[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events

George Mokray gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Mar 18 15:36:07 PDT 2012


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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Local Food Network:  Cambridge, MA  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/17/1075413/-Local-Food-Network-Cambridge-MA

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Monday, March 19

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Webinar: Addressing the Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand -- A  
Systems Approach

Monday, March 19, 2012

12:00p–1:00p

Location: Virtual -- see url below for registration link.

Speaker: Nicholas A. Ashford, PhD., JD Professor of Technology and  
Policy Director, MIT Technology and Law Program

MIT System Design and Management Program Systems Thinking Webinar Series

This 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.

At present, national and global reforms are focused on improving the  
financial system, which is not synonymous with reforming the economic  
system or improving the economic status of individual citizens. The  
session discusses the root causes of the crisis and offers specific  
policies and initiatives that need to be considered to ensure  
sustainable employment and livelihoods in the context of a well- 
functioning and equitable economic system.

Web site:http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_031912/webinar-ashford-
employment-consumer-demand.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: See url above
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

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Climate Change and New England
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Alan Betts
The climate feedbacks at northern latitudes associated with land- 
atmosphere coupling are driving rapid climate change in New England.  
The winter season is shrinking most rapidly as spring is coming  
earlier and fall later by several days per decade. Adaptation to  
climate change has become a critical issue both for our built  
infrastructure, agriculture and for natural ecosystems.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars

For more information, contact:
Daniela Domeisen
ddaniela at mit.edu

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"Graphene: a novel platform for capturing and manipulating light at  
the nanoscale"
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 4-331, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Dr. Frank Koppens - ICFO - Barcelona, Spain

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/physics/cmt/chezp.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Physics Department
For more information, contact:
Monica Wolf
617-253-4829
mwolf at mit.edu

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The 4th Amendment and the Modern Grid
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
HUCE Seminar Room, 24 Oxford Street 3rd Floor, Cambridge

Environmental Law Society March "Energy Series"
Can police use your meter to find out what you're doing? Listen to  
HLS’s own Sonia McNeil, JD ’12, discuss the complex legal issues that  
come with a smarter, more intrusive electric grid.  She recently  
published on this topic for the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology.

Contact Name:  Sachin Desai
sdesai at jd13.law.harvard.edu

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"Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving  
Human Health and Food Security"
Monday, March 19, 2012 - 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge

with Joel Schwartz, Harvard School of Public Health

Contact Name:  Louisa Lund
louisa_lund at harvard.edu

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Israel & the Arab Spring: Risks and Opportunities
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, Pye Conference Room, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Dr. Ehud Eiran

The historic changes in the Middle-East are bound to affect Israel's  
strategic environment and its relationship with its neighbors, in  
profound ways. These changes create new risks for the Jewish state,  
but also provide it with new opportunities. The talk will explore  
both, as well as some of the possible effects on the internal Israeli  
arena.

Dr. Ehud Eiran is a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of  
International Relations at the University of Haifa, Israel. Eiran held  
research appointments at Harvard and Brandeis Universities and is a  
former assistant to the Foreign Policy Advisor to Israel's Prime  
Minister.

Introduction by Prof. Stephen Van Evera, Ford International Professor  
in the MIT Political Science Department.
Light refreshments will be served.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): MISTI MIT-Israel Program, Center for International  
Studies, Security Studies Program

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"Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving  
Human Health and Food Security"
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge

Joel Schwartz, Harvard School of Public Health

Contact Name:  Louisa Lund
louisa_lund at harvard.edu

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Finding a Drinking Water Supply for Rural Bangladesh that Reduces  
Exposure to both Arsenic and Diarrheal Diseases
WHEN  Mon., Mar. 19, 2012, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE  HSPH Kresge Bldg, 677 Huntington Ave., Room 907 (Epidemiology  
Library), Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Health Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  HSPH Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Center  
for Communicable Disease Dynamics Spring Seminar Series
SPEAKER(S)  Michael Emch, professor, Department of Geography (adjunct,  
Department of Epidemiology), fellow, Carolina Population Center,  
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO  Linda Coventry: lcoventr at hsph.harvard.edu

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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY SPRING LECTURE SERIES: Environmental performance  
simulation - From evaluating performance to suggesting new forms
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue,  
Cambridge

Speaker: Christoph Reinhart, Associate Professor of Building  
Technology, Department of Architecture, MIT
For decades building performance simulation research and tool  
development have focused on producing increasingly reliable numeric  
models which are now capable of predicting the physical performance of  
commonly used building typologies and technologies. With the growing  
use of these tools in practice and education, a new set of  
requirements is emerging. How can we make sure that novice users are  
using the tools accurately? Instead of "just" getting a performance  
evaluation at the end of design, how can we make simulations an  
integral part of the design process itself? This presentation will  
deal with a series of related research projects and classroom  
exercises that demonstrate how integrated daylight and energy  
simulations can act as form-givers for architecture at the building  
and neighborhood scale.

Open to: the general public

Cost: Free

Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, Building Technology Program

For more information, contact:
Alexandra Golledge
253-0463
agoll18 at mit.edu

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How Science Can Contribute to Poverty Alleviation in Africa: Lessons  
from the International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology
WHEN  Mon., Mar. 19, 2012, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
WHERE  Harvard University Center for the Environment Seminar Room, 24  
Oxford Street 3rd Floor, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Environmental Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  Harvard University Center for the Environment;  
the Science Technology and Globalization Program; the Sustainability  
Science Program; and the Center for International Development
SPEAKER(S)  Christian Borgemeister, director general, International  
Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology
CONTACT INFO  Lisa Matthews: matthew at fas.harvard.edu
NOTE  Christian Borgemeister spent time in a variety of developing  
African and Asian countries, and for the past seven years, has  
directed the International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology, an  
independent pan-African research center headquartered in Nairobi,  
Kenya. Its mission is to improve the livelihoods and environments of  
people through the sustainable control of insect pests and disease  
vectors.
LINK  http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2012-03-19/huce-special-seminar

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Incentives, Computation, and Networks in the Era of the Social Web
Mar 19, 2012
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
Maxwell Dworkin G125 (Refreshments at 3:30 outside MD G125)

Yaron Singer , Postdoctoral Researcher at Google

Throughout the past decade the internet has been going through a  
dramatic change.  Developments in web technologies, increasing  
connectivity, and the emergence of online social networks enable  
billions of people to easily create and share content across the web.   
In response to this change, this coming generation of internet  
platforms focuses on optimizing complex objectives while taking input  
from humans and leveraging petabytes of online social interaction  
data.  Incentives, computation, and network effects all play a major  
role in the social era of the internet and their reconciliation  
presents some of its greatest challenges and opportunities.

In this talk we will discuss the principles and applications of  
algorithm design in the era of the social web.  We will first  
introduce a novel framework for combinatorial optimization under  
incentive constraints which enables designing social systems with  
provable guarantees.  After discussing some of the main theoretical  
results in this framework, we will present their application to word- 
of-mouth advertising, information and crowdsourcing markets and give  
experimental evidence to the performance of these systems in  
practice.   We will conclude by discussing several open theoretical  
and practical challenges for designing social systems in this coming  
decade.

Speaker Biography:
Yaron Singer is a postdoctoral researcher at Google. He recently  
obtained his PhD from UC Berkeley where he was advised by Christos  
Papadimitriou, and before that he completed his undergraduate studies  
in Mathematics and Computer Science at Tel Aviv University in 2007. He  
is the recipient of the 2012 Best Student Paper Award at the ACM  
conference on Web Search and Data Mining, the 2010 Facebook  
Fellowship, the 2009 Microsoft Research Fellowship, the 2010 UC  
Berkeley Venture Lab Award, the 2010 UC Berkeley IT&Web Startup  
Competition Award, and a 2010 Qualcomm Innovation Finalist Prize.

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A Review of Ion Transport Membrane Reactors for Hydrocarbon Conversion
Monday, March 19, 2012
4:15p–5:15p
MIT, Building 3-333, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Patrick Kirchen, Mechanical Engineering Department, MIT

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Pat Kirchen is a research scientist in the Reacting Gas Dynamics  
Laboratory at MIT. His research focuses on the application of high  
temperature membranes for low carbon emission power and heat  
generation. Pat earned his doctorate in 2008 from the ETH Zurich,  
Switzerland, where his research focused on exhaust stream and in- 
cylinder diesel engine soot emission measurements and modeling. After  
working as a post-doctoral associate in similar fields at the ETH  
Zurich, he moved to the RGD Lab at MIT in October 2009. He received  
his M.Sc. and B.Sc. from the University of Alberta in Canada.

ABSTRACT
Ion Transport Membrane (ITM) reactors provide a novel technology for  
combining gas separation and reaction, and hold the potential to  
improve the performance of numerous carbon capture oriented  
hydrocarbon conversion processes. At temperatures above ~800C and  
under oxygen chemical potential gradients, ITMs transport oxygen ions  
with a very high selectivity (>99%). This enables them to be a cost  
effective and efficient alternative to conventional, cryogenic air  
separation units used in oxy-combustion carbon capture power plants.  
When a reactive sweep gas is utilized, the resulting ITM reactor  
configuration can provide significantly higher oxygen permeation rates  
compared to non-reactive ITMs, as well as higher conversions and  
product selectivities than traditional co-feed reactors (e.g. for  
syngas production).
In this presentation, a review of the state of the art of ITM systems  
with regard to the fundamentals of ITM reactors, the influence of  
operating conditions on ITM reactor performance, potential  
applications of ITM reactors for low carbon power generation, and the  
major challenges facing ITM development will be discussed. In  
addition, an overview of the ITM based activities at the Reacting Gas  
Dynamics Laboratory will be given, highlighting a novel ITM reactor,  
complimentary ITM reactor simulations, and a concept for ITM based CO2  
capture and reuse.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): RGD Lab

For more information, contact:
Jeff Hanna

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CDD Forum - Shrinking Cities
Monday, March 19, 2012
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Jill Desimini

Jill Desimini is a landscape architect and an Assistant Professor of  
Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of  
Design. Her research focuses on landscape strategies for shrinking  
cities in North America. The work attempts to re-frame the normative  
dialogue surrounding population loss towards a productive outcome.  
Prior to joining the GSD, she was a senior associate at Stoss  
Landscape Urbanism. She holds MLA and MArch degrees from the  
University of Pennsylvania.

The 2012 City Design and Development Forum public lecture series will  
bring to MIT emerging and leading thinkers in disciplines influencing  
the urbanism of shrinking cities, including: landscape, architecture,  
planning, and photography.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, Department of Urban Studies  
and Planning

For more information, contact:
Sandra Elliott
617-253-5115
sandrame at mit.edu

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MUSIC 2.0: TOOLS + TECH FOR MUSICIANS, MARKETERS, AND MANAGERS
3/19/2012
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA  
02142

Description: Boston + New England have an impressive number of  
companies creating tools and technologies to help promote and fund  
music projects. We also have a vibrant and diverse music community.  
Music 2.0 keeps connecting the two for the benefit of both.

With 200+ attendees, at both the 2010 and 2011 events, they were  
terrific evenings, pulling together many of the music, tech, and event  
companies from Greater Boston.

For 2012, we are going to have more music-related companies present,  
quick updates from some companies that presented in years past, and  
more time to meet friends new and old (read: networking!) and a chance  
for companies that are hiring to press the flesh with folks who are  
job hunting.

Music 2.0 is a terrific event for:
Musicians of every genre (rock, hip hop, jazz, folk, classical,  
electronic, opera, etc.)
Marketing folks from venues, arts organizations, etc.
Managers and agents
Investors
Members of the media
Promoters and presenters that work at venues, music organizations, etc.

Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2870380385

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Occupy Boston Nonviolence Working Group on Bayard Rustin's 100th  
Birthday
Monday, March 19
6:00-9
Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston Street, Boston

Please join the OB Nonviolence Working group for an evening of  
community-building, participation, exploration and engagement on  
nonviolence (in honor of
Bayard Rustin's 100th birthday).

The program will be grounded in the history of nonviolent political  
action as well as contemporary issues of theory and organizing.

Clips from a film about Rustin - Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard  
Rustin

Opening remarks from Rustin comrade, Reverend Canon Ed Rodman.

Opportunities for questions and discussion, political exercises and  
activities on non-violence.

Food 6 - 6:30. Program begins at 6:30.

For more information, catherinebhoffman at gmail.com

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A Conversation about Small Group Facilitation
Monday, March 19, 2012
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EDT
Webinar Registration at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/582600926
Join us for a conversation with leaders of Resilience Circles and  
other small groups. Below are some of the topics facilitators have  
suggested we discuss, please add more in the "Questions and Comments"  
box below.

- How to handle strong disagreements (including from co-facilitators)
- How to be a more effective “participant leader”
- How to interrupt when necessary
- Following up on absent members
- When and when not to adhere strictly to an agenda

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Nerd Nite

Monday March 19, 2012

8pm

Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge (In Central Square)

$5

Featuring Nerd-appropriate tunes by Claude Money

Talk 1. “Pan American Music, from Buddy Bolden to Los Rakas.” by Galen  
Moore

Talk 2. “The future of retail… Coming to a store near you”  by Aaron  
Chio

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Tuesday, March 20
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Origins of Japan’s Electric Power and the Fukushima Disaster: A  
Historical Perspective
WHEN  Tue., Mar. 20, 2012, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE  Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge  
Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  Sponsored by the Program on U.S.-Japan  
Relations; co-sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of  
Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S)  Takeo Kikkawa, professor of Japanese business history,  
Hitotsubashi University
COST  Free
CONTACT INFO  xtian at wcfia.harvard.edu
LINK  http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/schedule/schedule.htm

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What can 21st century open government learn from open source, open  
data, open innovation and open journalism?
Tuesday, March 20, 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/2012/03/howard#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast 
  and archived on our site shortly after.

Alexander B. Howard, Gov 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly Media
In the 1990s, the Internet changed communication and commerce forever.  
A decade later, the Web 2.0 revolution created a new disruption,  
enabling hundreds of millions of citizens to publish, share, mix,  
comment, and upload media to a more dynamic online environment. In  
2012, we're now living in the era of big data, where mobile devices  
and a real-time Web are dramatically shift the dynamic between  
governments and the governed. In the years since the first social  
networks went online, the disruption has spread to government,  
creating perceived shifts in power structures as large as those  
enabled by the introduction of the printing press centuries ago. As  
the means of publishing have become democratized and vast amounts of  
data have become available, new possibilities for civic advocates,  
activists, journalists, developers and entrepreneurs have emerged.

The historic events of the last year, from Egypt to #Occupy to the  
SOPA debate, have breathed new life into the idea of open government  
fueled by technology. At the same time, a new spectre of new cutting  
edge surveillance states has arisen, where digital autocracies apply  
filtering, propaganda and tracking technologies to suppress speech,  
distort public opinion and capture or kill dissidents and protestors.  
Life is increasingly reflected and refracted by the cameras and  
screens of ubiquitous smartphones, accompanied by hazy norms around  
privacy, security and identity and Industrial Age laws and regulations  
that appear inadequate to the needs of the moment.

In this talk on the power of platforms, Howard will talk about where  
the principles and technologies that built the Internet and World Wide  
Web are being integrated into government and society -- and by whom.  
These new digital platforms for communication, enabled by highly  
accessible and scalable Web technologies, have reinvigorated the hope  
that collective action can reforge the compact between citizens and  
government.

About Alexander
Alexander is the Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly  
Media, where he writes about the intersection of government, the  
Internet and society, including how technology is being used to help  
citizens, cities, and national governments solve large-scale problems.  
He is an authority on the use of collaborative technology in  
enterprises, social media and digital journalism. He has written and  
reported extensively on open innovation, open data, open source  
software and open government technology.
He has contributed to the National Journal, Forbes, the Huffington  
Post, Govfresh, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, CBS News' What's Trending,  
Govloop, Governing People, the Association for Computer Manufacturing  
and the Atlantic, amongst others. Prior to joining O’Reilly, Mr.  
Howard was the associate editor of SearchCompliance.com and WhatIs.com  
at TechTarget, where he wrote about how the laws and regulations that  
affect information technology are changing, spanning the issues of  
online identity, data protection, risk management, electronic privacy  
and cybersecurity.  He is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville,  
Maine.

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Hiroshima: The Geneva of Asia?
WHEN  Tue., Mar. 20, 2012, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE  CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St, Room S250, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  WCFIA Fellows Program Special Seminar; co- 
sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S)  Osamu Yoshida, professor and chair, Hiroshima University  
Partnership Project for Peace Building and Capacity Development (HiPeC)
LINK  http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/node/7395

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Documentary Film and New Technologies
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E15-070,

Speaker: Gerry Flahive, National Film Board of Canada; Shari Frilot,  
Sundance Film Festival; Patricia Zimmermann, Ithaca College;  
Moderator: William Urricchio, MIT
Emerging digital technologies are opening powerful new ways to create  
and even to reconceptualize the documentary film. How will handheld  
video cameras and ubiquitous open-source computing change the nature  
of documentaries? What are the implications for makers and viewers of  
documentaries of today's unprecedented access to online editing and  
distribution tools, to an ocean of data never before available to the  
general public? These and related questions will be central to our  
discussion. Panelists will include a scholar of digital culture, a  
producer who has begun to exploit emerging technologies, and a  
representative of a newly important specialty of the digital age -- a  
curator of digital artifacts.

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Communications Forum
For more information, contact:
Brad Seawell
617-253-3521
seawell at mit.edu

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Visualizing Science: All In Your Head
Tue. 3/20
6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
MIT Museum, Building N51, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

How do humans recognize and remember images? Can these processes be  
artificially created? Join MIT professors Aude Oliva, James Di Carlo,  
and Antonio Torralba in a dynamic conversation about the intersection  
of vision and cognition in humans and machines.

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Boston New Technology Meetup #BNT15

Tuesday, March 20

6:30

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA

Come learn about 7 innovative and exciting technology products and  
network with the Boston/Cambridge startup community!  Each product  
gets 10 minutes
for presentation, demo and Q&A.  See Idea SuperCollider, @RejoinerApp,
@DynInc, @PointKnown, @GivingSomeThing, @HelpScout and @NUODB.

RSVP: http://bit.ly/bntech15

Sign up to Present: http://bit.ly/BNTdemo

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GreenPort Forum:  How Can We Prepare for Climate-Related Emergencies?
Tuesday, March 20
7:00pm
Cambridgeport Baptist Church, 459 Putnam Avenue, Cambridge

Extreme weather events have escalated in recent years – floods,  
droughts, and storms.  Progressive climate change, rising ocean  
levels, and depletion of basic resources such as land and water make  
future emergencies more and more likely.  We need to find ways as a  
community to prepare for these threats.  Hear about practical steps we  
can take, and share your ideas.  Our panel will include:

Sam Lipson from the Cambridge Public Health Department [invited]
Helen Kobek, community activist and co-leader of Do-It-Ourselves  
workshops
George Mokray, Cambridgeport resident and longtime solar activist

GreenPort envisions and encourages a just and sustainable  
Cambridgeport neighborhood
For more information, contact Steve Wineman at swineman at gis.net

Editorial Comment:  Your editor will be presenting on Solar IS Civil  
Defense:  http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/solar-is-civil-defense-illustrated.html

-----------------------------

Wednesday, March 21

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Silicon-Chip-Based Nonlinear Photonics with Milliwatt Powers

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

11:00a–12:00p

MIT, Building 36-428

Speaker: Prof. Alex Gaeta, Cornell University

Web site: http://www.rle.mit.edu/oqe/seminar/

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Optics & Quantum Electronics Seminar Series

For more information, contact:
Donna Gale
253-8529
dgale at mit.edu

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China Urban Development Discussion Series: Making the Clean Energy  
City in China

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

12:30p–2:00p

MIT, Building 1-190, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Prof. Dennis Frenchman & Prof. Christopher Zegras, MIT  
Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Discussant: Prof. Ralph  
Gakenheimer, MIT DUSP

The Chinese urban landscape is being dramatically transformed through  
rapid urbanization, changing standards of living, and a massive shift  
to private motorized transportation. These changes are inducing cities  
to consume ever more energy in the face of decreasing supplies. The  
speakers present advances from an ongoing research project, focused on  
the city of Jinan, that attempts to confront the Chinese urban energy  
challenge by intervening at the scale of neighborhoods, commercial  
districts, and real estate projects - the fundamental building blocks  
of urban growth. The work takes a life-cycle energy use perspective  
and integrates empirical evidence, urban design studios, and an  
assessment tool, the "Energy Pro-forma", which enables urban designers  
and developers to estimate the net energy use implied in urban  
development proposals. The ultimate goal is to not only help designers  
and developers create more energy efficient urban projects, but also  
to facilitate the creation of new public policies and standards for  
neighborhood energy performance for application at the local and  
national levels.

Please RSVP at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5Y5F8YQ. Complimentary  
lunch will be served at 12:15 pm; talk starts at 12:30 pm and ends by  
2 pm.

Web site: http://dusp.mit.edu/cud/cud_series.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Graduate Student Life Grants, Department of Urban Studies  
and Planning
For more information, contact:
Shan Jiang
shanjang at mit.edu

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How Do We Transform Rocks to Carbonates? CO2 Sequestration and Storage  
in Basalts

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

4:00p–5:00p

MIT, Building 54-915, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Professor Andri Stefansson, Institute of Earth Sciences,  
University of Iceland

EAPS Department Lecture Series

Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/events/lectures

Open to: the general public

Cost: $0.00

Tickets: N/A

Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)

For more information, contact:
Jacqui Taylor
617-253-2127
jtaylor at mit.edu

-------------------------

CDD Forum/Special Lecture - Transformative Terrains: Choosing Places  
for Protest
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Tali Hatuka, Head, Laboratory for Contemporary Urban Design  
(LCUD) Tel-Aviv University

The potentially political role of urban design -- wherein the  
professional is politically complicit -- is currently under scrutiny,  
especially with regard to intensified surveillance and the power of  
built space to affect the construction of a national identity. In this  
presentation I analyze the role of urban space in the act of dissent.  
I look at the ways in which architecture and urban design influence  
the citizen-state relationship, analyzing what they contribute to the  
shape of protests staged in public spaces.

Dr. Tali Hatuka is an architect, urban designer, and the Head of the  
Laboratory of contemporary Urban Design, in the Department of  
Geography and Human Environment at Tel Aviv University. Hatuka works  
primarily on social, planning and architectural issues, focusing on  
the relationships between urban renewal, violence, life in  
contemporary society. Her most recent book is Violent Acts and Urban  
Space in Contemporary Tel Aviv: Revisioning Moments published by the  
University of Texas Press in 2010.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning

For more information, contact:
Sandra Elliott
617-253-5115
sandrame at mit.edu

-------------------------

The Role of Scientists in Shaping the American Response to Climate  
Change: Experiments and Lessons Learned

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6:30pm
Harvard Medical School, Tosteson Medical Education Center, 260  
Longwood Ave, Boston
Peter C. Frumhoff is the director of science and policy at the Union  
of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and chief scientist of the UCS Climate  
Campaign. There, he guides organization-wide initiatives to bring  
robust science to bear on strengthening public policies, with a  
particular focus on climate change.

A global change ecologist, he has published and lectured widely on  
topics including climate change impacts, climate science and policy,  
tropical forest conservation and management, and biological diversity.  
He is a lead author of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the  
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the 2000 IPCC  
Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry, and the  
Chair of the 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA). He  
serves on the Board of Directors of the American Wind Wildlife  
Institute and is a member of the Harvard University Center for the  
Environment.

Dr. Frumhoff has taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at  
Tufts University, Harvard University and the University of Maryland.  
He also served as an AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow at the U.S.  
Agency for International Development, where he designed and led  
conservation and rural development programs in Latin America and East  
Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and an M.A. in Zoology from the  
University of California, Davis and a B.A. in Psychology from the  
University of California, San Diego.

--------------------------

Social Media and Networks – Bridging the World Together One Click at a  
Time

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Northeastern Alumni Center, 716 Columbus Avenue, 6th Floor, Boston


Recently, online social networking sites have exploded in popularity.   
What makes them so popular? In this lecture, Professor Alan Mislove  
will provide an overview of his recent research about social media  
sites and networks and how they bring people together, as well as the  
sociological impact they have on society.

Speaker:  Alan Mislove, Assistant Professor, College of Computer and  
Information Science

--------------------------
Deng Xioaping and the Transformation of China
Wednesday, March 21
7 pm
First Parish Church, 3 Church Street, Cambridge
Harvard  China scholar Ezra Vogel discusses his highly acclaimed  
biography of transformational Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.  How did  
Deng succeed  in finding a path to make China a wealthy and powerful  
member of the international community?  What personal and cultural  
factors contributed to his success?  What obstacles did he face?  How  
did Vogel go about researching and writing this masterful study of  
Deng’s life and legacy?

http://www.cambridgeforum.org/

------------------------

Thursday, March 22

-----------------------

City Week Panel: Strengthening Cities Through Experiential Learning
WHEN  Thu., Mar. 22, 2012, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE  Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, Harvard Kennedy School
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Business, Education, Humanities, Lecture,  
Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business &  
Government and the Office of Career Advancement
SPEAKER(S)  Panelists include: Susan Crawford, HKS Visiting Stanton  
Professor of the First Amendment; Carolyn Wood, assistant academic  
dean and SLATE director; Jennifer Nash, M-RCBG associate director;  
James Solomon and Kendra Bradner, organizers of the Community  
Development Project, a student group working on economic development  
projects in underserved areas
CONTACT INFO  Please RSVP to mrcbg at ksg.harvard.edu

-------------------------------
Energy 101 : The UN Framework for Climate Change
Thursday, March 22, 2012
12:30p–1:30p
MIT, Building 66-144

Speaker: Louise Yeung
Energy 101 lectures series
The Energy 101 lectures aim at providing basic understanding on  
various topics in the energy field.

Climate change is regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing  
today's society, requiring science, engineering, political will, and  
cooperation across national boundaries. The UN Framework Convention on  
Climate Change serves as the primary international forum for countries  
to address global climate change, but after 18 years, it has only  
yielded incremental progress. Coming out of the most recent  
negotiations in Durban, South Africa, this talk will discuss the  
implications of Durban outcomes, barriers toward international  
agreement, and the role of non-state actors in pursuing climate action.

Open to: the general public

Cost: Free

Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club

For more information, contact:
Aziz Abdellahi (MIT Energy Club)
aziz_a at mit.edu

-------------------------

A conversation with Julie Brill, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Thursday, March 22
6:00 pm
Wasserstein Hall Room 1015, Harvard Law School
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2012/03/brill#RSVP
John Palfrey of the Berkman Center will engage Commissioner Julie  
Brill on the Federal Trade Commission’s policy and enforcement  
initiatives in the area of online privacy and data security.  Every  
day we hear about privacy issues surrounding Facebook, Google, mobile  
apps, smartphones, Big Data and data brokers. Learn about the Federal  
Trade Commission’s efforts to protect consumers in this area.

About Commissioner Brill
Julie Brill was sworn in as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade  
Commission April 6, 2010, to a term that expires on September 25, 2016.

Since joining the Commission, Ms. Brill has worked actively on issues  
most affecting today’s consumers, including protecting consumers’  
privacy, encouraging appropriate advertising substantiation, guarding  
consumers from financial fraud, and maintaining competition in  
industries involving high tech and health care.

Before she became a Commissioner, Ms. Brill was the Senior Deputy  
Attorney General and Chief of Consumer Protection and Antitrust for  
the North Carolina Department of Justice, a position she held from  
February 2009 to April 2010. Commissioner Brill has also been a  
Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University’s School of Law. Prior to her  
move to the North Carolina Department of Justice, Commissioner Brill  
was an Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Protection and  
Antitrust for the State of Vermont for over 20 years, from 1988 to 2009.

Commissioner Brill has received several national awards for her work  
protecting consumers. She has testified before Congress, published  
numerous articles, and served on many national expert panels focused  
on consumer protection issues such as pharmaceuticals, privacy, credit  
reporting, data security breaches, and tobacco. Commissioner Brill has  
also served as a Vice-Chair of the Consumer Protection Committee of  
the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association.

Prior to her career in law enforcement, Commissioner Brill was an  
associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York from  
1987 to 1988. She clerked for Vermont Federal District Court Judge  
Franklin S. Billings, Jr. from 1985 to 1986. Commissioner Brill  
graduated, magna cum laude, from Princeton University, and from New  
York University School of Law, where she had a Root-Tilden Scholarship  
for her commitment to public service.

Commissioner Brill is married to Mark Miller, and has two sons.

About John Palfrey
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.

-----------------------------

Open by Any Means: How Sunlight's Open State Project Hacked for  
Democracy
Thursday, March 22, 2012
7:00 PM
Boston Globe, 135 Morrissey Blvd., Dorchester

Knowing how your state legislator is voting - and what they're voting  
on - seems a fairly basic requirement for a functional democracy.  
Strangely enough, however, this information is often buried on state  
congressional websites, tied up in unsearchable PDFs or layered deep  
within an unnavigable subsection of the net.

The Sunlight Foundation's Open State Project has started changing all  
that, by parsing almost every state's available data and breaking it  
down into a consistent, open and usable format, allowing greater  
transparency and accessibility into data on votes, bill schedules,  
committees and more.

James Turk, the head of the Open State Project (OpenStates.org) and  
the Sunlight Foundation's new Boston satellite office, will explain  
how and why the Open State Project was conceived, what sort of  
feasibility testing Sunlight did, and will help explore how you can  
take the lessons he's learned back into your own civic or journalistic  
projects, from the grunt work of code scraping to energizing and  
coordinating an active volunteer base.

Also come and share your own projects, hacks and questions as this  
joint meet up of Hacks/Hackers and Boston Sunlight Foundation  
brainstorms what could be the next big innovation in data wrangling.

Also: The usual free cookies and coffee!

RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/50334062/?eventId=50334062&action=detail
--------------------
Friday, March 23
-------------------
#OccupyData Hackathon 2: Data Visualization for the 99%!

OccupyResearch, DataCenter, R-Shief.org, and the MIT Center for Civic  
Media are excited to announce OccupyData Hackathon Round II! Join us  
at the locations below or organize your own.

When: March 23-24, 2012

Where: Cambridge | Los Angeles | San Francisco | Oakland | Utrech |  
NYC | CyBeRspace |irc.lc.freenode/occupydata | SIGN UP HERE:  http://bit.ly/occupydatavizmarchhackathon 
  | *ADD YOUR LOCATION*

What:

#OccupyData Hackathon 1 brought you visualizations of 13 million  
occupy tweets (see summaries by OccupyResearch, R-Shief, Fast Company,  
and Utrecht University). People participated from Utrech, LA, Boston,  
NY, and Spain.

#OccupyData Hackathon 2 builds on the demos and tools from the first  
round, and turns our collaborative energy on visualizing the 5000+  
responses to the OccupyResearch General Demographics and Participation  
Survey (ORGS), R-Shief Twitter #occupy tags aggregated since September  
2011, and Occupy Oakland Serves the People survey, as well as other  
datasets people might want to explore. This event is not only for  
hackers or coders, but for anyone who’s interested. Bring your ideas,  
skills, creativity, questions and critical perspectives as we explore  
occupy datasets using free and open source tools and software. We’ll  
make connections from one place to another – open to all participants!  
The model is for people to arrange local venues for f2f meetups, work  
locally, and share/collaborate real time via skype/chat/twitter/google  
docs and etherpads, etc. If you can’t make it to one of the physical  
locations, you can still join in remotely.

How: Sign up here to a particular location! Or organize a local space  
and add it to the list.

Location Details: http://bit.ly/occupydatavizmarchhackathon

More info and coordination: http://bit.ly/occupyhackathon

-------------------------
Currencies, a dis/Conference
Harvard University
March 23, 2012

12n-5p

Harvard, Northwest Labs Basement, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Currencies are telling of our current time. Debt, labor,  
commodification, ownership, and consumerism structure and characterize  
contemporary life and academia. From the monetization and protection  
of intellectual property to the debts that students accrue, from the  
exploitation of adjunct labor to the re-productions of class lines,  
this dis/Conference seeks critical engagement with what has currency  
and what serves as currency in education and life today.

In contrast to traditional conference formats, this dis/Conference  
seeks to facilitate open, horizontal education through substantive  
knowledge sharing, inquiry, critique, and discussion. Together with  
David Graeber <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/books/review/anarchist-anthropology.html 
 >
- anarchist <http://newleftreview.org/A2368>, occupier <http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/david-graeber-on-playing-by-the-rules-%E2%80%93-the-strange-success-of-occupy-wall-street.html 
 >, and anthropologist <http://books.google.com/books/about/Toward_an_anthropological_theory_of_valu.html?id=uo8tttilAlQC 
 > - we will engage the economies of academia by subverting its  
dominant forms of knowledge production. In the process, we will  
participate in the purposeful creation of an alternative model for  
scholarly engagement, beyond mere discussion. Under this model, our  
primary resources will be ourselves. Everyone - inside or outside of  
academia - is welcome.
*
/We invite you to take an active role in shaping and leading this
dis/Conference/*/. /

Register at http://www.currenciesdisconference.info/

----------------------------

Earthsickness: Circumnavigation and the Origins of Planetary  
Consciousness
Friday, March 23, 2012
2:30p–4:30p
MIT, Building E51-095

Speaker: Joyce Chaplin, Department of History, Harvard University
Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History

Web site:http://web.mit.edu/history/www/nande/modTimes%202011-2012.html

Open to: the general public

Cost: Free

Sponsor(s): History Office

For more information, contact:
Margo Collett
253-4965
history-info at mit.edu

-------------------------

Greenpeace in China: The Emergence of Autonomous Civil Society in  
Authoritarian Regimes
WHEN  Fri., Mar. 23, 2012, 4:15 – 6 p.m.
WHERE  CGIS North, Room K262, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  Fairbank Center Chinese Politics and Foreign  
Policy Workshop
SPEAKER(S)  Jessica C. Teets, Middlebury College
COST  Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO  lkluz at fas.harvard.edu
NOTE  Professor Teets examines the rapid emergence of civil society in  
China and contends that after two decades of experience with  
autonomous civil society groups, local officials have learned the  
governance benefits offered by civil society. Gradually their  
relationship with these groups has transformed from corporatism to  
“consultative authoritarianism.”
LINK  http://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/node/6370/edit?destination=node%2F6370

-----------------------
Saturday, March 24
-----------------------

Boston Baseball Hack Day
Saturday, March 24, 2012
8:30 AM
Boston Globe, 135 Morrissey Blvd., Dorchester

Are you a web developer, designer or a hack programmer who is  
interested in baseball?
Or a passionate baseball fan with ideas? Boston Baseball Hack Day is a  
one-day hacking event where area baseball geeks come together, form a  
team, and collaborate to create baseball-related Web Apps, Websites,  
Data Visualizations, etc. and bring an idea to life.
Register now to attend. (Pls RSVP on this site as well, but you need  
to register so we get an accurate count.)
It is also a great to place to network and socialize among like-minded  
people. At the end of the day, projects will be judged by area  
experts, and a brief awards ceremony will conclude the event.

Our distinguished panel of judges:
Ben Fry
An information designer Ben is principal of Fathom, a design and  
software consultancy in Boston. He is a co-developer of Processing, an  
open source programming environment for teaching computational design  
and sketching interactive media software. He is the author of  
Visualizing Data published by O'Reilly. In 2007, Casey Reas and Ben  
published Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and  
Artists with MIT Press, and in 2010, they published Getting Started  
with Processing with O'Reilly. Read Ben's interview with Slate. Follow  
him: @ben_fry
Andy Andres
Andy, a professor at Boston University, teaches Sabermetrics 101 at  
Tufts University and MIT's Science of Baseball summer program. He also  
works as Fenway Park Datacaster/Stringer for mlb.com and MLBAM  
(Gameday), and writes columns for BaseballHQ.com. Read an article  
about him in BU's Collegian. Follow him: @sabermetrics101
Matt Pepin
Matt is sports editor at Boston.com and directs the online  
presentation of Boston sports news and features created by Boston.com  
producers and Globe sports reporters. He has been with Boston.com  
since 2009. Prior to that, he was sports editor at the Times Herald- 
Record and Varsity845.com in Middletown, N.Y., and sports editor at  
the New Haven Register in Connecticut. Follow him: @mattpep15
New to hack days? No need to fear. There’ll be people of all skill  
levels and skill sets participating. And here are some resources to  
get you prepared. Baseball Hack Day is free to attend, thanks to our  
sponsor, The Boston Globe, but registration is required. So register  
now.
Schedule:
SCHEDULE:
* 8:30-9:00 Registration, meet and greet, and coffee.
* 9:00-9:30 Welcome, introductions, and pitch
* 9:30-5:30 Code! (Lunch will be served)
* 5:30-6:00 Presentation, judging and awards
* 6:30 optional beer social -- location to be decided later.
You need to bring a lap top computer, power strip and your ideas and  
skills.

RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/52425952/?a=me1.1p_grp&eventId=52425952&action=detail&rv=me1.1p&rv=me1.1p

----------------------
Monday, March 26
---------------------

Rebuilding Japan after Fukushima
WHEN  Mon., Mar. 26, 2012, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE  Tsai Auditorium (S010), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse,  
CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION  Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR  Sponsored by the Program on U.S.-Japan  
Relations; co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S)  Yoichi Funabashi, president, Rebuild Japan Initiative  
Foundation, and editor-in-chief, Asahi Shimbun (2007-10)
COST  Free
CONTACT INFO  xtian at wcfia.harvard.edu

-----------------------

Wrongful Convictions
Monday, March 26
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Austin Hall, North Classroom, Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts  
Ave., Cambridge, MA

Johnnie Lee Savory entered prison at age 14 and left 30 years later  
for a crime he didn't commit.

A panel discussion featuring:
Johnnie Lee Savory
David Meier, former Suffolk County District
Attorney Dennis Harris, BPD Detective
Moderated by Judge Nancy Gertner

Co-sponsored by: Prison Legal Assistance Project, HKS Program in  
Criminal Justice Policy and Management, Office of Clinical and Pro  
Bono Programs, and Criminal Justice Institute
Free and open to the public. Dinner will be served.
*RSVP* to Jeanne Segil jsegil at jd14.law.harvard.edu
<mailto:jsegil at jd14.law.harvard.edu>

***********
-------------

Upcoming

-------------
***********

Currencies dis/Conference
Harvard University
March 23, 2012
12n-5p

Currencies are telling of our current time. Debt, labor,  
commodification, ownership, and consumerism structure and characterize  
contemporary life and academia. From the monetization and protection  
of intellectual property to the debts that students accrue, from the  
exploitation of adjunct labor to the re-productions of class lines,  
this dis/Conference seeks critical engagement with what has currency  
and what serves as currency in education and life today.

In contrast to traditional conference formats, this dis/Conference  
seeks to facilitate open, horizontal education through substantive  
knowledge sharing, inquiry, critique, and discussion. Together with  
David Graeber, anarchist, and anthropologist - we will engage the  
economies of academia by subverting its dominant forms of knowledge  
production. In the process, we will participate in the purposeful  
creation of an alternative model for scholarly engagement, beyond mere  
discussion. Under this model, our primary resources will be ourselves.  
Everyone - inside or outside of academia - is welcome.

We invite you to take an active role in shaping and leading this dis/ 
Conference.
Register at http://www.currenciesdisconference.info/

--------------------------------

Weatherization barnraising at
St. John /St. James Church
Saturday, March 24th, 9 am to 1 pm
149 Roxbury Street, Roxbury

This beautiful historic church's heating bill is over $30,000 per year  
and there are only 50 people in the congregation.

Help the congregation lower these crippling bills.  (HEET is also  
advising the church in how to get rebated or free professional work to  
lower the energy bills a lot further).

Sign up at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpieXVLWnczbTRIMDViWjVfdXVRblE6MQ 
#gid=0

-------------------------------

Lecture and Meeting with Bill McKibben
Sunday, 25 March, 2012
03:00 PM - 06:00 PM
The Congregational Church of Weston, Weston

The Environmental Action Group of The Congregational Church of Weston,  
UCC, will be hosting its annual Harnish Lecture, and we're pleased to  
announce that we have secured a very exciting speaker, Bill McKibben.   
He will be speaking at the Weston High School on 3/25/2012 at 3pm. As  
one of the nation's leading environmental activists, Bill will be  
sharing his thoughts about ways to shape the public debate about  
climate change and to influence energy and environmental policy at all  
levels of government.

Immediately following his lecture, we will be holding a "Forum" where  
members of various environmental action groups from MetroWest will  
have a chance to sit down with Bill and discuss ways we can all work  
together to be most effective at influencing policy. We would like to  
invite one to two delegates from your organization to participate in  
this forum on your behalf. Please RSVP with the name(s) of these  
delegates by March 9 to skuhrccw at comcast.net, to help us plan the most  
meaningful event. We hope that this forum will generate new and  
exciting strategies for working together to create a more sustainable  
environment for our children and grandchildren. We look forward to  
working together with you in this endeavor.

PS: Please find and 'like' us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/CCW-Environmental-Action-Group/325395654165705 
  for more information and updates as the date approaches.

Contact  skuhrccw at comcast.net

----------------------------

Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents
Strategery:  SNL’s Remarkable Influence Over Politics Through Satire
the Annual Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award presented  
to James Downey
with moderator Bill Murray

Tuesday, March 27, 6:30-8:00 pm
C. Walsh Theater at Suffolk University, 55 Temple Street, Boston

preceded by a special First Amendment Award Reception, fundraiser held  
from 4:00-5:30 pm at the
Offices of Prince Lobel Tye LLP (Boston, MA 02114) , MA. Wheelchair  
accessible and conveniently located near the Park St. MBTA Station.  
For more information, contact Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University:  
617-557-2007, http://www.fordhallforum.org.

----------------------------

Health care and workplace safety advocates, environmental activists,  
residents, patients, concerned neighbors:

Please be advised of the upcoming air quality forum at the Dorchester  
House Multi-Service Center. Updated flyer & release linked. Forward  
widely!

Harvard's NIEHS Center for Environmental Health will hold "Change in  
the Air," a forum on Asthma and Air Quality in Boston on the evening of
Wednesday, March 28.
6:15 - 7:30 p.m.
Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, 1353 Dorchester Avenue,  
Dorchester
National Environmental Health Official Linda Birnbaum, PhD will join  
local panelists (including Dorchester's Parent Leader Mary White) in a  
conversation with guests to discuss the complex picture of issues and  
policies that impact asthma rates and clean air. *Your input could  
help shape the priorities for future projects in your area*. Check out  
an (updated) forum flyer<http://www.greendorchester.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NIEHS-Forum-Flyer-Sm.png 
 >
or
view the press release<http://www.greendorchester.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NIEHS-Forum-PR.pdf 
 >
.

The forum will run as a moderated dialogue between the panelists and  
members of the community. No presentations, no lectures. Bring your  
questions and ideas. All are welcome to participate! Vietnamese,  
Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole translations will be available.  
Light refreshments will be provided.
More on panelists here & in materials:
http://www.greendorchester.org/change-in-the-air-mar-28/. (Flyer and
release can also be found there).

Please direct any questions to Ann Backus, abackus at hsph.harvard.edu,  
603-361-2141 or Kathryn Terrell, KTERRELL at hsph.harvard.edu.

<http://greendorchester.org/>
(formerly The Dorchester Environmental Health Coalition (DEHC))
www.greendorchester.org
Facebook.com/DotEnviro <http://facebook.com/DotEnviro>
Twitter: @DotEnviro <http://twitter.com/#!/dotenviro>

----------------------------

The Green Streets Initiative, Cambridge Energy Alliance & Cambridge  
Local First cordially invite you to our
March Green Drinks Celebration

Join us on the Wednesday night before Walk/Ride Day for some  
beverages, complimentary appetizers and green trivia at Area IV. We'll  
be giving away fun prizes and picking your brain for all of your  
environmental and local smarts.

While you're there, be sure to ask about and sign up for the Green  
Streets Initiative Walk/Ride Day Corporate Challenge!

When: Wednesday, March 28, 6:30-8:30 PM
Where: Area IV, 500 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139
Who: The Green Streets Initiative, Cambridge Local First and more

RSVP at http://marchgreendrinks-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=35

-----------------------------

"New Economy" Film Series: Economics of Happiness
March 29
7 - 9 PM
Nate Smith House, 155 Lamartine St, JP
The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in  
two opposing directions. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of  
governments and big business continues to promote globalization and  
the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all  
over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation  
of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power,  
they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are  
coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies  
based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

-----------------------------

Babson's 6th Annual Energy, Environment and Entrepreneurship Conference
March 30th, 2012

This year’s theme is “Energy, Environment & Entrepreneurship:  
Challenging Assumptions, Changing Perceptions.”  We believe there are  
some tough questions to be addressed and our panels are designed  
around real challenges and exciting opportunities in energy,  
alternative transportation, sustainable development, and several other  
topics within the energy and environmental space.
We have two exciting key note speakers:
Mark Rodgers - Director of Communications, Cape Wind
T.I. (Tahmid) Mizan, Senior Technology Planning Advisor, ExxonMobil  
Corporation

More information on our strong list of speakers and event details can  
be found at http://babsonenergy.com/
Early bird ticket pricing ends on March 5

---------------------------------

Wild and Scenic Film Festival EcoFest

March 31st, 11 AM-4 PM
290 Congress Street, Boston

The national Wild and Scenic Film Festival tour is coming to Boston,  
beginning with EcoFest, an afternoon of films and environmental  
activities at Atlantic Wharf in Fort Point. The Wild and Scenic Film  
Festival combines stellar filmmaking, beautiful cinematography and  
first-rate storytelling. The event will include international short  
films, puppet-making, a kids’ matinee at 11 AM, environmental  
activities, an eco-marketplace, and a cinematic tribute to Kenyan  
Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Be prepared to be inspired!

Admission to EcoFest is free. Admission to the films is $5, payable  
online or at the door. More information about the program, including  
tickets and the complete film lineup, is posted on the “e” inc.
website, http://www.e-action.us/, and on the Facebook page for the  
event - https://www.facebook.com/events/244742755593954/.

This festival is a fundraiser for “e” inc., an environment science  
learning and action center whose pairing of science education with  
community action leads to environmental change in urban communities.

******************************************

The Finale: Locavore Tasting and Environmental Film Night

March 31st, 6-10 PM
290 Congress Street, Boston

A fundraising locavore tasting supper for “e” inc. will offer  
delicious local food samples from Boston vendors such as Cabot  
Creamery, Green Gal Catering, and Channel Café.

This will be followed by two films – With My Own Two Wheels and The  
Work of 1000.  “e” inc. will present The Children’s Planet Protector  
Award to the two featured activists, Marion Stoddart, who led the  
struggle to regain clean rivers, and David Branigan, who used the life- 
changing value of bicycles to create opportunities in Ghana.  After  
the films, the activists and filmmakers will answer audience  
questions. A silent auction and dessert will round out the evening.

Early bird admission discounts are available. Boston Globe subscribers  
can receive a Globe-sponsored discounted admission. To reserve your  
seats, please visithttp://www.e-action.us/. More information about the  
program is posted at http://www.e-action.us/ and on the Facebook event  
page -https://www.facebook.com/events/244742755593954/.

“e” inc. is an environment science learning and action center whose  
pairing of science education with community action leads to  
environmental change in urban communities.

----------------------------------

It is with a sense of gratitude and deep joy that we announce the Art  
and Soul program at Wellesley College will be hosting three of the 13  
Indigenous Grandmothers this spring.  The Grandmothers will give a  
talk at Houghton Chapel on Thursday, April nineteenth at seven p.m.  
The theme of their talk will be Planting Seeds for Seven Generations:   
Making Change.  The Grandmothers will share their cultural treasures  
and life experience, in support of our community’s exploration of an  
ethics of wholeness, which can bring about a sustainable future for  
the generations to come.

Originating from all four corners of the world, these 13 wise women  
elders and medicine women first came together in 2004 at a peace  
gathering. They represent a global alliance of prayer, education and  
healing for our Earth, all her inhabitants and the next seven  
generations. We are honored to host, as representatives of this  
Grandmothers’ Council, Grandmothers Rita and Beatrice Long- Visitor  
Holy Dance of the Lakota tribe and Grandmother Mona Polacca of the  
Hopi/ Havasupai/Tewa tribe. This event is open to all, as an offering  
to our circles of community.  For more information about this event,  
contact Ji Hyang at 781.283.2793

---------------------------------

Saturday, April 21st
9-12noon
for our first 2012 cleanup of Magazine Beach, Cambridge. This will be  
part of the much larger 13th Annual Earth Day Charles River Cleanup,  
organized by the Charles River Watershed Association, Charles River  
Conservancy, etc., etc.

If you would like an official Earth Day Cleanup t-shirt to wear that  
day, please e-mail me your name, phone number and t-shirt size by this  
Sunday, March 11th. Large youth shirts are available and adult shirts  
in small, medium, large and extra large.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Shirts will be available, with  
drinks and refreshments, at our table in front of the Riverside Boat  
Club 4/21.

Cathie (Zusy)
Questions? Call 617-868-0489

-------------------------------

Weatherization barnraising at
The Friends Meeting House
Sunday, April 22nd  from 1 to 5 pm
5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge

What a great way to celebrate Earth Day. You will be taught how to do  
the work by experienced team leaders, while you learn how to lower  
your own bills at home.

Sign up at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDRNLV9xOC00SVllOGdLd1dYdzMxU0E6MQ 
#gid=0


*************
----------------

Opportunity

---------------
*************

CEA Solar Hot Water Grants
Cambridge, through the Cambridge Energy Alliance initiative, is  
offering a limited number of grants to residents and businesses for  
solar hot water systems.  The grants will cover 50% of the remaining  
out of pocket costs of the system after other incentives, up to $2,000.

Applications will be accepted up to November 19, 2012 and are  
available on a first come, first serve basis until funding runs out.   
The Cambridge grant will complement other incentives including the  
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center solar thermal grants.  For more  
information, see http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/resources/additional-resources/solar-hot-water-grant-program

-----------------------

Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images

Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by  
having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera?   
With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more  
comfortable and less expensive to heat.  However, at $200 or so, the  
cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.

HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer  
Cambridge residents free thermal scans.

Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a  
hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras.  They will scan every  
building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or  
buildings or on a private way).  Building owners can view thermal  
images of their property and an analysis online. The information is  
password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.

Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images  
and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building  
owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their  
images and analysis for a small fee.

The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.

Go to Sagewell.com.  Type in your address at the bottom where it says  
"Find your home or building" and press return.  Then click on "Here"  
to request the report.

That's it.  When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will  
be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help  
you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to  
do about it.

With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money,  
not to mention comfort).

---------------------

Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ

-----------------------

HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor  
Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to  
Cambridge residents.

During the assessment, the energy specialist will:

Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass  
Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on  
your energy bills.  You might as well use the service.

Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or  
call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729.  A Next Step Living  
Representative will call to schedule your assessment.

HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the  
services and rebates possible.

(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home  
Energy Assessment.  We won’t keep the data or sell it.)

(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call  
HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)


*********
-----------

Resource

-----------

Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide

SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green  
Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!

To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for  
sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha at sbnboston.org

--------------------------------------------------

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

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/

Arts and Cultural Events List  http://aacel.blogspot.com/

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/



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