Events: Sept. 6 - Sept. 12
Events sept. 6 – sept. 12 Tuesday (2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Sloan Business Club Networking BBQ — Kresge Oval (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows X-Men: First Class — 26-100 (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Film Screening - The Perfect Vagina — 6-120 Wednesday (9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Back-to-School Vendor Fair — outside W20 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Public Service Center Community Service Fair — Lobby 10 & 10-105 Thursday (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) From Settlers to Quarriors: Breaking up the Monopoly with Modern Board, sponsored by the CMS Colloquium Series — 4-231 Friday (4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Starr Forum: Top Secret America, book talk by Dana Priest of the Washington Post — E14-674 (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows X-Men: First Class — 26-100 Saturday (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows X-Men: First Class — 26-100 Sunday (4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) MIT’s Heritage of the Arts of Southasia presents presents Malladis/Gundechas, North/South vocal duet — Kresge Auditorium (8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.) Folk Dancing Beginner’s Night — La Sala de Puerto Rico Monday (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Nuclear and Particle Theory Seminar — 6C-442 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
REXing the frosh
Hey, frosh! I hope you enjoyed this year’s REX, because you’re going to have to run it next time. And you don’t want to start planning from scratch when you’re running an event for hundreds of people and the reputation of your dorm rests on your shoulders. But fear not! From my experiences as one of the Senior Haus REX chairs, I’ve created a list of tips on how to ensure your REX is successful and less stressful.
Explore the Z-Center
MIT’s Zesiger Center is the center of varsity, club, intramural, and recreational sports. Serving around 2200 users per day across the four-building sports complex, the Z-Center is home to a competition-sized pool, fitness center, indoor track, and space that can be configured for nearly any sport. The Z-Center was voted “Best Gym” by Boston.com’s A-list in 2010 — even Mark Wahlberg has stopped by several times while shooting films in the area. Tim Moore, the director of recreational sports and fitness, gave The Tech a tour of Z-Center facilities.
THE MIT SCOOP ‘REX’PECTATIONS
It is our pleasure to bring you the first video in a new series called “The MIT Scoop.” The Scoop is intended to give you a window into what student life at MIT is really like. You’ll be able to follow with your own eyes and ears the daily escapades of MIT students. Ever wonder how many hours of studying a typical student does? Or how freshmens’ expectations match up with upperclassmens’ experiences? Now you can hear it directly from the people who are living it. The videos can be viewed by scanning the QR code to the right or by going to . So quit reading and start watching!
Institute Double Take
Artist James Ossi () has his art work, “Soap bubble machine sculpture” installed in Building 6. The machine pumps air into a soap chamber, producing bubbles between two large glass panes. Carefully placed bulbs reflect light off the surface of the soap bubbles, creating vivid, mesmerizing colors. This picture was taken with a macro lens oriented towards the glass plane such that the stray reflection from the glass plane itself is minimal, which would spoil the shot. The photographer also covered the gap between the lens and the glass plane with a dark cloth to reduce unwanted reflections. This trick comes in handy when a photo needs to be taken through a glass plane, such as from an aircraft window. Additionally, keeping the aperture large and getting close to the glass pane diminishes the visibility of any dirt on the pane.
RANDOM NEURONAL FIRINGS A roadmap for surviving MIT
“The ultimate lesson I learnt on my first day of international students’ orientation: Nothing at MIT can be done in a single try.” — This was my Facebook status a year ago when I had just arrived on campus. I admit, after running to the basement of the Student Center twice to get a photo taken for my ID and failing to find the right entry to the MacGregor convenience store, I was exasperated. Throughout my freshman year, I often needed help getting work done in a single try. And as it turns out, help will always be given at MIT to those who ask for it. So dear freshmen, here’s my advice to you:
Institute Double Take
In winter, melting snow reveals a layer of rich food mainly consisting of insects. This is an open invitation for the geese that have gathered at Briggs Field to take advantage of this delicious opportunity. While this is a feast for the geese, they make a mess on the field. Coyote decoys are occasionally installed to drive away these geese. This picture, taken in the winter of 2010, show geese alerted by the presence of a photographer.
PREFROSH Celebrating different
As the perfect summer days slide by, I’m beginning to notice with mild dissatisfaction that I’ve been on autopilot. Have you ever habitually smelled or tasted something, only to be jolted out of the reverie by some unexpected new sensory feedback? Just about every day in high school, I drank chocolate milk with lunch; consequently, when I unconsciously brought golden apple juice to my lips one day, I was shocked by the thin, acidic taste. “Bleh, what happened?” was my instant reaction. It took me a couple moments to remember that the cafeteria had run out of milk.
MAY CONTAIN NUTS SPF: Sun Plus Fun
For as long as I can remember, the sun and I have not had the best of relationships. When I was five, my mother would devise every scheme imaginable to excuse me from outdoor gym activities. The reason? She was fearful that my then-alabaster skin would become the burnt-beech color it is now. The notes she attempted to send (I shredded them frantically on the bus) to the gym teacher were priceless. “She has allergy to the sun,” was one of the more ridiculous statements.
VIDEO GAME REVIEW Demon’s Souls: Turning boys into men
Fail to dodge an attack. Die. Walk into an “atmospheric” fire. Die. Fall off a castle wall. Die. Beat a boss, then walk into a dark tunnel and get ambushed by dogs. Die.
Institute Double Take
The roof of the Green Building (Building 54) offers a unique view of MIT, Boston, and Cambridge. The evening sun beamed light through the thick clouds, lighting the dome above Lobby 10 and creating a stunning view. The mountainous, green horizon separated the sky and the city. In post-processing, a graduated neutral-density filter was applied to balance the dynamic range.
Consumer Reports Best Sunscreen Buys of 2011
The following sunscreens were ranked as Consumer Reports Best Buys for 2011 in a May press release. They were ranked based on price, UVA and UVB protection, and protection while submerged in water. Prices shown are the retail prices from each distribution company. Descriptions are from their websites.
PREFROSH Settling high school affairs
The hallways of my high school have emptied, the Class of 2011 has graduated, and I have reached the plateau linking a conquered challenge and the beginning of an intimidating journey. But while everything academic from high school has come to a final, satisfying halt, I’m still trying to conclude an equally significant portion of my life for the past four years: extracurriculars. I’m the type of person who can’t sit still atop a colossal mound of ideas. I was always going out to organize events, start traditions, and sign up for activities, but now I am struggling to bid my favorite things farewell.
NERDY WITH A CHANCE OF RANDOM Why grades suck
“You know what really grinds my gears?” as Peter Griffin of Family Guy fame would say. Grades. Grades annoy me more than a textbook that continuously switches between unit systems for no apparent reason. A letter that supposedly reflects the mastery of a subject actually disallows students to learn to their full potential. And the reasons for this endless frustration are as follows:
Guide to Pikan food codes
Because of the many different dietary restrictions at pika, pikans have created a system of abbreviations to identify the ingredients in dinners. Here is a handy guide in case you find yourself dining at pika’s table.
A taste of pika
Ah, summer. Free from the flurry of p-sets, labs, and tests burying us in a pile of work, I finally have time to slow down and enjoy the simple pleasures of life: leisurely reading books instead of hastily cramming for a HASS paper, staying up until 3 a.m. watching Doctor Who without worrying about sleeping through an alarm, and having time to explore Boston with my friends while the temperature permits shorts.
Institute Double Take
Orange skies in the early morning are a spectacular view. In the month of June, the sun rises over the dome, while in the winter, it rises between the Hancock Tower and Prudential Center — quite a dramatic shift. The key challenge while taking this picture was the dynamic range — the sun is much brighter than its surroundings, and even more so when it rises higher. With a few iterations in the manual mode (and the knowledge of post-processing freedom), one can take a picture that is uniformly illuminated.
NOT RELATED TO TIGER My many lovers
As the sexy beast I am — chicks dig acne — it should be no surprise to anyone that I have had a number of lovers over the years. Here, I go through my past relationships and explain why they ended:
PREFROSH Happy endings and new beginnings
Wearing our school’s black graduation gown with my ceremonial decorations, I became one of our school’s 475 seniors to walk across the stage at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. With my diploma in hand, I felt a satisfying sense of finality coupled with optimism: I was ready to take on the world. Adding some amusement to the situation was the fact that I immediately had to return to the symphonic band to provide the ceremony’s live music — I played at my own graduation.
Institute Double Take
An empty hallway inside MIT Medical provides a study in texture and shape. The walls, ceiling, and floor are all different materials. One wall is brick, and the other consists of windows, though the texture from this perspective is dominated by the windows’ wooden borders. The floor is smooth tile, while the ceiling appears to be concrete. The image is thus split into four nearly triangle-shaped regions. The borders between these regions seem to converge to a single vanishing point, and would do so were the hallway infinite instead of abruptly truncated by a glass double door.