Games and panels at PAX East
Do video games get reviews, or criticisms? What’s the difference? This panel, hosted by a number of editors from The Escapist, Ars Technica, and the Boston Phoenix, among others, focused on the distinction between the two types of writing. A review, it seems, is focused on a product and potentially convincing a reader to buy something or not. A criticism, the panelists argued, is a piece written with a much deeper intent — to truly understand the game and communicate a particular experience to the reader. A review might be something you read before playing a game, and a criticism something afterwards. Reviews give you a comprehensive view, while a criticism is more on an in depth snapshot. Which is more effective and useful for the reader? That’s for you to decide.
PAX East 2012
PAX East, a three-day-long festival of everything game related, returned to Boston for the third time, this year at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC). PAX is a gaming convention started by webcomic Penny Arcade (PA) founders Mike Krahulik (known as “Gabe” in his comic alter-ego) and Jerry Holkins (“Tycho”) in 2004. The show is meant to cater to gamers of all types — handheld, console, PC, and table top. Originally held in Seattle, PAX has also come to Boston for the past three years in the form of “PAX East”, and recently booked the annual event at BCEC until 2023.
Ten years of Anime Boston!
Students and passersby taking the T this past weekend were likely baffled by the high number of folks in strange costumes; they were here due to the arrival of two conventions in town. Cosplayers flocked to Boylston for Anime Boston, and to south Boston for the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). I split my time between the two cons, though I spent considerably less time at Anime Boston than PAX — I was there only for Saturday morning. This is Anime Boston’s 10th year since its inception in 2003, when it was created by the New England Anime Society Inc.
It’s not you, it’s a disease
We MIT kids are a messed up bunch. Alright, fine, I haven’t been immersed in enough collegiate environments to say that we are more or less messed up than anyone else our age, but still — we have problems. Over the last three and a half years, I’ve met a lot of people who are having a really crappy time and think there’s no feasible way to improve their lives. I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill, overworked MIT students, I’m talking about people whose relationship with life is tenuous at best. People who are suffering because of their anxiety, lack of motivation, sadness, or whatever else. I’m extrapolating from what I’ve seen first-hand, but it’s a safe bet that there’s a silent fraction of MIT students who are experiencing some kind of depression but not addressing it.
Carrots, characters, and cheeses, oh my! Haymarket provides a variety of foods for a student’s budget
An Italian friend who has lived in Boston for five years, and is a cooker and a baker from the bottom of her heart, was the one to introduce me to Haymarket. She told me stories about the variety of produce, and above all, how cheap it can be, though the value depends on some variables, e.g., the fruit is not the freshest. The market, which originated in 1742, is open every Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and is right outside the Haymarket Station on the Orange and Green Lines — very close to Faneuil Hall and across the street from the North End area.
Lessons Learned at the Anime Boston Formal Ball
• Incorrect dosages of sleep, food, and Viennese Waltz may result in extreme dizziness, nausea, loss of equilibrium, and mild hysterical laughter.
Events Apr. 10 â Apr. 16
Events Apr. 10 – Apr. 16 Tuesday (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Film screening of Searching for Angela Shelton presented by the MIT Sexual Assult Awareness Month Committee — 6-120 (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Free Food and Improv Comedy Night at the Thirsty Ear Pub (21+ only) — NW35 Wednesday (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Sex Positivity Discussion — 1-242 (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Revisiting Port Huron, presented by Tom Hayden and Noam Chomsky — E51-Wong Auditorium Thursday (4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) A Stretchy, Curvy Future for Electronics presentation on flexible electronics — 32-123 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Geothermal and Renewable Energy in the Middle East - Oil and Falafel: Why the MENA Region Needs an Energy Diet — 6-120 Friday (5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Second Fridays: Rivers of Ice exhibit opening — MIT Museum (7:00 p.m.) LSC shows Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows — 26-100 (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Aspergers Are Us comedy show — 34-101 Saturday (7:00 p.m.) Fighting the Occupation with Architecture for Palestine Awareness Week 2012 — W20 Sunday (12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Salsa/Rueda Dance Workshop — Student Center Room 407 (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Bang on a Can All-Stars featuring bassist Robert Black — Killian Hall Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
An exchange of view
I was sitting in a taxi on my way to Wellesley, a handful of American monopoly money in my back pocket. I had no real idea what I was getting myself into. I had come from the University of Manchester to study at Wellesley College for a semester, cross registering at MIT. Boston and Wellesley would be my home for the next five months, before heading back to Manchester for my final year. Both extremely exhausted and simultaneously extremely enthusiastic (an unnerving mix of feelings), I arrived in a snow covered Wellesley. As I was to discover, my expectation and the reality can be two very different things.
Ballet, minus tutus and drama
For eight years, I took classical ballet lessons three times a week, or when we were in rehearsal for a play, six times a week. I made my two very best friends there between pirouettes and bleeding toes; we spent our teen years dancing, competing, and laughing while growing up together. However, that magic shattered when I entered college, and my afternoon and evening classes overlapped with the ballet studio schedule. I wasn’t able to attend ballet anymore — until now.
Events Apr. 03 - Apr. 09
Events apr. 03 – apr. 07 Tuesday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) How to Find a UROP: a discussion about UROP projects presented by the UROP Staff — 5-233 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Selecting a Medical School Workshop — 4-231 Wednesday (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Transportation@MIT and MIT Transportation Club present a talk by MIT alum Robin Chase ’86 — 32-123 (7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) What is Happiness and How Do You Get It?: A discussion on the nature of happiness — 32-D461 Thursday (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.) 2012 Spring Career Fair — W20 (Student Center) (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Adapting Journalism to the Web: experiments and ordeals on the news frontier — E14-633 Friday (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Being a Woman at MIT: Conversations You Can’t Have On-Campus — 32-4 (R&D Common) (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) European Short Film Festival at MIT — 10-250 Monday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Project X Physics: A discussion on Project X accelerator technology — 26-414 (Kolker Room) Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Go ahead, cross the line Plyometric workouts give cardio and strength training
Looking for a full-body workout to do at home? Plyometric circuits offer intense combinations of cardio and strength training and can be done in 10–15 minutes every day. So the next time you’re looking for a change of pace at the gym or a tough at-home workout, consider incorporating some or all of the drills in this circuit.
Events Calendar Mar. 20 - Mar. 26
Events Mar. 20 – mar. 24 Tuesday (12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.) MIT President Search: Student Forum — 3-442 (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MISTI and Amnesty International present a Film Screening: Khodorkovksy — 10-250 Thursday (12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.) Energy 101 : The UN Framework for Climate Change, lectures aimed at providing basic understanding on various topics in the energy field — 66-144 Friday (2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.) Earthsickness: Circumnavigation and the Origins of Planetary Consciousness — E51-095 (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Emerson Scholar Student Recital: Sherman Jia and Vincent Cheung — Killian Hall (14W-111) Monday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Buoyancy Waves, Density Currents, and Their Possible Roles in Intensifying Continental Convection — 54-915 (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) An Update from ATLAS: Recent Results and the Road Ahead — 26-414 (Kolker Room) Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Surviving, remembering, and fighting back
What better reason is there to pull an all-nighter than to support the worldwide fight against cancer? This weekend, over 1,000 people sacrificed a night of sleep to participate in the Relay For Life event organized by the MIT chapter of Colleges Against Cancer (CAC).
Events Mar. 13- Mar. 19
Events Mar. 13 – Mar. 19 Tuesday (5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Author Sonia Falero reads her book Beautiful Thing — E51-149 (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Awakening the Arab Spring concert presented by Professor Khoury and composer Jamshied Sharifi — W14-111 Wednesday (11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Annual Transportation Fair — Stata Center (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) “Being Sexual in Iran: A Sometimes Contradictory History” lecture by Dr. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet — 4-163 Thursday (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Traditional Irish music featuring The Ivy Leaf — W20 Lobby (7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.) Coffeehouse Lounge presents music by Tavonna Miller — W20 Coffeehouse Friday (2:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) MacVicar Day 2012: Innovations in Undergraduate Education at MIT presentations (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows We Bought a Zoo — 26-100 Saturday (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Happiness at your Finger Tips! Buddhism = Daily Life — 4-149 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Drag Makeup 101 — 50-005 Sunday (3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Boston Israel Folkdance Festival — W16-109 (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Performance by North Indian singer Indrani Mukherjee — Wong Auditorium Monday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) France, a Flawed Democracy? The 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections — 14E-304 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) AKPIA@MIT Lecture: Modernity, Citizenship and Urban Space: Public Beaches and Swimming Pools in Early Republican Istanbul — 7-431 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events March 6 - March 12
Events Mar. 06 – mar. 12 Tuesday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) 40th Annual James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award Lecture : “Radicals: Your Life Is In Their Hands” — 10-250 (7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) American Medical Student Association holds MCAT Information Session — 66-144 Wednesday (2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Poverty, Growth, and the Demand for Energy — E51-376 (6:15 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) 2012 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize Ceremony — 10-250 (Receptions in Lobby 10) Thursday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Brain and Cognitive Sciences The Hans-Lukas Teuber Lecture: Searching for Collective Behavior in Real Neural Networks — 46-3002 (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Woman Take the Reel 2012 Film Screening: Ella es el Matador (She is the Matador) — 6-120 Friday (11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) STAGE: a seminar in algebraic geometry and number theory — 2-143 (12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) The Design and Computation Lecture Series presents “Designing Deception in the Magician Craft” — 7-431 Saturday (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) MIT Figure Skating Club’s Annual Exhibition — Johnson Athletic Center Ice Arena Monday (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Legatum Lecture presents Standing on the Sun: The Emerging Economies Drive the Evolution of Capitalism presented by Christopher Meyer — E62-262 (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) A Noble Attack on Dark Matter — 26-414 (Kolker Room) Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Core blitz part II
Now that you have some good reasons to get your core in gear, here’s a work out for you! These circuits only take about 5-8 minutes, and you can do them at home! I like to do core and stretch every night right before I go to sleep.
An MIT student in Jeopardy!
For $1200: A computer message that something’s wrong; a classic one in DOS said, “abort, retry, fail?”
Institute Double Take
This photo is of the colorful MIT sail boats in front of Boston’s Back Bay. It is an HDR (high dynamic range) photo, meaning that it is a composite image of three different exposures that have been superimposed on one another. HDR was used to bring out the details in the shadows during the sunset. A small aperture was used to have both foreground and background in focus.
Solid to the core
Last week, Fresh Start discussed how adding weights to your workout routine can boost your endorphins, resistance to injury, and metabolic rate, helping you lean out faster than with cardio alone. Now that we’ve talked generally about planning workouts, we’re going to begin focusing on specific muscle groups. Next time, we’ll examine workouts to keep you lean and balanced, starting with a core routine you can do at home every day.
Overheard@MIT
LA talking to student in Course 6 class: *bursts out in laughter*Student: What’s so funny?LA: Oh, I was just thinking of a piece of code I saw earlier.