MIT engineering school rules / Daily crono / Finding the "secret nuclear plant" and…

MIT engineering school rules

According to the recent survey, MIT school of engineering is clearly the best in USA, and thus in the world. This is the place to study. An article in The Tech Talk tells this:

MIT has once again earned top honors in U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of American graduate school programs, with the School of Engineering, the Department of Economics and more than a dozen MIT departments or programs ranked No. 1 nationwide.
U.S. News & World Report magazine has published its well-regarded graduate school rankings for 17 years. The 2006 edition of its book, "America's Best Graduate Schools," hit the newsstands April 1.
MIT's School of Engineering was ranked No. 1 among U.S. graduate engineering schools, with Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, respectively.
MIT also placed first in seven of 12 engineering specialties: aeronautics and astronautics, chemical, computer, electrical, materials, mechanical and nuclear engineering ; fifth in civil engineering and seventh in biomedical engineering.
The magazine's criteria for determining overall engineering rankings include peer assessment, recruiter assessment, research activity, student selectivity and doctoral student-to-faculty ratio. MIT scored 100 - the top - overall.
MIT's Economics Department was ranked No. 1 overall among doctoral programs in economics. The Institute's programs in econometrics, macroeconomics and public finance also took No. 1 rankings, with programs in development economics, industrial organization, international economics and labor economics all ranking among the top five.
MIT's Political Science Department was ranked 10th in the nation, along with Columbia University and UCLA. The Institute's Psychology Department ranked 12th, along with Stanford University and the University of Texas-Austin. The Institute's programs in behavioral neuroscience and cognitive psychology ranked fourth and sixth, respectively.
Department chairs and senior faculty ranked doctoral programs in social science and humanities based on academic excellence. MIT's Sloan School of Management tied for fourth place overall with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.
Business school deans and MBA program directors ranked business specialty programs on academic quality and placement success, among other categories. MIT's Sloan School's programs in information systems, production/operations and supply chain/logistics were ranked No. 1.
The magazine's ranking of American undergraduate programs appears in August. byu Sarah H. Wright

Daily crono

What a day! I got up at 8, finalized my risk analysis assignement, walk to MIT, sat through the risk analysis class, did some literature search for the air policy term paper, had lunch at the excellent Bengali-restaurant with Kumar discussing air policy issues. Then it was 12.30. I had half an hour, so I wrote 1 page for the air policy value and stakeholder analysis. Then to the Apollo-course, where we heard stories about simulation, astronaut training, what is the life of an astronaut like, importance of training (train as you fly, fly as your train), and similar issues. After a short walk, I sat down, wrote one hour the air policy analysis. Now, I started the paper at 1.20 am, and at 4.30 pm I already had written 5 pages. Not too bad. The paper is now 75% ready. Next thing was to meet professor Utterback with the Norwegians (Trond, Per Morten, Eivind). Utterback is such a gentleman. He gave us some some good advice, but he also emphasized that we should not stay up all night writing the term paper. It is meant to be just a learning media, not a thesis. So, one cause of stress is over now: I have already done some good work for the course, and I like to do some more as I learn a lot, and the topic is also interesting: the interplay/rivalry of 3G and Wifi/WiMAX. 3G is going to lose. Anyway, I took a 25 minute walk by the riverside (up and down), and then read the system optimization slides for the last 3 weeks. From 9.30 to 11.30 (pm) we cracked the case study number 2 (Kumar, Spiros, Sam and me). It was all too easy thing to do, next to trivial after reading the slides. Sam gave me ride back at home, and now it is 12.15 am.
Kudos to Nokia. They sent me my bonus. It covers my rent for the next 4 months. I assume it will be the last bonus I receive from them. Pity, I like bonuses. Free money!

Finding the "secret nuclear plant" and terrorism

This blog is interesting. It shows how to find the nuclear power plants using information freely avaiable from the internet. As I wrote earlier, this information is classified. I assume a terrorist group who are able to bring down several large buildings, are already well aware of all nuclear power plants in USA (or in Europe for that matter). But I think there are much easier targets to attack: chemical factories, oil refineries, etc. They are easier to destroy, and in case of a chemical factory, they would cause, in the worst case, some panic and danger. I think that an open society cannot defend itself against suicide terrorist: if someone is willing to die for a cause, (s)he can penetrate all the defence systems which are tolerable for a society like USA or EU. So, the trick would be to try to make sure that there are no reasons for people to waste their lifes for desperate causes: all we all need is some purpose for our lifes, respect from others, ability to influence to the society (democracy), some hope for the better, and the basic needs (foor, shelter, etc). The world is rich enough to provide this to all of us. Anyway, this is what I think. See also this editorial of the International Herald Tribune. They write about the same issue.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs April 2005".