Table of Contents
This page https://LCTG.toku.us last changed 2024.09.26 18:39 Visits: [18 times today, 32 times yesterday, and 59506 total times]
Speaker schedule page . Potential Topics (for later scheduling)
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Lexington Computer and Technology Group
- Click to see recordings of past LCTG meetings (YouTube channel)
- jump to PAST MEETINGS list and un-hide the year(s) you want to search
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The Lexington Computer and Technology Group (LCTG) is a volunteer, no-cost, not-for-profit, just-for-fun-and-education organization that meets most Wednesdays from 10am to 11:30am to discuss a wide variety of technical issues. (Sometimes we meet at a different time, see this in the schedule below.) Meetings are open to anyone interested in the topic(s). The group has an email list (see how to join below) for announcements and discussions.
Click to learn about the group
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The LCTG grew out of “The Computer Group” which existed prior to the opening of the Lexington Community Center, which is where we meet now.
Members of the group come from all walks of life, education, and previous experiences. Talks are presented by members of the group as well as outside experts on a variety topics of interest to the group. There is a schedule for future talks as well as a record of previous talks, below.
Many of the meetings feature an outside expert; others are led by group members.
Time is set aside, approximately once a month, for short talks and for members to bring
questions or problems to the membership. If you could present a topic of interest to the group, please contact us.
Members can be active, attending most of the
meetings, or contributing to the discussion list,
or can merely take advantage of the material being posted regarding our talks.
There is no requirement for living in Lexington, and although the group started in the
Lexington Senior Center there is no requirement to be a senior. The technical level of the
talks varies considerably, making much of the material of interest to those with more
modest technical abilities.
As of October 2022, we are back in the Lexington Community Center (LCC) as part of a Hybrid Meeting strategy. Most meetings are hybrid, meaning they are available to watch in-person in the LCC and also via Zoom. Most are recorded and posted on YouTube, check below for listings (upcoming and past meeting recordings).
For remote participants, the Zoom connection information is provided in Meeting Announcements.
Speakers may request not to be recorded. Copyrighted materials and other unrelated portions of the presentation may be omitted from videos. URLs may be substituted and/or added.
If you would like to join a meeting via Zoom, you will need to join the group (see above) to get emails with the meeting connection information. For security reasons and the possibility the information may change, we do not post this here on this site so write us, or join the group so you'll get meeting notices – it's free and painless.
For further information contact the group coordinators by email at LCTG@toku.us. We look forward to have you join us!
Click to see how to join the email lists to get meeting info
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Joining the main LCTG Email List
To receive notices of upcoming meetings and join discussions, send an email to LCTG-subscribe@toku.us and include in the body of your email:
- Your full name
- Town of Residence
- Brief self-introduction and your interest in the group
- Optionally, topic(s) of interest you might present or share at a group meeting
This email list is closely monitored to keep discussions on topic and prevent spam. For off-topic and lengthy discussions, see the Extended Discussions list, below.
To send a message to the list, address your email to: LCTG@lists.toku.us and for other info:
- See files from presentations year 2018 and earlier. More recent presentation files are included on this page, below.
- Learn about being a volunteer group email list Moderator Moderators intercept potential junk mail and handle new member requests. If you'd like to be a Moderator, it's not a difficult job and you'll help the group by volunteering, please let us know.
Joining the Extended Discussions List
Sometimes members want to have extended or lengthy discussions on a topic or express their opinions. There is a separate,
more open discussion list that you can use, the LCTG-Extended list.
To subscribe to the LCTG-Extended list, send an email to LCTG-Extended-subscribe@toku.us
And then to send a message to the list, send it to: LCTG-Extended@toku.us
Future Meetings Schedule
Return to main LCTG page
Presenting to the group with Zoomnot ready for prime time: [using ppt impress etc to present|Tips for using MS Powerpoint and LibreOffice Impress in your presentation]
This schedule last modified 2024.09.25 22:05
recents
Recently produced meeting videos you can watch now:
::UPCOMING MEETINGS::
Date | Topic | confirmed | Followups |
---|---|---|---|
September 25, 2024 | GASP Planning session (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) chat messages | Online only | |
October 2, 2024 | IgNoble 2024 (Peter) | ||
October 9, 2024 | Inspiring the next generation: Women’s Technology Program in Mechanical Engineering at M.I.T. (Barbara Hughey) [needs confirmation] | DanK, PeterA | |
October 16, 2024 | Tech for Senior(s) Topic(s) | Peter & Drew (finders), Steve(editor) | |
October 23, 2024 | Potpourri TedK and his smart bowl of jelly video: the genius of the quantum navigation breakthrough (20m; TedK) Steve's research on Cell Services and/or Network Speed Requirements | ||
October 30, 2024 | Talks at Google (Peter lead) | ||
November 6, 2024 | OBS Studio (Drew) Secret topic (Harry) | ||
November 13, 2024 | History and Practice of Heart Surgery and Medication (Geltman) | John | |
November 20, 2024 | NAS (Network Attached Storage) and Docker Apps. Plex server. (Drew, maybe Seth Silverman) | ||
November 27, 2024 | day before Thanksgiving | ||
December 4, 2024 | Potpourri | ||
December 11, 2024 | GASP Planning session (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) | ||
December 18, 2024 | Tuberculosis in the 1800s and how it applies to today (JerryS) | ||
December 25, 2024 | Christmas day | ||
January 1, 2025 | New Year's Day | ||
January 8, 2025 | Dick Wagner on Sociobiology | ||
January 15, 2025 | Practical Fusion Power update and Challenges: breeding and handling Tritium (TedK) | ||
January 22, 2025 | Potpourri | ||
January 29, 2025 | (tentative) Astronomy update (Gamota) | JohnR | |
February 5, 2025 | Sabine Hossenfelder day | Barry | |
February 12, 2025 | Brian Greene day | John | |
February 19, 2025 | Curated interesting video shorts | Steve with help | |
February 26, 2025 | |||
March 5, 2025 | |||
March 12, 2025 | |||
March 19, 2025 | |||
March 26, 2025 |
click to show recent meetings
Click to hide recent meetings
::RECENT MEETINGS::
Date | Topic |
---|---|
Jan 3, 2024 | We Will Have a Syncing Feeling: Using applications and files across platforms - a forum (Drew King, lead) chat messages |
Jan 10, 2024 | LIDAR mapping with Dale Fried of 3DEO, hosted by Dan Kleppner chat messages . watch the presentation For more information on the company and its technology, visit the 3DEO website at https://3deolidar.com/ and their YouTube Channel |
Jan 17, 2024 | Unifying Nature’s Laws: The State of String Theory. |
Jan 24, 2024 | Videos played: How does Starlink Satellite Internet Work? Bill Gates talking with Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, about AI transforming education |
Jan 31, 2024 | potpourri: Feynman: Fun to Imagine (67min) followed by luncheon at Bamboo in Bedford |
Feb 7, 2024 | Space Update (George Gamota) chat messages |
Feb 14, 2024 | Nifty Smartphone apps. Like Seek; Shazam; Pedometer; etc. chat messages |
Feb 21, 2024 | Nifty Smartphone Apps Part 2 chat messages |
Feb 28, 2024 | More neat apps for phones and computers – and more (Adam Broun) * several interesting apps from the useful to the idiotic: Authy (2-factor authentication); Arc Search (Browser with summarization); Windy (weather in depth); Rise (Sourdough baking); Can of Soup (silly pictures)* Self-hosting, moving services away from Google and Apple to resources you can control yourself: Proxmox (virtual machines); OPNSense (router); Home Assistant (Home automation); Photoprism (photo management); NextCloud (file sharing and collaboration)List of self-hosted apps: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted, Self hosted forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted slides chat messages |
Mar 6, 2024 | potpourri * "Watchroom", a short film by Noah Wagner on AI and Robotics. It'll make you think. (Dick Wagner) * Android Apps (Drew) – continuing our topic of Interesting Apps from previous weeks. watch the presentation chat messages |
Mar 13, 2024 | Sleep Deprivation (John Rudy) watch the presentation slides What is Passkey and how does it work as compared to Passwords (Steve Isenberg) watch the presentation [ notes on passkey used during presentation ] chat messages |
Mar 20, 2024 | 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine: mRNA (Harry Forsdick & Dick Wagner) watch the presentation slides chat messages The link to videos in the slides may not work; here are the links to videos included in the presentation: How mRNA Vaccines Work mRNA Vaccines Questions and Misconceptions Announcement of the prize TED talk, how mRNA medicine will change the world, Melissa J. Moore |
Mar 27, 2024 | How the MIT museum has restructured itself to a Technology gateway to MIT Moving and rediscovering the MIT Museum collection (4m) and Tour of the MIT Museum (49m) chat messages |
Apr 3, 2024 | “The Science & Lore of Eclipses – Shadows in Space” a Road Scholar lecture chat messages |
Apr 10, 2024 | 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine - mRNA - Part 2 |
Apr 17, 2024 | Richard Feynman Lecture: "Los Alamos From Below" (1h18m) |
Apr 24, 2024 | GASP Planning session (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) chat messages |
May 1, 2024 | Five Levels of Difficulty Day. Five levels of difficulty on: Time: Brian Greene explains Time in 5 levels of difficulty Wormholes: Wormholes Explained - Breaking Spacetime CRISPR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sweN8d4_MUgBiologist Explains CRISPR in 5 Levels of Difficulty PickPocketing: 9 levels of pick-pocketing, easy to complex, from Wired mag chat messages |
May 8, 2024 | Inflammation Unmasked: Insights into its Physiology, Detection, and Treatment. (Jerry Harris, Rheumatologist) slides . chat messages . watch the presentation |
May 15, 2024 | Spacecraft Technology, the Design of the International Space Station, and Comparison of Technology in Spacecraft Over Time. Presented by Dr. Gary H Kitmacher from NASA Johnson Space Center. chat messages . watch the presentation |
May 22, 2024 | Potpourri: Check Washing 101 Your favorite apps and websites. Follow-up to meeting 2/14 slides Eclipse photos (TedK) 15m [link to Ted's pictures - coming soon] |
May 29, 2024 | Oppenheimer and the Institute for Advanced Study, presented by Dan Kleppner watch the presentation chat messages |
June 5, 2024 | Selected talk(s) from Google |
June 12, 2024 | Materials and Medicine - talk by Robert Langer, a replay of his presentation at Cary Library on May 28th. |
June 19, 2024 | 5G and 6G: 10-fold increase in top internet speeds. (TedK & BobP) 5G slides . chat messages |
June 26, 2024 | YouTube topics on Quantum Mechanics: Sabina and others. (BarryK) Videos shown: Don't fall for quantum hype The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst Quantum Computing with Light: The Breakthrough? Quantum Computers cross 1000 Qubits Threshold! What does this mean? It looks like AI will kill Quantum Computing Bad News for Quantum Computing: Another Advantage Gone Quantum Internet: No One Needs This How to Detect Quantum Bullshit |
July 3, 2024 | Potpourri Considerations and specifications for your next computer slides . chat messages |
July 10, 2024 | GASP Planning session (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) |
July 17, 2024 | Development of the Abiocor total artificial heart (Alan Millner) The Abiocor total artificial heart developed by Abiomed, is an electro-hydraulic device implanted in a patient with the original damaged heart removed. It is self-contained with no tether to hospital equipment. chat messages . slides . watch the presentation |
July 24, 2024 | Fusion Update (TedK) watch the presentation |
July 31, 2024 | Old Technology 1968-1994 (JohnRudy) watch the presentation . chat messages . slides |
August 7, 2024 | Bob Metcalfe talk: Connectivity is the Thing chat messages |
August 14, 2024 | WinGet - Windows Package Manager (Drew) |
August 21, 2024 | Several Tech-for-Seniors episodes. Will be useful/interesting even if you're not old enough to be a “senior”. Ep 170A 6/17/2024 Hackers, Duck Duck Go, and more Ep 176A 7/29/2024 Screenshot on Chromebook, Snopes, Trackers |
August 28, 2024 | Euclid Telescope (JerryS) chat messages watch the presentation |
September 4, 2024 | Potpourri * Bringing back the dead (info JohnR found) * JerryS Covid vaccination update chat messages Watch the Covid presentation |
September 11, 2024 | Quantum Computing (Vladan Vuletic, Dept. of Physics, MIT) Are quantum computers possible? And if yes, what will we be able to do with them (and when can I buy one)? Vladan will discuss the state of the art in quantum computing, with particular focus on neutral-atom quantum computing based on atoms in Rydberg states. watch the presentation |
September 18, 2024 | Claude Shannon - Father of Information Theory and Father of the Information Age (George Gamota) 30 minute overview 60 minute MIT lecture by Bob Gallagher Claude Shannon Tricks for Creative Problem Solving |
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Past Meetings
2023
Click to show Jan-June 2023 past meetings
Click to hide Jan-June 2023 past meetings
Date | Topic and links | Attaches | # |
---|---|---|---|
Jan 4, 2023 | Walter Lewin – For The Love of Physics (Video, ca. 1 hour.) | link to video | 23 |
Jan 11, 2023 | WOW STEM (A World of Women+ in STEM) Cindy Bares & Lauren Szurek, WOW STEM is an outreach initiative founded by a group of Harvard grad students in physics, relating to the contributions that women and gender minorities have made to STEM fields historically and currently. World of Women in STEM website | watch the presentation chat messages | 22+18 |
Jan 18, 2023 | Ukraine Update: George Gamota presents recent information about the history and the situation in Ukraine. | watch the presentation slides | 31+7 |
Jan 25, 2023 | Einstein Rings: Gravitational lensing occurs when enormous masses like galaxies or clusters of galaxies warp and deflect light coming from behind them. Finite sized sources are stretched arcs. When the source and deflector are nearly aligned, the arc almost closes on itself – an Einstein Ring. The Sun's deflection of starlight is a small scale example of what becomes large scale when galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the deflecting matter. Presented by Paul L. Schechter, an MIT emeritus professor of astrophysics. | watch the presentation slides chat messages | 32+7 |
Feb 1, 2023 | Crypto Crashes and Crypto Culture (Bob Primak) slides from previous presentations on related topics: Crypto & Validated Transactions . Flash Boys High Frequency Trading . NFT Crypto Metaverse | watch the presentation slides chat messages | 17+6 |
Feb 8, 2023 | George Gamota - Space Update. James Webb results could affect this presentation. | chat messages | 25+7 |
Feb 15, 2023 | Machine Learning Applications (Henry Morris) Machine learning, a key technology of artificial intelligence, is being applied to a wide range of decisions across many industries and disciplines. This talk defines machine learning and then presents examples of its application to drive predictions in fields such as medicine, fashion, law, real estate, and human resources (employee hiring). The adoption of these applications is changing the workplace while also raising concerns of bias and fairness. Henry Morris, co-author of Augmented Intelligence: The Business Power of Human-Machine Collaboration, addressed these points in his presentation. Henry worked 35 years in high tech, most recently as SVP at IDC (International Data Corporation), the global tech market research company. Henry enjoys writing and teaching about analytics and AI, emphasizing the need for ethical governance and control of intelligent systems. He's taught at BOLLI (“Augmented Intelligence in the Workplace: Are Humans Redundant or Essential?”) and Tufts (“AI and the Changing Workplace”), and received a Bachelors from University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania. SVP=Senior Vice President; AI=Artificial Intelligence; BOLLI=Brandeis Adult Learning | chat messages | 30+7 |
Feb 22, 2023 | Scientific misconduct – Jerry Slate | watch the presentation | 27+? |
March 1, 2023 | LCTG Planning Meeting (all welcome) Meeting Guidelines | chat messages | 18 |
March 8, 2023 | Quantum Entanglement. Martin Zwierlein on quantum entanglement, the topic of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” As a simple example of quantum entanglement, Martin presented a quantum version of two coupled pendula, which he realized with trapped atom pairs in his lab [1] Martin Zwierlein is Thomas A. Frank Professor of Physics at MIT. He studies strongly interacting Fermi gases of atoms and molecules. These gases host novel states of matter and serve as pristine model systems for other Fermi systems such as neutron stars or high-temperature superconductors. [1] A popular article on this work can be found in the Physics@MIT journal here: https://physics.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/PhysicsAtMIT_2022_Zwierlein_Feature.pdf | watch the presentation chat messages | 30+3 |
March 15, 2023 | Margaret Geller - speaking on James Webb Space Telescope Observations of the Early Universe Margaret is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) at Harvard. She has made pioneering maps with a large-scale structure of the universe. Her work “Slice of the Universe” was the basis for the Jasper Johns’ painting called “Slice”. She developed innovative techniques for investigating the structure and masses of clusters of galaxies and their relationships. She received her PhD from Princeton and was awarded the MacArthur fellowship in 1990. | Meeting was not recorded at presenter's request. | 27 |
March 22, 2023 | We watched several videos: How Electron Spin Makes Matter Possible Electrons do NOT spin Quantum Computing Expert explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty 100 Prisoners Puzzle - Solved and explained well World's First Automatic Strike Bowling Ball | 24+5 | |
March 29, 2023 | Tornados: using mobile radars to study tornadoes and snowstorms (Howard Bluestein, prof meteorology UofOklahoma) | watch the presentation chat messages | 27+5 |
April 5, 2023 | Scott Kenyon - “A JWST View of Star Formation” (The James Webb Space Telescope(JWST) Observations of Star-forming Regions, Disks, Rings, and Planets) | chat messages | 24+7 |
April 12, 2023 | Potpourri * Mark Rober on Zipline in Rwanda * ChatGPT (Peter) * Nuclear power update(David Kahan) * Meshnet (Drew) | chat messages | 31 |
April 19, 2023 | MIT Prof Nancy Kanwisher talk on The Brain | chat messages | 26+8 |
April 26, 2023 | Millie Dresselhaus and Carbon Science. Maia Weinstock spoke about Millie's contributions and discoveries in carbon science (graphene, carbon nano-tubes, fullerenes, etc) and her efforts to get MIT and the American scientific community to improve conditions for and be more welcoming to women faculty, staff, and students. Maia Weinstock is Deputy Editorial Director at MIT News. She is a science writer and author of the recently published book Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus | watch the presentation | 29+10 |
May 3, 2023 | Charlie Holbrow talks about Archimedes and his principle. Three parts: 1. King Hiero, cheating goldsmith, Archimedes running naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting Eureka 2. When a barge full of scrap iron sinks in a canal lock, does the water in the lock rise or fall? 3. When the dirigible Hindenberg burned disastrously in Lakehurst, NJ in 1937, how much hydrogen burned and how much energy was released? | watch the presentation chat messages | 32 |
May 10, 2023 | Joseph Henry, America's Most Prominent Physicist after Benjamin Franklin. (presented by Prof. Michael Littman of Princeton University) Joseph Henry (1797-1878) was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Princeton. His interests focused on electromagnetism. A contemporary of Michael Faraday, he discovered self-induction in current-carrying coils. The unit of induction — the Henry — is named in his honor. He pioneered the creation of high magnetic fields, electric motors, and the telegraph. He became Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution when it was formed in 1846. | watch the presentation | 21+10 |
May 17, 2023 | The New Nova on Notre Dame airing 12/14/2022; video and recent events | chat messages | 23 |
May 24, 2023 | Geothermal (Paul Woskov) Paul has researched and developed a technology using high frequency electromagnetic waves called “millimeter waves” produced by a high-powered vacuum tube called a gyrotron, that's also used to conduct nuclear fusion experiments, to drill to depths 10km into the earth and use the abundant heat there to generate electricity. Paul will discuss his research and how this fantastic drill works. Here's an article on MMW drilling into hot dry rock for those who want read up a bit ahead of time. | watch the presentation chat messages | 21+9 |
May 31, 2023 | We showed two videos: Is Time Real? by the scientific skeptic, Sabine Hossenfelder, and What Actually Are Space and Time? (Do they even exist?) | 21 | |
June 7, 2023 | Potpourri | 21 | |
June 14, 2023 | Windows 11 update by Drew King slides | chat messages | 28 |
June 21, 2023 | 2022 Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine, and chemistry | chat messages | |
June 28, 2023 | Planning meeting | chat messages |
Click to show July-December 2023 past meetings
Click to hide July-December 2023 past meetings
Date | Topic and links | Attaches | # |
---|---|---|---|
July 12, 2023 | Looking at a black hole and how you can see it Showing: What is a black hole? (17m) Jet and Shadow Revealed (6m) M87 Galaxy Updates (12m) Mapping the Milky Way in Neutrino Light (6m) | chat messages | 15 |
July 19, 2023 | Latest Apple Computer Technologies (Josh Turiel) | watch the presentation chat messages | 23 |
July 26, 2023 | Nuclear fusion update presented by TedK | watch the presentation chat messages | 24+10 |
Aug 2, 2023 | We watched and discussed "ChatGPT and the Talking Dog" (59m) | chat messages | 31+8 |
Aug 9, 2023 | Drew King on various utilities * Windows Power Toys and Github * Continuous file synchronization across systems https://syncthing.net * Map drives to cloud storage https://rclone.org | chat messages | 35+6 |
Aug 16, 2023 | Ted K on Archeology/exploration (LIDAR) | watch the presentation chat messages | 33 |
Aug 23, 2023 | * ChatGPT Crash Course (34m) * The Success Paradox (12m) * The Science of Thinking (12m) * Why Boredom is Good For You (7m) | chat messages | 29+6 |
Aug 30, 2023 | About excerpts from book: 2001 A Space Odyssey and its – and other – Science Fiction predictions (Barry Kort) | watch the presentation chat messages | 25+6 |
Sept 6, 2023 | Planning meeting | chat messages | 19 |
Sept 13, 2023 | Battery technology, battery development, and grid power storage (Ted K) videos scheduled to be shown How Batteries Work (19m) Massive Storage (7.5m) Renewable Energy Storage (19m) not shown: The Battery Inside Out (48m) | watch the presentation chat messages | 25+8 |
Sept 20, 2023 | * Modulus Arithmetic (or, screwing up your perception of addition) (CharlieH) slides | watch the presentation chat messages | 23+5 |
Sept 27, 2023 | RSV and Covid Update (Jerry Slate) slides | watch the presentation | 27+6 |
Oct 4, 2023 | Federal Government Efforts to meet American Housing Needs. Presented by David Stanley, retired CEO of Payless Cashways, Columbia Law School graduate and practitioner of law and finance in Minneapolis. He lives on a ranch in Montana and served on the Congressional Millennial Housing Commission in the year 2000. slides Oct 6, 2023 article on scaling up the HDIP, the Housing Development Incentive Program | watch the presentation | 19+8 |
Oct 11, 2023 | Update of what's happening in eastern Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, and technology. (George Gamota) slides | watch the presentation | 26+5 |
Oct 18, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 1: Introducing ChatGPT slides Details | watch the presentation chat messages | 47+13 |
Oct 25, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 2: Just how smart is ChatGPT? slides Details | watch the presentation chat messages | 43+10 |
Nov 1, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 3: How LLMs (Large Language Models) work slides Details | watch the presentation chat messages | 44+9 |
Oct 18, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 1: Introducing ChatGPT slides Details watch the presentation chat messages | ||
Oct 25, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 2: Just how smart is ChatGPT? slides Details watch the presentation chat messages | ||
Nov 1, 2023 | Conor O'Mahony on Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence and its use in ChatGPT, part 3: How LLMs (Large Language Models) work slides Details watch the presentation chat messages | ||
Nov 8, 2023 | Chip manufacturing update - The Intersection of Trends, Markets, and Capabilities in Electronics Manufacturing Ecosystem (Dan Gamota) abstract . chat messages | ||
Nov 15, 2023 | Potpourri * New Windows release (Drew; tentative) * Using iPad as (another) monitor on your computer (Drew, SteveI) * and maybe something else TBD | ||
Nov 22, 2023 | No meeting, day before Thanksgiving or how to roast a turkey and study quantum mechanics at the same time | ||
Nov 29, 2023 | Educational applications of AI (Can AI detect the use of AI by students?) (Ways to detect use of AI: no contractions, etc) slides | ||
Dec 6, 2023 | Hockney-Falco Thesis on the history of art (Harry) slides . chat messages watch the presentation | ||
Dec 13, 2023 | *GASP* Meeting (Gigantic Allhands Scheduling and Planning) chat messages | ||
Dec 20, 2023 | Potpourri The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (Feynman) (50m) Newton and Pi on “Veritasium” (18m) | ||
Dec 27, 2023 | No meeting because of the holidays |
2022
click to show 2022's meetings
Click to hide 2022's meetings
Date | Topic and links | Attaches | # |
---|---|---|---|
Jan 5, 2022 | Best of Freakonomics, an interview with Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, moderated by Faith Salie. Recorded at the 92nd Street Y on May 2015. | 26 | |
Jan 12, 2022 | Downdraft Radar Technology (Dr. Jim Evans) video shown as part of presentation Slides | Downdraft Radar Presentation | 35 |
Jan 19, 2022 | Quantum Mechanics Part 1 (Charlie Holbrow) | Quantum Mechanics presentation | 39 |
Jan 26, 2022 | Potpourri * Meandering Rivers (John Rudy) Concord River is a good example. e.g., https://www.ausableriver.org/blog/why-do-streams-meander Mark Twain and Fenimore Cooper * Sweet Summations in Short (Charlie Holbrow) * Single Slit Interference Explained (Bob Melanson) | Meandering Rivers presentation Sweet Summations presentation Slit Interference presentation | 36 |
Feb 2, 2022 | Manufacturing Chips (Dan Gamota, son of our George, works for a chip manufacturer) | Chip Manufacturer presentation | 40 |
Feb 9, 2022 | Virus package update; both real-time (e.g., Defender) and off-line (e.g., Malware Bytes). Consider Windows 10 & Windows 11(TPM), but also Mac/OSX. presentation notes SE Labs tests How a guy hacked a crypto wallet (32m) | Virus Update Presentation | 31 |
Feb 16, 2022 | Potpourri Charlie Holbrow explains Lagrangian points, especially L2. Followup to Virus topic: Browser Guards (Drew King) slides | Lagrangian Points presentation Browser Guards presentation | 34 |
Feb 23, 2022 | planning meeting no presentation | 16 | |
Mar 2, 2022 10am | George Gamota Space Update | Space Update presentation | 30 |
Mar 2, 2022 7pm | Managing File Size - for Photos, email, PDF documents, etc. (Allan Sherman) Allan was the lead of this group in the past and is well respected by those who know, or meet, him. He also discusses his life in New Zealand for the past two years. | Managing File Size presentation | 27 |
Mar 9, 2022 | The secret of Tuxedo Park (PBS American Experience) [53m] Where did "Tuxedo" come from?[5m] | 25 | |
Mar 16, 2022 | Potpourri Upgrading to Windows 11 and getting around the Windows 11 machine requirements (Drew) Feynman: Fun to Imagine (Jiggling Atoms, Fire, and Rubber Bands) How to build a tin can (12m) The Physics of Curling (11m) How Curling Stones are Made (6m) | slides from Windows 11 presentation Windows 11 presentation | 30 |
Mar 23, 2022 | Women in Science: David Kahan presenting an overview of the history and accomplishments of women in science over the years. | Women in Science presentation | 25 |
Mar 30, 2022 | Quantum Physics Part 2 (Charlie Holbrow) Related presentations by Charlie: Quantum Mechanics I and Quantum Physics | Quantum Physics presentation | 33 |
Apr 6, 2022 | John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854 (Jerry Slate) John Snow (1813 – 1858) was a British physician who became interested in the transmission of cholera. At the time, airborne transmission of disease, miasma, was the accepted model for cholera. When Snow showed his data on the cholera epidemic of 1854 (in a manner not previously seen), there was much resistance in the scientific community to a paradigm shift. | John Snow/Cholera presentation | 27 |
Apr 13, 2022 | Craig Fields on DARPA (not recorded at speaker's request) Honest remarks and a lively conversation with the person who ran DARPA from 1974-1990. DARPA=Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency | not recorded | 37 |
Apr 20, 2022 | Potpourri GPS Jamming (Bob Primak) slides Bowling Balls, Lanes, and Science | GPS Jamming presentation | 34 |
Apr 27, 2022 | How Air Traffic Control has been impacted by STARS (Mel Weinzimer) STARS=Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, developed by Raytheon and the FAA as part of the Terminal Automation Modernization and Replacement (TAMR) Program. | ATC/STARS presentation | 42 |
May 4, 2022 | Michael Faraday: Student of the Natural World (Franklin Segall, M.D.) | not recorded | 34 |
May 11, 2022 | James Clerk Maxwell: Scientist as Magician (Franklin Segall, M.D.) | not recorded | 38 |
May 18, 2022 | Rumford – From Woburn Farmboy to Count of the Holy Roman Empire. (Howard Cohen) From Wikipedia: Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th-century revolution in thermodynamics. slides | Rumford presentation | 32 |
May 25, 2022 | Scheduling meeting | 29 | |
June 1, 2022 | Bitcoin and Web3 - Their Technology and Impact on the World; and NFT - Non Fungible Tokens (Jerry Harris [Lex]) Suggested video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g presentation slides | Bitcoin Web3 presentation | 44 |
June 8, 2022 | A. A. Michelson – The Prodigy of High Precision Measurements (Daniel Kleppner) | High Precision presentation | 27 |
June 15, 2022 | Solar Panels and Energy Storage Devices (Mark Sandeen) – why or why not, and savings, pluses and minuses | Solar Panel presentation | 44 |
June 22, 2022 | Internet fast lanes, stock trading, net neutrality. (Bob Primak) | Internet Trading presentation | 27 |
June 29, 2022 | Scientific CCD Development at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Christopher Leitz) The Advanced Imager Technology group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory designs and fabricates detectors and readout circuits for imaging applications in support of National Security and scientific exploration. Dr. Leitz outlines their history in providing these devices for the scientific community and highlights future directions in CCD development, notably new detector materials, new fabrication processes, and new readout amplifiers for applications in astrophysics, astronomy, and particle physics.presentation slides, slide 19 has an embedded movie | CCD Development Presentation | 28 |
July 6, 2022 | Basics of Fusion (Fusion part I) (Ted Kochanski) | watch Fusion part I presentation | 30 |
July 13, 2022 | Potpouri * Notetaking applications: Using and contrasting Obsidian, Evernote, OneNote, and others (Jerry Harris) slides * Hybridization: How can we hold our meetings both online and in-person. Technology needed on-the-cheap and issues to consider. A status of current ideas and future investigations. | watch the Notetaking presentation | 30 |
July 20, 2022 | The Code Breaker: A Conversation with Jennifer Doudna [50m] | link | 25 |
July 27, 2022 | History of Missions to Mars (George Gamota) Video from JPL/NASA Documentary Series, we saw episode #4, The Changing Face of Mars We showed these “Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech” according to their Permission to use | 32 | |
August 3, 2022 | Quantum Basics part III (Charles Holbrow) | watch the presentation | 30 |
August 10, 2022 | Ukraine: The Real Truth (George Gamota) | watch the presentation | 36 |
August 17, 2022 | Weather Models (Matt Belk) slides | watch the presentation | 47 |
August 24, 2022 | Potpourrri The Mathematics of Weight Loss 25 Chemistry Experiments in 15 Minutes | 32 | |
August 31, 2022 | Fusion part II (Ted Kochanski) | watch the presentation | 29 |
Sept 7, 2022 | Personal Stories, potentially including: * Alan Millner * Dan Kleppner | 28 | |
Sept 14, 2022 | Mega Planning Meeting | 27 | |
Sept 21, 2022 | Gravitational Wave Astronomy (LIGO) – some future, and a little pedagogy about the field. Rainer Weiss (via Charlie Holbrow) | watch the presentation | 35 |
Sept 28, 2022 | Prion Diseases: What They Are and How They're Caused (Dick Wagner) | watch the presentation | 35 |
Oct 5, 2022 | Yom Kippur The Jewish Day of Fasting and Repentance. (No meeting) | ||
Oct 12, 2022 | Windows 11: Is it time to move to Win 11? Feature Update. (Drew King)slides Windows Must-Haves (important applications and tools) (Peter Albin) slides | watch the presentation | 33 |
Oct 19, 2022 | Potpourri – several videos shown history and making m&ms Secret Hiding Place Behind My Office Beating Arcade Games with Science Dropping a penny from Empire State Bldg | 26 | |
Oct 26, 2022 | The project to generate oxygen from Carbon Dioxide on Mars surface (Mike Hecht/Lincoln Labs Haystack Observatory) | slides watch the presentation | 43 |
Nov 2, 2022 | IgNobel Awards | 33 | |
Nov 9, 2022 | Facial Recognition (John Rudy) slides | watch the presentation | 37 |
Nov 16, 2022 | John Belcher - Voyager Spacecraft Update, Lessons Learned John Belcher is an MIT professor of physics emeritus. He received his PhD from CalTech in 1971 and as a postdoc at MIT, helped write the proposal to put a plasma experiment on the Voyager missions, launched in 1977, and is still sending back data. See: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ slides | watch the presentation | 36 |
Nov 23, 2022 | day before thanksgiving no meeting | ||
Nov 30, 2022 | Planning Meeting. | 23 | |
Dec 7, 2022 | Potpourri Why Use Radians as Angular Measure? (Charles Holbrow) Nuclear Energy Update (David Kahan) slides World Record Domino Robot Setting up 100,000 dominoes in 24 hours nuclear bomb effects on a city and about these nuclear maps | 37 | |
Dec 14, 2022 | Cognition, Affect, and Learning: The Role of Emotions in Learning – Barry Kort | watch the presentation | ?? |
Dec 21, 2022 | Early Digital Computers from late 1930's to around 1950 (Carl Lazarus) | watch the presentation | 39 |
Dec 28, 2022 | between Christmas and New Years - no meeting |
2021
click to show 2021's meetings
Click to hide 2021's meetings
Date | Topic and links | Attaches | # |
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Jan 6, 2021 | Dr. Peter Braun: A Covid-19 Primer A scientific look at the virus. Why is COVID-19 so “successful” from a pathogenic point of view. Where do viruses like this come from? How has treatment progressed? Vaccine development and technology. (The recording contains a follow-up on the Brevig Mission that was not covered in the live presentation; at approx. 1:37). | COVID-19 presentation | 53 |
Jan 13, 2021 | Priestly and the Discovery of Oxygen (presented by Jerry Slate, M.D.) Joseph Priestly (1733 - 1804) is credited with the discovery of oxygen. His discovery was a part of a long term scientific effort to understand the nature of matter. His work as an untrained scientist showed analytical skill which illustrated the relevance of his finding. His discovery of oxygen represents the beginning of the understanding of the composition of the atmosphere and its role in respiration. | watch the presentation | 42 |
Jan 20, 2021 | Quantum Biology (GeorgeG) (video and intro) with discussion When Quantum Mechanics were first introduced widely, pioneers such as Heisenberg thought that quantum effects should play a role in biology, but for the next 50 years it was sort of forgotten. With today's computing power and instrumentation new insights are being given to explain biological phenomena by invoking quantum effects such as tunneling or entanglement. We will hear 3 experts (MIT, UC Irvine, & U Arizona) discussing the implications of quantum effects in biological entities Video we watched:Quantum Biology: The Hidden Nature of Nature (1h35m) Other related and referenced videos: Part 1: How Plants use Quantum Mechanics (12m) . Part 2: Enzymes, the Engines of Life (12m) . Part 3: How Birds (Might) Navigate with Quantum Mechanics (21m) | George's introduction slides | 42 |
Jan 27, 2021 | Potpourri Peter Albin, your host Y2K (John Rudy, 20min) Drones in the UK, how they threaten aircraft safety, measures taken to address them. (The video is not widely available) | Y2K Discussion | 44 |
Feb 3, 2021 | Plastics having a recycle number on them leads people to think they will be recycled and are perhaps more accepting of then using them. However, many thin plastic containers such as salad boxes or clear takeout containers are not in practice recycled. (George Burnell) This might be more than one session. Plastic bags biodegradability, manufacture, disposal, recycling. also possibly of interest: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-plastic-problem (1hr video) Recycling by the numbers | Watch the presentation slides | 35 |
Feb 10, 2021 | Polaroid: Recently I learned about a Google talk on the history of Polaroid (Instant:The Story of Polaroid Christopher Bonanos Talks at Google, 2012). It might make an interesting meeting. The talk is about an hour and we could augment it with “actual folks” who worked for Polaroid? With 3-4 people worked there (Peter Albin) I worked in photographic film product development at Polaroid for 23 years (1976 to 1998). It was there that out of necessity I became in involved in N-dimensional non-linear systems optimization computer tools. I could discuss the approaches that we used and the evolution of the software tools that were internally developed. Many of these tools and graphical visualization aids are now available in the commercial pack Design Expert by StatEase which I used in a final consulting gig at Polaroid in 2003. [Bob Eckert] | [presentation coming soon] | 36 |
Feb 17, 2021 | History relating to Rubber, what used for, how manufactured, WWI, WWII, rubber shortages (George Burnell) WWI WWII Japan taking over, fire hoses & rain gear | Watch the presentation | 33 |
Feb 24, 2021 | (GeorgeG) Mars landing, Perseverance landed 2/18/2021, George discusses this with several visuals | Watch the presentation Mars photos to music | 55 |
Mar 3, 2021 | Potpourri * Peter Mui and fixing your machine Peter Mui's Free Fixit Clinic Participant Registration: http://bit.ly/fixitcheckin Fixers/Observers: http://bit.ly/fixitcoachsignup * Rober vid: 15 minutes of useless science facts | Watch Peter Mui's presentation | 48 |
Mar 10, 2021 | Rubber Part 2 George Burnell presents the second part of his talk on Rubber: industrial products, recycling, synthetic, and more. | watch the presentation | 29 |
Mar 17, 2021 | Why is Venus so bloody hot? The greenhouse effect. (Charlie Holbrow) | Watch the presentation | 39 |
Mar 24, 2021 | I. I. Rabi, a story of scientific rags-to-riches (Dan Kleppner) Rabi played a principal role in the transition of U. S. Physics from a backwater position to the international leader in the 1940’s and 50’s. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his own work, mentored eight laureates at Columbia University, triggered the founding of Brookhaven National Laboratory and CERN, and created the position of Science Advisor to the President. He invented the atomic clock, played a major role in the creation of the theory of relativistic quantum electrodynamics (QED) and mentored the inventors of nuclear magnetic resonance, the maser and the laser. | Watch the presentation | 36 |
Mar 31, 2021 | Flying Cars presented by Bill Passman. An overview of what is currently called “Flying Cars”, which includes Terrafugia's “roadable aircraft”, designed to drive from home to an airport and then fly like a General Aviation Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA). Other flying car efforts are aimed at VTOL air taxi fleets, personal VTOL vehicles, electric airplanes and autonomous cargo-VTOLs. Technologies being used are folding wings, tilt-wings, tilt-rotors, tail-sitters, and power sources using battery electric drive, hybrid-electric drive, hydrogen, and fuel-cell power. Bill will also present market hurdles, such as: battery technology, charging infrastructure, safety, heliport infrastructure, noise reduction, and FAA regulatory capabilities. | Watch the presentation | 40 |
Apr 7, 2021 | Venus 'n greenh'se — and Mars and Earth (Charles Holbrow) What I learned from my Climate Science Study Group (Jerry Slate, Carl Lazarus, Mike Alexander) | Watch the presentations | 37 |
Apr 14, 2021 | The Apollo Mission Presented by Fred Martin, ScD.; Dr. Martin served as the Apollo Software Project Manager while at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (now Draper Lab) and then pursued an industrial career in software analysis and management. <font 11px>History will surely record the voyage to the moon as being the greatest adventure of the 20th century. We will first examine our fascination with our closest neighbor and early speculation of travel through the writings of Jules Verne. We will discuss the principles of how a rocket works, gain an understanding of JFK’s decision and confidence to place a man on the Moon, and experience the Apollo Moon Project “first hand:” its methods, triumphs and surprises. Our resources will include Dr. Martin’s experiences within the Apollo Program and videos of the exciting minute-by-minute landing on the Moon’s surface.</font> | Watch the presentation | 57 |
Apr 21, 2021 | > Black Holes by Andrea Ghez (2020 Nobel Prize winner in Physics). link; 50min Presented at the World Science Festival > About the Suez Stuck Ship link; 8min | ||
Apr 28, 2021 | > Cacelia Payne-Gaposhkin would have received a Nobel prize for figuring out what stars are made of, in a fairer world. link (1h4m John Rudy) from wikipedia: <font 11px>a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct.</font> | 32 | |
May 5, 2021 | Space Debris: A Big Problem (Georg Kirchner) <font 11px>When the first satellites were launched some 60 years ago, space was more or less empty. However, the ever increasing launching activities since that now have created a rather crowded environment above our heads: More than 30.000 space debris objects – old / defunct satellites, upper stages of rockets, remaining parts after explosions of collisions etc. – are now orbiting in different altitudes, tracked by radar, laser and passive optical telescopes. The possibility of collisions is already rather high: Collision warning systems create already more than 1000 warnings per day (!) of close encounters between 2 objects – and sometimes this is TOO close – and a collision between two space debris objects, at velocities of 27.000 km/h, creates several 1000 new space debris parts… Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) has demonstrated during the last years the capability of tracking such debris objects, helping to determine their accurate orbit, and also their tumbling motions – important features if you want to catch an old upper stage, and remove it from space.</font> Dr. Georg Kirchner is a group leader at the Space Research Institute, Department of Satellite Geodesy, Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz, Austria. | watch the presentation | 34 |
May 12, 2021 | What Was It Like: I Lived In Antarctica Ivor Morgan lived in Antarctica from late 1961 to early 1964 and worked for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) as a surveyor in topographic and hydrographic mapping of the Antarctic Peninsula. His most recent trip south was 5 years ago. The Antarctic Peninsula is still the primary focus of BAS bases. A major secondary area was the Base at Halley Bay on the south of the Weddell Sea—and today almost in it. Ivor will explain more during his talk. He'll also go over maps of Antarctica to help you become familiar with this interesting and unique continent. | Watch the presentation | 44 |
May 19, 2021 | Potpourri > Extraterrestrial. The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (Ken Cutter discusses this book on 'Oumuamua. If you don't know what this is about, then you should join the meeting and find out.) > Rober and Jello link (10m30s) > 3-year effort to video two vortex rings colliding in super slow motion. link; 8min > Synchronization link; 20min | Watch the Oumuamua presentation | 30 |
May 26, 2021 | >Helicopter flight on Mars (George Gamota) | Watch the presentation] | 33 |
June 2, 2021 | Telephone Switching Before Computers (Ken Pogran) When we think about telephone switching today, we may think of all-digital, computer-based systems humming along quietly in shiny computer rooms. But go back 50, 80, or 120 years, and you'll find calls are handled by clattering behemoth electromechanical switching systems, some with racks and frames 14 feet tall, and some motor-driven, with clutches and commutators and rods with brushes that scamper up and down. In this talk Ken will take us through the evolution of telephone switching systems, from an undertaker's invention of the late 1880s through the Bell System's urban giant “panel” systems of the 1920s and '30s and on up to the No. 1 and No. 5 crossbar systems of the late '30s, '40s, and '50s. On the way we'll look at the overall architecture of telephone switching, problems of scalability, and the No 5 crossbar “marker”–the most complex relay-based computing machine ever produced. | watch the presentation | 37 |
June 9, 2021 | Quantum Engineering of Superconducting Qubits. William Oliver, associate professor of EE and Computer Science at MIT and fellow at Lincoln Lab. (Rich Ralston). The abstract of his talk: Superconducting qubits are coherent artificial atoms assembled from electrical circuit elements and microwave optical components. Their lithographic scalability, compatibility with microwave control, and operability at nanosecond time scales all converge to make the superconducting qubit a highly attractive candidate for the constituent logical elements of a quantum information processor. Over the past decade, spectacular improvements in the manufacturing and control of these devices have moved the superconducting qubit modality from the realm of scientific curiosity to the threshold of technical reality. In this talk, we present the progress, challenges, and opportunities ahead in engineering larger scale processors. | Watch the presentation | 31 |
June 16, 2021 | The Buzz on Bees The biology, pollination, diseases and parasites, killer bees, and beekeeping. (Howard Cohen) slides | Watch the presentation | 29 |
June 23, 2021 | * Iron Mountain: History. (Carl Lazarus; 45mins +/-) * Stan Rose will talk about his experiences on 9/11. He will include his personal experiences that day and ongoing days. He can also show pictures of what happened to his office and the surrounding area. | Watch the presentation | 27 |
June 30, 2021 | Dentistry (David Brother). Topics being considered: Dramatic changes that have occurred in dentristy in the past 50 years. Or dental radio graphic imaging and what it can do especially in regard to dental implants. Or History and development of dental implants. Or thehistory and development in the field of orthodontics and prostetic advances. Or Sixty years of Fluoride: what this has meant to our teeth and health. | watch the presentation | 35 |
July 7, 2021 | Pluto Strikes Back! (After all of the suffering Pluto has suffered by the not-a-planet bullying by the International Astronomical Union, we will mount a degree of support for this picked-on planet or non-planet.). Speaker Scott Kenyon will talk about his recent work on the formation of Pluto and its small satellite system. Learn how Pluto came to be a binary planet and how its four tiny satellites grew out of the debris from a major collision. | watch the presentation | 29 |
July 14, 2021 | 9am: Discussing how our group can meet in Hybrid mode – both online in Zoom and in person at the same time. 10am: Cancer Therapy and the Scientific Process. The Discovery of the Platinum-Based Compound Used in Cancer Chemotherapy: An Example of the Scientific Process (Dick Wagner) | watch the presentation | 39 |
July 21, 2021 | Potpourri. Drone Photography (Al Levin). A demo of professional drone video of a Korean commercial. Making of music video in one take (wow) Shows moving camera and use of greenscreen [4m] | Watch the presentation | 24 |
July 28, 2021 | We showed and discussed these videos. High performance world record paper airplane [11m] Scientist Explains Sleep in 5 Levels of Difficulty [24m] Backyard Squirrel Maze 2.0 [19m], a Mark Rober video Wind driven vehicle a passive vehicle that goes faster than the wind that's driving it [22m] | 31 | |
Aug 4, 2021 | Seager exoplanet presentation (presented via Cary Liby and hosted by GeorgeBurnell) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye-UNXeMJC8. (1h5m) | 38 | |
Aug 6, 2021 | 1:30pm: Exploring in-person meeting options, trying out the Meeting Owl Pro product page | 14 | |
Aug 11, 2021 | Planning meeting – we schedule upcoming meeting speakers and topics, using the in-the-works page. Meeting is open to everyone and the discussion is usually rather interesting. Join us and help us choose our topics for future meetings. | 20 | |
Aug 18, 2021 | Potpourri | 26 | |
Aug 25, 2021 | Some Arithmetic Pleasantries (Charles Holbrow) and the infinite hotel paradox (The chat had a number of links to material. click to see) | Watch the presentation | 41 |
Sept 1, 2021 | Security Update – Lex Liby presentation on security by Bruce Schneier link (1h7m) | 36 | |
Sept 8, 2021 | Big Belly Recycling (Alex Gamota) (From Alex:) “Have you wondered about the gray public waste bins located at Center Field, Lexington High School, or the Center? Or maybe you never noticed them?? They are Bigbelly smart waste stations! Since 2008, and some 65,000 smart waste stations in 55+ countries later, Bigbelly's smart waste solution has been helping cities and campuses transform public spaces and help reduce the carbon footprint associated with waste management by up to 80%. In this talk, you will learn about Bigbelly's patented solar powered compaction solution, its connected Cloud based operating system that streamline operations and collection efficiency, and about its recent offering, the Telebelly. The Telebelly expands the benefits of the ubiquitous Bigbelly platform to additionally host small cell and other information and communication technologies. Alex Gamota is Senior Vice President & General Manager, Information & Communication Technologies | 21 | |
Sept 15, 2021 | Potpourri * Adventures in Tiling the Plane (Ken Cutter) slides * The Simplest Math Problem No one Can Solve – Collatz Conjecture video (22m) * Rough Fractals video (17m) | 26 | |
Sept 22, 2021 | Margaret Geller: Caught in the Cosmic Web. Margaret made the first and several recent maps of the distribution of galaxies in the universe, showing that they are not distributed randomly in space but form interesting patterns that repeat on the largest scales. | (not recorded at speaker's request) | 30 |
Sept 29, 2021 | What are Blockchains & How They work link (6m)(Larry Wittig) What is a cryptographic hash function? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function CryptoCurrency video (55m) | 30 | |
Oct 6, 2021 | Is There Intelligent Life Anywhere? (Howard Winkler) | Watch the presentation Slides | 28 |
Oct 13, 2021 | Potpourri tech gifts (by: cost, category, knowledge level) | Slides with links Watch the presentation | 22 |
Oct 20, 2021 | CRISPR by Dick Wagner The acronym “CRISPR” (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) has often been invoked when considering recent revolutionary genetic engineering advances. This presentation will be devoted to the origin of the term, its biological significance, and how further knowledge led to the expansion of the meaning of this term as well as its underlying processes in genetic engineering. Finally, Dick will discuss the potential of CRISPR for deriving further molecular biological information and uses from experimentation and analysis. | Watch the presentation Slides | 35 |
Oct 27, 2021 | CRISPR part 2. Dick Wagner gives a brief review and then more detail. | Watch the presentation Slides | 24 |
Nov 3, 2021 | The linked fates of Haber and Weitzmann by Bretislav Friedrich Two scientists who had a significant impact on technology and history In the early 1930s, as Nazism was gaining strength in Germany, two renowned German-speaking Jewish scientists found themselves on converging paths: Fritz Haber (1868–1934), one of the most influential – and controversial – of 20th century chemists, and Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952), a successful biochemist, leader of the world Zionist movement, and future founder of the State of Israel. In their meetings and correspondence, they reflect on the history, current events, and fate of science and scientists, and strive to create a place where learning and humanism would rise above racism and hatred. Followup: a pretty amazing summary of the history of physical and theoretical chemistry: NIH link | Watch the presentation | 34 |
Nov 10, 2021 | Potpourri https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-da-vinci/ A NOVA on DaVinci Bizarre Behavior of Nuts [15m] | 23 | |
Nov 17, 2021 | Covid (and Variants) Update. Jerry Slate. Note: Should children be vaccinated? Video 32:40. What went wrong? Video 48:00 | Watch the presentation slides | 32 |
Nov 24, 2021 | No meeting (Day before Thanksgiving) | ||
Dec 1, 2021 | The history of knee replacement and the technology behind it. Presented by Dr. Richard Scott | watch the presentation | 39 |
Dec 8, 2021 | The first LASER of 2021 explores the relationship between humans, DNA, and data, featuring media artist and TED speaker Refik Anadol in conversation with Dr. Robert Grass from ETH Zurich, and Christine Choirat from Harvard and the Swiss Data Science Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCMaMEyYpdw (First 41 mins of 90 min) TED Talk The Skill of Humor [19m] | 25 | |
Dec 15, 2021 | The Glide “no-code” Application Development Environment (Harry Forsdick) Nearly codeless programming (AKA “No Code Programming”); the concepts that are done for you by the system. This is an illustrated talk about and demonstration of the Glide “no-code” application development environment. Glide is representative of the possible future for (some) software development activities presented by a survivor from the early days of computer programming. read abstract | Watch the presentation | 33 |
Dec 22, 2021 | Windows 11 (Drew King); useful sites: How to create Windows 11/10/8/7 To Go by using WinToUSB Download Windows 11 ISO file for use with WinToUSB Windows Speech commands File sharing over a network in Windows | Watch the presentation | 39 |
Dec 29, 2021 | The Useful Information Meeting (Bob Primak): » What do you do with an older PC? (paperweight alternatives) » Windows 11 Upgrade Notification » Installing Linux Mint on an old laptop (it's easy) Notes from the presentation: video of Linux installation notes for video Mint Linux install Win 11 upgrade icon What to do with an old PC | Watch the presentation | 31 |
2020
click to show 2020 past meetings
Click to hide past 2020 meetings
Date | Topic and links | ||
---|---|---|---|
Jan 8, 2020 | Ig Nobel 2019 Awards awards for dubious inventions (Peter Albin) link to Improbable Research page | watch the presentation | |
Jan 15, 2020 | [1] How we accomplished the change from Yahoo Groups and using the new system (30min, Steve Isenberg) Slides [2] Windows Security Settings and Windows 7 Anti-Malware (30min, Gary Patrick) Slides [3] Alternatives to TV servers: new ways of getting programming (30min, Steve Isenberg) Slides . 2010 NY Times article . Spreadsheet shows service vs content | [1] Watch the presentation [2] Watch the presentation [3] Watch the presentation | |
Jan 22, 2020 | Tesla-Marconi conflict their radio-related patent war from 1900-1943 (Bob Primak) Presentation notes | Watch the presentation | |
Jan 29, 2020 | Potpourri Ken Cutter spoke on UFO's slideset and the history behind speed of light measurements slideset. John Rudy showed a video from Broad Institute (pronounced, bro-awd): Overall view of Broad Institute and the presentation we watched, human genome revolution past, present, and future. John Rudy mentioned that there are some MOOC classes on introduction to biology, see info at this edx link (MOOC=Massive Open Online Course) | ||
Feb 5, 2020 | Career Day Attendees discuss interesting things from their career. | Watch the discussion | |
Feb 12, 2020 | Space Update (George Gamota) | ||
Feb 19, 2020 | Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad AI This is a later presentation, and therefore improved over an earlier presentation. (John Rudy will coordinate.) | watch the video | |
Feb 26, 2020 | Patents – What they are, a brief history of patents, how to read them, and how to obtain them | watch the presentation | |
Mar 4, 2020 | Patent Licensing from Universities (Lita Nelson) | watch the presentation | |
Mar 11, 2020 | Geodesy, its properties and tools, presented by Mike Pearlman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Program on Geodesy Geodesy is the science of accurately measuring and understanding three fundamental properties of the Earth: its geometric shape, its orientation in space, and its gravity field— as well as the changes of these properties with time. Space Geodesy uses sources external to the Earth: artificial satellites (in satellite geodesy), quasars (in very-long-baseline interferometry, VLBI), and the retroreflectors on the Moon (in lunar laser ranging) to measure these static and time varying properties. Of current interest are measurements to monitor geodetic parameters and their temporal variations in a global reference frame with a target relative accuracy of 10E-9 – 10E-10, for both scientific understanding of the Earth system and understanding their potential impact on society Fundamental to these measurements is a reference frame that provides stability over space, time, and evolving technology. | watch the presentation | |
Mar 18, 2020 | Tracking New Diseases: Medical issues incl Vaping (Jerry Slate) | watch the presentation | 45 |
Mar 25, 2020 | Patents for high technology (and when not to have them) (Dick Wagner) | watch the presentation | 44 |
Apr 1, 2020 | 3D Printing and Robotics in Industry: An Update (George Burnell) 3D Printers fighting Coronavirus (link from PeterA) | watch the presentation chat messages | 45 |
Apr 8, 2020 | Christine Muir, Community Librarian at Cary Library, will demonstrate how to access all the online resources offered by the library. There is no fee for any of these resources, which include ebooks, digital audiobooks, movies, music, TV shows, newspapers, and more. | watch the presentation | 41 |
Apr 15, 2020 | Futurism We started with something different (Cute Brother and Sister); and then a couple of videos by/with Amy Webb (a quantitative futurist, professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and founder of the Future Today Institute) Ted Talk on hacking online dating (17 mins) presenting the 2019 Emerging Tech Trends Report (60 minutes) at SXSW in March 2019 relevant links for your offline reference include https://amywebb.io/ There were several links shown during the videos: http://bit.ly/FTI2019TechTrends (this links to the 2020 report), http://bit.ly/SXSW2019TechTrends, and the “TWiT” program we watched at the end http://twit.tv/subscribe (and there's lots to subscribe to!!) and http://twit.tv/live | 41 | |
Apr 22, 2020 | Potpourri Gary Patrick with information on Encryption and some Utilities. Charly Sestokas with computer buying tips, etc; HD vs SSD; SD Longevity; MS Surface; plus Potential House Fires from Phone, Tablet, Laptop, other Electronic Charging setups | watch the presentation the presentation with captions slides chat messages | 42 |
Apr 29, 2020 | The Science behind Columbus (Bob Melanson) Bob finishes this up on July 15 | watch the presentation slides | 36 |
May 6, 2020 | The Manhattan Project first part (Charles Holbrow) | watch the presentation | 58 |
May 13, 2020 | Nuclear Power Generation (David Kahan) | slides watch the presentation | 47 |
May 20, 2020 | Boost-Phase Defense against ICBMs presented by Dan Kleppner. Because little was known publicly about the Bush proposal, the American Physical Society initiated a study. Our presenter was co-chair of the study group. Although the study is fifteen years old, little has changed. | slides watch the presentation | 46 |
May 27, 2020 | George Burnell Part II Continuation/conclusion of George Burnell's earlier presentation on 3D printing | watch the presentation | 26 |
June 3, 2020 | The Manhattan Project - part 2 (Charles Holbrow)slides | watch the presentation | 46 |
June 10, 2020 | Potpourii NY Times article dealing with privacy (Peter Albin) Phone tracking of people (Charlie Holbrow) The Immortal (BBC program) | (not recorded) | 42 |
June 17, 2020 | Sabermetrics The Statistical Analysis of Baseball (Andy Andres) Andy Andres is a senior lecturer of natural science at the Boston University College of General Studies who is an expert in exercise physiology, nutritional biochemistry and baseball. In addition to the work listed above, Andres writes, lectures, and speaks to the media about the effects of steroids on baseball players, and he teaches a course at Tufts University in sabermetrics, the data-driven analysis of baseball performance. These pursuits allow the lifelong Red Sox fan and athlete to synthesize his twin loves: baseball and scientific inquiry. Andres is also an MLB datacaster at Fenway Park, a Data Analyst for BaseballHQ.com and Head Coach/Lead instructor for the MIT Science of Baseball Program. In the spring of 2014, Andres will teach a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) titled “Sabermetrics 101: Introduction to Baseball Analytics” on the edX platform. SABR: Society of American Baseball Research | watch the presentation | 33 |
June 24, 2020 | MOOC Massive Open Online Courses – What's there, what's new. (John Rudy, Charlie Holbrow) Broken into three presentations: John's talk on available MOOCs, Charlie's talk on MOOCs, and Q&A discussion. Slidesets to the right. | slides/rudy slides/holbrow watch the presentation | 40 |
July 1, 2020 | Variety Special with Bob Primak and John Rudy on SUMo updater, other topics presented by Steve Isenberg including: Getting loads of music files legally for free after inexpensive application purchase; Video on Deepfakes (how it's done), and a video on Virus Mobility (a haha). Here are links to what we presented and displayed: Updater apps: SUMo Application Updater (Win) [SUMo Details] Ninite Windows Application Updater Download/convert apps: Any Video Converter - Downloads YouTube vids and converts formats (Win, Mac) 4K Video Downloader Listen/Watch/Record apps: RadioTracker - download music from Internet (Win) Audials, extension of RadioTracker, music and video download and more (Win) Videos played: How Deepfakes Work A Virus Walks into a Bar | SUMo slides watch the presentation | 38 |
July 8, 2020 | 5G and Internet of Things in the Age of Coronavirus (Bob Primak) Slides References 5G Networks 5G Spectrum Bands | watch the presentation | 41 |
July 15, 2020 | Potpourri last part of Bob Melanson's Columbus presentation started on 4/29 The Physics of Sailing Q&A from Bob Primak's 5G talk last week, 7/8 Onboard automotive diagnostics (Bill Quinn) slides | watch the presentation | 42 |
July 22, 2020 | Video on Secrets of the lost Antikythera; A 2000 year old computer. (Jonathan Goode) link. Brief intro to using Davinci Resolve to produce a slideshow video (Steve Isenberg) | 42 | |
July 29, 2020 | Frontline AI part 1 (AI for the Masses) Frontline: In the Age of AI Related articles (thanks Peter) T-Shirt makes you invisible NIST looks into face mask effects on face recognition | 34 | |
August 5, 2020 | Back to the Basics – Office Tools Interesting Excel Spreadsheet uses (Jonathan) neat applications of functions (SteveI) Sample spreadsheet (Excel version) and LibreOffice (.ods) version | watch the Presentation | 44 |
August 12, 2020 | More on AI. The Rise of Artificial Intelligence | 27 | |
August 19, 2020 | How to Build a Time Machine What Happens When You Respond to Spam (Peter Albin presented) | 26 | |
August 26, 2020 | Myths and Facts on Climate Change - a non-alarmist perspective Presented by Shelly Lowenthal who says: “I developed a class on climate change that I give to life long learning organizations. It’s part of my History Course that I present. … There is science involved.” Shelly recommends that you watch Michael Moore's movie on YouTube, “Planet of the Humans” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE (1hr 40min) before the meeting. It is a documentary on wind and solar green energy. Here's a 37 second teaser for the movie:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXCftKF4uI | watch the presentation | 42 |
Sept 2, 2020 | Count Rumford and his 18th Century Technology Innovationns Dan Kleppner: Quite a few years ago I became interested in Benjamin Thompson (1752-1814) , aka Count Rumford. He was a great applied scientist and we owe much of our modern domestic technology to him: the kitchen range, double boiler, layered clothing and thermal underwear, steam heating,…. He was the first person to clearly understand all the modes of heat transfer. He was a public benefactor, initiated poor houses in many European cities, and he founded the Royal Institution in London which supported the research of Michael Faraday His career was a series of rags to riches. He would be better remembered if it were not for a character flaw: he antagonized everyone he dealt with to such a degree that he had to flee the country time and again. | watch the presentation | 41 |
Sept 9, 2020 | Blind Bombing by Norman Fine “I found this book spellbinding and with insight into the development of a new and advanced secret radar system that permitted the allies to penetrate through inclement weather and enable the allies to reverse the dominance of the Nazis at the onset of WWII. Blind Bombing has a warm sensitive side, in that Norman Fine’s uncle (Stanley) brought the first production model of the new airborne radar system to Europe permitting allied bombers to destroy factories supplying the German forces that were usually obscured by overcast weather”. | watch the presentation slides | 30 |
Sept 16, 2020 | Potpourri * What to do with your family during a pandemic? (George Gamota) * Update of Elon Musk's Starlink Satellite Internet Project (Bob Primak) » There were videos we could not include in this presentation. Here are links to them: » Video of the launch, fairing recovery, and booster return, and landing on a ship: https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-11-satellites-launch-september-2020.html » Launch and first stage separation and landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ei_Z_Xv3BM » Deployment of satellites: https://videos.space.com/m/N9qB26JP/watch-spacex-deploy-60-starlink-satellites-in-amazing-view-from-space?list=9wzCTV4g » Fairing recovery (previous launch in July): https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-payload-fairing-catch-success.html Starlink update slides various Starlink links Another “filler” video we showed: harvesting spaghetti | Presentation videos: Pandemic What To Do StarLink Update | 34 |
Sept 23, 2020 | The future of music – production and delivery by Charles J Holbrow (CJH). What can we learn about the future or music and music technology by looking at the past? I will present examples that illustrate the evolution of musical ideas and technologies from their conception to how they have influenced and continue to influence popular music today. I will describe how popular music is created today and review some research-stage music production technologies that aim to influence the current music production paradigms. As part of my PhD studies at the MIT Media Lab, I am developing software to enable a new kind of online musical collaboration and distribution. I will conclude by showing you an early example of this software Who is CJH? His early education was in Germany. His high school was the Sudbury Valley School, an alternative school in Sudbury, MA. After a year at Middlesex Community College, he transferred to UMass Lowell where he majored in sound recording technology and performance (piano). Following jobs developing software for games, he took up an internship at MIT's Opera of the Future program with noted composer Prof. Tod Machover. Subsequently, CJH was admitted into MIT's Media Arts and Sciences program from which he expects soon to receive a Ph.D. He is Charlie Holbrow's grandson. The Media Timeline: Use mouse to zoom in/out; on Apple trackpad, two-finger up/down gesture to zoom; click and drag to pan the view. | watch the presentation slides | 40 |
Sept 30, 2020 | Covid-19 Update (Jerry Slate) | watch the presentation | 50 |
Oct 7, 2020 | Producing a TV Show using DaVinci Resolve (Steve Isenberg) | watch the presentation | 33 |
Oct 14, 2020 | The CAC Ken Pogran tells about the Lexington Communications Advisory Committee. How did it start, what are its responsibilities, what are today's issues. | watch the presentation | 27 |
Oct 21, 2020 | Harry Forsdick: ARPAnet & Internet Conferencing | watch the presentation | 39 |
Oct 28, 2020 | Potpourri Slide Rules (remember them?) (Ken Schwarz) The Saga of John Rudy's New TV A bit on Zoom Webinars (John Rudy)\\Recycling electronics (John Rudy) Nuclear R&D Progress Update (David Kahan) | (unable to create video) | 41 |
Nov 4, 2020 | Atomic Clocks and, a brief history of Time (Dan Kleppner) | watch the presentation | 37 |
Nov 11, 2020 | Atomic Clocks (part 2) by Dan Kleppner followed by (and not in recorded presentation) mRNA: Transforming Medicine | watch the presentation | 27 |
Nov 18, 2020 | Speech Input and Translation. George Gamota on Google Translate. Peter Albin on history of translation and voice recognition. Jerry Slate discusses and demonstrates Naturally Speaking. Video on Amazon Transcribe Amazon Transcribe is Now Generally Available | watch the presentation | 44 |
Nov 25, 2020 | Vacation/no meeting | ||
Dec 2, 2020 | Potpourri One man's attempt to build a squirrel-impervious bird feeder (from John Rudy/20 min) Sand on the Table - Harmonics Ted Talk: Is Translation Easy? (17 min) How Trees Talk to Each Other (Suzanne Simard) (found by CharlieH) (18 min) | (not recorded) | 26 |
Dec 9, 2020 | Sara Seager/Distinguished MIT Professor in Physics, Astronomy, Earth Science on Venus (the planet) 1hr Scientific approach to, yes, defogging your car's windows (by the Squirrel guy) | (not recorded) | 34 |
Dec 16, 2020 | Acoustic Detection & Localization of an Active Shooter or Sniper presented by Tony Galaitsis Deranged shooters and terrorist or enemy snipers have been a concern for a long time. Technological advances over the past few decades have used gunfire acoustic information to detect and localize active shooters and snipers in order to prevent or minimize their deadly impact. This presentation reviews the general state of acoustic shooter/sniper detection and localization, based on publicly available information found on the internet (YouTube videos, Wikipedia, manufacturer brochures, and published papers/patents) and some basic geometry. | watch the presentation | 29 |
Dec 23, 2020 | Vacation - Enjoy the holidays! | ||
Dec 30, 2020 | Career stories (update). People with careers during which interesting (and now unclassified) things have happened. Mistakes made, lessons learned. Learn from: Carl Laxarus, Bill Haley, Mike Alexander, Dick Wagner, George Burnell, David Kahan, and Dan Kleppner | watch the presentation | 37 |
2019
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Date | Link to Video(s) | Slides/notes |
---|---|---|
Dec 25, 2019 | Christmas - no meeting Your homework is to celebrate the good things in life. | |
Dec 18, 2019 | Potpourri John Rudy continues AI in Medicine; Steve Isenberg on Cloud File Storage Options | |
Dec 11, 2019 | AI in Medicine MIT Alum Newsletter AI in Medical Care | |
Dec 4, 2019 | Tech trends and holiday gift ideas (Peter Albin and Bob Primak) Watch the presentation Slides | |
Nov 27, 2019 | Happy Thanksgiving! No meeting. | |
Nov 20, 2019 | Dark Web. “The legitimate uses of TOR, which is the software on which the so-called Dark Web runs. Or, if more interesting, a tour of the Dark Web“ https://darkwebtours.weebly.com/ Watch the presentation | |
Nov 13, 2019 | Steering committee | |
Nov 6, 2019 | Backup Strategies (Peter Albin) Watch the presentation | Slides |
Oct 30, 2019 | Space colonies in Solar Orbit The book describing our design study is available at: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph240/martelaro2/docs/nasa-sp-413.pdf Watch the Presentation | Charlie's handout |
Oct 23, 2019 | Tesla vs Edison (Bob Primak) Watch the presentation | Bob's paper |
Oct 16, 2019 | Potpourri: Flying Saucers – from material written by George Adamski; Deep Fakes video; Windows 10 tips (askwoody.com, you may need to become a member with voluntary paid membership; Backing up your device drivers; Getting those old games back into Win10, like FreeCell, Hearts, Solitaire, Chess, Minesweeper; discussion on when to and not to update to “the latest” Win10 release (consider: consult askwoody.com which today advises NOT to patch MS patches.) Gary's slides | |
Oct 9, 2019 | Yom Kippur, no meeting | |
Oct 2, 2019 | Science/Technology Rivalries: Newton vs. Liebnitz vs. Hooke (Charlie Holbrow) Watch the presentation (note: video is missing for part of the presentation) | handout |
Sept 25, 2019 | Application of physics techniques to biology. Gene Surfing and Survival of the Luckiest, David Nelson, Professor of Physics, Harvard (friend of Harry Forsdick). Population waves have played a crucial role in evolutionary history, as in the “out of Africa” hypothesis for human ancestry. Population geneticists and physicists are now developing methods for understanding how mutations, number fluctuations and selective advantages play out in such situations watch the presentation | |
Sept 18, 2019 | Cogito. A few weeks ago Mitch Wolfe sent out two very thought provoking links regarding the new science of voice technology, including what can be gathered by voice analysis using AI. We are fortunate to have Ali Azarbayejani, Cogito's CTO, visit and speak with us about the technology used by this local company which makes software that analyzes phone conversations and provides real-time guidance to help service employees better engage and connect with customers. Watch the presentation | |
Sept 11, 2019 | Jonathan Goode discusses many interesting (and amazing) computer details including fonts Bob Primak on the Laser Scanning of St Pauls Cathedral and an update on the cleanup of Notre Dame Cathedral | Notes on Bob's talk High lead levels found in Notre Dame WSJ Article, Reconstruction work is on hold due to lead |
Sept 4, 2019 | AI for People in a Hurry (short) and Setting Rules for the AI Race, plus a pre and post view discussion. Meeting led by Larry Wittig. | |
Aug 28, 2019 | Dava Sobel’s Google talk on “The Glass Universe”, women in Science (a Google Talk video) JohnR will introduce the subject and speaker, we'll watch the video, and discuss it and related topics afterwards see also Constructing the Glass Universe by Dava Sobel. Additional info on and about this topic, by Gary Patrick–includes comments on the video and more. | |
Aug 21, 2019 | “UNIX, Linux - Origins, History, Ongoing Futures”, a talk presented by Charly Sestokas (note, talk will not be recorded) plus a 30-minute video about SpaceX, presented by George Gamota | |
Aug 14, 2019 | Potpourri. Eli Brookner finishes his talk on Radar and Einstein CharlyS on Storage (not recorded). How to use LexMedia to view videos on demand | |
Aug 7, 2019 | Eli Brookner "Snoopy on Radar & Phased Arrays & Einstein's Duality Theory – An Update." part 1 (90 min) | |
July 31, 2019 | Eight Days to the Moon and Back - focus on Apollo 11 [George Gamota] | |
July 24, 2019 | Breaking the WWII Enigma Machine (Material from the April 2019 Lexington Veteran’s meeting, search LexMedia On Demand for “Enigma”) [Rudy] | |
July 17, 2019 | Potpourri including Steve Isenberg on virtual credit cards, space elevators, and more (planningpage) recording of presentation | |
July 10, 2019 | Apple Computer, History and Devices, by Josh Turiel see the presentation | |
July 3, 2019 | No Meeting due to Holiday | |
June 26, 2019 | Update on 5G (Bob Primak) 5G Update slides China and 5G notes from CNN see the presentation | |
June 19, 2019 | Black Hole 60-minute video (Gamota) plus | |
June 12, 2019 | From talks at Google Frank Abagnale: "Catch Me If You Can" and A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (Jennifer Wilcox) | |
June 5, 2019 | 3D Reconstruction. Used for churches and other buildings. (Bob Primak) | |
May 29, 2019 | Potpourri including Y2K. What was it, why did it happen, was it real? (John Rudy) and Gary Patrick on Windows Issues | |
May 22, 2019 | Potpourri. Showed several movies. Vaccines calling shots The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Beverage Can The strange tale of the Norden bombsight | |
May 15, 2019 | Career stories. Come prepared to tell us about your technical experiences. (We have done this 2-3 times before; but not recently). | https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-vaccinescalling-shots/ |
May 8, 2019 | Ray Kurzweil + Disruptive Technologies and Dangerous Ideas Singularity University co-founder, Google AI Director and noted futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Peter H. Diamandis for a 90-minute Ask Me Anything, all aimed at providing you an unfair advantage for your business. | https://youtu.be/SaOfLtoaKqw |
May 1, 2019 | Potpourri and Steering Committee | |
April 24, 2019 | Documentary on Neil Armstrong | Gamota |
April 17, 2019 | History of the World in 100 Objects (continued). We listened to The mechanical galleon, Mexican codex map, Ship's chronometer from HMS Beagle, and Solar powered lamp and charger | British Museum site BBC site |
April 10, 2019 | Madame Curie video about Madame Curie and the Curie family, presented by Charlie Holbrow. Madame Curie and the Curie family will focus on her and her daughter and their characters and discoveries and how they fit into the sequence of dramatic developments in physics between the discovery of radioactivity in 1897 and the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938. This will include some description of Lise Meitner's role in these developments and a brief mention of why she didn't get a Nobel for the discovery of nuclear fission. For those interested, Amazon has the movie Radioactive about Marie Curie's work (free to Amazon Prime members) | handout that wasn't handed out How the Curies' piezo device worked and measured small electric current |
April 3, 2019 | Showing the 2014 AI movie Ex Machina: A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic (artificial) intelligence (AI) by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid. Very intriguing movie. | FYI, the movie is available on NetFlix. |
March 27, 2019 | Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) interview with Frank Heart (who in 1969 led the team of BBN engineers that created the ARPANET). slightly shortened version | slides |
March 20, 2019 | George Gamota shows video "Journey through the Milky Way" And relating to the end of the program, info on Detecting Dark Matter New: Milky Way Bulge | |
March 13, 2019 | Password Managers Slides (with links) for the presentation Will your password stand up to a cracker? Is your password or account info out on the web? Newsletter 4/15/2019 discussing password managers | Related info About Keeper Password Manager Keeper website screenshots |
March 6, 2019 | History of the World in 100 items. Presenting a representative sample of the 100-part series of 15 podcasts by Neil MacGregor during his time as Director of the British Museum that explores world history from 2 million years ago to the present. We listened to The Flood Tablet, Hebrew Astrolabe, and Ming Bank Note. | British Museum site BBC site |
February 27, 2019 | George Gamota presents "2018 Space Events/Discoveries" plus 10 minute update on "Trump's Science Appointees" | Space Update slides Trump Science Appointees slides |
February 20, 2019 | Charlie presents the first of 3 talks on quantum physics, today's subject is "why wave-particle duality makes such a disturbing theory necessary" | Powerpoint slides Wave Particle outline -- Why we need quantum mechanics |
February 13, 2019 | Windows System Maintenance and Updating (Bob Primak) part 1 | PDF of Bob's slides |
February 6, 2019 | The Power Grid (presented by Jackie Zajac) | PDF of Jackie's slides |
January 30, 2019 | 2019 lg Nobel awards ceremony (presenter Peter Albin) Awards Ceremony Improbable Research home | “Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK” |
January 23, 2019 | Shown: TED Talk String theory - Brian Greene The greatest dance sequence ever The best stats you've ever seen The tyranny of the rocket equation Not shown but of possible interest TED Talk Why is our universe fine-tuned for life? - Brian Greene 10 Fascinating Examples of Unintended Consequences | |
January 16, 2019 | Mathematics of Weight Loss 10 Times Michio Kaku Arguments Blew Our Minds TED Talk The freakonomics of McDonalds vs Drugs by Steve Levitt | |
January 9, 2019 | Michael Rosenblatt, MD on "Ways That Wartime Injuries Have Influenced Civilian Medical Practice" | link to slides on Yahoo |
2018
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Links to Interesting Stuff
- Artificially mimicking people's voices and selfies. Fortune magazine has been publishing recent articles about “deepfakes” and combating them. Artificial intelligence algorithms put convincing speech into video and audio clips. For example, “revenge porn” has been constructed by pasting women's heads onto porn actress bodies. There is also potential for fraud by impostors. See: https://fortune.com/2019/07/24/fighting-deepfakes-gets-real/ and https://fortune.com/tag/deepfakes/
- Leap day. Leap year. Meridian. And more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhgZBn-LHg
- [humor] Buddy Hacket and the 3-legged chicken. Cows and horns. The duck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aww4HT5g7ig
Software Maybe of Interest
Neither the Lexington Computer and Technology Group nor the author of this Wiki page guarantee the application(s) listed here. While we have investigated and tried them ourselves, they come with no guarantee.
Other items
- The group meets weekly on Wednesdays at 10:00am online. It meets online every week, and most weeks also at the Lexington Community Center, 39 Marrett Road, Lexington MA.
- Blurb for use to send people telling about the group and how they might join, for sending to Lexington list, etc
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