‘In Memory of James Albrecht’ Robots Win BattleCode Contest
There was excitement in the air on the evening of Feb. 1, as spectators filed into Kresge Auditorium for the BattleCode 2008 final tournament. Thousands of dollars in prizes were at stake as the teams sought to prove their software’s mettle.
News Briefs
Last Wednesday, Jan. 30, MIT Housing e-mailed all residents of on-campus housing to ask for written permission to include their birth dates in census information sent to the Cambridge Election Commission.
Rapid Growth in College Endowments Exacerbates Concerns About Wealth
Allan T. Demaree, a retired executive editor of Fortune magazine, gladly makes donations to Princeton University, his alma mater, even though he knows it has become one of the wealthiest educational institutions in the world. His son, who also went to Princeton, points to its endowment of $15.8 billion, and will not give it a penny.
Move From Coal to Gas Raises Risk of Price Increase
Stymied in their plans to build new coal-burning power plants, American utilities are turning to natural gas to meet expected growth in demand, risking a new spiral in the price of that fuel.
Risky Investing May Be Addictive, Similar To Drug Use and Sex
It is easy to dismiss Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader at Societe Generale, as a fluke — the perfect storm in a pinstripe suit.
AgeLab Designs Products For Baby Boomers
Joseph F. Coughlin founded AgeLab to unravel a paradox: Humanity in the last century achieved the dream of much longer life, but didn’t plan for the effects on work, health and daily living.
Clinton Campaign Struggles As Obama Raises $32 Million
Concerned that it could lose several primaries and caucuses through the rest of February, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign sought to create an alternate story line of success on Thursday by announcing that Clinton had raised $7.5 million online so far this month.
After Romney Bows Out, McCain Emerges As Likely GOP Choice
Sen. John McCain of Arizona all but sewed up the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday after Mitt Romney withdrew from the race, saying the war in Iraq and the terrorist threat made it imperative that the party unite.
Deadly Tornado Outbreak
The deadliest tornado outbreak in the United States since 1985 occurred this past Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 50 people in a region spanning 5 southern states. While the extensive loss of life cannot be attributed to meteorological factors alone, the rare phenomenon of long-track supercell thunderstorms certainty did play a major role.
Shorts (left)
With Hollywood writers on the brink of ending their three-month strike, they can thank this city’s time-honored way of getting things done — connections.
Bhutto Killed By Blow to Head, Not By Bullet, According to Scotland Yard
Investigators from Scotland Yard have concluded that Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, died after hitting her head as she was tossed by the force of a suicide blast, not from an assassin’s bullet, officials who have been briefed on the inquiry said Thursday.
Shorts (right)
The Army has drafted a new operations manual that elevates the mission of stabilizing war-torn nations, making it equal in importance to defeating adversaries on the battlefield.
Mitt Romney Bows Out of GOP Presidential Nomination Race
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who sought to position himself as the true conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination, announced Thursday afternoon that he had ended his campaign.
U.S. Senate Is Closer to Agreeing On Economic Stimulus Package
An agreement in the Senate appeared within reach on an economic-stimulus program on Thursday afternoon, increasing chances that the House could also ratify it within hours and speed it to President Bush’s desk.
Letters to the Editor
While I thought The Tech’s recent Year in Review issue did an outstanding job of representing the triumphs, controversies, and other stories that profoundly affected MIT over the past year, I am troubled that, in all of the issue’s 36 pages, not once does the word UROP appear. The student-driven research for which MIT is supposedly so highly regarded is barely mentioned, even while eight pages are dedicated to MIT’s athletics program. Although The Tech selected nine athletes to showcase as “Profiles of Dedication” — a title well deserved — that phrase could just as easily have been applied to any number of UROP students. To be sure, I do not mean to slight the student-athletes who devote so much of their time, energy, and passion to excelling in their chosen sport or sports. But I find it strange that even here at the Massachusetts Institute of <i>Technology</i>, we still seem to value articles about athletics above stories about academics.
Corrections
The “The Tech Asks…” feature in <i>The Tech’s </i>2007 Year in Review misspelled the name of a popular Afghan restaurant near the Cambridgeside Galleria. It is Helmand, not Helmond’s.
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★ Go Get Lost In Bruges
I have to admit that I have a considerable dislike for Colin Farrell … and can you blame me? Surely if you sat through “Miami Vice,” you cannot. Thankfully, Farrell departs from roles such as Bullseye in “Daredevil” and whoever the hell it was he played in “S.W.A.T.” to take on a role that suits him much better in this new film, “In Bruges.” Even Mr. Farrell would probably have to agree with me that there are few words for how terrible some of the films he has participated in are. When speaking about his “In Bruges” character, he hints at what might have gone wrong in earlier roles, remarking “[It’s] nice to not have to pretend to be cool.” It seems that Farrell has changed his ways and it can only be for the better.
CONCERT REVIEW Spice Girls Are Back!
Think back to 1997. Who were the five coolest, sexiest women of that year? If you were in the vicinity of TD Banknorth Garden last Wednesday night, the answer would have literally popped out at you from every Union Jack mini-dress and four-inch platform shoe in sight: the Spice Girls, of course, and they’re back. Young women who were barely ten years old when the attractive, feisty quintuplet released their first single (the now timeless “Wannabe”) came out in droves to watch the resurrection of Posh, Baby, Sporty, Scary, and Ginger after a ten year hiatus, which started in 1998 after Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell left on claims of exhaustion and difference of opinion.
BOOK REVIEW Not Your Average Travel Guide
I decided to graduate from MIT a semester early so that I would have a few months off before graduate school, and now that my break is here, everyone keeps asking me what I’m going to do. Travel? Here’s the thing: I’m not a huge traveler. Sure, I like going places, but I usually get so stressed about planning the trip and how much it’s going to cost that I avoid it. And I think wherever I go, I need to spend enough time there to make it “worth” it, thus adding to the expense and hassle. Well, it turns out I’m not alone: James Samans has written a new travel guide called <i>Spontaneous Tourism: The Busy Person’s Guide to Travel</i>, for people like me.
Sports Shorts
For the third race in a row, Timothy F. Pier ’08 claimed a spot in the top ten as he finished sixth in the slalom with a time of 1:57.08 at the MIT-Brown University Carnival held this past weekend. The men’s alpine skiing team placed seventh in the slalom event on Saturday, while they moved up a slot to sixth in Sunday’s giant slalom. On the women’s side, MIT finished ninth in both events.
Celtics, Pistons Dominate List Of Contenders in Depleted East
Now that the NFL playoffs have ended (in the saddest possible fashion) and the baseball season is still some time away, sports fans have time to focus on basketball. As the NBA approaches its annual All-Star game a week from Sunday, the Eastern Conference still remains the weaker of the two conferences, but boasts two of the league’s strongest title contenders: the league-leading Boston Celtics and the perennial powerhouse Detroit Pistons.
Quotes from the Facebook Group: Overheard at MIT
“No, with screws, Mom. With screws. With SCREWS! I don’t know why you’re deaf!” <i>—Woman on cell phone in Building 68</i>
Figuring out Fashion
Hi everyone! We’d like to introduce ourselves. We’re the staff of Figuring out Fashion here at The Tech, and our job is to do what you wish you had time to do yourself. We will research, shop, try new things, ask experts, and decide how you can look and feel your best every day. For our inaugural article, we wanted to look into the role fashion plays at MIT, what is unique and cool, and what we can all work on!
