Ask SIPB
Want to use the software on Athena? Wondered what sorts of cool things you can do? In this column, we discuss some of the useful software you can find in Athena lockers.
IHTFO(utfit)
As a graduate student at MIT, I am consistently amazed at the insight and intelligence of my classmates. Sadly, not a day goes by that I’m not simultaneously shocked by the cluelessness that my fellow males seem to have regarding basic fashion.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’ve always been of the school of thought that motion pictures are meant to be a communal experience. Watch Buster Keaton’s <i>The General</i> at home on your computer screen, and it’s pretty funny. Watch it on a large screen surrounded by dozens of other people, and it’s absolutely hysterical, especially on a first-time viewing. As far as serious cinema is concerned, being able to laugh or cry with others is perhaps the best way for people to grow closer with a group.
Underground Inquiry
A fascinating creature lives in the glaciers and snowfields of the North American continent. Measuring less than an inch and long thought to be mythical creatures, ice worms not only survive in this harsh environment, but they have evolved to thrive in it. In fact, if an ice worm is warmed to even just 5 degrees Celsius (or about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), the proteins making up their membrane structures disassociate and they “melt.” As a result, while most of life on Earth seeks out the sun for sustenance, the sun is the ice worm’s mortal enemy. Ice worms have thus been scientifically dubbed “solifugus,” which is Latin for “sun-avoiding.”
A VP Debate Drinking Game
This Thursday! A debate for the ages! Two contestants, one vice presidency! Who will earn the honor of succeeding Dick Cheney?
Talk Nerdy To Me
Sex is full of trial and error. No one will ever claim that the best sex they ever had was when they lost their virginity, well, unless that was the only sex they ever had. Each person is different, and it usually takes a lot of experimentation to figure out just what works. However, do we reach a point where we get too comfortable and cease to experiment?
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’m the sort of person who has difficulty clothes shopping unless I know exactly what I’m looking for, and it’s hard to know what to look for unless you have a reference source. Consequently, most of my thrift shopping is focused on completing costumes. You’d think it’d appeal to more people — it’s like piecing together a set of armor — only you don’t get “Level 20 Poison Nova upon Level Up” power ups. More practically, costume shopping gives me a goal for Halloween now that I can no longer justify trick-or-treating.
Talk Nerdy To Me
69 is a semiprime — a Blum integer — and, more importantly, the only way most guys propose cunnilingus. Out of the handful of times (trust me, I can count it on one hand) that I’ve had this done, over fifty percent have happened in this context. Now, it doesn’t take a Course 18’er to realize that men are getting lazy. Well, speaking of math, I’d like note that the most important part of this position is body proportions. At a mere five feet, I haven’t fooled around with a guy less than eight inches taller than me. This normally doesn’t pose a problem — except here.
Ramblings from Hell
I have been doing this thing for most of my adolescent and young adult life, and I only realized I was doing it about a week ago. It goes like this:
Sarah Palin = Dolores Umbridge
This will be the first year in over a decade to not have a new Harry Potter book or movie released. If you’re suffering from Harry withdrawal, this election season has the perfect fix for you. You thought the magical world was the only one with a young hero who must save the world from an evil Dark Lord; a failed lame duck Minister of Magic; an old, grizzled Auror promising to make a clean break from said Minister; a pretty blonde reporter with a penchant for stretching the truth; and a Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) professor with a “personality like poisoned honey”? We muggles are not to be so easily outdone. Enter Sarah Palin who quite nicely completes this Harry Potter Election cycle.
Ramblings from Hell
Last Wednesday my poetry professor gave me an assignment: Keep a poetry journal, write a poem a day, or write poems at different times of the day. See what happens in the pages over seven days.
Talk Nerdy To Me
I never got the sex talk — my parents handed me a pamphlet, figuring that I’d learn what they considered my usual way; from literature and experts. Well, they were right, I did learn my usual way — the “hard” way. So, here’s some tips how to handle some common issues.
Ask SIPB
Welcome, especially to freshmen and new grad students! Ask SIPB is a column published semi-regularly by the Student Information Processing Board (SIPB), the volunteer student group concerned with computing at MIT, to help students like you learn more about the computing resources MIT provides, and how to make effective use of them. Look for more columns in the future, and feel free to stop by the SIPB office (W20-557) or e-mail <i>sipb@mit.edu</i> with any questions about computing at MIT.
Talk Nerdy To Me
Third base, oral sex, usually generates more controversy than sex itself. Well, even Bill Clinton claimed that oral sex isn’t really sex. He’s right — it’s a lot messier, and everyone has a different opinion of it. The act of giving oral sex really isn’t that complicated for both genders. There are some general guidelines: focus, change motions, use your hands if you need support, watching makes it better, and, whatever happens, don’t use your teeth.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Having now seen <i>Iron Man</i> at least three times on a screen with more square footage than my dorm room, I have by now heard at least three times that Tony Stark graduated from MIT “summa cum laude,” to our everlasting bemusement. Tee-hee-hee. Obviously, since MIT does not give out Latin honors or have class rankings (rendering Weird Al’s white and nerdy achievements conveniently unverifiable), this would be impossible. Unless, of course, MIT administrators both a) found Tony Stark’s underage aptitude worthy of a change in policy, and b) decided that hoity-toity Latin honors would be more befitting the reputation and background of the Institute than modifiers such as “12th level intellect,” “Ph.D. in Epicness,” “Jedi Uber-Master,” or some combination of the above. At this juncture, I’m not really sure whether (a) or (b) is the less likely. To be fair, the “summa cum laude” gaffe stems from way back in Iron Man’s origins in the comics, so the movie’s mistake actually represents faithfulness to the comic book canon, rather than simply poor research. (Sam Raimi, take note.)
Talk Nerdy to Me
<i>Editors Note: This column is part two of a four part series about rounding the proverbial bases.</i>
Talk Nerdy to Me
<i>Editors Note: This column is part one of a four part series about rounding the proverbial bases.</i>
Ramblings from Hell
As I was driving up to Boston from my home in New York for the last time this past Saturday, I remembered my orientation at MIT. For a second I panicked, because it seemed like I had grown up in the span of a second. I now live in an apartment on Beacon Street with a set of pots and pans, a full-sized bed, and a utilities bill — the stuff of old age, or at least the mid-twenties. What if I woke up tomorrow and I was forty years old?