The End of an Era

The End of an Era Hi, everyone! Sorry that I vanished off the face of the earth. That was really kind of terrible form, I know. But Ben and my mom are conspiring, which means that I need to put that to an end. In the next little while, Ill try to do a recap of last term, which was fantastic, but unbelievably hosing. This particular post, though, is about a particularly well-known class around the Institvte. As many of you know, 6.001 was a class invented at MIT to teach the fundamentals of how to program. The first class was taught in 1980 by Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman, the authors of its companion book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, which also happens to be the official name of the course. The class has been offered constantly since then, and its been taught roughly the same way. The class was structured around Scheme, a programming language which Sussman invented with Guy Steele in the 70s here at MIT. Its an unusual language with a syntax thats radically different from most other programming languages (at least ones that arent LISP), so most people arent familiar with it coming in. And because of this, the class has gotten a lot of flak in recent years, especially from people who know more normal programming languages. In spite of this, 6.001 had a very strong reputation for teaching people not only how to program, but how to think about programming, and how to take big problems and deal with them. There are a lot of classes that claim to do this same thing, and probably many of them do, but 6.001 seems to be unique in just how it manages to pull it off. Starting this year, though, the Course VI department is beginning to migrate incoming freshmen to the new curriculum. And 6.001 doesnt really have a place in the new curriculum, so this is the last term that it was offered. Several years ago, Sussman said that he wanted to be the last person to teach 6.001, and so he taught it this term, taking it back from (guest blogger) Eric Grimson, the head of the department, who has taught the class for as long as any of my friends can remember. Because 6.001 is early in the day (10 AM which is very early by MIT standards), frequently the students will opt for other means of learning the material, but for this last lecture ever, current students of 6.001, past students of 6.001, and even people who had never taken 6.001 came to see the class off. And just to put their own stamp of approval on the class, some hackers apparently covered the original room number (32-123) with a new number for the day: For the last lecture, Sussman spent about 30 minutes talking about the halting problem the idea that a computer cant determine whether or not its possible to calculate something in finite time. At the end of his lecture, though, one of the TAs came up to say something about the classs passing. In particular, he noted that it was remarkable that a course invented then [the 80s] is still so dead on in what matters. He pointed out the remarkable insight of Abelson and Sussman to see into the core of computation, keeping it fresh for more than a quarter of a century. And afterwards, the entire room stood up and applauded the class. Now that 6.001 is gone, its being replaced by 6.00, 6.01, and 6.02 in the new curriculum. There are a lot of students that dont really like the new curriculum, but for the most part, it seems to me that they are just being resistant to the change. Its definitely true that 6.01 hasnt quite settled into being a really solid class yet, but 6.02 looks like its amazing. Among other things Chris Terman, my 6.111 professor, is teaching part of it, and hes just generally awesome. It think that the new curriculum isnt quite there yet, but its definitely close. I promise that Ill try to post more during IAP and this next term! Really! Ive definitely got a long list of things to talk about. The end of an era On Saturday, I sat in the floor lounge and began writing this entry. Yeah, that was a few days ago. I was distracted by the front desk and its extensive collection of movies. Ive decided to replace Veronica Mars with Lost, so Ive watched almost the entire first two seasons in the last two weeks. Its so, so sad. (I just finished the episode where Ana Lucia dies. WTF?! She rocked so hard. That makes me mad, killing off good characters for no reason. Rar.) I was in the floor lounge to distract myself from the bustling activity of the seniors packing up their belongings and preparing to leave us forever. I remember thinking, After today, there will be no Ruth or Sam around all the time to make Conner 2 the bastion of awesomeness that it is. Tear! I decided to finally blog (weeks after the fact) about the series(!) finale of my ex-favorite TV show, Veronica Mars. The week before the finale, the following exchange happened on the floors email list: Subject: non-lounge reservation From: Sam Date: 5/17/07 1:48 PM To: conner 2 I am NOT reserving the floor lounge at 8 PM on Tuesday to watch the American Idol finale, because Melinda got voted off last night, and that just sucks. Please watch something else during this time period. angrily, sam Subject: RE: non-lounge reservation From: Wesley Date: 5/17/07 1:55 PM To: conner 2 On that note, Im reserving the floor lounge on Tuesday from 8-10 pm for the season finale of veronica mars. Not so angrily, Wesley Subject: RE: non-lounge reservation From: Laura Date: 5/17/07 2:02 PM To: conner 2 Just to introduce an opposing opinion, I angrily support Wesleys reservation. As an avid VMars supporter for nearly 3 years, Im appalled at the subpar quality of season 3, most notably the fact that theyve destroyed any integrity the character once had. Ill be watching, just to give the show a good kick in the pants on its way out, seeing as how it was (thankfully) not renewed for Season 4. Just keeping up the theme. Angrily, Laura Which basically sums up my feelings about the show, and the finale. It may be hard to believe, but once upon a time, Veronica was basically the most awesome person EVER. I aspired to BE her. For real. But then she just became whiny and self-centered and superficial and just plain dumb. For those of you who didnt see it, in the series finale, someone sneaks a video camera into her boyfriends room and then spreads a video of them around on the Internet. And at first, the episode looked promising- because Veronica became her old self and utterly destroyed the lives of everyone who remotely stood in her way of justice. It ROCKED. Then she started doing really dumb things, like breaking into the Kane estate (um what?) and then LYING to her dad about it, who proceeded to DESTROY THE EVIDENCE against her. I cannot tolerate stupidity, seriously. Then, she hacked into this hard drive and found all the info about the members of this all-male secret society, so she gave the list of their names to Nish, because you know, she and Nish are all BBF blood sisters and all. THEN, she finally figured out who posted the video, and she did NOTHING to him. Its like, I did not sit through 2 hours of Veronica and her supercurls flouncing around while she does idiotic things to ruin her relationship with her dad in exchange for NO payoff whatsoever. I mean, the guy sat down next to her in the cafeteria and taunted her, and she just LOOKED at him, didnt even make a snarky remark. Then Logan came in and beat the ?#$! out of the guy (sweet!), threw him at her feet, and demanded his apology. And Veronica was all, I dont want it. Um, excuse me, in her shoes, Id be like, Oh yes, while youre down there, please lick the bottom of my shoes and then dont move so I can stomp on your face. But apparently Veronica is less vindictive than me. Sure. I buy that. One thing I did find hilarious about the episode was not actually in the episode, but in the Television Without Pity recap of the episode: In the Mech E lab, Veronica is visiting Wallace, whos working on a 1/32 model of an amphibious regional turbo prop. It looks more like a toy plane to me, but theres a reason I stayed away from engineering in college. Those kids never slept. Ha! That totally made me laugh. =) In any case, my apologies for the rant- apparently that episdoe made me go into CAPS LOCK MODE for some reason, but its all out of my system now. Also, before you start judging, I really dont watch that much TV. I used to watch Arrested Development, then after that was canceled I watched Veronica Mars, and now Im going to try Lost. I figure my brain deserves to sit there and let itself rot for at least one hour per week. Thats my strategy, and Im sticking to it. Anyway, now the seniors are long gone, and the summer session is finally really getting started. People are moving into their summer rooms and getting started at their jobs and UROPS, and its all terribly exciting, which is why we sit around watching 10 hours of TV shows on DVD per day. Im the summer RA for the dorm, which means Im in charge of planning exciting events each week, so that should be fun. No worries, once I catch up with Lost Ill have plenty of free time to chronicle the life of a summer-time MIT student. As sad as it was to see the seniors go, I wish it were moving day more often. Do you have any idea how much free stuff Ive acquired? Last Saturday alone I got two half bottles of laundry detergent (seriously, I have enough to last me for like 3 more years now), a couple of mixing bowls, a handy map of Boston (I have the worst sense of direction of all time), a strand of decorative lights, a can of WD-40, and a soldering iron (thanks to Evan, the newest blogger). I think getting a free can of WD-40 and soldering iron in one day is more than a girl could ask for, nevermind all that other stuff. The problem inherent in all of this is that now I have even MORE,,,junk I dont really need cluttering my room, so when I move in the fall (into a slightly smaller room, no less), thatll kind of suck. Okay, so now that Ive rambled about every topic under the sun NOT relating to the actual purpose of this blog, I think Ill finish this one off. But trust me, theres some good material on its way. Good luck to everyone on their senior dinners and proms and graduations and stuff! The End of an Era The other day I was watching a video about typography and the speaker was explaining why, because the human eye is innately attracted to bright objects, awkward s pa ci ng between words and letters is visually displeasing. The whiteness screams out, “Look at me, I exist!” And we reply, “Go away, you’re making our eyeballs uncomfortable.” Most people don’t give a second thought to the spaces between letters. We don’t think about the inky blackness of words on a page because honestly, when we have 198 pages of lecture notes to get through, the last thing we want to concern ourselves with is the existential crisis of some whiteness. But when something is missing, we notice. Somehow, the emptiness is jarringly loud. I finished my last final Thursday after two not-so-fun back to back 18.03 and 18.02 exams. Sitting in front of my desk at 4:57pm, I realized that something felt profoundly different. Was it hunger? The delicious piece of garlic bread that had recently been introduced to my stomach said no. Apprehension? Perhaps a little, but that was a recognizable knot of dread curled up in the bottom of my gut, not this strange sensation that was disconcerting in its unfamiliarity. Upon closer introspection, I concluded, with some alarm, that what I was feeling was emptiness. No more finals. No more psets. No more classes. No more late nights cramming for midterms. Suddenly, everything that had once filled my waking hours ceased to exist and I didn’t know how to feel about it. I think I never truly realized how stressful a semester of classes really was. Being submerged in work and day to day obligations became the new norm. A shift of reference frame had taken place at some point in the semester without my noticing and what once would have been considered hectic and unbearable became normal. It wasn’t until it all dissipated with the last flourish of my pencil that I could take a step back and notice the difference. I didn’t appreciate how much effort we had been putting in until we didn’t have to anymore. The sudden absence of pressure, anxiety, and responsibility had imparted a sense of weightlessness, probably similar to what a balloon feels when the child holding it prisoner accidentally sets it free and it drifts off into the sunset. I’m not actually a balloon though, so I wouldn’t know. You should ask one. I hear they’re very friendly. The truth is, a semester at MIT can be stressful, difficult, confusing, frustrating, ulcer-inducing, and downright discouraging at times. But that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come to MIT. I wanted to challenge myself, and I think that’s something we all consider when choosing this fine institution. For every time that we inevitably fall, there are the times when we feel so happy our faces hurt from smiling too much. Maybe it was the first time we truly understood eigenvalues, or the time we made it to the third round of NCAAs with the best team ever, or the time we got to eat free burritos during finals week and it was seriously the best thing that had happened all day. Sometimes it’s the monumental moments of achievement and accomplishment that make it all worthwhile. Other times, it’s the little things that bring a smile to your face, even amidst all the bad. Here at MIT, we take them all in stride and call it a day. Friday was the first full day of summer vacation and I spent the morning baking brownie-cookie-oreo deliciousness and spending a leisurely afternoon in the humanities library. As I was leaving, I heard the faint whisper of piano music drifting out of Killian Hall, a small performance room I had never entered before. On a whim, I grabbed a program and sat in the corner. As the music enveloped me, I closed my eyes and drifted in a sea of Rachmaninoff and Debussy for an hour and a half, meditating on the nature of nothingness and absolute freedom. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so at peace with myself. My first year here has come and gone and soon, I’ll be an old sophomore waving my cane at freshmen who pass by my front porch, reflecting with fondness upon pass/no record shenanigans and the first round of finals that actually mattered. Before the fall semester arrives in all its glory, I’ll be staying in Boston over the summer and UROPing on campus. I’ll take the peace and quiet while it lasts, but I’m excited for another year here at MIT and all that it entails! P.S. For those of you who enjoy the simple pleasures of exterminating unwanted white space, here’s a kerning game that I stumbled upon today while perusing the internet:  http://type.method.ac/