The Apocalypse, or How To Waste More Time On Facebook
April 13, 2008 8:52 pm by Munzer
So you thought checking away messages and buddy info on AOL Instant Messenger was a complete waste of your time?
So you thought stalking the profiles of people who you want to make out with on Facebook was a complete waste of time?
Forget, for a second, gentle readers, how many hours you’ve wasted away doing both of these things. Forget those effervescent seconds you’ve whittled away from your life while playing Scrabulous. Think for a second about how much more time you’d waste on the infernal site if those two things were to merge. It’d be exponential.
It’s an apocalypse-waiting-to-happen.
And that’s just what is happening, starting this month, with Facebook’s new Chat service, which will allow you to chat with your friends who are online within your browser, for an entirely new, self-destructive level of procrastination. I expect to see people stop eating and start strapping their laptops to their chests when this thing breaks. You won’t even need a cell phone pretty soon; you can already leave video messages on people’s walls, talk with people in real time, and it just seems inevitable that you’ll soon be able to video chat through the social networking site. And never leave your house.
Facebook says (like it always does) that you’ll have complete control over everything. I don’t buy that for one second; there’s no way they can control a nuclear holocaust caused by the complete death of real socializing.
Conversations are one-to-one, completely private, and only between Facebook friends. The message history is saved from page to page, and even between login sessions, but it is not logged permanently. Should you wish to clear out the history immediately, there’s a link provided in each conversation to do so. If you don’t want your Mini-Feed stories embedded into your conversations, you can turn off that feature from either the Mini-Feed privacy page or the Chat settings panel. As Chat grows and evolves, we’ll continue to make sure that you are in control.
I’ll believe that when I see it. In the meantime, I’ll be stocking up canned food, flashlight batteries, and a real Scrabble board in my bunker out back. I’ll see you when the dust settles.
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The Economy Is Tanking; Campus Construction Unaffected!
April 13, 2008 8:30 pm by Munzer
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that despite the rest of the world’s economic slump, college remains just one really large bubble separated from the outside world, as campus construction projects continue to be built, irregardless of sub-prime mortgage crises, a weakening dollar, or rising energy costs.
At Ithaca College, at least, you can see this in action perfectly, despite the ever increasing price of gas, tuition, and life in general. (not to mention student loans!) There’s a building under construction, another one just finished, and yet another site of empty land on campus being prepared for a multi-million dollar athletics center. It’s construction on steroids.
According to the article, colleges are actually hurrying to finish projects before construction costs shoot up astronomically, at which point, they’ll probably just pass on the costs to students! Yay!
“We’ve been projecting significant construction-cost escalations for the past several years,” said Michael E. McKay, Princeton University’s vice president for facilities, “and unfortunately we’ve been right.”
Well, there’ll certainly be a lot of shiny new buildings sitting on perfectly manicured quads … but don’t expect any middle class students to be in them! (Except rich, rich schools like Harvard. They can afford to educate the middle class.)
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Lobster in Dining Halls Bound To Happen Eventually
April 11, 2008 7:03 pm by Munzer
The food no longer sucks: At Bowdoin College and other schools around the country, the food just wasn’t good enough, apparently. The NYT reports that schools are increasingly serving up classy dining options, like “vegetable ragout over polenta, spicy orange beef, Dijon-crusted chicken, cheese quesadillas, vegetarian pho ?Vietnamese noodle soup ? and spinach saut?ed with garlic and olive oil.”
At Virginia Tech, you can order a “whole main lobster,” along with other upscale dining items - for more money, of course.
This is depressing. We are gentrifying every aspect of college as quickly as possible. What’s wrong with tough grilled chicken and soggy vegetables, I ask you? Apparently college dining services “had to do this,” because kids pick schools based on how the food tastes, which I find hard to believe.
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College Food News: No More Beer In 30 Years?
April 10, 2008 2:14 pm by Munzer
Britain’s Daily Star is reporting that in 30 years the world’s beer supply could be in jeopardy because a hotter climate could be bad for barley crops (the main ingredient in beer that gives it it’s alcohol content). Now, granted, the article is from the Daily Star tabloid, and we’re sure science will fix this by then, but it’s still scary to think about.
The actual news came out of New Zealand’s Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention, where climate scientist Jim Salinger said: ?It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up.”
ABC News doesn’t get so post-apocalyptic on its reader: it just warns that we’d better be ready to see increases in beer prices. As if prices weren’t already high enough? Damnit.
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Facebook Troubles Are Over For Zuck, But Not Rioters
April 8, 2008 10:36 pm by Munzer
Here’s Money; Now Go Away, Troublesome Lawsuit: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s lawyers are expected to settle a lawsuit this week brought upon the social networking site by the founders of another similar site, ConnectU. It alleges that Zuckerberg stole ideas for the hugely popular Facebook while he was working for the owners of ConnectU. Zuckerberg has said his contribution to ConnectU was informal, and that he only ever spent one day working on it. Lazy bum. Thanks for creating Facebook, though.
Facebook Not So Great For Riot Organizers: After Michigan State’s raucous Cedar Fest riot/party that ended in tear gas, police and 52 arrests, investigators and campus officials are considering holding those who promoted the party on Facebook responsible for damages, etc. ACLU’s response? Meh. What, no inciting riots? We expected more out of you, Civil Liberties!
MSU’s newspaper says the police will be prosecuting group creators and those who made “pro-riot” posts on the event’s wall.
My take: police may consider this a riot, but that party looked AWESOME, man. Here’s YouTube footage of the rager, complete with crowdsurfing, chicks making out, police carrying out drunk chicks, tear gas and all. This just screaaaaams college.
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Riots, Deaths by Fire, Death by Car: Not a Good Day
April 7, 2008 2:06 pm by Munzer
4,000 person riot/party broken up near MSU: Police had to break up a huge party that turned violent with tear gas and riot gear. They arrested 52 Michigan State students in connection with the violence.
Death by fire: Three University of Wisconsin-Madison students died from smoke inhalation Saturday morning after a fire started in their off-campus apartment.
Student run over after botched mugging: Columbia grad student Minghui Yu escaped into oncoming traffic and was killed after he was mugged in the median of Broadway around 9 p.m. last night. Ivygate says the mugging may have been race-related.
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Prof Says Students Ignorant About News, Current Events
April 7, 2008 1:55 pm by Munzer
Read this overview of a test a professor of journalism gave at Case Western Reserve University, and if you don’t know most or all of them, you’re one of those ignorant students too.
Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries ? China, Cuba, India, and Japan ? not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses ? half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975. You get the picture, and it isn’t pretty.
I’m going to go ahead and say that this is serious a problem. I could forgive physical education majors for not knowing what countries border Israel (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt - but I could only think of two), but for journalism majors, it’s embarrassing.
If you got more than a couple questions wrong, or couldn’t answer them, start by reading these reputable news sources and figure out what’s going on in the world. You’ll be glad you did.
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Elite Schools Just Got That Much More Selective
April 3, 2008 11:40 am by Munzer
Battening down the hatches: College applications have increased substantially this year at elite private and state schools - headed by Harvard and Princeton - but as applications have shot up, the schools are only accepting a much smaller group of students. The reason for this all? Eliminating early application and announcing a substantially better financial aid package for middle class students this year. Here’s the problem, in a nutshell: Mom: “Apply to Harvard, kid, so your father and I can use your college fund to pay for an 80-foot yacht and a little place in the Virgin Islands. Go on, do it. NOW!” For a list of schools affected, go here.
Harvard makes the news again, this time for parody: The Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret society which publishes a humor magazine occasionally, hit it big this time. National Geographic designers collaborated with the ‘Poonsters to design their April Fool’s Day issue, and then 210,000 copies were bundled with the celebrated magazine and distributed across the country. The cover features Paris Hilton cavorting with a sad stuffed elephant and gorilla above the words, “Your Wildest Animal Fantasies.” They’re talking about the gorilla.
Inside, the funny guys seem to have done a slap-up (slapstick?) job, writing investigative pieces about infiltrating honey bee colonies and about the “outsourcing of the American lava lamp industry to the islands of Indonesia, where lava is cheap, plentiful, and harvested by thousands of natives.?
My personal favorite? A letter to the editor from reader “Literate Bear.” His thoughts?
“RAAARRRRR!”
And now, for some slightly less interesting news:
University of California system picks new president: The headline says it all. ‘Cept this is a big deal, cuz Mark Yudof, the new guy, is president of 10 universities, including UC Berkeley, where Dean Lynch almost went!
Student turns to prostitution to pay bills: A female Kansas State student arranged to meet up with a police officer for sex (first dumb move) in order to pay her apartment’s rent. The article hilariously goes on to explain how to get a real, legal job on campus for all the girls out there considering prostitution. Fucked up, but funny.
Bad April Fool’s Joke! A University of Oklahoma Law student sent out personalized April Fool’s letters to all law students explaining that they had violated the school’s honor code and should report to the”Dean of Jocularity’s non-existent office. Trouble is, the letters were printed on official college paper, so the school has accused him of violating, what else - the school’s honor code! We think they should let him off on this one. C’mon guys, take a joke.
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At Butler, Chelsea Clinton gets Cranky after Monica Question
April 1, 2008 9:42 pm by Munzer
Apparently “it’s none of our business” to ask questions (especially to young Chelsea) about how the Monica Lewinsky scandal has affected her mother Hillary’s reputation.
Today at Butler University, during the middle of a tour of Indiana college campuses, Chelsea rebuffed Evan Page, a Butler student, for asking that exact question.
“Wow, you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know maybe, 70 college campuses I’ve now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business.”
Apparently, Strange said he thought Chelsea “kind of shut down when he said Lewinsky’s name in the question,” according to Butler’s newspaper, Dawgnet. Better yet: he’s a Hillary supporter!
Do you think the question (and answer) was out of hand? Watch her response here.
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College News Roundup: Buy Yourself A College!
March 31, 2008 9:57 pm by Munzer
Antioch College looking for buyers - for only $12.2 million! After negotiations with an alumni group trying to keep the school alive broke off, the school’s now up for sale - for anyone who can provide the money up front. The tiny, 200-student school is planning to close June 30 for at least one year unless a deal is reached that could keep the school open.
Plagiarizing a plagiarism code: At the University of Texas at San Antonio, students drafting the school’s honor code that forbids plagiarism plagiarized the honor code of another school, Brigham Young University, according to the AP. Cheating expert: “Students think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines.”
Senate kills campus gun legislation: The bill, which passed in the House, would have allowed veterans and others with weapons training to carry concealed weapons on campuses, with the logic that a Vietnam vet in every classroom will stop school shooters. Thankfully, this is dead.
Hostage incident teaches administrators to watch their wording: After the situation at the University of Kentucky at Louisville, where a mom killed her kids and then barged into the school’s health center with a gun, school officials unofficially revised their text message warning policy: make sure the message is clear. Many who received the message thought the incident was taking place at another health center miles away. Whoops!
Feed for College Ave.