Cloud Identity

**June 15: Debating "Present Moment"** "All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present." "Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it." "Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing." -- [Eckhart Tolle](https://www.reddit.com/r/EckhartTolle/comments/1gaudvn/here_are_7_top_quotes_by_eckhart_tolle_on_staying/) vs. Some say in order to hear the silence or to abide in stillness you simply need to focus your attention on the present, "be" in the "now." Various techniques are offered for achieving this. But is this really possible? Can you actually do this? Have you ever actually done this? Does this mean focusing your attention so keenly on sensory perceptions that the 'you' having those perceptions is momentarily forgotten? Does it mean that you visualize the way you imagine that you should feel if you were "living in the now"? If so, then all you are doing is holding on to one thought for whatever the duration of your experience of "now" was—merely forgetting that the identity-based, body/mind 'you' still surrounds that experience. (Identity still spins identity.) This isn't living in the now, it's living in the past—waiting for the future to fulfill that past thought. It is spinning, after the fact, the stream of consciousness into an experience that belonged to you. You did not observe the observer. You only invented or witnessed an experience. You did not transcend the ego-self. Forgetfulness of self is not the same as self-transcendence and it is possible that for a lot of people, these meditation techniques merely induce a state of self-forgetfulness, which is then interpreted as some profound experience. It is just that, a pleasant experience. -- [Bob Cergol](https://tatfoundation.org/forum2002-05.htm#8) \-\-\-\-\-\-\- ***“I am struck with how rare it is to find a few good friends on the path. It is easy to find people who simply want to sit and be entertained by teachers, or who want to sit and entertain by playing the role of teacher. In other words, the quest for affirmation often outweighs the quest for truth.*** ***Yet you may have one or two good friends, and definitely have one or two waiting to be discovered. Find them; be thankful.”*** ***— Shawn Nevins*** 'What will make me happy in life?' ... 'Am I my thoughts?' ... 'What is Enlightenment?' ... We meet every week to ask questions like these in the pursuit of Self-Knowledge and Truth. We are interested in topics like: Zen, stoicism, spirituality, psychology, mindfulness, Nisargadatta, non-violent communication, Socrates, existential philosophy, Alan Watts, taoism, Eckhart Tolle, meditation, Ramana Maharshi, etc. But we are not affiliated with any dogma, philosophy, or religion. Our goal each meeting is to serve as mirrors for one another using question-based inquiry in a safe environment. In a session, every participant takes turns discussing the week's question or topic, and the group asks reflective questions without any agenda besides trying to understand the person's beliefs. A few other guiding principles of our group: * No one is obligated to share * Be honest with yourself and others * Do not try to convince others to believe or think as you do * Keep the focus on the person being questioned We meet at the [Bethesda Library](https://maps.app.goo.gl/GWMozF8zpY1m1PY26) every Monday. The library is a 5 minute walk from the Bethesda Metro on the Red Line, approx 25 minute Metro ride from Metro Center and Gallery Place stations. The library has a a parking lot with metered parking for $1/hour. \*\*\* WE WILL BE IN MEETING ROOM 3 UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED ----- THE MEETING ROOM IS IN THE BACK OF THE LIBRARY \*\*\* Please contact us with any questions!

Hi All, This event is being held in partnership with the DMV Spades Meetup Group. Direct all questions to the Organizer and Host, Nne-Nne Abanobi. ***** 🎲♠️♟️ **Monday Game Nights & Spades Play in DC** 🎲♠️♟️ Stop in after work for food, fun, and games at 1942 Lounge in DC! ♟️🎲♠️ Play Spades and other games starting at 6pm! All skill levels are welcome! 🍸🍷🍺 Happy Hour Specials Available! Indulge in elevated vibes, craft cocktails, and curated experiences. 📍1942 DC Lounge 1942 9th Street NW Washington, DC 20001 ⏳️ 6pm to 9pm www.1942loungedc.com 🏈 Stay late to watch Monday Night Football too! 🏈

Faith meets the front page—casual conversation with Vine Clergy & Friends! ImBIBLErs — Faith, Food & Conversation Join us this Monday (and every 3rd Monday) for ImBIBLErs—a casual gathering where we enjoy good food, good drinks, and great conversation. Each month, we dive into the day's headline through a theological lens, led by one of our pastors. Come as you are, order what you like, and join the discussion. All are welcome! Meets at Caboose Commons, Mosaic: 2918 Eskridge Rd, Fairfax, VA 2203 Questions? Contact [vine2501@gmail.com](mailto:vine2501@gmail.com)

Title: Talk/listen about life-changing loss and grief, and care-giving challenges We have created “LET'S TALK - Leesburg” and you are invited to attend. Folks meet to give and receive support dealing with caregiving or life-changing events. This activity is for any one that is experiencing powerful life changes such as loss of independence, caregiving challenges, any loss that has been a life-changing blow to them or has significantly changed their life, including the loss of a precious person. Participants who attend the “LET'S TALK” group say that the group is a place to: Feel safe, to talk or to listen, gain understanding of experiences, and foster confidence! Realize that: “I Can do …” , “Get my equilibrium back.” “LET”S TALK” invites participants to come together...so that they might share the feelings, thoughts, questions, challenges and concerns. This activity is facilitated by a professional counselor.

THIS IS A FREE IN-PERSON MEETUP EVENT Irrational Emotions do not not come from your good experiences. They come from your painful experiences. Some common examples include breakups, abuse, stressful relationships, losing someone, losing status, etc. People often feel different, less trusting and less self esteem after such incidents. Unfortunately, these painful memories can continue to affect a person's happiness, often for life. * Find out why your past is preventing future happiness and fulfillment. * Learn about an amazing technique that can release those past painful emotions. In this meeting, we'll talk about an effective tool to FULLY get over the painful experiences, so that you can be free of the mental and emotional impacts from them. After this meeting, if you need more help, you can also consult with a counselor at no charge. This group is created by the Dianetics & Scientology life improvement information center in Washington, DC.

Let's go deeper! More than just a fun aerobic exercise, immerse yourself in the cultural roots of Brazilian movements and stir in the contemporary expression of dance Flavia Nascimento is top trained Brazilian dancer helping others explore the Afro Diaspora of Brazil through movement and music. Join the class to lift your heart rate and elevate your spirit. $20

[Profs and Pints DC](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“A Deep Dive into the Declaration of Independence,”** on the origins and impact of America’s founding document, with Denver Brunsman, chairman of George Washington University’s history department, lecturer at Mount Vernon, and noted scholar of early American history and the American Revolution. [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-deep-dive-declaration](https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-deep-dive-declaration) .] The celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary will take on much deeper meaning if you take time to fully understand and appreciate the document that declared our independence from England and gave rise to the American experiment. Learn essential lessons about the Declaration of Independence from Denver Brunsman, an incredibly engaging speaker who has built a big following among Profs and Pints fans in and around Washington D.C. Professor Brunsman will start by discussing the Declaration’s background, composition, and philosophical underpinnings. You’ll learn how by 1776 American colonists had resisted British policies for thirteen years and endured open warfare with Britain for more than a year. We’ll look at how this imperial crisis influenced the Declaration’s primary author, Thomas Jefferson, as well as the larger Declaration Committee and the Second Continental Congress. In recent years, scholars have focused particularly on the previously underappreciated grievance section of the Declaration. Rather than simply being an afterthought to the more famous preamble (“all men are created equal”), the grievances followed a logical order that carefully presented the case against King George III and the British Empire for a “candid world” to consider. Professor Brunsman will fill you in on how that list of grievances rallied Americans and other nations to the cause. A document both timeless and of its time, the Declaration quickly soared beyond its humble origins as a committee report to become synonymous with American independence and an inspiration for rebellion elsewhere. Dr. Brunsman will consider the place of the Declaration in American life, from the eighteenth century to today, and how the document helped shape much of American history while influencing “the course of human events” throughout the world. The talk will close with customary toasts from the American revolutionary era. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: From an idealized Jean Leon Gerome Ferris painting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams drafting the Declaration of Independence.

Greetings, **BlackGovTech** will be hosting another one of their monthly networking mixer's in DC (inclusive to those of different backgrounds and industries). This mixer will focus on celebrating **Juneteenth** and black culture. The event includes an open mic contest, music, dinner, and drinks. Great opportunity to meet individuals dedicated to community progression, building trusted relationships, and collaborating with other change makers. For those interested, let's meet again to participate in another one of their monthly communty networking mixers. Feel free to RSVP (see link below) and share with others. If there are any questions regarding the event or partnerships with **BlackGovTech** feel free to reach out to them on their event page or at info@blackgovtech.com. Additional comments may also be added to the event chat/comment section at anytime, thank you. **Link to RSVP for BlackGovTech's Juneteenth Mixer:** [Black Gov Tech | Juneteenth Kickback at Busboys and Poets, 14&V!! Tickets, Friday, June 19 • 6 PM - 9 PM | Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-gov-tech-juneteenth-kickback-at-busboys-and-poets-14v-tickets-1989903176969) \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- Alicia (202) 627-0361 Sunday May 24th, 2026 2:00pm.

Title: What Is Progress? Knowledge Aggregation, Living Textbooks, and the Automation of Scientific Discovery Date: June 20 2026 Noon - 14:00 EDT Summary: Our collective knowledge infrastructure — the textbooks, professional training resources, and literature syntheses that define what professionals across disciplines believe to be true — is quietly accruing a structural liability. Compounded confirmation bias, stacked citation-by-citation into the foundations of formal knowledge, means that breakthroughs can take decades to reach the classrooms, clinical workflows, and decision-making frameworks where they matter most. Meanwhile, the deepest friction is rarely acknowledged: before any field can build meaningful consensus on "why" or "how" a phenomenon occurs, it must first establish honest, consolidated agreement on "what" has actually been observed. That prior step is routinely skipped, assumed, or fragmented across siloed literatures that never cross-pollinate. This talk introduces a framework called "Knowledge Aggregation" — with two distinct but complementary ambitions. The first is descriptive transparency: algorithmically mapping what has been said, measured, and documented across a problem space, without imposing causal interpretation or narrative. The second traces the boundary between empirical observation and explanatory claim, building systems that can separate the "what" from the "why/how" — because consensus on mechanism cannot be meaningfully constructed until consensus on phenomenon is first established. Both ambitions are now within reach. By composing tools already at our disposal — large language models, classical NLP pipelines, public data repositories, and engineering-grade automation frameworks — it becomes possible to model knowledge itself, rather than merely imitate individual experts. One concrete expression of this is automating the writing of living textbooks: compressing the lag from bleeding-edge discovery, through replicated evidence, all the way to professional training resources. But the deeper aspiration reaches further — toward automating the discovery of scientific insights that have never previously been conceived, by systematically surfacing hypothesis combinations that no single siloed researcher would have had the cross-disciplinary vantage point to even ask. Drawing on ongoing systems biology and computational research — with ME/CFS research demoed as a use case for what siloed, fragmented knowledge infrastructure costs in practice — this talk maps the conceptual architecture, the real-world friction, and the data science toolkit for building it. Speaker: As a systems biologist at heart, Sam specializes his biomedical research on interactions and connections in biology - rather than just one domain of expertise. He wears many hats and collects skill sets across disciplines, with degree studies and industry experience acquired across Chemical Engineering (BSc), Bioinformatics (MSc), Systems and Synthetic Biology (M2), Biomedical Sciences (MSc), and beyond. Even more important to him than niches or fields of work, comes down to the synergistic approaches that allow us to move beyond reductionism. The notion that a question can only allow for one answer, is inherently reductionist. By resisting many norms in science and engineering which can get overly reductive, his current role as Principal Investigator of Research for DMV Petri Dish (501(c)(3) non-profit local to the DMV region) embraces computational frameworks that aide scale-up and automation - not only around the processes which already exist with established workflows, but also taking a keen interest in attempting and accomplishing ambitions which have never been perceived to be possible previously. Sam carries a passion for the synergy of computational biology - fused with wet lab validation. This way, one can build a beautiful knowledge base in the theoretical sense, and then test to see if said computational prediction might actually be able to stand in the real world with wet lab validation. Translational modeling starts to become possible once biological experiment design can be iteratively looped alongside computational model design, optimization, and analysis - empowering the design of a better wet lab experiment, followed by a better computational model, back and forth until science is done!

Next Level Entertainment Group will be hosting a rooftop day party at Citizens & Culture in Silver Springs, MD on Sat., Jun. 20th at 4pm. As this is an unofficial meetup event, it is a day party with great vibes, throwback music, and fun people as we kick off Juneteenth Weekend. More details are posted below…… 🚨 (SAVE THE DATE) Saturday, JUNE 20th 🔥🔥 🎇We’re bringing the We Love Day Parties vibe back to Silver Spring, and if you’ve ever been to one, then you already know… the energy is different. 🎆We’re celebrating all June birthdays, good music, great people, and the kind of day party that turns into a whole movie. 🎥🎉 🌅Pull up early because FREE entry before 5PM with RSVP, and once DJ Gemini and DJ ZU touch the decks, it’s up from there. 🎆Bottle service flowing, food menu ready, hookah in the air, cigars on the patio, and tables available for the crews that like to move right. 💥Grab your people and step out. The DMV loves a good day party… and this one is going to be a vibe. 📍 Citizens & Culture 8113 Georgia Avenue Silver Spring, MD 🎟 nextlevelentgroupdc.com 📞 202-599-6288 ⸻ #WeLoveDayParties #DMVEvents #SilverSpringMD #CitizensAndCulture #NextLevelEntertainment

Moving this for June so we can celebrate Pride together! Come have brunch before you head downtown for the parade. Here's the menu: [Click & scroll down a page to see the menu](https://asyouaredc.com/pages/the-space) or at [Toast](https://www.toasttab.com/as-you-are/v3) As you are is a block from the Eastern Market Station on the Blue/Orange Lines. __________________ INHERENT RISK AND LIABILITY: Organizers carefully plan events and check public sources for weather and safety. Common sense dictates that conditions may change and there is inherent risk associated with attendance. Organizers and the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center do not accept any liability for accidents/injuries or any other incidences that may occur in connection with the activities published herein or on linked sites.

Trail Mix: Worship on the Move SATURDAYS\| 9 AM Meet @Vine Outdoor Picnic Tables (2501 Gallows Road) Trail Mix: Worship on the Move is a unique worship experience that invites us beyond the church walls and onto the W&OD Trail to encounter God in the beauty and freedom of the outdoors. We begin at Vine Church with a warm welcome, gentle stretching, scripture, and a centering thought before walking together to the trail. Like a pilgrimage, this time of walking or running becomes a space for fellowship, reflection, and openness to the gentle surprises of the Holy Spirit moving through creation. As we journey, worship happens in the quiet noticing: the rhythm of our steps, the sounds of nature, the beauty of the sky. Some may walk, others jog or run. Everyone moves at their own pace, yet we share the trail as one community of faith. When we return to Vine, we’ll share simple trail snacks (like trail mix or granola bars)—a small but meaningful meal that reminds us Christ nourishes us along the way, wherever our paths may lead. This is a great service for families (all ages welcome), singles (join a community), people who are neurodiverse, or who feel most connected when they can be alone together—sharing space with others while moving at their own pace, without pressure to talk or engage in traditional ways. The structure is open and spacious, allowing room for silence, prayer, or conversation—whatever feels right to you. Trail Mix is for everyone: those rooted in church life, those exploring faith for the first time, those who find God best in wide open spaces. Come expecting to move, breathe, pray, and experience the sacred in the world around you. Questions: Contact [abbytoler@thevineva.org](mailto:abbytoler@thevineva.org)

Title: Smart Search + AI: An Outcome-Driven Journey from IDP to a Suite of AI Register at the Columbus AWS meetup: [https://www.meetup.com/columbus-aws-amazon-web-services-meetup/events/313426379/](https://www.meetup.com/columbus-aws-amazon-web-services-meetup/events/313426379/) Over a billion documents processed. Millions of Veterans impacted. Hundreds of thousands of employee hours saved. Faster decisions. Greater accuracy. More benefits in the hands of our disabled Veterans. We created Smart Search, the world’s largest consumer of Amazon Textract, right when GenAI began reshaping what’s possible. Since then, we’ve built a suite of AI‑driven solutions that transform this data into real, measurable outcomes—accelerating benefits decisions for our Nation’s Veterans. Join us for a focused conversation on how an outcome‑driven approach to AI is helping us boost accuracy, streamline workflows, and deliver faster results for those who have served. This is a follow up to the AWS re:Invent 2023 "Intelligent Document Processing with Gen AI for Public Sector" presentation. About Speaker: Cameron Williams is a Senior Technical Project Manager and cross-functional technical leader at Booz Allen Hamilton with 15+ years of experience architecting and evolving scalable, cloud-native systems, from greenfield development to complex enterprise modernization. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronw711/ **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

We are bringing Microsoft Build sessions to Columbus Ohio! The Central Ohio Azure Meetup and Central Ohio .NET Developer's Group (CONDG) are coming together to bring some of the labs and breakouts from Microsoft Build to your backyard. In this free, 1 day event, you are going to Build stuff with us! And yes, there will be free food. Please RSVP via [Microsoft Build //localhost:columbus | Microsoft Reactor](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/27247/).

Over a billion documents processed. Millions of Veterans impacted. Hundreds of thousands of employee hours saved. Faster decisions. Greater accuracy. More benefits in the hands of our disabled Veterans. We created Smart Search, the world’s largest consumer of Amazon Textract, right when GenAI began reshaping what’s possible. Since then, we’ve built a suite of AI‑driven solutions that transform this data into real, measurable outcomes—accelerating benefits decisions for our Nation’s Veterans. Join us for a focused conversation on how an outcome‑driven approach to AI is helping us boost accuracy, streamline workflows, and deliver faster results for those who have served. This is a follow up to the AWS re:Invent 2023 "Intelligent Document Processing with Gen AI for Public Sector" presentation. About Speaker: Cameron Williams is a Senior Technical Project Manager and cross-functional technical leader at Booz Allen Hamilton with 15+ years of experience architecting and evolving scalable, cloud-native systems, from greenfield development to complex enterprise modernization. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronw711/ **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

On Thursday, June 18, 2026, we will meet in the 700N Conference Room at 700 N Hurstbourne Pkwy for a special Louisville .NET Meetup as we host **Microsoft Build //localhost:louisville**. Doors open at 6:00 p.m., and the presentation will begin promptly at 6:30 p.m. TEKsystems will provide food, so please RSVP to help us plan appropriately. The session will also be streamed at **[https://twitch.tv/TaleLearnCode](https://twitch.tv/TaleLearnCode)**. This month, we’ll dive into the most important announcements from **Microsoft Build 2026**. Chad Green will present a curated, developer‑focused walkthrough of the new capabilities across .NET, Azure, AI, developer tooling, and platform updates. We’ll explore what these announcements mean for architects and developers, how they fit into real‑world solutions, and which changes you can start applying immediately in your projects. And then, Rob Richardson will present: ### **GitOps: Easy Deploy and Even Easier Rollback** GitOps isn't just for containers. The methodology of deploying from a build is now baked into our culture. Take it a touch farther with infrastructure as code and a few extra techniques, and you can reliably deploy to any platform: cloud, on-prem, container, PaaS, and more. Join us as we learn the methodology of GitOps, the critical pieces you need in place, and the elegance of rollbacks with GitOps. You'll leave with a working repo of deployment techniques that doesn't consume any paid tools or container-specific techniques. **Important:** To participate fully, please RSVP in **both** places: * **Louisville .NET Meetup** (this page) * **Microsoft Build //localhost:louisville registration**: [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/27112/](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/events/27112/) After the session, we’ll head to Brick House Tavern to continue the conversation over food and drinks.

Join the Columbus AI community for a special event. **Battle of the Personal Agents** is your chance to see what people are actually building with AI agents and personal automation systems. Whether you’re running OpenClaw, Hermes, or a completely custom solution, bring your agent and show the community how it works. We’re interested in real-world implementations: the problems your agent solves, how you use it day-to-day, how it’s hosted and managed, how you built it, and why you’ve chosen to keep using it. Live demonstrations are encouraged, so be prepared to show your code, architecture, workflows, and your agent performing real tasks. This is less about polished presentations and more about sharing practical experience, comparing approaches, and learning from one another. If you’d like to present, please contact Chris Slee (via meetup) before the event so we can allocate enough time for everyone’s demonstrations. Come ready to show what you’ve built, discover what others are doing, and maybe find a few ideas worth taking home. Whether you’re deep in the field or just getting curious, come connect with others building and exploring AI in Columbus. Sponsored by [Transform Labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/transformlabs/) Sign up also accessible via [Transform Labs Luma](https://luma.com/transformlabshq)

Sleep in on Sundays. When you've had your fill of pajama-time, roll out and have some tasty brunch with your fellow Humanists!

## 🤝 Host Information A co-hosted event by ProductTank Columbus & Women in Product Columbus 💡 About the Workshop AI adoption is stalling across organizations — not because of a lack of motivation or tools, but because it's fundamentally a behavior design challenge. This hands-on workshop applies proven Behavior Design models and methods to help you move from a vague organizational wish to boost AI adoption to 3-5 concrete, testable interventions you can act on starting tomorrow. Whether you're a product manager, on a product team, or just someone trying to get AI to actually stick at work, you'll leave with a clear picture of what's worth focusing on, what to ignore, and how to drive real, sustained adoption — no guesswork required. 🛠️ What to Bring Laptop: Fully charged and ready to go. AI Assistant: Have your favorite AI assistant pulled up. (Dom will be using Claude, but feel free to use whichever assistant you prefer!) 🍕 Logistics & Perks Food & Drink: Pizza and drinks provided! Parking: Plenty of free spaces available on-site. ###