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Author Archives: Jasper John MacKay
Campus Life at
Five American Universities
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One important—maybe the most important—thing about noir is that it can’t get by on plot alone. Almost every page of A Violent Masterpiece has a spark and crackle of language, detail, idea.
~ Carolyn Kellogg via The Atlantic
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Five American Universities
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Interesting Read
via The New York Times:
The City That Inspired Rothko (It’s Not New York)
by Elisabetta Povoledo
published on March 14, 2026
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via the report published by MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training:
While AI is allowing instructors to develop exciting new learning experiences and enabling students to learn and experiment in innovative ways, there have been a number of concerning effects on the life of the campus.
Published on August 13, 2026.
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For years, China’s rising power has rested on a fragile balance of economic freedom and political control, in what early Party reformers called the “birdcage economy”—airy enough to allow enterprises to thrive, but not capacious enough to sacrifice power. That arrangement has rarely looked more tenuous.
~ Evan Osnos via The New Yorker
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Five American Universities
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Call me a romantic, but I believe that there will be a future, and indeed a long future, beyond 2027. History will not end. We need to cultivate the skill of exact thinking in demented times.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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First-semester freshman grades at M.I.T. are reported as either pass or no record, to allow students time to get accustomed to an increased college workload and different teaching methods, the M.I.T. Registrar’s Office explains on its website.
~ Mark Arsenault via The New York Times
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