[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events
George Mokray
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Dec 18 20:10:55 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
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Occupy Detroit Occupies an Abandoned Neighborhood
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/16/1046263/-Occupy-Detroit-Occupies-an-Abandoned-Neighborhood
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No Energy (and Other) Events on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve.
Have a Happy X, Merry New, and Bah, Humbug.
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Computational Biases in Decision Making
Monday, December 19
2:00 - 3:00pm
MIT, Building E62-550, 100 Main Street, Cambridge
MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering Seminar
Vanessa Janowski, CalTech
Abstract: Vanessa will discuss two studies focused on computational
biases in decision making and an fMRI study on social decision-making.
The first is an eyetracking study investigating the relationship
between loss aversion and attention: she finds a correlation between
how loss averse subjects are and how long they look at losses vs.
gains when evaluating mixed gambles. In a second study using Mouselab,
she will show how attention influences multi-attribute choice. She
finds that the display of different attributes has a significant
effect on search among those attributes and, ultimately, choice.
Finally, she will present an fMRI study on making decisions for others
vs. ourselves in which she finds overlapping areas of the vmPFC to be
involved in both types of decisions, though decisions for others
appear to be modulated by areas involved in social cognition.
Bio: Vanessa Janowski is completing the final year of a PhD in
Economics at Caltech, with a focus on behavioral and experimental
economics and neuroeconomics. She holds an MSc in Applicable
Mathematics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics
from Yale University.
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Innovations in Clean Water Technology
Tues, Dec 20
6:00PM
Belmont Media Center, 9 Lexington St, Belmont, MA 02478 Phone:
617-484-2443
John H. Lienhard, MIT
Contemporary Science Issues and Innovations
Worldwide, the need for drinkable water is increasing while the supply
is decreasing. In some places water is simply too scarce; but in many
areas there is plenty of water — it’s just not drinkable. Where the
supply is seawater or brackish water, one possible solution is
desalination, the removal of the salt. There has been impressive
progress in this complex technology in recent years. The lab of
Professor John Lienhard at MIT is a world leader in this field and has
developed a number of desalination technologies. Professor Lienhard
discusses these recent advances and how this technology can address
the urgent need for drinkable water as the present natural supply is
rapidly dwindling.
Professor John H. Lienhard V is the Samuel C. Collins Professor of
Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the Associate
Department Head for Education, and Director of the Center for Clean
Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM. Dr. Lienhard is an
international expert on desalination and has received many awards and
honors for his work. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous
professional journals and has also authored two mechanical engineering
text books.
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Upcoming
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Throughout January, MIT hosts the Independent Activities Period where
anyone from a janitor to a professor emeritus can teach a course. It
is designed for the MIT community but, if they ask politely, members
of the public can attend. The full schedule is available at
http://web.mit.edu/iap/
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Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Planet: Meet to network and
discuss the solutions we need to be green & MAKE green!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
6:30 PM
Kingston Station, 25 Kingston St, Boston
http://www.meetup.com/Entrepreneurship-for-a-Sustainable-Planet/events/42665282/
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Sprouts/Microgreens class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education
(CCAE):
Monday, January 9, 6-9 pm
It will cover jar method of sprouting, tray methods of microgreens and
flax/chia, and show some simple raw food recipes.
To register: contact CCAE at 617-547-6789 or via the web.
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The GovData Project Winter Course
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
1:00 PM
MIT Media Lab (new building), 75 Amherst St, Cambridge
Want to:
Help make US Government data open and transparent?
Learn how to organize and visualize massive datasets over the web?
Develop your Python, MongoDB, Solr, GeoDjango, Javascript, and HTML5
skills?
Join a team a high-impact open-source coding project?
Join us for the MIT-Harvard GovData Project Winter Course!
Open to the general data hacker community around Boston
RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/16288633/
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The Socialization and Gamification of Health Behavior Change Apps
January Meeting: Tuesday, January 10
Evening Schedule:
6:30-7 Networking & Socializing over Tea, Coffee, Drinks, Food;
Joining BostonCHI
7-8:30 Meeting
8:30-9 Dessert! ... And more Networking & Socializing
IBM Center for Social Software, 1 Rogers Street, Cambridge
Chris Cartter, General Manager, MeYou Health - the social well-being
company (http://www.meyouhealth.com/)
Please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2607816048 if you
plan to attend. While not required, it helps us and our hosts estimate
how much seating and refreshments to provide. All BostonCHI meetings
are free and open to the public, although we'd appreciate it if you
joined. Annual membership is only $15 / year and helps support our
great speaker series.
Abstract: For decades, health behavior change programs have been fine
tuned to guide participants through goal-driven, step-wise programs,
highly tailored to the individual. Yet, even the best of these
programs yield only modest participation, often heavily incentivized,
hampering their ability to truly impact the public's health.
Meanwhile, the dramatic rise of the social Internet and wildly
successful online social games have transformed the landscape of
what's possible. Facebook, with its 800 million users, creates an
unprecedented social infrastructure developers can use to jump start a
new generation of socially activated behavior change apps. Social
network science can reveal patterns of social connection and
influence, allowing us to create the first generation of health apps
that engage not just an individual, but their real-world social
network. User interaction patterns gleaned from successful games can
be used to design realistic, genuine experiences that engage people in
a personal journey towards well-being, not just a one-time interaction
with an "intervention".
After the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to:
1. Discuss the importance of creating behavior change applications
that leverage the real-world social networks of participants.
2. Explain how "game mechanics" can make the experience of using
behavior change programs more fulfilling.
3. Envision a future where health programs are truly social and
capable of engaging a mass audience in a collective journey towards
greater health and well-being.
Bio: Chris Cartter has worked in the areas of networking
technologies, health and social change for over 25 years. He is
currently General Manager at MeYou Health (MYH), a social well-being
company and Boston-based subsidiary of Healthways (Nasdaq: HWAY).
Before starting MYH in 2009, Chris was Senior Vice President of
Internet Innovation at Healthways. He came to Healthways in 2006
through the acquisition of QuitNet, an online smoking cessation
company where he served as President & CEO from the time the program
was spun out of Boston University (BU) in 2001. For eight years while
at BU, Chris led the development of online services for Join Together,
a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded substance abuse resource
center at the BU School of Public Health. Earlier in his career, Chris
worked for two international NGO's, Oxfam America and Grassroots
International, which he co-founded in 1983.
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Ignite Craft Boston 2: Craft, Community, and 5 Minute Presentations
Friday, January 13th
6:30pm to 9:30pm (doors open at 6:30 and presentations begin at 7:00pm)
32 Vassar Street, room 123, Cambridge, MA 02140
The event is free; however, due to limited space at the venue you must
RSVP at http://ignitecraftboston2-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=17
Ignite Craft Boston 2 is an Ignite event with a crafty crowd. If you
had five minutes on stage to talk about your crafty passion in Boston,
what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated
automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world folks have been
putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
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What is MassChallenge? When can I apply?
January 17, 2012
12pm - 1pm
Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway, 14th Floor, Cambridge, MA
Please join us for an information session and lunch at Cambridge
Innovation Center
Pizza and drinks on us
RSVP at http://mcinfosessioncic117-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=18
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions?
events at masschallenge.org
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Challenges facing renewable energy technologies in 2012: A panel-led
discussion
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
6:00 PM
CIC - (Cambridge Innovation Center) - 5th floor - Havana Conference
Room, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
Initial details to hold the date while we wait for final confirmation
from panelists /speakers. This will be a lively group and panel
discussion of the challenges facing renewable energies in 2012 - more
details to follow as we get confirmations.
RSVP http://www.meetup.com/H2O-Boston-Water-and-Energy-Technology-Meetup/events/43917192/
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Coping with climate change today: Insights from the past
Thursday, January 19, 2012, 7-8:45 pm
Cambridge Main Public Library, Community Room
By any measure, climate change is unprecedented. “The earth that we
knew – the only earth that we ever knew – is gone.” (Bill McKibben,
Eaarth, p. 27)
But the crisis of climate change, the human crisis, is an old one with
many precedents that we can learn from as we confront climate change
in our own lives.
If you are aware that climate change is real and is a looming threat
to our way of life, the conditions that made human civilization
possible, and possibly to human survival then you are confronted with
the choice that defines the crisis:
Should I accept climate change as inevitable, and pursue my own
happiness and profit as things fall apart, or should I join with
others and fight it, even though we must live with the certainty that
we can’t stop it? World War II confronted the French people with more
immediate threats and similar choices. Shortly after the war, in 1947,
Albert Camus, a Frenchman who had fought in the resistance, wrote a
novel about life during the war and reached back to an earlier century
for a precedent to the shock of the Nazi occupation of France. He
found it in an outbreak of The Plague, which he set in a modern city
in North Africa.
We have little living memory of the war that Camus had just
experienced, yet his precise account of the timeless human condition
in crises of the past can help us understand how to respond to today’s
crisis.
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Opportunity
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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."
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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.
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Resource
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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.
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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.
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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/
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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
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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
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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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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