[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events - March 10, 2013
George Mokray
gmoke at world.std.com
Sun Mar 10 13:32:47 PDT 2013
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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Event Index - full Event Details available below the Index
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Monday, March 11
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10am "Forest fire emissions and their effects on tropospheric ozone in the Arctic: uncertainties and sensitivities"
12pm The Crises In Employment, Consumption, Economic Growth, and the Environment: Could a Shorter Workweek and a Greener Economy Provide Relief?
12pm “Open Source Science and Social Science: Forming a Public Laboratory”
12pm "Using Feed-in Tariffs to Foster the Development and Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies - Lessons from the Case of Solar Photovoltaic Power in Germany"
12pm MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar Series (MASS)
12pm "The Role of Civil Society, Companies, Governments, and the Academy in the Promotion of Sustainable Development"
12pm Energy 101: "Wind - Introduction to Wind Power"
12:30pm "Approach to Net Zero": Building Technology Lecture Series
12:30pm "Emergence of a Post-South World? Evidence from the Climate Regime"
12:30pm Japan’s 2011 Disasters Remembered
4pm Fast learning algorithms for discovering the hidden structure in data
4pm “All Things Considered” Considered with NPR’s Melissa Block
4:15pm Terrorism as a Political Modernism
4:15pm Chinese Energy Investments in North America and China’s Response to Iran Sanctions
7pm The Boston Wikipedia Meetup Group Monthly Meetup
7pm The Environmental Crisis and Capitalism
7pm I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You
8pm A Public Address by The Honorable Eric Cantor
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Tuesday, March 12
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12pm "The Liberal Case for Deficit Reduction."
12:30pm N=billions: The smartphone revolution in the behavioral sciences
4pm Highly Agile and Robust Robotic Bipedal Locomotion
4pm A Deep Dive into Congressional Elections: 2012, 2013, and Beyond
4pm Communications in the War on Terror
4pm From memory to inspiration: A remembrance of Aaron Swartz
5pm Marketing of Frugal Products
6pm Boston Composts!
6pm The Central Park Five: Film Screening & Discussion
6:30pm Cooperative Networking Night
Wednesday, March 13
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7am MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Dr. Johannes Fruehauf, Founding Executive Director of LabCentral
12pm Turkey and the Arab Spring: Challenges and Opportunities
12pm "Material Challenges for Clean Electric Vehicle Applications"
12pm Rewards, Badges, and Incentives
1pm The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe
4pm A Portfolio of Energy Solutions for America and the World: How One Corporate Leader Signed Up for the Battle to Change the Energy Landscape
4:30pm China's Energy Challenges
4:30pm Starr Forum- The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
5pm Music and Theater Arts Composer Forum presents Don Byron, MIT Visiting Artist
6pm Mass Innovation Night
7pm Urban Films: Detropia (2012)
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Thursday, March 14
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12:40pm BBC World Service Broadcast with Joi Ito
1pm NEXT MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CREATIVE ECONOMY COUNCIL
4pm America's Changing Face - and Changing Politics
4:30pm Connectomics: What, Why and How
5:30pm Farm Share Fair
6pm Beyond 3.11
7pm Anime Screening - Wolf Children - with Director Mamoru Hosoda
7:15pm "Future of Computation: New Areas of Application and Challenges"
7:30pm Forks Over Knives
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Friday, March 15
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11am "Wind - Introduction to Wind Power"
11am Harvard Freecycle
2pm MacVicar Day 2013 - Reimagining the MIT Classroom: Experiments with Digital Learning
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Monday, March 18
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12pm “Building Social-Ecological Cities: Community Development and the Institutional Challenge of Urban Environmentalism”
4pm "Design Mining the Web"
7pm The Long Gaze, The Short Gaze
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Tuesday, March 19
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5:30pm Legatum Lecture: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance
6:30pm Cambridge Hackspace Meetup #2
7pm Greenport Forum: After Shock, A New Role For Local Climate Activists
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Event Details
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Monday, March 11
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"Forest fire emissions and their effects on tropospheric ozone in the Arctic: uncertainties and sensitivities"
Monday, March 11, 2013
10:00am - 11:00am
MIT, Building 48-308, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Steve Arnold (Leeds University) will be giving a special seminar. Steve is a global atmospheric chemist and has done quite a bit of work in Langrangian modeling, OVOC budgets, and interpreting aircraft measurements of gas phase species related to the ozone budget.
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The Crises In Employment, Consumption, Economic Growth, and the Environment: Could a Shorter Workweek and a Greener Economy Provide Relief?
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:00p–1:00p
Virtual at http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_031113/webinar-ashford-workweek-green-economy.html
Speaker: Prof. Nicholas Ashford
MIT System Design and Management Systems Thinking Webinar Series
The MIT System Design and Management Systems Thinking Webinar Series features research conducted by SDM faculty, alumni, students, and industry partners. The series is designed to disseminate information on how to employ systems thinking to address engineering, management, and socio-political components of complex challenges.
The crises we encounter today could be described as a 'perfect storm.' The global financial crisis that began in 2008 has left many people with too little money and/or willingness to spend. This results in too few goods and services being produced and too little being purchased. This in turn exacerbates unemployment and underemployment. As a result, a vicious circle is created in which less money is spent in consumption and in investment in subsequent and repeated cycles, further worsening the crisis in consumption. On the other hand, some people and economic actors consume too much from an energy and resource perspective, exacerbating environmental problems. Two solutions are frequently suggested to the present crises: spread work out through a shorter workweek and green the economy. An analysis of the likelihood of success of each is the focus of this presentation. Insights from a recent book: Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State (2011, Yale University Press) will inform the presentation.
Web site: http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_031113/webinar-ashford-workweek-green-economy.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to all
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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MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar Series (MASS)
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus)
Speaker: Xavier Levine
MIT Atmospheric Seminar Series (MASS)
The MIT Atmospheric Science Seminar (MASS) is a student-run weekly seminar series within PAOC. Seminar topics include all research concerning the atmosphere and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars usually take place on Monday from 12-1pm followed by a lunch with graduate students. Besides the seminar, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. The seminar series is run by graduate students and is intended mainly for students to interact with individuals outside the department, but faculty and post docs certainly participate.
Web site: http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/events/calendars/mass
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate (PAOC), Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars
For more information, contact: MASS organizing committee
mass at mit.edu
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"The Role of Civil Society, Companies, Governments, and the Academy in the Promotion of Sustainable Development"
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:00pm
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Room 112 (Stubbins), 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
with Oded Grajew, Founder of the Our São Paulo Network
This event is free and open to the public, and registration is not required.
Additional information: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/events/the-role-of-civil-society-companies-governments-and-the-academy.html
This event is co-sponsored by the DRCLAS Brazil Studies Program.
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Energy 101: "Wind - Introduction to Wind Power"
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 2-146, 182 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Alex Kalmikov
In recent years, wind energy has evolved from an emerging energy alternative into a global, rapidly maturing industry competitive with conventional energy sources. We will review the technology that enabled this transition, allowing clean, emissions-free harvesting of the renewable wind resource. We will briefly discuss the current state of the U.S. wind industry market and understand the basic quantitative concepts of wind power engineering.
Energy 101 Lectures series
The Energy 101 lectures aim at presenting an overview of various topics in the energy field. These lectures are open to everyone and require no prior knowledge.
Open to: the general public
Cost: None
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact: Jonathan Mailoa; Michelle Park
jpmailoa at mit.edu; mpark15 at mit.edu
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“Open Source Science and Social Science: Forming a Public Laboratory”
Monday, March 11, 2013
12pm
Northeastern University, 450 Renaissance Park, 1135 Tremont Street, Room 426, Boston
Sara Wylie
Senior Research Scientist, Social Science and Environmental Health Research Institute, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Contact Northeastern Humanities nuhumanities at neu.edu
617-373-4140
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"Using Feed-in Tariffs to Foster the Development and Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies - Lessons from the Case of Solar Photovoltaic Power in Germany"
Monday, March 11
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Joern Hoppmann, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy Research Group, Harvard Belfer Center
ETIP/Consortium Energy Policy Seminar
Contact Name: Louisa Lund louisa_lund at hks.harvard.edu
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"Emergence of a Post-South World? Evidence from the Climate Regime"
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:30pm - 1:45pm
Tufts University, Crowe Room (Goddard 310), The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
with Rishikesh Bhandary, Junior Research Fellow, CIERP
Scholars have gone to great lengths to explain the persistence of the South as a collective in multilateral bargaining. The conventional framing of the puzzle has been: why do countries agree to bargain as a collective and reach sub-optimal lowest common denominator outcomes when other strategies would have provided better outcomes? In his presentation, Rishi will show that this puzzle may no longer hold by putting the ‘resilience of the South’ to test with evidence from the climate regime.
Rishi Bhandary is a doctoral candidate at The Fletcher School, focusing on climate change, energy policy, and international negotiations. His research interests include innovative sources of finance and market-based strategies for low carbon development. He also studies multilateral climate change negotiations as well as Track 2 initiatives on climate change. He received his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Fletcher and completed his undergraduate education in Quantitative Economics and International Relations from Tufts University. He has worked for the Ministry of Forests, Nepal, and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility at the World Bank and was an Avantha Fellow at the Aspen Institute India. In 2011, he was awarded a fellowship by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School to study alliance formation in climate change negotiations.
Open to the public. Convened by the Energy, Climate, and Innovation Program of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Fletcher.
Contact Name: Miranda Fasulo
Miranda.Fasulo at tufts.edu
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"Approach to Net Zero": Building Technology Lecture Series
Monday, March 11, 2013
12:30-2:00
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Claire Maxfield, Atelier Ten, San Francisco
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture
For more information, contact: Kathleen Ross
617-253-1876
kross at mit.edu
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Japan’s 2011 Disasters Remembered
WHEN Mon., Mar. 11, 2013, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Belfer Case Study Room (S020), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
SPEAKER(S) Theodore C. Bestor, Reischauer Institute Professor of Social Anthropology and Japanese Studies, and director, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University; for a complete listing of panelists, visit the website
CONTACT INFO 617.495.1892
LINK http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/
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Fast learning algorithms for discovering the hidden structure in data
Monday, March 11 2013
4:00PM to 5:00PM
Refreshments: 3:45PM
MIT, Building 32-G449, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Daniel Hsu, Microsoft Research New England
A major challenge in machine learning is to reliably and automatically discover hidden structure in data with little or no human intervention. Many of the core statistical estimation problems of this type are, in general, provably intractable for both computational and information-theoretic reasons. However, much progress has been made over the past decade or so to overcome these hardness barriers by focusing on realistic cases that rule out the intractable instances. In this talk, I'll describe a general computational approach for correctly estimating a wide class of statistical models, including Gaussian mixture models, Hidden Markov models, Latent Dirichlet Allocation, Probabilistic Context Free Grammars, and several more. The scope of the approach extends beyond the purview of previous algorithms; and it leads to both new theoretical guarantees for unsupervised learning, as well as fast and practical algorithms for large-scale data analysis.
Bio:
Daniel Hsu is a postdoc at Microsoft Research New England. Previously, he was a postdoc with the Department of Statistics at Rutgers University and the Department of Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania from 2010 to 2011, supervised by Tong Zhang and Sham M. Kakade. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2010 from UC San Diego, where he was advised by
Sanjoy Dasgupta; and his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2004 from UC Berkeley. His research interests are in algorithmic statistics and machine learning.
Host: Tommi Jaakkola, CSAIL
Contact: Francis Doughty, 253-4602, doughty at mit.edu
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“All Things Considered” Considered with NPR’s Melissa Block
WHEN Mon., Mar. 11, 2013, 4 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Radcliffe Gymnasium, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Information Technology, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Melissa Block `83, host, All Things Considered, NPR; Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University
COST Free; registration required
TICKET WEB LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2013-melissa-block-lecture
CONTACT INFO 617.495.8600
NOTE Block will reflect on the history of "All Things Considered" and on the current role of public radio in America, given the shifting and increasingly digital media landscape. She will also discuss the themes of NPR’s reporting, the primacy of storytelling, the role of humor, and the challenges presented by the ever-increasing pressure to break stories. Drawing on her years of experience reporting around the globe, she will share an insider’s perspective on the daily interviews, features, and commentaries that bring the news alive through sound.
LINK http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2013-melissa-block-lecture
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"Women and Negotiation: A Place at the Table in the U.S. and Abroad."
Monday, March 11
4-6 p.m.
Harvard, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room K-262 (Bowie Vernon Room)
Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution withKatrin Bennhold, Nieman Fellow and staff writer for the International Herald Tribuneand The New York Times; and Paula Gutlove, Professor of Practice in Negotiation and Conflict Management, Simmons College School of Management. Co-sponsored with the Nieman Foundation, the Weatherhead Center and the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School.
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Terrorism as a Political Modernism
WHEN Mon., Mar. 11, 2013, 4:15 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Cabot Room, Busch Hall, Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Colloquium on Intellectual History
SPEAKER(S) Claudia Verheoven, Cornell University
COST free
CONTACT INFO Julian Bourg, julian.bourg at bc.edu
LINK http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/harvardcolloquium
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Chinese Energy Investments in North America and China’s Response to Iran Sanctions
WHEN Mon., Mar. 11, 2013, 4:15 – 5:45 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South, Doris and Ted Lee Gathering Room (S030), 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies: Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Workshop
SPEAKER(S) Erica S. Downs, fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO lkluz at fas.harvard.edu
NOTE Erica Downs will discuss China’s increasing investments in North American oil and natural gas, China’s response to US sanctions on Iran, and how the growing presence of Chinese oil companies in North America might elicit greater Chinese cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue.
LINK http://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/event/erica-downs
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The Boston Wikipedia Meetup Group Monthly Meetup
Monday, March 11, 2013
7:00 PM
Clover Food Lab, 7 Holyoke St., Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/
Eating, drinking, science, art, and Wikipedia. Discussion of future speakers, Wikiversity, regional Wikipedia Ambassador efforts, and collabs with Boston-area libraries and museums.
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The Environmental Crisis and Capitalism
Monday, March 11, 2013
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building 32-141, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont
Lawrence Susskind, Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Director, MIT Science Impact Collaborative; Co-Director, Water Diplomacy Workshop
Daniel Fireside, Equal Exchange
Web site: web.mit.edu/tac
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): The Technology and Culture Forum at MIT
For more information, contact: Patricia-Maria Weinmann
617-253-0108
weinmann at mit.edu
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I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You
Monday, March 11, 2013
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building E15-001, ACT Cube, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Karim Ainouz
Filmmaker and artist
I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You
Screening and Lecture
Karim Ainouz is a Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker and visual artist whose work addresses issues of gender, identity, and personal histories. His films focus on characters who break universal taboos and transcend stereotypes. I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You (2010) is a film about a geologist who surveys water sources in an isolated region in the northeast of Brazil and finds himself immersed in feelings of abandonment and loneliness.
Ainouz's oeuvre includes films such as Madame Sata, O Ceu de Suely, and Sunny Lane, an essay on border crossing and exile that was commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial in 2011. In the early 90's, Ainouz co-directed MIX NYC, an organization dedicated to queer experimental film and the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival. Ainouz has won prizes at numerous international festivals including the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Cinema Brazil Grand Prize, and Havana International Film Festival, among others. In 2012, he was a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival. He is currently finishing his new feature, Praia do Futuro. Ainouz lives and works in Berlin.
Web site: http://act.mit.edu/projects-and-events/lectures-series/2013-spring/
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to the public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology
For more information, contact: Laura Anca Chichisan
617-253-5229
act at mit.edu
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A Public Address by The Honorable Eric Cantor
WHEN Mon., Mar. 11, 2013, 8 p.m.
WHERE JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge02138
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) The Honorable Eric Cantor, majority leader of the United States House of Representatives (R-VA)
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO 617.495.1380
LINK http://forum.iop.harvard.edu/content/public-address-honorable-eric-cantor
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Tuesday, March 12
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"The Liberal Case for Deficit Reduction."
Tuesday, March 12
12 p.m.
Harvard, Taubman 275, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
Speaker Series with Greg Ip, U.S. Economics editor, The Economist; author of The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World.
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N=billions: The smartphone revolution in the behavioral sciences
March 12
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2013/03/miller#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET.
5.9 billion people now use mobile phones, of which 1.1 billion are smartphones. Smartphones will empower behavioral scientists to collect terabytes of ecologically valid data from vast global samples – easily, quickly, and remotely. Smartphones can record where people are, what they are doing, and what they can see and hear. They can run interactive surveys, tests, and experiments through touch screens and Bluetooth peripherals. This talk focuses on what smartphones can do now, and will be able to do in the near future, as research platforms. Smartphone research will require new skills in app development, Big Data analysis, and recruitment through social media, and will raise tough new ethical issues, but smartphones could transform the behavioral sciences even more profoundly than PCs and brain imaging did. By 2025, billions of potential research participants will be carrying ultra-broadband, sensor-rich smartphones with GPS, augmented reality goggles, and biosensors that allow remote psychophysiology. These will render some current research methods obsolete, and will open extraordinary new opportunities for understanding human nature and culture.
About Geoffrey
Geoffrey Miller is a Visiting Professor, Business & Society Area at the NYU Stern Business School and an Associate Professor, Psychology at the University of New Mexico.
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Highly Agile and Robust Robotic Bipedal Locomotion
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
4:00pm
MIT, Building 32-155, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Reception to follow.
Jessy Grizzle (U. Michigan)
Abstract:
This is roughly a reprise of the 2012 Bode Lecture. The nonlinear control theory in the talk has been approved for a general audience. Dynamic models for bipedal robots contain both continuous and discrete elements, with switching events that are spatially driven by unilateral constraints at ground contact and impulse-like forces that occur at foot touchdown. The complexity of the models has led to a host of ad hoc trial-and-error feedback designs. This presentation will show how nonlinear feedback control methods are providing model-based solutions that also enhance the ability of bipedal robots to walk, run, and recover from stumbles. The talk addresses both theoretical and experimental aspects of bipedal locomotion. Videos of the some of the experiments have been covered in the popular press, bringing feedback control to the attention of the general public.
Biography:
Jessy Grizzle received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1983 and in 1984 held an NSF-NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship in Paris, France. Since September 1987, he has been with The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and is the Jerry and Carol Levin Professor of Engineering. He jointly holds sixteen patents dealing with emissions reduction in passenger vehicles through improved control system design. Professor Grizzle is a Fellow of the IEEE and IFAC. He received the Paper of the Year Award from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society in 1993, the George S. Axelby Award in 2002 and the Control Systems Technology Award in 2003. His work on bipedal locomotion has been the object of numerous plenary lectures and has been featured in The Economist, Wired Magazine, Discover Magazine, Scientific American, CNN, ESPN, and many others.
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A Deep Dive into Congressional Elections: 2012, 2013, and Beyond
WHEN Tue., Mar. 12, 2013, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE John F. Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Dining Room, Institute of Politics, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) Charlie Cook, spring 2013 IOP Fellow; Mike Shields, chief of staff, Republican National Committee; Jon Vogel, former executive and political director, Democratic National Committee
CONTACT INFO eric_andersen at hks.harvard.edu
LINK http://www.iop.harvard.edu/deep-dive-congressional-elections-2012-2013-and-beyond-led-charlie-cook
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Communications in the War on Terror
WHEN Tue., Mar. 12, 2013, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE John F. Kennedy School of Government, Littauer 166, Institute of Politics, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) Karen Hughes, Spring 2013 IOP Fellow; Victoria Clarke, former chief spokesperson for the Defense Department
CONTACT INFO eric_andersen at hks.harvard.edu
LINK http://www.iop.harvard.edu/art-communications-led-karen-hughes
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From memory to inspiration: A remembrance of Aaron Swartz
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
4:00pm - 6:00pm
MIT Media Lab, E14, Sixth Floor, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
The MIT Media Lab community invites you to join us for a remembrance of Aaron Swartz (1986-2013)
Reception immediately following the memorial program
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Marketing of Frugal Products
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
5:00p–6:30p
MIT, Building 32-G449, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: SJ Phansalkar
The seminar presents the difficulties of bringing low cost technologies to resource deprived communities
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Tata Center for Technology and Design
For more information, contact: Patricia Reilly
617-324-7026
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Boston Composts!
Tuesday, March 12th
6:00p.m. - 8:00p.m.
Boston Natural Areas Network, 62 Summer St., Boston, MA 02110 (Entrance on Otis Street)
The Final of a Series of Community Forums on the Need for Quality Compost in Boston, Soil and Compost Quality, Public Health and Soil Ecology
Boston Natural Areas Network and the Boston Gardeners Council are calling all gardeners to focus on the need for access to high quality compost for all gardeners in and around Boston. In this forum you will hear from key experts including specialists in soil and compost quality, public health, and ways to improve your soil through understanding soil ecology
March 12th Speakers include: Wendy Heiger-Bernays, BU Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Casey Townsend, BNAN Urban Grower
EVENT IS FREE AND ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND
RSVP REQUIRED by calling 617-542-7696 or by emailing info at bostonnatural.org
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The Central Park Five: Film Screening & Discussion
WHEN Tue., Mar. 12, 2013, 6 – 9 p.m.
WHERE Wasserstein Hall, Room 2036, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Film, Law, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, Prison Studies Project
SPEAKER(S) Ken Burns
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO houstonevents at law.harvard.edu
LINK http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/2013/03/the-central-park-five-film-screening-discussion/
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Cooperative Networking Night
Tuesday, March 12
6:30pm
Lucy Parsons Center, 358A Centre Street, Jamaica Plain
Housing, Mental Health, Urban Permaculture, Green Cleaning, Transportation, Worker-owned, and much more…
Bring your ideas, energy and experience! Meet other people who want to build a movement of democratic and sustainable coops!
Link to facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/433698750046006/
LPC calendar event page: http://lucyparsons.org/calendar.php?action=event&eventid=1342
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Wednesday, March 13
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MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Dr. Johannes Fruehauf, Founding Executive Director of LabCentral will speak at the
5th Annual Meeting of the Kendall Square Association
MARCH 13, 2013
7:00 am - Networking and Breakfast
7:30-9:00 am - Opening Remarks and Agenda
Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 55 Broadway, Cambridge
We are thrilled that the Volpe Center is hosting our annual meeting. As with all federal buildings, guests will need to pass through security. Please be sure to bring a government-issued identification (such as a valid driver’s license). You may wish to limit the belongings that you bring, and you are welcome to arrive earlier than 7:00 a.m. To ensure accurate attendance and ease of entrance, please be sure to register for the event. We are grateful to the staff at Volpe who have been very welcoming to the KSA.
Our gratitude and thanks to Phoodeez for arranging our breakfast from Area Four coffee-bakery-bar-oven.
This year's keynote speaker will be MIT President L. Rafael Reif. Dr. Reif has served as the 17th President of MIT since July 2012. Previously, in his seven years as provost, he helped MIT weather the global financial crisis, drove the growth of MIT’s global strategy, promoted a major faculty-led effort to address challenges around race and diversity; fostered the emergence of the Kendall Square innovation cluster; helped launch the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science; and spearheaded the development of the Institute’s latest experiments in online learning, MITx and edX. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the IEEE. A MIT faculty member since 1980, he received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Joining President Reif in the program will be Johannes Fruehauf, a serial life sciences entrepreneur and Founding Executive Director of LabCentral. Dr. Fruehauf studied and practiced medicine in Germany and came to Boston for a research post-doc that resulted in the creation of Cequent Pharmaceuticals. He also founded Cambridge Biolabs. In 2012, Dr. Fruehauf founded LabCentral, a new non-profit shared laboratory project supported by a major grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and by Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research. LabCentral is working with MIT as its real estate partner and is planning to locate its operations in 28,000 SF at 700 Main Street. LabCentral’s mission is to help accelerate the formation of new innovative biotech companies in Massachusetts.
Please join us along with your fellow colleagues, neighbors, and public officials to hear about the exciting work going on in Kendall Square.
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, March 13, 2013!
KENDALL SQUARE ASSOCIATION
THE FUTURE LIVES HERE
www.kendallsq.org
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Turkey and the Arab Spring: Challenges and Opportunities
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Gonul Tol, Middle East Institute
SSP Wednesday Seminar
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Security Studies Program
For more information, contact: 617-253-7529
valeriet at mit.edu
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"Material Challenges for Clean Electric Vehicle Applications"
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
12:00pm
HUCE Seminar Room, 24 Oxford Street 3rd Floor, Cambridge
with Jin Suntivich, HUCE Ziff Environmental Fellow. Open to Harvard faculty and students only.
Abstract
A critical element in the pursuit of clean, sustainable energy is the implementation of clean and cost-effective electric transportation. Existing battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles offer pathways toward this quest, but their cost and the performance of their storage materials limit their widespread commercialization. To assist with the development of these clean electric vehicles, it is critical to develop fundamental “design principles” that link material structure and chemistry to the performance, to help accelerate the discovery process for new energy storage materials. This presentation will focus on the examples of catalyst materials in hydrogen transportation technologies, which include fuel cells and electrolyzers. From examining a series of model perovskite transition metal oxide compounds, we have found that the catalytic performance can be described by the egsymmetry-parentage electron in the d-states. The correlation between the eg symmetry-parentage electron and the oxygen electrocatalysis on the perovskite catalysts allows us to postulate the reaction mechanisms and the rate-limiting steps, from which we will discuss design strategies for developing novel transition metal oxide catalysts.
Biography
Jin Suntivich is a Ziff Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Jin received his doctoral degree the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012, studying the fundamental principles of oxygen electrocatalysis with Professor Yang Shao-Horn and Professor Hubert Gasteiger. His current research focuses on studying energy flow pathways within solar energy harvesting devices using a combined surface science – optical spectroscopic approach with Professor Eric Mazur and Professor Cynthia Friend.
Contact Name: Kellie Nault
knault at fas.harvard.edu
------------------------------------
Rewards, Badges, and Incentives
Mar 13, 2013
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin 115, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Jon Kleinberg , Cornell University
Many systems involve the allocation of rewards for achievements, and these rewards produce a set of incentives that in turn guide behavior. Such effects are visible in many domains from everyday life, and they are increasingly forming a designed aspect of on-line social media sites through the use of badges and other reward systems. We consider several aspects of the interaction between rewards and incentives, including a framework for reasoning about on-line user behavior in the presence of badges, and some reflections on the incentives produced by the allocation of credit in a simple model of a scientific community.
The talk will be based on joint work with Ashton Anderson, Dan Huttenlocher, Jure Leskovec, and Sigal Oren.
Speaker Biography: Jon Kleinberg is the Tisch University Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Information Science at Cornell University. His research focuses on issues at the interface of networks and information, with an emphasis on the social and information networks that underpin the Web and other on-line media. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences; he is the recipient of research fellowships from the MacArthur, Packard, Simons, and Sloan Foundations, as well as awards including the Nevanlinna Prize, the Lanchester Prize, and the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences.
Contact: Carol Harlow
harlow at seas.harvard.edu
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The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
1:00pm - 2:15pm
Bell Hall, 5th floor Belfer, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Jonathan Wiener, William R. and Thomas L. Perkins Professor of Law, Professor of Environmental Policy and Professor of Public Policy, Duke University Law School.
Contact Name: Jennifer Nash
jennifer_nash at harvard.edu
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A Portfolio of Energy Solutions for America and the World: How One Corporate Leader Signed Up for the Battle to Change the Energy Landscape
WHEN Wed., Mar. 13, 2013, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE John F. Kennedy School of Government, Littauer 166, Institute of Politics, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) Bev Perdue, spring 2013 IOP Fellow; Jim Rogers, president and CEO of Duke Energy
CONTACT INFO eric_andersen at hks.harvard.edu
LINK www.iop.harvard.edu…
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China's Energy Challenges
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
4:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-335, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. Henry Lee, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Interested in what major energy dilemmas China will be facing over the next few years?
Want to structure your thinking on comparing various renewable energy options for China?
Come to hear and converse with Prof. Henry Lee, who has been teaching the celebrated Energy Policy course at Harvard Kennedy School of Government for over 20 years.
Web site: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHdKMUJQcFBOVVBKTDFycnhCVHJibnc6MA#gid=0
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): China Crossroads
For more information, contact: Rong Yuan
chinacrossroads_exec at mit.edu
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Starr Forum- The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
4:30p–6:00p
E15-070, Bartos Theater, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Book Talk with Miko Peled
About the author:
Miko Peled is an Israeli peace activist. His father Mattityahu Peled was was a well-known Israeli public figure who was at various periods of his life a professional military man who reached the rank of Aluf (Major General) in the IDF and was a member of the General Staff during the Six-Day War of 1967; a notable scholar who headed the Arabic Language and Literature Department of Tel Aviv University; a radical peace activist and a leading proponent of Israeli dialogue with the PLO and of complete withdrawal from the Occupied Territories in whose conquest he personally had a major role; and a member of the Knesset who often expressed controversial views considered "extreme left" in Israeli terms, yet was treated with considerable respect by staunch political people.
Books will be signed and sold at the event.
Web site: http://thegeneralsson.com/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
For more information, contact: starrforum at mit.edu
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Music and Theater Arts Composer Forum presents Don Byron, MIT Visiting Artist
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
5:00 PM talk
MIT, Lewis Music Library 14E-109, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Free and Open to the public. Reception follows.
Byron will speak about his new Clarinet Concerto to be premiered by the MIT Wind Ensemble; Evan Ziporyn, soloist, on March 16 in Kresge Auditorium.
-----------------------------------
Mass Innovation Night
03/13/2013
06:00pm - 08:30pm
Lansdowne Pub, 9 Lansdowne Street, Boston
RSVP at http://mass.innovationnights.com/events/march-13-2013-mass-innovation-nights-min48
Mass Innovation Nights #48 will be a mega party the launch of ten new products, the after-party and the fourth anniversary of their launch all rolled into one! This month, they're heading into town to the Lansdowne Pub, right near Fenway, on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm. They've got ten great new products to help promote, fantastic networking and an after-party that overlaps with trivia night at the bar.
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Urban Films: Detropia (2012)
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Urban Planning Film Series
A mostly-weekly series showing documentary and feature films on topics related to cities, urbanism, design, community development, ecology, and other planning issues. Free.
Detroit's story encapsulates the iconic narrative of America over the last century---the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.
With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. Detroit's soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future. "The most moving documentary I have seen in years."---David Denby, The New Yorker. Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. 86 minutes.
Web site: http://www.urbanfilm.org
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact: Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn at mit.edu
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Thursday, March 14
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BBC World Service Broadcast with Joi Ito
Thursday, March 14, 2013
12:40p–2:00p
MIT, Building E-14, Sixth floor, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Joi Ito and Razia Iqbal
Joi Ito is one of the great pioneers of openness on the Internet. He claims it will be "the pillar of democracy for the 21st Century." But with Egypt's so-called Facebook revolution in jeopardy, and world-wide anxieties that the web is being used by governments to spy on their citizens, is this optimism misplaced? In a special live BBC World Service programme from Boston, Razia Iqbal introduces Joi Ito to listeners both around the world and in person at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Join them at MIT Media Lab 12:40pm on Thursday, March 14 for What If . . . We Could All Talk to Joi Ito? All tickets are free, but there is a maximum of four per person, on a first-come first-served basis. The event finishes at 2pm. Refreshments served afterwards.
For tickets, email JoiItotickets at bbc.co.uk with how many tickets you'd like. Additionally, if you would like to ask Joi Ito a question, please state it briefly in your email.
BE PART OF THE BBC WORLD SERVICE PROGRAMME!
Web site: http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2013/03/14/bbc-world-service-broadcast-joi-ito
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: JoiItotickets at bbc.co.uk
Sponsor(s): Media Lab
For more information, contact: Jess Sousa
events-admin at media.mit.edu
------------------------------------
NEXT MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CREATIVE ECONOMY COUNCIL
Thursday, March 14, 2013
1:00 p.m.
Artist for Humanities, 100 West 2nd Street, South Boston
Meeting Agenda
1. Introductions 1:00-1:05pm
2. Best Practices Panel and Discussion 1:05-1:55pm
Topic: Creating New Opportunities
Panel Members:
Blair Benjamin, Assets for Artists
Debi Kleiman, MITX, MITX Up
Tim Loew, Mass Digi, Games Challenge
Wendy Northcross, Cape Cod Chamber, Arts App
3. Review & Approval of December Meeting Minutes 1:55-2:00pm
4. Creative Economy Network and Action Agenda Draft
Presentation 2:00-2:10pm
Discussion 2:10-2:40pm
5. Other News & Updates 2:40-2:50p
6. Next Steps 2:50-3:00pm
More information at http://www.mass.gov/hed/economic/industries/creative/council.html
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America's Changing Face - and Changing Politics
WHEN Thu., Mar. 14, 2013, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE John F. Kennedy School of Government, Littauer 166, Institute of Politics, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute of Politics
SPEAKER(S) John King, Spring 2013 IOP Fellow
CONTACT INFO eric_andersen at hks.harvard.edu
LINK http://www.iop.harvard.edu/americas-changing-face-and-changing-politics-led-john-king-2
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Connectomics: What, Why and How
Thursday, March 14
4:30–6:00 pm
MIT Building E19-623, 400 Main Street, Cambridge
Jeff Lichtman, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
Knight Science Journalism seminar
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Farm Share Fair
Thursday, March 14, 2013
5:30 PM To 8:30 PM
Cambridge College, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge,
Every season, growers across Massachusetts plant and grow food for us. We have the opportunity to spend our food dollars exclusively in Massachusetts, and buy direct from local farms. Buying direct from farmers is good for the local economy and the environment.So in order to understand the various Farm Share programs available to consumers, we’ve invited farmers from across Massachusetts to join us in Cambridge for a one-evening Farm Share Fair, to explain to us all about their Farm Share programs with distribution spots in the Greater Boston area.
Come meet the fantastic farmers from across our state on Thursday, March 14. 15% of the proceeds from the 2013 Farm Share Fair will be donated to theMOVE, a Cambridge non-profit dedicated to bringing youth and adults from urban Boston out to farms for work days, to learn about where food comes from.
We are expecting upwards of 40 farms and vendors! Veggies, fruit, flowers, dairy, and meat farm shares! Some of the farms include Neighborhood Farm, Red Fire Farm, Enterprise Farm, Farmer Dave's, World Peas CSA, First Root and Shared Harvest.....
Enjoy some great food and sustainable vendors. Kids station with games and activities. Special prizes and giveaways for anyone who signs up for their Farm Share (CSA) on site, with us!
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
www.farmsharefair.com
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Beyond 3.11
Thursday, March 14, 2013
6:00 pm
MIT Student Center Room 407 (Building W20), 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP: Link (http://goo.gl/DeTUJ) or Facebook page (Space is limited. Please RSVP)
Open to the general public
Join MIT graduate and undergraduate students, and Japanese Society of Undergraduates (JSU), for a talk session and a reception to hear updates from Touhoku.
Speakers:
Richard J. Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science; Director of the Center for International Studies, MIT
Shun Kanda, Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture; Director, MIT Japan 3.11 Initiative
Mio Yamamoto, Co-Founder and Director of World in Asia; Class of 2013, MIT Sloan School of Management
Topics:
"Using 3.11 for Policy Change" by Richard J. Samuels
Japanese political entrepreneurs used the catastrophe in Tohoku to nudge national policy in their preferred direction by constructing narratives and assigning blame for 3.11. Battles among competing perspectives on change and contested appeals to leadership, community, and risk have defined post-3.11 politics and public policy in Japan, particularly in the areas of national security, energy policy, and local governance.
"BEYOND 3.11" by Shun Kanda
3 INSIGHTs_Toward Disaster-Resilient & Sustainable Futures for Minamisanriku; a report on the on-going work by the US and Japan-based MIT 3.11 Initiative team as we apprise our assistance continuing into the third year of recovery in Tohoku.
"Social Innovation from Touhoku" by Mio Yamamoto
How social entrepreneurs are addressing pressing social problems such as education, job creation, healthcare in Touhoku in collaboration with the private and public sectors.
For more information, contact: Mio Yamamoto, mioy at mit.edu
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Anime Screening - Wolf Children - with Director Mamoru Hosoda
Thursday, March 14, 2013
7:00p–10:00p
MIT, Building 26-100, access via 60 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Mamoru Hosoda screens "Wolf Children"
New England Premiere followed by Q and A with director Mamoru Hosoda
Come see the new award-winning anime film "Wolf Children" (2012) followed by a Q/A with the director Mamoru Hosoda, who also wrote the story and the co-wrote the screenplay. This is the New England premiere of the film, and the only area showing. "Wolf Children" is the brilliant third feature from Hosoda, whose "Summer Wars" (2009) and "Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (2006) have established him as one of the world's top creative forces in animation.
In Japanese with English subtitles, recommended for ages 9 and up. Free and open to the public.
Film synopsis: http://www.newyork-tokyo.com/wp/wolf-children/
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/cooljapan/
Open to: the general public
Cost: free
Sponsor(s): Foreign Languages & Literatures
For more information, contact: Lisa Hickler
617-253-4771
fll-events at mit.edu
--------------------------------
"Future of Computation: New Areas of Application and Challenges"
Thursday, March 14, 2013
7:15p–8:15p
MIT, Building 34-401, 36-462, 36-428, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. Alex 'Sandy' Pentland (MIT Media Lab)
Alex 'Sandy' Pentland is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Director of the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program
Alex 'Sandy' Pentland directs MIT's Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data initiatives, and is a founding member of the Advisory Boards for Nissan, Motorola Mobility, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT's Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital's Center for Future Health. In 2012 Forbes named Sandy one of the "seven most powerful data scientists in the world", along with Google founders and the CTO of the United States. He is among the most-cited computational scientists in the world and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, mobile computing, image understanding, and modern biometrics.
Web site:http://computationalengineering.mit.edu/events/ccecdostudentsymposium.php
Open to: Registration via website is needed
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/mitcdosymposium
Sponsor(s): Computation for Design and Optimization, Center for Computational Engineering, 2013 CCE/CDO Symposium
For more information, contact: Ketan Nayak
knayak at mit.edu
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Forks Over Knives
Thursday, March 14
7:30 pm
Charlestown Branch Library, 179 Main Street, Charlestown
film screening followed by a discussion moderated by Amy Levine of Boston Organics and a reception
The feature film examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.
“A film that can save your life.” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure. Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases.
Throughout the film, the idea of food as medicine is put to the test. The cameras follow patients who have chronic conditions from heart disease to diabetes. Doctors teach these patients how to adopt a whole-foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments — while the challenges and triumphs of their journeys are revealed.
Forks Over Knives, filmed all over the US, Canada and China and released in 2011, utilizes state of the art 3-D graphics and rare archival footage. The film features leading experts on health, examines the question “why we don’t know,” and tackles the issue of diet and disease in a way that will have people talking for years.
Further background information on the presenters:
Boston Organics, located in Charlestown, provides access to fresh, organic produce to promote and support healthy living in a mindful and sustainable way that respects the environment, supports local farms, local businesses, and fair-trade practices. In 2011, Boston Organics received the Sustainable Food Leadership Award from Mayor Menino and the City of Boston.www.bostonorganics.com
The Friends of the Charlestown Branch Library was formed in 1953, becoming the second Friends group to organize within the Boston Public Library system. The Friends schedule four to six evening programs a year, support the Reading is FUNdamental programs for children, and maintain the library’s landscaping. The mission of the Friends remains today what it was in 1953: to serve as an advocacy and support group for the needs of the Charlestown Branch Library, its staff and users. www.charlestownonline.net/libraries.htm
Free and open to everyone. Wheelchair accessible.
For more information: 617-242-1248, www.bpl.org/branches/charlestown.htm.
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Friday, March 15
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"Wind - Introduction to Wind Power"
Friday, March 15, 2013
11:00a–12:00p
MIT, Building 5-232
Speaker: Alex Kalmikov
In this roundtable discussion, Alex will first give a quick summary of his Wind 101 talk, including the current state of the U.S. wind industry market and understand the basic quantitative concepts of wind power engineering. Then Alex will lead the discussion between the audiences about topics of interest in wind energy.
MIT Energy Discussion Series
The Discussion Series is an energy discussion series led by graduate student experts in various energy areas. Suggested preparation readings for upcoming discussions are available on our website.
Open to: the general public
Cost: None
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact: Jonathan Mailoa; Michelle Park
jpmailoa at mit.edu; mpark15 at mit.edu
---------------------------------
Harvard Freecycle
Friday, March 15, 2013
11 am-2 pm
Harvard Information Center, Holyoke Center Arcade, Cambridge
Bring your unwanted office supplies and equipment to Holyoke Center and take away some you need! Also bring kitchen supplies including pots and pans, silverware, plates, crockery, glassware, books, CDs, clothing, toys, unopened cosmetics, non-perishable food, linens, tools and all other reusables! Harvard Recycling will deliver a good “seed supply” at 11 am and will take away all unclaimed goods at 2 pm. Help reuse, save your department money, and build community by FreeCycling!
Contact Rob Gogan
rob_gogan at harvard.edu
-----------------------------------
MacVicar Day 2013 - Reimagining the MIT Classroom: Experiments with Digital Learning
Friday, March 15, 2013
2:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building E15-070, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Reception: 4:00 - 5:00 PM
Speaker: Professors Jesus A. del Alamo, Anette Hosoi, Anne E. C. McCants, Emma J. Teng, Troy Van Voorhis, Daniel E. Hastings
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/macvicar/macvicarday.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MacVicar Fellows, Office of Faculty Support
For more information, contact: Office of Faculty Support
617-253-6776
macvicarprogram at mit.edu
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Monday, March 18
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“Building Social-Ecological Cities: Community Development and the Institutional Challenge of Urban Environmentalism”
Monday, March 18, 2013
12pm
Northeastern University, 450 Renaissance Park, 1135 Tremont Street, Room 426, Boston
James Connolly
Assistant Professor, Political Science and Public Policy and Urban Affairs, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Contact Northeastern Humanities nuhumanities at neu.edu
617-373-4140
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"Design Mining the Web"
Monday, March 18, 2013
4:00pm
MIT, Building 32-G449, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Ranjitha Kumar (Stanford Univ.)
The Web has transformed the nature of creative work. For the first time, millions of people have a direct outlet for sharing their creations with the world. As a result, the Web has become the largest repository of design knowledge in human history, and the ensuing “democratization of design” has created a critical feedback loop, engendering a new culture of reuse and remixing.
The means and methods designers employ to draw on prior work, however, remain mostly informal and ad hoc. How can content producers find relevant examples amongst hundreds of millions of possibilities and leverage existing design practice to inform and improve their creations? My research explores data-driven techniques for working with examples at scale during the design process, automating search and curation, enabling rapid retargeting, and learning generative probabilistic models to support new design interactions. Knowledge discovery and data mining have revolutionized informatics; in this talk, I’ll discuss what we can learn from mining design.
Bio
Ranjitha Kumar is a PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, where she builds principled, data-driven tools for amplifying human creativity in design. Her work has received best paper awards or nominations at both of the premiere HCI conferences (CHI and UIST), and been recognized by the machine learning community through invited papers at IJCAI and ICML. She is the recipient of the 2011 Google PhD Fellowship in Design Development, and holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford.
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The Long Gaze, The Short Gaze
Monday, March 18, 2013
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building E15-001, ACT Cube, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Knut Asdam, Artist and filmmaker
How, amidst continual changes in society and media and the shifting relationship between psychology and film spectatorship, can we deal with notions of site, space, society, and subjectivity within cinema today? What narrative devices can be used to explore the interplay between these notions in the moving image? Asdam examines these questions within the context of his new film and installation projects that include border narratives between Russia and Norway, life in the edgelands of Oslo, and the narration of the uncanny in a never-completed exposition center in Lebanon.
Knut Asdam is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores the subjectivity of social structures, history, language, struggle, and the body. His work also addresses the usage and perception of urban public spaces. Asdam's experimental use of narrative and dramaturgy moves between social discourse and hallucinatory disintegration. In addition to narrative film, Asdam also works with photography and installation. His work has been recently exhibited at the Oslo National Museum, Tate Modern, Depo Istanbul, and Bergen Kunsthall. He is currently working on three film projects in Murmansk (Russia) and Kirkenes (Norway), the Grorud Valley in Oslo, and the Hebrides (Scotland).
Experiments in Thinking, Action & Form
CINEMATIC MIGRATIONS II
Web site: http://act.mit.edu/projects-and-events/lectures-series/2013-spring/
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free and open to the public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology
For more information, contact: Laura Anca Chichisan
617-253-5229
act at mit.edu
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Tuesday, March 19
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Legatum Lecture: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
5:30p–6:30p
MIT, Building E25-111, MIT Whitaker, 45 Carlton Street, Cambridge
Speaker: David Roodman, Center for Global Development
Microfinance has been a major inspiration for the social enterprise movement in developing countries. It has garnered more than 100 million customers, billions of dollars in financing, and a Nobel Prize. But, microcredit bubbles have popped. This lecture will address the impact of microfinance and how it should be supported.
Web site: http://legatum.mit.edu/content/1285
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship
For more information, contact: Agnes Hunsicker
617-324-2768
agnesh at mit.edu
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Cambridge Hackspace Meetup #2
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
6:30 PM (EDT)
5 Fainwood Circle, Cambridge
RSVP at http://cambridgehackspace2-es2005.eventbrite.com/
We had an awesome time at our first meeting, and we're hoping you did too! Please join us again (or for the first time!), and bring some stuff to hack.
What we will provide:
- Snackage and drinks.
- At least one Arduino Uno, plus access to a full kitchen and some other crafty things (needles, fiber fill, felt).
- Some storage space.
- A ping pong table.
What you'll have to bring:
- If you already have a specific project in mind that you want to get started on right away, bring all necessary materials. This includes food/ingredients if you plan on tinkering in the kitchen!
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Greenport Forum: After Shock, A New Role For Local Climate Activists
Tuesday, March 19
7:00pm
Cambridgeport Baptist Church, 459 Putnam Avenue, Cambridge (corner of Magazine Street and Putnam Avenue)
How many shocks have there been? Katrina, summer heat, loss of Arctic sea ice, drought, rising seas, melting permafrost, methane plumes, Sandy, and more. Yet American public opinion about climate change and climate policy have changed little since Al Gore sounded the alarm in An Inconvenient Truth. About one in four American adults believe that citizens should be doing much more about climate change.
In an essay titled After Shock, A Strategy for Climate Activists (http://climatebluecircle.blogspot.com/) Cambridge resident John Pitkin asks why they aren't doing more. His answer suggests that grassroots activists can move thousands of people in Cambridge alone to act in many new ways to reduce and prepare for climate change. John will lead a discussion about our current situation and a proposed new role for grassroots activists in responding to the climate crisis. Join us!
John is a demographer by profession and a local activist by conviction. He helped to organize the Cambridge Climate Congress (in 2009), chaired the Cambridge Climate Emergency Action Group (CCEAG), and now serves on the board of Green Cambridge.
GreenPort envisions and encourages a just and sustainable Cambridgeport neighborhood
For more information, contact Steve Wineman at steven.wineman at gmail.com
**********
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Upcoming
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Climate Change & Insurance: What’s Ahead
March 20
10:30 am to Noon
EPA Region 1, Court Room 6, 15th floor, 5 Post Office Square, Boston
Panelists: Cynthia McHale, CERES; Jay Burns, The Hartford; Paul Bianco, Traveler’s Institute; and Glen Daraskevich, Karen Clark & Co. (catastrophe modeling).
There is a webinar option; connect at https://epa.connectsolutions.com/r1-climate-change-seminars/
For more information, contact Shutsu Wong, wong.shutsu at epa.gov
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BioEnergy Lecture Series - Joule Fuels: A Transformative Production Platform for Liquid Fuel from the Sun
March 21, 2013
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 54-100 (the tallest building on campus)
Dan Robertson, Chief Scientific Officer, Joule Unlimited
Joule was founded in 2007 to develop and implement direct photosynthetic conversion to fuels and commodity products. The company has developed cyanobacterial photobiocatalysts that operate continuously in a proprietary SolarConverter to use sunlight, waste CO2 and brackish water to synthesize drop-in ethanol and paraffins.
This lecture is part of the BioEnergy Lecture Series offered by the new BioEnergy Community at MIT.
Sponsored by: MIT Energy Club
Admission: Open to the public
For more information: Contact MIT Energy Club
energyclub at mit.edu
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MOOCs and the Emerging Digital Classroom
Thursday, March 21, 2013
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Abstract
MOOCs and other forms of online learning have the potential to disrupt traditional classroom education—or to help us better understand how to exploit the many learning spaces students now inhabit. This forum examines the ongoing migration of our analog practices into digital forms, looking at the ways in which digital technologies are transforming teaching and learning both on and off campus. What gaps in our curricula, or in our students’ experience, can be filled through technology? What elements of teaching practice can be effectively translated into new media, and what aspects of “teaching” must be redefined?
Speakers
Anant Agarwal the president of edX, a worldwide, online learning initiative of MIT and Harvard University, and a professor in MIT’s electrical engineering and computer science department.
Alison Byerly holds an interdisciplinary appointment as College Professor at Middlebury College and, during 2012-2013, she is a visiting scholar in the Literature Section at MIT. Recently, she was named the 17th president of Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.
Daphne Koller is the Rajeev Motwani Professor in the computer science department at Stanford University. Koller will join the conversation live from the west coast.
Moderator: David Thorburn is Professor of Literature at MIT. His most recent books are the coedited volumes Democracy and New Media and Rethinking Media Change. Other writings include Conrad's Romanticism, and many essays and reviews on literature and television. He has been the director of the MIT Communications Forum since 1994.
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Voices of Faith For Climate Justice
Thursday, 21 March, 2013
06:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Arlington Street Church, 351 Boylston Avenue, Boston
Shalom,
I invite you to join people of faith that are called to work towards Freedom and Climate Justice for all in an interfaith evening of prayer, ritual, advocacy and a shared veggie potluck dinner.
Please bring a veggie dish to share, your own plate and utensils, and a reading from your faith tradition if you would like. Palms or ritual foods for Passover - matzah, parsley, charoset, grape juice, sliced horseradish root, and/or sliced beets – or another ritual food or object from your tradition that speaks to the themes of justice, freedom, and the environment, are also welcomed.
Please RSVP on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/484802971568129/ and invite your friends.
Contact Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
www.mayantikvah.org
Email: rabbikza at verizon.net
Phone: 508-358-5996
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Crowd Funding: Where it stands now - “The Power of Alternative Financing for Entrepreneurs”
The EntreTech Forum
Thursday, March 21, 2013
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Cambridge Innovation Center, Havana Room, 5th Floor, One Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at http://etfmar2013-eorgf.eventbrite.com
3:00 - 6:00 PM - Networking, Other Events and Refreshments - Cambridge Innovation Center - 4th Floor, Cambridge, MA
6:00 - 8:00 PM - EntreTech Forum Panel Discussion - Cambridge Innovation Center, Havana Room - 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA
Ask any entrepreneur about raising seed capital to get their venture off the ground, and you'll hear a wide range of adventure stories. Lucky ones are able to secure an initial investor and get started, while the majority spends countless months selling their ideas to investors that like the ideas but are hesitant to gamble on an uncertain exit. Enter crowd funding, a powerful means to directly tap into groups of new and veteran investors. In last year's EntreTech Forum session, we saw successful Crowd funding efforts that funded small projects up to startup companies. No longer a techie fad, crowd funding has raised more than $10 million for some companies. Now many want to know how or if it can be used as a mature source for financing ventures.
Join us for this EntreTech Forum where we will have a discussion with an executive panel of advisors from the investment, startup, and legislative areas. They will share their perspectives and experiences on topics that every entrepreneur grapples with as they seek funding, including:
What is the outlook on Crowd Funding from a political perspective?
Where does the government legislative and Securities and Exchange Commission findings-report on Crowd Funding stand?
How do I leverage crowd funding?
How does the equity allocation work?
With respect to the IRS, what do we need to be aware of and what are the rules?
If I use crowd funding for seed financing, does this make my company more or less attractive to traditional angel or VC investors down the road?
Bring your own experiences and share them at this lively discussion.
Panel:
Alon Hillel-Tuch, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer - RocketHub
RocketHub is one of the world’s largest crowdfunding platforms. Alon was born in the land of cheese and clogs, The Netherlands, and speaks English, Dutch, German, and a smidge of Mandarin Chinese. Alon co-authored two whitepapers, entitled Regulation of Crowdfunding: Building On the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, and Implementation Of Crowdfunding: Building On Title III Of The Jobs Act, which have both received critical acclaim and resulted in Alon testifying before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in US Congress and meeting with the U.S Treasury Department, White House’s Jobs Counsel, SEC, FINRA, and the Ontario Securities Commission.
Alon holds a B.A. from Hamilton College and received his M.Sc from Columbia University. Alon is a fellow at the Earth Institute and is currently part of the Advanced Consortium of Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity think-tank on genocide prevention.
Joseph Schlesinger, Founder – ArcBotics, Founder & Director - MakeIt Labs
Joseph was trained as an electrical and computer engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has worked across many fields, with a passion for robotics. A serial entrepreneur since a young age, he is the founder of MakeIt Labs. MakeIt Labs is an open-access workshop in Nashua, NH, where anyone can come to brainstorm, learn and create with like-minded people. Joseph is currently working on his company ArcBotics, which develops and sells open, low-cost robotics platforms for hobbyists, education and research. ArcBotics is dedicated to helping igniting a wave of innovation in robotics through Open-Source Hardware. The company aims to provide easily-accessible tutorials, plans, kits and parts for anyone from the enthusiast to the dedicated researcher, to make it cheaper and easier to build robots. Joseph has successfully raised funding for his business through Kickstarter.
Moderator
David R. Pierson, Partner, Foley Hoag Emerging Entreprise Center
David chairs Foley Hoag’s Venture Capital/Emerging Companies Practice Group. He represents a broad range of emerging companies, including companies in the software and technology, life sciences, cleantech and other industries. David also represents U.S. and foreign venture capital firms in connection with their investments throughout the U.S. His practice at the EEC focuses in particular on start-up companies, and includes providing advice regarding corporate formation, founder arrangements, angel and venture capital financings, equity incentive plans, mergers and acquisitions and other strategic transactions, contract negotiations and general corporate matters.
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Guns Don't Kill People, The Media Kills People
Thursday, March 21
6:30-8 pm
Suffolk University Law School, McLaughlin Moot Court Room, 120 Tremont Street, Boston
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents with John Rosenthal and Charlton McIlwain; moderated by Edward Powell.
The media shapes how we see things, even when we know the truth is otherwise. After all, why is the national conversation on guns framed as "pro-gun vs. anti-gun" despite most of our perspectives being much more nuanced? Moderator Edward Powell (Executive Director, The Boston Foundation's StreetSafe Boston) shines a spotlight on how the media's distortion of reality exacerbates gun violence. He speaks with John Rosenthal (gun owner and founder/Chairman of Stop Handgun Violence) and Charlton McIlwain (Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU Steinhardt) to identify how TV, internet, and newspaper reporting paints an inaccurate picture of guns' effects on communities of color and engages in fear-mongering that fails to prevent further tragedies.
Further background information on the participants:
Charlton McIlwain is an Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University at Steinhardt. His research interests focus broadly on issues of race and media, particularly within the social and political arena. McIlwain co-authored/edited the books Race Appeal and The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity.His other scholarly works have appeared in the International Journal of Press/Politics, American Behavioral Scientist, Communication Quarterly, and many more. Currently, he is researching individuals' cognitive and physiological responses to race-based messages in political ads. McIlwain is also exploring how people use digital media to influence both the discourse and political work surrounding racial equality and equal opportunity. Additionally, he recently launched a new site, KidsOnColor.com, a forum for exchanging childhood stories about racial awareness.
Edward M. Powell is the executive director of StreetSafe Boston, bringing 20 years of experience in the private, not-for-profit, and government sectors to StreetSafe’s mission of transforming Boston’s toughest youth in an effort to make city neighborhoods safe. Powell comes to StreetSafe Boston from the Boston Private Industry Council, one of the nation’s premier public-private partnerships that connects business, the Boston Public Schools, higher education, government, labor, and community organizations to create innovative workforce and education solutions. A decade ago, he co-founded the All For One AAU Basketball program where he served as an assistant coach and oversaw the academic component of the program. Powell now serves on the board of the Manny Wilson Developmental Basketball League at the Yawkey Boys and Girls Club which receives academic support through an educational component implemented by Powell.
In 1995, gun-owner and recreational Trap Shooter John Rosenthal founded Stop Handgun Violence, an organization known for its giant billboard along the Mass Turnpike near Fenway Park. Their billboard campaign communicates the extent of the national gun violence problem as well as practical solutions. In 2005, Rosenthal co-founded a membership organization called American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA). AHSA is an alternative membership organization to the NRA for moderate gun owners who care about gun rights as well as gun safety, conservation and wildlife habitat, and support for law enforcement. John Rosenthal is also the President of Meredith Management (real estate development) and the founder of Friends of Boston’s Homeless.
Admission is free and open to all. Wheelchair accessible and conveniently located near the Park St. MBTA Station. For more information, contact Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University: 617-557-2007, www.fordhallforum.org.
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Arlington EcoFest 2013, EcoFootprints: Arlington's People, Places & Spaces
Saturday, 23 March, 2013
10:00 AM - 02:00 PM
Arlington Town Hall, 730 Mass. Avenue, Arlington
This year's EcoFest will focus on Arlington's outdoor places and spaces -- parks, playing fields, playgrounds, waterbodies, trails, gardens and more -- and how people use and care for them. Using the ecofootprint concept, we'll look at how our activities affect our outdoor resources and how to manage our ecofootprints so that those resources continue to be available for future generations.
Co-Sponsored by Arlington Garden Club, Town of Arlington, and Vision 2020/Sustainable Arlington
Featuring Guest Speaker, Meg Muckenhoupt, author of Boston's Gardens and Green Spaces; music for families with children
Exhibitors and vendors to be determined.
Check Town of Arlington website for EcoFest information starting in February: http://www.arlingtonma.gov/public_documents/index
Contact Gail McCormick
gaildtm at gmail.com
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“Ecological Forecasting: How Science Can Help Society to Proactively Prepare for a Warmer World”
Monday, March 25, 2013
12pm
Northeastern University, 450 Renaissance Park, 1135 Tremont Street, Room 426, Boston
Brian Helmuth
Professor, Marine and Environmental Science and Public Policy, College of Science and College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Contact Northeastern Humanities nuhumanities at neu.edu
617-373-4140
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Micro-Housing: Rethinking Urban Living
March 26, 2013
7:45pm - 9:45pm
Modern Theatre, 535 Washington Street, Boston
RSVP at http://buildingboston2030.evenbrite.com/#
Tom Connelly, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Tamara Roy, ADD Inc
Karen Clarke, NE School of Art and Design at Suffolk University
Kelly Saito, Gerding Edlen
Kairos Shen, Boston Redevelopment Authority
Moderated by Peter Howe, NECN
Presented by the Center for Real Estate and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board
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2nd Annual Boston Baseball Hack Day
Saturday, March 30, 2013
9:30 AM To 7:00 PM
Thoughtbot, 41 Winter Street, 7th floor, Boston
Register at http://bbhd2013.eventbrite.com/
Are you a web developer, designer, or a programmer who is interested in baseball? Or a passionate baseball fan with ideas?
Boston Baseball Hack Day on March 30, 2013, is the second annual hacking event where area baseball minds come together, form a team, and collaborate to create baseball-related project and bring an idea to life. The goal of the day is to bring creative minds into one room and see what they can produce within a limited time. The project could be (but is not limited to) a tool, simple web app, website, or data visualization. See what we did in 2012 to get an idea.
It is also a great opportunity to network and socialize among like-minded people. Projects will be judged by area experts, and a brief awards ceremony (with prizes courtesy of our sponsors) will conclude the program.
At the end of the day, projects will be judged by area experts, and a brief awards ceremony will conclude the event.
Baseball Hack Day is a free event thanks to the generosity of our sponsors. Registration is required and seating is limited. So Register NOW!
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Landscaping with Climate in Mind
April 3
7:00 pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Sue Reed, Author of Energy-Wise Landscape Design.
Learn how to manage your landscape to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint—essential actions in this era of climate change.
Sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts
http://www.grownativemass.org/programs/eveningswithexperts
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Kitchen Gardeners Get-Together
Tuesday, April 9th
6:30 - 8:30pm
Central Square Branch of the Cambridge Public Library
45 Pearl Street (off Massachusetts Avenue)
Free and Open to the Public
April Topic: getting ready for spring planting
As spring approaches, many of us are thinking about starting our gardens. Some of us are beginners with a lot of questions. Some of us have a lot of experience to share. A lot of us would love the opportunity to talk to other gardeners about our common interest.
Jules Kobek of DIO Skillshare will be facilitating a monthly get-together of kitchen gardeners to discuss informally our practices, problems, and successes as vegetable gardeners. Each monthly meeting will have a specific topic for general discussion, but there will also be time set aside for individual questions.
Topics can include: deciding what vegetables to grow for your specific situation and needs; soil fertility; insects, good and bad; plant diseases; and succession planting.
Topics will be limited to kitchen gardening: growing food for yourself, family, and friends.
Participants will be sharing from their own experience. There will be no formal presentations.
Not covered: commercial growing, fruit and nut trees, beekeeping, chickens, or other animals. These are all specialized areas that requires a different set of skills and knowledge.
This will be a pilot project of three months. If there is sufficient interest, we'll continue year-round.
Call Jules at 617-492-2340 for more information
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Cambridge Mini Maker Faire
Saturday, April 13
Noon - 4pm
Tennis courts outside Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School/Cambridge Public Library
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Save the Date: Friday 19 April, 2013
20th Anniversary Celebration of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP)
Convened in Honor of CIERP’s Director, Professor William Moomaw
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
On the afternoon of Friday, April 19, the Fletcher community will host a symposium on campus celebrating CIERP’s 20th Anniversary and honoring the distinguished career of William "Bill" Moomaw,Professor of International Environmental Policy and CIERP’s Founder and Director. The event will be themed around scaling renewable energy.
Please mark your calendars! More details to follow. All are welcome.
The Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP), established in 1992 at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, develops innovative approaches to shifting global development onto an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable path. We analyze how economic and social activities impact the environment, and design strategies for meeting human needs without straining the planet’s resources. CIERP advances theory, turns it into practice, educates the international community, and prepares students for careers as global leaders and citizens.
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SUSTAINABILITY: PRACTICES AND POSSIBILITIES
3rd Massachusetts Sustainable Communities Conference
2nd Massachusetts Sustainable Campuses Conference
April 24, 2013
8am - 4pm
DCU Center, Worcester, MA
Conference details at http://masustainablecommunities.com
Register early and save at http://masccc.eventbrite.com
Cost: $45 to $75
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Opportunity
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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!
Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Membership in the coop costs $2.50 per quart. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch. No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.
For more information checkout.
https://sites.google.com/site/somervilleyogurtcoop/home
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Boiler Rebate
If your boiler is from 1983 or earlier, Mass Save will give a $1,750 to $4,000 rebate to switch it out for a new efficient boiler that uses the same fuel (i.e. if you have oil, you have to continue to use oil) so long as it is installed by July 31, 2012.
Call Mass Save (866 527-7283) to sign up for a home energy assessment or sign-up online at www.nextsteplivinginc.com/HEET and HEET will receive a $10 contribution from Next Step Living for every completed assessment.
This is a great way to reduce climate change emissions for the next 20 or so years the boiler lasts, while saving money.
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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
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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).
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ
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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.)
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Resource
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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
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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
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/
Arts and Cultural Events List http://aacel.blogspot.com/
Cambridge Civic Journal http://www.rwinters.com
http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar/events/index.php
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/calendar
http://harddatafactory.com/Johnny_Monsarrat/index.html
http://bostoneventsinsider.com/boston_events/
More information about the Act-MA
mailing list