NUBtalk this Sunday at 7–Tin Can Telecommunications and Prank Science

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Well, I’m still wrapped up in the news stories in the aftermath of the election.  I’m feeling very optimistic about our country’s future, and it’s the first time in about eight years that I’ve felt that way.  The one fly in tuesday’s ointment, as far as I’m concerned, is California’s new constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  The future of gay civil rights is uncertain, and only time (and the efforts of countless people who give a damn) will tell.  It’s wicked scary and exciting!

Back to nubtalks!  After this brief hiatus, it gives me great pleasure to announce this week’s NUBtalk.  We have two great talks coming up:  Sam Smiley will give a talk entitled “Tin Can Telecommunications:  Developments in Cutting Edge Technologies,” and Shaunalynn Duffy, Alex Hornstein, Mike Nagle and Alec Resnick will talk about A New Kind of Prank Science.
One bummer I am sad to share with you is that the recordings of Jamie and Skunk’s talks didn’t come out.  We’ll just have to remember : (

The talks this week are going to be in the Back Bay at Tapeo restaurant (google map) this Sunday at 7.  It’s at 268 Newbury st!

A little more on our speakers and their talks.

Tin Can Telecommunications:
Sam Smiley is a media artist and educator, and is one of the think tank operators of media arts collective AstroDime Transit Authority. The AstroDime Transit Authority is a Think-Tank and public service organization that considers issues of transportation, communication and world and intergalactic citizenship. We are specifically interested in issues of race, class, gender and culture with respect to how our human transportation and communication systems are constructed
In his talk, Sam will demonstrate and discuss demonstrate the iCAN and the Party Line, communication technologies pioneered by Astrodime.

The astrodime website is here

A New Kind of Prank Science
When you’re picking a present for a friend, you put yourself in their shoes and think about what your friend really wants.  So, what if your friend wasn’t really into material goods, didn’t really want or need any more possessions.  What else could you do for him?
This talk is the story of Alec’s birthday present and the month of planning, discussion and story building that went into the half-hour scenario we put him in as his birthday present.  It’s the story of a different way of showing a friend that you care about him, about pushing a prank to a level where none of us knew what the outcome would be.  It’s a space of pranks that, to our knowledge, hasn’t really been explored, and is simultaneously liberating and exciting and scary.

Alec, Shaunalynn, Alex and Nagle are wicked good friends.  When they’re not working their day jobs at the old-fashioned horse glue plant, they can be found in mountains, dumpsters, rooftops and highways all around the world.

So!  We’ve got the speakers, the venue, the recording devices, the armed patrol.  All that’s missing is you.  This Sunday, 11.9.08 at 7pm at Tapeo restaurant in the Back Bay.  Let’s nub it up!

See you soon,
Nubbie and the Nubs

NUBtalk at 7PM this Sunday, 10.19.08 at MIT! bicycle nerd-gangs and some frickin CULTURE

Ladies and Gentlemen!

This is Nubbie, liveblogging from lovely Austin, Texas at this year’s Maker Faire.  It’s fan-tastic!  The nubs are setting up a workshop in the middle of huge warehouse that used to be a cattle feed lot, and tomorrow 40,000 people are going to come and build stuff.  It’ll be awesome!

One of our intrepid nubs, though, is staying in Boston and will be continuing the proud NUBtalk tradition, so get out your NUBtalk hats and get ready, because…

There’s a NUBtalk this Sunday at 7!  It’s going to be at MIT this week, not at La Luna.  It’ll be in building 6, room 120 (google map:      http://tinyurl.com/65e4cc)

We’re going for a new record in eclecticism this NUBtalk.      We will have a mystery performance by our friend Jamie the Lovable Shakespearean Actor, and Fleet Admiral Skunk of Boston’s Subversive Urban Chopper League (SCUL) will give a talk entitled: “The Dirty Secrets of Miracles – What it takes to keep a bicycle nerd gang in the air”

Jamie is something of a wildcard, a man of mystery, and considered by some to be the most dangerous man alive.  Growing up in Stockton, Vermont, he was known in his hometown as a problem child.  Refusing to go to school, and scaring the truancy officer into silence with threats of violence, he passed into adulthood as something of a loner.  At the age of 17, he graduated from being an amateur bar fighter to a professional bar assassin when he assassinated an unpopular incumbent Montreal senator in exchange for a fifty dollar Ikea gift certificate.  Realizing the potential benefit of this lifestyle, he traveled the world for fifteen years, assassinating minor political figures in exchange for gift certificates at inexpensive yet well designed furniture outlets.  Following the assassination of a Portland, Oregon ombudsman, Jamie realized that he had a fundamental objection to the violence that had defined his lifestyle.  He became sullen, depressed, rejecting even the easiest, most satisfying of hits.  To escape from his bloody past, he took up acting with a fervor most reserve for engineering education, or a really good buffet.  Diving into challenging thespian roles, he lost his sordid past in the lives of his characters, and in time, with the help of Beckett, Mamet and Ibsen, his wounds began to heal.
Two weeks ago, I met a changed man at La Luna Caffe, where he was learning the part of Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  After a brilliant, unplanned performance at the last NUBtalk, he agreed to grace our stage once more.  The weekend, we will discover together what he has in store for us.

In our second talk, Fleet Admiral Skunk of SCUL pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of SCUL: a bicycle nerd-gang that has been embarking upon missions late Saturnights since your Earth Year 1996. Straddling the
line between historical and hysterical, Skunk will cover topics such as ship construction, technological and cultural advancements in the gang, as well as the trials and triumphs of gang-leadership.

About Skunk:

Skunk was born on a heavy gravity planet. He is the founder of SCUL, a Boston Area nerd gang that has been patrolling the local starsystems for adventure. He pilots a mighty ship, the USB Cloudbuster, a 200 pound bicycle equipped with a stereo system, lights, and telescoping disco ball known as the Disco-Death-Stah.

So, we can’t wait to see you this Sunday, so come on down to MIT, room 6-120, and get you some nubtalkin’

fondly,
Nubbie and the nubs

This week’s nubtalk poster

I’m going to ask you to do something–if you know of a person, a school, a neighborhood, a community that you think would enjoy the upcoming talks and the atmosphere of nubtalks–take a second, print out a couple posters from the link below and give them to people you want to see at the talk, and put them up places you think people will see them.  OK?  Cool!  Thanks, y’all.

Download this week’s NUBtalk poster

NUBtalk this Sunday at 7pm at La Luna Caffe! Strangers with Secrets and the State dismantling home chemistry labs

My dearest ladies and gentlemen,

I have an important bipartisan announcement:  For those of you playing drinking games during tonight’s VP debate:  there has been a drinking game suggestion circulating that you drink every time somebody says the word “reform.”  PLEASE, for your own good, for the good of our city–play a different variant!  Early studies have shown that the ‘reform’ rule set leads to nigh-instant alcohol poisoning, followed by fast-onset cirrhosis and death.  We really want to see you this weekend, so please, for your own sake, for us–watch the debates responsibly!

So–there’s a NUBtalk coming up this Sunday!!!  Sweet!  It’s going to be back at La Luna Caffe in central square(403 mass ave, google map: http://tinyurl.com/4myu9n).  We’ve got two very cool speakers:  Johnny Monsarrat will be talking about a social experiment he’s doing called Cross Into the Abyss, and Victor Deeb will be talking about a recent event where the city of Marlborough dismantled and destroyed his home chemistry lab.

Also, the video from Kronick and Charlie’s talks is available at nubtalks.com, as are a bunch of great pictures (thanks to Mac Cowell from DIYbio) from the night.

I’m going to try something new this time–I’m going to ask you to do something.      Go to nubtalks.com.  The first post up there has a link to a pdf with a poster for this Sunday’s talk.  If you know of a person, a school, a neighborhood, a community that you think would enjoy the upcoming talks and the atmosphere of nubtalks–take a second, print out a couple posters and give them to people you want to see at the talk, and put them up places you think people will see them.  OK?  Cool!  Thanks, y’all.

And now, back to our speakers.  Here’s a little more info about them and what they’re going to be talking about.

Johnny’s talk:

Cross Into The Abyss: Inspirational Secrets

Their secrets are our secrets. Each question is a story. Our story.

“Why is it that boys don’t find me attractive?”

“Why does it hurt some much to feel yet we as people can’t stop?”

“When will I die? I’m 7.”

Johnny Monsarrat collects questions and writes answers, with a ‘Project
Person’ philosophy. These stories, on colored cards, decorate his garden:
proof that we are not alone in our fears.

In this talk, he’ll speak about the project and share cards both funny and
touching. He’ll talk about feeling overwhelmed, and how to ‘cross into the
abyss’ and face making a change. We’ll end with handing out blank question
cards and a trek to the garden to view the project directly.

Mr. Monsarrat founded and ran Turbine, the largest computer games company in
New England. He is an alumnus of MIT and Brown, an award-winning speaker,
and CEO of the data-gathering firm Hard Data Factory. The Cross Into The
Abyss project is at http://CrossIntoTheAbyss.org

Victor’s talk

Victor Deeb is a retired chemist living in Marlborough, mass.  Until this August, he had a basement lab where he was working on ways to improve the world, including methods for recycling tires more effectively, preventing dioxin, a potent carcinogen, from getting into baby food during the sealing process at food processing plants, and keeping Bisphenol-A, a damaging chemical, from leaching into our water and food from polycarbonate bottles.  This August, the fire department came to Victor’s home to put out an unrelated fire in one of his upstairs air conditioners.  While they were in the house, they found his basement chemistry lab, alerted the police and the bomb squad, and over the next three days systematically dismantled Victor’s lab.  The city hired a contractor to test everything in his lab to see if it was potentially dangerous, and after going through all the chemicals, glassware and notes he had, reported that there was nothing more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.
After the findings, Pamela Wilderman, Marlborough’s code enforcement officer issued the following statement to the press:
“It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood,” she said. “This is Mr. Deeb’s hobby. He’s still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. … There are regulations about how much you’re supposed to have, how it’s detained, how it’s disposed of.”

Victor will be talking about the event, the ongoing aftermath, and the lessons that he’s taken away from it.

If you’re interested in learning more, there’s a wealth of stories and blogs covering this event.  Just google Victor’s name.

So–cool talks, interesting people and great food this Sunday at 7 at La Luna!  We can’t wait to see you all again!

With love,
nubbie and the nubs

NUBtalk #5 was awesome!

Mac Cowell’s smiling face says it all:  the last NUBtalk was great!

Charlie DeTar and Sam Kronick both spoke, and they were FANtastic.  Charlie talked about the relationship between technology and happiness (video of his talk) and Sam talked about the Importance of Building (his talk).   Despite an interloping thunderstorm, almost 150 people showed up, the talks were great, and someone from the weekly dig bumped into us and wrote an article entitled* “What the hell is this?“.  Thank you all for coming, and we’ll see you at the next one!

Enjoy the photos below.  More pictures on flickr

Special thanks to everyone who helped us set up–heather, mac, mike, peter, matt, teri, lee and everyone I forgot.  Y’all are awesome!

*ok, I know it’s actually called something boring.  But that is the first sentence, and it’s way funnier that way.

NUBtalk this Sunday (9.21.08) at 7! The Importance of Building and the Relationship Between Technology and Happiness

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I’ve had a fantastic weekend, and I hope you have, too.  That’s
all.  No tangents or meandering introductions this time.  Let’s get
right to the point

There’s a NUBtalk this Sunday, and it’s going to be a good one.
This week’s two fantastic speakers are Sam Kronick, who will be
speaking about “The Importance of Building:  thoughts from a floating
Danish arts collective”, and Charlie DeTar, who will be giving a talk
on the relationship between technology and happiness.

The talk will be at 7PM at La Luna Caffe at 403 Mass Ave in
Cambridge, right near central square (google map:  http://tinyurl.com/
58bz52).  Delicious food will be provided by our friends at the La
Luna Caffe.  Come by, listen to the speakers, eat, drink, and meet
other people in Boston who are excited about stuff.

A little more on our speakers:
Sam Kronick has a knack for finding the quirky side of things.  He
always manages to find the human side, the dissenting voice, the
liberated fuck-all artists in every situation.  His humor is
infectious, and he brings it everywhere.  Sam is in school right now,
studying architecture and design at MIT, and when he’s not doing
that, he’s traveling the world building houses that stand up and walk
around.  Check him out at http://newuntitledpage.com/europe2008/

Charlie DeTar is a man who defies introduction.  He’s a musician, an
artist, a cross-country cyclist, a programmer…this guy gets
around!  He’s currently at MIT’s media lab, working on ways for us as
citizens rather than media conglomerates to control what media that
surrounds us and how we’re exposed to it.  He’s always working on a
number of projects, and keeps a meticulous record of them at http://
tirl.org/.  He’s got some very unique views, and I for one can’t wait
to hear him speak.
Both speakers are great, and they’ll be talking about some wicked
cool stuff, so come on by, have some food, meet other cool people in
Boston and nub the night away!  This Sunday at 7 at La Luna Cafe!

By the way, the audio from the last talks is up at nubtalks.com.  We
have to wait until Zack’s court proceedings are over before we can
put his up, but Ryan’s talks are freely available.

For those of you who are getting a NUBtalk email for the first time,
you might be wondering why you’re getting this email.  What is
NUBtalks?  What the heck is NUBlabs? Why all the NUBs?

NUB labs is everyone’s favorite new Boston area smart-up.
Necessary Useful Beautiful, LLC is a group of handsome young
individuals dedicated to causing social change through technology.

NUB talks is a series of talks by interesting people that NUB
is organizing and hosting.  Every other week, there’s going to be a
few speakers, each giving a short talk on something they’re doing
that’s exciting.  It’s an opportunity for us all to see what other
interesting things are going on around us and meet the people doing
those things.  We want you to come, eat our pizza, drink our beer,
hear the talks and just get to know each other.  An environment of
mutual excitement and interest is a beautiful thing, and we want to
cultivate it.

We can’t wait to see you this Sunday.  It’s going to be a great
couple of talks, so come by and meet the other people in Boston who
are _doing things.

See you soon!
–Nubbie and the Nubs

NUBtalk #4 officially a success

Well, we had our fourth NUBtalk, and it was fantastic.  Zack Anderson and Ryan Keith spoke, our friends at La Luna Caffe hosted and cooked for us, and we took over a public square.  We counted about 120 people who either showed up at the talks or saw something was going on and stuck around for the talks and to hang out afterwards.  It’s a far cry from our first talk in the coal room of an abandoned basement we snuck pizza, beer, extension cords and 25 people into.  I can’t even begin to describe how exciting it is to watch this grow and get more and more people excited.

Audio from the talks is up on the sidebar to your left.  We’re waiting until Zack’s court case clears up before we post his talk(at his request), but Ryan’s talk is up and ready for your listening pleasure.  Enjoy!

We’re going to start holding our talks at La Luna for the rest of the season.  It’s a great location, easy to find, it’s wonderful how people can just walk up off the street and come listen and talk with everyone there, and on top of it all, the food is delicious.  We’ll also start lighting and videotaping the talks, so stay tuned for even more media!

There’s another NUBtalk coming up this Sunday (9.21.08), and we can’t wait to see you there

–nubbie and the nubs

NUBtalks 3 photos — Joe Beckmann and Charlie Mathis

So, I definitely forgot to put up photos from the last NUBtalks.  Joe Beckmann spoke about Boston-area kids and Charlie Mathis talked about Objects, Obsessions and Processes.  The recordings are online–check them out on the left side of the page.

All in all, it was a great talk.  We had about 50 people show, which was great for our third event.  Charlie and Joe were great, and just watching everyone in the audience listening, responding, meeting and talking with eachother and just being excited was a great thing.  CAVS was wonderful and we can’t thank them enough for letting us host the talk there.  Thank you all for coming, and we’ll see you at the next one!

NUBtalk this sunday at 7pm! Zimbabwean Orphans and “So, you found a whopping security hole in the T–now what?”

My dearest ladies and gentlemen,

I recently learned this great new word:  saudade.  It’s a portuguese word that doesn’t really exist in any other language.  It’s an expression of fond rememberance of something:  a lost lover, a time in one’s life, a certain set of feelings, coupled with a sad longing for the thing’s return, a hope, albeit slim, that you will be reunited sometime in the future and the bittersweet joy that comes with the recognition and acceptance of fate and life’s uncertainty..  All that sentiment in one word–how cool is that?
I can’t really say that I’ve got the saudades for NUBtalks, though.  After all, it’s an ongoing lecture series, and as much as I enjoyed and miss the last one, I know there’s another one just a few days away.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I’m really trying to tell you:  This Sunday, we’ve got a fantastic NUBtalk coming up.  Ryan Keith will be talking about his experiences running an NGO finding homes for orphans in the midst of Zimbabwean civil unrest, and Zack Anderson will tell the story of Massachusetts’ and the FBI’s response to him finding a security hole in the T’s Charlie Card system.
This looks to be a great couple of talks by a couple of really dynamic guys, so definitely don’t miss it.  On top of it all, the talk will be hosted and catered by our friends Matt and Teri of the fantastic La Luna cafe in Central Square (google map:  http://tinyurl.com/6c4nsl), so there’ll be some really tasty food and drinks.  This NUBtalk is going to be at 7, not 8, so mark it down on your calendars.

A little more about our speakers:

Since taking the hand of a dying woman in Zimbabwe in 2004 instead of going to Harvard for grad school, Ryan Keith’s middle class mindset was forever changed. Since then, he has experienced rogue police men, watched many people die, and has tried to share the voices of local people in Africa working hard every day on their own.  Ryan is working hand in hand with local leaders and building a new non-profit called Forgotten Voices.  He’s now finally in Harvard and seeking to learn as much as he can from anyone who can contribute to his new found passion for helping realize the dreams of local people lost in the shuffle of our Western quest to “save Africa.”  Africa has helped save him and he’s pumped to share with us.

Zack Anderson is currently a senior at MIT studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, but the real action here is in his extracurricular activities.  You see, Zack is an incurable builder and is constantly working on elaborate projects from autonomous go-carts to miniature Bellagio-esque fountains to automating every aspect of his dorm room.  On top of his personal projects, Zack is also involved in a start-up improving cars’ efficiency by harvesting energy from their shocks.

So, to summarize-
Come to NUBtalks!  This Sunday at 7pm (not 8!  7!) at La Luna cafe in at 403 Mass ave in Central Square (google map:  http://tinyurl.com/6c4nsl)

For those of you who are new to the whole NUBtalks thing, here’s what it’s all about:

NUBtalks is a series of talks by interesting people that NUBlabs is organizing and hosting.  Every other week, there’s going to be a few speakers, each giving a short talk on something they’re doing that’s exciting.  It’s an opportunity for us all to see what other interesting things are going on around us and meet the people doing those things.  We want you to come, eat, drink, hear the talks and just get to know each other.  An environment of mutual excitement and interest is a beautiful thing, and we want to cultivate it.

The talks are run by NUBlabs, everyone’s favorite new Boston area smart-up.  Necessary Useful Beautiful, LLC is a group of handsome young individuals dedicated to causing social change through technology.

By the way–the audio and blurbs from the previous talks are online at www.nubtalks.com  Check it out, give it a listen, leave a comment, be web2.0!

We can’t wait to see you this Sunday.  It’s going to be a great couple of talks, so come by, hear some cool people talk about interesting things, and meet the other people in Boston who are _doing things.

See you soon!
–Nubbie and the Nubs

NUBtalks this Sunday (8.24.08) at 8: Artistic Obsessions and Boston area kids

Dearest Ladies and Gentlemen,
Have you noticed the weather over the past two days?  The air is feeling crisp, there’s these great blustery winds, and it’s getting cool enough at night to put on a sweatshirt before heading out.  That’s the feeling of fall coming on, and it’s a beautiful thing.  I’m actually going to ask that you stop reading this email–close your Macbook, push away your keyboard, stand up and walk outside, if only for a minute, and just enjoy the changing seasons.
Also, you should come to NUBtalks this Sunday.  Here’s why:

We’re going to have two great speakers this week:  Charlie ‘Chachi’ Mathis and Joe Beckmann.

Charlie is the media assistant for MIT’s Visual Arts program, and he is one of the most gifted artists and builders I’ve ever met.  He’s worked on an astonishing number of inspiring art projects and has helped countless aspiring artists turn their concepts into reality.  Charlie will be talking about Obsessions, Objects and Processes.

Joe is a prominent figure in Boston-area politics.  He’s a longtime, extremely outspoken supporter of civil rights for minorities, gays, immigrants and other disenfranchised groups living around Boston.  He’s also very active in Somerville schools and constantly pushing for better, more progressive education in state schools.  He’s constantly involved in the city at every level he can be and is fighting to make this a more beautiful city to live in.  Joe will be talking about kids in the Boston area.

This NUBtalk will be hosted by MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (cavs.mit.edu) on the third floor of the MIT museum building at 265 Massachusetts Avenue.  (Google map:  http://tinyurl.com/69u7×2).  The talks start at 8 pm.  Unfortunately, the doors are locked after hours, so to get in, call 919.609.8744 or a number from the signs posted outside.

For those of you who are getting a NUBtalk email for the first time, you might be wondering why you’re getting this email.  What is NUBtalks?  What the heck is NUBlabs? Why all the NUBs?

NUB labs is everyone’s favorite new Boston area smart-up.  Necessary Useful Beautiful, LLC is a group of handsome young individuals dedicated to causing social change through technology.

NUB talks is a series of talks by interesting people that NUB is organizing and hosting.  Every other week, there’s going to be a few speakers, each giving a short talk on something they’re doing that’s exciting.  It’s an opportunity for us all to see what other interesting things are going on around us and meet the people doing those things.  We want you to come, eat our pizza, drink our beer, hear the talks and just get to know each other.  An environment of
mutual excitement and interest is a beautiful thing, and we want to cultivate it.

By the way–the audio and blurbs from the previous talks are online at www.nubtalks.com  Check it out, give it a listen, leave a comment, be web2.0!

We can’t wait to see you this Sunday.  It’s going to be a great couple of talks, so come by, hear some cool people talk about interesting things, and meet the other people in Boston who are _doing things.

See you soon!
–Nubbie and the Nubs