If you weren’t able to convince your boss to let you leave the office this morning to catch one of the five National Design Award lectures from 10 to 11 a.m. this morning at various museums, tune in to the webcast for a live broadcast of each lecture. The lectures focus on various aspects of design, including Materials and their Effects, The Future of Interaction Design, Interpreting the Present and the Past, The Future of…

FRIDAY: >> There’s another Hirshhorn AfterHours event planned for tonight, when the museum stays open late for a party, this time featuring DJ Spencer Product in a celebration of the new exhibit Wolfgang Tillmans. $10 in advance, $12 at the door, 8 p.m. to midnight. >> KRS-One is “The Teacher” for a reason — besides being an over-40 MC still preaching against violence, misplaced hatred, and government corruption, he’s also been a crucial influence for…

Washington, if you need to get the election out of your system, why not get in touch with your inner science geek? As reported on NPR yesterday, the planet Mercury will make a relatively rare transit of the sun today. If you can find a (miraculously rain-and-cloud-free) place to watch safely today, from 2:12 p.m. until sunset, you will be able to see the little black dot of Mercury, among a lot of fainter black…