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By adamg - 1/25/16 - 11:11 pm

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory reports Minsky, 88, died Sunday

Minsky viewed the brain as a machine whose functioning can be studied and replicated in a computer - which would teach us, in turn, to better understand the human brain and higher-level mental functions: How might we endow machines with common sense - the knowledge humans acquire every day through experience? How, for example, do we teach a sophisticated computer that to drag an object on a string, you need to pull, not push - a concept easily mastered by a two-year-old child?

By adamg - 1/25/16 - 7:39 am

UPDATE: The MBTA warns Longfellow-related slowdowns could last two to three days.

Red Line trains in both directions are moving kind of slow this morning, due to the weekend track work on the Longfellow Bridge.

At 7:40 a.m., Justlippe reported:

I left Central at 7:10am. We're just now hanging half out of the tunnel headed to MGH.

Read more.

By adamg - 1/23/16 - 6:52 pm
Stuck buses on Cambridge Street in Boston

Buses stuck on Cambridge Street by MGH. Photo by Caitlin Melnick.

First responders from both Cambridge and Boston and divers from Boston rushed to the Charles River near the Longfellow Bridge around 6:30 p.m. on what appeared to be a report that two people might be in the river. Read more.

By adamg - 1/20/16 - 6:28 pm
Looking over the side of the BU Bridge

First responders on the BU Bridge. Photo by Greg Hum.

UPDATE, 7 p.m. A thermal scanner mounted on a State Police helicopter found no evidence of a body; firefighters began packing up to leave.

Around 6:15 p.m., based on a phone call. Police and firefighters from both Boston and Cambridge are on scene and searching the Charles River.

By adamg - 1/18/16 - 9:50 am
Working on the Red Line tracks on the Longfellow Bridge

John McLachlan watched workers working on new Red Line tracks on the Longfellow Bridge yesterday. Read more.

By adamg - 1/15/16 - 2:10 pm

Cambridge Police report the arrest of a New York City man on a variety of charges related to the high life he allegedly tried to settle into for a couple months at a Third Street apartment complex that included draining $70,000 from a local design company's coffers and using some of the funds to lease a BMW SUV across the river in Boston. Read more.

By adamg - 1/15/16 - 7:28 am

The T is warning of "moderate" delays in both directions on the Red Line due to a track problem between Kendall Square and Charles/MGH (which would be, what, the Longfellow?).

UPDATE: At 8:20, the T reported delays southbound due to a train that met its maker at Alewife.

By adamg - 1/12/16 - 9:07 pm
Central Square David Bowie tribute

Chris Devers found this Bowie tribute in the Central Square graffiti alley today.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

By adamg - 1/12/16 - 6:41 pm

The T is reporting "moderate" delays on the Red Line due to signal problems at Central Square. Dave translates the T's "moderate" into English:

Red line is in rough shape. Been sitting between Kendall and Central for at least 10 mins.

Equally intrepid Red Line regular Jake Wark reports from Downtown Crossing that as his Alewife train just sat there, the driver informed people rushing to the train: Read more.

By adamg - 1/6/16 - 9:44 am
Wanted for lewd act

Transit Police have released photos of a man they say "engaged in an a lewd act" on a Red Line train between Alewife and Davis around 8:50 p.m. on Dec. 30.

He's described as white, 25 to 35, clean shaven and 5'10" to 6' with a medium build.

If you know a guy who can't keep it zipped, contact Transit Police at 617-222-1050, or send an anonymous tip to 873873.

By adamg - 1/5/16 - 12:32 pm

The T advises there are "moderate" delays on the Red Line towards Alewife due to an unspecified track issue at Central.

By adamg - 1/4/16 - 11:50 pm
Hawk outside a Cambridge window

Nate Russell snapped this visitor today on a little ledge outside his company's offices on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. "We've seen him before in the trees but never this close," he reports.

By adamg - 1/4/16 - 3:49 pm

OK, to be accurate: 900,000 photos of the Boston skyline, and another 150,000 of the Cambridge skyline, all taken from the same spot in Cambridge over a five-year period.

Adrian Dalca took all those photos from a window in an MIT (of course!) residential building. Naturally, he's now trying to figure out what to do with them all: Read more.

By adamg - 12/29/15 - 8:45 am
Charles River in the snow with the Citgo Sign

Nick Cosky walked along the Charles at sunrise (such as it was) this morning.

By adamg - 12/28/15 - 11:50 am

Edwin H. Land in "The Long Walk" (1970; directed by Bill Warriner for Polaroid Corporation)

A travelogue of sorts from 1970, narrated by Edwin Land himself, that concludes with him walking us around the plans for a new Polaroid factory in Norwood. Around 12:00, he discusses the future of photography, including cameras that would fit in a pocket, "something like a telephone, that you would use all day long. ... a camera that you would use as often as a pencil, or your eyeglasses" (but still one that spits out everything on film).

Via Boston Reddit.

By adamg - 12/24/15 - 5:12 pm
Chickens in Cambridgeport

Ari Ofsevit reports he felt a lot safer around these Cambridgeport chickens than he would around some Brookline turkeys.

By adamg - 12/24/15 - 9:50 am
Charles River rowing

Shannon Dooling watched some rowers on the Charles River this morning.

By adamg - 12/21/15 - 3:47 pm

And, of course, this being the Boston area, she also offered free Dunkin' Donuts coffee and donuts, the Globe reports.

By adamg - 12/16/15 - 6:28 am

The Harvard Gazette reports researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed "a model of human intestinal inflammation and bacterial overgrowth in a human-gut-on-a-chip" that should make it easier to figure out and develop possible remedies for such ailments as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

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