With select apps, iPad is more than a pretty face
Let’s set aside the question of whether you should get an iPad and suppose you already bought one last weekend. You probably floated home and loaded it with a few whiz-bang apps and maybe even passed it around to your friends.
APO’s Big Screw is set to break records
Professor Ernest G. Cravalho, representing 2.006 (Thermal-Fluids Enginering II) has collected $1111.96, putting him in the lead of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega’s annual Institute Big Screw contest, which is in its final day today.
YAY PREFROSH Dispatches from the first day of CPW
So much can happen in a day! <i>The Tech</i> asked a few prospective freshman what they thought of Campus Preview Weekend so far.
Corrections
An article on Tuesday, March 30, about the Penny Arcade Exposition misrepresented an event involving a microprocessor. Jerry Holkins (aka Tycho) offered an Intel Core i7 processor to a fan who represented a community that had presented the comic creators with PAX-themed trading cards. That fan donated the processor to Penny Arcade’s charity, Child’s Play on behalf of the community. The processor was not declined by the fan, nor was it offered in return for the cards.
A nation’s response to an illegal smoke and a quip
WASHINGTON — When an illicit pipe and a foolish joke aboard an airliner touches off a national megascare, scrambling fighter jets and FBI agents, alerting all 4,900 flights in progress and unleashing a media flood, does that mean the security system works?
GSC election results
The Graduate Student Council elected officers for 2010–2011 on Wednesday night. The new officers take their position on May 5:
China’s censors tackle and trip over the Internet
Type the Chinese characters for “carrot” into Google’s search engine here in mainland China, and you will be rewarded not with a list of Internet links, but a blank screen.Don’t blame Google, however. The fault lies with China’s censors — who are increasingly a model for countries around the world that want to control an unrestricted Internet.
Will HDAG hear student voices?
As the Division of Student Life prepares to eliminate the house dining system’s $600,000 annual deficit, some undergraduates worry that the newest dining committee will neglect students’ opinions.
City council urges no layoffs
The Cambridge City Council unanimously passed two labor-related resolutions on Monday. The first requests that Harvard and MIT cease further layoffs as well as hour, salary, and pay cuts. The second requests that the Cambridge License Commission consider a regulation preventing Cambridge hotels from subcontracting housekeeping services.
Bail set for Reed, alleged rapist
Bail was set at $2,500 on Wednesday for Jason Reed, the homeless man arrested on campus last Tuesday and charged with rape. As of yesterday evening, he had not posted bail and was still in custody.
HEY PREFROSH Prefrosh look forward to a fun-filled weekend
<i>Interviews compiled by Natasha Plotkin. Photography by Andrea Robles.</i><i> </i><i>Richmond, Virginia</i>
Shorts (right)
It could take weeks for engineers to salvage the South Korean warship that sank in waters disputed by North Korea after a mysterious explosion and provide a definitive explanation of what caused the disaster. But some signs are pointing to North Korea, raising uncomfortable questions for the South’s government.
Court documents detail teenage girl’s final days of fear
Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old who killed herself after relentless taunting, spent her final days in fear of girls who had threatened to beat her up, according to the first official accounts released in a case in Massachusetts that gained wide attention last week, when six students were charged with felonies.
Opening new era, U.S. and Russia sign nuclear arms pact
With flourish and fanfare, President Barack Obama and President Dmitry A. Medvedev of Russia signed a nuclear arms control treaty on Thursday and opened what they hoped would be a new era in the tumultuous relationship between two former Cold War adversaries.
Shorts (left)
The Chinese government is preparing to announce in the coming days that it will allow its currency to strengthen slightly and vary more from day to day, people with knowledge of the emerging consensus in Beijing said on Thursday. The move would help ease tension with the Obama administration about the huge trade deficit the United States has with China.
Unearthing human ancestor is child’s play in South Africa
Nine-year-old Matthew Berger dashed after his dog, Tau, into the high grass here one sunny August morning in 2008, tripped over a log and stumbled onto a major archeological discovery. Scientists announced Thursday that he had found the bones of a new hominid species that lived almost 2 million years ago during the fateful, still mysterious period spanning the emergence of the human family.
Variable weather for CPW
Boston experienced unusually warm weather this week, most notably on Wednesday when the record high of 86°F set in 1991 was smashed by a high of 90°F. Expect more seasonable weather to return for the weekend, which will be dry except for a chance of rain today.
Disposal of plutonium from accord likely to take decades
The plutonium that is the key ingredient in thousands of nuclear weapons sidelined in the new arms control treaty between the United States and Russia is likely to be around for decades at least, according to experts. They say the process for destroying plutonium has not yet started to whittle down the surplus created by previous agreements.
Should we cut NASA funding?
The White House has announced plans to host a conference in Florida on April 15 during which President Obama will unveil his vision for the U.S. space program. If recent moves by the administration are any indication, this new vision will significantly curtail public funding for space activity. The president is working hard to spin the upcoming change as a transition rather than a cut, and perhaps for good reason: He is unlikely to find a receptive audience in Florida, long a recipient of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s largess.
Should we cut NASA funding?
To the critics of the space program, greedy astronauts fill their pockets with our hard earned dollars and blast off into space, leaving our children with only rocket fumes for lunch. But to its proponents, space exploration represents a relatively small expenditure that brings positive real world impacts in the form of cutting edge research, crucial data on weather and climate change, thousands of jobs, and more than a few spinoff technologies. The truth is somewhere in between.
Load up on life, not classes
As potential MIT students, you’ve seen the admissions booklets: MIT will drown you with opportunities. Want to play Indonesian gamelan? Research polymerizable nanoemulsions with world-class professors? Shoot fellow students with nerf guns on a Friday night — as part of an official student group? You’ve come to the right place!
Why should you come to MIT?
A year ago I too was a high school senior with a decision to make — what college should I attend? Since you are reading this article, you can probably guess that I chose MIT. A year later, I can say that I am very glad that I did. Since arriving here, I have only discovered more reasons why it is, to use a popular high-school-senior term, “awesome.” So this article, which had to be cut down from my original 127 reasons, outlines the top 10 reasons why you — yes, you — should come to MIT in the fall.
Why should you come to MIT?
Every college you visit is probably telling you why you should attend. Sometimes they’re good reasons, but sometimes people make their college choice for the wrong reasons. And sometimes, people don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. I therefore present the top ten worst reasons to decide to go to MIT.
The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell
The city was strange and the society was unnerving, but what disturbed me most about my Dubai experience was my job as a business consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
CONCERT REVIEW Changing perceptions, changing the rules
For as beautifully and thoughtfully as Saturday evening’s performance was conceived, programmed and performed, the third concert of Musica Sacra’s 50th anniversary season also managed to present significant challenges to both audience and performer. In a program entitled <i>The Spirit is Still Speaking: Sacred Choral Music of the Modern Era</i>, Musica Sacra performed five works; wo were world premieres, and all were written within the last forty years.
CONCERT REVIEW Batting .500
My main issue with Vampire Weekend has always been that 30 seconds out of every minute of their music is pure genius. Doesn’t even matter which album, song, or minute.
Maybe the Red Sox will win the wild card? As much as we may despise them, Yankees are still the team to beat in the A.L. East
Baseball season is here again, the time of year when my productivity drops significantly and my most visited page in Firefox is my fantasy league’s page. (A coincidence?) Here are my picks for the MLB teams that will make it to the postseason…
Upcoming Home Events
Friday, April 2 Softball vs. Wheaton College 3 p.m., Briggs Field Softball vs. Wheaton College 5 p.m., Briggs Field Saturday, April 3 Men’s lightweight crew: Joy Cup 8 a.m., Charles River Men’s lacrosse vs. Springfield College 11 a.m., Steinbrenner Stadium Track and field vs. Bates, Colby, & South Maine 12 p.m., Steinbrenner Stadium Softball vs. WPI 12 p.m., Briggs Field Softball vs. WPI 2 p.m., Briggs Field Women’s Lacrosse vs. Smith College 2 p.m., Steinbrenner Stadium
Scoreboard
Baseball Tuesday, April 6 vs. Springfield CollegeW 5-4 Thursday, April 8 vs. Worcester Polytechnic InstituteL 15-2 Men’s Lacrosse Tuesday, April 6 at UMass-BostonW 9-6 Women’s Lacrosse Tuesday, April 6 vs. Emerson CollegeW 11-9 Softball Tuesday, April 6 at Smith CollegeW 8-5 at Smith CollegeW 7-0 Wednesday, April 7 at Babson CollegeL 9-1 at Babson CollegeL 14-1 Women’s Tennis Tuesday, April 6 vs. Brandeis UniversityL 5-4 Men’s Tennis Wednesday, April 7 vs. Wheaton CollegeW 9-0
COLUMN Two winners in March Madness
This March has seen one of the most exciting NCAA tournaments in recent history, and the championship game was no exception — it was a true nail-biter, keeping fans and spectators on the edge of their seats. In the end, however, midnight struck for the Cinderella Butler Bulldogs, as they were edged by Duke 61-59 Monday evening. The victory gives Duke its fourth national championship, all four of which have come under coach Mike Krzyzewski.
QUARKINESS Cryogenic tricks and treats
Have you experienced cryogenic tricks and treats at MIT? Well, it’s not too late if you haven’t. There are activities starring cryogenics throughout CPW, and they all use liquid nitrogen as their cryogen of choice. The reason is simple: Liquid nitrogen is cheap thanks to its atmospheric abundance (in fact, liquid nitrogen is cheaper than car gas!). While other cryogenic liquids would do similar tricks, they are made from rarer gases and are correspondingly pricier.
VARIOUS STATES OF UNDRESS Long-distance lovers
It pains me to say this because I don’t want to crap all over your fantasy, even if it’s with a healthy dose of reality. But that thing about true love overcoming everything, even distance? That’s a lie.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Visions of nerds dancing in my head
I like to dance. It’s basically the only exercise I get, and I get to meet all sorts of interesting people outside of MIT. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that there are plenty of opportunities around campus to mingle, but coordinated shouting at movie screens can only get you so acquainted with the people around you. I don’t even care all that much about what kind of dancing I’m doing — club dancing, ballroom dancing, I’ll even Michael Jackson dance if the opportunity arises, objections from bystanders notwithstanding. After the past three weeks, though, given that I can count the muscles in my legs and feet based on the individual types of soreness they’re experiencing, it’s become apparent that such a thing as too much dancing does exist.
