Editor’s Note: “Sustainability” is a column granted to the Student Sustainability Task Force by the Editorial Board to discuss issues of sustainability on the Rensselaer campus and around the nation. Read more...

Remember way back in middle school/beginning of high school, that long chain e-mail that got passed around about a boy named Kyle who was bullied? Well, if you don’t remember it or haven’t received such an e-mail, here is a quick version of it: Read more...

onedotzero_adventure has done it again. Last Thursday, EMPAC hosted a double feature show, Wow+Flutter 11 and Wavelength 11, and they were both just visual treats. In the same vein as many others of onedotzero’s shows, some of the shorts were a little hit and miss, and some of them were amazing. Overall it averaged out to an amazing show, which is every way worth going to. onedotzero has a very high quality that they bring to all of their work, so like I’ve said in the past, love it or hate it, its quality will still impress you. Read more...

The baseball team started the season on a low note as it dropped its first two games during the Long Island Tournament. However, despite the losses, two players were awarded weekly awards by the Liberty League. Read more...

Between January 6 and January 20, six engineering students from RPI, led by professor Eric Ledet of the department of biomedical engineering, traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, in order to assess the unique needs of under-resourced medical clinics in the area. The findings from this trip are currently being used as the basis for the students’ senior design project—a low cost cushion to prevent and monitor the development of pressure ulcers for use by paralyzed patients living in South Africa’s rural areas—and sparked other research initiatives taking place at the Institute. In addition to learning about South African health care, the members of the expedition learned about life in South Africa as a whole, and gained insight into the struggles of underprivileged South Africans. Read more...

I hope everyone has been having a great week. Considering there has been an influx of new clubs this year, in this Derby I am going to explain the process for club formation at RPI. The timeline below provides a thorough breakdown on how a rising club/organization attempts to first receive Rensselaer Union recognition, and then, if appropriate, Union funding. It should be noted that the entire process for recognition is set-up to take between four to six weeks upon the completion of the application for recognition, but the time could certainly take longer depending on the circumstances. Read more...

Hello RPI! For the past two weeks, different committee chairs have been contributing to the Top Hat column. I hope that you have found them informative, or at least enjoyed the different perspectives. More guest Top Hats are coming, but this week I am back to writing the full column! Read more...

Nick’s Take

Every time I hear the words “Mojang released another game,” I know that whatever the game might be, it will involve a grid system, it will be rather cheap, and it will be a lot of good, addictive fun. I started playing Catacomb Snatch, a 2D top-down steampunk shoot ’em up strategy game which I got along with two other reasonably good indie games for about $5.50 in the Humble Mojam Bundle, with the single player alpha version. While it was definitely a 60-hour indie game in terms of graphics and development, and I wasn’t sure at all how to win, I still had a lot of fun creating turrets and railroad tracks and killing off snakes and mummies. Read more...

To the Editor:

I write to express my disappointment with the views put forth by Aaron Roth ’05 in the February 29 edition of The Poly. Quite frankly, he has no grounds to make such a claim that Colton Schroeder ’12 should not be allowed to express his personal opinion in a review. Read more...

This past weekend, much praise was heaped on Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist. A romantic comedy with just enough bittersweet drama to give it real emotional heft, this is a movie that not everyone might like. However, even those who don’t like it will probably understand why those who do like it, love it. Similar to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, The Artist is a tribute to a lost era of filmmaking. Read more...

Kirk Smith ’15’s editorial notebook on the My Little Pony series was surprising, to say the least. I did not expect to read synopses on pony characters with names like Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. My days largely consist of biomedical workloads; determining how much pressure one applies to a stethoscope chest-piece and studying how fiber spinning affects biodegradable tissue networks are just two of the things on my mind right now. So when I sit down with the school newspaper, I want to relax. However, I don’t want to find gray matter leaking out of my ears because my mind can’t focus on things like “Rainbow Dash is the tomboyish pony. She can be ridiculously lazy ... floating on clouds ...” Read more...

Have you ever wondered why the stadium lights on the East Campus Athletic Village, Harkness Field, Anderson Field, and Renwyck Field shine so brightly so many nights each week? Could it really be necessary for those facilities, along with ECAV Arena, to be illuminated for a minimum of five nights a week? And is it really that critical to have the Armory, the ’87 Gym, and ECAV boast hours that run from the early morning to the late evening nearly every single day? Read more...