Category — Get Involved

Thank you all for your contributions to this discussion.  I’m certainly glad to know that we have so many folks who care about this group!  As you’ve probably noticed, we have lots of opinions about what should be on the sticker.  We’ve even spent significant time meeting to figure out what we should do.  I have been a little stuck in the discussion, wondering what would be an effective solution.

This weekend, I heard a story that really spoke to me.  It is a story I’ve heard before, but this time I heard it anew, given what has been going on in this discussion.  I’d like to share it all with you…

One day, a man walked by a building where three men were cutting stones.  He went up to the first, seemingly unhappy man, and asked “What are you doing?”  The stone cutter replied, saying “breaking rocks.”

The man walked up to the next stone cutter, who seemed to be enjoying his job more than the first.  He asked, “What are you doing?”  The second stone cutter smiled, saying “earning a living.”

Finally the man came to the third stone cutter, who was singing and dancing while cutting his stone.  As before, the man asked “What are you doing?”  The stone cutter joyfully responded, saying building a cathedral!”

For the three stone cutters, it wasn’t the content (cutting stone) of what they were doing that had them excited.  What determined their level of excitement was the context (building a cathedral, etc.) behind their activities.

As I heard the story, I realized that we have not clearly and succinctly defined a context for OpenGoddard activities.  Think about our projects: redoing Goddard’s Wikipedia page, organizing happy hours, mapping the conversations at Goddard… What’s the common context behind our activities?  Are we breaking rocks or are we building a cathedral?

The bumper sticker is an opportunity to proclaim a powerful context for our group!  The sticker serves to remind us why we do what we do AND is an expression of what we’re up to for the rest of the world!

Therefore, this sticker is going to use the “Inspire the Planet” message.  What better way to keep ourselves energized, than to give ourselves something truly amazing to work towards?  This is the final version:

OpenGoddard!

As many of you know, we’ve been working on a bumper sticker for OpenGoddard and have been wrestling with what it should say, what it should look like, etc.

In this process, we reminded ourselves that OpenGoddard is about creating a new environment of inspiration and excitement around the work we do here. The message that we’re sending is that every single one of us has a vital role to play in this effort. We all contribute in our own ways, in our own area of expertise!

[Here's] our current iteration:

Please take a look and let me know what you think! FYI, we’re planning on having these available at Yuri’s Night, and I want to have something that draws people to the website to learn about what we’re up to. All comments are welcome – send them to me by COB this Thursday!

Rivers

This reposting of a message that appeared on the CoLab list a few days ago. Two or three people from Langley Research Center are coming to Washington to host a Science Café event this Friday. The Science Café consists of a scientist delivering an engaging talk to the general public at a bar. LaRC is co-host of a SimulCafe, in which four of these Science Cafes will go on in Washington at the same time.

Find out more at http://www.sciencecafes.org/

The events are happening at various times around DC, so find one that’s at a time that works for you! Some OG members are going to the talk at Gordon Biersch, and the Langley folks will be at that talk as well.

Title: A Matter of Taste: The Relationship Between the Attitude About Beer and the Hop Tea Bitterness Test
Busboys & Poets
1025 5th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
6:30 – 8:30 PM, November 21, 2008

Title: Extremophiles: Can life exist without water?
Featuring: Shiladitya DasSarma, PhD. University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
Regional Food & Drink, Back Room
810 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
6:30 – 8:30 PM, November 21, 2008

Speaker: TBD (NASA speaker)
Title: TBD
[café facilitated by Jen Collings, NASA-Langley Research Center]
Gordon Biersch
900 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
5:30 – 7:30 PM, November 21, 2008

Speaker: Dan Terlizzi, University of Maryland Sea Grant Extension Service
Title: Pfisteria/Hysteria and the Chesapeake: The burden of skepticism
[café facilitated by Tina Paul, DC Area chapter of Sigma Xi]
Marriot Renaissance
999 Ninth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
8:30 – 9:30 PM, November 21, 2008

Goddard is hosting a regular event for elementary-school-aged kids called the Sunday Experiment. This Sunday, from 1 - 3p at the GSFC Visitors Center, there will be a a hands-on activity day that’s free and open to the public. The theme this month will be rocket building. The Sunday Experiment happens on the third Sunday of each month, now through May. Check out more info:

http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=5196
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/events/index.html

Our friends at NASA/Langley have started their own “open” website, and you can check it out at openlarc.com. Please have a look to see what they’re about and to get an idea of what’s going on at another NASA center. You can also visit (and join) their Facebook page as well!

It’s really interesting to see all these efforts starting to develop around the NASA community. I think it’s a good thing for NASA, and I wonder where it all will lead…

If you’re interested in social networking, check out this site created by and for government employees!  GovLoop was created in 2008 with the goal of connecting the government community in order to share information.  It is open to all members of the government community – to access it, go to http://www.govloop.org!

Mr. Freddie Ravel will present his renowned program, “Tune-Up to Success.” Freddie will begin with a piano performance featuring classics, jazz, and popular music. Next, he will blend speaking and audience interaction to expose unique insights into the power of music, its application to everyday personal and professional lives, and the art of becoming a master listener. An afternoon small group conversation will also be held from 3-4:30 p.m. For more information, visit: http://exploringleadershipcolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov/ or contact Gail Williams.

Come share your vision for greening Goddard with the people who can make it happen! For questions, contact Leigh Janes, Merle Robbins, Michael Levy, Kevin Tesler, or Corinne Irwin. You may also visit the Goddard Green Wiki for additional information.

10/30/08 SPECIAL (Thursday) Sean Dennehy, Intellipedia: Collaborative
Data Sharing for the Intelligence Community, CIA

11/05/08: Bruce McConnell, “Prediction Markets”
Please participate the prediction market at https://governmentfutures2.inklingmarkets.com prior to the talk.

11/19/08: Mark Klein, MIT, “Supporting Collaborative Deliberation
Using Large-Scale Argumentation: The MIT Collaboratorium”

12/03/08: Johnny Lee, CMU, “Interaction Techniques Using the Wii
remote (and other HCI projects)”

12/17/08: Chuck Molyneaux, Visionary Resources, “What to do when 25
Million see your work”

Fall 2008 IS&T Colloquium Series
Amitabh Varshney
Salient Visualization
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 @ 3:30 PM
(Refreshments at 3:00 PM)

More information is here: IS&T Colloquium Series

Recent advances in data acquisition and scientific simulations result
in visualization datasets that can easily overwhelm human
comprehension. To deal with the resulting glut of visual clutter one
turns to the human visual system for inspiration. The human visual
system deals with the natural complexity of the world around us by
focusing retinal hardware and attention on what is most important.

Indeed, the principles of visual saliency have long been used in art,
illustration, and photography to convey varying levels of importance
of the constituent elements. In this talk I shall overview examples of
how principles of visual saliency have been used over time leading up
to the present in visual communication and scientific discovery.

Amitabh Varshney is a Professor of Computer Science at the University
of Maryland. Varshney’s research has addressed challenges in
interactive 3D visualization for large datasets by reconciling realism
with interactivity through multiresolution techniques and high-
performance computing. He has served as the papers co-chair for IEEE
Visualization 2000 and 2001, program co-chair for IEEE Visualization
2005, and conference co-chair for IEEE Visualization 2006 and 2007. He
has served on program committees of several conferences. During
1999-2003 he served on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on
Visualization and Computer Graphics. Varshney received the NSF CAREER
award in 1995 and the IEEE Visualization Technical Achievement Award
in 2004. Further details are at http://www.cs.umd.edu/~varshney

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Tony Gualtieri