Chris M. '12
Jan 23 2012
MIT Outing Club: Ice Climbing
Posted in: Miscellaneous
A critical factor in getting outdoors is having something to do, and for most people, they go through a rotation as the year goes round and temperatures and conditions rise and fall. For me, summer and fall mean rock climbing, and winter and spring mean skiing. But I've become more and more interested in adding a few new winter sports to the mix, and the one I've had my eye on the most is ice climbing.
If you want the technical definition of ice climbing, I don't know it. But a layman's definition might be something like trying to get up cold vertical stuff using axes and crampons and an assortment of other tools, just like climbing makes use of your hands and feet to get up not-that-cold vertical stuff. The gist of it is you swing these ice axes up over your head, sinking them into an ice sheet deep enough for you to support yourself on, and kicking spikes on your feet into that same ice sheet to stand on. Climbing is a motion somewhat like climbing a ladder: Hang on left arm,... read the post »
Jan 14 2012
IAP: It’s Amazing Pterodactyl
Posted in: Life & Culture
Oh hi there. I'm back on campus now for IAP (Independent Activities Period, but I think "It's Awesome Pterodactyl" is much more descriptive), which traditionally is when all the students return to see all their beloved green covered in snow, and those from equatorial climates suffer at the horrifying discovery of what "windchill" is. This year however, is a bit different. There's no snow to be seen, and temps are relatively warmer than usual. Not bad for campus, but unfortunate for those of us hoping to ski--there's not really snow anywhere in North America.
But some fluke warm winter weather won't prevent the Outdoors Club (MITOC) from having it's annual "Winter School". Winter School is a series of lectures and trips designed to help introduce people to the fun they can have in the snow. They go through everything you need to know if you haven't been out in the snow before, including layering, eating, drinking, and the technical aspects of many different wintersports, such as:... read the post »
Dec 8 2011
The Complexity of Simplicity
Posted in: Miscellaneous, Freshman Applicants
Did you know the soda can top (or "pop" can for those of you so inclined) took ~5 years to perfect and develop? And look at it. It's simply a tab on a lever that punches out a precut piece of aluminum. It's hard to imagine a simpler mechanism. And yet, to get that simple took an enormous amount of work.
In fact, this "simplicity follows complexity" idea is one that I've learned more and more throughout my time here at MIT, and particularly through one of my favorite classes, 2.009. (As an aside, that last half of the sentence was difficult to type given that I'm averaging 12hrs a day in lab with at least another 4 spent on work for that class alone, but if I'm honest with myself it's still true).
I've learned that in engineering, it's not that difficult to design individual solutions to all your design criteria, and then your proposed solution is just the superposition of all the little solutions. It's not that hard to make a design more complex by just solving all the... read the post »
Oct 27 2011
#Winning
Posted in: Best of the Blogs, Miscellaneous
Most of my entries center around things I've learned or experienced in my always interesting (if occasionally miserable) time trudging through the 4 years of masochistic glory that is MIT.
This is not one of those entries.
Instead, I want to focus on something much more grandiose, much more important––and much MUCH geekier.
It all started, as most nerd fights do, on twitter and facebook.
(cue flashback music)
Some brief background: MIT apparently leads the pack of Ivy+ institutions in Facebook page "likes". Cornell is super jealous, and they started trash talking a bit with this message:
Notice the comment about the Doonesbury girl. What they're whining about is that in 2006, the writer of Doonesbury put up a poll on Doonesbury.com asking readers where Alex should go to college. As nerds procrastinating psets are want to do, MIT students hacked the poll and snagged 48% of the total votes in favor of MIT. Since such tactics weren't explicitly forbidden (and... read the post »
Oct 9 2011
Angry Nerds
Posted in: Academics & Research, Life & Culture, Majors & Minors
On Friday, I'd had it. I was coming off of one of those weeks that will just run you absolutely ragged, and at around noon, I snapped. I ran into Killian Court and flipped the bird. I gave everyone the finger as crowds amassed on the sidelines to see what the commotion was about.
But instead of a police presence, and maybe a trip to MIT Mental Health, I was greeted with cheers and pom poms and a strange ghostly feeling rising in my mind that I've forgotten how to put in words.
Fu....Fun? Ah yes, that's it––fun!
As you can probably surmise from Matt's entry, there's a class called 2.009 that is one of the Mechanical Engineering Capstone courses, and it has to be the best class at MIT by a long shot. You might have also seen this picture on Matt's entry:
Wait a minute.....what's that? Can we enhance the image?
.jpg)
Hmm the back of that head looks familiar* Enhance it further:
Oh my gosh! That's me! And the aforementioned finger!
Yes, The truth is, I know so... read the post »