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[–] 31 points 5 days ago (28 children)

Explain to a non-American why that's funny/interesting?

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  • [–] 88 points 5 days ago (18 children)
  • [–] 15 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Yeah, plenty of people good at math there. Go to DC. Politicians suck at math.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (11 children)

    I thought of that (after posting my question) but according to Wikipedia:

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

    Cambridge == Boston?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    No, Cambridge isn't Boston.

    Cambridge is very close to Boston, but it's a different city. They're on opposite sides of the Charles river. These days the river is very narrow (it used to be a lot wider in colonial times, but they've drained swamps and built over them since then). The two cities have integrated mass transit systems, and it's a short walk across one of the many bridges to go between the two.

    But, they're not the same city. The two places have different characters. Boston has "Southie", the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Bruins. Cambridge is much smaller and has MIT and Harvard. It has no sports teams (other than the school teams) and is a very rich and diverse city because of those rich and diverse schools. Politically it is very different from Boston. People jokingly call it the People's Republic of Cambridge because even by Massachusetts standards it is very left leaning.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    Cambridge borders Boston, and is basically surrounded on 3 sides by Boston. Harvard is about 5 km from Boston's downtown, and MIT is about 3 km.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    Which 3 sides? To the North-East of Cambridge is Somerville. To the North is Arlington, to the West is Belmont and Watertown. Boston is basically only to the South-East.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago* (2 children)

    It's all Boston. I'm from Jersey, and half my state gets lumped in with NYC, so Boston, in my mind, subsumes the likes of Cambridge and Somerville. And it's been almost two years since my last trip to Boston, but they may as well be part of Boston.

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  • [–] 70 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    MIT and Harvard are there, which, depending on specialty, are two of the best places in the world to do math. In addition, it's a big finance and tech town, so plenty of non-academic math to be done, too.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (4 children)

    MIT and Harvard are in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a different city on the opposite side of the Charles river.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    I mean, technically, but that's splitting hairs. It's surrounded on 3 sides by Boston, and closer to downtown Boston than a lot of Boston is.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    Northeast (bunker hill), east (downtown), southwest/west (allston)

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    Allston pokes into Cambridge. Cambridge surrounds Allston. West of Cambridge is Arlington, Watertown or Belmont. Southwest of Cambridge is still Watertown.

    As for Bunker Hill, Somerville is North-East of Cambridge. Only a tiny slice of Cambridge connects to Bunker Hill. The rest of the North-East border is all Somerville.

    Boston is South-West of Cambridge, that's the real story. It surrounds part of it on 1 side in one area because the Charles river curls around Cambridgeport, then it curls the other way and Cambridge surrounds part of Allston.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    "You need to get out of [major American city that is one of the best places in the world to be if you're good at Math due to the universities]“

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago

    My interpretation was

    • you gotta get out of this little neighborhood where nothing happens

    Southie has a very different stereotype from many other parts of the Boston-Cambridge metropolitan area. All those schools and industries Boston is known for, are NOT in southie. It’s known more as a blue collar town

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