Talk:Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Archive 2

message: This paragraph:
:Today, it stands as one the world's best science and engineering school. While MIT offers only 23 disciplines of doctoral study (as opposed to its rivals, which offer more than 43), it is ranked number one in the world in almost all of them. MIT's long-held tradition show that, whatever it has started, it has always been the best in the world.
This would be inappropriate even if a source were cited (and none is). 
The reason why it is non-neutral is that it is an example of making a factual statement that is susceptible of many interpretations ("MIT offers only 23 disciplines of doctoral study (as opposed to its rivals, which offer more than 43")) and and then following it with "spin" that promotes its interpretation according to a particular point of view ("...and here are the reasons why this proves that MIT is the best.") 
Suppose that MIT offered a larger number of disciplines of doctoral study than its rivals (which rivals? where do these counts come from?) this author would let that statement stand, unqualified, and adduce it as evidence as MIT's superiority?
If there's no serious discussion in a while I'll remove both the paragraph and the NPOV tag. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:20, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why wait? The paragraph is clearly inappropriate. Nuke it. Noel (talk) 21:37, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You talked me into it. Zap. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:15, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vanity again 

message: Moved the following paragraphs, which are interesting but not relevant to an encyclopedic article on MIT, to the discussion page:
::The first MIT student broadcasting station, WMIT, first signed on on November 25, 1946. It was a "carrier-current" AM transmitter located in the Ware dormitory and broadcasting over power lines at 800, and later 640 kilocycles ("kilocycles" being the proper period term for the unit of frequency now called the "kilohertz"). Audible only within a few hundred feet of the dorms, under then-current FCC regulations it could and did broadcast commercials and was self-supporting. 
::In the mid-1950s, the possibility of an FM license was explored and it was discovered that the call letters WMIT were in use by a North Carolina station. WTBS (for "Technology Broadcasting Service") was chosen as the best alternative. New facilities were constructed in the basement of Walker Memorial, including a switching and mixing console designed by A. R. Kent and Barry Blesser, believed to be one of the very first all-transistorized consoles ever built. On April 10, 1961 WTBS-FM signed on with 14 watts of effective radiated power at 88.1 megacycles FM. 
::WTBS continued to operate the carrier-current system to the dormitories, with an identical program, except for commercial breaks, during which the noncommercial FM station filled time with public service announcements, and, later, parody "ads" for products such as "Apple Gunkies" and firms such as "Nocturnal Aviation." The all-request "Nite Owl" was a popular weekend feature, and a "Waveform of the Week" was broadcast for the enjoyment of MIT students watching the program on oscilloscopes. 
::In the late 1970s, Ted Turner, then operator of WTCG in Atlanta, wanted to use the call letters WTBS. Although call letters are not technically for sale, Turner and WTBS worked out a loophole whereby Turner gave a $25,000 donation to WTBS with an agreement that WTBS would apply for new call letters, with a second donation of $25,000 promised if the FCC were to subsequently grant the letters to Turner. All went as planned, WTBS used the donation for new transmitter equipment, and on November 10, 1979 the station signed on as WMBR with 200 watts of power. (Wags nostalgic for the old letters complained that WTBS had sold its birthright for a mess of wattage).
--MITalum 14:59, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of MIT's radio station 

message: The Harvard article says that a proposed Harvard-MIT merger was "cancelled by the Massachusetts courts"; this page says that protests from alumni stopped it. Which is correct? jdb ❋ (talk) 02:28, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger? 

message: Sure about this?
::However, MIT does not normally grant permission for location shooting on its campus, and most of the scenes set at MIT were actually filmed at substitute locations.
I've seen camera crews around MIT.
Roadrunner 17:45, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure Good Will Hunting and A Beutiful Mind were not shot on campus.  The only actual shot of the campus in Good Will Hunting is a generic shot of Killian Court from afar.  The only instance where I do know of actual on-site filming was Blown Away back in 1993, and I already placed the link to The Tech article about it a while back.  I'm not sure if MIT actually has a policy on filming, but I don't think I've ever seen professional camera crews around MIT.  The only ones I've seen were those for student productions.  --Umofomia 23:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Some of Goodwill Hunting may have been filmed at Central Tech, but a good chunk of it (classroom scenes, Robin Williams' character's office) were definitely filmed at the University of Toronto.  I'm convinced they didn't erase some of the equations on the chalkboard after one of my classes. :) moink 00:51, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location shooting 

message: This section is dangerously negligent, myopic, or just inaccurate.
*MIT's contributions to twentieth century science and technology include the Whirlwind computer, which introduced magnetic core memory; the Lisp programming language; the Multics operating system; the X Window System; and many cultural contributions to the development of personal computing.
I think MIT has a few other contributions than just the Whirlwind computer.
:You mean, like the Bush Differential analyzer? 'Pears to me they did some things with radar, too, even if it was the British that came up with the cavity magnetron... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It would take some careful work to research present this from a neutral point of view, but MIT was, or at least MIT people were, influential in the creation of the National Science Foundation. In fact you could say that what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" was actually a "military-industrial-university" complex and MIT had a role in creating that... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT History 

message: :A lot of junk in here needs fixing. There is also a lot of pointless stuff that is related to MIT but doesn't have to continue a sentence on, which makes the whole focus of this article lose my interest. If you're going to link someone's name, leave the whole information to that link, don't add it to this article. Wikipedia was build to be that way. Other than that "The term "hacker" and much of hacker culture originated at MIT," Originated? Hmm.....right... I think the person who invented the wheel was a hacker. Maybe Tesla was a hacker. I think MacGyver was a hacker.. I wouldn't give the credit to MIT. 
:Something that makes me humoured is the fact that MIT doesn't like the idea of social status within society but tuition and living is $50k+ a semester or so.. pathetic. That's why I'm becoming a M.D. I guess you could say that 72% or so recieves financial aid, like that matters. Why's the price so high fellows? I don't have to be an idiot to know that it contradicts what MIT is for. From my understanding some professors don't like the tuition idea. This is a joke, but so is America.
--Cyberman 10:20, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Needs Fixing 

message: Traditionally, the appearance of a new issue of Voo Doo, the MIT humor magazine, was accompanied by some sort of hack by the staff, the most memorable of which was probably the landing of a helicopter within the Great Court, from which emerged a person in a gorilla suit who ran into Building 10, grabbed a copy of the new issue, and ran back out to the helicopter which then left. The FAA expressed its displeasure over the failure to file a correct flight plan within a heavily trafficed area with heavy fines.  The John F. Kennedy assassination occurred on a Voo Doo-release Friday. Many students discounted early word-of-mouth news of the event, suspecting it of being a Voo Doo stunt; Voo Doo's taste, discretion, and political leanings in 1963 made this at least conceivable.
MIT's particular strain of anti-authoritarianism has manifested itself in other forms.  In 1977, two female students, juniors Susan Gilbert and Roxanne Ritchie, were disciplined for publishing an article on April 28 of that year in the "alternative" MIT campus weekly thursday.  Entitled “Consumer Guide to MIT Men,” the article was a sex survey of 36 men the two claimed to have slept with, and the men were rated according to their sexual performance: no star (“a turkey”), one star (“recommended in emergencies only”), two stars (“mediocre but worth trying”), three stars (“a good lay”), and four stars (“a must fuck”).  
Gilbert and Ritchie had intended to turn the tables on the rating systems and facebooks men use for women and act as the aggressors, but their article led not only to disciplinary action taken against them, but to a protest petition signed by 200 students, as well as condemnation by President Jerome B. Wiesner, who published a fierce criticism of the article.  The weekly’s Feature Editor and Editor-in-Chief were also disciplined for running the piece.
In 1970, the then-Dean of Institute Relations, Benson R. Snyder, published The Hidden Curriculum, in which he argues that a mass of unstated assumptions and requirements dominates MIT students' lives and inhibits their ability to function creatively.  Snyder contends that these unwritten regulations often outweigh the "formal curriculum"'s effect, and that the situation is not unique to MIT.
The case of Scott Krueger is often cited as indicative of a recent trend among U.S. colleges and universities of having greater parental responsibilities.  The aftermath of this event led to a formal apology by president Charles Vest, a $6 million settlement with the Krueger family, and the restructuring of the undergraduate housing and advisory system .  The Krueger case marked the increasing influence of the doctrine of in loco parentis on college campuses across the country, making them accountable for alcohol-related deaths of their students.  The suicide death of Elizabeth Shin in 2000 also played a role in this trend and led to further restructuring in how MIT and other institutions deal with the mental health issues of their student populations .
In November 2001, the "Mental Health Task Force" released a report describing the psychological condition of the student population.  The Task Force report relates a survey, conducted in the spring of 2001, whose results they found troubling:
:Of the students who responded to the survey (half undergraduate and half graduate), 74% reported having had an emotional problem that interfered with their daily functioning while at MIT, while only 28% had used the MIT Mental Health Service. Even more worrisome, 35% of students reported a wait of 10 or more days for their initial appointment with the service, and 80% of the students were not aware of the daily afternoon walk-in hours. While nearly two-thirds of students rated their experience with the MIT Mental Health Service as satisfactory to excellent, only half would recommend the service to a friend, and overall, students saw the service as having a mediocre reputation.
Interestingly, in the early 1960s only about 10% of the student body sought out the Mental Health services during their time at MIT (see Snyder's The Hidden Curriculum, 1970).  As of 2004, MIT Mental Health is proverbial among students for sending depressed patients to McLean Hospital, and for occasionally refusing to let them return after McLean's staff believes they are healthy.  This habit has drawn both commentary  and derision .
HBO's television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon contains segments set at MIT, most notably in the episode covering Apollo 14.  The series portrays the Institute's denizens as very slightly eccentric engineers who do their part to keep the Apollo program running successfully.
MIT is also a recurring motif in the works of Kurt Vonnegut., much like the planet Tralfamadore or the Vietnam War.  In part, this recurrence may stem from Vonnegut family history: both his grandfather Bernard and his father Kurt, Sr. studied at MIT and received bachelor's degrees in architecture.  His younger brother, another Bernard, earned a bachelor's and a Ph.D. in chemistry, also at MIT. Since so many of Vonnegut's stories are ambivalent or outright pessimistic with regard to technology's impact on humankind, it is hardly surprising that his references to the Institute express a mixed attitude.  In Hocus Pocus (1990), the Vietnam-veteran narrator Eugene Debs Hartke applies for graduate study in MIT's physics program, but his plans go awry when he tangles with a hippie at a Harvard Square Chinese restaurant.  Hartke observes that men in uniform had become a ridiculous sight around colleges, even though both Harvard and MIT obtained much of their income from weapons R&D.  ("I would have been dead if it weren't for that great gift to civilization from the Chemistry Department of Harvard, which was napalm, or sticky jellied gasoline.")  Jailbird notes drily that MIT's eighth president was one of the three-man committee who upheld the Sacco and Vanzetti ruling, condemning the two men to death.  As reported in the 7 June 1927 Tech:
:President Samuel W. Stratton has recently been appointed a member of a committee which will advise Governor Alvan T. Fuller in his course of action in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, it was announced a few days ago by the metropolitan press. The President is one of a committee of three appointed, the others being President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard and Judge Robert Grant.  It was stated at Dr. Stratton's office that this appointment was very reluctantly accepted, for not only has the President not had experience with criminal law procedure, but he has not been following the case at all in the newspapers. It is thought by some that this very fact may result in an entirely unbiased review of the case, which might not be possible had he followed the case closely .
Palm Sunday (1981) a loose collage of essays and other material, contains a markedly skeptical and humanist commencement address Vonnegut gave to Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.  Speaking of the role religion plays in modern society, Vonnegut notes
:We no longer believe that God causes earthquakes and crop failures and plagues when He gets mad at us.  We no longer imagine that He can be cooled off by sacrifices and festivals and gifts.  I am so glad we don't have to think up presents for Him anymore.  What's the perfect gift for someone who has everything?
:The perfect gift for somebody who has everything, of course, is nothing.  Any gifts we have should be given to creatures right on the surface of the planet, it seems to me.  If God gets angry about that, we can call in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  There's a very good chance they can calm Him down.
Kurt Vonnegut was friends with fellow humanist and writer Isaac Asimov, who resided for many years in Newton, Massachusetts.  During much of this time, Asimov chose the date for the MIT Science Fiction Society's annual picnic, citing a superstition that he always picked a day with good weather.  In his copious autobiographical writings, Asimov reveals a mild predilection for the Institute's architecture, and an awareness of its aesthetic possibilities.  For example, In Joy Still Felt (1980) describes a 1957 meeting with Catherine de Camp, who was checking out colleges for her teenage son.  Asimov recalls
:I hadn't seen her for five years and she was forty-nine now, and I felt I would be distressed at seeing her beauty fade.
:How wrong I was!  I saw her coming down the long corridor at MIT and she looked almost as though it were still 1941, when I had first met her.
Asimov's work, too, trades on MIT's reputation for narrative effect, even touching upon the anti-intellectualism theme.  In "The Dead Past" (1956), the scientist-hero Foster must overcome the attitudes his Institute physics training has entrenched in his mind, before he can make his critical breakthrough.
The Infocom game The Lurking Horror is set on the campus of the George Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology, which strongly resembles MIT. Its fictional culture also parodies the MIT culture. For instance, G.U.E. Tech's class ring is known as the brass hyrax.
Frequently one sees tourists photographing each other with Building 10, site of the Great Dome, in the background.
Some cinematic references to MIT betray a mild anti-intellectualism, or at least a lack of respect for "book learning".  For example, Space Cowboys (2000) features the seasoned hero (Clint Eastwood) trying to explain a piece of antiquated spacecraft technology to a rather whippersnapping youngster.  When the young astronaut fails to comprehend Eastwood's explanation, he snaps that "I have two master's degrees from MIT", to which Eastwood replies, "Maybe you should get your money back."  Similarly, Gus van Sant's introduction to the published Good Will Hunting screenplay suggests that the lead character's animosity towards official MIT academia reflects a class struggle with ethnic undertones, in particular Will Hunting's Irish background versus the "English aristocracy" of the MIT faculty.
Noted physicist and raconteur Richard Feynman built up a collection of anecdotes about his MIT undergraduate years, several of which are retold in his loose memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!  Some of this material was incorporated into Matthew Broderick's film Infinity (1996), in addition to Feynman stories from Far Rockaway, Princeton and Los Alamos.
:All right, so some of this material was overblown, and that's my fault as much as anybody else's.  Maybe more so.  However, for the record, I'd like to state my opinion that the removal of several items here swung the article towards an uncritical, pro-MIT POV.  Specifically:
* The "anti-intellectualism" which several movies exhibit should be mentioned; it's part of American culture.
::* Looks like this has been added back to the article.  I don't think this is bad material, but it's not great either.  When one considers the huge number of movies that mention MIT in the first way, I don't think the Space Cowboys examples represents anti-intellectualism directed at MIT, I think it represents anti-intellectualism in general.  And many more universities -- or even going to college in general -- are used as that instrument in movies than MIT is.  MIT's use in pop culture has always meant traditional things, and I disagree that this is one of them. -- MITalum 15:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Anville 23:03, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * The stories and anecdotes moved here are most definitely interesting and should be preserved here on the Talk page, but they don't belong in the main article.  Even as some of these stories may be famous to students at MIT, most of them are not relevant or interesting to an external audience reading an encyclopedia article about MIT. - MITalum 23:37, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is representing MIT's student culture beyond the scope of this article?  What about giving references to the few books which have been written about it?  Girls writing about guys who are "must fucks" sounds far more interesting than a list of competitive college rankings.  ::: Anyway, I think that if we have worthwhile content that's up to WP standards, it belongs in the main namespace.  To keep it nicely organized, how about Works which reference MIT? Anville 15:06, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think much of this material could well go into the main article. It could be de-emphasized by positioning it near the end and giving it some kind of suitable heading, but I don't see why it needs to be banished to the Talk page. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "Consumer Guide" is in the current version of the article but I have removed a number of unnecessary details. I agree with above comment by MITalum - I question whether there is a point in leaving that in since it doesn't say much about the Institute, and certainly, I don't believe most current students have ever heard of this incident. Google search finds Wikipedia and a Tech link only. Janet13 07:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT Stories 

message: Yes we all know MIT is a great school. There are many others. Your language suggests this article was written by their PR department, as an advertisement primarily.
:Yes, academic boosterism is a perennial problem in Wikipedia. This article reminds me of an MIT graduate displaying their class ring while picking their nose. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, it was just one time, how was I to know that there was a photographer who would post it all over the internet? (just kidding) Gzuckier 21:44, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I guess it might seem to spin MIT in a grandiose kind of way... that is until one looks at other university articles on Wikipedia, especially Harvard University.  With an in-depth monologue on Harvard's prestige (plus a list of quotations relating to it!) that article is really out of control.  If there's a POV on this one, there should definitely be a POV on that one. -- MITalum 20:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

text: The obsessive documenting of Harvard's "prestige" is the consequence of an individual or group of individuals who insisted the original language (something to the effect that Harvard was "one of the most prestigious universities in the world") be supported by facts. The result is the citation-laden monstrosity you read. I suppose the moral is to be careful what you wish for. jdb ❋ (talk) 02:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen. The slippery-slope brothers, who essentially asserted that stating that Harvard and Yale were prestigious on their pages would inevitably lead to the assertion on the Hamfat Institute of Garbage Collection that it was prestigious, demanding that therefore such an assertion be linked to hard quantitative evidence. Gzuckier 21:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Just more academic grandstanding

message: I contributed this photograph of Simmons Hall. Someone might want to think of a way to work it into this article. The current picture of Simmons is very nice geometrically, but doesn't give you any sense of what the building actually looks like. --Mike Lin 21:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Insert the sound of a wide grin. Anville 20:43, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New photo of Simmons

message: :"MIT's alumni magazine, Technology Review, is one of the only alumni magazines in the world to be sold on newstands as a mass market periodical."
The statement is misleading, because what is sold on newstands is not really the alumni magazine--it lacks the class notes, the course notes, and probably the puzzle column. All the alumni stuff, in other words.
Conversely, most of what I receive in the mail is not really an alumni magazine. The 88 pages preceding the "MIT news" section have virtually nothing to do with MIT. 
They might as well glue Popular Science together with the real alumni magazine.
Technology Review is sold on newstands as a mass market periodical because it is a mass market periodical. What does it have to do with MIT, other than being sponsored by MIT? Do MIT professors write articles in it? Do you even know where its office is located?
(MIT professors did once write articles in it. I think I remember articles by Theodore Postol criticizing U. S. defense strategy. But I don't think I've seen anything like that since it went mass-market).
And what, exactly, is this supposed to be saying about MIT? The implication of the sentence as written seems to be that MIT alumni are so fascinating that people want to read a magazine about them. Give me a copy of People and a copy of Technology Review.
So, MIT is trying to make money by selling a magazine. Big deal. It's about as significant as the University of Wisconsin selling its own ice cream.  
I mean, this is less interesting than the fact that the Green Building is the highest building in Cambridge, not just "on campus." Indeed, this magnificent erection thrusts itself 100 feet higher into the Cambridge skyline than the tower of Harvard's Memorial Hall. (And that's not even counting all the antennas and cruft on top). Dpbsmith (talk) 01:47, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're completely right. And does MIT even make money on Technology Review anymore? My impression is it's at the point where it's basically completely published by non-MIT people, and gets to use "MIT's Magazine of Innovation" or whatever on the cover in exchange for dealing with stuffing class notes, and a little alumni office feel-good article, in the alumni versions. So basically, yeah, the magazine doesn't really have much of anything to do with MIT. --67.101.68.103 03:21, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks! Dpbsmith (talk) 12:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technology Review on newstands. Big deal. 

message: ... see User:Dpbsmith/rank Dpbsmith (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: If people based their college choices on Wikipedia articles...

message: We didn't have an article on Jerome Wiesner (and he wasn't listed in MIT people). I started one. Help would be welcome. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jerome Wiesner 

message: I changed MIT back to being a redirect to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, because:
1) Almost all of the articles which linked to MIT, referred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (they should probably be linked directly
2) Out of the first 100 google hits on MIT, 97 of them referred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1 referred to the Indian Ministry of Information Technology, and two pages didn't seem to have a reference to any MIT in them.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a link to the MIT (disambiguation) at the top of the page.
Arun 02:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect from MIT 

message: Should awards and things that MIT clubs, groups, extracurriculars, etc. have won be mentioned somewhere, perhaps in a new section of the page?  For instance, MIT has won the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Competition for the past 5 years.  It would be nice to say things like this, and other important achievements.   Nationalparks 05:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Achievements / Awards / Honors / Etc 

message: A while back, I zapped :Image:MITlobby7.jpg from the article, and an anonymous IP put it back.  Because I am cruel, heartless and vindictive, I removed it again.  It's still available in :Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (I filed it there); however, I believe an amateur photo of several dark blobs is not a worthwhile illustration for an encyclopedia article.  Note that the columns aren't even vertical.  This image adds nothing and is simply 25K we don't need.  An appropriate illustration for the "Course requirements" section would involve more students pulling out their own hair and much more spilt blood.  Anville 10:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's impressive that this photograph manages to be simultaneously underexposed and overexposed. --Mike Lin 14:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  LOL in a library! Anville 14:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I concur. It's too bad, because if you could only make out what was a picture of it would actually be rather evocative. Those pillars in the background, those window mullions (if that's what they are), and the students in the foreground. I've just tried tinkering with it with Photoshop Elements, but the fact is the shadow information just isn't there. But the columns are closer to vertical now, anyway. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

text:  Mike Lin makes an interesting point. I wonder how you would get a good picture of the lobby? Does Polaroid still make XR film? Maybe one could take pictures in very rapid succession at several different exposures and blend them. Or I suppose one could actually, well, light the place... but it wouldn't be easy. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'll be returning to the ol' stomping grounds next week, actually, and I'll see what my camera can do.  No promises!  Anville 10:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed picture of Lobby 7 

message: Bexley Hall went through AfD a little while ago; the consensus was to keep but merge into a general "dormitories at MIT" page.  Following that lead, I went through :Category:MIT and merged all the other dormitory articles into List of MIT dormitories.  Hopefully no one is too bent out of shape by not going through the whole AfD routine for each one.  Anville 16:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dormitories