Bostonist's post about the hackers at Milton Academy stirred the passions of Milton students and others who felt that we weren't giving the students who got busted hacking (or the whole school in general) a fair shake. They were particularly upset that we claimed students were overprivileged. So, here's their unvarnished words in defense of the school: From lhalpern 10, a Milton Student: check your facts and give milton a break it is a......

When the students of the tony Milton Academy aren't busy getting their freak on, they are hacking into computers and stealing information. David Abel at the Globe reports: A Milton Academy student has been expelled and three others have been suspended for the rest of the school year after they hacked into the elite private school's computer system, changed grades, altered attendance records, and, in one case, gained access to an exam before it......

The next Four Stories reading will be on October 1, 2007. Kris Frieswick, Jake Halpern, Michael Lowenthal, and Hank Phillippi Ryan will be participating. The evening's topic is "Love and Money: Tales of Making It, Having It, and Losing It," and the readings will take place at The Enormous Room. For more details, visit the Four Stories site. To prepare, check out Bostonist's interview with Jake Halpern. Many of us spend our days in front......

Someone burgled the local headquarters of former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney. The headquarters are in the North End on Commercial Street. Someone might want to check on the portrait Romney's hiding in the attic. Perhaps a clue was at the North End headquarters? Anyway, according to the Globe, the current assumption is that it's not Watergate Redux. A campaign spokesman said that the burglars were into the usual stuff - computers......

Watch your back MIT, the nerds across the river are gaining ground. The Rubik's "Magic" Cube achieved instant classic status when it was introduced in 1980. There's probably one, unsolved, somewhere in your house right now. There are, of course, some people who have mastered the secret patterns of twists and turns that will solve the puzzle quickly – computer scientists at Northeastern have managed to create a method to put all sides to single......

--The Suffolk County DA's office announced that LaDawn Hicks, the sister of murder defendant Jason Meeks, has been charged with witness intimidation. Boston NOW reports that Hicks and Meeks made a three-way phone call from jail "urging" a witness not to testify, and it blew right back at her. Meeks allegedly shot Alvaro Sanders in Roxbury in 2001. To keep her brother out of jail, Hicks also went to the witness' house (we're not naming......

We've seen the design. We've seen it play doom. We've heard that it's in the production process. And now we get some sugar. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, spun off from the MIT Media Lab, has an operating system for the XO machines they've dubbed "Sugar." It's safe to say that the look and operation is completely different than anything we've seen before. And you thought Vista was different than what you were......

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative that was born from the mind of Nicholas Negroponte when he was heading up the MIT Media Lab is nearing a significant milestone – shipment of the first machines to their intended recipients. Back in the end of November it was reported that the prototypes had come off the production line and had already been loaded up and played Doom. The AP reports today that the program is......

The announcement came out around this time last year that MIT Media Lab Co-Founder and former Director Nicholas Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization were nearing a working prototype of a $100 laptop to get to more children around the world. The OLPC would help break down the digital divide by providing the poor with access to the tools of the digital age. Our post on the matter may have set the......

We at Bostonist like our Apple computers. Ok, it does distress us a little to hear that our shiny iPod might have been produced in a sweatshop. But, if we turn the volume up really loud, we forget all about it. If you want to hear the latest Apple talk from four local enthusiasts, then MassMUG is the podcast for you. We are always looking on the intarweb for Apple news and rumors. What will......

WBOS' EarthFest played host to upwards of 100,000 people yesterday – with nearly 7,000 of them waiting in line not for music, but to turn in their losing scratch tickets. The Herald reports on a bad experience had by one man trying to redeem 60,000 losing instant win tickets, while the Globe reports a win for recycling on the day as The Lottery reclaimed 50 tons of paper. For every 25 losing tickets returned a......

Our drafting table broke a couple of years ago. We put the scale rule aside and retired the T-square to the closet. We know exactly where our set of mechanical pencils is – right next to a couple sheets of velum. Of course drafting by hand seems to have been so five years ago. With the proliferation of CAD programs and computers that can handle the task our dreams of being a fly by night......

Bostonist is scrambling to make sure that all our servers and home computers are ready for y2k. The date will roll over in a matter of months and our computer will start thinking we live in 1900. The Big Dig will be complete: tunnels and bridges open, and a beautiful greenway will roll past the North End and Haymarket, the Green Line will extend into Somerville and Silver Line service will run smoothly connecting Dudley......

Scanning the interweb this morning, Bostonist saw that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will testify today before a Congressional committee investigating the legality of the President's "I'm-above-the-law" theory of constitutional interpretation. While commentators have suggested that the hearings themselves are a testament to the shaky ground the President is on (since it was Republican Arlen Specter who called for the inquiry), we can't help but see the whole thing as a testament to the skill......

This weekend Bostonist made a little trip over to Wikipedia. We wanted to find out what else had been named “Black Friday.” Turns out that once upon a time it did refer to a stock market crash, one in 1869, like its brothers Black Monday (of 1987 and also 1929), Black Tuesday, and Black Thursday of Great Depression fame. There are a whole host of other Fridays that Black Friday has referred to, but presently,......

Intrepid researchers at MIT have released results of their study which threatens to shatter the serenity that is paranoid schizophrenia. Nothing says crazy like a tin foil hat. Admittedly, there are quite a few things that say crazy just as nimbly. The tin foil hat has become a sort of pop-culture icon representing someone who’s taken it a little too far in an attempt to thwart mind readers. Be it the Governments or Major League......

Don't get us wrong - Bostonist loves killer robots, time-traveler conventions, and throwing pianos off buildings as much as the next guy. But sometimes, we'd like our resident cadre of nerds at MIT to come out with something so obviously and immediately useful that it requires no imagination on our part to see its real-world applications. Enter Nicholas Negroponte, head of MIT's media lab (who used to appear on TV with the awesomest title ever:......

Starting the same day State Attorney General Tom Reilly launched a war on spammers, people locally and worldwide have been experiencing the latest Spam attack. While Reilly focused his efforts on the local "Internet Spam Gang" that was reportedly based in Newton and comprised of some seven deadly spammers the Sober virus morphed in Germany. The Sober.Q virus that has been spreading the emails has been identified as the latest version of the Sober virus......

Boston's neighboring town of Brookline is currently trying to turn the whole place wireless. While it claims to have the world's first public dial-up Internet access, the town is hoping to make everything easier with setting up town-wide wireless for its residents. Now, instead of being bothered with parking meters, using cable modems in computers, or searching the Internet for town files, the system would link everything without all the wires. The town already relies......

With another half a foot of snow falling yesterday and the temperature falling even more the last thing we’re thinking about is heat. Those warm summer days watching the swan boats float around, lemonade, ice cream, t-shirts and sandals are far from the mind. Science is great, the technologies we’ve seen in the last few years are amazing, timing, though, remains of the essence. One would think there could be a better time of......