MIT

Steve Pomeroy photographed today's hack: An entire room mounted on the underside of an arch-like structure outside the MIT Media Lab.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

The Tech reports Jason Reed, 30, was arrested after an early morning assault in Building 2.

Innocent, etc..

An MIT freshman apparently trying to get on the roof of MIT's homage to Dr. Seuss by climbing a ladder up to a hatch instead fell a floor and lay there overnight until a janitor found him early Thursday, the Tech reports:

His legs were seriously injured, he had signs of hypothermia, and he was taken by ambulance to a hospital. On Thursday night, he was in the intensive care unit at Cambridge Hospital.

The Tech adds:

There is no evidence that the student was hacking.

The Tech, the student paper at MIT, is currently giving away sex toys (DO NOT CLICK if you are at work, unless you work at an adult bookstore).

Change the way dining plans work.

The competition is underway at MIT.

The Tech reports 42% of MIT students considers themselves virgins (way higher than the national average), with chem majors the least likely to have had themselves deflowered. The report also discloses that 52% of non-virgin seniors have committed floorcest, or sex with dorm mates.

President Obama comes to town for two appearances - a speech at noon at MIT's Kresge Auditorium on clean energy, followed by a limo ride over to the Westin Copley Place to have lunch with pal Deval Patrick, who is running for re-election next year.

The Tech reports MIT has changed the route of some of its student shuttle buses because of complaints from Back Bay residents about squeaky buses rattling their windows.

Ed. copy desk note: I'm betting the "Congress representative Martin Walsh" the Tech refers to is really state Rep. Marty Walz.

Michael McGraw-Herdeg at MIT dissects the Globe's widely disseminated story about the experiment to use Facebook to check somebody's sexual orientation: The story doesn't mention that the experiment was done back in 2007 until 944 words in and the basic technique has been in use for at least six years now:

... Johnson quotes a 2009 conference paper where scientists warn: "Using friends in classifying people has to be treated with care," because the classifications can be weak. Sounds like someone ought to check this against the social-network-terrorist-sniffers whose software has, the [Wall Street] Journal reports, "foiled a Pakistani suicide bombing plot on Western targets and discovered a spy infiltration of an allied government." ...

Likely flu outbreak at MIT.

Via the Great Dome (and that via Ryan Kelly).

Joel Brown previews "Truth Values: One Girl's Romp Through M.I.T.'s Male Math Maze," a one-woman show in Central Square this September by a woman who majored in math there.

Jessica Fargen at the Herald interviews a member of the League of Extraordinary Busybodies the MIT Crime Club, who, you may recall, hired a private eye to get arrested investigate the Harvard murder house and who say they were only trying to help out their cousins over at the Crimson end of town:

"It's about us giving them the ability to promote security without having to take the heat for it. We take the heat," said 1987 MIT graduate James Herms, who described the MIT group as campus crimestoppers.

MIT Police report on an incident Monday night involving six banditos in bandanas buzzed into a dormitory by a student expecting visitors:

An MIT officer followed the fleeing white Mitsubishi as it drove along Memorial Drive and several other streets before hitting a parked car, at which time all suspects exited the vehicle and fled the scene. Massachusetts State Police and Boston Police assisted in searching the area to no avail.

One of the suspects failed to pull up his bandana, was described as Asian, heavyset, with short cropped hair.

Via Wicked Local Cambridge.

Some field research into the question.

Via Paul Levy, an MIT alum now working at a Harvard-affiliated institution.

Well, maybe "atop" is too strong a word, since it's not actually at the very top, but, still, it's not every day you see a Red Line car that far off the ground.

The Tech reports a dorm's attempt to drum up publicity for a party by leaving a large concrete "bomb" on a lawn outside resulted in a visit from the actual Cambridge bomb squad:

On Friday morning, students watched as bomb squad members sent a robot to inspect the concrete block, which was painted black with "DTYD" written in orange letters. A man in a protective suit inspected the block up close. A small explosive charge was detonated near the block.

The Tech reports that two MIT police officers were put on leave without pay for throwing roughly 300 copies of the paper in a recycling bin, apparently out of anger that the paper had reported on the arrest of an MIT cop on drug charges in East Boston.

Wait, MIT students still get their news on paper?

City, state and federal agents today arrested an MIT police officer after watching him get out of his cruiser and take delivery of a package stuffed with OxyContin and Roxycodone tablets, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Joseph D'Amelio, 38, was arrested, while still in uniform, around 6 p.m. at Advanced Automotive on London Street, the DA's office says, adding officials were alerted by FedEx workers who had opened what they thought was a suspicious package. The package contained 340 80-mg Oxycontin tablets and a number of 30-mg Roxycodone tablets, officials say.

Also arrested: Anthony Cristallo, 39, of Derry, NH. In addition to the drugs, officials seized $12,000 in cash.

Both men will be arraigned Monday in East Boston District Court on chages of trafficking in more than 100 grams of OxyContin, which could get them 20 years in prison.

Innocent, etc.

The Tech reports on what was no doubt an epic battle of wits at MIT the other night:

... Leighton arranged two 9" by 10" triangular pastries into a 90 square inch rectangle, shifted them diagonally, and sliced off the protruding two trangular corners to form two new baby hamentashen.

If hamentashen can keep growing and reproducing, he said, their exponential growth could solve world hunger! Of course, you can't do the same with round latkes. "Latkes don't have sex," he said. "They are shredded potatoes!" ...

The Tech reports two people were mugged on the MIT campus on Sunday. The perps are described as four black males, between 20 and 25, wearing puffy black jackets:

... In the second robbery, outside the Media Lab, the student walked through the group of four perpetrators, one of whom grabbed the victim. Once grabbed, the victim was held "in a choke hold" and then punched, the police said. ...

Rich Beaubien sees the menacing side of MIT's Stata Center.

MIT Police report one student used her Dunkin' Donuts card to unlock the door to the admissions office earlier this month. Unfortunately, for her, that also set off an alarm that brought campus police to investigate:

... The Dunkin Donuts card was retrieved from her backpack and she identified it as the tool she used to slip the lock on the door. ...

She was arrested and charged with breaking and entering in the daytime and possession of a burglarious tool.

Via The Tech, via MassCops.

Maureen Rogers implores MIT to stay true to its nerdy ways:

... My MIT buds were just unfailingly smart and interesting, though. And really good at their jobs.

Frankly, I don't see the attempts to normalize MIT will get all that far. After all, even the sex advice column in the newspaper is called "Talk Nerdy to Me." ...