The "To Keep Up" Wiki

SCHED Scams, spyware, freeware. Spotting/detecting them and avoiding them. (Gary Patrick/John Rudy to contact)
SCHED Flatland (Steve Isenberg/6 min video) for potpourri
SCHED Blind Bombing by Norman Fine. Fine is native of Newton MA and would be receptive to giving a presentation. [Larry Freier]
“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”. John Rudy to contact
SCHED History relating to Rubber (John Rudy, George Burnell)
Florence Nightingale contributions to science (Jerry Slate to change title maybe great moments in science/medicine)
Discovery platinum compound for radiation therapy (Jerry Slate to follow up)
Search for life on other planets (research in progress; Cindy Bares doing research).
- Ian Crawford, April 2018, 36min
~~Mars Rover (George Gamota)~~
SCHED Building a bird feeder impervious to squirrels, 20 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg (from John Rudy, Potpourri)
Right to Repair - who has the right to repair your car; vendor lockout (Bill Quinn maybe potpourri)
SCHED Using DaVinci Resolve to produce a TV show (steve isenberg)
SCHED Headsets and cameras used with Zoom (potpourri)
SCHED Translation. Google Translate, what it can do, real usage examples; Use of Dragon natural speaking and other capabilities for speech-to-text
SCHED Finding and using this Wiki page (potpourri steve isenberg)
A bit on Zoom Webinars (John Rudy) (potpourri)
Dan Kleppner: I was planning to suggest a talk that I think would mesh with the group’s interests. The subject is Fixit Clinics. These are hands-on clinics that were started at MIT perhaps fifteen years ago, and presented during IAP. They are the brainchild of Peter Mui, an MIT graduate (full disclosure: Peter is my son’s brother-in-law). The rationale is fundamentally conservation- he is appalled by the enormous waste of usable appliances. The issue of right-to-repair arises in these clinics: many appliances are intentionally unfixable. Fixit clines have gained in popularity and he has put them on them in many venues in the U.S. and also abroad.
SCHED 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.
I have a power point on his career and could talk any time.
SCHED Dan Kleppner: Atomic Clocks
Tony Galaitsis: (12/18/2019) John Rudy talked to James Barger (retired as Chief Scientist from BBN Technologies/Raytheon, PhD) and asked him whether he would bring his “Acoustical Detection of Kennedy Assassins” (my paraphrased title of his talk) to the Lexington Computer and Technology Group.
(12/20/2019) Jim Barger retired as Chief Scientist from BBN Technologies/Raytheon a few years ago. He has been involved in numerous DoD programs, a great many for the navy, a great many he cannot talk about, most involving sound propagation and associated signal processing. One of his better known works includes the analysis and interpretation of the gun shot acoustic signals recorded during the Kennedy assassination, and a similar project associated with the Kent State shootings. I think the LCTG group would find the Kennedy assassination talk very interesting. Jim responded with a tentative “Yes” to my initial inquiry about the talk, but he will make a final decision after he has more information about LCTG and after he has a better idea of the requirements and timing of the presentation. (Larry Wittig to follow up, Peter to contact Larry)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-plastic-problem (1hr video) 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. (John Rudy, Bob Primak, George Burnell) This might be more than one week. Plastic bags biodegradeability, manufacture, disposal, recycling
SCHED Computational Photography - changing what's used as a camera. https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9828658229/computational-photography-part-i-what-is-computational-photography e.g., replacing DSLR with cellphones; more (Bob Primak, Jonathan Goode, Harry Forsdick (Dick/Linux?))
SCHED Career stories (again). Maybe people with long careers during which interesting (and no-longer-classified) things have happened that we could have one of these sessions every 4 to 8 weeks and not run out of storytellers. Jerry Sauermann (Cindy Bares)
- SCHED Many of the members of our club have technical and scientific backgrounds. Some may be interested in presenting to the group important experiments or other developments in their field.
  For example, in my field of pulmonary disease, the development of the Pneumatic Trough by the Rev. Stephen Hales (1677 – 1761) enabled Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804) to discover oxygen. The struggle of scientists at that time to understand the fundamentals of matter makes an interesting story.
  Our members might be willing to present vignettes to fill out sessions or combine them to create a single session. (Jerry Slate)
Actual accomplishments of things in the Frontiers of Science. a) has quantum computing ever solved a problem?, b) has blockchain produced a cost effective solution for anything?, c) has the Large Hadron Collider advanced science or provided the real confirmations the string theorists were looking for? (Jonathan Goode)
A revised explanation, in an intuitively satisfying way, why do airplanes fly? This was presented earlier using incomprehensible equations that seem unsatisfying and suspicious. Can planes really achieve level flight upside down?
The future of music – production and delivery (Charles J. Holbrow; “J”=Jr Charles Holbrow)
SCHED Troubleshoot your Internet connectivity (Bob Primak potpourri)
SCHED How one builds a web application (e.g., using spreadsheets) (Harry Forsdick)
SCHED The Saga of John Rudy's New TV
Getting Streaming Programming Into Your TV (what to do when your TV just isn't smart enough)
History relating to Rubber (John Rudy, George Burnell)
Peter info on rubber
Professor X?

Table of Contents