Harvard

Harvard students walk down Dot. Ave., interact with people in a different socioeconomic milleu

adamg — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:38:58 +0000

Via DotRat, who suggests the students were maybe overthinking the concept of Dot Ave.

At Harvard, the books are bigger

adamg — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:12:36 +0000

The Crimson reports on debates over the future of the school's libraries in this digital age, provides one professor's reason for preferring having to scoot around the university to do research:

Some of the books Staehli uses measure more than six feet in height, and the experience of handling these unique, highly-detailed books cannot be replicated on a computer screen, he says.

While it takes only a second to flip a page, it can sometimes take up to several hours to download a high-quality file, he noted.

Harvard lowers sights for Allston intersection: Now says it can become the new Davis Square instead of the new Harvard Square

adamg — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:17:35 +0000

The Crimson reports on Harvard's latest, still kinda vague plans for Barry's Corner, the Allston intersection it basically bought up back in the heady days when it was going to transform the whole area into the Harvard for the Next Millennium.

Harvard police to be out in force tonight to deal with rampaging drunken freshmen, flaming boats in the Charles

adamg — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:41:59 +0000

Tonight's the forbidden ~~dance~~ River Run bacchanalia the night before Harvard freshmen learn their housing assignments for the next three years. The Crimson reports Mayor DePasto ordered the college to prevent a recurrence of River Run excesses of the past.

With Filene's planning under way again, city turns eye toward other massive nothingness, out in Allston

adamg — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:48:57 +0000

The Crimson reports on vague promises made by Harvard at a community meeting last night to maybe come up with a new plan for its stalled Allston science center and a grad-student apartment building in Barry's Corner:

"If, in October of this year, you are still not satisfied with what the University is telling you about the Science Complex, I guarantee you the mayor won't be satisfied,”[BRA planner Kairos] Shen said.

Shen pointed to a new pizza place and work on a new Swiss bakery on Harvard-owned land as proof the city can work with Harvard to get things built.

Caffeine huffing just the thing for people who don't have time for one of those little energy-drink bottles

adamg — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:42:44 +0000

Associated Press highlights the controversy over a caffeine inhaler invented by a Harvard professor. It got mixed reviews at Northeastern, where the company marketing the thing gave away free ~~fixes~~ samples. The company says caffeine snorting is the perfect way "for people with active lifestyles to get their caffeine fix."

Wait, we have a Miss Boston?

adamg — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:41:24 +0000

Indeed we do, and a Harvard sophomore is one of 10 competitors:

"Being from Harvard makes me unique, but I'm sure they all have their strengths and components that make them unique," Beck said.

Matt Drudge is probably not roaming Harvard stealing laptops

adamg — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:40:47 +0000

Stop, thief!But somebody who looks like him, at least in low-res surveillance photos, is.

Harvard University Police report this guy was seen entering Rm. 238 in Mallinckrodt Lab on Oxford Street, around 1:50 p.m. on Saturday and then exiting about a minute later - leaving behind a space where a laptop used to be. "Suspect is connected to numerous thefts on campus."

If he looks familiar, contact HUPD at 617-496-3223.

Actual Drudge, for comparison.

Harvard libraries steal page from BPL: Announce transformational change and, oh, yeah, layoffs

adamg — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:29:48 +0000

Librarians at the world's second largest private library system learned today they're now playing musical chairs. At a "town hall" meeting on the U's plans to build the 21st century library, workers learned some of them will no longer be needed, although which ones were not announced, according to the chatter on #hlth on Twitter and a report by Library Journal.

Some may recall that BPL officials made similar statements about entering the 21st century even as they proposed cutting branches and services.

Harvard to remove Checkpoint Charlies on Thursday

adamg — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:02:59 +0000

The Crimson reports that with the end of a major presence by Occupy Harvard, the U is re-opening Harvard Yard to the public sometime tomorrow. But as Ron Newman notes in the comments, the hours are limited - no more romantic moon-lit late-night strolls through the Yard, plebians.

You CAN pahk ya cah in Hahvahd Yahd, if ya put ya mind to it

adamg — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:05:52 +0000

All it takes is a little extra tap on the accelerator, somebody discovered today. Jason Mihalko was on scene to record this rebuttal to the old nostrum.

Cambridge Police report two people were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries in the accident, which is still under investigation.

Harvard tents come down next week; will Harvard re-open the Yard?

adamg — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:18:05 +0000

The Crimson reports organizers want to move to "a new phase of activism," although they want to retain a geodesic dome donated by MIT students. Still up in the air: Whether the end of the encampment will mean Harvard will re-open its gates to people without university IDs.

Man's addiction spirals out of control until he hits rock bottom and begins pretending to be a Harvard freshman

adamg — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:02:43 +0000

The Crimson recounts the sordid tale:

Liu said that when a freshman acquaintance asked him to spend time in Weld, he was reluctant, but he eventually decided to go ahead. Sometime during October, he began telling freshmen he lived there.

"You get so deep, you don’t know how to stop it," he said.

Imagine a million billion tiny little robots swarming around your head

adamg — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:28:38 +0000

Harvard researchers are hard at work on ways to build and control massive swarms of tiny little robots. They're only up to about 1,000 insect-like "kilobots" at a time, the Crimson reports, but a swarming-algorithm researcher can dream:

The vision might be a million billion robots flying around, each of which has a little component of some building, and they just swarm around and pretty soon you'd have a building the way ants build an anthill. That's pretty far away from what's sitting in any research lab I know about. But the algorithm development is on the way.

Note that these researchers are different from the ones hard at work on octopus-like boneless robots.

Some Harvard students learn that, hey, those teaching assistants telling them to wear safety goggles knew what they were talking about

adamg — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:57:23 +0000

The Crimson reports a bunch of students in a biochemistry class basically got sunburned eyeballs because they were in "a lazy kind of mood" and didn't bother to put on protective goggles while using UV light in some experiments on DNA:

As a result, they suffered from what Adeyemi was told may have been “thermal retinal burn from UV radiation,” a condition that includes symptoms of eye redness, pain, and blurry vision.