PDSI Construction Nears Completion; Buildings Consolidate Physics Dept.
The construction of a new physics building that will unify the department’s offices and related renovations of Buildings 2, 4, 6, and 8 are nearing completion after two years of work.
Biodiesel@MIT Delayed in Receiving Prize Check For Winning Energy Challenge
After a six-month delay, the Biodiesel@MIT team received their $25,000 winnings on Sept. 14 from General Electric and mtvU for winning the Ecomagination Challenge for college students in March.
Harvard Endowment Soars as Its Head Plans to Leave
The Beatles insisted that money can’t buy you love. Apparently it can do a lot of other things, like lure top-flight talent from one high-profile, well-paying job to another high-profile, better-paying job.
At Berkeley, Protests Over Plan to Cut Down Trees
In many ways and for many months, the protest outside Memorial Stadium at the University of California has been business, and Berkeley, as usual.
Young People Forgo MBAs For High-Paying Ventures
Most people who knew Gabriel Hammond at Johns Hopkins in the late 1990s could have predicted he would rise quickly on Wall Street. As a freshman, he traded stocks from his dorm room, making a $1,000 bet on Caterpillar. Soon after, he abandoned his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer and, upon graduation, joined Goldman Sachs as a stock analyst.
Freshman Class FEE, Math Diagnostic, ASE Results Don’t Surprise
Freshmen in the Class of 2011 fared comparably to last year’s freshmen on the Freshman Essay Evaluation, Advanced Standing Exams, and Math Diagnostic for Physics Placement.
Overenrolled 3.091 Will Remain In 10-250 But Stream to 26-100
With students in 3.091 (Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry) outnumbering seats in 10-250, where the subject is traditionally taught, course administrators have decided to add live video streaming of the lectures in 26-100.
Baghdad Bans U.S. Contractor After Gunfire Kills Eight Iraqis
Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, has been banned from working in the country by the Iraqi government after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead and involved an American diplomatic convoy.
A Place in the Sun
After this past weekend’s cooler weather, we can expect temperatures to rise for the next few days. A high pressure system is keeping the New England skies clear, so look forward to plenty of sun on this beautiful September afternoon. The lack of cloud cover and subsequent radiation cooling will contribute to an overnight low in the lower 50s°F.
Officials Say Israeli Raid Was Result Of Nuclear Aid to Syria From N. Korea
The Sept. 6 attack by Israeli warplanes inside Syria struck what Israeli intelligence believes was a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip, according to current and former American and Israeli officials.
Dems Warn They May Delay Approval of Bush’s Nominee
Two Senate Democrats warned Monday that they might delay confirming President Bush’s choice to be the next attorney general unless the White House turns over documents relating to several investigations, a move that could provoke the kind of confirmation fight the administration was hoping to avoid.
Shorts (right)
France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, sought on Monday to tone down remarks he made in a radio and television interview the day before that the world had to prepare for possible war against Iran.
Shorts (left)
Gov. Deval L. Patrick unveiled a proposal on Monday to allow three resort-style casinos in Massachusetts. The revenues, he said, would help the commonwealth pay for road and bridge and repair, and provide property tax relief to homeowners.
Clinton Unveils New Proposal For Universal Health Insurance
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled a plan on Monday to guarantee health insurance to all Americans, but in a way carefully designed to avoid nearly every major political flaw in her failed proposal of 1993–94.
Antitrust Ruling Against Microsoft May Bode Ill For Other Companies
Europe’s second-highest court delivered a stinging rebuke to Microsoft on Monday, but the impact of the decision upholding an earlier antitrust ruling may extend well beyond the world’s largest software maker to other high-technology companies.
The RBA Flytrap
As a freshman, I had the audacity to make friends outside of my living group. Only blatant disregard for geographical constraints could have led me to bond with people who lived on the other side of campus. But this distance would not make much of a difference because I could simply switch dormitories during Residence Exploration, right? Not for a freshman temped in Next House. Unfortunately, being “temped” in Next House is equivalent to being “permanently-placed-for-the-first-year” in Next House. This is because Next House comes with the baggage of Residence-Based Advising.
Sodium Doesn’t Just Fall From the Sky
Who should be accountable for the apparent accident that led to five people being burned by sodium on Thursday, Sept. 6? If MIT community members left sodium metal next to the Charles River, they should claim responsibility for their actions. If no responsible party can be found, the Institute should still help the people who have been hurt.
Preis Nets Five Goals, Propels No. 8 MIT to 18-8 Win Over Queens
John V. Preis ’11 continued the phenomenal start to his freshman campaign on Saturday afternoon, scoring five goals in MIT’s 18-8 win over host Queens College in each team’s Collegiate Water Polo Association Northern Division opener. Preis now has a team-best 26 goals.
Men’s Soccer Game Ends In 0-0 Tie Against Clark Stormy Weather Creates Defensive Match
A hard-fought men’s soccer match between conference foes MIT and Clark University ended in a 0-0 tie on Saturday afternoon at Steinbrenner Stadium, as each team opened its New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference schedule with a well-deserved point. The scoreless draw is the first such result for the Engineers since 1996, when they had two in one season against both Gordon College and Babson College.
Kokikai Aikido Club Connects Body, Mind With Self-Defense
<i>This is the first in a series of Reporter’s Notebooks about MIT club and intramural sports. </i>The Tech <i>will send writers to various activities to provide readers with firsthand accounts of MIT athletics.</i>
Through My Eyes
Machetes, stalkers, white sand beaches … airplanes, rickshaws, matatus … pickpockets, knifemen, lions, zebra carcasses … ugali, dosa, choma, peppercorn … kindness, laughter, sparkling eyes … hospitality, disease, sewage, monkeys … what a summer. Starting in the outskirts of Delhi, India, I traveled to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Thailand (for a 24-hour layover), and China this summer. It was my first time in all these countries, and, in fact, my first time in any developing country. Spending one to two weeks in each country, I documented MIT students working in those areas through photography and videography, interviewing them and the locals around them while searching for new projects.
I’m a Little Teapot
I can’t stand being punched in the kidneys. It’s the absolute worstest feeling there is. I mean, it’s not pain, it’s not like someone hit your hand with a hammer. That’s pain. Blunt trauma, stabby stabby stuff, I can usually roll with that. But getting punched in the kidneys, man, that’s just wrong. Your body starts to feel all queasy inside, and you get that funny taste in your mouth, like someone just popped open a bag of skunked mellow yellow inside your body and it’s spilling all over the place. Actually, that’s pretty much what a kidney is in the first place. A bag of mellow yellow.
Cabin Fever
With the possible exceptions of RSI and Camp Bohrmore, no experience comes closer to approximating the combination of nerdiness and summer camp than the first few weeks of term at MIT. It could be just me (it usually is), but I can’t help feeling like it’ll be a while more of eat-sleep-pset-rinse-repeat before it occurs to me that I’m here for the long haul — that I’m not in the newest of the litany of summer academic adventures that sucked the life out of my vacations, but instead that I am in the next iteration of my educational career.
Scott’s Travels
The thin silver moon disappeared below the horizon, pulling with it the last hints of light from the barren Mongolian grasslands. Behind us, an unseen electric lamp cast a weak glow out of one of the ten or so rounded tents clustered together on the banks of the Zavkhan River. A jeep roared to life, blinding us in the flood of its headlights before they cut off abruptly, leaving us in darkness again. Over the din of the engine we heard our driver swearing in Mongolian, followed by the somewhat less harsh sound of a hammer panging on metal. The lights came back on.
Ask SIPB
In today’s issue of Ask SIPB, we’ll discuss that bane of the digital world: printing out documents on those old-fashioned sheets of paper. Networked printing presents its own set of challenges, and the way to effectively use Athena’s printing infrastructure may not be immediately obvious. We’ll also discuss getting Matlab to run on Mac OS X and forwarding your MIT e-mail.
