MIT

Truckers trying to deliver an oversize boiler to MIT have instead been forced to cool their heels in Arlington because Somerville officials are refusing to allow the wide load on their streets.

YourArlington.com reports that at one point Thursday, 20 Arlington and Cambridge police and state troopers were on scene at Mass. Ave. in Arlington near the Cambridge line to escort a mini-convoy - the truck pulling the boiler and a couple of pickups - via Rte. 16 and Broadway and then into Cambridge. But while the driver got a permit from Cambridge, he never got one from Somerville, so instead the boiler will be parked in a Walgreens parking lot at least through Tuesday.

The delay is causing some headaches for MIT, which had sent out e-mail on Wednesday alerting faculty and staff of potential traffic issues on Portland and Albany streets yesterday and today while the boiler was being delivered to the Central Utilities Plant.

H/t to snuffles dog for forwarding news of the Boiler without a Country.

The indictment against Aaron Swartz on charges he used MIT networks to download 4.7 million documents from an online database of academic papers has some details of interest to net geeks, such as his use of pseudonyms like "Gary Host" and "Grace Host" (because he was using a "ghost" laptop, which he might have bought at Micro Center) and his preference for the Python scripting language.

And it also contains alleged observations of physical breaking and entering at an MIT basement wiring closet:

On January 4, 2011, Aaron Swartz was observed entering the restricted basement network wiring closet to replace an external hard drive to his computer.

On January 6, 2011, Swartz returned to the wiring closet to remove his computer equipment. This time he attempted to evade identification at the entrance to the restricted area. As Swartz entered the wiring closet, he held his bicycle helmet like a mask to shield his face, looking through ventilation holes in the helmet. Swartz then removed his computer equipment from the closet, put it in his backpack and left, again masking his face with the bicylcle helmet before peering through a crack in the double doors and cautiously stepping out.

Innocent, etc.

The Times reports Aaron Swartz, 24, was indicted today on charged he broke into an MIT wiring closet - physically breaking in, with his own hands - then using a network connection there to grab copies of documents from JSTOR, which sells online access to academic publications.

Swartz is a co-founder of Reddit, a geeky social network with an active Boston community.

Innocent, etc.

Via PC World, which notes:

Mario is currently working with other students and professors to program PR2 so it can wipe down the table and put the baking sheet in the oven.

Tinker Ready notes some MIT facts left out of today's Globe circular on MIT's 150th anniversary.

Nathanael Hevelone attended SkyArt, part of MIT's 150th anniversary celebrations, on Saturday. Historygradguy was also there.

More SkyArt photos.

Copyright Nathanael Hevelone and Historygradguy, respectively. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

This morning, Jeannie Vincent reported a traffic jam on Storrow Drive that suddenly ended around Fenway with no evidence of an accident.

If she'd been across the river on Mem. Drive, she could have stopped into the MIT mathematics department, where some researchers spent a fair amount of time studying these phantom traffic jams - and the way they're caused by waves they've dubbed jamitons:

The Tech reports a hapless laptop thief got only bruises for his efforts yesterday afternoon:

Wesley D. Graybill said that he saw the suspect making a dash for the exit, jumped in front of him, and slammed him into the wall. The suspect slipped by, but Graybill chased him down and was able to pull him to the ground. The researcher caught up and held down the suspect until the Campus Police arrived.

Graybill is a grad student at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The Tech reports his efforts came after other researchers surrounded the thief and tried to engage him in conversation to buy time for police to arrive; turns out the guy may be responsible for up to 30 laptop thefts at MIT.

The Tech reports a man who may have fallen two stories inside an atrium at the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex was taken to Mass. General with "a major head injury."

MIT charges a Littleton startup failed to pay licensing fees for three of its patents, so now it wants a judge to order the company to stop using them - and pay the fees.

It's MIT's second suit this month against Still River Systems. Last week, MIT sued Still River to force it to add an MIT researcher to a patent used for the company's single-room synchrocyclotron, which can be used to target an intense beam of radiation at certain types of tumors.

In a suit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, MIT alleges Still River agreed to pay it nearly $900,000 for the use of three other patents for the device - all based on work by Timothy Antaya, the researcher MIT charged was improperly left off Still River's patent. MIT says that as part of an agreement with the school in 2004, Still River agreed to sponsor Antaya's work on shrinking the size and cost of the devices - existing proton-beam accelerators can cost up to $100 million each - and to pay the licensing fee for Antaya's three patents, all assigned to MIT, then stop using them.

• Complete complaint
• Magnet structure for particle acceleration
• High-field Synchrocyclotron
• High-field superconducting synchrocyclotron

So the city better be snappy with those permissions, Cambridge Day reports:

“We want to create this space as quickly as possible,” Owu said.

MIT is demanding a Littleton company add a professor to a patent for a particle-beam generator used for treating certain cancers.

In a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Boston yesterday, MIT says Still River Systems could not have completed its single-room synchrocyclotron without the contributions of Timothy Antaya, a researcher at the school's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. But Still River's patent for the device lists only its founder, Kenneth Gall, as the inventor.

The Tech reports on MIT plans for the area around its campus, starting with construction of a new $100-million, five-story R&D facility at 298 Mass. Ave. next year and continuing with a decade-long effort to add up to 1 million square feet of office sapce and 100,000 square feet of retail to Kendall Square. A key part of the school's Kendall plans is to turn it into more of a destination location rather than a collection of random unconnected buildings, with much of the work focused on the area immediately around the T station.

MIT's president is inviting "city leadership" to her home for a chat on the plans. No word if an invite is going out to Councilor Ken Reeves, who recently called the guy in charge of all the planning "duplicitous and deceitful."

The two Cambridge institutions charge Cotendo, of Sunnyvale, CA, is violating patents they hold for speeding up delivery of content over the Internet.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Akamai and MIT focus on one patent owned by MIT and licensed to Akamai and two patents owned by Akamai, which also claims that

Cotendo has utilized product descriptions and designations developed and used by Akamai in the marketplace for years, such as “Dynamic Site Acceleration” ('DSA'), in an attempt to sell services that embody Akamai's inventions.

Complete complaint

Patents at issue:

• Content distribution system using an alternative domain name system (DNS) and content servers
• SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE DELIVERY OF WEB CONTENT USING HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND SPECIALIZED INTERMEDIATE NODES TO OPTIMIZE A MEASURE OF COMMUNICATIONS PERFORMANCE BETWEEN THE SOURCE AND THE DESTINATION
• HTML delivery from edge-of-network servers in a content delivery network (CDN)

The Huntington News reports on a case of vomiting in a can:

The student said she had been drinking vodka and Four Loko at a party at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center by ambulance ...

About 90 minutes later, another student was spotted stumbling into a dorm and, when quetioned by EMTs summoned by an RA, admitted she'd been drinking Four Loko as well.

Northeastern's health services recently urged students to swear off Four Loko, in a letter that says nothing about vodka.

Ken Reeves tucks it to MIT, specifically, the guy in charge of development of MIT property in Kendall Square, in an op-ed piece in the MIT student paper.

The Tech reports on the annual Ig Nobel awards in Cambridge. Winners got $10 trillion - in Zimbabwean currency.

They're getting boxes like nobody's business; harried campus-mail workers struggling to keep up.

Ed question: Hmm, wonder if any of them are being misdirected to Allston?

Melanie McCue reports the MIT TARDIS appeared on top of the Great Dome today. It was last spotted near the little dome last week.

Posted under this Creative Commons license and in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Melanie McCue noticed the Doctor dropped in on MIT today.

Posted under this Creative Commons license and in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

The Tech reports on the quiet end to the suit by two volunteers cleaning up the Charles who received some nasty burns when they dragged up a block of sodium that then exploded in 2007 (three other volunteers were also burned). Dropping sodium blocks in the Charles had been a big fave among MIT student who like watching things explode.

Ooh, so she posed for a Polaroid to help shill for what's left of the company and MIT's giant collection of Polaroidiana. Whup.

Has she ever urged her listeners to shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture?

Didn't think so.

Boston Peeps:

I'm writing to invite you to the Ford Hall Forum for a talk titled "The Emerging Fifth Estate - Can the likes of Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks help solve real government problems?"

The talk is this Thursday from 6:30 to 8:00 pm at the Main Function Room, Suffolk University Law School. Admission is Free.

More questions than answers at this point, the Tech reports.

It's not every day you get to see a laser show at the Cambridge Public Library, but that is exactly the event that will kick off the 4th Annual Cambridge Science Festival.

The festival will run from April 24-May 2, 2010, with hundreds of events taking place throughout Cambridge. Organized by MIT, the festival will feature over 200 workshops, demonstrations, behind-the-scenes tours, talks, performances and more, open to the public, and almost all of it free. The idea behind the festival is to make science and technology accessible and fun for people of all ages and backgrounds. It all kicks off with a free Science Carnival featuring a specially commissioned laser show and 89 booths of fun experiments and demonstrations for all ages, Saturday, April 24th, 12pm-4pm, Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway. Laser show begins at Noon.

Other highlights of this year's festival include:

“Big Ideas for Busy People” on Festival Eve, April 23rd. This free event is a short series of talks on mind-bending concepts from leading local researchers in a variety of scientific fields.