THE NATURALIST’S NOTEBOOK: Moth hunting in Brazil
This article is dedicated to my dear friend and mentor Nick Wagerik, who first introduced me to entomology and with whom I spent countless hours roaming New York’s Central Park in pursuit of dragonflies and moths. Nick passed away last week.
Don’t shirt the issue
A t-shirt is one of the most versatile and cheap types of clothing that you can find at any store. Because t-shirts are so common, we usually don’t see the potential in them. In fact, t-shirts can make up a powerful tool in your fashion arsenal when you incorporate them appropriately.
Events Sep 24- Sep 30
Events Sept. 24 – Sept. 30 Tuesday (10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.) Water, Water Everywhere: How clean is it? seminar — E38-300 (7:15 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) The World’s Religions: Precepts Practices and Principle Beliefs — W11-Main dining room Wednesday (7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Katsura Sunshine presents Japanese Rakugo comic story-telling — 32-123 Thursday (4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.) CSAIL Colloquium: Innovating for Society: Realizing the Transformative Impact of Computing and Communication — 32-G449 (6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) The Future of MOOCs: Prospects and Pitfalls, the MIT Perspective — 34-101 Friday (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows Much Ado About Nothing (2012) — 26-100 Saturday (10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.) Animal Petting Zoo — E55-Courtyard (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Living in the Future, talk — MIT Museum Sunday (11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.) MIT Bike Show and Market — N10, Annex parking lot (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) MITHAS presents: Violin Maestro Padmashri Lalgudi G. Jayaraman Memorial Concert & biography book release — E51-Wong auditorium Monday (6:00 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.) Archipelago Town-lines: A sustainable model for urban growth, lecture — 7-429 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Hacking my way home
Walking into last week’s t=0 hackathon, the first official hackathon of the school year, I was well aware of my status as a Sloanie, that species of MIT grad student prone to business plan writing and jargon slinging.
Shopping made easy
Welcome to the world of fashion. Sketch Your Look will cover the basics of menswear, such as fit, color, fabric, etc., in a detailed manner. I’m sorry to say I have little knowledge in clothes for women, so I won’t be writing articles specifically for women. However, I believe that women can get inspiration from menswear too.
Events Sep 17 - Sep 23
Events Sep. 17 – Sep. 23 Tuesday (5:15 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.) Music, Manuscripts, and Megabytes: Unlocking sound in the ‘Ars Mutandi,’ talk by Professor Michael S. Cuthbert — 14E-304 (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) Contra Dance with live music by Forks of Nature — W20-491 Wednesday (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Innovation Series Event: From Farm to Tablet: A Food Startup Feast — 32-123 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) From MIT to Andy’s Room: the Birth and Evolution of Computer Graphics — MIT Museum (6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Reading the Human Genome, talk by Prof. Eric Lander Thursday (4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Starr Forum: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century — 66-110 (4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Opening Reception for Sidewalk City: Mapping the Unmapped — 7-338 Friday (7:30 p.m.) LSC shows Radical Reels — 26-100 Saturday (11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Latin American Independence Day BBQ — Kresge pits (7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Gala — 50-Morss Hall Sunday (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Eastgate Fall Harvest Festival and BBQ — E55 Monday (2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) Media Lab Conversations Series: Mark Bauman, Chairman of National Geographic’s Cross Platform Committee — Media Lab 3rd floor (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.) Moral, Political, Scientific: What is Thoughtful Engineering? — 66-110 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
A week of innovation
Robotic cheetahs, body-heat fueled technology, cameras that operate at the speed of light, and a potential cure for HIV? This compilation of fascinating topics at the cutting edge of research led the conversation at MIT’s t=0 week. Students filled rooms until it was standing room only as some of MIT’s leading professors presented state-of-the-art technologies, ideas, and businesses during this week to kick off entrepreneurship at MIT.
Stand up against back pain
It’s not easy being MIT students. In addition to carpal tunnel, eye strain, and weight gain from too much free food, we must deal with back pain from sitting hunched over a desk for long hours. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that last problem: a standing desk.
Events Sept. 10 – Sept. 16
Events Sept. 10 – Sept. 16 Tuesday (10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Employer Resume Critiques with 30+ companies, hosted by the Global Education and Career Development Center (sign-ups on CareerBridge) — 12-172 Wednesday (8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.) Israeli Dancing with kosher snacks provided, hosted by the MISTI MIT-Israel Program, Folk Dance Club, and MIT Hillel — Sala de Puerto Rico (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) Starr Forum — Syria: A Just War? with speakers Barry Posen, Jeanne Guillemin, Augustus Richard Norton, and John Tirman — E15-070 (Bartos theater) Thursday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) MISTI Open House, sponsored by the Center for International Studies and MISTI — E40-496 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) MIT Undergraduate Biochemistry Association General Body Meeting, with free dinner — W20-201 Friday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) LSC shows Fast & Furious 6, tickets for $4 in Lobby 16 — 26-100 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.) McKinsey Business Analyst Coffee Chats, sponsored by Sloan Business Club (sign-up necessary) — Area Four Saturday (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) The Ig Informal Lectures at MIT by 2013 Ig Nobel Prize winners, sponsored by The MIT Press Bookstore and The Annals of Improbable Research — 26-100 Sunday (6:45 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Film on the Green @ MIT - Les Chansons d’Amour, sponsored by the Center for International Studies, FL&L, and French Consulate of Boston — Kresge Oval Monday (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Wall Street and the Housing Bubble with speaker Wei Xiong (Princeton), sponsored by the Applied Theory Workshop (joint MIT/Harvard) — Harvard Littauer M15 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events Sept. 02 – Sept. 08
Events Sept. 02 – Sept. 08 Tuesday (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Wonder Woman Photo Shoot — Lobby 10 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Trash2Treasure sale, free Reuse items — Kresge Oval Wednesday (11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.) MIT police laptop tagging and registration — 32 (Stata Student St.) Thursday (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Tour de SHASS, free lunch — 10-105 (Bush Room) (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) The Musical Theatre Guild presents AVENUE Q — W16-035 (Kresge Little Theatre) Friday (9:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.) Sidney Pacific Orientation Dance Party. Featuring DJ BIG from WPOT Hot 97 Boston radio station — NW-86 Saturday (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) MITMASA welcoming dinner, with Malaysian food — W20 (PDR 1 and 2) Sunday (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Student Loan Art Program Exhibition public brunch/reception — E15 Monday (12:00p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Electricity Student Research Group interdisciplinary research lunch series on sustainable electricity — E19-319 (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) The Economic Effects of Combat Exposure, with speaker Michael Yankovich — E51-151 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Events aug. 27 – sept. 02
Events aug. 27 – sept. 02 Tuesday (12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.) Japanese Tea Ceremony Lessons ($10 MIT community, $5 students) — W4 Green Living Room (5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) McKinsey & Company Info Session: MIT Happy Hour (RSVP online) — 50 Muddy Charles Wednesday (2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.) MIT spouses & partners stroller tour of MIT, snacks afterward — Kendall outbound T Thursday (10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.) Gelfand Centennial Conference: A View of 21st Century Mathematics — 34-101 Friday (7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.) Community Shabbat Dinner at Hillel — W11 Main Dining Room (8:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.) LSC shows Zero Dark Thirty (free tickets in Lobby 16)— 26-100 Saturday (9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.) Westgate Fall 2013 yard sale — W85 lawn Sunday (2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.) The Musical Theatre Guild presents AVENUE Q — W16-035 (Kresge Little Theatre) Monday (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) Ashdown House Dessert Night: International Dessert Sampling — NW35-Hulsizer Room Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Of toothpaste, and the arc of the moral universe
Sometime in June, a discovery in Senior House threw me briefly into a personal crisis. Someone had used my toothpaste.
Flying monkeys, hedgehogs, and castles, oh my!
I originally wanted this article to show that graduate students can kick back, relax, and stave off the insanity that is just a stone’s throw away from the genius we all aspire to achieve. However, as I wrote the title, I realized this may actually convince you of the opposite, that graduate school does in fact drive graduate students off the deep end. So, throwing caution to the wind, I am sharing two tales of the silly, the frivolous, and the fun that I’ve experienced this summer.
Supporting grad student families
“In the United States and Europe, around half of those who gain doctoral degrees in science and engineering are female — but barely one-fifth of full professors are women. Women are not invited in significant numbers to sit on the scientific advisory boards of start-up companies. A scientific conference at which half of the keynote speakers are women stands out simply because of that. Why has progress stalled? Child care is one major factor that blocks the career of many women.”
Missed beats
My history with music reads like an I Saw You MIT post. “I heard you, ten second music video clip of ‘Feel Good, Inc.’ on a TV commercial.” “I heard you, midi version of ‘Diary of a Madman’ on a web 1.0 Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fansite.” Yet it was only recently that I started explicitly looking for new and classic bands to listen to, and educating myself in good music.
MIT, in a box
I arrived at the Institute in August of 2009 with two suitcases, a backpack, and a lot of enthusiasm. I was eager to begin my college life — to stay up absurdly late, make friends while psetting, have a swank dorm room, be independent etc. — and I had arrived at school early to participate in my Freshman Pre-Orientation Program (FPOP), the Freshman Arts Program.
Creating your own opportunities
Visit the Museum of Science, Boston this week. Proceed to the Blue wing up the escalators and to the left of the butterfly exhibit. There you will find Ocean Stories, an exhibit housed in the Art Science Gallery, a 2000-square-foot gallery twenty feet tall. By exploring Ocean Stories, you will discover oceanography translated through the prism of artwork.
Events May 7 - May 13
Events may 07 – may 13 Tuesday (12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.) Artists Beyond the Desk presents Cate Gallivan on piano — Killian Hall (5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) A Conversation with award-winning Portuguese author, Dulce Maria Cardoso — 14E-305 Wednesday (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.) Soap Box: The Political Life of Cheese, free cheese — MIT Museum (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.) Slavery And The American Imagination — Simmons Hall Multipurpose Room Thursday (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Discussion of book 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 — 4-231 (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MIT DanceTroupe presents: #DTMF — Little Kresge Theater Friday (7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m.) LSC shows Pitch Perfect — 26-100 Saturday (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Sidney Pacific End of Term BBQ and Outdoor Movie — Sidney Pacific Courtyard MP room (8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) MIT Concert Choir, director William Cutter — Kresge Auditorium Sunday (4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.) MITHAS presents Rupak Kulkarni Bansuri — Wong Auditorum (4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.) Chamber Music Society music for two pianos and other works — Kresge Auditorium Monday (4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.) When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South? — E62-233 (5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.) Innovation Series Event: It takes more than just Big Data — Evolving Solutions for Pharma and Healthcare — 32-123 Send your campus events to events@tech.mit.edu.
Is there an absolute right or wrong?
Ask A-theist is a column by Aaron Scheinberg G, an atheist, and Stephanie Lam G, a Christian, which uses contrasting worldviews to explore questions and misconceptions about philosophy and religion. This week, Stephanie chose the question. Send us the burning questions you have always wanted answered by an atheist or Christian (or both), and we’ll tackle them!