Confessions of a Harvard Gatekeeper

I graduated from Harvard in 2006, and have spent eight of the last nine years working as an admissions officer for my alma mater. A low-level volunteer, sure, but an official one all the same. I served as one of thousands of alumni volunteers around the world—a Regional Representative for my local Schools Committee, if you want to get technical. And, as a Regional Rep, my duties fell somewhere between Harvard recruiter and Harvard gatekeeper.

But now I'm done with all that. For a long time, I believed in the admissions process. I thought that I could use my position to help regular smart people with great test scores and impressive extracurriculars break into an elitist system. After eight years, though, I've learned that modest goal is more or less unreachable. Ivy League admissions are a complete racket, rigged in favor of the privileged and completely impervious to change. So I'm quitting the business.

And because I'm quitting, that means I can tell you, the reader, all the secrets of being a Harvard admissions representative, and what it really takes to get in. MORE

Carbon Fiber 3-D Printer

The age of 3-D printing in carbon fiber has hardly arrived. But the controversy over 3-D printing carbon fiber guns is well under way. Starting in the second half of last year, 3-D printing startup MarkForged has been shipping the Mark One, a device it advertises as the world’s first 3-D printer that prints carbon fiber; The Mark One digitally fabricateS objects in a material as light as plastic and as strong by some measures as aluminum. But one group isn’t about to receive its Mark One order: Defense Distributed, the non-profit political group that invented the first fully 3-D printed gun nearly two years ago. MORE





MARKFORGED

Scary Logos

Yeow McCheeseBurger


An initial Google search for "scary ponds pools" brought me to "scary logos." Scary tv logos appeared mostly before or after television programming (and some VHS movies) in the 1970's and 80's.

I've discovered in my research that I am not alone feeling traumatized somehow by the bizarre imagery.




人生のような

US Government: "Cholesterol now OK?"

Markus Allen was right!

"No Cholesterol" and "0 fat" foods have become common place.
U.S. government is poised to withdraw longstanding warnings
about cholesterol MORE