Friday, March 14, 2014

Frat House Fun

College hijinks!

"Charges expected in pledge’s death, Pa. prosecutor says" by Michael Rubinkam | Associated Press   December 13, 2013

Criminal charges are coming in the death of a New York City college student who was forced to run a gauntlet during a fraternity ritual, a northeastern Pennsylvania prosecutor said Thursday.

Monroe County District Attorney David Christine said he will not decide on which charges to file, or against whom, until a police inquiry into the death of Chun ‘‘Michael’’ Deng, 19, is completed.

The Baruch College freshman died Monday, a day after friends brought him to the hospital in critical condition with major brain trauma. It was unclear how much time had passed before he got help.

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"Fraternity death case in Pa. ruled homicide | Associated Press   February 15, 2014

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The death of a New York City college student in what authorities have called a fraternity ritual has been ruled a homicide, a Pennsylvania coroner said Friday.

The Luzerne County coroner’s office referred all inquiries on the Dec. 8 death of Baruch College freshman Chun ‘‘Michael’’ Deng to police.

Officials allege Deng sustained a fatal brain injury after an initiation ritual in the snow with three others at a home in Tunkhannock Township, Pa., 100 miles west of New York City in the Pocono Mountains.

Blindfolded and wearing a backpack with 20 pounds of sand, Deng’s objective was to make it to a certain member without being tackled by other members of Pi Delta Psi, according to officials. But Deng was shoved, apparently fell, and hit his head, Pocono Mountain Regional Police wrote in an affidavit.

Police said fraternity members took Deng inside, changed his clothes, and conducted Google searches about his symptoms before taking him to the closest hospital, where he died the next day.

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"Hazing at Md. fraternity sparks calls for tougher abuse penalties" by John Hechinger, David Glovin and Annie Linskey | Bloomberg News   January 08, 2014

The head of the University of Maryland system and a state legislator called for tougher penalties on fraternity hazing following revelations of student abuse at an initiation ritual.

A local prosecutor said he is reviewing the incident at Salisbury University, which the school found involved forced drinking, immersion in ice, and basement confinement of recruits at a Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter. SAE’s national organization reopened its investigation into the case.

Must be training for the CIA interrogation unit.

Fallout from the episode, first reported by Bloomberg News on Dec. 30, illustrates the growing concern about fraternity hazing and out-of-control drinking.

Related: Blarney Blowout Brutality

As fraternity membership has soared nationwide....

Great, More arrogant elitists running around society.

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Also see: WPI looks into reports of abuse by fraternities

It's all stereotyping, right?

"University of Iowa president Sally Mason’s predicament illustrates the tremendous pressure facing administrators — from well-organized student activists, boards concerned about campus safety, and an increasingly active federal government — to do more to stop what the White House calls a public health epidemic. With national statistics indicating that up to one in five women are assaulted during college, the issue has become explosive, never far below the surface. Activist groups have formed at universities from California to Massachusetts to raise awareness, deftly using social media to organize."

Don't join the military.

Related:

Obama targets college sexual assault epidemic

Sex assault reports up at Boston-area campuses

Hearing planned on college sex assault bill

MIT makes confronting sexual assault a top priority

They are going to help.

"MIT faulted over its support for students; School counters it is ‘eager’ to help 4 facing N.J. fraud charges" by Marcella Bombardieri |  Globe Staff, February 14, 2014

Two prominent MIT figures began seeking signatures on Thursday for a letter criticizing the university for failing to support four undergraduates facing a fraud investigation in New Jersey for a project that won them an award at a programming competition. But by Thursday evening, MIT said that, in fact, it is “eager” to help the students.

The letter, addressed to MIT president Rafael Reif, said MIT’s lawyers told the students they wouldn’t get involved in a matter that didn’t directly involve the university — an echo of the tragic case of Aaron Swartz.

Related: Speaking Up For Swartz

“Students are being threatened with legal action for doing exactly what we encourage them to do: explore and create innovative new technologies,” wrote Hal Abelson, a computer science professor; Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT; and Media Lab graduate student Nathan Matias. If the four students suffer legal repercussions, “and if MIT declines to support them, how can we ever responsibly continue to advise our students to disseminate their work in public?”

The letter portrayed the project, which is called Tidbit and involves technology to “mine” a virtual currency, as an innovative and harmless prototype....

Related(?): Flipping a Bitcoin

Nineteen-year-old Tidbit developer Jeremy Rubin and three fellow MIT undergraduates participated in an online “hackathon” in November, in which they designed a program that involved bitcoins, an electronic currency that can be generated by computers running complicated and resource-intensive programs.

Related: CIA Has Venture Capital Wing

I guess there are good hackers and bad hackers, huh? 

Their invention would allow a Web user to avoid having to see display ads on a website; in exchange, the user would loan computing power to the website’s owner to mine for bitcoins, according to the students’ attorney, Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.... 

And then bitcion crashed!

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RelatedMIT is crafting legal resource to aid students

I can't help but think it is also the jwho.

"44 teams from universities in the Boston area and elsewhere that will compete in Cambridge Saturday in the regional finals of the $1 million Hult prize, which seeks to encourage students to launch social enterprises — businesses that seek social good as well as commercial success.

Financed by the family of Bertil Hult, the founder of EF Education First, the four-year-old contest has launched social enterprises taking on some of world’s most pressing issues, from education to poverty to food shortages.

Related: Globe Lunch Box

See if you can crunch it down.

Each year, the business plan competition focuses on a particular challenge, and this year, working with Clinton Global Initiative, a program of former President Bill Clinton’s foundation, it will focus on health care in poor cities.

I thought Obummercare took care of all that.

The winners of the six regional contests held around the world this weekend will compete in New York in September for the $1 million to jump-start their social enterprise, making pitches to Clinton and other judges.

Last year’s winners, a team from McGill University in Montreal, used the money to launch Microlivestock, which has built a facility in Mexico to breed grasshoppers as a way to address the global food shortages. The McGill team proposed raising insects as a cheap, sustainable way to provide protein without the intense land use and environmental impact of livestock farming.

When Clinton and you guys sit down with me to break brea.... or whatever.... then I'll listen. Meet you by the shit pit

Related: Steak made from human poop

It's all yours.

“There is a need for business to solve these problems,” said Mohammed Ashour, who led the McGill team.

Honestly, corporate governance has had its chance for over 30 years now, and they failed!

In this year’s competition, each team will present a business plan for a social enterprise to improve health care in some of the poorest, most underserved parts of the world....

I'm sorry, folks, I just no longer believe in the benevolence of our MIT overlords.

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RelatedApplicants get errant MIT acceptance message

Also seeTufts professor sparks app contest for teens

"Tech, the great equalizer, still struggles to make it to Dudley Square

The economic buzz of the burgeoning Boston technology scene is largely clustered in Cambridge’s Kendall Square and the Innovation District in South Boston. Gilad Rosenzweig wants to expand its reach. The MIT graduate is planning to open a startup space for local entrepreneurs, Smarter in the City, this summer in Dudley Square in Roxbury.

Related: Self-Centered Jewspaper 

It $ure is.

That is, if he can find someone from the tech industry to pay for it....

Must be a Jewi$h thing, getting others to pay for things.

For all the talk about technology being a great equalizer — that all a whiz kid of any class or color needs is a laptop to outsmart Google and Microsoft — the tech world has some of the same barriers and clubbiness more commonly associated with old-boy businesses such as banking and stock trading. 

It's ALL based on ELITISM!

The divide is not unique to Boston. On the West Coast, tech giants like Facebook and Twitter are viewed by some longtime residents as indifferent neighbors who import workers educated at elite universities, and do little to open doors for people living in nearby urban areas....

Related: For many, Silicon Valley’s wealth elusive

The Great AmeriKan Workplace 

Full of H1-Bs!

Venture capital firms and angel investors readily throw money at untested businesses and startup programs, such as Techstars and MassChallenge....

Related: 
MassChallenge adding Israel contest 

Not really a $urprise anymore when being promoted by my Globe.

Also see: EMC plans to lay off up to 1,000

That's odd. It's the same number of Israelis they will be hiring.

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"Cambridge Innovation Center to open in Boston" by Michael B. Farrell | Globe Staff   March 14, 2014

After serving as a magnet in Kendall Square for hundreds of tech upstarts and Web giants such as Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., the Cambridge Innovation Center is opening a major outpost in Boston’s Financial District with enough space for about 300 startups.

The center, which gives young companies access to amenities such as copiers, kitchens, and conference rooms, has signed a lease to take over five floors at 50 Milk St., a part of town that has traditionally hosted lawyers, bankers, and investment managers, but has recently seen an influx of tech newcomers such as PayPal and Isobar, a digital advertising company.

That trend will likely accelerate once the CIC Boston opens in April. It will occupy about 70,000 square feet and accommodate about 1,200 people, CIC president Brian Dacey said Thursday. Its draw: The center will give boot-strapping firms less expensive space and more flexibility than traditional office leases.

The CIC is also looking for tenants to open a first-floor retail space anda coffee shop to keep its cadre of engineers and entrepreneurs well caffeinated, Dacey said.

Given its popularity in Kendall Square, and reputation for being a launching pad for many local startups, its search for new digs across the Charles River has been watched closely by the local tech set....

Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston praised the expansion, saying that it will add jobs and further bolster the city’s growing innovation economy....

He's married to it.

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