Rachel F. '12
Sep 3 2012
Life After: A Collage
Posted in: Miscellaneous, Life & Culture
Hello from the other side! Like the wizened, immortal Jess Kim, I am finally An Old Person, relatively speaking.
Work
As mentioned in my graduation entry, I work at Bluefin Labs, a startup of roughly 20 engineers and data scientists (although we are ~50 people in total) based in Kendall Square, just a few blocks from MIT. I’m the youngest employee and the only new grad they’ve ever hired, so when I found out they were going to have interns for the summer, I was all like, “yay! I will not be the least experienced person there!”
...all of the interns were Ph.D students. “Rachel, are you even old enough to go to a bar?” (“Of course! barely.”)
My first month-and-a-bit was spent building a custom charting package to analyze social media commentary relevant to brands and topics. Only two weeks in, we released the first iteration of the software as a tool to compare stats on some of the most popular Olympics topics (who the heck is this Ryan Lochte guy and why are his fans... read the post »
Jun 13 2012
The Last All-Nighter
Posted in: Miscellaneous
The night before graduation, I was about to turn in for a good night's sleep so that I could wake up early the next day to figure out how to pack for the event under my regalia. But a fateful gchat with Chris '09, cofounder of Lingt and inventor of the iDoor, which I lived behind one summer and used to let my cat in and out when I was away, tumbled all these plans, only to build loftier ones in their place. As we reminisced over our shared ambitions of livestreaming graduation from our hats, I realized I didn't have to reminisce just yet, and pranced off to a machine shop in the A.M. after finding out about Justin.TV's livestreaming app, which sadly did not exist during Chris's graduation.
Lesson 1: Unless you've strategically exploited the UROP system for machine shop access (I did this freshman year), none of the good shops are available after midnight. My dreams of a sleek, servo-mounted, milled phone dock with an integrated charging cable were shattered.
Eventually, I... read the post »
Jun 8 2012
Graduation, Livestreamed
Posted in: Miscellaneous
http://www.justin.tv/rhotic/videos
ignore test videos and my potty mouth. may be off periodically to conserve battery
9:24am network connection is poor will try again when we start the procession
chris edit: working on embedding the official stream, which does not have an official embed option
chris edit 2: your precious tables are no match for my iframes!!!!
May 21 2012
rolltreppe
Posted in: Life & Culture
Chris Peterson once said, "rfong is a good photographer, and in order to do that you have to be really creepy." (Um...thanks?) It is that Machiavellian attitude which capacitates this blog and this miniature visual ode to my favorite MIT band, Rolltreppe.
I've been living under a rock for the last four years thanks to course 6, and didn't find out about these guys until I went to saxophonist Dylan's Emerson Scholar recital. Dylan, with whom I did FAP (Freshman Arts Program) almost four years ago, is about to graduate with a course 6 degree, numerous musical accolades, and a penchant for dual-wielding saxophones.
Rolltreppe describes itself as a "live funk and electro swing combo group". Its repertoire ranges from jazz standards:
To funky arrangements of other classic songs (here is a subset of the group at Dylan's Emerson recital):
To crazy original compositions (here they are winning MIT's battle of the bands):
To various combinations of the above mashed... read the post »
Apr 18 2012
The CPW Weather Machine Strikes Again
Posted in: Miscellaneous, Life & Culture
The weather sobered up just in time for CPW, and we celebrated the sunny warmth with a spring picnic. It was a day made for frivolity. I procrastinated long enough to contribute mint-lime-honey-rolled strawberries and sweet potato fries, which I've been wanting to make since I read this MIT alum's article about how he backward engineered McDonald's fry-making process (the part where he explains his thoughts leading up to using vinegar to slow the breakdown of pectin in the potatoes is pretty cool).
As the afternoon waned, we sauntered off into the grass with our guitars. Meanwhile, I caught the perfect lighting and discovered that everyone I know is absurdly photogenic.
SEE YOU ON CAMPUS TOMORROW!!!