On Wednesday, January 30, IBM and President Shirley Ann Jackson announced that RPI will receive one of IBM’s Watson systems. As a result, Rensselaer will be the first school of higher education in the world to receive such technology. Read more...

The Student Incentive Program is a special deal offered by various Troy businesses in which a discount of roughly 10–15 percent off of meals and services is offered to local college students. The discount, which was started last year, is an attempt to lure students down from Rensselaer Mountain
and into local establishments, as providing students with cheaper days and nights out and about in Troy should create a larger customer base. Read more...

Amidst the rapidly expanding construction along Congress Street, new businesses are staking claim in what promises to be a great location for college students looking to spend money. It is along this bottom floor of the College Suites student housing that Stir It Up Coffeehouse has claimed its position. Read more...

On Wednesday, January 23, members of the Beman Park and Hillside areas of Troy met at RPI’s Chapel and Cultural Center to discuss the issue of crime in the city, particularly in their areas. They were joined by Rensselaer’s Grand Marshal Kevin Dai ‘14, Associate Dean of Off-Campus Commons Cary Dresher, and members of the Troy Police Department. Read more...

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to school; I hope the first two weeks have been good so far. Today, I want to address an issue with the Red Hawk Shuttle service we have on campus, as well as with the Rensselaer Union. Read more...

With the movie industry’s broad shift towards digital films, RPI’s UPAC Cinema is hoping to upgrade the quality of its films with the installation of a digital projector. UPAC has suspended film projections until the installation of the new digital projector has been completed. Read more...

I like technology. I have quite a few technological devices. I’m not sure I’d be in college if it wasn’t for technology; if I had to apply to RPI with a paper form rather than online, they wouldn’t have been able to read my writing. As such, I’m typing this notebook right now on my laptop while my iPhone is ringing and I’m listening to music streamed from the server I built. Read more...

Hello RPI! I hope that I can speak for many of you when I say that it is nice to be back on campus, even though classes have begun again and free time will start to become scarce once more. If you are looking for something to do this weekend, there are two great events happening on Saturday. First, the Pack the Union Spring Activities Fair will be held from 11 am–1 pm in the Rensselaer Union. Over 90 students clubs and organizations have already signed up to attend, so make sure to stop by and see what your fellow classmates are doing here on campus. If your organization has yet to sign-up, there are still limited spaces available. Follow this link to submit your request: http://tinyurl.com/PackTheUnionS2013/. Second, the 36th Annual Big Red Freakout! will take place at 7 pm at the Houston Field House. All fans will receive a complimentary gift as they walk in the doors, so make sure to stop by the box office and grab your tickets today. This is a great tradition you don’t want to miss, and tickets will sell out! Read more...

James’ Take

This past weekend saw pre-release events for the newest Magic: The Gathering set, Gatecrash. The second set of three in the Return to Ravnica block, Gatecrash continues the revisiting of the plane of Ravnica, a gigantic world-city containing ten different guilds, each of which represents a different two-color combination. Gatecrash features the blue/black House Dimir, the white/black Orzhov Syndicate, the red/white Boros Legion, the red/green Gruul Clans, and the green/blue Simic Combine. Read more...

Hello RPI! I hope everyone’s first week of classes went well; the add deadline for classes is Monday, February 4, so make sure you get those in quick if there’s a class you’d like to get into. Read more...

For years, January has been known as the dry month for Hollywood. Due to awards season, most of the best films are released at the tail end of every year; 2012 was no different. The year went out with a bang with such great movies as Skyfall, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, and Django Unchained. However, looking forward to the next few weeks yields an expected drought of quality films. With the Golden Globes, Producers Guild Awards, and Screen Actors Guild Awards all done and over with, Hollywood is gearing up for the Academy Awards and essentially putting out B-movies until then. So when it came to planning this review, I decided to go back and check out one of the films that gathered many awards nominations while simultaneously slipping under my radar: Life of Pi. Knowing nothing about the book it was based on, or even much about the premise, I dove in only to be pleasantly surprised with what I saw. Read more...

Ever seen a little card on the back of the toilet or on the sink in a hotel bathroom with the instructions to leave a towel on the rack if you don’t want it washed? That card claims that a certain amount of water will be saved if a certain percentage of guests reuse their towels. These cards are not new—in fact, environmental activist Jay Westerveld noticed some in the 1980s. He noted that the hotels didn’t seem to care too much about the environment. Also, by washing towels less, the hotels would save money. Westerveld wrote an essay about this, in which he coined the term “greenwashing.” Read more...

Over the last few weeks, several incidents of crime occurred in the city of Troy. Among them were four armed robberies within three days and multiple instances of gunshots. Read more...

Whether it’s for a physics class, a math course, a history lecture, or a chemistry seminar, students at colleges and universities are bound to have a required textbook. While sometimes extraordinarily expensive, textbooks are key tools in getting a good grade in whatever course you may be taking. Read more...

I bet everyone is thinking that I am going to write about what I did during winter break for this notebook. Well, if you had bet money on it, you would have won yourself some extra spending cash, I am indeed going to articulate my wonderfully unexciting winter break. Nah, I’m just kidding, it was mildly interesting, otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to talk about when I come back to school and everyone would be super disappointed, right? Read more...

Sunday evening, President of the Union Jonathan Stack ’13 announced that the Union Executive Board had finished reviewing budgets for fiscal year 2014. These budgets outline funding for all Rensselaer Union-funded clubs and organizations, as well as all varsity sports. Members of the E-Board were assisted by Union administrators, who served as student activity resource persons. Read more...