Daily Banter – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:23:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Daily Banter – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Are you approaching college “the easy way”? https://stanforddaily.com/2011/03/29/are-you-approaching-college-the-easy-way/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/03/29/are-you-approaching-college-the-easy-way/#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 07:27:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1046837 When I look at all the recent commentary surrounding "the list" - in this paper and the Review - it isn't the debate over misquotations or misrepresentations that interests me. Rather, I think there is a greater issue relevant to the educational interests of all Stanford students, not just athletes.

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When I look at all the recent commentary surrounding “the list” – in this paper and the Review – it isn’t the debate over misquotations or misrepresentations that interests me. Rather, I think there is a greater issue relevant to the educational interests of all Stanford students, not just athletes. Recently, I read a New York Times op-ed piece by Bob Herbert that lamented lower studying rates among college students since the 1960s that coincided with higher GPAs. Generally, more students are just “skating by,” leaving college with little improvement in reasoning and reading skills. Herbert has written before on education (here and here), warning that the United States faces a crisis of education and therefore a crisis of future leadership.

In my mind, Stanford students should be less concerned with whether athletes are getting an easier ride, and start to question their commitment to their education. How many of you have finished a paper, thinking to yourself “that’s good enough”? In my short time at Stanford I can definitively say that many of us wait to write our papers until the night before, myself included. I freely admit to skipping course readings, sure that they wouldn’t be on the final. Countless times, I’ve heard people calculating their grades: “Oh, I only need to get a 75 on the final to get an A, so I’m not stressed out.” We are constantly trying to make our coursework easier and our tests count for less so that we can devote our time to other things. We congratulate ourselves endlessly for finishing a paper. As long as our grades are good, we are satisfied and tell ourselves we’re succeeding. But what if our grades don’t actually reflect our effort?

Are we approaching our education in the right way? Should we be choosing the easiest paper prompt and lowest-unit classes that fulfill multiple GERs? I’m not saying that people at Stanford aren’t serious about their education. But speaking from my own experience, I sometimes feel that I don’t have to put in my greatest effort to receive a high grade. It’s certainly much easier for us to access information than it was for our parents — a synopsis of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government is just a click away. Perhaps technology contributes to our easygoing attitudes. But it cannot completely explain our generation’s tendency to approach homework with distaste, procrastinating and complaining until the final punctuation mark has been added — then rushing to focus on something else.

My parents often tell me how jealous they are that I get to study interesting things all day. What Herbert is trying to say is that we should value these years and use them to our advantage — because the choices we make about our learning ethic now do affect our futures in the workplace.

Nina Papachristou, Daily Fellow

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Lazy? Genius? Neither. Just James Franco https://stanforddaily.com/2011/03/02/lazy-genius-neither-just-james-franco/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/03/02/lazy-genius-neither-just-james-franco/#respond Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:17:11 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1046462 Before last Sunday's Oscars, I was super excited to see how Palo Alto native James Franco would do as co-host. Sure, Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes was probably the funniest/most painful hosting experience there’ll ever be, depending on how you saw it, but I had a feeling that James Franco’s turn might end up being even weirder.

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Before last Sunday’s Oscars, I was super excited to see how Palo Alto native James Franco would do as co-host. Sure, Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes was probably the funniest/most painful hosting experience there’ll ever be, depending on how you saw it, but I had a feeling that James Franco’s turn might end up being even weirder.

We’re talking about a guy who’s down for acting on General Hospital (and pretty much playing himself – his character’s name is Franco), the same guy who’s capable of turning in an Oscar-nominated performance for 127 Hours (and who apparently referred to himself in the third person on set). A guy who simultaneously attended four graduate schools at once (Columbia for MFA writing, NYU Tisch for filmmaking, Brooklyn College for fiction writing, Warren Wilson for poetry) and is now a Ph.D. student in English at Yale, while also attending the Rhode Island School of Design. A guy who somehow took 62 units at UCLA (where the normal course max is 19) while still acting.

Because of work and other commitments, I only managed to catch about the last third of it (unlike James Franco, I don’t have the ability to manipulate time in order to do more things than are humanly possible), but from what I saw, Franco’s performance was probably what I should have expected. I was thinking that he might approach hosting with that superhuman work ethic of his and turn in something we’d never seen before. Well, at least I was right on half of that – it certainly was something we’d never seen before, a seemingly detached/bored/stoned host looking like he was completely phoning it in.

A lot of people apparently hated his performance, but I thought it was kind of hilarious, and very characteristic of a dude who seems to pop up in the most random things, as if he’s doing it just to do it. With Franco, you never know if he’s being serious or not, and at the Oscars, it was hard to tell if he was actually disinterested or if the whole night was some sort of meta performance art.

Lazy? Genius?

Neither. Just James Franco being James Franco.

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The Greatest Discussion Forum At Stanford https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/21/the-greatest-discussion-forum-at-stanford/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/21/the-greatest-discussion-forum-at-stanford/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:29:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1046114 You're reading this post. It's buried inconspicuously in one of the more obscure regions of the Daily's website along with the other Daily Banter posts. Since you went to all the trouble to get here, that probably means you're already aware of the fantastic conversations that happen in the "comments" on Daily articles.

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…aside from the Diaspora, anyway.

You’re reading this post. It’s buried inconspicuously in one of the more obscure regions of the Daily’s website along with the other Daily Banter posts. Since you went to all the trouble to get here, that probably means you’re already aware of the fantastic conversations that happen in the “comments” on Daily articles.

But just in case: you see that line of red text below this article that says “Click here to see the comments or add a new comment?” That’s where the action go down.

The articles themselves are all very well, but if you really want to get your fingers on the Stanford pulse, see how people respond to them.

Some great discussions:

https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/03/rice-announces-support-for-rotc/

https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/04/a-dream-deferred/

https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/16/gazans-stripped/

Leave a comment on this one. I dare you!

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Football: Several position battles open heading into spring practice https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/18/football-several-position-battles-open-heading-into-spring-practice/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/18/football-several-position-battles-open-heading-into-spring-practice/#respond Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:59:58 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1046109 Shaw seemed to bring a similar mentality to the program as former head coach Jim Harbaugh, who departed after Stanford’s 40-12 victory in the Orange Bowl to coach the San Francisco 49ers. Namely, he emphasized toughness and determination as elementary to his team’s success.

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With Stanford football’s first spring practice slated for Monday, head coach David Shaw held a press conference earlier this afternoon to clear up questions surrounding the team and to give a better indication of the direction he plans to take the Cardinal.

Shaw seemed to bring a similar mentality to the program as former head coach Jim Harbaugh, who departed after Stanford’s 40-12 victory in the Orange Bowl to coach the San Francisco 49ers. Namely, he emphasized toughness and determination as elementary to his team’s success.

Football: Several position battles open heading into spring practice
New Stanford head coach David Shaw, above, says he won't be resting on the laurels of his predecessor. (Stanford Daily File Photo)

“It’s more than just talent,” Shaw said. “It’s more than just speed, it’s more than just quickness. It’s a determination, it’s a mindset to be physical, to be competitive, to show up every single day and be ready to fight.”

Shaw also said that he wants to prevent his players from riding on last season’s accomplishments, which included a 12-1 record and the Orange Bowl win.

“We need to establish who we are,” he said. “We’d love for there to be some momentum, but as I told those guys a few weeks ago, those oranges from the Orange Bowl, they rot and they die—it’s over. We have to put a stop on it at some point and say, ‘Who will we be going forward?’”

Lofty statements aside, Shaw discussed the ongoing process of filling Stanford’s coaching staff, which was gutted in the offseason. Several assistant coaches, including acclaimed defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and assistant head coach Greg Roman, followed Harbaugh to San Francisco. Prior to today, both the offensive and defensive coordinators had already been announced, with Pep Hamilton coaching the offense and Derek Mason and Jason Tarver playing the role of co-defensive coordinator.

In the press conference, Shaw announced two new position coach hirings: Mike Bloomgren—a Bill Callahan disciple—as offensive line coach, and Mike Sanford as the running backs coach. Bloomgren’s most recent job was with the New York Jets in the NFL, and he will also serve as the running game coordinator. Only one coaching job—the tight ends coach—still needs to be filled, as Hamilton will coach both the quarterbacks and the receivers.

Similar to last season, the play-calling duties on offense will be split between three coaches. This year, Hamilton and Bloomgren will be primarily responsible for calling plays, while Shaw will maintain what he calls his “head coach’s veto” over the play calls.

With several big position battles looming as spring practice opens, Shaw declined to give any indications of which players might be frontrunners for various open starting spots. There are key holes along the offensive line (where the Cardinal loses three starters) and the defensive line, as well as at fullback, wide receiver and linebacker. Shaw would only say that there would be a competition for every open starting position, and emphasized this throughout Friday’s conference.

Like his predecessor, Shaw declined to comment on injuries despite repeated questions. His only discussion of player injuries surrounded Levine Toilolo, the tight end who suffered a season-ending ACL tear in Stanford’s first game of the season, against Sacramento State. Shaw said that Toilolo will participate in spring practices in a limited capacity and that the coaching staff will continue to be cautious with him.

Shaw also addressed the impact of losing two-way player Owen Marecic. Last season, Marecic started at both fullback and linebacker for Stanford.

“There’s going to be four guys on our team to replace what Owen did for us—one at linebacker and three at fullback,” Shaw said. “He’s a once-in-a-generation type of human being and football player, and to get the same production out of that position is going to take three guys.”

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Man vs. Machine https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/16/man-vs-machine/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/16/man-vs-machine/#respond Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:19:01 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045977 As a SymSys student focusing in Natural Language, from the minute I first heard about Watson, I was wildly excited by what it meant that IBM had built a question-answering machine sophisticated enough to play Jeopardy and be competitive with the best contestants. We’ve been talking a lot about Watson in my natural language processing class this quarter, and even though I still know very little about the field, I know enough to be amazed at what IBM’s been able to do so far.

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As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, yesterday’s episode of Jeopardy had the first ever man v. machine match in Jeopardy history, with IBM ‘s supercomputer Watson taking on the best contestants in Jeopardy history–Ken Jennings (the guy who won 74 games in a row) and Brad Rutter (the biggest all-time money winner and undefeated in his 20 games).

As a SymSys student focusing in Natural Language, from the minute I first heard about Watson, I was wildly excited by what it meant that IBM had built a question-answering machine sophisticated enough to play Jeopardy and be competitive with the best contestants. We’ve been talking a lot about Watson in my natural language processing class this quarter, and even though I still know very little about the field, I know enough to be amazed at what IBM’s been able to do so far.

This is why it’s a bit disappointing to read commentary on the match like this blog post for the New York Times by Alessandra Stanley, which gives IBM little credit for the four-plus years of work that went into refining the program. She chalks up any success to Watson’s  “2,800 computers,” as if to say that computers can do anything if you have enough of them. To be sure, there are aspects of Watson that make it hard to see the supercomputer as the breakthrough in artificial intelligence to end all breakthroughs. (It might have an advantage in time to process questions/buzz in, but it lacks a little common sense. It might not be sophisticated enough to decipher all the wordplay that’s characteristic of Jeopardy clues. And since it’s built to decipher and answer Jeopardy clues, which are generally different from how most people ask questions, adapting it to respond to a more general question-answer system might be extremely difficult.) But there’s still more to be impressed by than dismissive about.

And even if you could care less about what Watson actually means for the future of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, it’s still pretty awesome to see a machine play Jeopardy. It’s on again tonight and tomorrow night, take a study break and watch some Jeopardy! You might be watching the day that the machines started to take over the world.

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Investing in Our Future https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/14/investing-in-our-future/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/14/investing-in-our-future/#respond Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:18:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045891 Last week, Stanford’s Board of Trustees approved a 3.5 percent combined tuition, room and board increase, which will bring total undergraduate charges to $52,341 for the 2011-2012 academic year. As I suspect is also true for other Stanford students, I already try not to think too hard about the financial breakdown of my education. That […]

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Last week, Stanford’s Board of Trustees approved a 3.5 percent combined tuition, room and board increase, which will bring total undergraduate charges to $52,341 for the 2011-2012 academic year.

As I suspect is also true for other Stanford students, I already try not to think too hard about the financial breakdown of my education. That discussion section I attended, and spent daydreaming and watching a squirrel in a tree outside the window? Under the increase, it will have just cost me $67. And, since Stanford students don’t pay by the unit like students at some other schools do, if I’m taking fewer than 20 units that price tag could have shot all the way up to $111. Gulp.

Of course, it’s possible to evoke all the intangibilities of the Stanford experience and cite all of the resources that are available to us on campus, from gym and athletic facilities access to libraries and student activities. What’s more, we can also consider the opportunity we have to establish relationships with our peers. What we pay for isn’t concentrated in our classes. I think all Stanford students know this, but the exercise of assigning a price to the discrete aspects of our lives still makes us feel uncomfortable. Are we worth that? Is this place living up to all those hard-earned dollars?

It’s possible to get in too much of a flurry over finances, to feel our pulses quicken if we’ve just “slacked off” and “wasted” several more hundred dollars, rather than taking advantage of the opportunities Stanford offers us to be well-rounded. But still, what if the next time we pushed that snooze button a harsh voice blared, “$75!”?

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The Most Unhelpful Advice Ever https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/14/the-most-unhelpful-advice-ever/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/14/the-most-unhelpful-advice-ever/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:17:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045889 What makes my day, more than anything else?

When people say, "You know, Robin, you really just need to get laid."

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What makes my day, more than anything else?

When people say, “You know, Robin, you really just need to get laid.”

Oh, really? Great, thanks! I had absolutely no idea. I’ll get right on that.

You know, it’s funny, I’ve been in this dry spell for months and months, but somehow it never crossed my mind once, not once, that my life would be just a bit better if I was getting laid. I must have been preoccupied with all the fun I’ve been having being constantly celibate.

And boy, what a simple, easy-to-achieve solution to all my problems! I mean, there’s really nothing more to getting laid than just asking walking up to someone and asking, right? Just look at all these people who I’m sure would have been so eager and willing to help out this whole time.

Bite me. Never tell anyone they “just need to get laid” unless you’re offering.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Mentorship Community for Stanford Students With Disabilities https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/10/mentorship-community-for-stanford-students-with-disabilities/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/10/mentorship-community-for-stanford-students-with-disabilities/#respond Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:16:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045805 There is no community on campus that is fully aware of and committed to the needs of students with disabilities -- and, since Stanford is a place that embraces (or professes to embrace) community for students from all backgrounds, this strikes me as a serious flaw.

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New — and, I would argue, long overdue — efforts are in progress for students with disabilities on campus. The ASSU Disabilities and Accessible Education Committee (DAE) picked up steam during the fall, and earlier this quarter announced the initiation of a new mentorship program targeted at students with mental, learning, and physical disabilities. Add in the increasingly visible profile of the Office of Accessible Education (OAE), and things are looking bright indeed for accessibility and inclusion at Stanford.

As someone who is registered with the OAE, these efforts, particularly the mentorship program, make me breathe a small sigh of relief. Although Stanford has proven itself to be fully committed to meeting the academic and logistical needs of its students with disabilities through providing accommodations, in my experience the University has not yet succeeded in considering the social challenges that those individuals sometimes face. There is no community on campus that is fully aware of and committed to the needs of students with disabilities — and, since Stanford is a place that embraces (or professes to embrace) community for students from all backgrounds, this strikes me as a serious flaw. Over the course of my time on campus, I’ve witnessed countless initiatives, mass emails, and activities targeting individuals from minority or “diverse” cultural backgrounds. Yet I have found no such community for students with physical or mental limitations. Rather, students with disabilities seem to be expected to compensate as best as they can.

The best thing about this mentorship program is that it’s not limited to individuals with disabilities — it’s not a commiseration group, nor is it intended to be. Rather, it’s open to all students who are curious about issues of disability and who are interested in advocating for their friends. From my experience, living with a disability becomes a drastically smaller deal if one can find a community of open, perceptive, and sensitive individuals with whom to interact. Here’s hoping that this recent DAE initiative, through establishing a safe community for students with disabilities on campus, can make steps toward accomplishing exactly that.

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New Class to Replace IHUM https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/09/new-class-to-replace-ihum/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/09/new-class-to-replace-ihum/#respond Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:17:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045770 There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether or not IHUM should be replaced, and if so, how.
I’ve also been made aware of several conversations about how Stanford students don’t know how to deal with failure. I’m surprised no one asked my opinion about either of these issues, because I’ve got the perfect idea to deal with both at once

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether or not IHUM should be replaced, and if so, how.
I’ve also been made aware of several conversations about how Stanford students don’t know how to deal with failure. I’m surprised no one asked my opinion about either of these issues, because I’ve got the perfect idea to deal with both at once:
LIFE 101: How To Deal With Failure (5 units)
This class, required for freshman, is a priceless, hands-on learning opportunity. The professors stress that success in the class will only result from 100% attendance, close analysis of all the texts in the 800-page course reader, and a minimum of 72 hours of studying for the final exam and each of the four midterms. It is projected that approximately half the class will adhere to these guidelines like they’re the letter of law, and will feel both superior to and infuriated by the other half the class, which never goes to lecture and uses the pages of their course readers to roll blunts.
The reality is that whoever takes the class gets an F. Graduates of the course begin the rest of their Stanford career having learned a valuable lesson about life: no matter how much hard work you put into it, you’re still gonna lose.
Have a nice day.

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Shane’s (Preemptive) Award for Best Twitter Account of 2011 https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/04/shane%e2%80%99s-preemptive-award-for-best-twitter-account-of-2011/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/04/shane%e2%80%99s-preemptive-award-for-best-twitter-account-of-2011/#respond Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:55:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045670 You know from my column a few weeks ago that I love Twitter. If that wasn’t enough to make you join, I thought I’d use this space to tell you about one of my favorite new Twitter feeds. It’s the account of Rahm Emanuel (@MayorEmanuel), former Chief of Staff to Barack Obama, current Chicago mayoral […]

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You know from my column a few weeks ago that I love Twitter. If that wasn’t enough to make you join, I thought I’d use this space to tell you about one of my favorite new Twitter feeds. It’s the account of Rahm Emanuel (@MayorEmanuel), former Chief of Staff to Barack Obama, current Chicago mayoral candidate, and former ballet major at Sarah Lawrence University.

Okay, well, it’s not really his Twitter. You’ll figure that out pretty quickly. That said, it features epic tales—always interspersed with certain four-letter words—fictionalizing Rahm’s quest for the highest office in Chicago. There’s a cast of characters along for the ride, too: David Axelrod (Rahm’s best friend and campaign manager), Carl the Intern, Hambone (Axelrod’s puppy), and Quaxelrod (an adopted duck). A recent adventure featured the team stealing a snowplow during Chicago’s blizzard and using it to surf an ice wave on the Chicago River. “Rahm” concluded that tale by tweeting, “I’M THE FUCKING KING OF THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD!”

Try to tell me you don’t want to read this.

(Oh, and follow me [@ssavitsky] while you’re at it. I recently went on a 3 AM tweet spree about how Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl and I would make great friends. That’s probably right up your alley. I always love self-promotion. Don’t you?)

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OH SNAP. https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/04/oh-snap/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/02/04/oh-snap/#respond Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:47:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045668 Take a look at this guy. He is, apparently, the fastest snapper in the world. And even if he isn’t the fastest snapper in the world, he certainly does snap quickly. I would continue to laud his snapping abilities, but I would prefer to focus on the responses he has been getting. According to the […]

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Take a look at this guy. He is, apparently, the fastest snapper in the world. And even if he isn’t the fastest snapper in the world, he certainly does snap quickly.

I would continue to laud his snapping abilities, but I would prefer to focus on the responses he has been getting. According to the comment thread, some people are hoping to prove that he is somehow cheating and that his video was not recorded in real time. At the time when I happened upon the link, a few comments urged viewers to “keep ur eyes on the watch behind him” because, supposedly, one can tell by the moving clock that he is snapping in double time.

Regardless of the fact that the clock is barely visible in the video – and several replies on the comment thread remind viewers of this fact with rather explicit language – it is more interesting to ponder why someone would want the world’s fastest snapper to be cheating. Is it jealousy of snapping speed? Is it an inherent skepticism? Is it bitterness at that person’s failure to become a YouTube phenomenon?

Whatever the reason be, I gladly would praise the snapping abilities of this Matt Anderson. Must we struggle to put down those who are gifted, must we attempt to dismiss talent as an act of cheating and trickery? I think not. Let us graciously accept the snapping superiority of Matt.

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A Taste of India https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/26/a-taste-of-india-part-i/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/26/a-taste-of-india-part-i/#respond Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:43:45 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045340   I was in India over the break traveling with friends and visiting family who live there (I went to Delhi, Agra, Kolkata and Pune). I made a few videos to share a glimpse of India with Daily blog readers. Below is a map showing where these cities are and four videos: the first is […]

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I was in India over the break traveling with friends and visiting family who live there (I went to Delhi, Agra, Kolkata and Pune). I made a few videos to share a glimpse of India with Daily blog readers. Below is a map showing where these cities are and four videos: the first is in Delhi, the second at the Taj Mahal in Agra, and the third and fourth are in Kolkata. The video quality is pretty bad (old camera and poor director’s skill – apologies in advance!).

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*This video shows a busy street just outside the Red Fort in Delhi. One thing that is striking about busy streets like this is the diversity of users: one road will have cars, trucks, buses, auto rickshaws, rickshaws, bicyclists, motorcycle drivers, pedestrians (including school children, as you’ll see!). The only thing missing here is a cow! (And you will still find them on some roads if you visit…)

You can also get a sense of the diversity of economic activity in a big city like Delhi – street vendors on the sidewalk, manual laborers carrying goods, rickshaw wallahs moving cargo, business people. You don’t see it in the video, but when cars stop in traffic there will almost always be people, mostly children, approaching the cars either begging or selling small things. You also see single motorcycles carrying three- or four-person families. India is growing, but much faster for the most wealthy and the diversity of life, both in terms of socioeconomic status and culture, is stark.

 

 

*A look at the Taj Mahal. The video does not come near capturing how beautiful it is in person!

 

 

*A man chopping off the top of a coconut so we can drink the water in downtown Kolkata.

 

 

*A look around from the rooftop of my family’s home in Kolkata (we live on the third floor of the building). At the end you see a girl, Shilpi, who has worked in our home for several years and is now like part of the family (she surprised me by coming up while I was filming!). Shilpi is my age and I’ve seen our lives evolve in parallel over the past seven years. She will probably get married in the next year or two (an arranged marriage) and she wants to go back to living in a village in West Bengal. My aunt insists that she should at least be capable of being financially independent from her future husband, so Shilpi has been taking beauty and sewing classes in Kolkata and even sells some of what she sews.

Labor remains cheep in India and it’s very common that middle class homes will have someone helping to cook or clean. And many simple things get outsourced: for example, I have yet to hear of an Indian middle class family doing the ironing themselves – in our home, once the clothes are washed and hung out to dry they get sent a block down the road where an ironing man has a small outdoor shop and irons clothes for families in the neighborhood.

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The Pleasure of Automation https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/23/the-pleasure-of-automation/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/23/the-pleasure-of-automation/#respond Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:36:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045243 As the month of January draws to an end, our classes are picked, our lives are back to an academic mess. And in the midst of all the interesting, fascinating, begrudging work that is a Stanford academic quarter, a question comes to mind: that of automation. If we could automate more and more of our […]

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As the month of January draws to an end, our classes are picked, our lives are back to an academic mess. And in the midst of all the interesting, fascinating, begrudging work that is a Stanford academic quarter, a question comes to mind: that of automation. If we could automate more and more of our academic thought—supplement it where necessary, and think creatively—could we learn in a whole new way? Could a topic that once took quarters to cover suddenly take mere days or weeks?

I am currently taking an AI class, and sometimes I wonder what the best application of this research really is. Today, the trend seems to be to substitute for things that humans are just naturally good at—driving, flying, listening, speaking, vision. I don’t understand this trend. It seems to buck everything that we know and love computers for: doing things that humans are just horrible at. Computers are wonderful at looking at complicated systems, calculating likelihoods and sums, doing things that humans find tedious and boring. This leads to better modern living.

Yet what is ‘hot’ right now all over the place is to make computers more and more human—able to detect our moods and our intuition and the things that we hold at the center of our humanity. This angers us somewhat, but most of us go back to that awesome virtual reality game and think little about it.

Sure, such interfaces are fun and wonderful to interact with. But then we end up with people that become emotionally connected to their machines, or addicted to them somehow. We all know the science fiction dystopia that this leads to.

At the heart of this is that technology shouldn’t substitute for interaction, it should enable it. It should push humanity toward a better emotional and intellectual state, not pull it down toward a dark hole of computing.

I think a truer and wiser future for the nature of computation is a deceptively effortless system of interfacing with machines. I mean that perhaps, in a century, after a nostalgic revolution for our parent’s childhoods, computers will actually be in less places. They will be better at doing specific tasks, and do them wonderfully and quickly. They will be in pristine conditions, because engineers fascinated with computing will study them and update them and work with them. In this way, personal computing will be a fad and awesome digital interfaces will be in town halls and kiosks rather than in our living room.

A better world may be one where we segregate ourselves from our computers, not attach them to our heads.

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MLK Day https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/17/mlk-day/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/17/mlk-day/#respond Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:37:42 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045090   My column this week will jump off from reflections on MLK day, but I wanted to write a blog post pointing to Matt Miller’s and Thomas Schnaubelt’s lovely op-ed that appeared yesterday on The Daily’s website building off of the idea of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Matt and Thomas […]

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My column this week will jump off from reflections on MLK day, but I wanted to write a blog post pointing to Matt Miller’s and Thomas Schnaubelt’s lovely op-ed that appeared yesterday on The Daily’s website building off of the idea of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Matt and Thomas highlighted that King stood not only for racial justice, but also for “human rights, economic uplift, civil rights, …international peace, and spiritual freedom.” The holiday is to remember someone who saw the broad implications of our ideals, who called on us to realize those ideals in all their forms.

 

In this sense the “I Have a Dream” speech is not only a schooling in the Civil Rights Movement but also in the constant conflict between the ideals we all embrace and the practices we disagree on. Our ideals and practices are in constant dialogue. Healthcare, immigration, war, education, persisting racial injustice in America—King calls on us to think about what policies on such issues will best “let freedom ring”.

 

Martin Luther King – I Have A Dream Speech – August 28, 1963

 

King was inspiring, but not perfect. In a sense, he marks a tremendous step in a movement that transcends any single human being. We never achieve perfection. Progress extends beyond any person, any practice, any single dream. Revisiting inspirational moments in history is not just about recognizing the shoulders our improved society stands on (though we owe them at least that sign of gratitude); it is also about reexamining and extending the implications of our ideals.

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So Nearly American https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/16/so-nearly-american/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/16/so-nearly-american/#respond Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:41:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1045063 I was so nearly an American. It was that close. In the mid-1950s my father was offered a job at Princeton University – something to do with the emerging science of semiconductors. One of the reasons he turned it down was that he didn’t think he liked the idea of his children growing up as […]

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I was so nearly an American. It was that close. In the mid-1950s my father was offered a job at Princeton University – something to do with the emerging science of semiconductors. One of the reasons he turned it down was that he didn’t think he liked the idea of his children growing up as Americans….

Most people who are obsessed by America are fascinated by the physical – the cars, the music, the movies, the clothes, the gadgets, the sport, the cities, the landscape and the landmarks. I am interested in all of those, of course I am, but I (perhaps because of my father’s decision) am interested in something more. I have always wanted to get right under the skin of American life. To know what it really is to be American, to have grown up and been schooled as an American; to work and play as an American; to romance, labour, succeed, fail, feud, fight, vote, shop, drift, dream and drop out as an American; to grow ill and grow old as an American.

~ From Stephen Fry.

I have for a long time been a fan of the British comic, skeptic, documentarian, and all around Mr. Nice Guy Stephen Fry. But I really began to understand him when he shared my fascination with the American saga in his documentary Stephen Fry In America. It refreshed my view of the nation for which I carry a passport. Amid all the cynicism about America’s declining place in the world, it was wonderful to view my nation from the point of view of an educated and impressed tourist.

The reason I recommend the documentary to every American — whether you were born in this country or not — is that it gives you a new glimpse at the nation and the world we take for granted every day. Fry goes through every single state, trying to characterize it in 5-10 minutes (much more for some, much less for others) and in the process travels through this nation more than I have myself. In the process, Fry reminds me of a fact: that we are at our core (whether it is due to our youth, our stupidity, or our idealism) optimistic.

Want a snippet? This clip will show you all you need to know. The sound may be a bit out of sync, and the image may be somewhat manipulated, but the message is clear enough.

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Yet Another Gym https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/10/yet-another-gym/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/10/yet-another-gym/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:23:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044910 Last Friday, the Daily reported that the board of trustees had approved a new gym to be built on west campus, on the west end of Roble Field. My last column lamented some of our music facilities, so I was interested in the fact that the administration, after recently building Arrillaga gym, decided to build […]

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Last Friday, the Daily reported that the board of trustees had approved a new gym to be built on west campus, on the west end of Roble Field. My last column lamented some of our music facilities, so I was interested in the fact that the administration, after recently building Arrillaga gym, decided to build another. We Stanfordians care about fitness and wellness, but apparently we like to have our athletic facilities close by. “It takes effort to go across campus to the gym? Nonsense! We’ll build another gym, closer to you!”

Familiar names pop up in the funding of the project: Arrillaga and Avery. Clearly we have some wealthy donors who care about sports. Luckily, there are others who care about music and culture, like the Bings who financed a concert hall and the overseas programs.

So is it just an example of donor preferences? I think the administration could probably make more of an effort to fundraise for the arts departments. Several conversations I’ve had in the music department include a teacher lamenting the fact that they can’t get the funding to teach another class. And the only new music facility that’s popped up around campus was the Band Shak for the LSJUMB, who exists under the auspices of the athletic department.

Though part of the reason they built a new gym was that much of Roble Gym was converted to dance and performance space. So as I said in the column as well, the situation for the arts isn’t dire; people are paying some attention.

But when the main reason cited for a new sports facility is proximity, it shows a bias towards athletics. Oh, if that could be the reason to build more practice rooms: “Musicians in Mirrielees have to go all the way to the music building to play.” Somehow, I don’t think that argument would persuade the board of trustees.

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Why Medicine? https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/09/why-medicine/ https://stanforddaily.com/2011/01/09/why-medicine/#respond Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:49:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044878 When I first came to Stanford, I found people telling me that being pre-med was the most common thing ‘to be’ on campus. So many of us are planning to go to medical school, in fact, that it begs the question: why? As a premed myself, I know why: I want to revolutionize the field […]

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When I first came to Stanford, I found people telling me that being pre-med was the most common thing ‘to be’ on campus. So many of us are planning to go to medical school, in fact, that it begs the question: why?

As a premed myself, I know why: I want to revolutionize the field of medicine. You can read my thought process here. I may change this goal, but feel comfortable enough in my current ambition and my dream.

What I don’t understand is that why so many other pre-meds — so many of my smart peers at this elite university — enter medicine for ‘financial stability’ and ‘because they want to help people.’ These are qualities that could apply to at least a dozen careers in a dozen different industries. They are vague and boring answers that somehow satiate otherwise curious and smart underclassmen.

And this isn’t the case with every premed, I know. There are plenty of premeds I admire for their sense of purpose in this university and their profound, compelling, and nuanced reasoning about why they want to be a doctor. But the fact that so many people choose to answer otherwise concerns me. Such sentiments belie the ‘Die Luft der Freiheit weht’ nature of this university.

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GTD (Part II) https://stanforddaily.com/2010/12/30/gtd-part-ii/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/12/30/gtd-part-ii/#respond Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:42:56 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044671 In a previous blog post, I talked about GTD. But I slowly have fallen out of love with this system. Now, don’t get me wrong–there is a lot about Allen’s work that I appreciate. I enjoy, for example, the “trusted system” that is associated with this model: there is a lot to say for Allen’s […]

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In a previous blog post, I talked about GTD. But I slowly have fallen out of love with this system. Now, don’t get me wrong–there is a lot about Allen’s work that I appreciate. I enjoy, for example, the “trusted system” that is associated with this model: there is a lot to say for Allen’s insistence in clearing your conscious from nagging obligations.

But like any theorem, there remains a lot that is a bad approximation of my reality. More specifically, complexity is present in places that I don’t need it. I don’t need the crutches of next actions (these are tasks are the ‘next step’ in a project–and in some software implementations of GTD they can become more of a handicap than a help) or contexts (these are the settings where tasks take place, but really, I can do most of my work anywhere I take my backpack–which is basically everywhere).

Furthermore, in our day to day lives, there is a lot that remains between putting things in a trusted system and actually getting the work done in a timely manner. My previous use of this model has included putting my chemistry p-set in such a ‘trusted system’ the day it is handed out, and meaning–with all good intentions–to get to it that day. But I leave it often untouched the day it is actually due. Sure, GTD can tell you the next action. It can explain to you when to do what, given your context. You can estimate durations, appropriate places in your calendar that you can get the work done. BUT WILL YOU DO IT?

Likely not.

This is the central problem of task management: the individual. If you fail to maintain integrity with any GTD system, no matter how fancy the system, you will fail at doing great work. And, as we know, no piece of code or notepad or system can produce this change in mindset.

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Condoleezza Rice said it best: immigration reform is about the “national soul”. Call to help pass the DREAM Act! https://stanforddaily.com/2010/12/03/condoleezza-rice-said-it-best-immigration-reform-is-about-the-%e2%80%9cnational-soul%e2%80%9d-call-to-help-pass-the-dream-act/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/12/03/condoleezza-rice-said-it-best-immigration-reform-is-about-the-%e2%80%9cnational-soul%e2%80%9d-call-to-help-pass-the-dream-act/#comments Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:13:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044641   As I wrote about in this week’s column, the DREAM Act is being pushed for a vote these few days in Congress. Harry Reid has been floating different versions of the bill in the Senate, hoping to get it passed during the lame duck session before Republicans take over the House in January.   […]

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As I wrote about in this week’s column, the DREAM Act is being pushed for a vote these few days in Congress. Harry Reid has been floating different versions of the bill in the Senate, hoping to get it passed during the lame duck session before Republicans take over the House in January.

 

The media would have us think that the issue of immigration reform naturally pins Republicans against Democrats. But this is not so. Not only did The Economist (which leans Republican on most economic issues) endorse the DREAM Act (along with The New York Times and Stanford President John Hennessy), but former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argued passionately for comprehensive immigration reform in her very first public appearance at Stanford last year, calling the failure to pass immigration reform one of her “biggest regrets” and describing the issue as closely related to our “national soul”:

 

 

The DREAM Act, which offers a 6-year pathway to citizenship for college students and military service members who were brought to the U.S. as children, is closely tied to American identity. It is about giving young people who are here through no fault of their own a chance to reach for their dreams. They are Americans in spirit already; this law is about rectifying the unjust situation they face. We have a handful of days to do it.

 

It’s quick and easy, here’s what YOU can do: Call 1-866-587-3023 and request to be connected to the representatives listed below who are currently either in opposition or on the fence. When you get transferred to them, simply state that you are calling in support of the DREAM Act. That’s it and you can hang up! Even a few calls will make a difference, and be sure to call your own representative if he or she is on the list. Let’s pass the DREAM Act!

 

Senate Democrats: Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), McCaskill (MO), Webb (VA), Warner (VA), Landrieu (LA), Pryor (AR), Tester (MT), Hagan (NC)

 

Senate Republicans: Murkowski (AK), Hutchison (TX), Brownback (KS), Kirk (IL), Bennett (UT), Voinovich (OH), Snowe (ME), Collins (ME), Lemieux (FL), Lugar (IN), Bunning (KY)

 

Representatives: Kirkpatrick (AZ),  Berry (AR),  Ross (AR),  Cardoza (CA),  Dreier (CA),  Costa (CA),  Klein (FL),  Kosmas (FL),  Putnam (FL),  Barrow (GA),  Marshall (GA),  Bishop (GA),  Scott (GA),  Bean (IL),  Halvorson (IL),  Hill (IN),  Visclosky (IN),  Chandler (KY),  Michaud (ME),  Kratovil (MD),  Dingell (MI),  Schauer (MI),  Kildee (MI),  Peters (MI),  McCollum (MN),  Oberstar (MN),  Peterson (MN),  Walz (MN),  Adler (NJ),  Murphy (NY),  Slaughter (NY),  Arcuri (NY),  Higgins (NY),  Hall (NY),  Lee (NY),  Owens (NY),  Kissell (NC),  Boccieri (OH),  Wilson (OH),  Holden (PA),  Dahlkemper (PA),  Gordon (TN),  Tanner (TN),  Cooper (TN),  Boucher (VA),  Nye (VA)

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Home Sweet Home? https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/28/home-sweet-home-4/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/28/home-sweet-home-4/#respond Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:25:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044494 When I booked my Thanksgiving Break flights in early October, I begged my dad to spend an extra hundred dollars so that I could spend a full week at home, instead of returning to Stanford early Friday morning. Now, on this final night of break, I wish I had acquiesced to my father. The eleven […]

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When I booked my Thanksgiving Break flights in early October, I begged my dad to spend an extra hundred dollars so that I could spend a full week at home, instead of returning to Stanford early Friday morning. Now, on this final night of break, I wish I had acquiesced to my father.

The eleven weeks prior to break were the longest I’ve ever been away from home, which has made these past seven days of being in New York a whirlwind of experiences. Below is a summary of my first trip home as a Stanford freshman.

Sunday, November 21- Going Home

I was astonished at how quickly time had passed since I left for SPOT. I felt like my life was on fast-forward for eleven weeks and that all I could feel was the déjà vu of flying to school in September.

Waiting at the baggage claim felt like a reality check. More real people than Stanford people surrounded me, it was cold and cloudy, and my Stanford ID was of no use—I actually had to pay for food!

Felt light-headed stepping onto the sidewalk in front of our house. It looked surreal. My room was somewhat musty and the floor was covered in dust. I wasn’t sure what to make of the time difference, so I just went to bed early.

Monday, November 22 – Adjusting

What I did this day is unclear. All I remember my watch-alarm going off at 8 a.m. PST and being confused as to whether that meant it was 5 a.m. or 11 a.m. EST. (I slept until 2-ish). Sent emails to the Alondra and SLE mailing lists from outside the Stanford network.

Called Stanford “home” without realizing it an inestimable number of times.

Tuesday, November 23 – The City (Take One) and Visiting school

Volunteered to get up at 6 a.m. (read: 3 a.m.PST) to take my sister to school in the city. Discovered my dad now drives my mother and sister to the train station (I walked the mile distance every day). Felt empowered in my Stanford sweatshirt and really wanted someone to comment on it so I could say, “Yeah, I go to Stanford.”  (No one did.)

Once in the city, I missed two subway trains at the same time—felt shame calling myself a real New Yorker.

Got to school in time to visit my House (homeroom). Seven new freshmen replaced the seven members of my class that had graduated. Ran into about twenty of my classmates, who were also visiting. Had nothing more to say than “I’m having a great time at college,” when everyone asked how Stanford was. Got the run-down on all the senior class’ early applicants and saw them all freaking out. One classmate aptly summed up what I was feeling: “It seems like years since we’ve been out of high school, but only two days since we started college,” she said.

My roommate, who was visiting New York for break, spent the night at my house. My mother pinched his cheeks when she saw him (he’s twenty, mind you), but all else was fine. Felt weird sleeping in two separate rooms.

Wednesday, November 24 – The City (Take Two), Semi-reunion with friends

Despite the weather being in the high 40s and windy, I realized I missed the cold. And seeing trees without leaves. Finally, a real fall.

Had brunch with some of my friends—the Harvard and Yale kids (roughly half the group) had all seen each other multiple times and knew each other’s friends. Was the butt of a number of California jokes.

Felt like a tourist in my own city when my friends decided to watch some of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons being blown up, then realized I was essentially a tourist, visiting New York for seven days, and that it actually felt great.

Thursday, November 25 – Thanksgiving & Football

Went to the Jets’ Thanksgiving Night game (made up for having to wait at the airport on Sunday). Felt weird not ringing my keys, smelling garlic fries, or hearing “All Right Now” whenever we scored. Realized Big Game was my last Stanford football game of the season and felt immensely depressed. Also realized that, as a non-football fan before this quarter, I mostly only like Stanford football. I do have a greater appreciation for professional football now, though.

Friday, November 26 – Real reunion with friends

Final trip into the city to see my friends. Everyone seemed the same, just slightly older. A lot of our discussion was about changes or people at high school, stories from the Harvard-Yale Game weekend, and differences between our colleges (in case you didn’t know, Stanford has better weather, better food, a better roommate pairing system, a quarter system, no reading week, and free laundry!). Sadly, no one else was excited by Big Game or LSJUMB.

It felt good to use lingo or make jokes that no one but I understood for eleven weeks.

Got home at 2 a.m. for the first time and didn’t get in trouble.

Saturday, November 27Lazy Day

Went to bed at 5 again and slept until 5 p.m.

Watched the Stanford-Oregon St. game and wished I could be at Stanford Stadium. Heard tidbits of the Band, our first-down cheer, and Red Zone ruckus, but they weren’t enough. Decided to book Winter Break tickets based on which BCS we’re in.

Sunday, November 28 – Going Home

As I write this, I am sitting on a bed that feels foreign to me. I’ve grown used to the luxury of a mattress topper and the heat involved with sleeping on bed that is lofted inches from the ceiling. I’m living out of a suitcase in a room that is lacking a roommate. My work lamp and iPod speakers are out of place, borrowing space on a desk that has never touched college work.

When I open the door, I don’t see “Professor Patrique,” Alondra’s wonderful RCC, playing video games with his nocturnal friends, a gigantic sign that says “You are amazing,” with a small note specifying “in bed,” hanging on the end of the wall. I don’t have to stop in two or three rooms before finally reaching the bathroom, where I don’t need to use a paper seat cover or have to wear shower shoes. I could even take a bath, if I feel so inclined. While the bathroom changes are more than welcome, I miss everything else about my dorm, and Stanford at-large.

(I still haven’t figured out a way to clarify whether I mean Stanford or New York when I say “home,” but for now, I’ll use lower- and uppercase letters.)

It’s 2 a.m. EST and I’m looking forward to going “home” to Stanford for another two weeks, before returning “Home” to New York. Then, I’ll have more time to catch-up with friends and teachers one at a time and I’ll have more to talk about, having officially completed my first set of finals and my first quarter of freshman year.

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With a win today, Stanford holds Orange Bowl pole position https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/27/with-a-win-today-stanford-holds-orange-bowl-pole-position/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/27/with-a-win-today-stanford-holds-orange-bowl-pole-position/#comments Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:15:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044477 By Wyndam Makowsky and Alex Romanczuk With Boise State’s loss, Stanford, as long as it beats Oregon State today, seems to hold pole position for an Orange Bowl berth even if all of the top rated teams win out. That’s right: conventional wisdom says to root for Arkansas to beat LSU today so that Stanford […]

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By Wyndam Makowsky and Alex Romanczuk

With Boise State’s loss, Stanford, as long as it beats Oregon State today, seems to hold pole position for an Orange Bowl berth even if all of the top rated teams win out. That’s right: conventional wisdom says to root for Arkansas to beat LSU today so that Stanford can get into the top four and thus be guaranteed a BCS bid. But Stanford has a good shot at a berth even if that doesn’t happen. Let’s see why.

First, let’s get two games out of the way that would be automatically set:

BCS Title game: Oregon vs. Auburn.

Rose Bowl: TCU vs. Wisconsin.

The championship will be between the top two teams—the Ducks and the Tigers, if they both finish undefeated. The Rose Bowl will be between the Big 10 Champion (Wisconsin is in a three-way tie at the top of the conference with Michigan State and Ohio State, but currently holds the tie breaker because it has the higher BCS ranking) and a qualifying team from a non-BCS conference—in this case, TCU, and Boise State’s loss essentially ended its BCS hopes.

Then what? The ACC champion (front runner: Virginia Tech) automatically goes to the Orange Bowl. The Big 12 champion (could be Oklahoma State, Oklahoma or Nebraska) automatically goes to the Fiesta Bowl. Let’s put both of those facts aside for a moment.

Each year, outside of the automatic slottings, the three bowls (Fiesta, Orange and Sugar) alternate who gets first pick of the at large teams. This year, the order is: Sugar, Orange, Fiesta. Keep in mind, too, that there can be a maximum of only two teams from any given conference.

What does this tell us? It means that the Fiesta Bowl gets the last pick, which means it is saddled with the Big East champion. The conference is awful, and no team is going to win it with less than three losses—they are, by far, the least desirable pick. That means that our Fiesta Bowl match up is set:

Fiesta Bowl: Big 12 Champion vs. Big East Champion.

That leaves the Sugar and Orange Bowls.

The Sugar Bowl usually gets the SEC champion. However, because Auburn would be playing in the title game, that slot is open. However, bowls are known to stick with tradition, and LSU—which would be the No. 5 team in the country and is not only a SEC team, but also the local squad—makes too much sense. Who would face them? Remember, the Sugar Bowl gets first pick in the “draft,” so they can pick practically any qualifying team. We think the clear choice here is Ohio State. They have a massive fan base that has shown it can travel, and would be a top eight team at the time of selection. The thing to remember with these two picks, which are technically hypothetical: these are the obvious choices. We’re not going out on any limbs. Anything different would be a little shocking. So, let’s finalize the Sugar Bowl:

Sugar Bowl: LSU vs. Ohio State.

Which brings us to the Orange Bowl. It will take the ACC champion and an at large team. Already, the SEC and Big 10 are at their two-team maximums, so their conferences are out. Boise State is toast. The ACC is down (no team up for this spot would have less than three losses) and there’s already a team from that conference in the game. The Big East is an abomination—there is no chance that they get a second team into BCS games.

That leaves the Big 12 and the Pac-10. The second place Big 12 team is either going to be: three-loss Nebraska, three-loss Oklahoma or two-loss Oklahoma State. We’re not going out on a limb when we say: it is unlikely that a two or three-loss team would be selected over a one-loss Stanford. Stranger things have happened, of course, but it would be unusual. So, your Orange Bowl:

Orange Bowl: ACC Champion vs. Stanford.

Given that this is our scenario if everything happens business as usual, what derails this? Obviously, a Stanford loss to Oregon State. The Cardinal must take care of business. (Side note: that said, if both Stanford and TCU lose, Jon Wilner thinks the Cardinal still goes to the Rose Bowl). The Orange Bowl making the egregious mistake of picking a two or three loss team over a one loss Stanford. Someone taking pity on Boise State. As you can see, we’re grasping at straws. Even something that seems, on the surface, an issue, really is not: Auburn losing. That would put South Carolina in the Sugar Bowl and make the Tigers an at large team—presumably, in Stanford’s Orange Bowl slot. Sky falls. But if that’s the case, TCU goes to the title game and Stanford goes to the Rose Bowl. So all is well.

What are we saying? Win today, and unless the world descends into complete and utter chaos (and even then, it might not be an issue), Stanford’s BCS bowl positioning is looking quite good.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said “to root for New Mexico to beat TCU so that the Cardinal is practically guaranteed a Rose Bowl bid.” However, if TCU lost, it is very likely (if not almost a guarantee) that either they or Boise State will still qualify for a BCS game. If that’s the case, one of the two will be automatically slotted for the Rose Bowl. The lone scenario in which Stanford can attain a Rose Bowl slot is if South Carolina beats Auburn, nudges them from the championship game, and TCU takes their spot, thus freeing up a slot for Stanford in Pasadena. We regret the error.

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Nina’s Notes in the Moment https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/23/nina%e2%80%99s-notes-in-the-moment/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/23/nina%e2%80%99s-notes-in-the-moment/#respond Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:32:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044474 I was, actually, half-deathly afraid about falling asleep at the wheel on my drive home for Thanksgiving. It’s a five and a half hour drive from Stanford to Hermosa Beach–if you don’t get lost. My personal goal was to not create a nightmarish eight-hour ordeal. At the same time, I was absolutely excited for an […]

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I was, actually, half-deathly afraid about falling asleep at the wheel on my drive home for Thanksgiving. It’s a five and a half hour drive from Stanford to Hermosa Beach–if you don’t get lost. My personal goal was to not create a nightmarish eight-hour ordeal. At the same time, I was absolutely excited for an enormous chunk of time with my favorite music, on my own, in constant forward motion. And the prize at the end of the freeway maze was going to be the irreplaceably familiar comfort of home.

Nina’s Notes in the Moment

But there was nothing to fear! My first solo adventure back to my abode by the beach was marred by neither a single wrong turn nor automobile mishap. It was so, so, so wonderful. The Thanksgiving break I had been anticipating for weeks started right as I stepped in the car (after breakfast at Mayfield Bakery in Town and Country–fabulous spinach and gruyere croissant, goodness!) and took the US-101 by storm. My car, which has become a mobile source of comfort for me this year, felt like an extension cord coming straight out from my house and taking me straight back. My specifically-designed “DRIVE1” playlist kicked off with house party remixes, breezed through bossa nova, charmed with the 60s, and wooed with my favorite indie rock: The result was a five-to-six hour in-car karaoke session. There was no room for drowsiness, and I honestly thank the heavens for that.

I knew well in advance that once I hit the 405 and passed my former employer The Getty Museum, I would be letting out a breath I’d been holding for 9 weeks. But really, that sensation sat with me in the car for the entire trip. I knew, though, that I had truly arrived home once the Pacific Ocean breeze swept right through the open windows and graced me with its familiar friendliness. I was definitely back home in Hermosa. (Plus, my car had gotten dazzlingly clean while passing through several mid-journey rain showers, which also produced a rear-view rainbow bonus.)

Comfort comes in so many forms, and we’ve all got our personal set of them. For me, as my time increases at Stanford, the SoCal I lived in during middle and high school has transformed into one of my world anchor points. And my anticipation of homecoming was so strong that I felt it as soon as the drive began. I wasn’t expecting fireworks on arrival, or a work-free week, or family members temporarily stopping their lives for me – that’s not where the comfort was going to come from. Rather, it was just reuniting with the notion of home and some loved ones I’ve missed. This particular thought, and recognizing recently all the various things that are good for me, has done wonders for my remembering how to breathe when suddenly I realize I’m not. Overall, it’s very, very good.

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Whose Line Is It Anyway https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/21/whose-line-is-it-anyway/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/21/whose-line-is-it-anyway/#respond Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:32:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044476 I wanted to share with you a bit about the US version of the hit TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway. There have been too many people I have met at this university that have never heard of it, so I thought a blog-post on the topic may be appropriate — perhaps even desperately […]

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I wanted to share with you a bit about the US version of the hit TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway. There have been too many people I have met at this university that have never heard of it, so I thought a blog-post on the topic may be appropriate — perhaps even desperately needed.

The format of the show is quite simple: four performers act out scenes, songs, and play character-based improv games. The host awards arbitrary points and randomly selects one / two out of the four to ‘win’ in that episode. The three performers that appear in just about every episode are:

1) Colin Mochrie—He is known for his deadpan and most random one-liners. Points of comedic insult include his baldness, his Canadian-ness, and his propensity to be assigned the feminine roles in any skit.

2) Ryan Stiles—He is known for his Carol Channing impression and his impressive height. Points of comedic insult include his Carol Channing impression.

3) Wayne Brady—He is the ‘musical guy’ on the show. Brady improvises all kinds of musical content off-the-cuff and his skill with song is impressive. Brady isn’t insulted often / well, but there was that one time…

The crux of the comedy really seems to spring up organically from all kinds of places in this show. Perhaps most important are the chemistry of the performers and the host, the lovably tubby Drew Carey. When Carey laughs, his entire face lights up in such a way that it is impossible to laugh along with him. (Consider this clip as testimony: of course, it is inherently hilarious, but Carey adds so much to it at around 3:40. Carey’s own gaffes in his limited attempts at performance also are hilarious.

Yet at the heart of it all lies what I like to call the “WTF” factor: the random hilariousness that comes with this kind of comedy. For example, Ryan and Colin on a fake interview banter never fails to create worthy humor—whether they are trying to come up with cool transitions that have to do with exotic birds or a failure to communicate as some sort of ‘rap thing.’ Failure—purposeful breaking—seems to be an wonderfully executed trend in this show, and also works well with the musical titles that have been deliberately or accidentally broken.

Three such examples of musical WTF follow: 1) this clip arose from boredom with the song’s premise of ‘saying the wrong name in bed,’ 2) this one featured a totally unexpected one-liner from Colin (who knew bloody stool could be so funny?), 3) and there was the crazy, but incremental, build-up of a man whose ‘passing gas was his fame’.

(Musical and normal) WTF FTW!

Along with the WTF, comedy also seems to prop up from everyone doing everything just as they should. Even from normal, not so hilarious formats in themselves, unexpected and hilarious constraints pop up from nowhere. Here is one example with a game called Stand, Sit, Bend—where performers act out a skit, but one must be sitting standing, or bending all the time. Another comes from a game where three performers must make up a song one word at a time. Who knew that the ‘you’ would have such a structural consistency?

Then come the guest stars: David Hasselhoff’s stupidity, Stephen Colbert’s rap skills, Richard Simmons as props, and the ode to the female bodybuilder all are unforgettable. The last two, especially, have had the audience in tears.

Finally, of course, the audience. Who could forget the wonderfully clueless older women that are forced to participate in Sound Effect skits? These are ones where audience members must come to the stage, and give sounds to the things Ryan and Colin do. One consists of a skit where they must defend the Queen (of England?) from a barbaric army. When one of the audience members must portray the queen, the one line—’oh my god’—had me in tears around 1:45. Another wonderful example of audience incompetence is the entire skit where Colin is pregnant on a roller coaster—and the random things that happen to him as he attempts to give birth. The WTF factor is huge here as well.

So there you have it—the reasons why I love Whose Line Is It Anyway (WLIIA): the WTF factor, the spontaneously arising comedic structure, the great cast chemistry, the deadpan one-liners, the childishness and the complexity of the humor. The list goes on and on.

After you get hooked on these clips, I doubt you will be able to disagree.

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Abolish Football or Beat Cal? https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/16/abolish-football-or-beat-cal/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/16/abolish-football-or-beat-cal/#respond Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:52:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044325   During a commercial break in Stanford’s football game last week, a friend showed me the Wikipedia page of Charles William Eliot, Harvard’s president from 1869 to 1909. Eliot is credited with many reforms at Harvard including pushing against racial and religious prejudice and transforming the school into a preeminent research institution. One of his […]

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During a commercial break in Stanford’s football game last week, a friend showed me the Wikipedia page of Charles William Eliot, Harvard’s president from 1869 to 1909. Eliot is credited with many reforms at Harvard including pushing against racial and religious prejudice and transforming the school into a preeminent research institution. One of his major efforts that did not gain so much traction, however, was his attempt to abolish football.

 

In 1905, the New York Times quoted him as describing football as “a fight whose strategy and ethics are those of war,” that violation of rules cannot be prevented, that “the weaker man is considered the legitimate prey of the stronger” and that “no sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory.”

 

And his antipathy for sports did not stop there. He objected to baseball, basketball and hockey as well. He once said, “Well, this year I’m told the [baseball] team did well because one pitcher had a fine curve ball. I understand that a curve ball is thrown with a deliberate attempt to deceive. Surely this is not an ability we should want to foster at Harvard.” According to Eliot, rowing and tennis were the only clean sports. (Lucky for tennis, Eliot never saw the spin on a Rafa Nadal forehand!)

 

Remnants of Eliot’s attitude were even seen in two characters in David Fincher’s The Social Network—the Winklevoss twins. The two are portrayed in the film as blue-blooded future Olympian rowers who pride themselves on being true “Harvard men” and being at the top of their school’s social ladder.

 

In the week before Big Game, when Stanford fountains are flowing with red water, when a giant “Beat Cal” banner covers the front of Meyer Library, when I can bike through White Plaza at 2AM and see dedicated fans camping out under red lighting, I’ve got to say it: it feels good to be at Stanford.

 

Football means Stanford remembering the fun of (in good sport) hooking Oski to the top of the Claw, taking down Cal in Gaities and winning the axe in Big Game. Stanford’s love of sports (and yes, love of winning in them!) is one way we live on the same planet as the rest of the country, one way some smart people keep it a little real. And that feels great.

 

So during my last Big Game Week, there’s only one thing I can think of saying: let’s BEAT CAL!

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University of Kansas Becomes Cosmo https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/15/university-of-kansas-becomes-cosmo/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/15/university-of-kansas-becomes-cosmo/#respond Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:31:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044321 After putting a man on the moon, curing polio and inventing TiVo, science has finally taken on one of the big problems: a lack of taxonomy surrounding flirting styles. Well, our long national nightmare is over because according to a recent study out of the University of Kansas, there are five styles of flirting: physical, […]

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After putting a man on the moon, curing polio and inventing TiVo, science has finally taken on one of the big problems: a lack of taxonomy surrounding flirting styles. Well, our long national nightmare is over because according to a recent study out of the University of Kansas, there are five styles of flirting: physical, playful, polite, sincere, and traditional. Mary Jo Rapini breaks down the categories:

Physical: People who scored high on this type often develop relationships quickly, have more sexual chemistry and have a greater emotional and sexual connection to their partners.

Traditional: These believe men should make the first move and women should not pursue men. Both men and women with this style tend to be introverted.

Polite: The focus is on proper manners and nonsexual communication.

Sincere: The style most often cited in the study. Relationships involve strong emotional connections and sexual chemistry and are typically meaningful; they are based on creating emotional connections.

Playful: People favoring the playful style often flirt with little interest in a long-term romance, but they find flirting fun and enhancing to their self-esteem. They are less likely to have important and meaningful relationships and this is the type that is most uncommon.

Shockingly, the people who fall under the “sincere” category, which is by definition characterized by making deep, meaningful connections with people had more long-lasting relationship than “playful” people who flirt to build up their own self-esteem.

The study also answers the most important question facing modern 21st century women: how can they snare a man? The study offers suggestions ranging from subtle ways to get attention (“Arch your eyebrows,” “Mirror or copy your potential date’s body behavior”) to the um, less subtle (“Lean forward,” “Thrust your chest out,” “Cross or open your legs”) to the creepy (“Prolong your eye contact at a potential mate,” “Winking”).

The news gets even better, as the University of Kansas—an institution of higher learning, mind you—has put out an interactive quiz so that you can determine which type of flirt you are. This is great news for everyone who looked at the recent merger between The Daily Beast and Newsweek and wondered: “Why can’t that happen to Scientific American and Cosmo? Just imagine the quizzes!”

The most important takeaway though, is that going on likealittle and anonymously telling a female in cowboy boots she should ride you isn’t flirting, it’s just weird Internet weirdness and will never work for anyone ever.

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Business and Music https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/14/business-and-music-2/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/14/business-and-music-2/#respond Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:28:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044290 At Stanford, what are all the ways we can learn (about) music? We can have the fun college-music-group-experience with a cadre of a cappella or instrumental enthusiasts. Or a few entrepreneurs might put together a little rock band and make the best of it. Meanwhile, people at CCRMA develop crazy new computer methods. Otherwise, we […]

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At Stanford, what are all the ways we can learn (about) music? We can have the fun college-music-group-experience with a cadre of a cappella or instrumental enthusiasts. Or a few entrepreneurs might put together a little rock band and make the best of it. Meanwhile, people at CCRMA develop crazy new computer methods. Otherwise, we take instrument, history, theory, and composition lessons in a very classic fashion.

But why not business? The music industry is alive and well, even if they don’t sell CDs anymore. Except Stanford doesn’t pay much attention to that side of the arts in its teaching.

Which is interesting, because a lot of global culture comes out of the mass media, yet Stanford remains on the music-media sidelines. We’ll leave school as decent performers, perhaps simply destined for a local-music hobby of some community choir. But future world leaders of the music industry won’t be Stanford alums in the same way our school has put out robber barons in other industries. Some mad music computer scientists at the Knoll might create some programs that have a big impact akin to FM synthesis, but is all we want to be good for—the next gimmick like autotune?

The GSB is one of the best business schools in the world, so it seems like it would make sense to have some interdisciplinary options between music and business. But the arts have never gotten the same attention at Stanford as those much more lucrative pastimes.

Alas, if only our rival were Berklee, maybe we would diversify our music portfolio a bit more. I love the fact that we have the humanities approach to the arts, with the focus on music as an enrichment to life, rather than as another means to financial success. But it would still be nice to have the option of serious, in-depth training in the technical skills required in the music business (recording, producing, fundraising, promotion, etc, all with a focus on the arts).

In the meantime, have fun with your music group.

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This Week in Cancer https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/09/this-week-in-cancer/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/09/this-week-in-cancer/#respond Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:35:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044076 Earlier this week, Charlie Villanueva, a professional basketball player with the Detroit Pistons wrote on Twitter that Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics called him “a cancer patient.” People got upset enough, suggesting Garnett be fined, that Garnett is an irredeemable bully, and that we just shouldn’t be talking about cancer. All well and good, […]

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Earlier this week, Charlie Villanueva, a professional basketball player with the Detroit Pistons wrote on Twitter that Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics called him “a cancer patient.” People got upset enough, suggesting Garnett be fined, that Garnett is an irredeemable bully, and that we just shouldn’t be talking about cancer. All well and good, but on the other hand, as Tom Scocca points out, there’s the entire history of sports, much of which is worse—check out the way Michael Jordan talked to a teammate.

Garnett, for his part has basically elected not to apologize by way of offering a terse statement in which he claims he actually said, “You are cancerous to your team and our league,” which is different (?) and that “there was a major miscommunication.”

It’s not hard to see why a trash talker would call Charlie Villanueva—who is hairless because of his alopecia—a cancer. Nor is it hard to believe that Villanueva’s condition, which has been the source of bullying his whole life, would make him extra sensitive to this sort of thing. That Villanueva loves Twitter—he became the first NBA player to tweet during a game last year—made whole thing something of a perfect storm.

The incident raised the question: would Kevin Garnett say that if he had cancer? If it had killed someone close to him? Wouldn’t he realize that it’s insensitive and that the topic should only be dealt with seriously? That being mean is only okay sometimes?

Garnett anticipating those questions covered his bases in the statement: “I have lost loved ones to this deadly disease and have a family member currently undergoing treatment.” Regardless of whether or not you believe that’s evidence in his favor, it speaks to the sentiment that there is one way to speak of cancer—solemnly, and without any sense of irony—and that anyone who had ever known anyone with cancer would understand and agree.

Which brings us to Christopher Hitchens’ plea in Vanity Fair, as someone with esophageal cancer for an etiquette handbook written “in an attempt to cover the inevitable awkwardness in diplomatic relations between Tumortown and its neighbors.”

Hitchens has other rules: if you’re going to ask “how are you?” don’t have any expectations for an answer, be candid in addressing the topic, and nobody wants to hear you prattle on about either a horrible cancer-related death or an inspirational story along the lines of “‘My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal melanoma of the G-spot and they just about gave up on her. But she hung in there and took huge doses of chemotherapy and radiation at the same time, and the last postcard we had was from her at the top of Mount Everest.’”

Hitchens is, in his distinctive way, making the point that people with cancer are still people too, and taking offense on their behalf so you can feel some measure of self-satisfaction takes away some of the cancer patients’ dignity.

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Better Sound Tech https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/08/better-sound-tech/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/08/better-sound-tech/#respond Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:12:25 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1044032 As Gaieties approaches, I reminisce about all the times I’ve been to the theater. In my bout of nostalgia, I am painfully reminded of all of the times the sound tech has been crappy. There were the Gaieties shows where I couldn’t hear the pit orchestra very well. In the musicals at my high school, […]

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As Gaieties approaches, I reminisce about all the times I’ve been to the theater. In my bout of nostalgia, I am painfully reminded of all of the times the sound tech has been crappy. There were the Gaieties shows where I couldn’t hear the pit orchestra very well. In the musicals at my high school, they would miss cues and forget to turn on someone’s mic in time. At a Roots concert in DC last spring, the speakers completely died for a couple minutes. And even on Broadway where I saw West Side Story, performers belted it out and clipped the sound through their microphones a few times.

Why, from high schools to Broadway, can’t the sound tech ever be outstanding? Done well, you don’t even think about the guy in the booth. You hear all the lines, and the balance of instruments and voices in musicals comes through fine. Done badly, you curse under your breath at whoever is twiddling the knobs wrong. It becomes a distraction from the plot and the characters.

To be fair, it’s not a simple task. You have to manage dozens of microphones placed all around the stage to pick up all needed sound while preventing feedback. Then you have to balance them, making sure nothing drowns out anything else. You have to know the whole show so that you can cut or cue performer’s mics at the right time. All while making sure nothing breaks, runs out of batteries, or gets unplugged. It takes cooperation from the entire cast and crew. And for the person in the booth, it’s like juggling dozens of balls at once.

But just because something is complicated and difficult doesn’t give people an excuse to suck at it. It’s not easy to sing, dance and act, but performers work hard at it all the time and their effort shows. Are the sound engineers just lazy?

I think part of it is that the use of microphones and speakers is not an innate skill. Taking a photo, video, or writing something are much more natural to people; we are a visual species. Setting up a PA and adjusting sound levels for the mics and speakers doesn’t incorporate the same kind of instinct.

Because, the problem doesn’t just happen in the theater—how many lectures have you sat through where you couldn’t hear everything properly? People act like clueless tourists in a foreign land when faced with a PA system. It’s not that difficult—everything has to be plugged in and turned on, but not too loud or too soft. Several times I’ve seen a person give up and start shouting to an audience.

Whatever the issue, the truth is that the sound technician, be it the “expert” in the booth or the professor in a lecture hall, wields immense power to make a show or lecture terrible just by being incompetent. Please, sound techs in show business and anyone else with a microphone, do your job right. Don’t be distracting and let me hear it.

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The Web’s Greatest Hits https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/05/the-webs-greatest-hits/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/05/the-webs-greatest-hits/#respond Sat, 06 Nov 2010 03:31:00 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043999 I thought it may be interesting in this blog post to take you lovely readers through a ride of the net’s best picks. Here we go: 1. http://www.reddit.com/. The mother of all link aggregators, the site is noted for the resourcefulness and activism of its community. Members can basically post two things: links and text (the […]

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I thought it may be interesting in this blog post to take you lovely readers through a ride of the net’s best picks. Here we go:

1. http://www.reddit.com/. The mother of all link aggregators, the site is noted for the resourcefulness and activism of its community. Members can basically post two things: links and text (the latter usually consisting of questions and comments that they have about the site or life in general.) These posts (as well as comments to these posts) are up-voted and down-voted by other members of the community, and a small slice reach the front page. Different “reddits” cover different topics — ranging from men’s rights to weed. There is even a Stanford page, but it is woefully underpopulated. (Come, on people! We need to at least have more posts than Berkeley.) I personally check it just about everyday — the information often blows my mind.

2. http://www.mentalfloss.com/ has the motto “where knowledge junkies get their fix” and it certainly lives up to its name. Sometimes I feel that it tries too hard with its links — with a kind of pandering and watering-down of its content — but I found articles like this fascinating.

3. http://www.wefeelfine.org/. A cool web project that builds up a crowd-sourced application. It works by mining the internet every 10 minutes for signs of human emotion. That way, when you search for a given emotion, you get the contexts of people who feel like you around the world. It is short, sweet, somewhat limited — but cool nonetheless. A video of the creator.

4. http://universe.daylife.com/. The same author above also produced this website, and it is another short and and sweet applet that describes the web’s “universe” around a particular topic, complete with images of twinkling stars and galaxies. The graphics are particularly cool on this one, but the continual rotations of constellations / topic links can get somewhat annoying.

5. http://tashian.com/multibabel/. I love this little guy. The site translates english phrases back and forth across several languages, and then translates them back to english. Particularly hilarious with innuendos and scientific jargon.

6. http://flowingdata.com/. One of my all-time favorites, the site fulfills all my data desires. I like their combination of puzzles and humor too, as well as their use of simply enormous datasets. Finally, some graphics put it all in geographic perspective.

7. http://blog.okcupid.com/. If sociology was done more like this, I would seriously consider a sociology major! Their use of datasets to untangle the nature of human relationships reveals our American and international biases toward people. ( In some cases, it even confirms these biases, which I don’t know is a step in the wrong or right direction. For a more humorous discussion on race and dating, look here.)

8. http://laphamsquarterly.org/index.php. I like this the depth and complexity of this site’s essays and works. This is usually a place to go with some hot chocolate and a good 20 minutes to spend, but there are good pieces of eye candy as well.

9. http://gigapan.org/. This place is a real piece of work. The ability to view gigapixel panoramas of all kinds of images just tells me how far we’ve come in terms of information storage. To even conceive of a gigapixel is amazing. I especially liked the panorama from President Obama’s presidential inauguration; I tried to see how many political actors I could make out from the front balcony. You also should realize that on this site you are getting access to images that news outlets often use to report on an event. For example, check out how the BBC used the content from a gigapixel.

10. http://www.travelofftheradar.com/visual-blog-archive/. This blog features unique commentary and perspective ‘off the beaten path’ of more commercial tourism. I found the photo collection especially interesting.

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2010 Midterm Election Preview https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/02/2010-midterm-election-preview/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/11/02/2010-midterm-election-preview/#respond Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:01:58 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043837 You may have noticed some comedians held a rally or something this weekend talking about how the media blows things out of proportion and paints an over-dramatic picture of the political landscape. With that in mind, here’s some endorsements for today’s midterm elections, with Sanity fully Restored. For Senate in South Carolina, Alvin Greene (Democrat) […]

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You may have noticed some comedians held a rally or something this weekend talking about how the media blows things out of proportion and paints an over-dramatic picture of the political landscape. With that in mind, here’s some endorsements for today’s midterm elections, with Sanity fully Restored.

For Senate in South Carolina, Alvin Greene (Democrat)

Alvin Greene, the unemployed veteran who won the Democratic primary without spending any money on campaign materials whose win was credited with/blamed on with everything from him being a Republican plant (or tampering), to faulty voting machines, to simply being the most alphabetical, to the fact that in the words of one State Senator, “No white folks have an ‘e’ on the end of Green.” Regardless, a Democratic Party inquiry into the matter found no wrongdoing in his payment of $10,400 filing fee.

Things only got weirder after the nomination for the self-endorsed Time Man of the Year. He was indicted on obscenity charges for showing pornography to a college student last November. He moaned and groaned at a reporter who asked about it. His military records described him as “a threat to others” because of his incompetence (he was honorably discharged, but not voluntarily). He took part in a surreal interview with the Charleston City Paper that included this exchange:

“What to do if you have a bad roommate, Mr. Greene?

Stay alone. Do without a roommate.

What about avoiding the freshman 15?

Work out.

And if you overdo it and wake up with a hangover?

I don’t know.

There was this delightful rap video and song “Alvin Greene is on the Scene” (which included the lyric “and he don’t show porno to college chicks” and inexplicably includes LeBron James highlights as well as pro-Greene images) that despite its ridiculousness, actually had the New York Times believing it was real—just to reiterate, the New York Times saw a rap video with random LeBron highlights talking about how he doesn’t show porno to college chicks and thought, “That’s definitely official Senate campaign material.” Such has been the nature of the Alvin Greene era.

There was this interview where Greene said his Republican counterpart Jim DeMint was personally responsible for the recession 11 times. There was the time Greene suggested that in order to stimulate the economy, people, “make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit.”

And Alvin Greene is the Democratic nominee for United States Senate in South Carolina. Said one person who voted for him, “Lord have mercy. I voted for this dude!’”

For Senate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell (R)

We covered most of the Christine O’Donnell story on October 4, so for now we’ll avoid witches, masturbation, satanic altars, evil Chinese schemes to conquer America and the virtues of turning Anne Frank over to the Nazis and instead focus on her more recent ventures into newsworthiness.

Her latest foray into national attention has been the result of Gawker’s decision to publish an anonymous first person account of making out with O’Donnell and then not having sex with her. Gawker defended not only publishing the account but paying “in the low four figures,” because since she doesn’t like masturbation, this is evidently fair game. But, on the internet, it seems anonymity only lasts so long, and the guy who wrote the story was, you guessed it, Dustin Dominiak! O’Donnell responded to the news by not knowing what the word “condoning” means.

In other COD news, she released an ad that paid homage to Antoine Dodson’s “Bed Intruder” song, declared The Passion of the Christ was a nonprofit, was baffled to learn that the First Amendment includes that whole freedom of religion thing and got the Taiwanese news’ attention.

For Governor of New York, Carl Paladino (R)

Carl Paladino won his way into our hearts by defending his forwarding of emails involving, well, sex with a horse, with the airtight argument that “I’m in the construction industry.” And since Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is Too Damn High Party’s rent has been revealed to be not that high, Paladino has emerged as the best candidate by taking bold stance after bold stance on the issues.

On Attorney General Eric Holder:

“Fuck him. Fuck him.”

On Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo’s, um, prowess:

“For weeks, the media has badgered me about affairs, because unlike a career politician I was honest enough to acknowledge she was my daughter when I announced my candidacy. What I meant to express in my anger was simply this: Does the media ask Andrew such questions? Andrew’s prowess is legendary.”

On homsexuality:

“[E]xposing [children] to homosexuality, especially at a gay pride parade—and I don’t know if you have ever been to one, but they wear these little Speedos and they grind against each other and it’s just a terrible thing.”

And:

“There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual. That’s not how God created us, and that’s not the example that we should be showing our children – and certainly not in our schools.”

And:

“Awesome.”

On the healthcare bill:

“The day that bill was passed will be remembered just as 9-11 was remembered in history.”

On (Jewish) New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver:

“If I could ever describe a person who would fit the bill of an Antichrist or a Hitler, this guy is it.”

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No King of Instruments in the Bing Concert Hall https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/31/no-king-of-instruments-in-the-bing-concert-hall/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/31/no-king-of-instruments-in-the-bing-concert-hall/#respond Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:15:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043778 How many times have you heard or listened to a pipe organ? It’s a spectacular instrument—it can produce the lowest of rumbles and the brassiest of trumpets; it fills entire buildings with music; and to play you have to master all combinations of sounds on multiple keyboards and pedals. Organs have historically been linked with […]

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How many times have you heard or listened to a pipe organ? It’s a spectacular instrument—it can produce the lowest of rumbles and the brassiest of trumpets; it fills entire buildings with music; and to play you have to master all combinations of sounds on multiple keyboards and pedals. Organs have historically been linked with church, which means that they are usually associated with hymns or the very-old-timey baroque mastery of Bach. This combined with how it’s the least portable of instruments means it’s an instrument of very limited scope and exposure. The pipe organ: magnificent but unknown.

Organs have spread somewhat into concert halls. Several notable orchestra venues include them. Davies Hall for the San Francisco Symphony, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, even the old Royal Albert Hall in London (for more, others have blogged about good lists of concert hall organs). Unfortunately, one brand-new concert hall, which isn’t even finished yet, is not joining in. Stanford’s own Bing Concert Hall will be pipe organ free.

The reality of the instrument is that it’s hugely expensive to install and maintain, not to mention that only a handful of people play it. Plus, the instrument favors a wetter acoustic—rooms that are huge with long reverberation times. The Bing Hall will only seat 844 people, which is on the smaller end of the spectrum. Stanford’s Memorial Church is actually more ideal for the organ sound, and it has plenty of organs (five, currently). There aren’t bad reasons for no organ in the new hall.

But MemChu’s organs aren’t as friendly to the variety of music possible in a concert hall. The church has: three tiny organs that work mostly for chamber music, an amazing baroque organ perfect for Bach solo recitals, and an old romantic beast that can play church music fine. An orchestra just would not fit in the organ loft (which is located behind audiences anyways) and most instruments that might try to accompany the organs would sound bad because the acoustics have too much echo.

So yet again, logistics and economics trump art, restricting the king of instruments to a narrower set of musical opportunities. Don’t expect to hear Mahler’s second symphony in full on the farm. If you just can’t wait to hear some pipe organ music though, I highly recommend any and all recitals in Memorial Church. As one of the oldest of instruments, the repertoire for it is vast and stunning. It is not a musical opportunity to pass up.

An example of organ and orchestra music.

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Hackathon https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/30/hackathon/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/30/hackathon/#respond Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:13:02 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043776 You may have helped me collect some life hacks, for which I am endlessly grateful, but today, I want to talk about Hackathon. For the uninitiated, Hackathon, which runs parallel to Dance Marathon, is also a 24-hour public service marathon. Instead of fundraising for international health organizations and dancing for the duration, though, Hackathon is […]

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You may have helped me collect some life hacks, for which I am endlessly grateful, but today, I want to talk about Hackathon. For the uninitiated, Hackathon, which runs parallel to Dance Marathon, is also a 24-hour public service marathon. Instead of fundraising for international health organizations and dancing for the duration, though, Hackathon is about software development for nonprofits. The hackers, as they are affectionately called, work on projects that vary from designing iPhone applications to engineering databases for a variety of nonprofit organizations.

My computer skills are a far cry from hacker-worthy, but I gleefully attend every year. I lend whatever graphic design skills I have and occasionally attempt to remember and relearn how to make a website. I like to feel like I am helpful and making a difference, but really, I just love Hackathon.  I love the giddy feeling at the beginning when students plan their projects, and I love the tired support and quiet determination toward the later hours. I love sitting in a room with slightly more computers than people and a terrifying amount of unhealthy snacks and caffeinated beverages. I love being surrounded by incredibly intelligent, passionate, amazing people who are actually solving problems with their sweet skill set. It is actually difficult for me to express how much I love it; my roommate and I have been heavily recruiting, and every time we convince someone else, our apartment echoes with triumphant yells.

So, here is my proposition. Take a look at the Hackathon website and maybe read about the projects this year. If any of them sound interesting to you, consider signing up. It’s 24 hours with incredible people doing incredible things, and it’s a ton of fun. Hope to see you there!

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Paint Party! Panties? Oh Please. https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/27/paint-party-panties-oh-please/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/27/paint-party-panties-oh-please/#respond Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:07:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043659 I just wanted to comment on the marvel that Columbae’s Quarterly Body Painting Party is. Because you would think that a general admission boozy naked college party would get super sketchy super fast. But the fact is that it’s a remarkably wholesome affair, that continues to be well attended, even by the squeaky-clean-est of co-opers. […]

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I just wanted to comment on the marvel that Columbae’s Quarterly Body Painting Party is. Because you would think that a general admission boozy naked college party would get super sketchy super fast. But the fact is that it’s a remarkably wholesome affair, that continues to be well attended, even by the squeaky-clean-est of co-opers. Very few females end up running away, feeling objectified or uncomfortable: something that often happens at many clothing-mandatory parites. Here I’m going to gesture at a theory as to why.

Of course, there are lots of contributing factors. There’s the fact that nudity is more or less ubiquitous in this environment. To be naked is to conform, to be clothed is to deviate and consequently, stand-out. There’s the fact that the medium establishes a really playful, wholesome tone: you’re essentially fingerpainting, in bright primary colors. Chances are the last time you did that, you had no idea what sex was and were used to bathing with your opposite gender sibling. In the sink. (Oh my god, sink baths.) There’s the fact that co-op kids make up most of the party, and while they as individuals are not universally unsketchy (oh contraire!), as a group their culture more or less is (consensus caters to the least-comfortable person! (which is why it can take so long!)) There’s the fact that covered-in-paint, while not clothed, isn’t completely naked either.

But all of this aside, the thing I’m most interested in is the utter absorption the act of painting creates in most attendants. All of a sudden each is an artist, working on a completely novel canvas. Lots of people who haven’t made so much as a doodle in years rediscover their creative side, and lots of possibly otherwise insecure people learn to think of their body in a completely new way: as a vehicle for paint. I have seen the sketchiest-guy-in-the-room elbow aside the completely naked, and temporarily completely un-painted, most-attractive-girl-in-the-room, without even a how-do-you-do (nor an ogling of her breasts). She was lacking the silly second skin purple paint would provide and in fact stood out in the crowd quite a bit as un-painted. He was not a co-oper, nor particularly under the scrutiny of the community. But she was between him and a bucket of black paint, and his torso was looking a little patchy. I have to admit, I can sympathize.

Paint Party! Panties? Oh Please.

(White clouds and blue skies, Spring 2010)

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Meet Your San Francisco Giants https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/meet-your-san-francisco-giants/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/25/meet-your-san-francisco-giants/#respond Tue, 26 Oct 2010 06:34:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043575 It’s World Series time, and this year the participants are the Texas Rangers and our local team, the San Francisco Giants. And the good news is this: the Giants have fielded what is unquestionably the most likeable team in baseball—a far cry from Barry Bonds sulking, dodging steroid accusations and fighting with Jeff Kent, A.J. […]

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It’s World Series time, and this year the participants are the Texas Rangers and our local team, the San Francisco Giants. And the good news is this: the Giants have fielded what is unquestionably the most likeable team in baseball—a far cry from Barry Bonds sulking, dodging steroid accusations and fighting with Jeff Kent, A.J. Pierzynski kneeing trainer Stan Conti in the groin or the generally old and grizzled atmosphere that had dominated the culture until recently.

And because it’s never too late to get into the swing of things, here’s an introduction to the 25 guys that have carried the Giants to the World Series.

Catcher, Buster “Everything That’s Right With America” Posey

Gerald Demps Posey III, also known as Buster is a 23-year-old who looks sixteen, and is  the frontrunner for the National League Rookie of the Year.

Fun fact: Buster Posey is the most American person ever. He plays catcher. He says “Oh gosh” in interviews. After the Giants won their first playoff game, a local reporter asked, “Is there a merit badge for winning a postseason game? Because I think that’s the only one Buster needed to fill out his Boy Scout sash.” Obviously he is married to his high school sweetheart. Rumor has it he’s only drank alcohol three times, and it was by accident during the Giants’ postgame champagne celebrations this year.

First Base, Aubrey Huff “Daddy”

Aubrey Huff was arguably the worst player in all of baseball in 2009, registering a -14 VORP (value over replacement player), which basically means that if you called up some generic minor leaguer, your team would score 14 more runs than it did with Aubrey Huff. But this year, he has been great, leading the Giants in home runs, filling in ably defensively at first base (what an UZR!) and at other times in the outfield. Huff is making his first playoff appearance in a ten-year career spent with the likes of the Devil Rays and Orioles.

Fun fact: Huff is personally responsible for popularizing the “rally thong” and fulfilling the thong prophecy. So there’s that.

Second Base, Freddy Sanchez (the one who plays second base)

Fun fact: Sanchez was once voted one of Pittsburgh’s most beautiful people and is making his first postseason appearance.

Third Base, Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval

Along with Juan Uribe, the Giants field what is likely the fattest left side of an infield in major league history. Sandoval, who is generously listed at 5’11” 231 pounds in some places, hit .330 as a rookie before dropping his average to .268 this year and struggling to the point where he is no longer an everyday starter, though he had a few big hits in the NLCS, particularly a 2-run double (which came right after he hit what should have been a 2-run double) in game 4.

Fun fact: Sandoval is responsible for the many panda hats that you will see around the ballpark.

Shortstop, Juan Uribe

Those aren’t boos, they are Uuuuu’s. Possibly the most exciting hitter on the team, Uribe comes up and tries to hit bombs every time, no matter what. And when he does: Jazz Hands. Uribe hit the decisive homerun to clinch the series in game six, and called his shot, saying, “POWW!”

Fun fact: After winning game 4 of the NLCS, Uribe declared, “I go home now, be with my family. And be a lot of happy.”

Leftfield, Pat “The Bat” Burrell

The Bat is a Bay Area native who signed year with the Rays who promptly cut him, at which point his hometown Giants picked him up and installed him as their regular leftfielder. He also has a reputation for taking care of business.

Fun fact: Burrell used to square off against Tom Brady in football and baseball, and was college teammates with Aubrey Huff at The U where Huff’s mom saw him naked once.

Centerfield, Andres Torres

Torres is the winner of the Willie Mac Award for the team’s most inspirational player who at age 32 has moved from being a career minor leaguer to the Giants’ leadoff hitter, and finished 11th in the league in doubles.

Fun fact: Torres spent a dozen seasons in the minor leagues, and in part has credited his turnaround to his decision to start treating his ADHD.

Rightfield, Cody “The Boss” Ross

The NLCS MVP who belted three remarkably similar-looking home runs in the first two games and had a big hit in pretty much every game, Ross was picked up only because they wanted to keep the rival Padres from getting him—the Giants preferred Jose Guillen (whereabouts currently unknown), whose poor performance and neck pain kept him off the postseason roster. A young Cody Ross dreamed of becoming a rodeo clown.

Fun fact: Haddaway’s “What is Love” plays whenever Ross comes to the plate in a home game.

Starting Pitcher, Tim “The Freak” Lincecum

Slight of build (5’10” 165 lbs.), Lincecum is freakish in his ability to get the most out of his body.  Timmy is the winner of two Cy Young Awards (given to the best pitcher in the league) in his first two seasons. Timmy also has shown a propensity for dropping F-bombs on live TV, which has been honored in t-shirt form and with a song.

This offseason, Timmy was cited for marijuana possession in Washington, of course leading to a smattering of t-shirts honoring the occasion. Lincecum went through a rough patch in September, going 0-5 with a 7.82 ERA, had this to say about how he rebounded for a successful September, “I went through more of a hectic period in my career. Obviously that rough month made me want to turn things around, just do something different. Just changing my between-starts routine, going a little bit harder and doing a little bit more conditioning.” And anytime you can root for a team whose ace maybe turned his season around by giving up weed, that’s a good thing, right?

Fun fact: Lincecum has a pet bulldog named Cy.

Starting Pitcher, Matt “Big Daddy” Cain

Coming into last season, Cain, the longest-tenured Giant at age 26, consistently had posted a low ERA and a puzzlingly bad win-loss record, leading people to scratch their heads and try to investigate why that would be the case (answer: anomalously poor run support and lots of failures from the bullpen). But these past two years, Cain has been effective in every possible way and emerged as a solid No. 2 starter.

Fun fact: this hair.

Starting Pitcher, Jonathan Sanchez (the one who pitches)

Sanchez had the lowest batting average against and fewest hits per nine innings of any pitcher in baseball this year, which he combined with the highest walks per nine innings of any pitcher. So, it’s kind of a mixed bag with him, but he can be excellent at times, most notably when he threw a no-hitter in 2009 in the first game his father had ever seen him start at the major league level.

Fun fact: Sanchez attended a school called Ohio Dominican, and according to ESPN, his middle name is the letter O.

Starting Pitcher, Madison Bumgarner

Taking the place of the ineffective Barry “The $126 Million Man” Zito in the playoff rotation, MadBum is a 21-year-old rookie, and sometimes wears matching Waffle House hats with reliever Jeremy Affeldt.

Fun fact: In a bizarre North Carolina mating ritual, Bumgarner gave his wife a bull calf as a wedding present.

Closer, Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson has so much personality that his dyed-black beard has its own twitter. Wilson, the league-leader in saves has been known to bring out The Machine (in reference to that Nicolas Cage classic film, 8mm) and field phone calls on his brick of a cell phone during interviews. His interactions with the media have been so bizarre that the USA Today felt obligated to give its profile of him the headline, “Giants’ closer Brian Wilson not as crazy as he looks, acts.”

Fun fact: In that USA Today profile we learned Wilson has a baseball from every time he’s warmed up this year and that he determines which is which by smell, he once left a truck on the side of the road because he was done with it, he reconnected with Christianity in his minor league career and Barry Zito recalled the time he challenged Wilson in trivia this way: “”I played him once. That was enough. I never want to go through that again.”

Relief pitcher, Jeremy Affeldt

Fun fact: sometimes wears a hat that says “Douchefeldt.”

Relief pitcher, Sergio Romo

Fun fact: sometimes wears a shirt that says “Made in the USA with Mexican Parts.”

Relief pitcher, Santiago Casilla

Fun fact: went by the name Jairo Garcia until he revealed that he had forged documents to appear to be younger than he actually was.

Relief pitcher, Ramon Ramirez

Fun fact: once played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Japan.

Relief pitcher, Javier Lopez

Fun fact: after failing at throwing the ball like a normal person, Lopez adopted a low sidearm style that has allowed him to be very effective against left-handed hitters (not that fun of a fact, but that’s all there is here).

Catcher, Eli Whiteside

Fun fact: Has a son named Whittington and has completely gray hair.

Infielder, Edgar Renteria

Fun fact: Has already been the last hitter in two World Series, once getting out, and once getting a series clinching hit.

Infielder, Mike Fontenot

Fun fact: His facial hair won him the nickname “Wolverine.”

First Base, Travis Ishikawa

Fun fact: Here’s the first two sentences of the Personal Life section of his Wikipedia page: “Ishikawa met his wife, Rochelle, a dental assistant, when he was hit by a pitch in the face in his first game with the San Jose Giants. She also introduced him to Christianity, which he believes helped him out of his slump in 2006–07.”

Outfielder, Aaron Rowand

Fun fact: looks like Johnny Drama, earns $12 million per year to be the fifth outfielder.

Outfielder, Nate Schierholtz

Fun fact: he is hated in China for deliberately running over their catcher in an Olympic game with seven hit batsmen.

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A Drummer’s Lament https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/24/a-drummer%e2%80%99s-lament/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/24/a-drummer%e2%80%99s-lament/#respond Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:36:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043577 When I was in fifth grade, my parents decided to get me a drum set. As they asked around, everyone warned against it. “Too loud!” people said. My parents decided to rough it out anyways, and I had the best Christmas ever. The drums lived in our basement, where I took lessons and eventually upped […]

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When I was in fifth grade, my parents decided to get me a drum set. As they asked around, everyone warned against it. “Too loud!” people said. My parents decided to rough it out anyways, and I had the best Christmas ever. The drums lived in our basement, where I took lessons and eventually upped the decibels when I put together a rock band. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house with ample practice space, far enough from the neighbors’ ears to avoid complaints, and with a family supportive enough to put up with significant background noise. Not all drummers are so fortunate, and the Stanford family is not nearly as supportive as my own.

It’s a paradox. Sold-out concert festivals and peoples’ iPods are packed with music that includes drums. While at the same time, nobody likes their daily life interrupted by the volume level inherent with a practicing drummer. The music department on campus provides one practice room in the basement of Dinkelspiel with a drum set—a room with such poor sound insulation that lectures in the rehearsal hall are forced to hear the beat. It just costs too much money to build rooms with walls thick enough to hide the bass drum thump from passers-by, be it in Dink or anywhere.

To be fair, many drummers in the world are pretty bad. You know the type—someone who doesn’t have the best rhythm, enjoys making as much noise as possible, and thinks it will make him look cooler. Not to disparage the fun they have, but when their quality of performance pisses off the locals, it hurts the rest of us. The music department has even complained of people stealing parts from the lone drum set they make available to Joe Drummer. What the hell, guys?

Even for the better drummers though, Stanford just doesn’t put out. Lessons for several instruments are offered (including guzheng and renaissance wind instruments) but not for drum set. And if you want to drum in a group, you have to either join a jazz combo or butter up the residents of the small handful of dorms with a room devoted to band practices. Not to mention fact that you have to get your drums to campus and store them somewhere.

But that’s the life of a drummer. We have the most equipment and the loudest instrument. As I look ahead past graduation, my housing plans have to factor in this musical hobby—apartments won’t work unless there’s rehearsal space nearby. Because the troubles for drummers at Stanford are not unique; they’ll continue until we earn enough money to buy ourselves a friendly environment. Air drumming just won’t cut it.

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Google, won’t you be my neighbor? https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/23/google-won%e2%80%99t-you-be-my-neighbor/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/23/google-won%e2%80%99t-you-be-my-neighbor/#respond Sun, 24 Oct 2010 06:40:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043578 I always get excited when I read Stanford’s name in my non-school related blogroll, and usually, the reference to some new research or involvement in social justice campaign makes me do a little arm-pump of pride. This time, though I felt a little empathetic jealousy, when I read about Google’s plans to install fancy high-speed […]

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I always get excited when I read Stanford’s name in my non-school related blogroll, and usually, the reference to some new research or involvement in social justice campaign makes me do a little arm-pump of pride. This time, though I felt a little empathetic jealousy, when I read about Google’s plans to install fancy high-speed Internet in the “residential subdivision” of campus, better known to students as the faculty ghetto, surrounding the Upper Row.

I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about the technology behind the Internet, but it looks like this project mostly involves the installation of free, very fast Internet. Google has a few ideas about what people could do with such high-speed Internet, including something called “next generation apps,” which is not apps for babies, as it turns out, but sounds interesting nevertheless. The whole project sounds interesting; I’m glad that our community seems to have beaten out Topeka in being chosen as the test city, especially given Topeka’s antics of renaming itself as Google.

Ultimately, though, inspection of the map of the zoned area was a little funny for me. My home of three years lies mere feet from the boundary—f looks like it’s still ResComp for those students.

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Accidentally Fascinating https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/20/accidentally-fascinating/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/20/accidentally-fascinating/#respond Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:31:37 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043429 When I was in High School, the brother of a friend of mine was in an Acappella group in college. They were cute, did campy renditions of “Men in Tights,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” etc. Fine voices, decent execution. Whatever. Its acappella. Some of the videos of the group while he was a member have made it […]

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When I was in High School, the brother of a friend of mine was in an Acappella group in college. They were cute, did campy renditions of “Men in Tights,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” etc. Fine voices, decent execution. Whatever. Its acappella. Some of the videos of the group while he was a member have made it onto YouTube, and there’s this one that is particularly interesting.

The video itself is nothing extraordinary. It is, in fact, extraordinarily unextraordinary. Shaky hand-held camera, zoomed-in too far and washed out by the spotlight. Think of the home movies of you at the elementary school secular winter holiday pageant, then reduce the quality by about ten times to account for YouTube compression. Hello pixelation! Sound quality’s none too good either. The song is “Accidentally In Love,” which is so mediocre that I had always assumed that it was leftover from the era of the crooners, (Tom Jones, Barry Manilow, David Bowie), when personality carried a song, not melody or lyrics. (It turns out to be a 2004 Counting Crows original, written for the Shrek2 soundtrack.)

In the three years this video has been on YouTube, it has accumulated 270,000 views and 542 comments.

The overwhelming majority of these comments are about: (a) how great the song/arrangement is (“I cried.:)”), (b) how many times the poster has watched the video (“like a hundred times already, but just really can’t get enough!!!”), (c) how attractive the soloist (my friend’s brother) is (“the lead vocalist if effing FIT!”).

The phrase, “I’m accidentally in love with [this video/the soloist/the group]” occurs multiple times.

I really don’t have a take-away point in this post, except to share one of the strangest phenomena I’ve come across on the Internet. The enthusiasm and devotion is overwhelming, as is the idea that this many civilians are devoting this much time and emotional energy to this THING. If I really stretch I can imagine doing something like this maybe when I was 11, but the way the posters are feeding off each other, and the fact that I can witness it all, is something else entirely. The weirdest part is that nobody in the comments comments on it. The one comment I’ve seen that suggests maybe some of the other posters are going a bit too far is probably my favorite on the page.

It follows two comments, to either of which it could be responding. The first:

THE SOLOIST. IS SO. HOT.

I just keep watching the part zoomed in on his face over and over. and his voice is spectacular. <3

what a perfect specimen.

The second:

Ya, I like rewatching the part in the video when it zooms in close on his face, because you can see that very handsome asian gentleman to his right side. Can you say “Ooo La La”?

You really can’t see the soloist’s face. You can’t really see any of their faces! My mind boggles. Anyways. The response:

Im sorry, but you gotta get one thing straight. This is the real world, the soloist is a HUMAN BEING. not some science project speciman that you can dissect, that comment was pritty fucked up

The spelling and grammar aside, somebody’s stepping in to defend the humanity of the little pixels she sees on the screen. In capital letters! Which is all great material when my friend’s making fun of his big brother, but, every time I think about it, is pretty fucked up.

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Teach for America’s Recruits and Mission https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/19/teach-for-america%e2%80%99s-recruits-and-mission/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/19/teach-for-america%e2%80%99s-recruits-and-mission/#respond Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:36:17 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043385   An article from The Chronicle of High Education, “What Are You Going to Do With That?” by William Deresiewicz has been circling around among many of my friends on Facebook and even on a list serve. In the piece, Deresiewicz argues that Stanford students are unimaginative about our ends in life, that we have […]

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An article from The Chronicle of High Education, “What Are You Going to Do With That?” by William Deresiewicz has been circling around among many of my friends on Facebook and even on a list serve. In the piece, Deresiewicz argues that Stanford students are unimaginative about our ends in life, that we have spent so much time developing sets of skills to achieve what those around us esteem that we never get our head out of the tunnel and realize we are not reflectively directing our lives.

 

What was especially interesting to me about Deresiewicz’s article was his account of Teach for America. He says that the “problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that TFA has become incorporated into the system—is that it’s just become another thing to get into.” He says that, within the structure of elite expectations, it is no different from Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Harvard Med School or Berkeley Law: something that looks good on our resume and represents a clearly marked path. He claims it requires the same kind of aptitude and diligence that got us into Stanford, but nothing in moral imagination.

 

Soon after I read his piece I got an email from a Teach for America recruiter (yay for seniorhood!) encouraging me to interview with the Stanford recruiter who is on campus this week. Thinking these emails were being sent out to large groups of students, I assumed that if I wasn’t planning on applying I didn’t need to reply. A few days later the TFA recruiter sent me a follow-up email with “<please respond>” in the subject line asking me if I had gotten her first email. I replied that night saying I had a number of friends who had gone into TFA and I admired the program, but that it wasn’t something I wanted to do next year.

 

She emailed me the next day suggesting I reconsider. I might have viewed this determination as kind encouragement and a reflection of the passion within Teach for America for what they do. But her arguments were, if I’m honest, a shallow reflection on today’s version of TFA.

 

She said that not only would I be able to impact children growing up in low-income communities, but would also “position” myself for success in whatever field I choose. She informed me that leading corporations and graduate schools have partnered up with TFA and added that it “doesn’t hurt to have a few options on the table when you graduate”.

 

There’s nothing at all horrible about a student thinking about all the considerations she cited. But there was something horribly disappointing in seeing that these are TFA’s current selling points. I was encouraged to apply to teach low-income children for at least two years in order to have another option on the table when I graduate. If I was interested in TFA only as something to do and a good way to get ahead, I was a desired applicant.

 

Deresiewicz is probably right that a lot (though certainly not all) of the students who apply to Teach for America do so because it is a well-marked path. In all honesty, his suggestion did not rock my boat. But I was surprised to discover that those are precisely the types of students TFA wants to apply, that it may be creeping toward focusing more on impressive numbers of applicants than on finding every way to ensure that the teachers it ultimately hires are deeply and reflectively committed to its mission. If TFA is okay with teachers who will predictably burn out or get lost in a job they were never really hoping for, it seems like TFA may have gotten lost too.

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Mad Men is Great! Everybody Cares! Nobody Cares. https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/19/mad-men-is-great-everybody-cares-nobody-cares/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/19/mad-men-is-great-everybody-cares-nobody-cares/#respond Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:12:54 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043379 Last night saw the season finale of AMC’s Mad Men (no spoilers, and this isn’t going to be a “you should be watching this show” deal either). Events transpired, characters went places, as is bound to happen on a dramatic program, and fans will be back for season five. And everyone had something to say […]

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Mad Men is Great! Everybody Cares! Nobody Cares.Last night saw the season finale of AMC’s Mad Men (no spoilers, and this isn’t going to be a “you should be watching this show” deal either). Events transpired, characters went places, as is bound to happen on a dramatic program, and fans will be back for season five.

And everyone had something to say about it. Slate had a 67-part exchange of letters about season four. The Awl, New York MagazineSan Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, an adorably delayed Guardian and too many others to list have had recaps and responses to every episode. The New York Times has run a number of trend pieces both in the actual paper and online, and at the moment “mad men” is the site’s most searched term.

If you really want to read detailed, thoughtful articles on the show itself, these ones from The Atlantic, London Review of Books, BBC, Vanity Fair, this potlach dude, and to a much lesser extent, this should keep you busy for a while.

All these articles form a general consensus: Mad Men is great. The characters have depth. The acting is superb. The writing is, if not the best on television, right there. The social commentary is understated and sophisticated. The characters are modern style icons—Don Draper is impossibly dapper, Joan Harris impossibly curvy, Pete Campbell, impossibly, um, bitchfaced. The sets, from the suburban tranquility of Ossining, NY, calming pastels of southern California to the always-buzzing offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Price are always pitch-perfect. (Of course where there’s consensus, there’s backlash, and where there’s backlash, there’s backlash-backlash).

In short, Mad Men is at the moment, the most talked about, most critically-acclaimed show on television. People who watch Mad Men love it, love to talk about it, and get worked up thinking about the characters’ motivations, futures, romantic intrigues, and propensity for industrial accidents.

But people who don’t watch Mad Men don’t really care. The ratings from this week are not available yet, but among shows airing on cable in the same timeslot, the October 10 episode got its ass kicked in the ratings war by such juggernauts as Swamp People (someone help me out with this one?) and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The penultimate episode of the fourth season of the best show on television, and it couldn’t keep up with Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Mad Men is Great! Everybody Cares! Nobody Cares.Two things about this: one, be wary of the availability heuristic, which states that people’s predictions can be biased by how easily certain facts are brought to mind. The availability heuristic is why when asked whether there are more words that begin with “k” or have “k” as their third letter, we choose the former (incorrect) answer more often then not. Another amusing example of the availability heuristic in action is the fact that an American is 30 times more likely to die from parts falling from an airplane than in a shark attack, local news coverage to the contrary.

Facts that come to mind easily can be misleading. Just because you can’t swing a dead cat without finding someone discussing Mad Men in a newspaper, on the internet, or—if you live in a fictional world—at a water cooler, that does not mean it is actually all that popular. Though hopefully we are a little more used to this phenomenon, having gone through the same thing with The Wire.

Two, Mad Men is not an easy show to watch. It challenges the viewer, and rewards patience. Episodes build off one another, plot points disappear for weeks, if not years (where have you gone, Pete Campbell Shame Baby?), only to return unexpectedly to play a crucial role in a concurrent plotline.

If your job is to watch television shows, this is pretty great. It’s easy to write about, and interesting. Where will the plot go? Which beloved character will leave, never to return? These are discussions that, say, Swamp People (I’m guessing) does not provoke. There is a sense of motion, rather than the stasis that defines a show such as Two and a Half Men, a show so popular, it can pay its child star a quarter million dollars per episode.

But that stasis also makes those shows easier to watch for people not contractually obligated to do so—an episode of Seinfeld or Dancing with the Stars doesn’t need a broader context. Sitcoms and reality shows (and sports and comedy shows, etc.) don’t really have overarching narratives that require a dedicated viewer—which makes them easier on the casual viewer. You can kinda like The Office or Jersey Shore. Mad Men demands too much time and energy to be lukewarm about.

Mad Men is Great! Everybody Cares! Nobody Cares.

Which do television networks prefer: unbridled passion (books have been written!) and a smaller, more devoted following, or a more massive, amorphous audience?

Given the growing sophistication of market research (every time you “like” something on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg gets a little bit richer), it would seem possible that a regular audience such as Mad Men’s might be more valuable because advertisers can tailor their message (some disagree). Then again, more eyeballs means more potential customers.

As to which one is more valuable, well, that’s for the Don Drapers of the world to answer.

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Hide Yo Brain, Hide Yo Conscience https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/18/hide-yo-brain-hide-yo-conscience/ https://stanforddaily.com/2010/10/18/hide-yo-brain-hide-yo-conscience/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:25:21 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1043334 And with the Bed Intruder Costume available for Halloween, I think we can say that Antoine Dodson as an Internet meme might have started to crest. I’d be OK with that. There’s a cardboard sign sitting outside the front door to Chi Theta Chi that says “Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife,” and anything yelled […]

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And with the Bed Intruder Costume available for Halloween, I think we can say that Antoine Dodson as an Internet meme might have started to crest. I’d be OK with that. There’s a cardboard sign sitting outside the front door to Chi Theta Chi that says “Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife,” and anything yelled by AxeComm at football games immediately loses its hipster credibility. But if, it’s a bittersweet goodbye to the Internet meme voted most likely to keep sociology and feminist studies professors up at night.

Now, news reports of lower class black people playing into stereotypes are not new. There’s the infamy-living day of when Popeye’s ran out of chicken or when Latarian Milton took a joy ride, both of which ended up verbatim on “The Boondocks.” Half the hilarity of these videos is the reporters struggling not to comment on the ig’nance they are broadcasting through their selective use of interview clips (Really, there had to have been one white person in Rochester, NY that was also upset at the chicken shortage). If any of these people interviewed, Dodson included, were characters on a show on the CW, we’d be boycotting the network.

Antoine Dodson though, has risen above the crowd. My inner feminist studies major tells me that it’s because of our culture’s tendency to trivialize rape. Indeed, though no sexual assault was committed, “they rapin’ everybody out here” has now become appropriate for polite discussion. Part of the cavalier attitude toward this Very Serious Subject Matter though comes from the victim’s and Dodson’s demeanor, discussing the attempted assault as more of a nuisance than as life-changing trauma. That representation might come refreshing in a media landscape that depends on “Law and Order: SVU” to promote the national discussion on rape. If “Bed Intruder” means that we can have more honest and frank conversations about the thing no one wants to talk about, then it should have support from both sides of the gender studies divide.

Antoine Dodson almost makes me wish I were in a sociology class this quarter, because I could easily write ten pages on what Internet’s celebration of “Bed Intruder” bodes for the future of society. Instead, I’ll close with the fact the auto-tuning of his rant has netted his family a new house. Maybe, just maybe then, Sleep N’ Eat and Jim Crow are finally running our postmodern minstrel shows. If so, that would trump Obama as an indication that there might be something to this whole post-racial society idea.

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