[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events - January 29, 2017
gmoke
gmoke at world.std.com
Sat Jan 28 20:53:47 PST 2017
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
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html
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Index
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Monday, January 30
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11am How Can We Trust a Robot?
12pm Networked Cultural Knowledge: Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance in Social Networks
12pm Private Foundations: Avoiding Pitfalls of an Election Cycle
1pm The Value of Predictability and the Difficulty of a Good Forecast
4pm What's ahead for environmental law in the Trump adminstration
4pm Traces: Dark Cloud - Special One-Day Photography Exhibition
4pm Arab Human Development Report 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development
4:30pm Building a Diverse Boston: What Meaningful Inclusion Looks Like
5pm Climate Science 101: Fundamentals of Climate Science
5pm The State of Religious Freedom
5:30pm On the Home Front: State and Local Housing Policies in the Trump Era
6pm Introduction to Economics and Policy of Climate Change: How Will You Design a Climate Policy?
6:30pm Premier of film "Birth of a Movement”
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Tuesday, January 31
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8:30am Get Smaaht: Grid Modernization in Mass
12pm Not Bugs, But Features: Hopeful Institutions and Technologies of Inequality
12:30pm Hormone-Altering Chemicals: Fertility and Health Implications
12:30pm A Reporter's Perspective: Assad, Trump, and the Failure of U.S. Syria Policy
1pm Food Waste Policy: Solutions for People, Planet, Profit
1pm Housing Recovery - What's Different This Time
1pm Music-Tech Meetup Presents: Creative Entrepreneur Conversation with Thomas Dolby
1pm Talk transportation with your legislator: Commonwealth Conversations
1pm IDEA² Global Finals, Awards, and Reception
4pm Roman warships in Experiment: Reconstruction and Sailing Tests
5pm Climate Science 102: The Global Climate System and Climate Modeling
5pm Thomas Dolby: The Speed of Sound
6pm International Climate Governance and the Role of the United States
6pm Boston Green Drinks - January Happy Hour
7pm A Conversation with The Prophet, The Professor, and The Journalist
7pm A reporter's perspective: Islamic State, Assad, Russia, and the failure of
US Policy
7pm BU Climate Action Plan Public Forum
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Wednesday, February 1
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3:30pm Impact of Climate Change and Urbanization Effect on Extremely Heavy Rainfalls in Megacities in China
4pm Under-Writing Beirut—Ouzaï: A Lecture by Lamia Joreige
4pm Climate Science and Policy: Now More Than Ever!
5pm Can carbon pricing solve climate change: Lessons from climate policy efforts around the world
6pm Embracing Uncertainty: How our society deals with not knowing and what we can do to prepare for climate change
6pm The Food System: Sustainability, Health, and Equity
7pm Nurturing the Liberated Landscape - a talk by Larry Weaner, author of 'Garden Revolution’
7pm Democracy: A Case Study
7pm Let Them Eat Dirt!
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Thursday, February 2
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11:45am Norm Champ on Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis
12pm Networked Cultural Knowledge: Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance in Social Networks
1pm The Strange Case of the Water That Went up The Great-Grandfather's Arse and Other Stories of Democracy
2pm How to control the climate
4pm Long-term variability of the Afro-Asian summer monsoon and its possible causes: combined natural and anthropogenic effects
6pm World Climate Negotiations Simulation
6pm Film Screening (An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story) and Roundtable Featuring Cornel West and Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier
7pm The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
7pm How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can't Change
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Friday, February 3 - Sunday, February 5
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Social Emergency Response Center
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Friday, February 3
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12pm How some Rust Belt cities are becoming the smartest Places on Earth and why it Matters
12pm Reactive Gases in the Global Atmosphere Watch Network
2pm A Conversation with Drew Houston, Co-Founder and CEO, Dropbox, Inc.
3pm Can We At Least Agree on Science?
7pm The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health
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Saturday, February 4
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10am Science on Saturday - Your Developing Brain
10am Countering Islamophobia: Organizing as a Unified Force
8pm Jimmy Tingle Making Comic Sense
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Sunday, February 5
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1pm D-Lab Reg Day Open House
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Monday, February 6
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12pm Music Publishing & The Law: Getting Paid in the Digital Age
12:10pm Causes and consequences of pollinator foraging behavior
4pm Harvard Course in Reading and Study Strategies
4pm Opportunities and Perils in Data Science
6pm From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
6pm Presidential Secrecy from Washington to Trump
7pm Gender and Color in Comics
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2017/01/peak-secrets-from-new-science-of.html
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Monday, January 30
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How Can We Trust a Robot?
Monday, January 30
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
MIT, Building 32, D463 (Star), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Benjamin Kuipers
Intelligent robots may increasingly participate in our society, driving on our roads, caring for our children and our elderly, and in many other ways. Can we trust them?
Society depends on cooperation, which requires partners to trust each other, and to refrain from exploiting the vulnerability trust entails. Straight-forward applications of game theory, where each partner acts to maximize his own expected reward, often lead to very poor outcomes. Societies impose social norms to lead individuals away from attractive selfish decisions, toward better outcomes for everyone. Robots will need to explicitly establish their trustworthiness as potential collaborative partners by following the social norms of society.
Philosophical theories of ethics (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics) provide useful ideas toward designing robots that can follow social norms, but no one theory is adequate. A hybrid architecture combining multiple methods at different time-scales will be required to ensure that a robot behaves well in the complex human physical and social environment.
I conclude by applying these ideas to the Deadly Dilemma, a frequently-raised challenge for intelligent robots acting as self-driving cars.
Bio sketch
Benjamin Kuipers is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. He was previously a Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College, and his Ph.D. from MIT. He served as Department Chair at UT Austin, and is a Fellow of AAAI, IEEE, and AAAS. He investigates the representation of commonsense and expert knowledge, with particular emphasis on the effective use of incomplete knowledge. His research accomplishments include developing the QSIM algorithm for qualitative simulation, the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy models of knowledge for robot exploration and mapping, and methods whereby an agent without prior knowledge of its sensors, effectors, or environment can learn its own sensorimotor structure, the spatial structure of its environment, and its own object and action abstractions for higher-level interactions with its world.
Contact: Nick Roy, nickroy at csail.mit.edu
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Networked Cultural Knowledge: Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance in Social Networks
Monday, January 30
12:00 pm
Northeastern, 177 Huntington Avenue 11th floor, Boston
Please bring your Northeastern ID (or other photo ID) when entering the building
Rosalyn Negron, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UMass Boston
In this presentation I’ll share preliminary findings from Project Aquila, in which we used cultural domain analysis (CDA) to examine the distribution of cultural knowledge within the transnational social networks of Brazilian and Dominican immigrants in Boston. CDA includes a set of methods, developed within cognitive anthropology, that are used to study the content and structure of knowledge domains that are culturally defined. Such methods include consensus analysis (CCA) and cultural consonance analysis (CCO). CCA is used to assess the extent to which members of a community share cultural beliefs. CCO extends this work and posits that external constraints, including discrimination and economic hardship, can limit the extent to which people’s behavior approximates prototypical practices encoded in cultural models. Typically, both CCA and CCO are done with unrelated people who are thought to be members of the same culture. I will demonstrate the utility of embedding cultural consensus and cultural consonance data within a social network as a way to understand the distribution of cultural beliefs and behaviors within a group. I will discuss the ways that conceptualizing culture in terms of shared cultural knowledge within social networks contributes to the study of the relationship between culture and health in a number of ways.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rosalyn Negrón is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, specializing in urban social anthropology. Broadly, Rosalyn’s research deals with the interpersonal dimensions of ethnicity in diverse cities, with a special focus on social interaction and social networks. With a range of applications, Rosalyn’s work bridges multiple substantive and methodological areas, including social network analysis, sociolinguistics, health disparities, and disparities in STEM participation. She has conducted research in Jamaica, Florida, New York City, and Boston. Rosalyn’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, and the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity.
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Private Foundations: Avoiding Pitfalls of an Election Cycle
Monday, January 30
12:00 pm to 2:00 pm
BU, 765 Commonwealth Ave, Redstone Building, Barristers Hall, Boston
Speaker: Ken Monteiro, General Counsel, The Ford Foundation
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The Value of Predictability and the Difficulty of a Good Forecast
Monday, January 30
1:00p–2:30p
MIT, Building E51-335, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Spencer Glendon (Wellington Management Company LLP)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Economics IAP
For more information, contact: economics calendar
econ-cal at mit.edu
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What's ahead for environmental law in the Trump adminstration
Monday, January 30
4 pm
Harvard, Milstein East A, Wasserstein, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Law School Professors Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus will discuss the challenges that environmental and energy law face in the next four years and possible responses.
Sponsored by the Harvard Environmental Law Program
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Traces: Dark Cloud - Special One-Day Photography Exhibition
Monday, January 30
4:00PM TO 5:30PM
Harvard, Asia Centers Lounge, First Floor, CGIS South Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies welcomes award winning photographer Ian Teh for a special one-day exhibition and talk.
Ian Teh is an award-winning photographer based in UK and Malaysia. He has published three monographs, Undercurrents (2008), Traces (2011) and Confluence (2014). His work is part of the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) and the Hood Museum in the USA. Selected solo shows include the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York in 2004, Flowers in London in 2011, the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam in 2012, the Open Society Foundations in New York and Penang in Malaysia in 2013, the Photoville in New York, the Tasneem Gallery in Barcelona in 2014, and the Lianzhou Foto Festival in Guangdong of China in 2015.
Teh has received multiple honours, including the International Photoreporter Grant 2016, the Abigail Cohen Fellowship in Documentary Photography 2014, and the Emergency Fund 2011 from the Magnum Foundation. In 2013, he was elected by the Open Society Foundations to exhibit in New York at the Moving Walls Exhibition. In 2015, during COP21 during the Paris climate talks, large poster images of his work was displayed on the streets of Paris as part of a collaborative initiative by Dysturb and Magnum Foundation. He is a co-exhibitor to an environmental group show of internationally acclaimed photographers, Coal + Ice, curated by Susan Meiselas. It was recently exhibited at the Official Residence of the US Ambassador to France during COP21.
Co-sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and China Project, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
fairbankcenter at fas.harvard.edu
http://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/event/traces-dark-cloud-special-one-day-photography-exhibition/
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Arab Human Development Report 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development
Monday, January 30
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST
Harvard, Allison Dining Room, Taubman Building, Fifth Floor, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/arab-human-development-report-2016-youth-and-the-prospects-for-human-development-in-a-changing-registration-31074208795
A panel discussion on the recently released Arab Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme on Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality, featuring Jad Chaaban, Lead Author of the report and Associate Professor of Economics at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Ishac Diwan, MEI Visiting Scholar and Chaire D'Excellence Monde Arabe at Paries Sciences et Lettres, and Melani Cammett, Professor of Government, Harvard University.
For more information on the 2016 report, past reports, and UNDP's work in the Middle East and North Africa, visit http://www.arab-hdr.org/.
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Building a Diverse Boston: What Meaningful Inclusion Looks Like
WHEN Monday, Jan. 30, 2017, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Room S-020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) David Howse, Director, Arts Emerson and Tim Phillips, CEO, Beyond Conflict
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO Donna Hicks, Chair
dhicks at wcfia.harvard.edu
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Climate Science 101: Fundamentals of Climate Science
Monday, January 30
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Justin Bandoro - Master's Student, School Of Science
This lecture is the first in a series and will begin with the history of climate science and will provide a broad overview of the physics of the climate system. The goal is to allow participants to develop a broad understanding of Earth 's climate system and understand the basic tools of climate science.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Center for Global Change Science
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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The State of Religious Freedom
WHEN Monday, Jan. 30, 2017, 5 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR HDS Diversity and Inclusion Fellow
CONTACT studentlife at hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS Religious freedom is a principle based not on shared ancestry, culture, or faith but on a shared commitment to liberty. For over 20 years, January 16th has been recognized annually in the United States as Religious Freedom Day. Inspired by this idea and given the recent shifts in our social landscape, we invite you to join us for a discussion on the present and future states of religious liberty for diverse groups in the United States.
Panelists Include:
Diane Moore, Director, Religious Literacy Project; Senior Lecturer on Religious Studies & Education; Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions
Dudley Rose, Associate Dean for Ministry Studies; Lecturer on Ministry
The discussion will be moderated by Aisha Ansano, HDS Alum (MDiv ’16); Ministerial Intern at First Church in Boston.
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On the Home Front: State and Local Housing Policies in the Trump Era
WHEN Monday, Jan. 30, 2017, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Belfer Building, Bell Hall, 5th floor, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
SPEAKER(S)
oseph A. Curtatone, Mayor of the City of Somerville, Mass.
Chrystal Kornegay, Undersecretary of the MA Department of Housing and Community Development
Henry Korman, Partner at Klein Hornig LLP, focused on housing and civil rights
Chris Herbert, JCHS Managing Director (moderator)
COST Free and open to the public
DETAILS The new Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress could portend significant changes in the many federal programs and policies that affect housing and community development. While it is too soon to know exactly what the new administration and Congress will do, there are likely to be important discussions and debates in the coming months about such topics as: future federal funding and tax incentives for housing, enforcement of fair housing laws, the future of entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and a host of other federal policies that affect housing and community development such as infrastructure and immigration. Panelists will discuss what they see as the most significant threats and possible opportunities, as well as how officials and advocates can prepare for, respond to, and possibly shape key policies and programs in the next few years.
Co-sponsored by the HKS Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, the HKS Taubman Center for State and Local Government, the GSD Department of Urban Planning and Design, the Harvard Urban Planning Organization, the HLS Urbanists, HKS Students for the Alleviation of Poverty & Social Inequality (SAPSI), the HKS City + Local Professional Interest Council, and the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning.
LINK http://jchs.harvard.edu/event/home-front-state-and-local-housing-policies-trump-era
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Introduction to Economics and Policy of Climate Change: How Will You Design a Climate Policy?
Monday, January 30
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Minghao Qiu - Master's Student
This lecture is the second in a series. If you are a designer for climate policy, what do you think is important and how will you design a good policy? This session will introduce basic concepts in environmental economics and environmental policy. We will examine the policy options and guide the audience to think about what is important in the process.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Center for Global Change Science
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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Premier of film "Birth of a Movement"
Monday, January 30
6:30pm
Somerville Theater
There will be a panel of experts from the film available for a discussion following the screening. Henry Louis Gates Jr, Vincent Brown from Harvard, Dolita Cathcart from Wheaton College and Robert Bellinger from Suffolk University will all be on the panel. Barbara Lewis will be the moderator.
"My name is Susan Gray. We just completed a film for PBS entitled Birth of a Movement: The Battle Against America’s First Blockbuster, about William Monroe Trotter’s fight against DW Griffith’s epic film, The Birth of a Nation, produced by Northern Light Productions in Boston and based on a book by former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lehr that was released last year. Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sam Pollard are our Executive Producers, and Spike Lee, Reginald Hudlin, and DJ Spooky are in the film. Michael Curry plays William Monroe Trotter in the film. I am one of the directors with Bestor Cram, and our company, Northern Light Productions, has been making quality programming in Boston for 30 years.
"This is a Boston Story about a great civil rights leader who has been lost to history. It is also a film about the end of the first U.S. period of reconstruction and the battle against the turning tide of racism in this country waged by a newspaperman who was considered a radical in his day. With the election of Donald Trump, we are entering what Professor Gates calls “the end of the second U.S. reconstruction.”
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Tuesday, January 31
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Get Smaaht: Grid Modernization in Mass
Tuesday, January 31
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
50 Milk Street, 18th Floor "Hemingway Room,” Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/get-smaaht-grid-modernization-in-mass-tickets-29590592258
Cost: $50 – $65
Join us for a trip into the future. Learn about the electric grid that we see today and opportunities for investment on both the wires’ side and buildings’ side. Where is development is needed, planned, and in process? How do grid modernization technologies stack up against each other? How do smart buildings (green buildings) fit into the grid of the future and what opportunities might there be with time of use metering, energy storage financing, and data management?
Let's talk about electric vehicles and the demand / support that they can provide with a smart grid. How is this energy industry transforming? Is analytics as a service going to be a communication with office managers and facility staff or will a cloud-based service possibly control our building? Will batteries be used to level loads on stressed electricity feeders?
How does what we do in Massachusetts compare to progress in other states? California, Texas and Illinois have the lead but what might happen in MA to make our grid the pacesetter?
This is part of our Market Leadership Series where we encourage the professional in the room to drive the conversation and share their questions and perspective for a robust session.
Advisement: This conversation will be led by Chapter member Ben Pignatelli from the Department of Public Utilities (DPU). Ben's presentation will not reflect the views of the DPU nor will he be able to speak on behalf of the Department. His presentation will outline publically available information and the science supporting it.
About the Speaker - Ben Pignatelli:
As a technical staff member in the Electric Power Division at the DPU Ben works on regulatory and market issues associated with energy efficiency, grid modernization, and competitive electricity supply. He has evaluated the MassSave program, is reviewing public utility grid modernization plans, and reviews municipal electricity aggregation plans. Ben also manages regulatory relations with electricity supply companies through investigations, licensing, and market animation initiatives. He has held previous roles with the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and the City of Boston. Ben is a Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) and holds an MBA from Boston University and a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire in Political Science.
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Not Bugs, But Features: Hopeful Institutions and Technologies of Inequality
Tuesday, January 31
12:00 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Room B010, Singer Classroom (lower level), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required to attend in person at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/01/Greene#RSVP
Event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/01/Greene at 12:00 pm
featuring Dan Greene, Postdoctoral Researcher with the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England
How did we learn that we need to learn to code—or else? This talk draws on three years of fieldwork among Washington, D.C.’s public libraries, and interviews with librarians and homeless patrons, to explore how poverty comes to be understood as a ‘digital divide’ and how that framework changes the nature and purpose of public institutions in an era of skyrocketing inequality.
About Dan
Dan Greene is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. His research focuses on the future of work and its shadow--the future of unemployment. A former social worker, Dan received his PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, where he was also a University Flagship Fellow and a member of the EViD (Ethics and Values in Design) Lab. His dissertation (and current book project, tentatively titled The Promise of Access: Hope and Inequality in the Information Economy) draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to explore the reproduction of the digital divide and how urban institutions like startups, charter schools, and public libraries make the problem of poverty a problem of technology and remake themselves in the process. At Microsoft Research, he’s beginning his next project: A history of technologies used for hiring and firing, and the automation of human resource management. Dan’s research has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Communication, Surveillance & Society, and TripleC. You can find him online at dmgreene.net.
Dan Greene's research site: dmgreene.net
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Hormone-Altering Chemicals: Fertility and Health Implications
Tuesday, January 31
12:30 - 1:30pm
LIVE WEBCAST at https://theforum.sph.harvard.edu/events/hormone-altering-chemicals/
The Forum at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health presented jointly with The Huffington Post
Many of the products we use every day — drinking bottles, cosmetics, furniture, toys — can contain endocrine disruptors, chemicals that affect human health by altering the body’s natural hormones. Pregnancy and fetal development represent an especially sensitive life stage that may be uniquely vulnerable to the effects of endocrine disruptors, and now, with the passage of a major overhaul of the Toxic Controlled Substances Act — the first such update in 40 years — the EPA has new power to review chemical safety and protect biologically vulnerable groups like women and children. What do we know about endocrine disruptors and their impact on reproduction, fertility and pregnancy? How do racial and ethnic differences influence our exposure to these chemicals and their impacts, and how can policymakers work to minimize their proliferation? In this Forum, scientists come together with policy experts to discuss the latest research on endocrine disruptors, risk management and recommendations for regulation.
Expert Participants:
Russ Hauser, Acting Chair, Department of Environmental Health, and Professor of Reproductive Physiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Tamarra James-Todd, Assistant Professor of Environmental Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Nneka Leiba, Deputy Director of Research, Environmental Working Group
Pete Myers, Founder, CEO and Chief Scientist, Environmental Health Sciences
Moderator:
Erin Schumaker, Senior Healthy Living Editor, The Huffington Post
Spread the word:
Send our panelists questions in advance to theforum at hsph.harvard.edu
We'll be conducting a live chat on The Forum's Hormone-Altering Chemicals web page.
Tweet us @ForumHSPH #toxins
Forum video will be posted on-demand after the event
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A Reporter's Perspective: Assad, Trump, and the Failure of U.S. Syria Policy
WHEN Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, CMES, Room 102, 38 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Middle East Forum, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
SPEAKER(S) Reese Erlich, Veteran Foreign Correspondent
CONTACT INFO elizabethflanagan at fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS Reese Erlich’s history in journalism goes back over 40 years. He worked as a staff writer and research editor for “Ramparts,” an investigative reporting magazine published in San Francisco. Today he works as a full-time print and broadcast, freelance reporter. He reports regularly for National Public Radio, ABC (Australia), and Radio Deutsche Welle. His articles appear in “Vice News” and “Foreign Policy.” His television documentaries have aired on PBS stations nationwide. Erlich’s book, “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” co-authored with Norman Solomon, became a best seller in 2003. “The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of US Policy and the Middle East Crisis” was published in 2007. Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba was published in 2009. “Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence and Empire,” was published in 2010. The paperback edition of “Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect” came out in 2016.
Unless otherwise noted, CMES events are open to the public (no registration required), and off the record. Please note that events may be filmed and photographed by CMES for record-keeping and for use on the CMES website and publications
LINK http://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/reporters-perspective-assad-trump-and-failure-us-syria-policy
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Food Waste Policy: Solutions for People, Planet, Profit
Tuesday, January 31
1:30 - 4 pm
Harvard Global Health Institute, 42 Church Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://fs6.formsite.com/harvardhigh/form154/index.html
As part of the Climate Change and Global Health Seminar series, the Harvard Global Health Institute presents Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic Director Emily Broad Leib.
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Housing Recovery - What's Different This Time
Tuesday, January 31
1:00p–2:30p
MIT, Building E51-376, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: William Wheaton (MIT)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Economics IAP
For more information, contact: economics calendar
econ-cal at mit.edu
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Music-Tech Meetup Presents: Creative Entrepreneur Conversation with Thomas Dolby
Tuesday, January 31
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
The Red Room at Cafe 939, 939 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Boston-Music-Technology-Group/events/237166347/
Thomas Dolby, the MTV icon, new wave artist with the '80s hit song She Blinded Me With Science, filmmaker, and Silicon Valley veteran, believes that rapid advances in communications and computing power do NOT always lead to a parallel increase in human innovation and creativity. Hear Dolby discuss with BerkleeICE's managing director Panos Panay how his creative path has taken him from the Billboard lists, to playing with David Bowie, to creating original music for feature Lucas and Spielberg films, to coding the technology that drove interactive audio in Java and polyphonic mobile ringtones. Dolby will also have copies of his latest book, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology, available for purchase and signing.
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Talk transportation with your legislator: Commonwealth Conversations
Tuesday, January 31
1 - 4pm
Assembly Row, Public Storage Building, 1st Floor Conference Room
, 15 Middlesex Avenue, Somerville
RSVP at http://massmoves.org
Lunch will be provided.
The Massachusetts Senate is kicking off a series of statewide forums called the Commonwealth Conversations. The Conversations will give the Senate an opportunity to hear from constituents in every corner of Massachusetts.
As part of this year’s tour, the Senate has created an initiative called MassMoves to focus on transportation issues. In these nine public workshops, Senators and other state, local, and civic leaders hope to hear from you about your priorities for our transportation future.
The first workshop in our region is on You can register here for Tuesday’s workshop.
To find out more about the Senate’s statewide tour, click here. Residents are encouraged to attend additional transportation workshops. You can find out more information about other workshops and register here.
Hope to see you at MassMoves!
Elizabeth Weyant, Government Affairs Manager, Metropolitan Area Planning Council
Eweyant at mapc.org
617.933.0703
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IDEA² Global Finals, Awards, and Reception
Tuesday, January 31
1:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST
MIT, Samberg Conference Center, 6th Floor, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/idea2-global-finals-awards-and-reception-tickets-30955436544
Please join us Tuesday, January 31 at MIT for the final pitches, awards ceremony, and reception for the first edition of IDEA²Global.
The day will cap seven months of hard work and exciting project evolution for these teams of biomedical technology innovators. You can read about the teams and their new technology ideas on the IDEA² Global website. Since they were selected in July 2016, 14 teams involving over 50 members were connected with over 40 international experts and mentors to develop their technologies, which range from new materials for tissue engineering to data analysis platforms for preventing medical errors.
See the agenda on the IDEA² website at http://idea2.mit.edu/2017/01/09/idea²-global-finals-awards-and-reception-agenda/
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Roman warships in Experiment: Reconstruction and Sailing Tests
Tuesday, January 31
4:00pm
MIT, Building 37-252, Marlar Lounge, 70 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Hans Moritz Guenther
Warning: This talk is non-astronomical and contains actual videos and possibly sound. After the climax of its power internal struggle weakened the military position of the Roman Empire. A series of attacks in the 2nd and 3rd century AD forced an adjustment of the military strategy in central Europe. Instead of further expansion, the borders of the empire were increasingly fortified. In Germany this lead to the construction of an impressive naval fleet on the rivers Rhine and Danube. Several of the boats have been excavated. Our team has attempted a reconstruction of two types of vessel, the "navis lusoria" and the "Oberstimm" with a level of detail down to the hand-smithened nails with the correct metallurgy. A series of three working boats have been built in original size. I will show pictures of the reconstruction phase, but concentrate on the on-the-water tests we have performed with different teams to access the speed, maneuverability and sailing performance of these boats. Particularly in sailing the possibilities far exceeded the expectations. This result indicates a much larger operating radius of these vessels than previously estimated and thus a much higher flexibility of the river defense scheme which the empire relied on to keep the barbarians at bay. See, e.g.: this movie
No enrollment limit for talk, no advance sign-up required.
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Climate Science 102: The Global Climate System and Climate Modeling
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Justin Bandoro - Master's Student, School Of Science
This lecture is the third in a series, and will build on Climate Science 101 (see January 30) and dive into an overview of how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for Global Change Science, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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Thomas Dolby: The Speed of Sound
January 31
5:00pm
MIT, Killian Hall, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
A talk and performance demonstration by Thomas Dolby about his experiences in the music and tech industries, the subject of his recently published memoir The Speed of Sound.
“Rapid advances in communications and computing power do NOT always lead to a parallel increase in human innovation. Personal excellence comes from shattering your own boundaries. The best ideas are born out of a scarcity of resources.”
“Need to solve a problem? Begin by switching off your smartphone. Unplug that laptop. Flip through an ancient Rolodex, gather a few great people around a blackboard, make doodles on your yellow pad. Build something out of balsa wood. Fire up that squeaky turntable and dust off your vinyl collection. Break out the Tequila and do some shots!” –Thomas Dolby
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International Climate Governance and the Role of the United States
Tuesday, January 31
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Arun Singh (Master's Student, TPP) and Michael Davidson (PhD Student, JP - ESD)
This lecture is the fourth in a series. It will focus first on: What is the history and institutional basis of this process of international climate governance? The second part of the lecture will focus on: What has the role of the United States been in shaping global climate policy? What are the achievements and failures of US climate policy? And most importantly, what can we expect post 2016 elections?
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Center for Global Change Science
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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Boston Green Drinks - January Happy Hour
Tuesday, January 31
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Scholars, 25 School Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boston-green-drinks-january-happy-hour-tickets-31038812925
Happy New Year! So much is happening in the sustainability world, so let's get together and talk about it.
Join the conversation with sustainability professionals and hobbyists. Enjoy a drink and build your connection with our green community!
Boston Green Drinks builds a community of sustainably-minded Bostonians, provides a forum for exchange of sustainability career resources, and serves as a central point of information about emerging green issues. We support the exchange of ideas and resources about sustainable energy, environment, food, health, education.
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A Conversation with The Prophet, The Professor, and The Journalist
Tuesday, January 31
7:00 pm
First Church in Cambridge, Choir Room, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge
GUEST SPEAKERS
The Prophet: Sr. Megan Rice - 85 yr. old Roman Catholic nun, who
earned 2 yrs. in prison for breaching the security perimeter of Y-12, the
largest uranium storage facility in the country. "Being an anti-nuclear
activist satisfied my need to do what is just common sense,"
The Professor: Elaine Scarry Harvard Professor, author of Thermonuclear Monarchy:
Choosing between Democracy and Doom
The Journalist: Dan Zak
Find out more at http://masspeaceaction.org/event/nuclear-resistance/
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A reporter's perspective: Islamic State, Assad, Russia, and the failure of
US Policy
January 31
7:00 pm
First Church in Cambridge, Choir Room, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge
Based on numerous reporting trips to the region, freelance foreigncorrespondent Reese Erlich discusses the growth of Syrian extremist rebelgroups, the status of the Assad regime, foreign intervention and the failure of US policy. He provides up to date analysis and what the new US president will likely face after the November elections. Erlich is a Peabody winning journalist and author of Inside Syria: The Backstory of
Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect
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BU Climate Action Plan Public Forum
Tuesday, January 31
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
BU, Metcalf Trustee Center, 1 Silber Way, Boston
Come share your input on the University's Climate Action Plan.
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Wednesday, February 1
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Impact of Climate Change and Urbanization Effect on Extremely Heavy Rainfalls in Megacities in China
Wednesday, February 1
3:30PM
Harvard, 100F Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
with Ding Yihui, Professor and Special Advisor on Climate Change, China Meteorological Administration; Vice-Chairman, China Expert Panel on Climate Change
Under impacts of natural and anthropogenic climate change as well as urbanization effect, the occurrence frequency, day numbers and intensity of extremely intense rainfalls have demonstrated long-term variations. They have shown an increasing trend, with exceeding thresholds for 60 years, especially for the southern megacities (e.g. Shanghai and Guangzhou ). The detection and attribution study has shown that: the natural climate change (weakening of East Asian summer monsoon ) determines the overall spatial patterns of urban extremely intense rainfall events. The anthropogenic climate change (climate warming) and urbanization effect have enhanced the frequency and intensity of extremely intense rainfall events as well as focusing in urban area, thus leading to increase in disastrous risks caused by urban heavy rainfalls.
China Project Research Seminar
http://chinaproject.harvard.edu/ding170201
Contact Name: Tiffany Chan
tiffanychan at seas.harvard.edu
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Under-Writing Beirut—Ouzaï: A Lecture by Lamia Joreige
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Film, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Lamia Joreige, 2016–2017 Rita E. Hauser Fellow, Radcliffe Institute; Visual Artist and Filmmaker
COST Free
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS In this talk, Lamia Joreige will question the relationship between the state and the diverse communities existing within Lebanon. She will investigate the possibility of mapping an informal space and will look for what images of such places prevail in our imagination. Her research assembles elements from such diverse fields as film, history, and urban and political studies.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2017-lamia-joreige-fellow-presentation
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Climate Science and Policy: Now More Than Ever!
Thursday, February 2
4pm – 7pm
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
World Climate Negotiations simulation
Sponsored by MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
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Can carbon pricing solve climate change: Lessons from climate policy efforts around the world
Wednesday, February 1
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building E52-164, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Emil Dimantchev - Master's Student, JP - TPP - ESD
This lecture is the fifth in a series. It will address why politicians and economists are diametrically opposed on the idea of carbon price, and why Secretary Hillary Clinton 's platform didn't feature a carbon price. The talk will draw on real world experience with carbon pricing to derive lessons about its potential to mitigate climate change.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for Global Change Science, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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Embracing Uncertainty: How our society deals with not knowing and what we can do to prepare for climate change
Wednesday, February 1
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E52-164, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Christoph Tries
This lecture is the sixth in a series. We will look at the substantial role which uncertainty plays in our economy, politics and science. We will close out with some suggestions how to adequately adapt to climate change and how to communicate uncertainty issues to the public, and then open for a discussion with the audience.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for Global Change Science, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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The Food System: Sustainability, Health, and Equity
Wednesday, February 1
6 to 8 p.m.
Northeastern, West Village F, Room 20, 510 Parker Street, Boston
Issues in Global Food Security
Robert Paarlberg, Harvard Kennedy School
Timothy Wise, Small Planet Institute
More information at https://www.northeastern.edu/cssh/policyschool/myra-kraft-open-classroom/
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Nurturing the Liberated Landscape - a talk by Larry Weaner, author of 'Garden Revolution'
Wednesday, February 1
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
All too often we think of gardens and landscapes as static compositions of carefully placed and managed plants. But a more dynamic and rewarding approach takes advantage of the unique characteristics of plant species and communities, working with ecological processes, not against them. Learn how designer Larry Weaner utilizes the natural adaptations and reproductive abilities of plants to create engaging, ever-evolving landscapes that bring new meaning to partnering with nature. Using examples from his own property and from client projects, Larry will share how this give-and-take approach results in compelling, low-maintenance landscapes that free plants to perform according to their natural abilities and liberate people from having to cater to their landscapes’ every need.
Larry Weaner has been creating native landscapes since 1977. His work is nationally recognized and has received awards from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Cultural Landscape Foundation, Garden Club of America, and others. His new book, Garden Revolution, is a “must read” for all who seek to integrate landscape design with ecological processes.
Presented by Grow Native Massachusetts at the Cambridge Public Library
More information at http://grownativemass.org/programs/eveningswithexperts
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Democracy: A Case Study
Wednesday, February 1
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes Harvard Business School's DAVID A. MOSS, founder of The Tobin Project, for a discussion of his book, Democracy: A Case Study.
About Democracy
To all who declare that American democracy is broken—riven by partisanship, undermined by extremism, and corrupted by wealth—history offers hope. In nearly every generation since the nation’s founding, critics have made similar declarations, and yet the nation is still standing. When should we believe the doomsayers? In Democracy: A Case Study, historian David Moss adapts the case study method made famous by Harvard Business School to revitalize our conversations about governance and democracy and show how the United States has often thrived on political conflict.
Democracy’s nineteen case studies were honed in Moss’s Harvard course, which is among the institution’s most highly rated. Each one presents readers with a pivotal moment in U.S. history and raises questions facing key decision makers at the time: Should delegates to the Constitutional Convention support James Madison’s proposal for a congressional veto over state laws? Should President Lincoln resupply Fort Sumter? Should Florida lawmakers approve or reject the Equal Rights Amendment?
These vibrant cases ask readers to weigh choices and consequences, wrestle with momentous decisions, and come to their own conclusions. They provoke us to rethink which factors make the difference between constructive and destructive conflict, and they provide an opportunity to reengage the passionate debates that are crucial to a healthy society. Democracy: A Case Study invites us all to experience American history anew and come away with a deeper understanding of our democracy’s greatest strengths and vulnerabilities as well as its extraordinary resilience over time.
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Let Them Eat Dirt!
Wednesday February 1
7 PM
3 Church Street, Cambridge
Living in an over sanitized world.
Brett Finlay, microbiologist at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia
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Thursday, February 2
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Norm Champ on Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Bell Hall (5th Fl. Belfer Building), 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at the Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Norm Champ, author, Going Public; and partner at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP
CONTACT INFO Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to mrcbg at hks.harvard.edu
LINK https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/news-events/event-calendar#nextevent
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Networked Cultural Knowledge: Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance in Social Networks
Thursday, February 2
12:00 pm
Pizza will be served on the 10th Floor at 11:30 a.m.
Northeastern, 177 Huntington Avenue, 11th floor, Boston
Please bring your Northeastern ID (or other photo ID) when entering the building
Rosalyn Negrón, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UMass Boston
In this presentation I’ll share preliminary findings from Project Aquila, in which we used cultural domain analysis (CDA) to examine the distribution of cultural knowledge within the transnational social networks of Brazilian and Dominican immigrants in Boston. CDA includes a set of methods, developed within cognitive anthropology, that are used to study the content and structure of knowledge domains that are culturally defined. Such methods include consensus analysis (CCA) and cultural consonance analysis (CCO). CCA is used to assess the extent to which members of a community share cultural beliefs. CCO extends this work and posits that external constraints, including discrimination and economic hardship, can limit the extent to which people’s behavior approximates prototypical practices encoded in cultural models. Typically, both CCA and CCO are done with unrelated people who are thought to be members of the same culture. I will demonstrate the utility of embedding cultural consensus and cultural consonance data within a social network as a way to understand the distribution of cultural beliefs and behaviors within a group. I will discuss the ways that conceptualizing culture in terms of shared cultural knowledge within social networks contributes to the study of the relationship between culture and health in a number of ways.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Rosalyn Negrón is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, specializing in urban social anthropology. Broadly, Rosalyn’s research deals with the interpersonal dimensions of ethnicity in diverse cities, with a special focus on social interaction and social networks. With a range of applications, Rosalyn’s work bridges multiple substantive and methodological areas, including social network analysis, sociolinguistics, health disparities, and disparities in STEM participation. She has conducted research in Jamaica, Florida, New York City, and Boston. Rosalyn’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, and the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity.
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The Strange Case of the Water That Went up The Great-Grandfather's Arse and Other Stories of Democracy
Thursday, February 2
1:00p–2:30p
MIT, Building E52-432, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Speaker: Abhijit Banerjee (MIT)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Economics IAP
For more information, contact: economics calendar
econ-cal at mit.edu
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How to control the climate
Thursday, February 2
2:00pm
MIT, Building NW17-218, 175 Albany Street, Cambridge
David Keith, Harvard University
What tools exist, or could reasonably be developed, to directly alter the Earth's climate? What are the limits to solar geoengineering? What are the ethics might apply to the development of such tools?
IAP Seminars
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Long-term variability of the Afro-Asian summer monsoon and its possible causes: combined natural and anthropogenic effects
Thursday, February 2
4:00PM
Harvard, Haller Hall (102), Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Yihui Ding, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China
The Afro-Asian summer monsoon is a zonally planetary-scale system, with a large-scale rainbelt covering Africa, South Asia and East Asia both in the past century (1901-2014) and in the last three decades (1979-2014). With concurrent retreat and advance of the Afro-Asia monsoon system in Africa and Asia, a southward shift of the main monsoon rainband has been observed since the 1960s. Since then, a recent inter-decadal abrupt change of the precipitation in these regions occurred in the late 1990s. The entire rainbelt of the Afro-Asia monsoon system is now advancing northward. The increasing precipitation can be synchronously detected over the Yellow River - Huaihe River valley in China and the Sahel in North Africa. The in-phase increase of precipitation in the Sahel and Yellow River - Huaihe River valley since the late 1990s is associated with the teleconnection pattern caused by the AMO.
At the same time, the warm AMO phase resulted in significant warming in the upper troposphere in North Africa and northern part of East Asia, respectively. Consequently, such warming contributed to intensification of the tropical easterly jet (TEJ) through increasing the meridional pressure gradient both in the entrance region (East Asian branch) and the exit region (African branch). The above results indicate that the Afro-Asian summer monsoon has assumed a consistent and holistic inter-decadal change.
Future projection of the Afro-Asian summer monsoon is made based on CMIP5 models with the major monsoon rainbelt located in more northern latitudes, which reflects enhanced anthropogenic effects on the Afro-Asian summer monsoon system.
Co-sponsored by Harvard University Center for the Environment and the China Project at Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Harvard Climate Seminar
http://eps.harvard.edu/event/harvard-climate-seminar-6
Contact Name: Sabinna Cappo
scappo at fas.harvard.edu
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World Climate Negotiations Simulation
Thursday, February 2
6:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Christoph Tries
This interactive group project is the final session associated with an IAP lecture series. Participant groups will represent regions of the world with various goals for mitigation, adaptation, and economic growth, then participate in a mock international climate negotiation. The computer simulation C-ROADS will be used to examine the outcomes of the mock negotiation in real-time.
About the Series: "Climate Science and Policy, now more than ever!" The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change provides a fast-paced, accessible introduction to the climate system, linking the social and scientific aspects of Climate change. These sessions aim to contextualize current global and local climate policy and provide an introduction to current research in climate.
The opening session on Monday, January 30, will be about the fundamentals of climate science, followed by a discussion that will help understand both domestic and international environmental policies in practice. The second day, we will examine how the climate system responds to both natural and human-caused forcings, and how scientists can detect and attribute observed changes in the climate system to human activity, followed by a discussion about what the influence of the United States has been in shaping global climate policy. Finally, on Thursday participants will interact in a mock of international climate negotiation and examine the outcomes in real-time.
Web site: http://student.mit.edu/iap/ns177.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for Global Change Science, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
For more information, contact: Dimonika Bray
617-324-7375
dbizi at mit.edu
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Film Screening (An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story) and Roundtable Featuring Cornel West and Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, 6 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Braun Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Divinity School, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Harvard Colloquium for Intellectual History, the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, the Department of African & African American Studies, the History Department, and the Committee on the Study of Religion with support of the Rabbi Joseph F. Shubow Memorial Fund
SPEAKER(S) Harvard’s Cornel West, Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier, Project Head Andrew Finstuen,
Moderator Healan Gaston
CONTACT INFO Healan Gaston: gaston at hds.harvard.edu
DETAILS
Join us for a screening and discussion of a riveting new film about Reinhold Niebuhr set to air on PBS in April of 2017. This documentary offers a stunning portrait of Niebuhr's many contributions to Christian ethics and political thought, together with new insights concerning Niebuhr’s influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. The film includes interviews with former President Jimmy Carter, civil rights leader Andrew Young, Cornel West, David Brooks, Elisabeth Sifton, Susannah Heschel, Gary Dorrien, Robin Lovin, Stanley Hauerwas, Andrew Bacevich, Mark Massa, Andrew Finstuen, Healan Gaston, and many others. Please arrive early to secure a seat!
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The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
Thursday, February 2
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome award-winning foreign correspondent STEPHEN KINZER—author of All the Shah’s Men, Overthrow, and The Brothers—and STEPHEN M. WALT, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard, for a discussion of Kinzer's latest book, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire.
About The True Flag
The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond.
How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat—until the cycle begins again.
No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to intervene in a foreign country.
Revealing a piece of forgotten history, Stephen Kinzer transports us to the dawn of the twentieth century, when the United States first found itself with the chance to dominate faraway lands. That prospect thrilled some Americans. It horrified others. Their debate gripped the nation.
The country’s best-known political and intellectual leaders took sides. Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst pushed for imperial expansion; Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie preached restraint. Only once before—in the period when the United States was founded—have so many brilliant Americans so eloquently debated a question so fraught with meaning for all humanity.
All Americans, regardless of political perspective, can take inspiration from the titans who faced off in this epic confrontation. Their words are amazingly current. Every argument over America’s role in the world grows from this one. It all starts here.
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How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can't Change
Thursday, February 2
7pm – 9pm
MIT, Building 4-270, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
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Friday, February 3 - Sunday, February 5
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Social Emergency Response Center
Friday, February 3 - Sunday, February 5
Friday 5-9 PM
Saturday and Sunday 12-6 PM
Dorchester Arts Collaborative, 157 Washington Street, Dorchester
The social emergency was already here. It was just unevenly distributed.** Join*us* at Boston's Social Emergency Response Center Jan 27-29 and Feb 3-5*
Who: Artists, activists and community members in collaboration with the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI)
What: Social Emergency Response Centers (SERCs) are temporary, emergent, and creative pop-up spaces co-led by activists and artists around the US. They include creative action, healing, collective making, performances and more. Boston is hosting the first SERC.
Why: We are in a social emergency. In natural emergencies like hurricanes or floods, emergency response centers provide food, shelter, and healing. Social Emergency Response Centers (SERCs) re-imagine these centers to take on the real and pressing *social emergency* that we are facing today. They help us pivot out of humdrum time, through despair, rage and hopelessness into collective, creative and radical action.
SERCs will function as both an artistic gesture and a practical solution, creating opportunities for social intervention, emotional healing, collective art-making, performances, political workshops, collective cooking and more.
Please join community members of all ages engaged in printmaking, spoken word, boxing, taiko drumming, dialog, drum circles, performances,
storytelling, and more. Full schedule at http://ds4si.org/interventions/serc
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Friday, February 3
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How some Rust Belt cities are becoming the smartest Places on Earth and why it Matters
WHEN Friday, Feb. 3, 2017, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Perkins Room (R-415), 4th Floor Rubenstein, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Center for International Development at Harvard University
SPEAKER(S) Antoine van Agtmael, senior adviser at Foreign policy Analytics and principal founder, CEO and CIO of Emerging Markets Management, LLC.
CONTACT INFO andrea_hayes at hks.harvard.edu
LINK http://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/event/lunch-seminar-how-some-rustbelt-cities-are-becoming-smartest-places-earth-and-why-it
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Reactive Gases in the Global Atmosphere Watch Network
Friday, February 3
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Harvard, 100F Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Detlev Helmig, University of Colorado, Boulder
Long-term observations of atmospheric gases serve multiple research interests, such asfor studies on trace gas cycles, assessments of emissions and their changes, and testing of atmospheric chemistry models. The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program coordinates a network of global observations of reactive gases, including a series of volatile organic compounds (VOC). Example data will be presented, including new results from global observations of acetylene and isoprene. A particular focus will be on ethane, where observations have shown a recent, remarkable reversal of the Northern Hemisphere long-term trend. Global atmospheric ethane peaked around 1970, followed by a downward trend for the next four decades. Surprisingly, the near 40-year trend of declining global ethane halted between 2005-2010 and has since reversed. These changes are occurring at a hemispheric scale, but are most evident in the eastern part of the North American continent, downwind over the North Atlantic, and in the free troposphere over Europe. Network observations provide convincing evidence that these changes are most likely driven by emission increases that are associated to the growth of the North American oil and natural gas industries.
Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
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A Conversation with Drew Houston, Co-Founder and CEO, Dropbox, Inc.
Friday, February 3
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST
MIT, Building 32-123 (Stata Center), 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-conversation-with-drew-houston-co-founder-and-ceo-dropbox-inc-tickets-31327240620
Please join us at this special event with Drew Houston.
Drew Houston is CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, leading Dropbox's growth from a simple idea to a product used by millions around the world. Before founding Dropbox, Drew received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2006. While at MIT, he took a leave of absence to found online SAT prep company Accolade, while working as a software engineer at various startups. After graduating, Drew was endlessly frustrated by carrying USB drives and emailing files to himself. In early 2007, he teamed up with fellow MIT student Arash Ferdowsi to begin working on the project that eventually became Dropbox. In 2012, Drew was named to MIT Technology Review’s TR35 list honoring the world’s top innovators under 35, and was also included in Fortune’s “40 Under 40.” He and his co-founder Arash received TechCrunch’s Founders Of The Year Crunchie Award in 2014, and were co-winners in The Economist's Innovation Awards’ Computing and Telecommunications category in 2015.
If you have any questions, please contact Emily Cefalo at ecefalo at MIT.EDU
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Can We At Least Agree on Science?
Friday, February 3
3:00 pm, Reception at 2:30pm
Northeastern, 177 Huntington Avenue, 11th floor, Boston
Please bring your Northeastern ID (or other photo ID) when entering the building
Michael Macy, Goldwin Smith Professor of Arts and Sciences, Cornell; Director, Social Dynamics Lab
Recent surveys show that public confidence in science remains high, yet sizable numbers of Americans reject scientific conclusions regarding evolution (42%), climate change (33%), and even heliocentrism (18%). In an era of deepening political polarization, can science bridge the cultural divide? To find out, we used a co-purchase network of millions of political and scientific books as a behavioral indicator of political differences in exposure to science. We found that science does not bridge the political divide, it deepens it. In addition, books in commercially relevant applied science (e.g., medicine, criminology, and geology) are more likely to be co-purchased with conservative books, compared to books oriented more to basic science (e.g. physics, astronomy, and zoology). Finally, liberal books tend to be co-purchased with a much broader sample of science books, indicating that conservatives have more selective interest in science. We conclude that the political left and right share an interest in science in general, but not science in particular.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Michael Macy left the farm in Tennessee where he grew up to attend Harvard, where he received his B.A. and later Ph.D, along with an M.A. from Stanford. He is currently Goldwin Smith Professor of Arts and Sciences in Sociology and Director of the Social Dynamics Laboratory at Cornell, where he has worked since 1997. With support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and Google, his research team has used computational models, online laboratory experiments, and digital traces of device-mediated interaction to explore familiar but enigmatic social patterns, such as circadian rhythms, the emergence and collapse of fads, the spread of self-destructive behaviors, cooperation in social dilemmas, the critical mass in collective action, the spread of high-threshold contagions on small-world networks, the polarization of opinion, segregation of neighborhoods, and assimilation of minority cultures. Recent research uses 509 million Twitter messages to track diurnal and seasonal mood changes in 54 countries, and telephone logs for 12B calls in the UK to measure the economic correlates of network structure. His research has been published in leading journals, including Science, PNAS, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Annual Review of Sociology.
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The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health
Friday, February 3
7:00pm-8:00pm
Harvard Coop, Level 3, 1400 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
DAVID R. MONTGOMERY & ANNE BIKLE
A riveting exploration of how microbes are transforming the way we see nature and ourselves and could revolutionize agriculture and medicine.
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Saturday, February 4
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Science on Saturday - Your Developing Brain
Saturday, February 4,
10:00a–12:00p
MIT, Building W16, 48 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), Cambridge
Science on Saturday
Main presentation: 10 a.m. - 11 a.m.
Hands-on activities: 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Open to all K-12 students, as well as their parents and teachers. No preregistration required, but seating is limited - first come, first seated
Explore Your Developing Brain with MIT"s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Museum
For more information, contact: Todd Rider
thor at mit.edu
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Countering Islamophobia: Organizing as a Unified Force
Saturday, February 4
10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Arlington Street Church, Chapel, 351 Boylston Street, Boston
Featured Speakers: Shannon Erwin, Muslim Justice League Hayat Imam, Dorchester People for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace SUPPORT OUR MUSLIM NEIGHBORS Back the Muslim community which is facing escalating bigotry and hate by building relationships with Muslim individuals and organizations Fight Islamophobia by becoming allies, on an individual and collective level Work with Local Government, Schools and Muslim Organizations to forge institutional backing for tolerance, solidarity, civil liberties, safety and refuge in our cities Interactive sessions at this workshop
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Jimmy Tingle Making Comic Sense
WHEN Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017, 8 p.m.
WHERE Sanders Theatre
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Comedy
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Tingle Productions
COST Full Price: $35, $30, $25, Students: 10% off, limit of 2 per ID (not available online), Groups of 10 or more: 15% discount
TICKET WEB LINK www.boxoffice.harvard.edu
TICKET INFO The Harvard Box Office 617-496-2222
DETAILS Social, political and autobiographical humor from comedian and commentator Jimmy Tingle.
Children age 5 and under prohibited.
LINK https://www.boxoffice.harvard.edu/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=tingle
Editorial Comment: Ticket promo code: BINJ to support the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (http://binjonline.org) which wishes to remind you that there is no service charge for in person sales at Harvard Box Office, 10 Holyoke Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge.
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Sunday, February 5
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D-Lab Reg Day Open House
Sunday, February 5
1:00p–2:00p
MIT, Building N51-350, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Come meet the instructors for all D-Lab spring courses, talk to staff and students! Check out the D-Lab space and workshop! All welcome. Light snacks.
Web site: d-lab.mit.edu/courses
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): D-Lab
For more information, contact: Nancy Adams
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Monday, February 6
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Music Publishing & The Law: Getting Paid in the Digital Age
WHEN Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Austin Hall, Room 111, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Information Technology, Law, Music
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Recording Artists Project at Harvard Law School
SPEAKER(S) Anne Cecere, Senior Director of Film, TV & Visual Media Relations at BMI
Tim Cohan, Senior Vice President of Legal and Business Affairs at Peermusic
Corey Field, Founder of Corey Field Law Group, a boutique entertainment law firm
CONTACT INFO hlsrap at gmail.com
DETAILS A panel about music publishing’s regulatory landscape, new challenges created by streaming, and the re-emergence of performance as a dominant income source for artists.
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Causes and consequences of pollinator foraging behavior
Monday, February 6
12:10 pm
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill, 1300 Centre Street, Boston
Heather Briggs, Arboretum post-doctoral fellow, Hopkins Lab
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Harvard Course in Reading and Study Strategies
WHEN Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Science Center, Lecture Hall E, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Education
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Bureau of Study Counsel
COST $25 Harvard College and GSAS degree candidates; $150 others
TICKET WEB LINK http://bsc.harvard.edu/readingcourse
CONTACT INFO 617-495-2581
DETAILS This 10-hour course (Feb. 6-17, 2017, Monday - Friday, 4 - 5 p.m.) helps you read more purposefully and selectively, with greater speed and comprehension. For more information or to register, visit http://bsc.harvard.edu/readingcourse
LINK http://bsc.harvard.edu/readingcourse
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Opportunities and Perils in Data Science
Monday, February 6
4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Refreshments: 3:45 PM
MIT, Building 32-D463, Star Seminar Room, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Alfred Spector , Two Sigma
Abstract: Over the last few decades, empiricism has become the third leg of computer science, adding to the field’s traditional bases in
mathematical analysis and engineering. This shift has occurred due to the sheer growth in the scale of computation, networking and usage as well as progress in machine learning and related technologies. Resulting data-driven approaches have led to extremely powerful prediction and optimization techniques and hold great promise, even in the humanities and social sciences.
However, no new technology arrives without complications: In this presentation, I will balance the opportunities provided by big data and associated A.I. approaches with a discussion of the various challenges. I’ll enumerate ten categories including those which are technical (e.g., resilience and complexity), societal (e.g., difficulties in setting objective functions or understanding causation), and humanist (e.g., issues relating to free-will or privacy). I’ll provide many example problems, and make suggestions on how to address some of the unanticipated consequences of Big Data.
Bio: Alfred Spector is Chief Technology Officer and Head of Engineering at Two Sigma, a firm dedicated to using information to optimize diverse economic challenges. Prior to joining Two Sigma, Dr. Spector spent nearly eight years as Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives, at Google, where his teams delivered a range of successful technologies including machine learning, speech recognition, and translation. Prior to Google, Dr. Spector held various senior-level positions at IBM, including Vice President of Strategy and Technology (CTO) for IBM Software and Vice President of Services and Software research across the company. He previously founded and served as CEO of Transarc Corporation, a pioneer in distributed transaction processing and wide-area file systems, and he was an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Spector received a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is an active member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he serves on the Council.
Contact: Sheila M. Marian, 617-253-1996, sheila at csail.mit.edu
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
Monday, February 6
6:00 PM (Doors at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.harvard.com/event/daniel_c._dennett1/
Cost: $5 - $29.75 (online only, book-included)
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome Tufts University professor DANIEL C. DENNETT—author of Breaking the Spell, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, and Consciousness Explained—and DANIEL GILBERT, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, for a discussion of Dennett's latest book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.
About From Bacteria to Bach and Back
One of America’s foremost philosophers offers a major new account of the origins of the conscious mind.
How did we come to have minds?
For centuries, this question has intrigued psychologists, physicists, poets, and philosophers, who have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled ability to create, imagine, and explain. Disciples of Darwin have long aspired to explain how consciousness, language, and culture could have appeared through natural selection, blazing promising trails that tend, however, to end in confusion and controversy. Even though our understanding of the inner workings of proteins, neurons, and DNA is deeper than ever before, the matter of how our minds came to be has largely remained a mystery.
That is now changing, says Daniel C. Dennett. In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, his most comprehensive exploration of evolutionary thinking yet, he builds on ideas from computer science and biology to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett’s legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought.
In his inimitable style—laced with wit and arresting thought experiments—Dennett explains that a crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. Competition among memes—a form of natural selection—produced thinking tools so well-designed that they gave us the power to design our own memes. The result, a mind that not only perceives and controls but can create and comprehend, was thus largely shaped by the process of cultural evolution.
An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone eager to make sense of how the mind works and how it came about.
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Presidential Secrecy from Washington to Trump
WHEN Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, 6 – 7:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR JFK Jr. Forum
Institute of Politics
Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Norman L. Eisen, Fellow, The Brookings Institution
U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic (2011 – 2014)
Special Assistant and Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform (2009-2011)
Mary Graham
Co-Director, Transparency Policy Project, Ash Center, Harvard Kennedy School
Archon Fung (Moderator)
Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship and Academic Dean, Harvard Kennedy School
CONTACT INFO JFK Jr. Forum Office
617-495-1380
LINK http://iop.harvard.edu/forum/presidential-secrecy-washington-trump
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Gender and Color in Comics
Monday, February 6
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research welcome JOEL CHRISTIAN GILL, JOHN JENNINGS, and MILDRED LOUIS for a panel discussion on gender and color in comics, followed by a book signing.
Joel Christian Gill is the Chair of Foundations at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and recipient of the 2016 Boston University College of Fine Arts Alumni Award. He wrote the words and drew the pictures in Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black Historyand Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, No. 1.
John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. His work centers around intersectional narratives regarding identity politics and popular media. Jennings is co-editor of the Eisner Award–winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art and the illustrator for the graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler's classic dark fantasy novel Kindred.
Mildred Louis studied animation at Sheridan College in Canada, and launched her first webcomic series—Agents of the Realm—in March of 2014.
Books by Our Panelists
The following titles by our panelists will be on display and available for purchase this evening!
By Joel Christian Gill:
Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History
Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, Volume I
Bessie Stringfield: Tales of the Talented Tenth, No. 2
By John Jennings
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art
Pitch Black Rainbow: The Art of John Jennings
By Mildred Louis
Agents of the Realm, Volume 1
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Upcoming Events
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Tuesday, February 7
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Boston TechBreakfast: Peddlir, Operation Code, MeetSpace, Microsoft
Tuesday, February 7
8:00 AM
Microsoft NERD - Horace Mann Room, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Boston-TechBreakfast/events/236589359/
nteract with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / show-case style presentations.
And yes, this is free! Thank our sponsors when you see them :)
Agenda for Boston TechBreakfast:
8:00 - 8:15 - Get yer Food & Coffee and chit-chat
8:15 - 8:20 - Introductions, Sponsors, Announcements
8:20 - ~9:30 - Showcases and Shout-Outs!
Peddlir: - Ronnie Deaver
Operation Code - Conrad Hollomon
MeetSpace: - Nick Gauthier
Microsoft: HoloLens - Gavin Bauman
~9:30 - end - Final "Shout Outs" & Last Words Boston TechBreakfast Sponsors:
ConferenceEdge - EVENTS to the power of Edge
DLA Piper (Boston) - DLA Piper is a global business law firm that provides corporate, IP, capital raising and other legal advice to technology startups and high growth businesses.
G2 Tech Group - Managed DevOps for startups and small businesses
Talener - Talener is the country’s premier, highly specialized, technology staffing agency that matches top developers and engineers to leading start-ups, Fortune 500s, and multi-nationals.
hedgehog lab - hedgehog lab is a technology consultancy that designs and builds great apps for mobile
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Sack Lunch Seminar - Erik van Sebille (Imperial College London)
Tuesday, February 7
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915 (the tallest building on campus), Cambridge
The MIT Oceanography and Climate Sack Lunch Seminar Series is an informal student-run seminar series within PAOC. Seminar topics include all research concerning climate, geophysical fluid dynamics, biogeochemistry, paleo-oceanography/climatology and physical oceanography. The seminars usually take place on Wednesdays from 12:10-1pm in 54-915. The presentations are either given by an invited speaker or by a member of PAOC and can focus on new research or discussion of a paper of particular interest.
2016/2017 co-ordinator: Brian Green (nmg at mit.edu)
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Bottom-up Constitutionalism: The Case of Net Neutrality
Tuesday, February 7
12:00 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (Room 2036, second floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required to attend in person at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Graber#RSVP
Event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Graber at 12:00 pm.
with Christoph Graber, Berkman Klein Faculty Associate
The question is whether we can observe the emergence of a new constitutional right of the Internet, a right that does not only protect individuals in their communication online but a right protecting also the Internet as an institution. What would be the forum where such a process of constitutionalisation is taking place? Can fundamental rights also emerge bottom-up, from civil society rather than from a formally legitimised constitution maker?
About Christoph
Christoph B. Graber, Ph.D. (Law), Professor of Law, studied law at the Universities of Bern and St. Gallen, received his admission to the bar in Switzerland, a Ph.D. from the European University Institute (Florence) and his Habilitation from the University of Bern. He holds the Chair for Legal Sociology with particular focus on Media Law at the University of Zurich, Faculty of Law. He is a member of the executive committee of the Executive Master in Art Market Studies at the University of Zurich.
Prior to joining the law faculty at the University of Zurich, he taught at the University of Lucerne, where he was a founding member of the Faculty of Law. He has been a visiting professor/scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, Institute of International Economic Law, University of Wollongong, Faculty of Law, and University of California, Berkeley, Center for the Study of Law and Society. He is currently Faculty Associate at The Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He teaches in the fields of legal sociology and theory, cyberspace and media law, intellectual property and art law. His main research interests relate to analysing issues of normativity on the internet in relation to technology, intellectual property and freedom of expression and information from a law and society perspective.
Prof. Graber has been a long-time member of the Swiss Federal Arbitration Commission for the Exploitation of Author’s Rights and Neighbouring Rights (2004-2011), a member of the research commission of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Lucerne (2004-2014) and advisor to various branches of the Swiss Government, as well as OECD on legal issues related to IP, trade and culture. He is the author of numerous publications, editor of medialex, the Swiss journal of media law (2002-2014), and a member of the editorial advisory board of the University of Western Australia Law Review. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Solothurn Film Festival and a member of the council of the Centro Giacometti Foundation.
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Religion in the News: What Next? Strategies for Life in the Trump Presidency
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT CSWR: 617.495.4476
DETAILS Please note that this event is open to all Harvard faculty, staff, and students.
Join our Religion in the News post-Inauguration lunchtime conversation where we will explore the challenges, pitfalls, and opportunities that face us at HDS in this time of momentous change.
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Electric power grid reliability in a new era of energy development and an introduction to the Pitt Energy GRID Institute
Tuesday, February 7
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Gregory Reed
Energy resources and the supply of electric power are significant, defining global issues and play a critical role in our society on many levels. The impact from a new era of energy resource development and the rapidly evolving mix of diverse energy resource portfolios in the 21st century are creating new challenges and opportunities for electric power grid infrastructure. Over the past quarter of the 20th century, our nation had under???invested in technology, infrastructure, research and development, and education in this important area, which has led to a tremendous need not only for technology and infrastructure advancement, but also in workforce development. In this seminar, Professor Gregory Reed will provide an overview of the electric power and energy sector, along with recommendations on solutions to power grid reliability concerns, including the role of advanced power electronics control technologies and the emergence of direct current (DC) solutions at all levels of the grid, as well as microgrids and other rapidly evolving developments. The discussion will also highlight opportunities for research and development needs, education and training, and future employment in these exciting and dynamic fields. Reed will also discuss the leadership role of the Pittsburgh region, and provide an introduction to the recently established Energy GRID Institute at the University of Pittsburgh.
Web site: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/27-seminar-electric-power-grid-reliability-in-a-new-era-of-energy-development-and-an-introduction-registration-31155113784
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/27-seminar-electric-power-grid-reliability-in-a-new-era-of-energy-development-and-an-introduction-registration-31155113784
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact: MITEI Events
miteievents at mit.edu
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Robotics Evolution and Development Initiative: Overview of Robotics
Tuesday, February 7
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM EST
MassRobotics, 12 Channel Street, Suite 502, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/robotics-evolution-and-development-initiative-overview-of-robotics-tickets-31484230180
Join us for the launch of the Robotics Evolution and Development Initiative, Sponsored and Hosted by MassRobotics! This is a new group focused on educating the general public on developments in the robotics industry and to understand and foster commercial opportunities in robotics. Our first meeting will provide a general overview of the robotics landscape, summarizing how the field has developed, the current state of affairs, and what is needed to further the industry.
What is the READI?
The Robotics Evolution and Development Initiative (READI) is a new monthly event by MassRobotics to bring together various stakeholders from both within and outside the robotics community to focus on commercial opportunities in robotics. Robotic technologies will affect every segment of society and fundamentally change how we live and work. However, the robotics field is still in its nascent stages, and few are aware of what is going on in industry. The READI was started to educate the general public on how the robotics industry is developing; to bring together leading roboticists with other outside experts to discuss opportunities for commercialization and collaboration; and to form a strong community to establish Massachusetts as the world leader for robotics.
Schedule
5:30 PM - Doors open
6:00 PM - Introduction and Overview of READI - Matthew Cherewka, Organizer
6:10 PM - The History of Robotics: An Overview of Key Industry Developments - Daniel Theobold, CoFounder and Chief Innovation Officer, Vecna Technologies
6:30 PM - The State of Robotics in Massachusetts - Dan Kara, Practice Director of Robotics, ABI Research
6:50 PM - MassRobotics: Fostering the Future of Robotics - Tom Ryden, Executive Director, MassRobotics
7:10 PM - Announcements and Closing Remarks
7:15 PM - Networking
8:00 PM - Doors close
Bringing Robotics to Life
The Mission of MassRobotics, a non- profit, is to help create and scale the next generation of successful robotics and IoT companies by providing entrepreneurs and innovative robotics/automation startups with the space and resources they need to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize their products and solutions. In order to create a fertile environment in which visionaries can thrive, we aim to:
Offer best-in-class infrastructure and prototyping facilities to enable the unfettered development of robotic/automation systems.
Promote cost efficiencies by sharing services such as prototyping and testing space, maintenance support, IT, security, business services, investor introductions, and customer acquisitions.
Anticipate needs and roadblocks for entrepreneurs in order to provide the smoothest possible path to growth.
Provide innovation and investment back to the high tech community through acquisition opportunities, technology licensing, and facilitated innovation sabbaticals.
Develop common-need technology services (i.e. sensors support and standards office) for the MassRobotics community.
Inspire the next generation of innovators and builders through in-house, hands-on STEM collaboration and initiatives.
With these goals in mind, we hope to foster a collaborative ecosystem for academic, private, and public key stakeholders that allows the kind of thought-sharing and creative exchange needed to drive the industry forward.
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ArtScience Talks @ Le Lab: Caroline Park & Asha Tamirisa
Tuesday, February 7
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EST
Le Laboratoire Cambridge, 650 East Kendall Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/artscience-talks-le-lab-caroline-park-asha-tamirisa-tickets-31422487506
Artist Talks from Electronic Sound and Media Artists
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BASG FEB 7: INVITE TO IGNITE
Tuesday, February 7
6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (EST)
The Venture Cafe - Cambridge Innovation Center, 5th Floor, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
February can be cold but our plan is to fire us up with the inspirational work happening right here in the Greater Boston Area. We have six slots we’d like to fill with representatives of action-based organizations our membership might join – to hear about the work you’re doing and ways we can get involved. If you’re active in such an organization or know of organizations you’d like to hear more about, send applications to cbaroudi at arrow.com with the Subject: FEB BASG. All applications must be submitted by January 17th. We'll be using the NetImpact ignite format - short and dynamic! Followed by group discussion.
We’re looking for a variety of organizations with a focus on celebrating significant progress or momentum, urgency, innovation and disruption. We look to communities, non-profits, academia, government and industry. Please help spread the word, far and wide. And if you’re ready to register before the organizations are announced, you can take advantage of our early-bird pricing. We promise a lively, inspiring evening. Hope to see you there!
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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, February 8
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The Great Swap: Addressing Climate Change with a Carbon Tax
12pm-1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Joseph Aldy
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Can We Prevent Civil War Recurrence?
Wednesday, February 8
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Chuck Call
SSP Wednesday Seminar
Web site: https://ssp.mit.edu/events/2017/can-we-prevent-civil-war-recurrence
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
For more information, contact: Elina Hamilton
617-253-7529
elinah at mit.edu
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China and the United States After Trump: View From Washington
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017, 12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, S020, Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Critical Issues Confronting China Seminar Series; co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Harvard University Asia Center
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Douglas Paal, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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DEBATES: Voting and Expenditure Responses to Political Communication
Wednesday, February 8
2:45p–4:00p
MIT, Building E51-395, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Kate Casey (Stanford)
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Development Economics Seminar
For more information, contact: economics calendar
econ-cal at mit.edu
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Seeing the Birth of an RNA Molecule: A Lecture by Jeff Gelles
WHEN Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S)m Jeff Gelles, 2016–2017 Helen Putnam Fellow, Radcliffe Institute; Aron and Imre Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Brandeis University
COST Free
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS A central focus of Jeff Gelles’s research is the use of light microscopy methods that allow the direct observation of single molecules as they perform their biological functions. In this lecture, Gelles will speak about how he is applying these methods to the study of how messenger RNA synthesis and maturation are coordinated in eukaryotic cells.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2017-jeff-gelles-fellow-presentation
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The Welfare Effects of Nudges: A Case Study of Energy Use Social Comparison
WHEN Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Littauer-382, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
Harvard Environmental Economics Program
SPEAKER(S) Hunt Allcott
LINK https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/16492
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Dertouzos Distinguished Lecture: "Frugal Innovations for a Developing World"
Speaker: Bill Thies , Microsoft Research, India
Wednesday, February 8
4:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Refreshments: 4:15 PM
MIT, Building 32-123/Kirsch Auditorium, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Abstract: The benefits of novel technologies are often out of reach for the poorest billion on the planet. Instead of making things faster, bigger, and more futuristic, can we make things radically cheaper, simpler, and more inclusive? In this talk, I will describe some of our successes, failures, and lessons learned in deploying such "frugal technologies" in India over the past eight years. Drawing on projects in health, education, and citizen reporting, I will synthesize our experiences into a set of recommendations for anyone seeking to have social impact via technology.
Bill Thies is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research India, where he has worked since 2008. His research focuses on building appropriate information and communication technologies that contribute to the socio-economic development of low-income communities, a field known as ICTD. Previously, Bill earned his B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees from MIT, where he worked on programming languages and compilers for multicore processors as well as microfluidic chips. His distinctions include the John C. Reynolds Doctoral Dissertation Award, a CHI Best Paper Award, and a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship.
Contact: Lauralyn M. Smith, 617-253-0145, lauralyn at csail.mit.edu
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Air Quality in Megacities: From Mexico City to Beijing
Wednesday, February 8
5:00PM TO 6:00PM
Harvard, Science Center Hall C, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Mario J. Molina, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995; Distinguished Professor, UC San Diego; Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
China Project Special Event
http://chinaproject.harvard.edu/molina170208
Co-Sponsored by China Project, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Harvard Global Institute
Contact Name: Tiffany Chan
tiffanychan at seas.harvard.edu
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A great solar cell has to be a great LED: So what's wrong with subsidized solar panels?
Wednesday, February 8
5:00p–6:30p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Eli Yablonovitch
A new scientific principle has produced record-breaking solar cells following Professor Eli Yablonovich's mantra, "A great solar cell has to be a great LED." These solar cells have smashed all efficiency records and are in commercial production. Nonetheless, the overhang of >60 gigawatts/year of subsidized, outdated, Chinese-silicon solar panel factories is blocking the scaling of the superior technology. Silicon solar panels are in line to provide about 10% of electricity, but the super-efficient technology can eventually provide almost all of the world's electricity and fuel.
In the interim, the solar/LED symmetry will revolutionize thermophotovoltaics, the creation of electricity directly from heat, and enable electroluminescent refrigeration, a refrigerator in which light is the working fluid.
IHS Seminar Series
Web site: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/28-seminar-a-great-solar-cell-has-to-be-
a-great-led-with-uc-berkeleys-eli-yablonovitch-registration-31092
972919
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/28-seminar-a-great-solar-cell-has-to-be-a-great-led-with-uc-berkeleys-eli-yablonovitch-registration-31092972919
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact: MITEI Events
miteievents at mit.edu
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Conversation in Civic Innovation: Broadband Equity
Wednesday, February 8
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Roxbury Innovation Center, 2300 Washington Street, 2nd Floor, Boston
Cost: $2 - $17
Broadband has become an assumed service, and yet in some parts of the state - and even the city - high-speed internet access is limited, unavailable, or unaffordable. Broadband access is necessary to help our students learn, to build small businesses and to enable residents to engage as citizens.
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The Food System: Sustainability, Health, and Equity
Wednesday, February 8
6 to 8 p.m.
Northeastern, West Village F, Room 20, 510 Parker Street, Boston
Food System Resilience: A Boston Perspective
Austin Nijhuis, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
Cheryl Schondek, Greater Boston Food Bank
Stacy Wiggins, Stop and Shop
David Andre, American Red Cross
More information at https://www.northeastern.edu/cssh/policyschool/myra-kraft-open-classroom/
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Civil Wars: A History in Ideas
Wednesday, February 8
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and Mass Humanities welcome Harvard's Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History DAVID ARMITAGE, author of The Declaration of Independence: A Global History, for a discussion of his latest book, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas.
About Civil Wars
A highly original history, tracing the least understood and most intractable form of organized human aggression from Ancient Rome through the centuries to the present day.
We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and what it isn’t, have a long and contested history, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to debates in early modern Europe to our present day. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war “civil” often depend on whether one is a ruler or a rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider. Calling a conflict a civil war can shape its outcome by determining whether outside powers choose to get involved or stand aside: from the American Revolution to the war in Iraq, pivotal decisions have depended on such shifts of perspective.
The age of civil war in the West may be over, but elsewhere in the last two decades it has exploded—from the Balkans to Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Sri Lanka, and most recently Syria. And the language of civil war has burgeoned as democratic politics has become more violently fought. This book’s unique perspective on the roots and dynamics of civil war, and on its shaping force in our conflict-ridden world, will be essential to the ongoing effort to grapple with this seemingly interminable problem.
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Shaun King Speaking At Suffolk University
Wednesday, February 8
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Suffolk University, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston
Shaun King, Senior Justice Writer for the New York Daily News will be speaking at Suffolk University on February 8 at 7pm.
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Thursday, February 9
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Volpe Site Development Community Meeting
Thursday, February 9
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building W20-407, 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Join us at one of two identical meetings to discuss the redevelopment of the Volpe site.
Second meeting will be at 6PM at the Marriott Cambridge, Salons I and II.
Food will be served!
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Office of Government and Community Relations, MIT Investment Management Company
For more information, contact: Jennifer Conway
617-253-1481
conwayj at mit.edu
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Of Mice and Men: Emerging Infectious Disease in a Warmer, More Fragmented World
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, FXB G13, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Health Sciences, Lecture, Science, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Planetary Health Alliance
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Richard Ostfeld
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO pha at harvard.edu
DETAILS Dr. Richard Ostfeld is a disease ecologist whose research focuses on the interactions among organisms that influence the risk of human exposure to vector-borne diseases and the dynamics of terrestrial communities (e.g. tree regeneration, rodent and songbird populations, gypsy moths). He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and is currently a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.
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Developmental evolution of mammals: From fossils to gene networks
Thursday, February 9
4:00pm to 5:00pm
Harvard,, Biological Labs Main Lecture Hall, 16 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge
Karen Sears
University of Illinois
OEB Seminar Series
http://oeb.harvard.edu/event/oeb-seminar-series-6
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Revisiting the Future of Work and Worker Organization
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Wasserstein Hall, Room 2036 B, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School; Harvard Trade Union Program
SPEAKER(S) Christine L. Owens, Executive Director, National Employment Law Project
CONTACT INFO john_trumpbour at harvard.edu
DETAILS Speaking at the annual Jerry Wurf Memorial Forum honoring the most important public sector labor leader in the postwar U.S., Christine L. Owens will discuss how dramatic changes in the future of work will require transformations in worker organization.
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Space, Time, and Reality: A Lecture by Brian Greene
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Brian Greene, Professor of Physics and Mathematics, Cofounder of Columbia University’s Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, Columbia University; Cofounder of The World Science Festival; Author
COST Free with registration
CONTACT INFO events at radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of space and time, elevating them to dynamic participants in the evolution of the cosmos. Research in our era has pushed this revolution far further, suggesting that there may be additional dimensions of space and possibly even other universes. In this talk, Greene will explore these ideas visually as this lecture dives into the changing conceptions of space, time, and reality.
Professor Greene has had many media appearances, from Charlie Rose to Stephen Colbert. He is widely known to the public through his general-level lectures and writings. Register online and join us.
LINK https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2017-brian-greene-lecture
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Using Data to Predict Fate: Future Insight or Folly?
Thursday, February 9
5:15 PM
Harvard, William James Hall, Room B1, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
More information at https://www.facebook.com/HarvardMBB/photos/a.211442542638787.1073741828.169222176860824/213969602386081/
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Passage at St. Augustine
Thursday February 9
6pm
Boston PublicLibrary, Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street, Boston
Film Showings and Discussion, led by
filmmaker Clennon L. King, and Civil Rights veteran Mimi Jones (at the
Boston Public Library).
"Passage at St. Augustine" establishes America's Oldest City as home to the most violent Civil Rights campaign of the entire Movement. Viewers are transported back to this unlikely Florida tourist town to hear first-hand from civil rights foot soldiers, Klansmen, journalists, clergy, politicians and the like, who fought on the front lines of the 18-month battle that led directly to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite MLK and LBJ headlining the film's real-life cast, most come away asking why a campaign so pivotal appears to have been wiped from the hard drive of History.
State Representative Byron Rushing will be part of the event's discussion.
Trailer https://vimeo.com/135600497
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Decolonizing Environmentalism
Thu 9 February 2017
6:30 – 8:30PM EST
North American Indian Center of Boston, 105 South Huntington Avenue, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decolonizing-environmentalism-tickets-31516759476
What is settler colonialism and how has it influenced environmentalism in the U.S.? This panel event will explore the history and present day reality of this intersection with cautionary tales for environmentalists, especially those jumping into the #NoDAPL fight. Scholars of Native and environmental history and Indigenous rights activists will offer their insights and help us begin a community-wide discussion on how we, as environmental groups, can start to decolonize our work.
Our panelists:
Sherrie Anne Andre (Taíno), Organizer at the FANG Collective (Fighting Against Natural Gas)
Elizabeth Hoover (Mohawk and Mi’kmaq), Manning Asst Prof of American Studies at Brown University
Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis), Asst Prof of Environmental Studies at University of Montana and Visiting Prof at Harvard Divinity School
Kristen Wyman (Nipmuc), Outreach and Program Coordinator at Gedakina
Co-sponsors:
North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB)
Massachusetts Sierra Club
Fossil Free Somerville
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American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus
Thursday, February 9
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes sociology professor LISA WADE and JACLYN FRIEDMAN—author of Yes Means Yes and What You Really Really Want—for a discussion of Wade's latest book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus.
About American Hookup
The hookup is now part of college life. Yet the drunken encounter we always hear about tells only a fraction of the story. Rising above misinformation and moralizing, Lisa Wade offers the definitive account of this new sexual culture and demonstrates that the truth is both more heartening and more harrowing than we thought.
Offering invaluable insights for parents, educators, and students, Wade situates hookup culture within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education, and the unfinished feminist revolution. Using new research, she maps out a punishing emotional landscape marked by unequal pleasures, competition for status, and sexual violence. She discovers that the most privileged students tend to like hookup culture the most, and she considers its effects on racial and sexual minorities, students who “opt out,” and those who participate ambivalently.
Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and brutally honest, American Hookup explains where we are and how we got here, asking not "How do we go back?" but "Where do we go from here?"
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Drop the MIC (Military Industrial Complex)
Thursday, February 9
7-9 pm
First Baptist Church, 633 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain
Maggie Martin and Matt Howard, Co-directors of Iraq Veterans Against the War are speaking on The Drop the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) Campaign which gives veterans and service members a chance to host conversations about the real effects of militarism on our
local communities, our society and abroad.
For more information: nan.goldner at gmail.com
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Friday, February 10
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Ozone Profile and Tropospheric Ozone Retrievals from UV Measurements
Friday, February 10
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Harvard, 100F Pierce Hall, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
with Xiong Liu, Harvard CFA
Atmospheric & Environmental Chemistry Seminar
Contact Name: Lei Zhu
leizhu at fas.harvard.edu
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Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism
Friday, February 10
2:00p–4:00p
MIT, Building E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: George Perkovich and Toby Dalton
George Perkovich is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues, and on South Asian security.
Toby Dalton is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order. Perkovich and Dalton co-wrote Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism, A comprehensive assessment of the violent and non-violent options available to India to deter and respond to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. The book discusses The Mumbai blasts of 1993, the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, Mumbai 26/11- cross-border terrorism has continued unabated. What can India do to motivate Pakistan to do more to prevent such attacks? In the nuclear times that we live in, where a military counter-attack could escalate to destruction beyond imagination, overt warfare is clearly not an option.
Web site: http://southasianpolitics.net/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, Watson Institute at Brown University, Weatherhead Center and South Asia Institute at Harvard
For more information, contact:
617-258-8552
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The cooperative movement in 2017: Building stronger networks
Friday, February 10
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Industry Lab, 288 Norfolk Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/agaric/events/235835043/
It's right in front of the public works yard. Walk past the door on Norfolk around to the back door, just before the loading dock! Then up to the second floor event space.
Come celebrate the adventures of last year and the challenges of the new year. We will review the cooperative highlights of 2016 and would love to hear about your year in retrospective. Come and share information about the exciting people, projects and the tools that are being built right now - cooperatively.
2016
At the International Summit of Cooperatives in Quebec last November, the International Co-operative Alliance announced that its member cooperatives represented close to one billion individual members. The coop movement is large but could use some much needed visibility by building a stronger network with its existing members and allies.
One aspect of the cooperative movement that has gotten an outsize share of publicity in the past year is platform cooperitivism.
And here in Massachusetts, the Boston Chamber of Cooperatives made great progress introducing city government to the value of cooperatives, culminating in a successful city council hearing on January 24.
2017
Looking to the future, we'll be talking about networking: How are you making meaningful connections with people doing things you wish to be a part of? In what ways can we be more successful?
Possible topics:
How does the worker cooperative movement fit into the larger worker cooperative movement? What can it bring, what can it gain?
How cooperatives align with the current Human Rights movement?
Where/how did you find events related to cooperatives?
How many cooperative businesses are in your community?
How do you get recommendations on where to shop?
Do schools in your town have a course on Cooperatives?
Food
Pot-luck dishes are welcome, without obligation. Agaric will provide some snacks and beverages. If you would like to bring your favorite dish, or suggest one, here is a link to a live shared document please list anything you will bring so we have a great variety! Diversity in food:) Vegan and Gluten-free foods are great too!
https://pad.riseup.net/p/potluck
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Saturday, February 11
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Tufts Energy Conference: Innovation for Global Energy Access
Saturday, February 11
8:00 AM - 6:30 PM
The Fletcher School at Tufts University, 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
RSVP at https://secure.touchnet.net/C21525_ustores/web/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=542&SINGLESTORE=true
Cost: $15 - $150
More information at http://tuftsenergyconference.com
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Sunday, February 12
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Sustainable House of Worship Workshop
Sunday February 12
2:00 pm-1:00 pm
South Church, 41 Central Street, Andover
Attend this informative, hands-on workshop conducted by Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light to evaluate the essential areas of energy use and costs in your House Of Worship:
Electricity — How to recognize the major energy hogs — and what to do about them.
Solar Power — Is solar an option for you?
Heat & Air Conditioning — Is it time for an upgrade?
Building Envelope — How to make your congregation more comfortable & save money.
Behavior — How simple actions can reduce your energy bill – and carbon footprint – by 10% or more.
Clergy, lay leaders, building & creation care committee members of all faiths welcome.
Fee is $20 payable online or by check at the door.
Register in advance by clicking http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07edotkinf18326ec6&llr=evkqo7bab
Advance registration closes on February 8.
For more information contact Vince Maraventano at vince at MIPandL.org or 617-244-0755.
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Intellectual Snob Meetup Conspiracy Theories III: is Media Consensus an Agenda?
Sunday, February 12
5:00 PM
Saloon, 255 Elm Street, Somerville
RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/NerdFunBoston/events/237024307/
Oh and must I say it? Wear your most infamous fake mustaches, thin black ties, book bags, turtlenecks or buttoned down collars, and fold up sunglasses even meershaum pipes... monocles... top hats? ...acceptable.
Conspiracies and controversy are at the heart of Intellectual Snob favorite topics, here's the last one with Nerd Fun:
https://www.meetup.com/NerdFunBoston/events/234294774/
This meetup is NOT about individuals such as President Trump it is about media portrayals not specific individuals!
Press consensus: Bill Clinton needed to be investigated and considered for impeachment due to a sex scandal; portrayed as a cheater and liar insofar as that went. Mr. Trump and Putin are getting the same press treatment daily. I can't see that as deniable. We are here to discuss it! And please post your comments below!
The lines of reporting are identical in all mainstream news sources simultaneously and don't seem to be limited to the portrayal of individuals...
What are the consequences towards shaping policy and public opinion? One of them might be what used to be called the Red Scare, for example; and the intense build up of NATO along Russia's borders despite any apparent reason.
This video thanks to Janice from the last conspiracy event,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2AQKFcZgwQ
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Monday, February 13
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PAOC Colloquium - Susan Solomon (MIT)
Monday, February 13
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-923 (the tallest building on campus), Cambridge
Speaker: Susan Solomon, MIT
The PAOC Colloquium is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm in 54-923. Lunch is provided after the seminars to encourage students and post-docs to meet with the speaker. Besides the seminar and lunch, individual meetings with professors, post-docs, and students are arranged. 2016/2017 co-ordinators: Tom Beucler (tbeucler at mit.edu), Deepa Rao (drao at mit.edu), Madeleine Youngs (myoungs at mit.edu) and Catherine Wilka (cwilka at mit.edu)
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The Brazilian Power Sector
Monday, February 13
12pm – 1:30pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Mauricio Tolmasquim, Visiting Fellow, Harvard Electricity Policy Group, Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and former President of Brazil’s Empresa de Pesquisa Energética (Energy Research Company)
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Darwin’s “Damned Land”, A.K.A. Patagonia: A paleo(neo)botanist’s paradise
Monday, February 13
12:10PM
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Lecture Hall, 1300 Centre Street, Boston
Maria A. Gandolfo-Nixon, Senior Research Associate, Cornell University
Contact Name: arbweb at arnarb.harvard.edu
http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/research/research-talks/
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Polynesian Voyaging Society
Monday, February 13
5:00PM
Radcliffe, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
a lecture by Kaleomanuiwa Wong
Introduction by John Huth, Codirector of the science program at the Radcliffe Institute and Donner Professor of Science in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University
In 1976, the Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa became the first canoe in more than 600 years to navigate traditionally, unaided by instruments, from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti. Forty-one years later, Hōkūleʻa continues her three-year, worldwide voyage established to create global relationships and explore how to care for our oceans and Island Earth. Sailing in the wake of our ancestors, the canoes carry a message of mālama honua, caring for Island Earth and each other. Using our canoes as a platform, we hope to bridge cultural tradition and modern technology, timeless values and new visions, and to inspire the next generation of leaders to build sustainable solutions for Island Earth’s future.
This event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 4:45 p.m.; lecture begins at 5 p.m.
Part of the 2016–2017 Oceans Lecture Series. A larger, one-day public symposium on the topic took place on Friday, October 28, 2016.
Oceans Lecture Series
https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2017-polynesian-voyaging-society-lecture
Contact Name: info at radcliffe.harvard.edu
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Tuesday, February 14
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Hyperloop Law: Autonomy, Infrastructure, and Transportation Startups
Tuesday, February 14
12:00 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Room B010, Singer Classroom (lower level), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required to attend in person at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Ammori#RSVP
Event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/02/Ammori at 12:00 pm
featuring General Counsel of Hyperloop One, Marvin Ammori
This event is co-sponsored by Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls.Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families.
Since Musk's proposal, a company in Los Angeles, Hyperloop One, has secured 160 million in financing, hired 220 employees, and began engineering and testing to make the hyperloop concept a reality. But engineers aren't the company's only inventors. A hyperloop transport system is so different from an airplane, train, or bus that a new legal regime is necessary. Lawyers and government officials in the US, Dubai, and elsewhere have been working on creating a new framework that could govern the deployment of hyperloop systems.
Hyperloop One General Counsel Marvin Ammori will discuss the challenges and opportunities for crafting this new legal framework.
About Marvin
As General Counsel of Hyperloop One, Marvin lead the legal team and served on the senior business leadership. Hyperloop One is working to make ultra-highspeed ground transportation a reality. The legal and business issues they deal with include infrastructure finance, procurement, regulatory, transactions, and everything else. Their team includes five lawyers.
Before joining Hyperloop One, Marvin spent over a decade representing top technology giants and startups concerning their most important legal issues. He led the pro-net neutrality coalitions. He advised Google in its antitrust investigation, Apple in its disagreement with the FBI over iPhone encryption, and many in the tech community to kill SOPA. From 2011 to 2015, he did this as the head of his own firm representing companies including Google, Apple, Dropbox, and SoftBank, and startups like OpenDNS and Layer. Before that, he represented advocacy groups, including leading the Comcast-BitTorrent case as general counsel of Free Press, which is among the most important litigations concerning Internet policy in the past two decades. In 2014-2015, he led the fight to Title II for net neutrality, organizing hundreds of companies and nonprofits, and helped secure a victory on appeal against administrative and first-impression constitutional challenges.
Marvin has been named among Politico's 50 visionaries for 2015, Fast Company's 100 Most Creative in Business in 2012, a Washingtonian Magazine "Tech Titan" in 2015, and has also been profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has published in the Harvard Law Review, Foreign Affairs, and the New York Times, and appeared as an expert on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox, and testified before several government agencies around the world.
A former law professor, Marvin has written on First Amendment theory. His article "First Amendment Architecture" sets out my primary arguments. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2003, cum laude.
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Putting Marine Plant Diversity on the Map: Phylogenetic Biogeography in the World’s Oceans
Tuesday, February 14
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Harvard, HUH Seminar Room, 22 Divinity Ave, Cambridge
Barnabas Daru, HUH Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
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Lunch seminar with Richard Schragger, author of "City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age”
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Suite 200N, 124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Richard Schragger, author of "City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age”
COST Free
DETAILS The Ash Center cordially invites you to a lunch seminar with with Richard Schragger, author of City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age. This seminar will be moderated by Quinton Mayne, Associate Professor of Public Policy at HKS. Lunch will be provided.
LINK http://ash.harvard.edu/event/lunch-seminar-richard-schragger-author-city-power-urban-governance-global-age
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Why Do Voters Elect Celebrities? Evidence from Japan
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
SPEAKER(S) Justin Reeves, Postdoctoral Fellow, WCFIA Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University; Assistant Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University (2017-)
Moderated by Susan Pharr, Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics and Director, WCFIA Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
COST Free and open to the public
LINK http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/calendar/upcoming
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CDD Lecture: Rebuilding Ground Zero with Lynne Sagalyn
Tuesday, February 14
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 9-255, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Lynne Sagalyn
Lynne Sagalyn is the author of Power At Ground Zero. Power At Ground Zero is the definitive account of the reconstruction of Ground Zero in Manhattan. Power At Ground Zero analyzes the full scope of the rebuilding effort and places the emphasis on the true drivers: real estate money and political power.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning, City Design and Development
For more information, contact: Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn at mit.edu
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Bobby Seale in conversation with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
WHEN Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, 4 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
SPEAKER(S) National Organizer of the Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale
Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
COST Free & open to the public
DETAILS A reception will follow the talk.
LINK http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/events-lectures/events/february-14-2017-400pm/bobby-seale-conversation-henry-louis-gates-jr
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Juliet Eilperin and Chris Mooney: Climate, Energy & the Media in the Age of Trump
Tuesday, February 14
4:15 pm - 6:00 pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, Belfer Building, 5th Floor, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Featuring speakers:
Juliet Eilperin, White House bureau chief, The Washington Post
Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment reporter, The Washington Post
Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post’s White House bureau chief, covering domestic and foreign policy as well as the culture of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She is the author of two books—one on sharks, and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other—and has worked for the Post since 1998. She previously served as the Post’s House of Representatives correspondent and national environmental reporter.
Chris Mooney writes about energy and the environment at The Washington Post. He previously worked at Mother Jones, where he wrote about science and the environment and hosted a weekly podcast. Chris spent a decade prior to that as a freelance writer, podcaster and speaker, with his work appearing in Wired, Harper’s, Slate, Legal Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, The Post and The Boston Globe, to name a few. Chris also has published four books about science and climate change.
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Mexico's energy reform: Foundation, implementation, and challenges ahead
Tuesday, February 14
5:30p–7:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Lourdes Melgar
In this talk, Melgar will outline the historic energy reform Mexico approved at the constitutional level in December 2013 and will provide an update on the implementation and challenges ahead. This reform, referred to as an energy revolution, aims at increasing Mexico???s energy security while mitigating climate change. It entails the creation of energy markets in the hydrocarbons and power sectors and the participation of private investors in all the activities of the energy sector. The implementation is moving ahead with bidding processes in the upstream, as well as in the power sector. Melgar will address the challenges Mexico faces as it consolidates its new energy model.
Web site: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/214-seminar-mexicos-energy-reform-with-mits-lourdes-melgar-registration-31106409107
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/214-seminar-mexicos-energy-reform-with-mits-lourdes-melgar-registration-31106409107
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact: MITEI Events
miteievents at mit.edu
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Architecture Criticism in the Age of Twitter
Tuesday, February 14
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 7-429, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Hosted by the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art Program
Paul Goldberger
"Paul Goldberger, who The Huffington Post has called "the leading figure in architecture criticism," is now a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair. From 1997 through 2011 he served as the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine's celebrated 'Sky Line' column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. He was formerly Dean of the Parsons School of Design, a division of The New School. He is the author of several books, most recently a full-length biography of the architect Frank Gehry, entitled Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015. The Washington Post called the Gehry biography "an enthralling story...more gripping than any novel" and said that it "gives deep insight into the life of a revolutionary architect and modern architecture. Both architects and lay people will benefit from it."
MIT Department of Architecture Spring 2017 Lecture Series
Web site: architecture.mit.edu/lectures
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact: Kathaleen Brearley
617-258-8439
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Plankton: The Humble Base of the Ocean Ecosystem
Tuesday, February 14
6:30 PM
Belmont Media Center, 9 Lexington Street, Belmont
Christopher Bowler, Ph.D., CNRS Director of Research at the Institut de Biologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris; scientific coordinator of the Tara Oceans expedition; 2016-2017 Grass Fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Research (Harvard). CNRS = Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, is the largest governmental research organization in France, and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. Bowler group at Tara (European Molecular Biology Laboratory)
Dr. Bowler's research focus is a group of marine phytoplankton known as diatoms, and his projects involve a worldwide genetic analysis of ocean plankton. This work has produced the most complete picture to date of the diversity of plankton species. Plankton represent the foundation of the marine food chain. As such, their vitality determines the health of the ocean ecosystems in general. For this reason,there is much concern and interest in the impact of climate change and environmental pollution on the global ocean. Dr Bowler studies the genetic effects of environmental changes on ancient diatoms in an effort to predict the ability of today's plankton to adapt to anticipated stress caused by climate change. To analyze the evolutionary record he gathers plankton fossils from deep ocean deposits around the world.
Dr. Bowler is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). His awards include a Silver Medal from the CNRS (Centre Nationnal de la Recherche Scientifique) in 2010 and a Fondation Louis D. Grand Prix from the Institut de France in 2015.
Contemporary Science Issues and Innovations
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The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation
Tuesday, February 14
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes the award-winning author of From Battlefields Rising: How the Civil War Transformed American Literature RANDALL FULLER for a discussion of his latest book, The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation.
About The Book That Changed America
In early 1860, a single copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was read and discussed by five important American intellectuals who seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery. The book first came into the hands of Harvard botanist Asa Gray, who would lead the fight for the theory in America. Gray passed his heavily annotated copy to the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, who saw value in natural selection’s premise that mankind was destined to progressive improvement. Brace then introduced the book to three other friends: Franklin Sanborn, a key supporter of the abolitionist John Brown, who grasped that Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition perfectly described America in 1860, especially the ongoing conflict between pro- and antislavery forces; the philosopher Bronson Alcott, who resisted Darwin’s insights as a threat to transcendental idealism; and Henry David Thoreau, who used Darwin’s theory to redirect the work he would pursue till the end of his life regarding species migration and the interconnectedness of nature.
The Book That Changed America offers a fascinating narrative account of these prominent figures as they grappled over the course of that year with Darwin’s dangerous hypotheses. In doing so, it provides new perspectives on America prior to the Civil War, showing how Darwin’s ideas become potent ammunition in the debate over slavery and helped advance the cause of abolition by giving it scientific credibility.
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SEED: The Untold Story
Wednesday, February 15
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston
Treasured since the dawn of mankind, seeds feed us, clothe us, and provide the raw materials for our everyday lives. They are in a very real sense life itself. Cultivated carefully by humans for 12,000 years, our once abundant seed diversity has been drastically reduced to a handful of mass-produced varieties, predominantly held as private property by corporations that control over two-thirds of the global seed market.
SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers who are defending the future of our food. "Gorgeous and fascinating in a non-pedantic way," this harrowing and heartening documentary is more than a cautionary tale of "man against nature." It is an epic "good-versus-evil" saga playing out in our modern lives.
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Opportunity
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Discounted Solar for Somerville
As part of the State’s Solarize Mass program, local volunteers and the City of Somerville recently launched the Solarize Somerville campaign to make it easier and cheaper for residents and small businesses to install solar panels.
The program, which is offering information and guidance, free site consultations, and solar panel discounts through November, has set an ambitious goal to inspire at least 200 property owners to sign up for solar —and each of those private solar installations will also benefit the community directly. For every 400 kW in signed private contracts through the program, the program’s solar vendor SolarFlair will donate a system of up to 5 kW for a public or community purpose. All are invited to the program kickoff at a Meet the Installer event on Tuesday, July 26 at 6-7:30 p.m., 167 Holland St. Additional events on topics such as solar basics, financing, and solar for multifamily homes will be announced.
Unique to the program is its neighbor-to-neighbor approach: trained resident volunteers and a designated volunteer Solar Coach are available essentially as mentors. They can, for example, walk anyone through the process, provide general loan program and tax incentive information, and share their own solar experiences. The campaign’s webpage and blog offers useful information, tips, and a link to websites where you can estimate the solar potential of your home and roughly calculate how much solar could save you on your energy bills at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize.
Somerville is one of the most urban communities ever to participate in Solarize Mass, which makes the neighbor-to-neighbor approach especially helpful due to some of the unique challenges here such as multi-family houses with more than one owner. Winter Hill resident Mary Mangan, the program’s volunteer Solar Coach, went through that process and is ready to share helpful tips.
"I'm excited to work with our eager volunteers to help our neighbors understand the benefits of solar power. As a co-owner of a two-family home with solar, I can also offer some insights about how that process went for us," said Mangan.
Also key to the program is the selection of a designated vendor, which allows the program to offer reduced cost installation through bulk purchasing. Through a competitive process, SolarFlair, based in Ashland, MA, was selected. They were also the selected installer for the communities of Arlington, Hopkinton, Mendon, Brookline, Carlisle-Chelmsford, Newton, and Quincy.
"We're excited to be the selected installer for Solarize Somerville, and look forward to speaking with any home or business owners that are interested in reducing their electric bills while also making a great investment," said Matt Arner, the owner and President of SolarFlair.
Quick facts:
Solar systems can be purchased outright (with a payback of about 4-5 years). The Mass Solar Loan program offers rates of 3.25% or less.
Or, for no money down owners can choose a power purchase agreement (PPA), where the system is owned and maintained by a third party, and residents buy back the electricity at a discounted price.
More on-site renewable energy is critical to reducing carbon emissions. It also saves money for residents.
Tax incentives for solar installations include:
Federal Tax Credit: A 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is available for qualified residential and commercial projects
Massachusetts Personal Income Tax Credit: The lesser of 15% of the total cost of the solar electric system or $1,000, for qualified clean energy projects
Five-year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS): Business owners can depreciate solar electric systems over a five-year schedule
For more information or to sign up for a free site consultation:
Visit the Solarize Somerville webpage at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize for
Helpful information and FAQs
To contact a volunteer or Solar Coach Mary Mangan to discuss solar options and incentives
To set up an appointment for a free site consultation directly with SolarFlair
To find out about events
To volunteer for Solarize Somerville
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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. 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://somervilleyogurtmakingcoop.wordpress.com
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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
Solar map of Cambridge, MA
http://www.mapdwell.com/en/cambridge
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Hey Cambridge residents!
Did you know the City of Cambridge is trying to win the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize? It was created to develop a cleaner and more efficient energy future. Energy efficiency and conservation are the best ways to save energy and minimize environmental impact. In that effort, Cambridge is hoping all residents will get a no-cost energy assessment in order to make their homes more efficient and comfortable. Let us know you're interested here: http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/sign-up-for-an-assessment
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
Again, let us know you're interested here: http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/sign-up-for-an-assessment and someone will be in contact with you shortly to give you personally tailored contact information on how you can get your no-cost home energy assessment. Renters are also eligible!
Any action to save energy in the home will help Cambridge win this competition while protecting the environment. For additional ideas on how to save energy, please see the Cambridge Energy Alliance website at http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/resources/interactivehome
Please share with your Cambridge friends and family and ask them to get a free energy assessment!
Want to be more involved? Become a neighborhood Block Captain! Block Captains help their community members sign up for and complete no-cost home energy assessments through the MassSave program. Our team will give you the tools and guidance needed to recruit neighbors to get an assessment and improve the efficiency of their homes. Participation is welcome at whatever level you are able to commit to.
If you are interested in becoming a Block Captain, please fill out the form at http://tinyurl.com/blockcaptainsurvey and someone from the Cambridge Energy Alliance will be in contact with you shortly. If you know someone who might be interested, please let them know about this opportunity!
Questions? Contact jnahigian at cambridgema.gov
Cambridge Energy Alliance
http://www.cambridgeenergyalliance.org/winit
@cambenergy
http://facebook.com/cambridgeenergyalliance
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Sunny Cambridge has just launched! Sunny Cambridge is the city-wide initiative that makes it easy for all types of residents to get solar power for their homes. Cambridge has lined up local solar installers through the EnergySage Solar Marketplace, which helps you request, receive, and compare solar quotes 100% online with support available every step of the way.
The City of Cambridge is working on many levels to reduce energy use and GHG emissions to make the city more sustainable. As a semifinalist in the nationwide competition for the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize, Cambridge Energy Alliance is encouraging residents to take actions to save energy, save money, and protect the environment. Get involved by signing up for a no-cost home energy assessment at the Cambridge Energy Alliance home page (www.cambridgeenergyalliance.org/winit)
and going solar at http://www.sunnycambridge.org
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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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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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The Boston Network for International Development (BNID) maintains a website (BNID.org) that serves as a clearing-house for information on organizations, events, and jobs related to international development in the Boston area. BNID has played an important auxiliary role in fostering international development activities in the Boston area, as witnessed by the expanding content of the site and a significant growth in the number of users.
The website contains:
A calendar of Boston area events and volunteer opportunities related to International Development - http://www.bnid.org/events
A jobs board that includes both internships and full time positions related to International Development that is updated daily - http://www.bnid.org/jobs
A directory and descriptions of more than 250 Boston-area organizations - http://www.bnid.org/organizations
Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter (we promise only one email per week) to get the most up-to-date information on new job and internship opportunities -www.bnid.org/sign-up
The website is completely free for students and our goal is to help connect students who are interested in international development with many of the worthwhile organizations in the area.
Please feel free to email our organization at info at bnid.org if you have any questions!
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Boston Maker Spaces - 27 and counting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zGHnt9r2pQx8.kfw9evrHsKjA&hl=en
BASEN / Boston Solidarity Network Economy: http://ba-sen.tumblr.com
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston: http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at over 50 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
MIT Events: http://events.mit.edu
MIT Energy Club: http://mitenergyclub.org/
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Mass Climate Action: http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
Microsoft NERD Center: http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/
Startup and Entrepreneurial Events: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/
Cambridge Civic Journal: http://www.rwinters.com
Cambridge Happenings: http://cambridgehappenings.org
Cambridge Community Calendar: https://www.cctvcambridge.org/calendar
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 12 PM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
More information about the Act-MA
mailing list