Cambridge

BocaNewsNow reports a woman in Boca Raton was initially turned away from the polls because she was wearing an MIT shirt.

BocaNewsNow.com has heard from multiple sources that an election supervisor at the polling place ultimately realized that MIT stands for “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” — a school where students tend to know how to spell — and was not a campaign shirt for the Republican candidate, who spells his name MITT.

Via BosGuy.

Cambridge Police report a man in a dark hoodie robbed the Ciampa Apothecary, 425 Cambridge St., at gunpoint on Friday, making off with a large plastic bag full of drugs.

The man is described as white, about 6'3" with a black mask over his face and under his green hoodie. Police say he's probably the same guy who robbed the Inman Square Pharmacy on April 26, making off with a large plastic bag full of drugs.

Cambridge Day has the video.

Robby snapped this photo of a cat on the Red Line this evening. A cat in a stroller. A big-ass stroller, apparently. He tweeted:

What's wrong with this picture? Many things ...

Another commuter, AH, also took to Twitter, around 6:20 p.m. and was more specific:

Lady with a cat in full-sized/meant for children stroller preventing me and 8 other saps from going on T. #wtf #catbitch #mbta

Ah, but the cat owner tweets, too. In fact, Coco Koh has blogged about her adventures on the T with Jacoby the Abyssinian. So she tweeted right back:

FYI snippy woman on the Red Line: cats (& dogs) ARE allowed on #mbta as long as they're properly contained!!!

MzKeating chimed in:

[H]ave you ever tried to get a cat to walk on a leash?

Robby answered:

No, that sounds ridiculous. That was her rationale as well, along with cat does not like the escalator. ... Let's recap, cat, stroller, peak hours, capacity train. No, still not reasonable. Thing was gigantic.

Keep up to the minute by doing a Twitter search on #strollercat.

And that answer is paintballs:

Sung Wook Paek SM '12, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says if timed just right, pellets full of paint powder, launched in two rounds from a spacecraft at relatively close distance, would cover the front and back of an asteroid, more than doubling its reflectivity, or albedo. The initial force from the pellets would bump an asteroid off course; over time, the sun's photons would deflect the asteroid even more.

A roving UHub photographer couldn't believe it when she saw workers at the top of the Great Dome, working on the tarp covering the oculus being installed there:

Seems that they've decided at the 11th hour to remove the tarp. Scaffold contractor is up there trying to remove it. I'm praying for these guys. Not good conditions to put it mildly.

With Hubway season almost over, you may not get much use out of this, but file it away for the spring: Chris Snyder recently discovered a trick for getting a Hubway bicycle that's stuck in its docking bay.

Cambridge Police report arresting a Dorchester man on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute following a traffic stop on Massachusetts Avenue at Amherst Street yesterday.

Thomas Stoner, 31, was arrested after officers noticed "an overwhelming smell of unburnt marijuana" and, during a search, found a pound of marijuana, a scale and $1,280 in cash, police say.

Police add Stoner was a passenger in the car. The driver was charged with operating with a suspended license.

Innocent, etc.

Jeff Tamagini took in the first day of the Head of the Charles.

Copyright Jeff Tamagini. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

A Minnesota visitor who fell on the Red Line tracks at Kendall Square last night was helped out by other passengers, the MBTA reports. According to an MBTA Transit Police report on the incident, shortly before 7 p.m.:

[The woman's husband] stated they were talking with some friends on the inbound platform and [she] was walking backward. He stated that she continued to walk backward into the pit and fell into it. He then jumped into the pit to help get her out and other passengers assisted in lifting her onto the platform. [She] reported injury to the neck, hips, and dizziness.

Apparently not.

Via Boston Reddit, which manages to turn it into a Yo Momma crack.

Roving UHub photographer Daniel Weintraub stopped roving long enough to snap a photo of the truck with the newly peeled back roof on Memorial Drive around 11:30 this morning (also note the scaffolding for the oculus installation on MIT's Great Dome, and yes, that is mentioned partially because ye editor likes saying "oculus").

Currently limited to Harvard students, but then again, that's how Facebook started, too.

The Globe today reports on a lawsuit by a Hong Kong couple against a Cambridge consultant they claim said he could get their sons into Harvard - for a bit over $2 million.

Luke Timmerman explains why Boston is poised to overtake the Bay Area as the biotech hub of the universe - and his reasons sound a lot like the reasons why the Bay Area overtook the Boston area as the high-tech center of the world:

Success begets success and companies and innovators are drawn here by the unique concentration of companies and innovators already here - and now we've got a unique concentration of start-ups, established Big Pharma, research hospitals, Harvard and MIT. Also, everybody's piled on top of each other, especially in Kendall Square, thanks to smart zoning decisions, which is what you want in a collaborative, cross-pollinating kind of field like biotech. Plus, the Bay Area's now become too expensive for start-ups and people just getting out of college (sound familiar?). Also:

People on the West Coast sometimes like to trot out stereotypes about the sharp-elbowed competitors in Boston, how they just can't collaborate as well as us laid-back West Coasters. That's just not consistent with the Boston I've experienced. If anything, there's more of a tight-knit collaborative community in Boston than in San Francisco. There's a can-do spirit, an energy in Boston that is palpable. It will endure. Boston is reaping what it has sown for decades.

Pink Puffers from Rome, video by Bimska.

The streets of Somerville and Cambridge were taken over this weekend by the annual Honk festival. Some video and photos.

Cambridge Day reports, is not amused.

Brad Kelly was in Harvard Square recently and stopped by what he called the portal to your emo past - the now closed Hootenanny.

Copyright Brad Kelly. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Three trains died on the Red Line between 4:30 and 7 p.m. today.

The Globe reports the city of Cambridge has sued the state in Middlesex Superior Court to block its approval of Uber, which lets you get a limo through its online service.

You may recall how a state measurement office barred Uber over meter issues after Cambridge Police ran a sting, only to reverse itself a few days later when it learned, oops, the governor likes Uber.

Dome at night; not much use for oculus then. Photo by Ali Almossawi. Used under this CC license.

The Tech reports MIT is installing an amethyst skylight at the top of the Great Dome, letting natural light flood the space below for the first time since World War II, when an earlier skylight was covered during World War II to lessen the chances of the Dome being used as a beacon by incoming German bombers.

The Crimson reports on a sociology class where the professor brought in three homeless Harvard Square guys to talk about their experience.

R.S.Y. Buchanan, who took this photo this afternoon near where the train tracks cross Broadway by MIT, tweets:

Looks like someone misjudged the train in Cambridge.

Paul Levitt adds:

Car actually struck the train. No idea how he managed that, but hit the side of the second car. Not much damage to the car - front bumper & trim. The freight trains pretty much creep through that intersection.

Photo copyright R.S.Y. Buchanan. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Passion Pit's Michael Angelakos on the river today.

The official groundbreaking for EF's new North American headquarters in Cambridge had all the traditional elements: Politicians - from the mayor of Cambridge to the governor of the Commonwealth - spoke. Silver-handled shovels were held. And Passion Pit gave a concert.

EF, which provides language training and cultural-exchange programs around the world, is building a $125-million, 300,000-square-foot headquarters next to its existing building at North Point Park, along the Charles River, across from the Museum of Science. In addition to space for the company, EF will build a bike path and help maintain North Point Park. The front will incorporate a large glass feature designed to look like a waterfall and the building will also include a 440-seat "winter garden themed" restaurant.

Besides Passion Pit, employees and guests (and some folks who snuck in) partook of food from several Boston-area food trucks, beer and wine on the grounds of North Point Park.

EF employees at groundbreaking, in front of current building

Ed. note: All three members of Passion Pit on stage wore skinny jeans. I had heard of Passion Pit before today, but the kidlet, normally up on such stuff, had not. Therefore, I can be hipster?

Lucy Johnstone captured the mood at North Point Park in Cambridge the other night.

Copyright Lucy Johnstone. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.