Free Republic

It’s a Wednesday evening in February, and time for the weekly meeting of Pleasure@MIT, an acronym for “peers leading education about sexuality and speaking up for relationship empowerment.” The Pleducators are a wonderful group of people committed to changing the culture at MIT to reduce sexual misconduct by encouraging healthy communication and relationships. Serving as a Pleducator and being part of the VagMo cast have made me believe that change is possible, and that I can be a part of it. And I know now that I can always go back to the learning zone. After all, if I could...

Here are some English-language tweets from jihadis fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS: “I just noticed our martyred brother r.a. had a tumblr (I know, how could I have missed it). Make sure to check it out.” And: “This Syrian guy next 2 me (AbuUbayadah) is so stoked for our op he almost shot his foot off. Come on bro—safety 1st. :p” And: “Put the chicken wings down n come to jihad bro.” In “Fighting ISIS Online,” MIT Technology Review’s senior writer, David Talbot, describes what a Google policy director has called the...

GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology. Among the many daunting challenges to replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is how to make hydrogen cheaply in ways that don't pollute the environment. Splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from energy sources such as wind turbines is one possibility -- but it's still far too expensive to be widely practical. Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a less expensive, easy-to-manufacture apparatus that can directly produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a...

I snuck out of Hungary in 1973, one week after I was told that if I ever wanted to advance as an engineer, I would have to join the Communist Party. Being a good party member was far more important than your skill level, and so my boss was a man who had been a pig farmer. After decades spent raising hogs, he suddenly was supervising dozens of machinists, most of whom had engineering degrees and had built bridges and buildings until we were reassigned to "practical and useful" work -- making parts for factory machines. Working for Carly Fiorina...

Who Invented G.S.?Technology Review retracted two articles after deciding a key source was fictitious. The troubling question: whether this is a one-time screw-up by the writer, or a recurring pattern.by David Goldenberg on March 22 at 06:13 PM Michelle Delio is a journalist based in New York City. That much we do know. Whether her articles are accurate or not has become unclear. Two of Delio’s articles for the website of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's magazine, Technology Review, were disputed by their subject, Hewlett-Packard, which claimed it had found that an anonymous source she described within the company couldn't...