Don’t get caught in a web of time sinks
The well-rounded students use IAP for vacation, avoiding the winter weather in California, or embracing the winter weather in Maine. The inquisitive use IAP to take classes in interesting subjects, such as Medieval cooking, or Japanese flower arranging. And the masochistic decide to spend IAP slaving away on 6.470, MIT’s web programming competition.
Events Feb. 4 – Feb. 10
Events Feb. 4 – Feb. 10 Tuesday (12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Community Service Fair, hosted by the MIT Public Service Center — Lobby 10 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Getting Beyond Us and Them: Our Brains and the Possibility of Peace — 6-120 Wednesday (11:00 a.m. – 12:30) MIT Police laptop tagging and registration, $10 in cash or MIT cost object — Stata (9:00 – 10:00 p.m.) Mexican Coffee Hour with taco bar and dessert — Sidney Pacific MP Room Thursday (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Writing compelling cover letters. Sponsored by MIT Global Education & Career Development — 5-217 (6:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m.) Free yoga session with “how to sleep well” discussion followed by food, sponsored by Yoga24x7 — 56-180 Friday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) LSC shows Miss Congeniality, free tickets in Lobby 16 — 26-100 (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) Musical Theatre Guild presents Little Shop of Horrors — La Sala de Puerto Rico Saturday (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Sublime Melodies Monad Trio Concert, $10 for MIT undergrads and $20 general public, sponsored by Persian Students Association and ASA — E51 (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Chinese New Year’s Celebration, $3 at booth and $6 at the door, sponsored by Malaysian Student Association — W20-491 Sunday (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) Turkish Cultural Night, free for MIT students and $10 for others, sponsored by Turkish Student Association and ARCADE — 50-140 Monday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) Intergenerational Mobility Across Three Generations in the 19th Century: Evidence from the US Census, sponsored by Microeconomic Applications — E62-650 (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Falling Short of Expectations? Stress-Testing the European Banking System, sponsored by the Applied Theory Workshop — E19-758 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
With tenure but not without troubles
The April 10, 2012 issue of The Tech carried an article by Grace Taylor ’12 that I greatly admired: http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N17/depression.html.
Do science and religion conflict?
Ask A-theist is a column by Aaron L. Scheinberg G, an atheist, and Stephanie S. Lam G, a Christian, which uses contrasting worldviews to explore questions and misconceptions about philosophy and religion.
CAMPUS LIFE IN REVIEW
Goodbye, 2013. We’ve had our ups and downs, and it’s finally time to leave you behind. I’ve met someone new: 2014.
Breaking silence
I am writing this not because I know exactly what words are the most right to say, but because I know it is important: I know it is important, and I know that I am not alone.
Events Jan 29 - Feb 4
Events Jan. 29 – Feb. 4 Wednesday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) How do the Libraries select books for the shelves and your computer access? — 14N-132 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Institute Diversity Summit presents Brother Outsider: The Story of Bayard Rustin — 32-123 Thursday (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) History of Heavy Metal: Part III — 14N-217 Friday (11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) How to Speak lecture by Professor Patrick Henry Winston — 10-250 (2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) MIT Can Talk Speaking Competition — 32-141 Saturday (5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Harry Potter Trivia Challenge — 1-246 (8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.) A Concert of Music by Elena Ruehr — 14W-111 Monday (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Women and Gender Studies presents How to Lose Your Virginity — 6-120 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events Jan 22 - Jan 28
Events Jan. 22 – Jan. 28 Wednesday (5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) Documentary Screening: Passion for Life with Sir David Attenborough — 3-133 (9:00 p.m. – 10 p.m.) CSC presents Dessert Night — Baker Dining Thursday (10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Mobile Marathon: The Great Gatsby — New House-House 1 (2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m) In Search of Sunset on Alien Worlds lecture — 37-252 Friday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Library Music! Open Mic in the Lewis Music Library — 14E-109 (2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) Leave it to the Beavers: A Snapshot of Life at MIT in the 1950s — 14N-188 Saturday (7:00 p.m.) LSC shows 36th Annual Science Fiction Marathon — 26-100 Sunday (1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) IAP Orchestra performs Dvorak 8th — Kresge Auditorium (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Middle Eastern Drumming — W15-Main Chapel Monday (8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.) World Music Jam, in odd time signatures — 66-144 Tuesday (3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Rap, Rai, Rock, and Revolution: The Role of Music in the “Arab Spring” — 3-133 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
THE NATURALIST’S NOTEBOOK: Cold fish and icy insects
Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
Late thoughts on being a research scientist
I have one of those roommates who is constantly curious, and often tactless, but usually insightful. She waits all of five minutes after I roll out of bed before insisting I explain to her how I perceive my relationship with my mother. Or, she wants to know if I think the app Tinder is morally okay. Most of the time, these questions fall by the wayside while the tea I’m brewing receives my full and undivided attention. However, the other day breakfast was served with a comment that caught my attention.
One chess champion per laptop
Search in YouTube for “too weak, too slow” and you will find a video of two young men sitting across from each other at a small table, frantically moving carved tokens on a wooden grid and slapping a clock mercilessly. They are fighting each other to the death, with bravado and gusto, in one of the oldest battlefields known to the human mind: the chessboard. The cocky guy in the green shirt, with the looks of a Viking and the nose of a boxer, is a 22-year-old chap named Magnus Carlsen, who happens to be the strongest chess player to ever walk the earth. The other guy, at the receiving end of Magnus’ Muhammad Ali-esque taunts (“Too weak, too slow! C’mon! What, you wanna play?”) is his close friend and sparring partner, Grandmaster Laurent Fressinet.
Events Jan 15 - Jan 21
Events Jan. 15 – Jan. 21 Wednesday (1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Pleasures of Poetry — 14E-304 (3:30 p.m.) Chemistry and Biology of Antibiotics class — 68-180 Thursday (8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Choose to Reuse — 32 (2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) It’s Always Darkest Before the Cosmic Dawn lecture — 37-252 Friday (11:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.) TIM, MIT’s Mascot’s 100th Birthday Party — W20-lobby (3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Director Gavin Hood & MIT alum Matt Butler present “The Making of Ender’s Game,” attendance gains free admission to movie (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) LSC shows Ender’s Game — 26-100 Saturday (9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.) Free Figure Skating and Ice Dance classes — Johnson Ice Rink (3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Boston Chamber Music Society Winter Concert — Kresge Auditorium Monday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Advancing Toward the Equality of Women and Men, dinner provided — W11-155 Tuesday (12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.) Feyman Lectures: The Great Conservation Principles — 6-120 (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Having more Time per Minute - An Introduction to Time Management, sign-up by 1/20 — E51-145 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
I am a meerkat
As a scientist, I like to imagine myself as a meerkat. Not in the “I’ll eviscerate my grandkids someday” sense, but in the “I both dig deep holes and survey the land at the same time” sense.
Without Your Permission
In the place of the usual formulas and diagrams, a small alien, chipmunk in a scarf, and pig with bread wings had appeared on the chalkboard. Yes, Alexis Ohanian, the “startup guy” of reddit, hipmunk, and breadpig fame had taken over E51-345 on a Saturday night during finals week at MIT to inspire the beavers to embark on a mission of making the world suck less. Within a couple of years of graduating from the University of Virginia, Ohanian sold reddit for millions and has since gone on to start many other companies, such as hipmunk and breadpig, all while representing the seed accelerator Y Combinator and investing in over sixty other tech startups. A lover and defender of the Internet, Ohanian is launching his book, Without Your Permission, to evangelize entrepreneurs to use the Internet, which he describes as arguably “the most powerful and democratic tool for disseminating information in human history” to make awesome things that change the world. (A photo of a breadpig on a flat globe popped up on the slideshow.)
Funding the future
“What’s most interesting to me about the future of technology? Reimagining every human behavior and every human experience through the lens of a mobile device,” declares Megan Quinn, an Investment Partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm famous for making early investments in companies like Google and Amazon. Having met her briefly during the MIT Silicon Valley Pitch Trek back in October and been impressed by her experience and knowledge of the digital space, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to interview her. Quinn will be joining us on Friday, Dec. 13 at the MIT VC conference, where venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and students will come together to discuss the intersection of entrepreneurship and venture capital. With years of experience leading product development at Google and Square, Quinn exhibits admirable depth of knowledge and passion for technology. I spoke with Quinn about her thoughts on the future of mobile and personalization, during which she shared her vision for the future of mobile: “We talk a lot about having the world customized around the customer through the smartphone. When you have that experience it feels magical. It feels like you’re carrying the passport to the future with you with everything responding to you and your preferences.”
Events Dec 10 - Dec 16
Events Dec. 10 – Dec. 16 Tuesday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) The High Redshift Universe Next Door — 37-252 (9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Colleges Against Cancer Pink Dessert Night — W7 Wednesday (6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Life Sciences Circle Event: Next-omics - Personalized Medicine beyond Genomics — Broad Institute Thursday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Crowd Sourced Mapping for Open Government — E25-401 (2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) Finals Week Study Break-Cookies with Canines — Hayden Library Friday (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) MIT Asian Dance Team presents “Illusions” — Kresge Little Theater (4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) End-of-semester stargazing — 37-roof Saturday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Association of Puerto Rican Students Xmas Dinner — 10-Bush Room Monday (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Winterfest 2013 presented by President Reif and Mrs. Reif — Walker Memorial Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events Dec 3 - Dec 9
Events Dec. 03 – Dec. 09 Tuesday (8:00 p.m.) LSC shows Ride Along — 26-100 Wednesday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Brown Bag Lunch Series: Corals of the deep sea — E38-300 (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) xTalks: Online teacher education in Pakistan — 12-122 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Introduction to Web Design using Wordpress, sponsored by the Sloan Coders — E51-361 Thursday (4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Will MIT Lead Against Climate Change? A Discussion on Divestment — 4-237 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Long-Form Journalism: Inside “The Atlantic” — 66-110 Friday (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows The Nightmare Before Christmas — 26-100 Saturday (1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Anime Karaoke — W20-491 (2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Fun Tech Forum: TECH SHOW TIME III: Arts in Ancient China — 26-100 Sunday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) QWERTY is dead, long live QWERTY! The Birth of Input in Twentieth-Century China — E51-095 (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Bangladesh Victory Day Celebration — 50-140 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.