Dean Obeidallah
“Immigrants work hard. Last year at this very time, we had Hurricane Sandy going on. In my neighborhood in New York, every American restaurant closed. What was open? Chinese restaurants. How do I know that? I look out my window, and the Chinese delivery guy I know is on his bike, delivering food because somebody ordered delivery during a hurricane. Ok, I ordered delivery. Because I knew he’d be there, and there he was!”
Events Nov. 05 - Nov. 11
Events Nov. 05 – Nov. 11 Tuesday (2:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) Feeding the world without consuming the planet, conference — E51-115 (4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) MIT Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar: Is Syria Being “Lebanized” or is Lebanon Being “Syrianized?” — E51-376 Wednesday (10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.) No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad — E40 - 496 Thursday (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) 8.02x Online & 8.02 TEAL Residential: how each course can be used to improve the other — Whitehead Institute Auditorium (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Sonia Livingstone: “The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age” — E14-633 Friday (3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.) Leo Marx’s Machine in the Garden 50th Anniversary: A Symposium, book talk Saturday (12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Girls Day, women in science in engineering — MIT Museum Sunday (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MIT Sangam’s Diwali Night cultural show — Kresge Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events Oct. 29 – Nov. 04
Events Oct. 29 – Nov. 04 Tuesday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Nanotechnology from Laboratory to Space, with speaker Brent Segal of Lockheed Martin (refreshments at 3:45 p.m.) — 34-101 Wednesday (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) Soap Box: The Science of Remembering (and Forgetting) with speaker John Gabrieli, sponsored by the MIT Museum — N51 Thursday (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Essay writing for graduate & professional school applications, sponsored by MIT Global Education & Career Development — 37-212 Friday (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble presents Hamlet (tickets $12 online) — W20-202 (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MIT Affiliated Artist Concert: Heng Jin Park, piano; Gabriela Diaz, violin; and Jing Li, cello, sponsored by MIT Music and Theater Arts — 14W-111 (Killian Hall) Saturday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Dean Obeidallah comedy show ($5 MIT student, $10 non-MIT student, $15 non-student), sponsored by Muslim Students’ Association— 6-120 Sunday (6:00 a.m. – 7:30 a.m.) Solar eclipse viewing (if weather permits), sponsored by observe@MIT and EAPS — 37 roof Monday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) “Do People Want to Know Their Lifespan?” with speaker Emily Oster, sponsored by the MIT Undergraduate Economics Association and the Economics department — E51-335 (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race: Frequent Batch Auctions as a Market Design Response, with speaker Eric Budish, sponsored by the Applied Theory Workshop — E19-758 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
THE NATURALIST’S NOTEBOOK: Cities at your feet
Ants are one of the underappreciated wonders that you can find in your own backyard. In many ways, they are like humans: They have complex societies, agriculture, and war, and are powerful enough to shape the environment around them. There are also a lot of them — about ten quadrillion in the world, making ants far more populous than all of mankind. Ants are deceptively diverse. Besides black, they come in vibrant colors, from red to green to glittering blue, and they vary in size so much that the smallest ant species could build its nest inside the head of the largest.
Events Oct. 22 – Oct. 28
Events Oct. 22 – Oct. 28 Tuesday (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Sloan Coders Intro to Python workshop (bring laptops) — 32-124 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) LSC and American Australian Association show Australian short films — 10-250 Wednesday (11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) The Smallest Man-Made Jet Engine (Guinness World Record), with speaker Alexander Solovev — 13-2137 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) The Year Without Pants: WordPress, Your Career & The Future, Q&A with speaker Scott Berkun — E25-111 Thursday (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) MISTI Netherlands info session, sponsored by MISTI, the Center for International Studies, and the MIT-Netherlands program — E40-496 (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) A Sweet Trip Through Italy (2nd annual), sponsored by ARCADE and MITALY — 32-162 (Forbes Cafe) Friday (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Family Weekend Concert presents: Celebrating Master Composers, free concert with the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and Rambax — W16 (Kresge Auditorium) Saturday (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Cena a Las Seis, sponsored by the Latino Cultural Center — Walker Memorial Sunday (3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Legal aspects of business in China, in the USA and in between, with speaker David L. Woronov, sponsored by MIT China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum — E51-145 Monday (3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Business etiquette workshop, sponsored by MIT Global Education & Career Development — 12-122 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Jeans
When talking about American style, jeans are an obvious topic. Jeans were invented in the United States by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873. They were initially produced specifically for heavy-duty workers who needed protection from hazardous environments, but they are now one of the staples in the fashion industry. Despite the history and fame of jeans, we usually don’t see their aesthetic beauty. The first thing that comes to mind when you think of jeans might be something like “blue.” Come on, we need to know more than that!
THE NATURALIST’S NOTEBOOK: A glacier’s gift
I’m from Vermont. My state has many trees and a few people. When you combine those two things, you get delicious maple syrup. In October, you also get hordes of tourists — the so-called “leaf-peepers.” Vermont calls itself the Green Mountain State, but it is really now, when the mountains are red and orange, that the forest gets the most attention. With winter approaching, trees pump the precious chlorophyll from their leaves and store it safely in their roots, revealing other leaf pigments that were previously obscured by green: the carotenoids (yellow/orange) and anthocyanins (red).
Events Oct. 08 – Oct. 14
Events Oct. 08 – Oct. 14 Tuesday (3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Truman Scholarship Info Session, sponsored by MIT Global Education and Career Development — 1-150 Wednesday (10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) Boston Babywearers visit MIT, featuring Jenny the Juggler — 10-105 (Bush Room) (7:15 p.m. – 8:45 p.m.) Mastering the Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI), sponsored by Prehealth Advising (registration on CareerBridge required) — 12-172 Thursday (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Mathematics department shows The Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan — E25-111 Friday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) LSC shows World War Z (tickets for $4 in Lobby 16) — 26-100 Saturday (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MIT Symphony Orchestra Concert (free in advance to MIT community, $5 at door) — W16 (Kresge) Sunday (8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.) International Folk Dancing — La Sala de Puerto Rico Monday (2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Jason Adasiewicz, Garrison Fewell, and Eddie Harris featured on WMBR’s Research & Development program — 88.1 FM Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Sweaters
The summer weather is slowly fading away, as you can tell from the abrupt change in temperature over the past few days. You’re starting to pull out your warm garments in an attempt to avoid getting a cold. You might already have a few jackets and coats to fight off the cold, but they seem too heavy for early fall. And so I present to you the sweater, which is one of the best types of clothing that is both lightweight and warm.
Hacking Arts
“We believe that everyone is creative, inventive, and imaginative. We believe that everyone can create the future and change the world.” The motto for invention kit Makey Makey, created by MIT Media Lab students Eric R. Rosenbaum G and Jay S. Silver G, seemed to implicitly set the tone of Hacking Arts as Rosenbaum and his band of randomly chosen volunteers kicked off with an audience-pleasing live performance of MJ’s “Billie Jean.” How did random untrained people come together to spontaneously perform “Billie Jean?” By becoming human synthesizers, of course. Makey Makey, a tiny circuit board that connects to Arduino, allows you to transform anything even mildly conductive into a live keyboard. As people became instruments on stage, linked together with bright colorful wires that were connected to a tiny device transmitting to speakers blasting The King of Pop, all I could think was, “This is so MIT.”
Connecting the dots
Life is full of lessons, and not just those learned in lecture. There are some lessons that you acquire not within a classroom, but through experiences outside the realm of academics. With all the new encounters and hardships and rewards that college brings, these four years are an ideal time to start tackling the big questions — why are we here studying? What is really important in life? What is the meaning of Stonehenge? Little Life Lessons will muse on philosophical questions that college students may face at this turning point in our lives. Perhaps you’ve already contemplated these issues before; perhaps such matters have never crossed your mind. My hope is that this column serves as a springboard for the next step along your path of thoughts.
Events Oct. 01 – Oct. 07
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: A previous version of this events calendar was labeled with the incorrect dates. The calendar is for Oct. 1–7.
Reading for fun
I have a homemade sign hanging up in my office that proclaims “sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” accompanied by a picture of a tipped over teacup, the only thing from Lewis Carroll’s books I was confident enough to draw. I like this quote because it reminds me that scientists aren’t supposed to look at things in mundane ways; we need to be brave and see things differently; we need to tackle the impossible.
THE NATURALIST’S NOTEBOOK: Moth hunting in Brazil
This article is dedicated to my dear friend and mentor Nick Wagerik, who first introduced me to entomology and with whom I spent countless hours roaming New York’s Central Park in pursuit of dragonflies and moths. Nick passed away last week.
Don’t shirt the issue
A t-shirt is one of the most versatile and cheap types of clothing that you can find at any store. Because t-shirts are so common, we usually don’t see the potential in them. In fact, t-shirts can make up a powerful tool in your fashion arsenal when you incorporate them appropriately.
Events Sep 24- Sep 30
Events Sept. 24 – Sept. 30 Tuesday (10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.) Water, Water Everywhere: How clean is it? seminar — E38-300 (7:15 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) The World’s Religions: Precepts Practices and Principle Beliefs — W11-Main dining room Wednesday (7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Katsura Sunshine presents Japanese Rakugo comic story-telling — 32-123 Thursday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) CSAIL Colloquium: Innovating for Society: Realizing the Transformative Impact of Computing and Communication — 32-G449 (6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) The Future of MOOCs: Prospects and Pitfalls, the MIT Perspective — 34-101 Friday (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows Much Ado About Nothing (2012) — 26-100 Saturday (10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) Animal Petting Zoo — E55-Courtyard (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Living in the Future, talk — MIT Museum Sunday (11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.) MIT Bike Show and Market — N10, Annex parking lot (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) MITHAS presents: Violin Maestro Padmashri Lalgudi G. Jayaraman Memorial Concert & biography book release — E51-Wong auditorium Monday (6:00 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.) Archipelago Town-lines: A sustainable model for urban growth, lecture — 7-429 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Hacking my way home
Walking into last week’s t=0 hackathon, the first official hackathon of the school year, I was well aware of my status as a Sloanie, that species of MIT grad student prone to business plan writing and jargon slinging.
Shopping made easy
Welcome to the world of fashion. Sketch Your Look will cover the basics of menswear, such as fit, color, fabric, etc., in a detailed manner. I’m sorry to say I have little knowledge in clothes for women, so I won’t be writing articles specifically for women. However, I believe that women can get inspiration from menswear too.
Events Sep 17 - Sep 23
Events Sep. 17 – Sep. 23 Tuesday (5:15 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.) Music, Manuscripts, and Megabytes: Unlocking sound in the ‘Ars Mutandi,’ talk by Professor Michael S. Cuthbert — 14E-304 (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) Contra Dance with live music by Forks of Nature — W20-491 Wednesday (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Innovation Series Event: From Farm to Tablet: A Food Startup Feast — 32-123 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) From MIT to Andy’s Room: the Birth and Evolution of Computer Graphics — MIT Museum (6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Reading the Human Genome, talk by Prof. Eric Lander Thursday (4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Starr Forum: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century — 66-110 (4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Opening Reception for Sidewalk City: Mapping the Unmapped — 7-338 Friday (7:30 p.m.) LSC shows Radical Reels — 26-100 Saturday (11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Latin American Independence Day BBQ — Kresge pits (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Gala — 50-Morss Hall Sunday (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Eastgate Fall Harvest Festival and BBQ — E55 Monday (2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) Media Lab Conversations Series: Mark Bauman, Chairman of National Geographic’s Cross Platform Committee — Media Lab 3rd floor (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Moral, Political, Scientific: What is Thoughtful Engineering? — 66-110 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
A week of innovation
Robotic cheetahs, body-heat fueled technology, cameras that operate at the speed of light, and a potential cure for HIV? This compilation of fascinating topics at the cutting edge of research led the conversation at MIT’s t=0 week. Students filled rooms until it was standing room only as some of MIT’s leading professors presented state-of-the-art technologies, ideas, and businesses during this week to kick off entrepreneurship at MIT.