Bitter cold followed by more snow
An Arctic front brought some of the coldest air of the season to New England last night. Lows in the Boston area dipped below zero. Today, a tightening pressure gradient will create gusty winds, dropping wind chill values to as low as –15 °F (–26 °C). Increasing clouds signal a more active weather pattern this weekend.
New authentication service on Touchstone
MIT’s IS&T has added a new two-factor authentication system to Touchstone that will provide more secure access to important MIT services such as Atlas. With “Duo,” knowing a person’s username and password will not be enough to log in with Touchstone.
1 in 4 frosh deemed fit for sophomore standing
This year, 27 percent of the freshmen class has been offered early sophomore standing, comparable to last year’s 28.4 percent. Out of the 282 eligible students, 128 have accepted their offers so far.
Senior House gets a new housemaster
Professor Jay Scheib has been named the new housemaster of Senior House, one of MIT’s oldest dormitories. He will replace Agustín Rayo PhD ’01, associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, and Carmen Saracho, a novelist and restaurant critic, who had both served as housemasters since May 2010.
The dangerous values behind the Lewin lecture takedown
With luck, the world will frown on the example set by MIT in taking down Walter Lewin’s physics lectures from OpenCourseWare.
While MIT sleeps, Night Watch keeps campus safe
New security policies in undergraduate dormitories have attracted considerable attention over the last year. While controversy has overshadowed the tenure of security contractor AlliedBarton, a more low-profile and less contentious unit, known as Night Watch, continues to operate quietly behind the scenes.
