Cal Tech and MIT have had a fun rivalry going for a few years now (or rather the practice of hacking between the two schools increased during my undergrad years). Knowing that I wasn’t too surprised when I received a link to mitrejects.com and saw the end result.

It’s a relatively harmless and humorous little joke, but I wonder how the Cal Tech administration will respond. More interestingly, I wonder the Cal Tech administration can do. I doubt there is any law on the books anywhere that mentions “defamation via domain name.” My guess is that Cal Tech will look of the owner of the domain name and ask them nicely to stop redirecting it to caltech.edu. The joke may end there, but if the owner of the domain name politely declines the request, I expect that Cal Tech will look into legal options before ultimately realizing that the mostly likely option for resolving the issue will be to issue a request or “take-down notice” of some sort to the domain registrar for the domain mitrejects.com. At that point it would not at all surprise me if the domain redirect was killed by the registrar, trumping the wishes of the actual owner of the domain name.

It’s a realistic possibility, and it begs a couple questions:

1. Should there be laws preventing this sort of internet bullying/pranking?
2. Should your domain registrar really be able to force you to accept terms of use that cede your control of the domain to them?

Note: this is all entirely speculative, and potentially completely wrong and inaccurate. I however, don’t think it’s a bad guess.

I saw this a couple weeks ago on a certain, well known torrent site. I just thought it was really cool that MIT is making use of a distribution channel as effective as bittorrent, even though only “bad” people use it.

It’s been a long time coming, but my last grade just posted, and my degree audit is officially complete. Up till now I’d been planning to hang around MIT until June to take some more classes I’m interested in. We’ll see how that pans out as I figure out my life plans for February onward.

Figuring out spring plans isn’t really a very taxing problem, and my second biggest problem in life right now is figuring out when I get to turn my brass rat around. Can I do that now, or do I have to wait until I officially get my diploma in February? Or should I be waiting until I actually walk in commencement in June?

Life is tough sometimes.

Over the past few weeks my friend, and fellow MIT student, Akash G. Shah and I have been working on a paper for a class here at MIT. The class is called 6.805 Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier, and focuses on internet policy and privacy rights. We completed our paper, Time for Change: Why the Age of Digital Mail Requires New Legislation, yesterday.

If you have any interest in privacy on the internet, you might find it worthwhile. We had some good interviews, illustrated some interesting scenarios, and did some preliminary analysis. The main idea is that email is no longer just text based messages. Everyday people use email more and more like a digital filing cabinet, storing large quantities of personal, senstive, and privaate data. That information should remain private, and people expect it to. Currently laws that regulate electronic communications are not adequate to protect the privacy of Americans. This is why we feel it is Time for Change.

I saw that iTunesU went up a while ago and I think it’s really cool that iTunes is making the distribution of these materials even easier than it already is.  There is actually a ton more material available available on http://ocw.mit.edu, but this is a great way to broaden the audience for MIT’s course materials.  It’s just weird to see myself in the streaming video of the 3.091 Intro to Solid State Chemistry lectures on iTunes.  I definitely never thought while I was taking that class that someday my notetaking and mid-class joking around might one day be streamed to the world via iTunes.

I recently got this promo from apple via email and just thought it was cool that MIT is right there in the center of it  .

iTunes U Ad

I ran into my buddy Brandon at our division picnic today at work.  Brandon and I worked together as interns on the same team last summer.  While we were discussing our current projects, I was introduced to a couple of his co-workers from his project.  I happened to be wearing a Sigma Chi t-shirt today and Joe, one of Brandon’s coworkers asked me “Where’d you go to school?”  I responded with “MIT” and was surprised to see the silence that was suddenly injected into the conversation. Eventually Joe responded with “I’m an Alpha Theta” informing me that he too had once lived at 532 Beacon Street and knew the ins and outs of the House and organization I’ve called home for the past four years.

Joe and I quickly switched the conversation over to a more familiar vernacular and were discussing courses and previous jobs like old friends.  The bonds you form with people through common experience are pretty amazing, and it’s always really fun to run into somebody who understands what your path through life has been like.

We rejoined the group conversation a couple minutes later immediately greeted with “So are you guys gonna start doin some secret brother stuff? Let’s see a handshake!”  Joe and I just smiled, laughed and responded with “You guys already missed all that.”  I’ve never felt the need for a place to belong, but I’m glad I have it and I’m always proud to be a part of Alpha Theta Sigma Chi.

This is the room label for the kitchen area at the MIT GAMBIT lab. It’s a game research facility so at least it makes sense. Still amusing though.

i recently heard another student talking to some friends while sitting in a lecture hall waiting for class to start. I thought it was funny so i decided to share.

hyperlinks are the worst thing that every happened to my study habits.

Around MIT we often hear professors or TAs use this phrase to refer to some part of an explanation, or problem, usually the end. Oftentimes people here get so caught up in solving something so quickly they neglect the small details. I know a very smart man that always pauses to clarify the distinction between trivial and simple.