On Monday, November 5, the Student Senate held its weekly general body meeting. Over the course of two hours, both the Vice President for Information Services and Technology and Chief Information Officer John Kolb ’79 and Professor of Composition Theory and Research Lee Odell presented information to the Senate regarding DotCIO and the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences core curriculum, respectively. Read more...
Yearly Archives: 2012
It wasn’t until I had a curious friend come and hang out with me in the Poly office that I finally spent some time looking through the giant red books that make up The Poly’s old issues. What these articles made me realize is that RPI is still facing the same issues as it was in 1990. Complaints in the “My View” section from the March 7, 1990 issue range from opinions regarding tuition increases to a lack of communication between students and the administration. It seems that if you open up any of those old issues you will get an article describing student’s frustration with a policy change such as the implementation of the Navigating Rensselaer and Beyond program or giving a section of Stackwyck to a fraternity group. We as students reject change instinctively. Read more...
James’ Take
A new Asian cuisine restaurant has opened in Troy. Located at 2312 15th St., the Red & Blue Asia Grill offers a reasonably-priced and still delicious alternative to other, more expensive venues such as Plum Blossom. Read more...
Last week, RPI’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders received a $10,000 grant from the School of Engineering to “continue [their] water filtration and storage project in Panama.” This project will be implemented in several stages, following their recent assessment stage. Read more...
Hello everyone, this week’s top hat is written by Greg Niguidula, Class of 2015 Senator and Treasurer for the Student Senate. I would like to wish everyone good health—there are many viruses and sicknesses going around, one that I myself have been unfortunate enough to catch. Read more...
Disney has long been a powerhouse in the realms of Hollywood. In its animation heyday, no one could top Disney’s brilliant blend of gorgeous animation, heart-warming storytelling, and great musical numbers. Eventually, though, Pixar blasted onto the scene with the first computer-generated animation effort, Toy Story. Soon, Pixar’s films became the gold standard for animation and other studios scrambled to put together their own CG animated films. None of them were able to match Pixar, however, and Disney’s own CG animated films stumbled out of the gate as they tried to play catch-up. A lot has changed in just a few years: Disney now owns Pixar, Marvel, and, most recently, LucasFilm (and the rights to the entire Star Wars franchise). From the outside, it just looks like Disney is trying to brute force their way into an evolved movie industry, but that wouldn’t be giving them enough credit. Disney’s own Walt Disney Animation Studios has picked up its game, producing the brilliant return-to-form CG animated film Tangled just two years ago. With Tangled, Disney has been cast back into the animation limelight as fans and newcomers alike wait and see if they can reproduce the magic in their next CG animated film. That film has finally arrived in the form of Wreck-It Ralph, and it does not disappoint. Read more...
Hello RPI! I hope that everyone’s second round of quizzes, exams, and projects went well, and that everyone is able to relax at least a little bit before their work picks up again. Just think, in two weeks we can enjoy Thanksgiving break, and at that point, the semester is almost over. I would like to extend congratulations to the RPI men’s soccer team and their head coach Adam Clinton for winning the Liberty League Championship this past weekend. In a thrilling tournament, RPI beat St. Lawrence on Thursday night, and then defeated Vassar College on Saturday to win the crown. Both matches were very close and were decided by penalty kicks. Best of luck to the team as they compete in the NCAA Tournament beginning Saturday! Read more...
Do you love catchy music that will never leave your head? Amusing comedy that is a little twisted? Are you interested in a chick flick that really isn’t a chick flick? Then Pitch Perfect is the movie for you! Read more...
Sigma Phi Epsilon hosts Pizza tasting extravaganza
On Sunday, September 2, Sigma Phi Epsilon gathered Troy’s finest pizzerias together to host their fourth annual Pizza Tasting. During each fall rush, SigEp brings Troy’s pizza community to RPI’s doorstep. Attendance to SigEp’s signature event has grown each year, and this year was no exception. The brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon hosted a record breaking over 200 guests this year, with lines stretching out the door and down the block. Read more...
Over the weekend, the RPI community was notified via RPIAlert that Hurricane Sandy could become a threat to the area. As a result, all classes and non-essential operations were canceled after noon on Monday. But, as of Tuesday, October 30, operations were set to continue as usual. Read more...
This past Monday saw the arrival of Hurricane Sandy to the Capital Region. Whilst cities along the coast were bombarded with heavy rain and strong winds, Troy faced relatively mild weather. Even with the lack of hurricane gusts and falling trees, the Institute leadership deemed it necessary to cancel classes after 12 pm on Monday in case weather turned very poor and students were stuck outside or away from safe places. We at The Poly would like to commend the Institute for its constant communication and concern for student, faculty and staff. Read more...
At first, the entire zombie mob was completely awkward. There were a couple people whose makeup was fantastic, while there were others who just dabbed some blood on their faces and called themselves zombies. Either was fine really—a convincing performance is still necessary, however. Read more...
President Shirley Ann Jackson held her annual Fall Town Hall Meeting this past Wednesday, October 24. The meeting was held in the theater of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Preforming Arts Center, and featured Jackson speaking on many developments and achievements in the institute over the past year. Read more...
If you’re an RPI student (or maybe even a faculty or staff member), stress isn’t exactly a foreign concept to you. Dealing with that stress, though, is something that a lot of us have problems with. Now, some people try to stave off stress by drinking or inflicting some form of self-harm. While I’m not going to say I’ve done either of those, I’m going to say those are bad ways of going about it. I’ve found recently that talking to people about your problems is more efficient. Also, your liver will thank you later. Read more...
The concept of open source is probably a notion that is unique to Computer Science. In fact, most people simply see it as a means to get free stuff. As a friend so aptly put it, “I have to buy all my engineering textbooks, but you have that open source thing going for you where the author probably put it on his website for you to download for free.” Run by the computer science honors society, Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the Open Source Software Festival, known as OSSFest, is an attempt to both share the power of community-based software to address the needs of the Institute, and to debunk much of the misconceptions about open source. The festival took place in the Darrin Communications Center with the main events split between a poster session featuring projects by the Rensselaer Center for Open Source Software and talks on the nature and power of open source software. Read more...
It’s gotten to the point of the year where if you are thinking of living off-campus next year, you need to start looking for houses. Depending on how many people you are looking to get an apartment (or a house) with, the time you have left to find a place could be short. Read more...
This past Sunday, over forty RPI computer science students arrived at Lally Hall to compete in the semi-annual programming competition, put together by RPI’s chapter of the computer science honor society Upsilon Pi Epsilon. The only qualification to enter as a contestant was to be a student currently enrolled at RPI, so non-computer science majors were welcome to participate as well. Read more...
This week’s Top Hat is written by the Chair of the Senate’s Finance, Facilities and Administration Committee—Russell Brown. Brown is a very experienced member of the Senate, starting with his involvement in his freshman year, and was also the 146th Grand Marshal. He will talk about what his committee has been up to and how you can get involved. Read more...
The Tomorrow Project Anthology is an eye-opening display of possible futures. With a little extrapolation and imagination, this short collection presents applications and consequences of developing technologies—and it is not always a comfortable feeling. Read more...