Everyone here at the Ink has mentally checked out for break, or shut themselves off so deep in Firestone that they’re incommunicado, so we won’t be updating as often as usual. Try to make it through the week without us?
Author Archives: Will Saborio
Online, you can't read my, can't read my, can't read my poker face.
Boring enough to make Princeton students play poker against each other. Via the Times:
Allan Rubin, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, banned laptops in his 120-strong class on natural disasters after discovering that some of the students were playing online poker during his lectures.
“What I found, and it was getting worse over the years, was that a larger and larger fraction of the students just had their heads buried in their laptops as I lectured,” he said.“I know from teaching assistants who were wandering around when the laptops were open that they were surfing the Web. They were playing poker with each other.”
I’ve got money on the guy sitting in the back.
(image source: patdollard.com)
It smelled. A little.
We’ve heard of people not showering for a few days, which is disgusting, but this mound of bioterrorism in Frist’s cramped McGraw is a special kind of sick. Just wait until the apples go.
Also: too bad about those notes under the banana peels.
We do a lot of work here at Princeton. Probably didn’t have to remind you.
And yes, folks, Monday is the beginning of midterms, that most bitter of weeks when we hunker down and churn out page after page, pull all-nighters and give ourselves caffeine-induced heart arrhythmia, and have those long awkward silences in precept because, seriously, who would do the reading.
rlv.zcache.com
That’s why we here at The Ink want to help you out. We know what you’re going through, and we want to make you feel better, or at least less insane.
So we’re hosting a contest! You tell us how much work you have this upcoming week (in terms of numbers of pages, problem sets, and midterm exams), and the person with the crappiest week gets a shiny prize.
Oh, and you get massive bragging rights, of course. Because what do Princetonians love more than saying they have more work than one another?
The rules: Post everything you’ve got to do for midterm week in the comments below, or send an email to theinktips@gmail.com. (Be sure to detail how many pages you have to write, problem sets to solve, and midterms to take! And if you win, you have to prove it to us, so no funny business.) We’ll post the winners at the end of midterm week.
(Also, don’t have a mental breakdown before it’s over.)
You’ll have to pardon my insistence on Chatroulette. I’m just consistently amazed at this… thing, and the interactions it produces. What’s even better is that some people have made such a connection to people they’ve met on Chatroulette that they’ve actually friended each other on Facebook (not to mention posted missed connections about lost opportunities on Craigslist).
source: funpics.classicfun.ws
A female student who chose to remain anonymous (we’ll call her Flustered Flo ’12), told us about her own experiences getting to know some ‘rouletters.
Flo heard about Chatroulette through some friends and thought it was hilarious the first few times she did it.
“I generally don’t tell people who I am or where I am, until I know who they are and where they’re from,” she said. “I’ve only ever told one person that I was from Princeton, and we found out that we knew some people in common. That made me feel safer.”
She’s even Facebook friended two college students she met on the ‘lette and has kept in contact with them through messages.
That’s not to say it was all rosy, though… Because, you know, things get complicated in matters of the heart.
So you’re all caught up on the cultural phenomenon that is Chatroulette. And I’ve explained just how Princeton works in the mix. About how people think of Princetonians as these people quite literally locked away in an ivory tower, which is awkward because, do they even make towers made of ivory anymore?
But anyway, you’re meeting all these strange people and you think to yourself, Wouldn’t it be weird if I came across someone I knew? Someone… from Princeton?
“Oh hey ‘that guy’ in precept” — NEXT. “Yikes, girl who was sloshed last night and sang ‘Don’t Stop Believin” at the top of her lungs” — NEXT. “Professor?” — NEXT.
Not so for [REDACTED!] ’11 and Libby van Beuren ’11, and Matt de Jonge ’10. Yes, apparently these three (friends, Chatroulette’ing on separate accounts with no idea the other was doing so) found each other. On the site. When 16,216 users from all around the world were logged on.
From the comfort of Foulke, van Beuren and [REDACTED!] Next’d their way through their first awkward minutes of Chatroulette when…
source: twinfactory.co.uk
By now you’ve probably heard of Chatroulette, and if not, well, get out from under that rock and let’s have a quick talk.
Chatroulette connects you and random other users of the site through your webcams. You click play and it pairs you up, and once you see the other person, you have the option of “nexting” them to start the process again. You can wave, you can have a conversation, you can yell at the other person – the magic and virtue of the whole thing is that you can press “Next” and chances are the person is gone from your life forever.
Which means you see a lot of weird and creepy stuff on the Chatroulette. Namely, male genitalia. Lots of them.
Once you get past the gross stuff, though, it really is an Internet phenomenon and just “feels important” for some kind of zeitgeist-y reason. Not to mention it’s amazing to watch your friends develop their Chatroulette skills, from feeling awkward about seeing random people, to chatting with them eventually, to then mustering up the courage to shout or bark at them or just generally be as goofy as possible on the thing.
And doing it from Princeton, well, adds an interesting dimension.
On Monday, freshman Iulia Neagu contributed an opinion column in The Daily Princetonian entitled “The real ‘Sex on a Saturday Night.’” It’s sparked a nationwide controversy and the story has been picked up by popular news site Gawker and its sister site, Jezebel. The piece has blogs and their commenters foaming at the mouth with accusations of upholding patriarchy, mysogyny, and untrammeled conservatism at Princeton.
Jezebel, a self-proclaimed feminist blog in the Gawker network, has seen their coverage blow up with user feedback, having more than 15,000 views and 713 comments on their story at the time of this posting. Gawker has 296 comments and more than 14,000 views.
Blogs aren’t the only interested parties. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux ’11, co-editor of the feminist blog EqualWrites.org, tells us that a Fox News reporter sent an email on the subject to the EqualWrites address earlier today. At this point she doesn’t “know what their plan is.”
The Daily Princetonian has not issued a response to the controversy. Mendy Fisch ’11, executive editor for opinion, declined to comment for this post on Princetonian standards for vetting potentially inflammatory opinion pieces or the process of editing and approving opinion pieces. He also declined to comment on the Prince’s rationale for running this particular piece by an aspiring regular columnist.
Jack Ackerman ’11, editor-in-chief of and spokesperson for the Daily Princetonian, has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
What’s the hubbub about? At the risk of reducing Neagu’s argument, the gist of the piece is this:
She knew what would happen if she started drinking. We all know that the more people drink, the less likely they are to make wise decisions. It is common sense.
Therefore, the girl willingly got herself into a state in which she could not act rationally. This, in my opinion, is equivalent to agreeing to anything that might happen to her while in this state. In the case of our girl, this happened to be sex with a stranger.
The Princetonian‘s own website has a current 231 comments at the time of this posting, and the paper printed a response to the opinion from members of SHARE and SpeakOut on Tuesday.
Source: magazine.org
David Remnick ’81, editor-in-chief of The New Yorker (and former Press Clubber aw yeah!), has a biography of Barack Obama in the works. The Alfred A. Knopf imprint of Random House said it plans to publish the bio on April 6.
Remnick’s written about Obama in the past, and he promises the book would not simply be a “pimped out” version of this New Yorker article published in November 2008.
Confession: Remnick didn’t say “pimped out,” but rather “pumped up,” but the New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog had reported he had. Which is hilarious, because, does anyone at The New Yorker use “pimp” as a verb not ironically?
(hat tip to Daily Intel for catching the switch)
Toy trucks and tomes
Jonathan Krohn, 14 year old conservative pundit and author of Define Conservatism, is already thinking about college. Which? Hint: Rhymes with Cringeton.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Krohn noted his desire to attend Princeton some time in the future. Why? Mr. Robert George teaches here, of course:
“He goes on both sides of the aisles,” Jonathan says, “I love Robbie George.”
Oh, how young and smart, but yet so naïve.
Isn’t this exciting? Our first snow day in years, and there’s tons of snow to play with? But you might be wondering what this means for your regularly scheduled programming.
First of all, all classes are canceled. So you can toss that out the window.
Second, what dining facilities are open? All dining halls are, Frist is open, and basically all dining facilities are open besides the WWS Café and Witherspoon’s in Frist (in front of Viv). But Witherspoon’s might be open later today. Café Viv is going to be closed.
Dillon Gym is going to be open also, so you can get your sweat on.
How about non-University stuff?
Well, Panera didn’t respond to our calls, so we can assume they’re closed. Olive’s is open at the moment, but will be closing early (around 2:30). Labyrinth says they’re open right now until noon, but might close for the afternoon. (We recommend calling to make sure if you plan on going up to these places, anyway.)
Wawa said they’re open for business today at the time of this post, and said they’d remain open whatever happened. Troopers, we say, real troopers.
Back in my day, I had to walk through a mile of snow to get to the Street.
UPDATE (4:51 a.m.)
Forget the Winter Storm Warning. The National Weather Service just issued a BLIZZARD WARNING until midnight tonight, saying that the storm will “intensify explosively” today with total snow accumulation between 12 and 22 inches.
If the powers-that-be are awake right now, please read what the NWS is saying and cancel classes (emphasis ours)!
NEAR-BLIZZARD OR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE RARE FOR OUR AREA… SO IT IS LIKELY THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT REALIZE THE PERIL THAT EXISTS IN VENTURING OUT IN SUCH STORMS. LIFE-THREATENING CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE… AND DRIVING WILL BE HAZARDOUS AT BEST DURING THIS WINTER STORM TODAY AND EARLY TONIGHT. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT TRAVEL BE CURTAILED DUE TO THE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS… AND ONLY DRIVE IF IT IS TRULY AN EMERGENCY SITUATION.
A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS… MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL… HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED… STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.
“Life-threatening”? President Tilghman, we don’t want to die! Don’t let us die! Die, die, die!
UPDATE (12:51 a.m.)
So it looks like the chances of a snow day tomorrow are slimming rapidly. While New Jersey Governor Christie declared a state of emergency in the Southern counties of the state, nothing has been said about Mercer regarding that same announcement.
That said, a lot of classes have been canceled (check your inbox to see if you’re one of the lucky ones), but no school-wide announcement has been made through any channels.
And the way the weather’s looking (it stopped snowing a while ago), it doesn’t look like any more snow is going to accumulate. Estimates of snowfall are shrinking, too. Weather.com says,
HEAVY SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR IN TWO BURSTS ACROSS THE REGION. THE FIRST IS UNDERWAY TONIGHT WITH 3 TO 7 INCHES LIKELY TO ACCUMULATE BY THE MORNING COMMUTE WEDNESDAY. THE SECOND SHOT WILL BE AN EVEN MORE INTENSE BURST OF HEAVY SNOW WITH THE UPPER AIR DISTURBANCE ITSELF THAT SHOULD OCCUR IN MOST OF EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA… MARYLAND… AND DELAWARE DURING WEDNESDAY MORNING AND NEW JERSEY AND NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA DURING WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. THE SNOW WILL END BY MIDNIGHT WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
So, Thursday snow day? Maybe?
UPDATE (12:39 a.m.)
Don’t give up hope yet, Princeton. The state’s climatologist, David Robison, tells the Star-Ledger that while only three to eighth inches are projected to fall by tomorrow morning, there will be a “more intense session” in the afternoon. And he gives us the strongest argument for a snow day yet:
“It would behoove one to think twice before venturing out (Wednesday) out of fear of not getting back home,” he said. “This looks to be the most significant statewide event of the season.”
AW
UPDATE (10:30 p.m.)
Alright, we don’t want to rain on any parades that have kicked off since we posted this but… It now looks like the chances of a snow day are slimming.
University emails to faculty are now suggesting the weather won’t be bad enough to call classes off. Sorry guys!
Of course, this is a developing story, so we’ll keep you updated with anymore news we managed to pick up…
Stay tuned to Snow Day? 2010.
ORIGINAL POST:
We have it on good information (well, that’s open to interpretation) that tomorrow is going to be…
Get ready for it…
A SNOW DAY.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in seven years, Princeton will be closed due to heavy precipitation.*
Get your sleds out. Don your mittens. Warm up some spiked cider. It’s time to play.
Or sleep, whatever.
*Okay, technically we won’t be absolutely sure until around 4 A.M., but let’s all cross our fingers. And don’t blame us if we turn out wrong – we’re not controlling the weather machine!
(image source: blogs.princeton.edu/aspire)