustain democratic self-governance. The broad agreement that civic
education is important disintegrates under close scrutiny. As the
social networks of individuals become less based on geography and more
based on friendships and common interests, consensus on shared civic
values seems harder to achieve. American education is under stress at
every level, and schools and colleges must re-imagine their commitment
to civic education. This seminar will probe tensions that make civic
education difficult, for example:
What's the problem? Doesn't everyone agree that civic education is
important? Is civic education being squeezed out in schools, either
because of the demands of subject testing or the desire to avoid
political controversy?
Does the connectedness of social media support or impair the sorts of
connections that lead to active citizenship?
Every tertiary institution wants to be a "global university." What, if
any, are the civic responsibilities of a global institution? What
civic values are transnational? Should American students learn the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
What about civic education outside of school--for adults, prisoners,
and the home-schooled, for example?
Then there was model UN; now there are online simulations. Do they
achieve the same ends?
Does civic education include instruction in civic activism, using
social media for example?
With connectedness come instantaneity and constant interruptions. Is
it even possible to maintain anyone's attention on understanding
anything as subtle as the complexities of representative government?
This lively, "Fred Friendly" style seminar is timed to coincide with
publication of two edited volumes: Teaching America: The Case for
Civic Education (David Feith, ed.; Rowman & Littlefield), and What is
College For?: The Public Purpose of Higher Education (Ellen Condliffe
Lagemann and Harry Lewis, eds.)
---------------------------
Thursday, December 08 2011
7:00pm reception, program begins at 7:30 pm
1st Parish Unitarian Church, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge
BOSTON AREA SOLAR ENERGY ASSOCIATION Forum:
An Update on Deep Energy Retrofits for Buildings - the Intersection of
Human-Based and Energy Efficient Design
Henry MacLean (Timeless Architecture) & Friends
Contact : http://www.basea.org/
The BASEA forums are held September through May, the second Thursday
of each month, except as noted. The forums are free and open to the
public.
-----------------------------
Friday, December 9, 2011
9:00 am to 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 13th Floor, Boston
Renewable Energy-Related Transmission for New Englanders
Our 126th New England Electric Restructuring Roundtable focuses on
renewable energy-related transmission for New Englanders. Utility-
scale wind, hydro, and even solar must be sited in proximity to the
resource, which is often far from population centers, thus
necessitating the building of new transmission lines. The siting,
cost, and cost allocation related to these lines is often no less
(andsometimes more) controversial than the renewable energy resources
they are built to transmit. At this Roundtable we will explore
numerous, very current, renewable energy-related transmission studies
and proposed projects.
Edward Krapels, CEO, Anbaric Transmission - leading independent
transmission developer's just-announced (11/14) BayState Offshore Wind
Transmission System, to be located 25 miles off-shore Massachusetts to
carry up to 2,000 MW of off-shore wind to the NE Grid
David Whiteley, Executive Director for the Eastern Interconnection
Planning Collaborative (EIPC) - the collaborative scenario planning
analysis currently underway on transmission and renewables for the
entire Eastern Interconnect (comprising 24 RTOs and over 40 states)
Robert Mitchell, CEO, Atlantic Wind Connection - lead developer of
proposed transmission line (20 miles off-shore between New Jersey and
Virginia) to facilitate off-shore wind development (aka Google line)
David H. Boguslawski, VP Transmission Strategy/Operations,Northeast
Utilities - NU/NSTAR proposed Northern Pass Transmission Project to
bring approximately 1,200 MW of mainly hydro power from Québec to New
England thru New Hampshire
Kurt Adams, Executive VP/CDO, First Wind - Wind developer's
perspective on transmission, including potential transmission projects
in Maine
We are working on rounding out the morning with another presentation
on a related and timely topic TBD.
*************
----------------
Opportunity
---------------
*************
Free Solar Panels for Houses of Worship
From a recent Mass Interfaith Power & Light (http://mipandl.org/) email
"We've recently been talking with DCS Energy (http://
www.dcsenergy.com/) who has an unbeatable offer: if your site
qualifies, they design and install the panels at no cost, don't charge
you for any electricity, and donate the system to your house of
worship after five years. Your only costs will be for a building
permit, possibly a structural engineer to verify that your roof can
support their weight, and any preparatory work such as roof work or
tree removal. If solar panels are so expensive how can anyone give
them away for free? First, there is a federal grant program that is
only available until November that pays for 30% of the cost of the
system. Then there is an accelerated depreciation option that gives
certain kinds of investors another tax advantage. Finally, the state
awards a special allowance called a "Solar Renewal Energy
Credit" (SRECs) to owners of solar electricity systems which are sold
at auctions to utilities who buy them to meet their requirements under
the Massachusetts' renewable portfolio standard. DCS is betting that
the price of these SRECs will remain high. Jim Nail, president of MA
IP&L, has talked to DCS Energy and is currently having them prepare a
proposal for his church, St. Dunstan's Episcopal in Dover. Jim says,
"The references I've talked to have been quite positive about the
program and the company has been very responsive. "If you think your
site might qualify, contact Peter Carli, pete at dcsenergy.com, with the
address of your house of worship and your contact information. He'll
take a preliminary look at your site and advise you if it meets their
criteria."
----------------------------------------------------------
Young World Inventors Success!
Young World Inventors (http://yinventors.wordpress.com/) finished
their Kickstarter campaign (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036325713/youngworldinventorscom
) to fund insider web stories of African and American innovators in
collaboration successfully.
New contributions, however, will be accepted.
*********
-----------
Resource
-----------
Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of
Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr
Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming
has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it
as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of
the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious
consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age
group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused
by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and
Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to
believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left
unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge:
What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate
change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-
challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
----------------------------------------------------
The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home
Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy
conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy
Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering,
ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a
practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
--------------------------------------------------
Free Monthly Energy Analysis
CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track
your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while
controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly
email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.
https://www.carbonsalon.com/
---------------------------------------
Boston Food System
"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post
announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships,
programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles
or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's
food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take
place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."
The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food
system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food,
farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health,
environment, arts, social services and other arenas. Hundreds of
organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on
week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let
everyone know about these activities. Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of
subscribers. Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and
other posting guidelines will be provided as well.
It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs
----------------------
Artisan Asylum http://artisansasylum.com/
Sprout & Co: Community Driven Investigations http://thesprouts.org/studios
Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation,
contact jmatthaei at wellesley.edu
------------------------
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
********************************************
-----------------------------------------------------
Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Thanks to
Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the
Boston Area http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
More information about the Act-MA
mailing list