By Marissa VogtASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

The 25th annual IAP MysteryHunt began at noon this past Fridayin Lobby 7, inspired by the movie

“ T i m eB a n -dits.”

Theh u n tkicked

off with a Pirate-themed skit. Eachteam was given a skull made ofplaster of Paris and a map that wewould later find out was the “Mapof All Space and Time.”

The hunt was run by the FrenchArmada, the East Campus-basedteam that won last year’s hunt.Setec Astronomy, a team of MITalumni and professional puzzlesolvers, found the coin, the perenni-al final goal of the hunt, at 8:23 a.m.on Monday morning, thus winningthe hunt and the right to create nextyear’s hunt. At just over 68 hours,this hunt was the longest on record.

Action Before ThoughtMy team, Action Before

Thought, was a medium-sized teammostly comprised of residents ofThird West of East Campus. We

collected our laptops and gatheredin our dorm lounge shortly afternoon on Friday to begin working onthe first round of puzzles.

Less than a day into the hunt ourlounge began to resemble a disasterarea, with papers strewn about andlaptop cords monopolizing the right

of way.After a while we established

Volume 123, Number 65 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Wednesday, January 21, 2004

MIT’sOldest and Largest

Newspaper

The WeatherToday: Sunny, windy, 25°F (–4°C)

Tonight: Cloudy, 17°F (–8°C)Tomorrow: Flurries, 32°F (0°C)

Details, Page 2

FEATURESA chronicle of a desperate man’slast minutes with the goddessAthena.

Page 10

Comics

Page 7

SPORTSBrian Chase finally learns not todoubt the Patriots. See what hepredicts for the Super Bowl.

Page 16

World & Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Fire at Beta Theta Pi DestroysTop Floor, Frat Moves to AnnexBy Ray C. HeSTAFF REPORTER

A fire at Beta Theta Pi causedmore than $100,000 in damages toone of the fraternity’s two houseslate Friday night, according to theBoston Fire Department.

No one was hurt in the fire,which was contained on the fourthfloor of the building, said firedepartment spokesman DavidWalsh.

The building, located at 119 BayState Road, was empty because pipeshad burst the night before, disablingthe sprinkler and heating systems,said Herman Marshall ’78, BTP’salumni board president.

“There were no brothers in thehouse at the time,” he said. “Theyhad moved to the annex because wedidn’t have heat in the main housebecause the pipes had been freez-ing,” he said.

Cause of fire unknownThe cause of the fire in the

empty BTP house is unknown.“Whether it was a space heater ornot, we’re not sure. That’s stillunder investigation,” said David N.Rogers, the director of fraternities,sororities and independent livinggroups.

“The cause of the fire is undeter-mined at the time,” Walsh said. Thefire is being investigated by theBoston Fire Department’s FireInvestigation Unit.

The fraternity’s insurance com-PETER R. RUSSO—THE TECH

A burned-out bay window on the fourth floor of the Beta Theta Pi fra-ternity house overlooks Storrow Drive. A Friday night fire causedmore than $100,000 in damages.

JAY S. GILL

Members of the Mystery Hunt team “Action Before Thought” solve puzzles in their headquarters, locat-ed in the lounge on Third West in East Campus. This year’s hunt was won by “Setec Astronomy” andwas the longest on record.

MIT Denies WrongfulDeath in Guy LawsuitBy Kathleen L. Dobson

MIT has finally answered thewrongful death lawsuit filed by theparents of Richard A. Guy Jr. ’99,denying that the Institute knewabout drug use at East Campus orcaused Guy’s 1999 death, whichcame as a result of his nitrous oxideabuse at the dormitory.

The Guys, who are one of threefamilies seeking to hold MITresponsible for a student’s on-cam-pus death, sued MIT in August2002, one day before the three-yearstatute of limitations would haveexpired.

Their lawsuit is peculiar. Unlikethe plaintiffs in MIT’s other wrong-ful death lawsuits, the Guys havenot asked for a particular amount ofdamages, have declined to speakwith the press, and have made noattempt to get around the $20,000statutory limit on damages that MITcan be required to pay in wrongfuldeath cases.

That, and the fact that the Guysallowed MIT to delay its answer for14 months, led to speculation thatthe lawsuit would be settled withoutMIT having to reply in court.

But MIT finally answered thelawsuit on Nov. 21, denying asexpected all responsibility in Guy’sdeath, which was ruled an accident.

Daryl J. Lapp, an MIT lawyer inthe case, said that not much shouldbe inferred from MIT’s answer. Itwould not be hard for the Guys toamend the lawsuit to include moremoney or name more people as

defendants, he said.The Guys’ lawyers declined to

comment.

MIT says it didn’t know of drugsIn its response, MIT admits that

in late August 1999, Guy had“engaged in experimental drug useand had sought treatment and coun-seling from MIT’s medical andhealth service staff for this prob-lem.” However, MIT denies that itknew or should have known thatdrug use was ongoing at East Cam-pus.

The complaint refers to the“appearance of the 5th floor, wherethe walls and ceilings of part of the5th floor were painted black andlight bulbs painted pink and purple”as evidence of ongoing drug use atFifth East. MIT also denies thatnon-student drug users wereallowed to live on the 5th floor, asthe Guys had alleged.

In addition, MIT denies that itknew or should have known that theresidents of East Campus “kept acanister of nitrous oxide, sometimesreferred to as ‘the dorm bottle’ ofnitrous oxide at the dormitory.”

MIT also denies the Guys’ law-suit that it did not take “reasonablesteps” to secure canisters of nitrousoxide used for “valid scientific pur-poses,” allowing “unauthorized per-sons, including students andemployees, to have access to thedangerous gas and to use it as anintoxicant.”

MITRespondsTo ‘Tupac’AllegationsBy Waseem S. DaherASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR

MIT responded last Thursday toa subpoena from Paramount Pic-tures asking who was responsiblefor a computer at the Civil andEnvironmental Engineering head-quarters that allegedly distributed anillegal copy of the film “Tupac: Res-urrection” at 1:40 a.m. on Dec. 4.

The Institute did not make itsresponse available. But it appearslikely that MIT told Paramount ofwhat seems to be the most plausibleexplanation for the late-night file-trading: that no one at MIT should beheld responsible, because the com-puter, running Microsoft Windows2000, appears to have been infectedwith a virus and operated remotely.

“We believe the computer wascompromised,” said Ann M. Ham-mersla, the senior counsel for intel-lectual property. “We did respond aswe were supposed to.” She declinedto comment further.

Setec Astronomy Wins French Armada’s Mystery Hunt,Sixty-Eight Hour Hunt Longest Game in Recent Memory

Fire, Page 13 Lawsuit, Page 14

Reporter’sNotebook

Mystery Hunt, Page 13

By Jim RutenbergTHE NEW YORK TIMES

DES MOINES, IOWA

Sen. John Kerry’s victory inIowa took the political world by sur-prise, but it was Howard Dean’sguttural, concession-speech battlecry that was as much the talk of thepolitical world on Tuesday.

The question that bouncedaround television, radio, the Internetand even the Des Moines airport —overstuffed with departing journal-ists and political operatives Tuesdaymorning — was whether the speechwould prove a defining politicalmoment for Dean just as voters startpaying close attention to the Demo-cratic race.

“He looked hysterical,” HowardWolfson, a Democratic consultant

said on the “NBC Nightly News.” “Howard Dean scared a lot of

children last night,” Tucker Carlson,a Republican political commentator,declared on CNN. Like the othercable news networks, CNN playedthe image of Dean, shirt sleevesrolled up, neck bulging and armpointing at the crowd, over andover. The radio host Howard Sternplayed a recording of the tape andset it against background noise froma professional wrestling match.

Republican officials could nothave been happier. “That’s six ads,”one party official said, referringplayfully to the number of adver-tisements that might be mined fromthat appearance in order to reinforceopponents’ efforts to portray Deanas angry and nonpresidential.

Even some of Dean’s supporterswondered how the speech wouldaffect the race.

Dan Goldberg, a marketingexecutive with an independent filmcompany in New York, said he hadbeen planning to volunteer for Deanin New Hampshire. After watchinghis Monday night speech, Goldbergsaid, he changed his mind.

“Any chances I would vote forDean were completely erased bythat speech last night — scary,” hesaid. “I thought mirrors in my apart-ment would shatter. Especially incontrast with Edwards, who wasfantastic.”

Dean and his staff described thefocus on his speech as anotherinstance of unfair treatment at thehands of the news media.

WORLD & NATIONPage 2 THE TECH January 21, 2004

U.S. Claims Raid Killed Militants, Not Civilians

THE NEW YORK TIMES KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

U.S. military officials said on Tuesday that a raid over theweekend in southern Afghanistan had killed only 5 Taliban mili-tants, not 11 civilians, as Afghan officials have reported.

But Abdul Rahman, the chief of the Char Chino district inOruzgan Province, where the incident took place, said again onTuesday that 11 civilians had been killed, including three womenand four children.

“I collected the bodies with people and I also participated intheir funeral ceremony,” he said by telephone. “If the Americansthink those four men who were our friends, those four childrenand three women were the Taliban, that is something not accept-able.”

But Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S.-ledcoalition, said at a news conference on Tuesday that coalitionforces had engaged “five armed adult males fleeing from a knownterrorist compound” after receiving intelligence on Saturdayevening about a gathering of midlevel Taliban fighters.

Pakistan Bans Nuclear ScientistsFrom Traveling Outside Country

THE NEW YORK TIMES ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Pakistan on Tuesday barred all scientists working on its nuclearweapons program from leaving the country, as the governmentintensified its inquiry into allegations that nuclear technology hadbeen shared with Iran.

At the same time, a senior intelligence official said a formerarmy commander had approved the transfer of technology to Iran.

The official said the scientist who had led the effort to build anatomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had told investigators that anysharing of nuclear technology with Iran had the approval of Gen.Mirza Aslam Beg, the commander of Pakistan’s army from 1988 to1991. The official said aides to Khan had told investigators thesame thing.

U.S. Group Says North Koreans AreEager to Deal With West

THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON

The leader of an unofficial U.S. delegation that visited NorthKorea this month said on Tuesday that North Korea seemed anx-ious to resolve differences with the United States over its nuclearprogram.

North Korean officials told the delegation that the Bush admin-istration’s central concern, complete and verifiable dismantlementof their nuclear weapons program, was within reach, said John W.Lewis, the group’s leader, in a telephone interview.

He spoke a day before another member of the group, SiegfriedHecker, a former director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in NewMexico, is scheduled to tell the Senate of his conclusions about thestate of the nuclear complex in Yongbyon that was the focus of thegroup’s visit.

Lewis, a professor emeritus of Chinese politics at Stanford, isthe founder of the Center for International Security and Coopera-tion at Stanford, which seeks to influence policy by engaging for-eign officials and citizens on a second track, independent of theU.S. government. In this case, he led a delegation of civilianexperts to North Korea, in advance of a delayed second round ofsix-nation talks to try to defuse the threat that North Korea mightbe building nuclear weapons.

Bush Vows to Privatize SocialSecurity and Keep Tax CutsBy Edmund L. AndrewsTHE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON

President Bush hinted at big planson Tuesday about overhauling SocialSecurity and reiterated demands tomake the last rounds of tax cuts per-manent, but he made only fleeting ref-erences to new initiatives.

Alluding to his oft-stated goal ofprivatizing Social Security, Bush saidthat “younger workers should have theopportunity to build a nest egg by sav-ing part of their Social Security taxesin a personal retirement account.”

But Bush is not expected to pro-pose an immediate shift away fromSocial Security in his pending budgetproposal. Rather, administration offi-cials say they plan to recycle a propos-al from last year to greatly expand tax-advantaged savings accounts.

Bush’s limited agenda reflects thepressure he is under, from conserva-tive Republicans as well as Democ-rats, to rein in a budget deficit thatcould approach $500 billion this year.

Though Bush demanded that Con-gress make last year’s tax cuts perma-nent, he repeated recent pledges toreduce the deficit by half over the nextfive years and hold the growth in dis-cretionary spending to 4 percent ayear.

The administration’s proposals forbig new tax-advantaged savings plans— one for retirement, another for sav-ings for any purpose — have thevirtue of allowing Bush to think bigwithout spending much money, atleast over the next few years.

People would still have to paytaxes on the money they contribute,but not on any of the investmentincome that accrues after that. Besidesallowing people to set aside moremoney than before, the proposalwould allow people to withdrawmoney from the “lifetime” accountswhenever they want and for whateverpurpose.

The problem, some economistssay, is that the proposals would do lit-tle in themselves to solve the basiclong-term problem of Social Security,which is that the so-called trust fundfaces eventual insolvency as thenation’s 75 million baby-boomersreach retirement age over the next sev-eral decades.

And over the longer term, they say,the proposed savings accounts couldcost tens of billions of dollars a year asmore and more of the nation’s invest-ment income became entirely shieldedfrom taxation.

Many experts, Republican andDemocratic, predict that Bush will

make only limited progress on majortax initiatives this year.

Making the tax cuts permanentwould cost more than $1 trillion overthe next decade, according to esti-mates last summer by the nonpartisanCongressional Budget Office, andnone of the recent tax cuts expire inthe next year.

“I don’t see them pushing on any-thing hard except possibly a half-hearted effort to make the tax cuts per-manent,” said Bruce Bartlett, alongtime Republican tax expert who isa senior fellow at the National Centerfor Policy Analysis, a policy researchgroup.

Economists at the Brookings Insti-tution estimated that, 25 years fromnow, the new savings accounts couldcost the U.S.Treasury $50 billion ayear in lost tax revenue.

Under the proposals first put for-ward one year ago, a married couplewould have been able to set aside upto $15,000 a year in a “lifetime sav-ings account” and as much as $15,000more in the “retirement” accounts.

Last year, congressional Republi-cans convinced the White House toback away from both proposals, large-ly because they were trying to pushBush’s big tax-cutting plan at thetime.

Dean’s Concession to Kerry’sIowa Victory Raises Eyebrows

Arctic JanuaryBy Robert Lindsay KortySTAFF METEOROLOGIST

With above normal temperatures continuing over the Pacific, bursts ofcold air continue to shoot southward from the North Pole across easternCanada and the northeastern United States. The large-scale pattern has beenconsistent for the past several weeks, sending bouts of record-breaking coldsouth to New England. Temperatures will remain below normal this weekwith another surge of Arctic air arriving by this weekend. The airmass mov-ing toward the Northeast for this weekend does not look to be as severelycold as recent outbreaks have been, however.

Since these polar airmasses have been in place, there has been relativelylittle snowfall. Boston is still above normal for the season, owing to themammoth event that fell in early December, but totals for this month arebehind normal levels for January. With strong, Arctic high pressure in place,storms have been shunted south or to sea. A few weak, fast-moving storms(called “Alberta clippers” after the province in which they usually form)have breezed across the Canadian border, and another may bring a quickinch or so of snow on Thursday.

Extended ForecastToday: Sunny and windy. High 25°F (-4°C).Tonight: Becoming cloudy, with a low near 17°F (-8°C).Thursday: Scattered snow flurries, high 32°F (0°C).Friday: Sunny but windy and colder. High 22°F (-6°C), low 10°F (-

12°C).

40°N

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Showers

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Precipitation Symbols

Compiled by MITMeteorology Staff

and The Tech

Other Symbols

WEATHERSituation for Noon Eastern Daylight Time, Wednesday, January 21, 2004

January 21, 2004 WORLD & NATION THE TECH Page 3

Scientists Encounter BumpsRover Explores Martian LandBy Beth DaleyTHE BOSTON GLOBE

PASADENA

The room went wild when Spirithit the Martian dirt. With six wheelson the blush-colored surface Thursdaymorning, scientists at mission controlhere traded high fives and hugs.

But there was still trouble ahead:No one could agree where it shouldgo next.

Chief scientist Steve Squyreswanted the rover to investigate a pyra-mid-shaped rock nearby. Some geolo-gists had their hearts set on a far-offcrater. And the mission’s engineerswanted the rover to stay put so theycould test its instruments for threedays.

After three painstaking years of

building, launching, and preciselylanding the spacecraft in GusevCrater, the rest of the $410 millionrover’s itinerary is a blank page. Andwith Spirit’s life span expected to bejust a few months, each decision isloaded with urgency.

“Where we are going is a funda-mental question, and it can get emo-tional,” said John Grotzinger, 46, anMIT sedimentologist helping to figureout where the rover should go.

In NASA’s ambitious new questto find signs of past water on the RedPlanet, control of the vehicle nowlargely rests with a 50-member sci-ence team at the Jet Propulsion Labo-ratory. The team includes geologists,soil analysts, and others — each ofthem a specialist who sees Spirit as

key to unlocking a different part ofthe Mars mystery.

The National Aeronautics andSpace Administration has estab-lished a few rules of the road. Spiritshould travel at least 1,000 feet dur-ing its mission. It should visit atleast four “localities,” although sci-entists aren’t exactly sure what con-stitutes a locality. But those guide-lines leave most of the mission upin the air. Going to a distant clusterof rocks may reveal round bouldersput there by rivers. Checking outthe lip of a crater may show layersof sediment that could point to liq-uid water. And in the simplest near-by rocks, minerals could show theywere formed in the presence ofwater.

By Andrew PollackTHE NEW YORK TIMES

A new report commissioned bythe government suggests that it willbe difficult to completely preventgenetically engineered plants andanimals from having unintendedenvironmental and public healtheffects.

The report, released Tuesday bythe National Research Council of theNational Academy of Sciences, saysthat while there are many techniquesbeing developed to prevent geneti-cally engineered organisms or theirgenes from escaping into the wild,most are still premature and noneappear to be completely effective.

Companies and scientists aredeveloping a wide range of geneti-

cally modified organisms: salmonthat grow superfast, mosquitoesengineered not to transmit malaria,corn that produces pharmaceuticalsand industrial chemicals.

One concern about these trans-genic products is that their genes orthe organisms could spread. Fast-growing fish, if they were to escapeinto the wild, might beat out regularsalmon for food or mates, disruptingthe ecological balance. Genes giv-ing crops resistance to herbicides orinsects might spread to weeds, mak-ing the weeds harder to eradicate.Pollen flow from corn engineered toproduce a drug could allow the drugto get into corn destined for the foodsupply.

Much of the efforts to prevent

these effects have involved physicalcontainment, like growing fish intanks rather than the ocean or grow-ing crops in greenhouses.

The new report, commissionedby the Department of Agriculture,looks at biological methods of con-tainment, which it calls bioconfine-ment. These include measures likeinducing sterility by giving fish anextra set of chromosomes or expos-ing insects to radiation. Bacteriamight be given “suicide genes” thatwould cause them to self-destruct ifthey escaped. Crop scientists areworking on a variety of techniques,including putting the foreign genesinto the chloroplasts rather than thenucleus because chloroplast genesusually do not get into the pollen.

China Reports Annual EconomicGrowth of Nine Percent

THE NEW YORK TIMES HONG KONG

China’s economy grew a torrid 9.1 percent last year and pricesaccelerated, Chinese officials said on Tuesday, but they denied thatthe country’s economy was overheating.

The National Bureau of Statistics said that economic outputjumped 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. JoanZheng, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase, noted that the Chineseagency appeared to have revised upward its figures for year-to-yeargrowth in the first and third quarters as well, to 9.9 percent and 9.6percent.

Li Deshui, the director of the statistics agency, said at a news con-ference in Beijing that last year’s growth was the fastest since 1997,and predicted that the economy would grow more than 7 percent thisyear.

Li calculated that China had become a large consumer of rawmaterials, taking in 30 percent of the world’s coal production lastyear, 36 percent of the world’s steel and 55 percent of the world’scement, and acknowledged that prices for steel and cement were onthe rise.

Court Ruling Has ProvincetownGearing Up for Same-Sex MarriagesTHE NEW YORK TIMES

PROVINCETOWN, MASS.

After the tourists and the drag queens disappear for the winter,the pace of this Cape Cod village most years slows to a small-town lull. But on a recent afternoon, Dave Schermacher, a catererhere, stared down at a to-do list that spilled over two pages.Schermacher, who runs PTown Parties, had been busy since 6:30a.m., already preparing for nine weddings next summer and fall.

“It’s off the wall,” he said, pouring a mug of half-decaf coffee(the real thing gets him too wired). “I have nine weddings to pre-pare menus for. I’m building a Web site and revamping mybrochures. And I have to reserve chairs, glasses, dishes and silvernow, or they’ll be all booked up.”

Since Massachusetts’ highest court ruled in November that gaycouples have a right to marry under the state Constitution,Provincetown — a clamorous beach community known for its gayfriendly atmosphere and night life — has been gearing up for anunlikely windfall: the wedding business. Already one inn, theFairbanks, is offering a $195 “Pop the Question” special.

The court gave the state legislature 180 days to make provi-sions for same-sex couples, which some legal experts say mayturn out to be civil unions, as in Vermont, rather than standardmarriages.

Study Finds No Foolproof Way toContain Altered Genes From Wild

ChairmanJyoti Tibrewala ’04

Editor in ChiefChristine R. Fry ’05

Business ManagerRoy K. Esaki ’04

Managing EditorDavid Carpenter ’05

NEWS STAFF

News and Features Director: Jennifer Krishnan’04; News Editors: Keith J. Winstein G, Lauren E.LeBon ’06, Beckett W. Sterner ’06; Associate Edi-tors: Kathy Lin ’06, Marissa Vogt ’06, Jenny Zhang’06, Waseem S. Daher ’07; Staff: Jeffrey Green-baum ’04, Eun J. Lee ’04, Michael E. Rolish ’04,Jay K. Cameron ’05, Sam Hwang ’05, Issel AnneL. Lim ’05, Jessica A. Zaman ’05, Brian C. Keegan’06, Tiffany Kosolcharoen ’06, Lakshmi Nambiar’06, Jennifer Wong ’06, Ray C. He ’07, TongyanLin ’07, Julián E. Villarreal ’07; Meteorologists:Samantha L. H. Hess G, Robert Lindsay Korty G,Greg Lawson G, Nikki Privé G, William RamstromG, Michael J. Ring G.

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Editors: Andrew C. Thomas ’04, Vivek Rao ’05;Staff: Basil Enwegbara SM ’01, Gretchen K. Aleks’04, Ken Nesmith ’04, Atif Z. Qadir ’04, W. Victo-ria Lee ’06, Daniel Barclay ’07, Ruth Miller ’07.

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Editors: Hangyul Chung ’05, Sie Hendrata Dhar-mawan ’05; Staff: Dan Bersak ’02.The Tech (ISSN 0148-9607) is published on Tuesdays and Fridays during the academic year(except during MIT vacations), Wednesdays during January and monthly during the summer for$45.00 per year Third Class by The Tech, Room W20-483, 84 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge,Mass. 02139. Third Class postage paid at Boston, Mass. Permit No. 1. POSTMASTER: Pleasesend all address changes to our mailing address: The Tech, P.O. Box 397029, Cambridge, Mass.02139-7029. Telephone: (617) 253-1541, editorial; (617) 258-8329, business; (617) 258-8226,facsimile. Advertising, subscription, and typesetting rates available. Entire contents © 2004 TheTech. Printed on recycled paper by Charles River Publishing.

Letter To The EditorFair Criticism?

To the Editor:I found the recent article “Hardly Better

Than Karaoke” by Devdoot Majumdar (Jan.14) to be unnecessarily ruthless and offen-sive. As a student publication, the responsi-bility of The Tech is to provide fair, unbiasedcoverage of campus-wide events and issues.This article failed to accomplish this simplegoal, and in doing so continued and perpetu-ated a tradition of poor reporting in The Tech.

While this article served as a review of theLogs concert, it took its mission of bringingthe author’s opinion to the public too far. Mr.Majumdar is entitled to his opinion, but thearticles he writes for general consumptionmust fairly critique the subject. From the start,Mr. Majumdar set on a course to humiliate theLogs and their efforts. The opening paragraph,ostensibly describing the peak of Logs talent,describes Logs members as possessing “self-

aggrandized splendor.” This clearly derisivecomment indicates that Mr. Majumdar hasnever been a fan of the Logs as people, andmakes no mention of the Logs’ music. If Mr.Majumdar possesses this bias against theLogs, why was he chosen to write this article?Furthermore, why were his personal biasestaken into account and why was this articlepublished? Their personalities have nothing todo with their music, so why was this commentnot edited out?

This is not to say that the Logs’ perfor-mance was perfect. They made mistakes, aswas clear to everyone at the concert. Likeany performance group that has stumbled, itis only fair that their mistakes are brought topublic attention — that is the purpose of areview. This review, however, took criticisma step too far, and brought in personal biasesthat were better left out of a news publica-tion. Perhaps The Tech should take more carein assigning articles to biased reporters, and

in reviewing these articles before publica-tion.

Lindsay Kuo ’06

OPINIONPage 4 THE TECH January 21, 2004

Opinion PolicyEditorials are the official opinion of The Tech. They are written

by the editorial board, which consists of the chairman, editor inchief, managing editor, opinion editors, a senior editor, and a pho-tography editor.

Dissents are the opinions of signed members of the editorialboard choosing to publish their disagreement with the editorial.

Letters to the editor, columns, and editorial cartoons are writ-ten by individuals and represent the opinion of the author, not nec-essarily that of the newspaper. Electronic submissions are encour-aged and should be sent to letters@the-tech.mit.edu. Hard copysubmissions should be addressed to The Tech, P.O. Box 397029,Cambridge, Mass. 02139-7029, or sent by interdepartmental mail toRoom W20-483. All submissions are due by 4:30 p.m. two daysbefore the date of publication.

Letters, columns, and cartoons must bear the authors’ signatures,addresses, and phone numbers. Unsigned letters will not be accepted.The Tech reserves the right to edit or condense letters; shorter letters

will be given higher priority. Once submitted, all letters becomeproperty of The Tech, and will not be returned. The Tech makes nocommitment to publish all the letters received.

The Tech’s Ombudsman, reachable by e-mail at ombuds-man@the-tech.mit.edu, serves as the liaison between The Tech andits readers. From time to time, the Ombudsman writes an indepen-dent column reflecting the complaints, questions, and concerns ofthe readership.

To Reach UsThe Tech’s telephone number is (617) 253-1541. E-mail is the

easiest way to reach any member of our staff. If you are unsurewhom to contact, send mail to general@the-tech.mit.edu, and it willbe directed to the appropriate person. Please send press releases,requests for coverage, and information about errors that call for cor-rection to news@the-tech.mit.edu. Letters to the editor should besent to letters@the-tech.mit.edu. The Tech can be found on theWorld Wide Web at http://the-tech.mit.edu.

ErrataThe Jan. 7 front page inset photo of

the Wright Flyer hack was mistakenlycredited to photographer Frank Dabek.The photo was taken by Brian Hemond.

A Jan. 14 article [“MIT Lawyers toRespond To Subpoena Over Tupac”] mis-stated the location of a computer alleged-ly used for copyright infringement. It is in1-290 (the Civil and Environmental Engi-neering headquarters), not 2-190 (a lec-ture hall).

January 21, 2004 OPINION THE TECH Page 5

W. Victoria Lee

Last time I checked, I am not in “massivedebt,” I am not tense enough to need “soma,”I haven’t eaten enough junk food to need tolose 10 pounds in one week, and most certain-ly I don’t need to increase the size of my you-know-what. But I keep getting e-mails that tryto convince me that I “can be without all thatdebt,” as if money would fall from the sky,and that I can “triple my size overnight,”despite my lack of that particular anatomicalstructure altogether.

Let’s face it. Spam is annoying and some-one should stop it. Apparently my dailyprayers and complaints have been answeredbecause last month our President signed thefirst federal law to regulate spam, to go intoeffect at the beginning of this year. Thisaction seems to call for applause. But judgingfrom the unmitigated junk mails that continueto inundate our mailboxes, there’s no need tobe excited after all.

The act was officially termed the “Control-ling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornographyand Marketing Act of 2003”, or the “CAN-SPAM Act” for short. Not a very fitting name.In fact, the name of the act seems to encour-age more spamming. And what it does isn’tvery impressive, either. It stipulates thatspammers must clearly address the commer-cial purpose of their e-mails. Consider the fact

that most spammers are already multiple lawviolators (fraud, for instance), labeling theirmessages seems to be the only guideline (orany guideline for that matter) that they fol-lowed. After all, it is not that difficult to getthe gist of subtle subject headlines such as“instant hard-rock,” “double the pleasure,” or“be freed today.”

The law also requires the spammers toinclude an “opt-out feature” meaning you canactually tell the unsolicited e-mail marketersthat you don’t need potency medications orpre-approved credit cards, ever. Wait, am Ijust silly or am I not understanding it right?People actually want to be spammed? Who intheir right mind wants to see the “before &after” photos of Betty Sue, who had an excel-lent result with XXX brand meal plans?

But in a world where being spammed isthe default, some options are better than none.Yet when you could spend a major portion ofyour precious time politely refusing theseunwanted offers, a simple click of the “delete”button appears much more efficient. And thespammers won’t know that you actually don’tneed that third mortgage or those fast-workingdiet pills and keep feeding your mailbox moreinfo on their “once-in-a-lifetime” offers.

Cynics like me think of the law as a legalexcuse for spammers to annoy you some more.Now as long as they made clear in the subjectline that they are selling some famous tycoon’sdaughter’s home video for only $19.99, and

they include the opt-out feature so you can tellthem you don’t need it because you’ve alreadyseen it on the Internet for free, it is more legalthan before for them to spam away.

Let’s admit it. The brand spanking newanti-spam law isn’t perfect. In fact, manyargue that such a stipulation can potentiallyharm legitimate businesses that send out dis-count offers or monthly newsletters to theircustomers via e-mail. And most states havetheir own versions of the anti-spam law andthe majority of these revolve around similarconcepts of labeling and the “opt-out” feature(with the exception of few states with the “opt-in” feature). The fact that few have seen posi-tive results with these state laws makes onequestion what good the federal law will do.

The truth is that this law introduces “newcriminal penalties to assist in deterring themost offensive forms of spam” such as whenyou open an e-mail entitled “discount books”and X-rated pictures pop up on the screen.More importantly, this bill is only the begin-ning of the struggle between the mutilatedspam victims versus the anonymous and hard-to-track-down spammers. As Federal TradeCommission Chair Tim Muris put it, “thesolution [to the spam problem] will requiretechnology, self-help, and enforcement.” Inthe meantime, just don’t reply to spam e-mails, keep setting up e-mail filters, and keepworking that index finger and hitting thosedelete buttons.

Ken Nesmith

I have very mixed feelings about PresidentBush. He does appear to have an honest com-mitment to respectable values and ideals, andseems less conniving and calculating than theusual politician, even if it may be for lack ofability. It’s hard, though, to afford him toomuch admiration and respect.

A recent interview of his, with a BBCreporter just before he visited London lastyear, made one of his weaknesses particularlyvisible. As he worked to do the traditionalinterviewee’s job of finding a way to reshapethe questions such that he could use hisprewritten answers, one could almost hear hisadvisers coaching him hours earlier, remind-ing him to stay “on message” and deliver theright catch phrases. He would interrupt him-self midway through responses to insertsound-bite-able lines, as if clumsily remem-bering the appropriate item to deliver on aparticular topic. Spinning through a questionabout progress in Iraq, he stopped himselfmid-sentence to plug one of his favorite lines:“Freedom is not America’s gift to the world,it’s the Almighty’s gift to mankind.” Certain-ly, it’s a nice line, suggesting inalienable,individual human rights. Plenty of other lessdramatic ones popped up alongside it, about“revisionist history” in Iraq and so forth.

Bush is often compared to Ronald Reaganboth in terms of style and policies; here, I wasreminded of Reagan’s tactic of doing focus-group testing on certain lines for his speeches,and coming away from those tests with gemsabout our nation’s undying love of freedom,the communist evil empire, and so forth.Bush’s lines appeared crafted with similarplanning, and his discernible awkwardness inforcing them into his responses was grating.

But then, Bush has never been renownedfor his oratorical mastery. His prewrittenspeeches go well enough, but his penchant formangling even simple sentences has spawneda small industry of Bushism novelty booksand desk calendars. The contention of hisstrongest supporters has always been that he’smuch sharper than he appears, and that he hasa driving curiosity with which he grills advis-ers on each policy issue. I was always sort ofskeptical about that, after watching him speaka few times. Such a wide disconnect betweenpublic and private ability and behavior didn’t

seem likely. Former Treasury Secretary PaulO’Neill recently released a book detailing histime in the Bush White House, and he gives adamning portrayal of Bush as an intellectuallylazy, incurious oaf, if a friendly one — moreor less exactly what you’d expect from watch-ing him speak. (O’Neill also claims that Bushis led by advisers more sensitive to pollingthan any he’s ever seen, a well-supportedassertion which makes the complaints of Clin-ton’s detractors, that Clinton’s was a milque-toasty poll-driven administration, laughable.)

The administration’s internal mechanicsaside, I’m ambivalent about the policies thathave emerged from it. Bush has done a nicejob of letting people keep more of what theyown. Reducing taxes on income and capitalgains has allowed the economy to functionmore freely, letting people do the work theylike and trade as they see fit without making aslarge an involuntary contribution to the gov-ernment. Although far too great a part of theeconomy’s fluctuations are attributed to theleaders who sit in office while boom or busthappens around them (witness those who giveClinton undeserved credit for the 90s boom),the last few quarters of extraordinary econom-ic growth have been encouraging. Forecastspredict continued growth, soon to be joined byattendant job growth; this resurgence con-tributes nicely to what many say is a world-wide economic recovery. His program to allowimmigrants to work should be welcome to all.

I likewise have few serious problems withBush’s foreign policy. The war in Iraq hasdrastically improved the long-term outlook forthe Middle East. The construction of a thriv-ing, functional Iraq is underway at a remark-able pace, and will accelerate as quickly assuicidal rebels with no apparent goal butdestruction and death allow it to. There areencouraging signs of foment in Iran, dictatorsare volunteering to abandon WMD programs,and Bush has dealt with North Korea as wellas can be done. Only time will tell if any goodcan emerge from that hellish scenario; an endto accommodation of an unthinkably terribleregime was a necessary precursor to seriousconfrontation and resolution of that problem.

But if we continue this short and incompletesurvey of the administration’s policies, we runinto an interesting mess that deserves attention.Bush has done a fine job cutting taxes. That’sstep 1 in reducing the intrusive, parasitic role ofgovernment. Step 2 is actually reducing that

role — if not by shrugging off inappropriatesocial responsibilities such as taxpayer-spon-sored venture capitalism or marriage counsel-ing, then by at least limiting their growth to arate less than that of national economic growth,so that government becomes a proportionallysmaller drag on the nation’s economy. Whathave Bush and this Republican Congress done?Expanded government wherever possible. Fed-eral spending has skyrocketed, even leavingaside extra spending for Iraq, Afghanistan, andhomeland security. Without even accounting fordefense and entitlement spending, Bush hasraised federal outlays 21 percent in three years(versus a .7 percent decrease in Clinton’s firstthree years). Education spending has risen 60percent since 2000; transportation spending hasrisen by half. Labor department spending is up61 percent, health and human services, 20 per-cent. (These numbers are from Andrew Sullivanin The New Republic.)

There we have it, contradiction and idiocyin practice. Although it’s discouraging, wecan at least take a small chuckle away fromthe whole scenario. Look again at thoseincreases: Bush is dumping money into educa-tion, transportation, the labor department, andnow, health care, via an unthinkably expen-sive prescription drug program, designed tobuy cutting edge drugs for whoever needsthem. Should he not be the best friend ofevery liberal in America? Every time a Bushopponent laments that he’s helped the militaryand the wealthy at the expense of the home-less, schoolchildren, old people, the middleclass, the lower class, the environment, thesick, minorities and other people and things inthe country, you have to wonder if theynoticed that he’s spending more on liberalcauses than anyone, ever. Anyone whoincreases government spending this muchshould be every liberal’s best friend.

But that’s only a small side note to anunfortunate situation. We college kids will bepaying off this spending throughout our life-times. Democrats are hopelessly fiscally irre-sponsible — all candidates want to furtherexpand spending and raise taxes; Bush, unlesshe suddenly remembers all of those things heused to say about smaller government,appears to be hopeless. I suppose it’s a sillyquestion, but where are the honest, responsi-ble politicians? That’s not a joke; I’d like tothink there’s some answer to that questionother than cynical sarcasm.

Contradiction and Idiocy

Can Spam? Not

Andrew C. Thomas

Normally, these sorts of columns wait untilthe last issue that a graduating senior can submitto, but three events have made me want toreflect on my time at MIT right away. First,next week will be my last as this newspaper’sopinion editor, so I won’t have the chance toread any delightful reader mail unless I hackinto the Letters to the Editor account. Second,I’m saving a few grand and graduating early,though I’ll still be putzing around until June andprobably still writing for this page. And third,I’m writing this on a holiday Monday and Ihave little else to do but think back. Of course,this sort of reminiscing always makes mereduce things to quotes or glib remarks. Takeone with you and pass it on, and I’ll be satisfied.

“There’s always a bigger fish.” I imagine that every MIT graduate travels

the same path, from a feeling of obstinatecourage to one of utter defeat and humiliation— and that’s just in freshman year. Most stu-dents come here from the very tops of theirclasses only to find themselves in the middle ofthe pack, and most of them did it without work-

ing very hard. It’s one of the most difficult tran-sitions for anyone to make, but also one of themost necessary for those who coast on raw tal-ent. Don’t kill yourself to be first in your classany more — it’s not going to happen, kids.

“The rose goes in the front, big boy.”A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Confidence and arrogance alone cannot do thejob. Patience is often in short supply here —the abuse of pass/no record to take high levelcourses at a minimum penalty is but one symp-tom of that. Not like this will make a differ-ence to anyone reading this, since I can’t stopthat particular problem for a single studenthere, but please, don’t be in too much of arush. Don’t cram six courses into your sched-ule and take only 50 percent out of each one.

“Some days, even my lucky rocketshipunderpants don’t work.”

We’ve all pulled all-nighters, some havepulled all-weekers. There will always be thosetimes when you worked hard to polish off anassignment and didn’t do as well as you hoped— leading you to question why you tried sohard in the first place. Remember, no matterhow trite it sounds, it really is about how youplay the game.

“Here’s looking at you, kid.”Man, this place is ugly. Ugly, but lovable,

like the sweetheart kid down the street who’llbring you flowers but whom you’ll jilt for themuscled jerk who calls you “cutie.” (Ahem.)Maybe it’ll take me 25 or 50 years to appreci-ate the beauty architect Steven Holl sees inSimmons Hall, like the troubles Picasso andother great artists had when their new cre-ations were displayed. They broke traditionalvalues in their art, and Frank Gehry continuesto with the upcoming unveiling of the jewel inthe new architectural crown. Still, I don’t seeit happening, and you can hold me to it. Atleast when Baker came out, they didn’t askwhy they had to go down and then up to get toanother room on the same floor, or complainabout the view.

“I love kung fu.”I tried to come up with a good quote from

the cult favorite Office Space that might becontext appropriate, but for the need to comeup with one suitable for the eyes of children,the best I could do is this one. Appreciate theslightly absurd in life. We all need to relaxonce in a while, no matter how big the thrillyou get from keeping your pedal to the floor.Stay off the chocolate covered espresso beansand the Red Bull and have a glass of warmmilk at least once a semester.

Be seeing you.

The LongAnd Winding

Road

I imagine that every MITgraduate travels the same path,

from a feeling of obstinatecourage to one of utter defeat andhumiliation — and that’s just

in freshman year.

John A. Hawkinson

In this column

• In this column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 5• Ombudserratum . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 5• PDFs of issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 5• Crime and Dong Mun . . . . . . . . .page 6• Stories buried deep inside . . . . . .page 6

Ombudserratum

My column in last week’s issue (Jan. 14)claimed three letters had not been published,and listed them. The second listing, “aresponse to the Nov. 21 complaint about theVirgin Mobile ad,” was wrong — that letterwas indeed printed, in issue 59 (Nov. 25),under the title “Gender Bias.” The authorwas Dave Lahr G.

(It would be funny to claim I missed thepublication of the letter because there is no

HTML version on the Web, but that’s notthe reason.)

PDFs of issuesLast week, I mentioned some issues were

available in PDF form. Unfortunately, whenthe HTML versions of issues have gone up,the PDF versions have mostly disappeared.They are still online at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/PDF (I was able to find this by

The Ombudsman

Ombudsman, Page 6

Page 6 THE TECH OPINION January 21, 2004

guessing /V123 and choosing PDF from thedirectory listing). I’ve asked the technologydepartment why that’s not linked to from any-where useful, but they have not responded.

It’s somewhat sobering to think that thequestion of PDFs has generated the most e-mail from readers on a single topic in myseven months as Ombudsman: four peoplesent me mail (one is a staff photographer,not just a reader). All four were in favor ofPDFs, to the exclusion of the HTML ver-sion. Whoa! (I would have expected thepeak of communication to me to be over ajournalistic issue, not a technical one.)

Two of the four independently suggestedthat we should have thumbnail images of thefront page available, and one suggested thatPDFs of the individual articles should beavailable as well.

The arguments in favor seem to be thatPDFs:

• are prettier than HTML;• accurately reflects the layout of the

newspaper (archival value);• do not omit tables, infographics, or spe-

cial formatting;• can go up on the Web faster than the

HTML versions.I haven’t seen any arguments against

providing both formats, though PDFs of theentire paper may be difficult to providewhen some material in the printed edition isnot licensed for online distribution.

Crime and Dong MunI was pretty pleased with the news con-

tent in last week’s issue. Outgoing photogra-phy editor Jonathan Wang wrote a goodnews story on crime. In particular, I waspleased that he talked to MIT Police ChiefJohn DiFava and got useful quotations,especially compared with past police cover-age.

For example, in the recent articles aboutmissing MIT student Daniel “Dong” S. Mun’05, I thought the news department didn’tdo a good job of interviewing the MITpolice. The original Dec. 9 article [“StudentMissing Since Friday”] said the MIT police“could provide no update,” and the fol-lowup Jan. 7 article [“MIT Student RemainsMissing”] said Deputy Chief John Driscoll

“referred questions about the investigationto [MIT spokesman Arthur L.] Jones.” Inboth cases, I thought a comment from DiFa-va would have helped, but the news depart-ment didn’t seem to follow through.

If you’re wondering what has happenedto Mun, you’re not the only one. The Jan. 7article quotes Jones saying “Everything isongoing” and says that he says the search“includes periodically checking the river andits banks.” What does “periodically” mean?The next paragraph says Dean Robert M.Randolph “thinks the checks will be doneweekly,” which is decidedly uncertain. Isthere really any hope at all?

I was also puzzled by the quote fromRandolph in the Dec. 17 article in TheBoston Globe [“Friends, police search formissing MIT student,” by Marcella Bom-bardieri]: “There are indications he couldhave harmed himself.” That seemed prettyalarming, especially when coupled with ini-tial rumors from a widely circulated Dec. 6e-mail that “He was pretty drunk when heleft the house.” (I asked the author of that e-mail on Monday, and he said he wasn’t sureit was true but wrote that “so people wouldtake it more seriously,” and that he didn’tremember where the information camefrom.)

The Jan 7. article says that when Ran-dolph was “asked about his comment” bythe Globe, that “he said that it was not clearwhat Mun might have done, and that hewould not discuss the matter in more detailfor privacy reasons.”

I asked Randolph to resolve the confu-sion, and he said (referring to Mun), “Hesent a message to his family indicating hewas going to do something, but it’s not clearwhat in fact he was going to do. Subsequentinformation has not made it any clearer.”

Stories buried deep inside the last issuePages 13 and 14 reprinted two articles

from The Boston Globe about MIT. Look-ing at them, you might think that they wererun there just to fill space, but actuallythey ran because the interim IAP newsdirector Keith J. Winstein felt they wererelevant.

The Tech doesn’t do a good job of tellingreaders about stories that are buried deepinside the paper, and should improve. The

World & Nation, Opinion, Fun, and Sportssections all appear in distinctive places andcan easily be found. The news articles on thefront page are easy to find. Other contentdoes not have it so easy.

The remaining news, features, and artsarticles have to vie for a reference in one ofthe three positions at the bottom of the frontpage (called “inside boxes”), one of whichis reserved for comics (why bother?). That’sgreat if there are only two such articles, butproblematic oth-erwise.

In lastweek’s issue,the left insidebox led to one ofthree arts stories(all on the samespread), and theright led to thesports section.There was nofront page men-tion of the twoGlobe stories,and I suspectmany Tech read-ers missed them.

Perhaps TheTech needs torethink its insideboxes. On Jan.12, The HarvardC r i m s o nlaunched theirredesign. Accord-ing to the article,the Crimson has:“three insidestory teasersabove the mast-head [to] directreaders’ attentionto important orinteresting sto-ries,” “sectionteasers on thefront page [to]provide informa-tion about insidesections and theirmajor stories,”“inside coverage

boxes [to] alert readers to related coverageelsewhere within the paper,” and “animproved index box … across the bottom ofthe page” (see “Crimson Goes Color” byZachary M. Seward, http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357029).

Let’s take a page from the Crimson andadd more kinds of inside boxes.

The Tech’s Ombudsman welcomes yourfeedback, to ombudsman@the-tech.mit.edu.His opinions are his own.

PDFs Rule; Did We Ask Smart Questions About Mun?Ombudsman, from Page 5

COURTESY THE HARVARD CRIMSON

The Harvard Crimson’s redesigned front page debuted Jan. 12,2004. It shows interior content in four ways: inside story teasers,section teasers, inside coverage boxes, and an index box.

letters@the-tech.mit.edu

Page7

January 21,2004

Dilbert® by Scott Adams

Page 8 The Tech January 21, 2004

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member30 Going-public

letters32 Potash33 Group of GIs34 Scampered36 1950 tennis

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41 Horace work, “__ Poetica”

42 Botanist Gray43 Actress Lupino44 Handwritten

writings: abbr.45 Young man48 Dog greetings50 Spider-

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January 21, 2004 THE TECH Page 9

Page 10 THE TECH January 21, 2004

The Student Emergency Medical Service is running its annual emer-gency medical technician training class this month. The students hailfrom all parts of campus and range in age from freshmen to alumni. Thecourse, which runs until early February, will prepare the students forthe state EMT exam.

(top left) Ilia Santiago ’05, Danielle Dahle ’05, and Sandra Chung ’04,rotate Jonathan Winter G on his spine board during a spinal immobiliza-tion exercise.

(bottom left) SEMS Chief Samuel Schweighart G helps Sarah Nelson’05 take vital signs in the back of a moving ambulance.

(above) Jay Miller ’04, Russ Cox G, and Jay Jones ’04 perform a stand-ing takedown maneuver to secure Amy Perfors G to a backboard.

Photography by Daniel Bersak.

SEMSStudent Emergency Medical Service EMT Training

By clydelaw@mit.edu

JAN. 15, 2004

At the time of this writing, my Athenaaccount is already deactivated. This chroniclebegins on November 4, 2003, the date I

received notice of myaccount’s impendingdemise due to my

recent graduation from the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. The notice read:

Account Deactivation Notice (4November 2003)

This is to notify you thatyour Athena account is scheduledfor deactivation on or shortlyafter January 14, 2004.

If you are currently enrolledin classes, are currently MITFaculty or Staff, or are workingwith an MIT Faculty or Staffmember on a project thatrequires the use of Athena,please contact Athena UserAccounts…

I was aghast. I had been expecting thiseventuality for some time now, although Isuppose the shock never completely set in.

With that, I dutifully set up the properarrangements and backed up all of the con-tents of my Athena locker three days ago sothat I might have some token with which toremember my goddess Athena. Not one to beso easily defeated, I logged into all-night-tool.mit.edu on January 14 at 3 p.m. EST tosee what would happen if I were to stand myground during the account deactivation.

All was fine and by 11 p.m., I was stillable to invoke the usual Athena functions.However, I was extremely weary because ofthe late nights I had put up with for the pastcouple days and decided to take a nap (it wasonly 8 p.m. in my time zone, PST). After myrespite, I arose at around 2 a.m. EST anddecided to check on my Athena.

athena% znolCan’t open /afs/athena.mit.edu

/user/c/l/clydelaw/.anyone forinput

The error message gave me a jolt. Was thisthe end? Had my goddess abandoned me?

I executed an ‘ls’ on my home directory.The display of my directory listing profferedme a modicum of relief. Even my .anyone fileopened with success when I accessed its con-tents. Instinctively I attempted to renew myKerberos tickets:

athena% renewPassword forclydelaw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU:fsid: outland mappedfsid: save mappedfsid: gnu mappedfsid: infoagents mappedfsid: sipb mapped

Hallelujah! She continued to accept mypassword and renew my tickets. However Isoon discovered that this triumph merely con-cealed what was to come.

I proceeded to hunt around into variousother AFS lockers to which I had access privi-leges to ensure that all was still well, but then,changing back to my home directory yieldedthe following:

athena% cdchdir: Can’t change to home

directory.

Oh crap… Upon further insistence:

athena% cd ~/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/c/l

/clydelaw: No such device.

Perhaps it was the case that my locker hadbecome detached?

athena% attach clydelawclydelaw: Locker deactivat-

ed; contact 253-1325 for help

And so it was. Checking my user statuswith moira produced:

Login name: clydelawFull name: Law, ClydeUser id: 27673Login shell: /bin/athena/tcshClass: GWindows Console Shell: cmdAccount is: Deleted (3)

Account is: Deleted Those words struckme like a whetted knife. My defiance hadbeen rebuked. Attempting to perform anotherssh login to Athena proved to be futile. Whenpresented with my username, she did not evenbother with the effort to implore my pass-word, responding with a curt retort:

You are not allowed to login here: Unknown username

…the bitch.So here I was, wandering the land of

Athena like a vagrant without a home [direc-tory] to return to. My MIT spirit of curiosityhad not abandoned me yet however. Since Iwas still within the fortress gates, I decided todiscover what else I could do with whateverremnants of my account were left.

zwgc was still running, so I attempted todetermine whether I could still zephyr. Afriend of mine was still online, so I ventured atest:

athena% zwrite chchouType your message now. End

with control-D or a dot on aline by itself.

hello?Message queued for chchou… sent

Authentic Personal message at03:05:07 on Thu Jan 15 2004

From: Christopher H Chou<chchou> on NERD-XING.MIT.EDU

To: clydelaw@ATHENA.MIT.EDUyo

But alas, I had to concede that the accountwas gone. A verification e-mail to myself fur-ther substantiated this unfortunate reality witha bounce message:

<clydelaw@mit.edu>: 18.7.21.83does not like recipient.

Remote host said: 550 5.1.1<clydelaw@mit.edu>... Userunknown

Giving up on 18.7.21.83.

Remarkably, further experimentation provedthat my usual access privileges to various mail-ing lists and lockers had not yet been revoked.

I still maintained write privileges to the j-entry locker from the days when I had the dutiesof the MacGregor J-Entry Webmaster. Thus, Iam taking this opportunity now to scrawl downthis saga on the very last remaining location towhich I still have access. This will probably bemy final mark on the halls of Athena.

I continue to remain logged in, like a childclinging desperately to the mother who hasabandoned him, but I fear I may not last long.Soon I will require sleep and my idle timelimit will probably be reached, exiling me for-ever from my goddess Athena. At the veryleast I can proudly say I did not go downwithout a fight!

Some system administrator out there isprobably logged in laughing at me.

Forever yours, Athena,Clyde Law ’02, MEng ’03

Inspired in part by conversations withRonojoy Chakrabarti ’02, Christopher Chou’02, and Michel Lambert ’04.

Epilogueclydelaw was logged out during the early

morning of Friday, January 16. Precise timeof logout was determined to be 6:37 a.m.EST. After surviving over 24 hours post-deac-tivation, he decided to accept his fate and pullthe plug on the keep-alive script. The inactivi-ty monitors kicked in, and he was logged outpeacefully while sleeping.

— Archit Shah ’00

Owl’s End: One Student’s Take on Losing His Athena

Feature

January 21, 2004 THE TECH Page 11

join@tt.mit.eduW20-483, 617-253-1541

Page 12 THE TECH January 21, 2004

Photojournalist E.C. Withers discusses his images of the Civil Rights era during a Martin LutherKing Day lecture at the Museum of Fine Arts Monday afternoon. Withers traveled throughout theSouth with Dr. King, and documented several famous civil rights milestones. Photography byDaniel Bersak.

January 21, 2004 THE TECH Page 13

pany has contracted for an investi-gation as well, Marshall said.

Frozen pipes disabled sprinklersPrior to the fire, around 2 a.m. on

Friday, the Boston Fire Departmentresponded to an alarm at BTP,according to the MIT police log.The alarm was apparently caused bya burst pipe.

“A pipe had burst because [of]the bitter cold. I think it leaked a lit-tle water that steamed and set thefire alarm off,” said Daniel A.Bercovici ’04, the president of BTP.

The pipes also contributed to thedamage done to the house. “Therewere several frozen pipes in thesprinkler system,” Marshall said.“The sprinkler system, the water, wasdisabled.” The smoke alarms, howev-er, were still operational, he said.

Damage keeps members in annexDisplaced members of BTP will

continue to live in their annex,across the street at 120 Bay StateRoad, because damage to the fourthfloor must be repaired before any-one can move back into the house,Bercovici said.

“We have sufficient room and

the lodging licenses for them to livein the annex,” Marshall said.

Marshall expects the house tobe closed for “the foreseeablefuture.” “We don’t know if that’s amonth or five months,” he said.“We’re certainly expecting that thehouse will be available for the fallterm so undergraduates can moveinto the house, including thepledges who will be initiated bythen.”

“There’s substantial damage tothe fourth floor but it seems to bemostly limited to the rear,” Marshallsaid. The two rooms that wereaffected by the fire “have been com-pletely totaled and have to berebuilt,” he said. Those rooms’ resi-dents’ “personal belongings arebasically a total loss.”

Firefighters also removed theplaster walls and ceiling of the roomsin order to prevent the fire fromspreading, Marshall said. “The fram-ing, the ceiling rafters are still there.”

Fires are not common at MITfraternities, although there was asmall space-heater fire at Theta Xilast month. “Never in my nineyears of working fraternities hadthere been fires,” said Rogers.“And there have been two in thelast month.”

Burst Pipe Leads toInactived Sprinklers

shifts to cover the early morninghours, and one of our team membersset up a Wiki, a Web page we couldall easily modify, so that we couldkeep track of our progress duringthe hunt.

About half of the team wouldcome and go from puzzling, takingbreaks to sleep, eat, and shower,though many of us established apermanent presence in the lounge.From time to time someone wouldleave briefly to get sustenance or tovisit the French Armada.

Because we were a fairly smallteam of mostly first-time hunters,we would usually attack puzzles inpairs or small groups and work onthem relentlessly until they weresolved. From time to time theFrench Armada would call us withhints, though we generally were leftto rely on having one of those “A-ha!” moments.

Sanity levels were rapidly drop-ping by Sunday afternoon, after aweekend of very little sleep andworking on a single puzzle for sev-eral straight hours. Our goal in thefinal hours of the hunt became tocomplete one meta puzzle, which wedid by making an origami pirate’shat early on Monday morning.

Puzzles difficult but funOne puzzle that I particularly

struggled with was “May ThisEmber Glow,” a picture of 14celebrity couples. We finallynoticed that the picture includedfamous cradle-robbers like JerryLee Lewis and Woody Allen, and

we realized that the solution wouldhave something to do with the largeage difference for each “May-December” couple. Appropriately,the answer to that puzzle was “pre-frosh.”

Other fun puzzles like “Worshipof Zacazontli” sent several of ourteam members out trying to identifyspecific telephones around campus,and “Measure of Devotion”involved picking out letters fromcertain words in Lobby 10.

Structure of hunt explainedAfter sleeping all day Monday,

our team went to the wrap-up in theevening, where the French Armadaawarded prizes, shared anecdotesabout certain teams, and explainedthe general structure of the hunt.

Each island from the Map of allSpace and Time involved solvingabout fifteen puzzles, and eachisland had a meta puzzle thatrequired the solutions to most or allof the fifteen puzzles. After allseven meta puzzles had been com-pleted, teams had a boarding pass tothe Titanic.

From there, teams began thefinal runaround, solving a series ofseven puzzles that required theseven items — including a skull, asmall plastic gear, lock picks, acrystal, and a vial of rum — thatwere given to teams as each islandwas unlocked. One of the prizesawarded at the wrap-up was anadditional vial of rum for the Bakerteam, who drank theirs as soon asthey got it.

After the final runaround, theteams were sent to 54-100, where

they found the coin. Setec Astrono-my found the coin first, though theywere followed closely by PhysPlant,the team from Random Hall.

The recovery processAfter thinking about nothing but

Mystery Hunt for a good 68 straighthours, it’s bittersweet to find myselfback in the routine of normal life.

Even on Monday evening I wasstill looking for patterns in every-thing I read, but I’ve mostly recov-ered by now. I’ve stopped answer-ing the phone by saying “Arrr!” andI’ve relinquished my title as Cap-tain.

Our team of mostly freshmen andsophomores felt overwhelmed attimes, but I know we had a lot of funand really enjoyed the experience.The French Armada especially did agood job of making sure all theteams were having a good time, pro-viding us with hints when necessary.Even though I was only a second-year hunter, I felt like I had a muchbetter understanding of the hunt thisyear, and so we’re hoping that ourteam will improve by next year.

In a lot of ways, I feel that theMystery Hunt is representative oflife here at MIT — a wild, crazyride with lots of interesting and dif-ficult problems to solve. The firsttime you try it, you feel completelyhosed, but it gets better as you goalong and eventually someone helpsyou see the big picture. And in theend, it isn’t how many puzzles yousolved or even whether or not youfound the coin that matters, it’swhat you learned in the process andthe fun you had getting there.

Mystery Hunt Virgins Work DayAnd Night to See the Big PictureMystery Hunt, from Page 1 Fire, from Page 1

This space donated by The Tech

What can I do during IAP...?Call Nightline! x3-8800

Page 14 THE TECH January 21, 2004

Solution to Crosswordfrom page 8

Although the Guys assert thatMIT is partly responsible for Guy’sdeath, they acknowledge in thecomplaint that their son “was notblameless in this tragedy.”

Shins, Carpenters also suingThe Guys’ lawsuit is on schedule

to go to trial in 2005. The two otherwrongful death lawsuits pendingagainst MIT — one filed by the par-ents of Elizabeth H. Shin ’02, anoth-er by the father of Julia M. Carpen-ter ’03 — will go to trial in 2005and 2006, both seeking more than$20 million from MIT and severalMIT administrators and doctorswhom the parents say were respon-sible for their daughters’ suicides.

Guy TrialTo ComeIn 2005Lawsuit, from Page 1

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January 21, 2004 SPORTS THE TECH Page 15

Women’s Swim, DiveTeams Beat BrandeisBy Victoria AndersonTEAM MEMBER

The MIT women’s swimmingand diving team split a double dualmeet on Jan. 18, topping Brandeis209.5-77.5 and falling to Tufts 139-160. The Beavers dropped their first200-yard medley relay of the season,as the combined swims of Erin M.Zoller ’05, Melissa E. Dere ’06,Aasia Saleemuddin ’04, and KathrynM. Duffy ’04 totaled to 1:56.15,over a second behind Tufts’ toprelay. Their time was, however,good for first against Brandeis, andthe relay team of Victoria K. Ander-son G, Monica W. Chu ’07, JessicaA. Harpole ’07, and Mabel Y. Feng’06 posted a 2:01.26 for third againstboth Brandeis and Tufts.

Katherine C. Thornton ’07 led offthe individual events of the meetwith a spectacular performance in the1650 freestyle. Her time of 17:26.00not only gave her first place againstboth teams, but also put her onlyone-hundredth of a second awayfrom an automatic qualifying timefor the NCAA Division III NationalChampionships. With her 1650 time,as well as her 1000 split time of10:31.83, she bettered her own Insti-tute records of just one month. Alsoswimming the 1650, Maryann E.Racine ’06 touched in 19:25.09 totake third against both teams.

In the 200 free, Georgene M.Hilb ’04 finished first overall with aseason-best time of 1:58.62. Startingoff the first round of stroke races,Jennifer A. L’ao ’05 finished the 100back with a time of 1:03.75 to placefirst against the Brandeis swimmersand second against the Tufts ath-letes. In the 100 breast, Dere tooksecond against Brandeis and firstagainst Tufts with a time of 1:11.02while Chu was third against bothteams, touching in 1:13.14. Thorn-

ton climbed back on the blocksshortly after her 1650 performanceto swim a time of 2:14.25 in the 200fly, which put her second againstTufts and third against Brandeis.

In the sprint free events, Duffyand Zoller took first and secondagainst Brandeis and first and thirdagainst Tufts with times of 24.64 and26.11, respectively, while Duffy andHilb were first and second againstBrandeis and first and third againstTufts with times of 53.37 and 56.00,respectively. L’ao and Zoller took tothe water for the 200 back, takingsecond and third against Tufts andfirst and second against Brandeiswith their times of 2:17.07 and2:18.29, respectively. Dere and Chudominated the Tufts swimmers in the200 breast, taking first and secondwith times of 2:31.93 and 2:38.44,respectively, that also put them sec-ond and third against Brandeis.

Thornton finished off anotherInstitute record with a 5:11.06 in the500 free, which put her first againstboth teams. Also swimming the 500free, Hilb posted a 5:21.58 to takethird against Tufts and secondagainst Brandeis. In the 100 fly, Chuand Saleemuddin took second andthird against both schools withtimes of 1:04.64 and 1:05.06,respectively.

The final record-setting event ofthe meet was the 400 IM, as L’aofinished in 4:44.42, breaking theInstitute record in the event and tak-ing second against Tufts and firstagainst Brandeis. Closing out themeet, Duffy, Hilb, Thornton, andL’ao took the top spot against Tuftsand Brandeis with their time of8:08.72, while Lindsey R. Sheehan’07, Rebecca E. Jimenez, Racine,and Elizabeth A. Whitehead ’07were third against both teams in8:51.06.

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STANLEY HU—THE TECH

Men’s basketball coach Larry Anderson argues with a referee over a call during last Thursday’sgame at Rockwell Cage. Salem State overcame a 12-point deficit to hand the MIT team a 70-67loss in overtime.

By Brian ChaseCOLUMNIST

Besides the NFL playoffs, whichare getting the most attention in thesports world nowadays, this month

is also theheight ofbasketball

season, with both the NBA andNCAA Division I basketball sea-sons in full swing. I’m only payingattention to one of those leagues,though, and that’s the college one.To me, collegiate basketball is muchmore entertaining than the NBA, forseveral reasons.

1. EgosIn college basketball, you don’t

run into any players that are con-vinced they are the be-all, end-all ofthe league and deserve to be paidthat way. College players, throughthe difficulty of the competition, thefact that most of them are still learn-ing, and the fact that they are paid ineducation, seem to me to be muchmore humble, and much more like-able, than anyone in the NBA.

2. Playing styleTo me, it seems that more teams

in college win through united teamstrategies than relying on two orthree stars for individual perfor-mances, like in the NBA. Admitted-

ly, there are college teams that playthat way as well, but for every oneof them there is a team like Gonza-ga, who consistently plays betterthan their talent because they have agood coach and because they playas a united whole, relying on no oneplayer.

3. College FansThere is no NBA stadium that

can produce the intensity and out-right crazy fanaticism that collegestudents show for their respectiveteams. You don’t see NBA stadiumsfilled with an entire section ofscreaming college fans all withpainted bodies and choreographed,traditional tactics to disrupt theopposing team on free throws. Itadds a level of excitement andenjoyment to college games thatisn’t there in the NBA.

4. ParityIn any given year of college bas-

ketball, there are at least twentyteams that are good enough to winthe championship, unlike the NBA,where you know a Western confer-ence team will win, and you usuallyeven know which one by the firstround of the playoffs. In college b-ball, you never know until the finalgame who’s going to win, and awinner can come from any of the

major conferences. The greater num-ber of teams also means there aremore possible match-ups betweengood teams, and so generally moregood games than in the NBA.

5. PermanenceIn college, there is a much better

chance the team you root for will bearound for as long as you are, andthere is no chance of the team beingsold or moving cities. Along thesame lines, the sheer number of col-lege teams means that more peoplehave a team they can root for, evenif they do not live near a major city.

6. PlayoffsThis one goes pretty much with-

out saying. To me, the NBA play-offs never come near to the excite-ment of March Madness. Andreally, that’s the most important partof the season, isn’t it?

Now, I admit, the individualplayers are undoubtedly better inthe NBA than in college, andmaybe the level of basketball is,too. But to me, those factors don’tmake up the difference between theenjoyment I get from college bas-ketball and the only slight interest Ihave in the NBA. For my money,give the younger guys the ball, andlet the pros complain to theiragents.

By Yong-yi ZhuCOLUMNIST

What do I love? Do I love mygirlfriend? Do I love ESPN? Do Ilove my conditioner? All I know is

the world,sans theU n i t e dStates of

America, loves the sport of soccer. Atleast, soccer is what we Americansterm it; the rest of the universe knowsit as football.

Doesn’t the word football makesense? After all, you do play the gamewith your feet and a ball. Soccer hasorigins from all over the world. Itsbeginnings range from Egypt where itwas a part of a religious ceremony, toChina where the sport was used formilitary training, to Central Americaand North America, where it takes theclosest form of what it current is. Infact, soccer now is so easy to play thatall you need is a ball and a couple ofpeople. Many children in the UnitedStates play soccer. After all, the num-ber of kids that played had to be highenough so that the word “soccermom” could be invented. We don’thear of “football moms” or “littleleague moms,” right?

So then, why does the rest of theworld watch soccer like a religion,while we pay as little attention to it asmost pretty girls pay to me? Take themost outrageous example. To the restof the world, David Beckham is agod. After his marriage to PoshSpice, Beckham’s popularity has per-haps matched that of MuhammedAli. Just flipping through any soccermagazine, one can find at least adozen references to the man and atleast a half dozen photos. In fact, hehas even posed for a magazine forhomosexual men, despite being hap-pily married to Victoria Beckham.His sale this summer from Manches-ter United to Real Madrid sparkedmany to phone in protests on theBritish side, because they feel asthough they are losing an icon to aforeign country; it’s almost as if theBeatles suddenly became Spanish.

However, if Beckham were towalk around New York City, themajority of the people would have noclue who the man is. One might saythe same for Figo, Zidane, or any ofthe other superstars of soccer, eventhough they are the equivalents ofMichael Jordan or Tiger Woods.

Take another example of sportsbroadcasting. When you watchESPN, what do you see as a head-line? “Bonds hit 73rd home run!” Or“Redskins hire Joe Gibbs!” Or “Spurswin NBA title!” Never has anyoneheard the headline: “FC Barcelonaedges Real Madrid!” on ESPN.

In fact, several weeks ago, I hearda radio show by Dan LeBatard wherehe said that he went to a soccer game,and they scored as many goals as if hedidn’t show up, therefore the sport is awaste of his time. In China, just as anexample, things are completely thereverse. I watched a half-hour longsports program once and it featuredfive minutes of volleyball, 23 minutesof soccer, one minute of Yao Ming,and a minute for everything else sportsrelated. It’s such a complete 180 fromthe world that we are used to.

Perhaps the reason for this is thatwe are fundamentally different fromother countries in many areas. Ourcountry’s wealth is different frommany others; therefore, we may takea liking to the sports that requiremore wealth to play. Soccer, as I hadsaid before, is simple, while everyother sport needs more equipment ormore people.

We are also rather elitist. If we arenot the best at something, usually,there is a small fan base for it. Socceris just that; all the great players areforeign.

With all those theories, I got a lit-tle more down to Earth: I asked afriend of mine why she played soccer.Her answer was that she wanted morethan just the running she was gettingfrom track, and the ball handling prac-tice drew her to it. To her, it wasmerely a ball handling exercise.

The answer was very logical, yetit lacked passion. Perhaps if moreAmericans thought logically, theywould find soccer to be a great sporttechnique-wise. However mostAmericans merely go with whateveris fun or cool, and the flashy dunks ofthe NBA and the glamorous homeruns of the MLB attract more peoplethan a simple ball in a net.

Perhaps soccer’s simplicity hasbrought its demise to itself in theAmerican society. Or perhaps we’resimply not culturally in tune with therest of the world. Whatever the dif-ference, I’ll always respect it. I atleast owe that much to the world’sgreatest love.

SPORTSPage 16 THE TECH January 21, 2004

Why the NCAA Is Better Than the NBA

Patriots Rock Colts, Panthers KillEagles in Championship GamesBy Brian ChaseCOLUMNIST

Well, let the mocking begin. Iwent out on a limb and predicted thePatriots would lose their AFC

C h a m p i -o n s h i pg a m eagainst the

Indianapolis Colts, and the Patsmade me pay for it. I’ll tell you justhow they did it and how the Caroli-na Panthers easily beat the Philadel-phia Eagles, in addition to makingmy pick for the Super Bowl intoday’s column.

Indianapolis at New England:Everyone going into this game

thought that the extreme coldweather would hurt the Colts. Well,the weather was a factor, but not inthe way everyone thought. Thegame wasn’t that cold, but therewas a wet snowfall that made boththe field and the ball very slick,leading to an increased number ofturnovers. But the real story of thisgame was the New England passdefense.

The Pats absolutely shut downthe Colts receivers from star receiv-er Marvin Harrison on down. Thismeant that Colts quarterback PeytonManning was forced to spend moretime holding onto the ball, to thepoint where his pass protectionbroke down, and he was forced to

lob badly-thrown passes. Four ofthose passes were intercepted, andover half were incomplete, givingManning his worst showing thisyear as a quarterback. These inter-ceptions shut down promising dri-ves for the Colts, and they ended upbeing the difference in the game.All in all, it was a very impressive,dominating performance by thePatriots defense, leading their teamto a 24-14 win.

Carolina at Philadelphia:The Eagles are cursed. They

simply cannot get past the NFCChampionship Game. For the thirdstraight year, they lost one gameaway from the Super Bowl, thistime to the Carolina Panthers, 14-3.This game, interestingly enough,shaped up almost exactly like thePats-Colts game, in that the Pan-thers secondary shut down theEagles receivers, who droppedpasses and didn’t get open all night.This led to Eagles QB DonovanMcNabb getting hurried, sacked,and eventually forced out of thegame with a rib injury, but notbefore he had thrown three inter-ceptions to end three consecutivedrives, all three by Panthers corner-back Ricky Manning. The Panther’soffense ran the ball as they alwaysdo, and while they may not havebeen as effective as they wanted,they were effective enough to score

twice, once off of one of Manning’sinterceptions, and that was all thatwas needed.

And here we are, at the SuperBowl. All season I have been 1-1for each pair of games I picked, sothis game will determine if my pre-diction record is a winning or losingone. My current record is 7-7.

Superbowl — Carolina vs. NewEngland:

I am almost tempted to pick thePanthers in this extremely defensivegame. They have a defense compa-rable to the Patriots, with a bruisingdefensive front and effective passdefenders. Their offense is theopposite of the Pats, because theyhave running with a little passing,and the Pats have passing with a lit-tle running. But, I was taught a les-son by the Patriots last weekend,and while erring might be human,erring the same way twice is prettydarn dumb. The Patriots came outlast Sunday with a defensive gameplan that absolutely destroyed Colts’QB Peyton Manning, and they willdo the same to the Panthers’offense. This leaves the burden onPatriots offensive coordinator Weisand QB Tom Brady to score on thePanthers’ defense, which I thinkthey can do. After all, when thedefense is this good, all you need isone touchdown. Final score: Patriots13, Panthers 6.

Why Don’t AmericansAppreciate ‘Football’?

We want you in our sheets.

join@tt.mit.eduW20-483, 617-253-1541

STANLEY HU—THE TECH

Adam J. Gibbons ’05 (second from left), Kyle T. Doherty ’04(center), and Michael E. Huhs ’05 (32), reach for a reboundduring MIT’s 67-58 win over Springfield College last Tuesdayat Rockwell Cage.

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