On Tuesday, September 22, the campaigning for freshman student government positions began with extensive meetings, preparing possible candidates for the campaign and any rules that they would need to follow. At the final election on October 15, freshmen cast votes for 18 candidates for the positions of president, vice president, senator and class representative for the Class of 2019. Read more...

“Let’s go Hornets!” was what I spent my whole Saturday afternoon screaming, especially during my sister’s volleyball game. This past weekend I had the opportunity to go back home to see my family and to attend my second high school reunion—except this one was different, very different. I noticed one graduate of my class sitting in the front stands, and another one when I walked outside to the soccer game and cross country meet. Then when I was leaving the football game, I saw another two. The weird thing is that I graduated with a class of 63; where were the other 58?! Read more...

In the words of Paul Simon, the album Graceland is “a very good example of how a collaboration works, even when you’re not aware of it occurring.” Following its commercial debut in 1986, the album gained nationwide success as it took modern approaches to traditional African rhythms. The album itself is a poised amalgamation of classic American rock and the sounds of colonial South Africa, but Simon’s careful attention to preserving the integrity of either party is what makes the album genuinely stand out. Read more...

RPI traveled to Alaska last weekend to play in the Brice Alaska Gold Rush tournament. In the first game, the Engineers took a lead early in the third period against the University of Alaska Anchorage before faltering down the stretch and losing 4-3. In the second game, senior goaltender Jason Kasdorf recorded 47 saves against the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but still Rensselaer fell 4-2. Read more...

The Polytechnic Editorial Board is concerned with how Summer Arch has been handled. The Arch program was announced to the student body by President Shirley Ann Jackson over email on September 10, 2015, and that was the last official announcement we have heard about Arch. The program would bring monumental change to the dynamic of the Institute, and we at The Poly feel that without proper implementation and input from students, Arch would would do more harm than good for Rensselaer. Read more...

This year has been one of the most exciting years for electronic music that I have experienced since my obsession began in 2010. Unique hits from previously unheard of producers, such as OMFG and marshmello, combined with huge releases by electronic music’s greats, like Skrillex and NERO, made this year one to remember. But what releases really lived up to the hype? In this notebook, I’m going to provide a quick catalogue for all of the big electronic hits so far in 2015. Read more...

It was a chilly evening last Friday, October 16, and the mood the weather set was quite befitting for a ghost tour. With a camera in hand and minimal knowledge of how to operate it, I made my way to the 15th Street entrance of the Rensselaer Union. There I came across a group of students, bundled and huddled against the briskness of the night air and buzzing anticipation for the adventure at hand. More importantly, I came across Maeve McEneny and Paul Nooney, seasoned ghost tour leaders and connoisseurs of legends. Read more...

At 7 pm on Saturday, October 16, the second game of the week between the Rensselaer Engineers and the Robert Morris University Colonials started in the Houston Field House. Even though RPI made 39 shots and received 4 power play chances, Rensselaer still lost the game with a score of 0-2 in this non-league contest and thus falls to 2-3-0, while the Colonials rise to 3-3-1. Read more...

As the United States draws closer to the upcoming presidential election, the democratic Party has found itself in limbo; while the Republican Party has found clear leaders in the preliminary elections, liberal voters have seen a wider spread in candidate choice. This Tuesday’s Democratic debate has provided an avenue for voters to compare both a candidate’s platforms and presence in a side by side setting. Read more...

Hello Rensselaer and Company,

I’m happy to announce that the Class of 2019 has elected their four Senators! Congratulations to: Caleb Caraway ’19, Nancy Bush ’19, Wilbur Valarde ’19, and Cameron Riley ’19. Read more...

Last Friday, the Sigma Delta sorority held its eighth annual Nuestra Belleza, a multicultural pageant intended to demonstrate and celebrate the cultures of its contestants. The Masters of Ceremonies (who were really quite entertaining, and even had a stand-up pun break at one point) explained that the event would be broken down into three competitive portions: cultural attire, questions and answers, and talent. All of the proceeds from the show would be donated to Medair and go towards assisting Syrian refugees. Read more...

After struggling to run the football against St. Lawrence University last weekend, RPI football’s backfield willed the team to victory against the University of Rochester Yellowjackets on Saturday. Senior running back Nick Schlatz led all rushers with 27 rushes for 115 yards and added two touchdowns while sophomore Mike Tivinis powered his way to 80 yards on 12 attempts. RPI also took advantage of four University of Rochester turnovers, including three interceptions by Yellowjackets quarterback Justin Redfern, to win 35-21. Read more...

Last Thursday’s Executive Board meeting consisted of the importance of club budgeting and how the individual E-Board representatives should go about perfecting it, introductions of the new freshman members, and a presentation made by the Union Annual Report committee. Read more...

Hola, RPI!

I hope you’re doing well! Did you catch the first hints of snow on Sunday? Winter is right around the corner, so be sure you’re ready when it comes knocking. I believe it’s an El Nino year, so expect snow, and lots of it. I can’t wait to go sledding around Troy’s wonderful hills again, and enjoy a few winter camping trips if I’m lucky. Read more...

Chris’ review

This past summer has been marked with a craze over hard root beer, and I, fortunately or unfortunately, have fallen victim to the fad’s delicious beverage. I haven’t been able to figure out whether hard root beer is actually a malt beverage or just beer brewed with spices. Nonetheless, Dan and I have decided to review Not Your Father’s Root Beer, created by Small Town Brewery, and Hard Root Beer, created by Coney Island Brewery. Read more...

Racing against several nationally-ranked teams on Saturday at the Inter-Regional Border Battle in Sewell, NJ, the Rensselaer men’s and women’s cross country teams shook the competition with quick times in both the varsity and open races. The men’s and women’s team captains are excited about the continuing improvements of athletes at the season draws nearer to Liberty League champions and, hopefully, nationals. Read more...

An Australian restaurant, Chicken Treat, celebrated last Thursday when their social media correspondent managed to create the word “bum” in her tweet. While to most the task seems simple and all around easily executed, to a chicken it certainly would not. Betty, the four-year-old domestic foul, taps away at her keyboard creating incoherent messages that the company finishes with the tag #chickentweet. The entire concept is seemingly ridiculous, but this marketing gamble was one made in the right direction as it has caught the attention of people and chickens globally. When asked how long Betty would be in business, Chicken Treat responded that Betty would be well taken care of and remain tweeting until she manages to create a five letter word in English. This act will win her a position in the Guinness Book of World Records. Until then, “bum” is at the top of Betty’s extensive vocabulary. Read more...

As an alumnus, one of the things that keeps me connected to the RPI community is the hockey team (I’m in my fifth year as a season ticket holder; I look forward to hockey season all summer). As a graduate of the Information, Technology, and Web Science program, I’m fascinated by data, and I spend a fair amount of my spare time writing code for fun. The obvious intersection of these interests is hockey statistics. Hockey supplies a rich set of stats, but not to the extent that it’s difficult to understand. Unfortunately, while there are numerous online sources of college hockey statistics, none of them provide open access to machine-readable data. RPI publishes game stats in the xml format, which is presumably machine-readable (and the aggregation of such data-feeds from across college sports forms the data source for many commercial and non-profit websites), but that feed isn’t readily available to the public. Rensselaer has one of the world’s leading data science programs; it would be fantastic if its athletic department tried to support the Institute’s academic mission by making the data, created by the actions of its student athletes, available to the public. If the school has $6 million for a new baseball field and $18 million for renovations to the Houston Field House, I’m sure it can afford to make their already published statistics more usable. Maybe they can even enable some enterprising ITWS student to create the next FiveThirtyEight.com. Read more...

The movies’ title, Departures, doesn’t represent takeoffs or a brand new start, but for ever-lasting separation and the ritual to send away our loved ones. The Japanese movie, Departures, starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, and directed by Yojiro Takita, focuses on a unique topic in Japanese culture: death. This film demonstrates the contradictory charm of the Japanese community—with its ever present conservatism and stark, unorthodox ways of thinking. Among those amazing thinkers and doers are manga artist Hayao Miyazaki and author Haruki Murakami. With those sharp insights, traditional Japanese country life, and classic western music mix in a single film work, no one can resist the charm of this movie. Even those who can not appreciate motion pictures will fall in love with this form of art, which is far more than simple pictures and words. Read more...