2007 Nov 26 to Dec 02

Mon Nov 26 - 6:45 PM
CMU
Baker Hall 136A
Cuban scholar Juan Antonio Alvarado Ramos will give a lecture titled “One Journal, Many Voices: Racism and Race Relations in Contemporary Cuba and Beyond.” He is the editor-in-chief of ISLAS, the official publication of the Afro-Cuban Alliance Inc, a Florida nonprofit that works to bring together African Americans and black Cubans. Ramos is a native of Matanzas, Cuba, and he earned a doctorate in historical sciences from the University of Havana and the Cuban Academy of the Sciences. He oversaw the creation of the digital Ethnographic Atlas of Cuba, and he was the principal investigator of a Cuban national project to study contemporary racism on the island.
Ramos appears courtesy of the International Relations Program. His talk will be preceded by a reception at 6 p.m. in the Adamson Wing.

Tue Nov 27 - 4:30 PM
CMU
Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall A14
Nicholas P. Sullivan, Author of "You Can Hear Me Now"
The cell phone revolution in the developing world is a story of transformation on par with the Industrial Revolution in the West. In poor countries where five or 10 years ago only the rich had phones and bank accounts, hundreds of millions now have phones—and are using them to transfer money (locally and internationally), buy and sell goods, track agricultural prices and connect to doctors. The stories of GrameenPhone in Bangladesh, CelTel in Africa and Smart Communications in The Philippines, among others, show how the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) at the grassroots, and particularly in rural areas, is creating a whole new class of indigenous entrepreneurs, increasing incomes in the informal sector, and driving national economic growth. At the same time, the cell phone stories show the power of private investment over development aid as an economic tool, as new capital markets incubate and evolve to spark long-term growth. This is a win-win story of inclusive capitalism that creates wealth as it spreads wealth. Nicholas P. Sullivan has written widely about technology and entrepreneurship, for the most part tracking the impact of the information communications technology revolution in the United States. For the past five years he has focused on global development and investment, a path he followed after hosting international Internet conferences and radio programs for entrepreneurs while he served as editor in chief of Inc.com (a sister company to Inc. magazine). He was thereafter a United Nations–accredited business interlocutor to the International Financing for Development Conference (Monterrey, Mexico, 2002), and participated in several follow-on dialogues at the United Nations.
Sullivan is author of the upcoming You Can Hear Me Now: Connecting the World’s Poor to the Global Economy (Jossey-Bass, January 2007). For 15 years, he wrote the Workstyles column (“life and work in the information age”) for Home Office Computing. He is publisher of Innovations: Technology/Governance/Globalization (an MIT Press journal), and a partner in the Global Horizon Fund, a private-equity fund-of-local funds in emerging markets, for whom he compiles the annual Wealth of Nations Index, a ranking of 70 developing countries.
Sullivan is a graduate of Harvard University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at M.I.T. (www.lcde.org).

Wed Nov 28 - 8:00 PM
CMU
School of Fine Arts, Alumni Hall
The School of Music presents a Solo & Ensemble Guitar concert with Director James Ferla.

Wed Nov 28 - 7:30 PM
Univ of Pittsburgh
Grotto (Spelunkers) monthly meeting
Video shown of rappels on Bridge Day (the New river in West Virginia)

Thu Nov 29 - 4:30 PM
CMU
Baker Hall 136A
The University Lecture Series presents Martin Davis of New York University and UC Berkeley. Davis' talk is titied "Alan Turing's Computers and our Computers."
In 1999, Time magazine proposed their list of the 20 greatest “scientists and thinkers'” of the 20th century. Explaining their choice of Alan Turing as one of the 20, they wrote: “everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.” Although these “machines” were only mathematical abstractions that Turing had introduced in a technical paper published in 1936, they implied a whole new way of thinking about computation and revealed the goal of an all-purpose machine that could be “programmed” to carry out arbitrary computations. In this talk Davis will tell the story of Turing’s rich, eventful, and ultimately tragic life, and explain some of his ideas.

Fri Nov 30
Sat Dec 01
Sun Dec 02
Univ of Pittsburgh
Women in War Film Festval

Saturday 11 AM - 3 PM
HOLIDAY CRAWL
Whether they crawl, walk or run, Kids Holiday Crawl is looking like a fun time for the young ones on Saturday in the Cultural District.
There will be Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa activities, including cookie decorating, crafts, a visit with Santa, caroling, live entertainment and more along the Kids Holiday Crawl in the Cultural District, Downtown, starting at 11 a.m. Saturday.
The events and activities, provided by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, are free and at a variety of spaces throughout the district; patrons may start at any location. Details: 412-456-6666 or pgharts.org.
Here are the events:
• 803 Liberty Ave.: Visit with Santa, free First Night buttons to all children 5 and under. Eat'n Park cookies while supplies last.
• 808 Liberty Ave.: Decorate holiday cookies or enjoy a warm food or beverage with the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute.
• 812 Liberty, SPACE: Create a craft with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh; El Coro Latinamericano performance noon-12:20; 1-1:30
• 820 Liberty Ave.: Celebrate Hanukkah with games & activities.
• 937 Liberty 1st Floor: Create a holiday craft.
• 937 Liberty 3rd Floor: Decorate Max & Ruby bunny ears with the Pittsburgh International Children's Theater.
• 625 Liberty Ave.: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Pittsburgh Pirates Cannonball Crew; 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Steelers mascot Steely McBeam; noon-1 p.m. Pirates Parrot; 2-3 p.m. Penguins mascot Iceburgh.
• August Wilson Center for African American Culture @ 209 9th Street: Celebrate Kwanzaa. Create a drum; Afrika Yetu performance 12:30 p.m.
• Scott Place, 655 Penn Ave.: Chalk artists with Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.
• 655 Penn Ave., Cabaret Theater: Pittsburgh CLO Mini Stars perform 11 a.m.; 11 a.m.-3 p.m. additional activities in the lobby.
• 655 Penn Ave., Cabaret Theater lobby: Holiday cookies compliments of Chef Toni Pais and Cafe Zao.
• Sonar @ 707 Penn Ave.: Works by Christopher Lisowski & Tullis Johnson including a 23-foot baby whale.
• Manchester Craftsmen's Guild Gallery @ 800 Penn Ave.: Make your own photo weaving.
• Northside Urban Pathways Charter School @ 914 Penn Ave.: Make a star ornament
• Byham Theater lobby: Zany Umbrella Circus at noon, 1, 2 p.m.
• Fifth Avenue Place: Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, "The Nutcracker" vignettes 12:30, 1:30, 2:30 p.m.; Pittsburgh Symphony, 1-2 p.m., bring your camera and take a family photo with Fiddlesticks; Carnegie Science Center: Create holiday souvenirs and receive a face painting and caricature!

Sat Dec 01 6-9 PM
Point Breeze Light Up night
Reynolds and Gettysburg
Event site


Annual Mountain Bike Dorseyville Punk Bike Enduro
That time of year again. The big news is that this years PUNK will be
self-supported. Stuff was getting out of hand, so… NO MOTORS! No
support vans, no dirt bikes, just bikes, so you better be ready. In
fact we’ve brought back the old PPG loop so the course will be longer
and harder. Of course we will do our best to provide some beverages
on trail but you’d be wise to bring something like a backpack with a
mug in it, plenty of liquids, some warm clothing and FOOD. Yes, we
are bringing back the old days. So here’s the official announcement
just like it was written back in 1990 when we had 26 people
participating…
OUTLAWS
COME TO THE
18TH ANNUAL
PUNK BIKE ENDURO
SUNDAY DECEMBER 2nd, 2007
11 AM SHARP
DORSEYVILLE FIRE HALL
100 Charles St
Blawnox, PA 15238
AN 11 STAGE STAGE RACE FOR FUN AND POINTS
MOST POINTS WINS
NO FEES, NO NORBA, NO RULES
EATS & PARTY AFTER IT'S OVER
WE'LL BUY SOME BEER
YOU BRING THE REST (OR GO HUNGRY)
KITCHEN AVAILABLE
COURSE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
DRESS FOR COLD, WET WEATHER
YOU MIGHT WEAR A HELMET AS THERE IS NO INSURANCE
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 25TH
SATURDAY DECEMBER 1ST
TRAIL MAINTENACE PRE-RIDES
CALL MOE’S CELL 412.302.9070
BE READY FOR ANYTHING

2004 pictures
2005 pictures
2006 pictures
All pictures

2007 Nov 12 to Nov 18

Tuesday, November 13, 2007
8.30pm. Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
for the FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Pittsburgh Premiere of the film
A Paper Tiger (Un Tigre de Papel) by Luis Ospina (Colombia, 2007)
Awarded with the National Documentary Prize—Colombia, 2007.
RECEPTION. 8.00PM. FRICK FINE ARTS CLOISTER
(offered by colombiaenpittsburgh.org)
Q&A with the director to follow
Generously supported by:
The Modern Languages and History Departments at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), UCIS, A& S Graduate Studies Office, Cultural Studies Program, Studio Arts Program, Hispanic Languages and Literatures, and the English Department at The University of Pittsburgh
First Short Film and Documentary Festival organized by Los Amigos del Cine Latino Americano
for more information about the Festival please visit: http://amigosdelcinelatinoamericano.googlepages.com/
synopsis of the films available at http://rojaszotelo.googlepages.com/shortfilmanddocumentaryfestival
About the film and the director:
Based on the life of artist Pedro Manrique Figeroa (a leftist militant) who has been called the pioneer of collage art in Colombia after artists Lucas Ospina, François Bucher, and Bernardo Ortiz discovered his work in 1996; the film attempts to construct a biographical sketch of Manrique Figueroa, proposing nothing less than the retelling and re-imagining of a crucial period of Colombian history, from the civil war that began in the 1940s to the guerrilla wars and the new drug cartels of the 1970s and 1980s. After a series of national and international exhibits of his work Marique Figeroa has become central to understand the fragmented history of a complex nation, this film A Paper Tiger is a collage itself, placing art and politics, truth and lies side by side, letting documentary and fiction intermingle.
Luis Ospina was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1949. He studied film at USC and UCLA in California. His film-related activities include not only the many films he has directed but also his efforts as a Film Club organizer, co-founder of the film magazine "Ojo al Cine", teacher at universities, critic and chronicler for journals and magazines. He has also directed film workshops and edited several books. A collection of his articles and essays was recently published in Colombia. Up to date he has made two feature-length fiction films and more than forty short films and documentaries.

Tue Nov 13 - 5 PM
Kresge Recital Hall, College of Fine Arts
The School of Art presents Ken Rinaldo, an artist and theorist who creates interactive multimedia installations that blur the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. He’s been working at the intersection of art and biology for more than two decades in the categories of interactive robotics, biological art, artificial life, interspecies communication, rapid prototyping and digital imaging.

Nov 13 - 6 to 8 PM
CMU - McConomy Auditorium
Lecture with John Bowe
John Bowe is the author of Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy. He will be giving a lecture on how outsourcing and immigration fraud allow forced labor to continue in the United States while most of us notice nothing but the everyday low price at the checkout counter. After the lecture and Q&A, a reception and book signing will follow.

Tuesday, November 13 - 4:30 PM
College of Fine Arts-Alumni Concert Hall
Riccardo Schulz, Associate Teaching Professor of Recording Technology, School Music
Diapason d'Or Award-winning recorded performance of George Crumb's Black Angels and Makrokosmos III
Join the Center for the Arts in Society for a recorded performance of American composer George Crumb's famous Black Angels and Makrokosmos III, compositions for two pianos and percussion.
The recording, on the Mode record label, is conducted by Juan Pablo Izquierdo and features Cuarteto Latinoamericano pianists Luz Manriquez and Walter Morales, tenor Douglas Ahlstedt, and several students from Carnegie Mellon's percussion studio. Riccardo Schulz and Harold Walls collaborated extensively with Maestro Izquierdo in the editing and mastering of the recording.
This recently released recording won the coveted "Diapason d'Or" Award, the most important independent European record prize in classical music.

Wed Nov 14, 4:30pm (refreshments at 4:15)
Location: CMU - Wean Hall 7500
Speaker: Red Whitaker, Robotics institute
Topic: Boss, winner of the 2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge

Thu Nov 15 - 4 PM
CMU - Wean Hall 7500
The School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series presents the Hank Suz Chi Wan Memorial Lecture by Jeff Hawkins, founder of Numenta, founder of Palm and Handspring, and author of "On Intelligence." His talk is titled "Hierarchical Temporal Memory: How a New Theory of Neocortex May Lead to Truly Intelligent Machines." "Distinguished Donuts" will precede the lecture at 3:30 p.m. outside the auditorium.

Squirrel Hill election results

dark blue: voted strongly for Lou
light blue: voted hesitately for Lou
yellow: voted hesitately for DeSantis
orange: voted strongly for DeSantis
red: voted decisely for DeSantis



The majority of the East End voted for DeSantis

2007 Nov 5 to Nov 11

Monday, November 5, 4:30 pm to 6:00 PM
CMU - McConomy Auditorium
Challenge of Diversity in Higher Education
The University Lecture Series presents Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga. Tatum's talk is titled "Challenge of Diversity in Higher Education." Prior to joining Spelman College, Tatum was acting president, dean and a professor of education and psychology at Mt. Holyoke College. She is a clinical psychologist who has addressed issues surrounding race and racism in her courses, psychology practice and consulting. One area of focus for two of her books has been racial identity as it is experienced throughout our educational system for students of underrepresented racial/ethnic populations. She is the author of "Assimilation Blues: Black Families in White Communities (1987), Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" "And Other Conversations About Race, Assimilation Blues: Black Families in White Communities (1997)," and published this year "Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation (2007)." The talk is supported by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Monday, November 5, 7:00 pm
Adamson Wing Auditorium, Baker Hall 136A, on the Carnegie Mellon main campus
Terry Irwin, Co-founder of MetaDesign San Francisco: Design and Worldview
Designed artifacts, processes, and the built environment are the physical embodiment of our individual and cultural worldviews. To the extent that our worldview is sustainable, so too will be the design that arises out of it.
In this lecture I look at the concept of worldview and propose that our current/dominant western worldview is unsustainable, which makes it practically impossible for a new, sustainable design paradigm to arise from within it. We need to work with and shift the cultural worldview before the paradigms of the disciplines will follow. Part of my research therefore, looks at the characteristics and assumptions of both the dominant (mechanistic worldview) and the business/economic paradigms which influence design. Finally I look at the design paradigm and some of its underlying assumptions.
Holistic Science

Tuesday November 6, 5:00 pm
Adamson Wing Auditorium, Baker Hall 136A, on the Carnegie Mellon main campus
Anne Taylor, Director of Technology, National Federation of the Blind: Designing Products for Non-Visual Access
Much of the current on innovation in industrial design has focused on making more technology available in different, flexible ways. The emphasis on mobility and flexibility, however, has done little to address the needs of growing group of consumers with visual impairments. This talk will expose new opportunities for design from a non-visual angle. It will describe the issues that arise as technology and formats change, and makes a case for a more inclusive design.
Non-visual access, if integrated in the development process from an early stage, is an opportunity to re-evaluate the consumer group the product is intended for. It is an opportunity for creativity that serves the community as a whole, not only those who are blind. Past developments indicate that non-visual design often represents a move forward in all design, increasing, as it does, the ease of access and simplicity of operation. Optical character recognition, pioneered in a reading machine for the blind, has long since become mainstream technology, as have the type of portable devices (similar to modern PDAs) that were first used as notetakers for blind people.
The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is the largest membership organization of blind people in the US. NFB has always aimed to do more than simply evaluate what others produce, as most recently demonstrated in their co-operation with Kurzweil Technologies to produce the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader.
Anne Taylor is the National Federation of the Blind’s Director of Technology, and she maintains close relationships with manufacturers of both general and specifically non-visual products, providing feedback on existing products and consulting on the development of new ones. Ms. Taylor also manages the largest collection of non-visual technology in the US, in the form of the International Braille and Technology Center, and continues to work with universities in the area to involve their engineering students in the Center.
She's an expert in Braille devices
An example of products for the blind

Tue Nov 6 - 6:00 PM
Carnegie Lecture Hall, Carnegie Museum of Art
The School of Art presents Rachel Whiteread, an artist who creates large-scale sculptures and installations by casting everyday objects, including household furniture and large architectural structures to explore complex notions of presence and absence, memory and loss, and the relationship of the body to forms in space. These works, including Untitled (Domestic) 2002, a plaster cast of a three-story staircase recently acquired by Carnegie Museum of Art, formally document how humans relate to the spaces around them.

Nov 8 - 5 PM
The Regina Gouger Miller Gallery presents an opening reception for three exhibitions, featuring a photo installation by Patricia Maurides, a series of wall-hung sculptures by Michelle Stitzlein, and a suite of paintings by Julie Stunden. Maurides investigates her origins in installations made up of photos, projected images and natural sounds. Many photos explore her past and were shot on location in the village in southern Greece where her father was born. Maurides was the first director of Carnegie Mellon's Bachelor of Humanities and Arts and Bachelor of Science and Arts programs. Stitzlein transforms discarded items into large-scale sculptures with some comprising hundreds of objects. Stunden's colorful paintings inspire viewers to reflect on the fantastic and realistic elements in her work and synthesize them into a single perspective. The exhibitions run through Dec. 21.

Thursday, November 8, 2007, 6pm - midnight
Rivers Club, One Oxford Centre, 301 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA
DevHouse Pittsburgh is an event patterned on SuperHappyDevHouse. We aim to become the premier Pittsburgh-area hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere. Come to the DevHouse to have fun and get things done!
We're about rapid development, ad-hoc collaboration, and cross pollination. Whether you're a l33t hax0r, hardcore coder, or passionate designer, if you enjoy software and technology development, DevHouse Pittsburgh is for you.
DevHouse is not a marketing event. It's a non-exclusive event intended for passionate and creative technical and design people that want to have some fun, learn new things, and meet new people.
DevHouse Pittsburgh #1
Food and beverages will be provided.
DevHouse Pittsburgh

Sun Nov 11 - 1 PM
Orienteering with North East Ohio Orienteering Club
20 miles east of Akron
NEOOC