Results tagged “mit”

What is it about Frank Gehry? When The Boston Globe reported this week that the architect (and a construction firm) is being sued by MIT, news organizations from Kansas City to Dublin reported the story. Does Gehry have a building in KC, too? Apparently, not, but he raised controversy there over an arena bid. Sound familiar?! The university filed a negligence and breach of contract suit, alleging design flaws in the $300 million Stata Center...

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King, and appreciated their beautiful skyline.

A 21-year-old MIT student was found dead on a Union Square building rooftop on Sunday night. Police believe that James Albrecht fell from the 243 East 14th Street onto the roof of a neighboring building, but it's unclear whether Albrecht fell or was pushed.

The most charming weddings article in the NY Times today is not in the Styles section, but the City section: It's about the many Queens couples who get married at Queens Borough Hall, a three-and-a-half story brick building designed by William Gehron and Andrew J. Thomas. About 9,000 couples got married there last year, and after being married by a deputy city clerk, sometimes they pose in front of a retired Redbird Subway car that is in the courtyard. The Times has a cute slideshow, too.

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery.

- And on a final non-NYC-but-big-movie-fan note, Chicagoist has a very special Get Well Roger Ebert project. Add your photograph of you giving the thumbs-up to the Get Well Roger Flickr Pool to let the recuperating critic know you care! And Roger definitely knows about it - it's on his website, too!

After focusing on September 11 and the primaries, we're a little late to this, but it's still worth sharing: MIT students paid tribute to September 11 by putting a fake fire truck on school's the 150 foot dome. Check out this WNBC slideshow, which says, "A student Web site said the fire engine was placed in memory of the attacks. The phrase 'meminimus,' Latin for 'we remember,' was painted on the truck's side. Inflatable dalmatians rode on the ladder truck," and usually MIT students leave detailed instructions on how to remove the objects. Those MIT kids are so thoughtful, though we can't tell what the reaction of September 11 victims' families would think (trite or tribute?).

-- Finally, A Hamburger Today gets an exclusive interview with NYTimes critic Frank Bruni, who claims to eat TWO BURGERS a week! That's a lot of red meat.

- The "Trouble with Vito" series in the Daily News continues! Now it's a suspect photo of Congressman Vito Fossella with Sesame Street's Elmo and Rosito that has appeared in both re-election media and a "taxpayer-financed constituent mailing." Fossella's people say that muppet picture and other were "indvertently" used on a reelection website. Inadvertently or advertently so the Daily News could plaster it on the front page?

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now.

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow.

So, it's been a little while since the last time we visited the Times Weddings and Celebrations by the Numbers but today there was no way we couldn't count 'em up. If you opened up the paper today you might have noticed that the familiar face of our very own Jen Chung and her new husband Jay Wilkins were the on top of the list of sixteen non-Vows weddings this week.

Phillyist notes a fistfight between local pols that leaves one man down for the count. Jehovah's Witnesses get a Philly contributor out of bed, things get a little geeky with a film festival and geeky gets taken to a whole new galaxy when they talk with the Dragon Queen of the Dark Kingdom.

Before we present you with this weeks paltry wedding numbers, we were wondering if you've ever wanted to bet on how long marriages announced on wedding pages will last? In which case, might we introduce you to Wedding Betting? Think HotorNot... but with weddings.

A fun weekend this week, so let's jump right into this week's Weddings and Celebrations:

Jonah Peretti, Director of R&D, Eyebeam

The NY Times's Sewell Chan follows up the Campbell Robertson story about subway riders not being that fazed by subway by the robberies (the one that got a Fader employee fired) noting that none of the iPod-toting commuters would stop using them on the subway and that during the early 90s, gold chain snatchings were the big subway crime of the day. There's also this great quote from MIT's Henry Jenkins about why iPods and other gadgets, like cellphones, are targetted:

The participation gap creates techno-envy, where the kids who are locked out of participation in the culture covet those tools and devices that are considered essential to being a young person.

Perhaps you were as surprised as Gothamist when you saw a meteorologist mentioned in the Sunday Styles section of the Sunday Times. In the essay David Carr offers his explanation of how the "changed the world" genre of pop history books that have recently become popular. You know the kind, "How the Irish Saved Civilization"; "Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World"; and "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" to name just a few. Along the way Carr comes to blame MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz for this phenomenon, citing Lorenz's 1963 paper presented to the New York Academy of Sciences. In discussing his research Lorenz quoted a meteorologist as saying "if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever", meaning that small changes in initial conditions can have enormous consequences later on. Lorenz later dropped the seagull in favor of a butterfly, in part because his calculations looked like a butterfly when graphed (you can watch the butterfly, or Lorenz attractor, in action). Carr may not have realized it but Lorenz's insight changed how meteorologists viewed the atmosphere and introduced the world to chaos theory. In his classic, for weather geeks, paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" Lorenz wrote

Dennis Crowley, Founder of Dodgeball.com

Not only is this jacket cute, it also will emit a shock to anyone who touches you unwantedly. Developed by MIT researchers, the No Contact jacket is meant to, conceptually, "intervene into the social condition of violence against women."

MTA has a $3 million subway simulator to help train subway operators. It's a replica of Lexington Avenue subway car - just in front of a movie screen. Newsday describes it as such:

There is a Quicktime video of the CFD being used to measure various products. Now, Gothamist has some issues with it, like the camerawork (get a better DP next time, James) and needing more information about how high the readings were for the products, relative to each other, plus needing a white paper or too, but we have to hand it to Patten: Constructing something out of "a discarded steel computer case, cut on a waterjet cutter and bent with a metal brake," with a "SaJe microcontroller and a Wasp barcode scanner," well, that takes some doing. [Thanks, Glenn]

Damn, the microfluidics lab at MIT is like a team out of Junkyard Wars - they built a robotic snail out of "unsophisticated gears, wiring and pieces of plastic."

In more slightly stale news, technology runs amok in the bathroom. Microsoft is attempting to introduce the iLoo, a system for logging on while you're "logging off". While we have often thought that the toilet was the correct place for Microsoft technology, we can't approve of this intrusion into our most private time. On the other hand, the article also mentions putting interesting URLs on toilet paper. Could this be a good opportunity for some Gothamist merchandising? (Read all about the iLoo true-or-not kerfuffle in Gizmodo.)

Olive Garden Insanity
Chelsea Olive Garden has been open for a couple months, but Gothamist only made it there last night. The purpose: To understand how a chain restaurant like Olive Garden can fit into our urban lifestyles.

If you like kinetic sculpture check out the work of Arthur Ganson. I saw his stuff exhibited at MIT. "Machine with Grease" is particularly cool.