Table of Contents
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Speaker schedule page . Potential Topics (for later scheduling)
Lexington Computer and Technology Group
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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.
For further information contact the group coordinators by email at LCTG@toku.us. We look forward to have you join 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 2025.06.22 20:46
recents
Recently produced meeting videos you can watch now:
- Heat Pumps 5/7/2025
- Selected Nobel Prizes in Medicine 6/4/2025
- Beyond Generative AI 6/11/2025
::RECENT AND UPCOMING MEETINGS::
Date | Topic | confirmed | Followups |
---|---|---|---|
June 4, 2025 | Selected Nobel Prizes in Medicine chat messages Meeting Summary watch the presentation; captions available | ||
June 11, 2025 | Comparison of the most popular AI engines. Which is best for this or that. chat messages Meeting Summary watch the Beyond Generative presentation Beyond Generative slides | ||
June 18, 2025 | GASP Planning session Meeting summary | ||
N e x t . M e e t i n g | |||
June 25, 2025 | Fusion Update | ok | Ted |
. | |||
July 2, 2025 | Potpourri Oliver Marsh: Crack growth and iceberg formation on a dynamic ice shelf. (Oliver is a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey) Abstract: Ice shelves around Antarctica are critical to slowing the rate of sea level rise. This talk addresses new technology used to monitor cracks in ice shelves during polar winter, including GNSS precise point positioning, and ground-based and satellite radar systems. Three major iceberg calving events have occurred on the Brunt Ice Shelf since 2021, with new high-precision data used to inform models of fracture propagation and ice shelf stability. (~45minutes) Methylene Blue (JerryS) AI Followup (DickW) | ||
July 9, 2025 | History of Space Travel: Venus and Mars (video) | George | |
July 16, 2025 | Drones. The background of drones and the technology behind them; Using drones in photography and examples of images. | Al Levin | |
July 23, 2025 | (1h8m+30m Q&A) new results from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), from the team that brought us the first-ever image of a black hole, from 5/16/2022 | TedK | |
July 30, 2025 | (59m) A Hackers Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules and How to Bend Them Back (Bruce Schneier) a Harvard Science Book Talk Series Lecture (31m) Solving Wordle using information theory | ||
Aug 6, 2025 | Potpourri Ground Based Deep Space Telescope accomplishments (?) | ||
Aug 13, 2025 | Volcanic activity studies | Ted | |
Aug 20, 2025 | Hearing Aid Appliances for Dummies (What options are there to help you improve your hearing? How do you choose a Hearing Aid (HA)? Tricks and tips, things to look for in a HA and what to watch out for. Can you buy a useful HA without a prescription?) | George, Charlie | |
Aug 27, 2025 | What are some interesting uses of AI other than Chats | Harry | |
Sep 3, 2025 | Robots in Everyday Life (working title) | JohnR | |
Sep 10, 2025 | IP Update: Copyright for AI-developed Material and CRISPR Patent | Dick | |
Sep 17, 2025 | GASP Planning session | ||
Sep 24, 2025 | Shooting Down Drones: Raytheon's approach to attacking drones (Will Straus) (tentative) (RH day2) | JohnR | |
Oct 1, 2025 | (YK eve)Altruism, Philanthropy, and Philandering in Science | Ted | |
Oct 8, 2025 | Susan Liebman and The Dressmaker's Mirror | yes | |
Oct 15, 2025 | Potpourri Federal Science Priority Update (George) | ||
Oct 22, 2025 | Edwin Land Mr. Polaroid (smi/m) | ||
Oct 29, 2025 | |||
Nov 5, 2025 | LCTG AI Research Group | John Day | |
Nov 12, 2025 | Potpourri | ||
Nov 19, 2025 | |||
Nov 26, 2025 | Thanksgiving eve | ||
Dec 3, 2025 | |||
Dec 10, 2025 | |||
Dec 17, 2025 | Potpourri | ||
Dec 24, 2025 | 'twas the night before Christmas | ||
Dec 31, 2025 | New Year's Eve | ||
Jan 7, 2026 | |||
Jan 14, 2026 | Potpourri | ||
Jan 21, 2026 | |||
Jan 28, 2026 |
Past Meetings
2023
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 | |
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 |
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
2021
2020
2019
2018
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.