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)

CASHMERE! THIS IS CASHMERE! from telegraph.co.uk.

Earlier this year, as USG campaigns raged on and the campus discovered its newest way to procrastinate (Ok, this is before Robot Unicorn Attack.), we realized that, well, Princeton’s needs are humble.

Two-ply. Or even, maybe, softer one ply? I don’t know, I’m just tossing out ideas here.

But why should our demands be so humble? Think of our futures–earlier this week the Daily Princetonian reported that a full third of Princeton students go on to work in finance. (But not for the money–because they’re “genuinely interested!”)

And so today, I introduce to you: cashmere toilet paper. That’s right, future Masters of the Universe. That’s for you.

The supermarket won’t reveal quite how much cashmere goes into each roll, but insists it is a “significant” amount. No cashmere fibres themselves are included in the manufacturing process. Rather, the paper is covered in oil extracted from the hairs of the cashmere goat.

Carla Smith, buyer for Waitrose, said: “Cashmere provides that stamp of quality to any fashion garment from a designer suit to the finest luxury knitwear. It’s indulgent, it’s stylish and it’s helping provide that extra softness to our new premium bathroom tissue collection.”

Rabner, a 1982 graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School, gave the School’s annual John Marshall Harlan ’20 Lecture in Robertson Hall.

Rabner explained that a statewide mandatory mediation program was implemented in response to the staggering increase in the number of contested foreclosure cases. In the past year, the number of foreclosure cases has tripled with nearly five thousand cases being filed per month, he said. Now, judges require a mediation session before a foreclosure case can come to court.

“The goal is to get borrowers and lenders to sit together at a table to try to work through the problem that exists in their contractual relationship and see if we can stave off foreclosures,” Rabner said. “The role of the court system is to ensure that there is a neutral forum where individual rights of both sides are respected and protected.”

Read the entire story here.

If you want to get on Facebook, Tigers, you're gonna have to get through this guy first. (source: wikipedia.org)

It’s common knowledge that midterm week is conspiring to kill our souls (while maiming cute puppies and taunting us with beautiful weather, of course).  But lo and behold, the internet can save us, Tigers!  Steve Lambert (picture at left) has created a program called “Self Control” that will block you from Facebook, Twitter, your email, or any other sites that provide procrastinating pleasure. It works for up to twelve hours, and here’s the catch: once you’ve pressed “Start,” there’s no way to stop the clock. You can quit out of the application, restart your computer, scream profanities at it at the top of your lungs… nothing doing. It’s iron-clad. And, as the week’s slogged on, I have become an increasingly devoted fan, despite the sadness of seeing this screen every five minutes:

So go ahead and try it. If you dare…

Camara, who lost two uncles in the disaster, worked with two other Haitian-American students, Astrid Rousseau ’10 and Emmanuelle Pierre ’10, to help plan a series of campus activities in support of Haitian relief efforts. A bake sale in Frist Campus Center raised $1,200 in three days immediately following the earthquake, and fundraising by the Undergraduate Student Government to support Partners in Health reached nearly $8,000.

Read entire story here.

Chomsky had a couple of things to say, however, about aspects of life that you might find especially pertinent:

On the intellectual: “ ‘Intellectual’ is the terminology we use about people with a certain amount of privilege, who write the history that is to be read.” So much for believing in the inherent worth of our ideas. It might be helpful to repeat this like a mantra as you crank out 80 pages of your “intellectual” thesis.

On your college debt: Chomsky said that the aftermath of the ‘60s left many worried about “unruly teenagers,” whom he believes were actually “civilizing the country.” Many spoke of the “excesses of democracy” and proposed  ways of subduing radicals and restoring the obedience of pre-war times. One such “disciplinary measure”: ensure that students come out of college with an enormous amount of debt. That’ll teach ‘em.

image source: image source: http://192.211.16.13/curricular/nchomsky/chomsky3.gif

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.

Steve Forbes, Boxer. Not a graduate of Princeton University.

Here’s what the mag had to say:

This classic American campus is “straight out of central casting,” says architect Natalie Shivers, who has been guiding the prestige Ivy Leaguer through an ambitious expansion plan. Princeton’s style is pure Collegiate Gothic; most of it executed in gray stone covered in, yes, ivy. As imposing as these old stone structures are, the campus keeps life on a “human scale” by preserving green spaces and “walkability,” says Shivers. “Everything on campus is within a 10-minute walk.” Sinuous footpaths, archways, plazas–all are designed to inspire spontaneous discussion and learning.

What’s this? You have a video for us? Aww, you shouldn’t have!

(Note: after watching the video, they actually shouldn’t have. The music is super cheesy and the thesis seems to be that Princeton is special because we have arches and courtyards. But watch it anyways after the jump!)

(image source: braggingrightscorner.com)

MOLLY BREAN ‘13, TRIANGLE CLUB’S NEW BUSINESS MANAGER, LOVES BENT SPOON CUPCAKES, DRINKS HER DR. PEPPER IN AN IV, AND REALLY, REALLY WANTS TO MAIM THOSE BOZOS WHO PRACTICE THEIR INSTRUMENTS IN THE DORMS…

Who’s your favorite Princeton alum, real or fictional? White House Budget Nerd/Sex Bomb Peter Orszag.

What’s something you’d want to do less than midterms week? Spend a day wearing a Baltimore Ravens jersey.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure? Bent Spoon cupcakes! Living in Holder, I’m closer to the Bent Spoon tham I am to almost anything on campus. This has become a problem.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day? Wake up 10 minutes before my first class, inevitably take a 3-hour afternoon nap, send e-mails, stuff envelopes and/or plan to stuff envelopes, and wind up “working” until 3 a.m. in the Mathey dining hall (Shout-out to Andrea Wolberg ‘13 and Julian Dean ‘13!)

Last show you saw on campus (not counting Triangle)? Student Playwrights Festival at Intime.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau? Absolutely! My job depends on it.

What’s your drink? Diet Dr. Pepper in almost disgusting amounts.

What makes you cry? Everything. Most recently, the tribute to John Hughes at the Oscars.

When’s bedtime? Typically around 3, but I’ve been known to pull the occasional all-nighter.

What makes you laugh the most? Anything that comes out of Tracy Jordan’s mouth on 30 Rock. I can’t read, Liz Lemon!

Who is your mortal enemy? The guy on my floor who plays his tuba at odd hours of the night. It’s called Woolworth. Thanks!

What makes someone a Princetonian? The love of name-dropping Princeton on Chat Roulette.

Favorite part of the Triangle cult? The goings-on during the final 24 hours of reading period. Dean’s Date Fairies and ridiculous spam list e-mails (the human penis size Wikipedia link made for some awkward situations, though) abound.

What’s the funniest joke you’ve ever heard? Bill Clinton and Al Gore stop in a diner for brunch. After they look over the menu, the waitress walks over and asks them for their orders. Clinton grins at her and says, “I’d like a quickie, baby.” Offended, she smacks him and storms away. A few moments later, Gore leans forward and sheepishly says, “Mr. President, I believe it’s pronounced ‘quiche.’”

What is your favorite place on Princeton’s campus? Chancellor Green Cafe: where else can you get delicious coffee, great service, and a playlist that sounds like it was put together by your best friend’s “cool” mom?

What songs are playing on repeat this week? “Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest, “Dear Prudence” by the Beatles, and, not gonna lie, “Party in the U.S.A.”

Last movie you saw? Sherlock Holmes… but not before GETTING CARDED to buy my ticket. You can’t even officially card people for a PG-13 movie! It’s PARENTAL GUIDANCE, NOT RESTRICTED!

In 10 years, I will be… Getting coffee for somebody important and planning my weekends around my cat’s feeding schedule.

Favorite way to relax? Hibernating and watching hours of Law and Order: SVU. I would die without Netflix Instant Queue.

Okay, morbid curiosity: explain the scarfing phenomenon from Triangle tour. It’s pretty simple. If you hook up with someone for the first time on tour, you get a scarf. You cannot, however, troll for a scarf by asking people to hook up with you. It has to evolve, er, organically.

How many scarves were gotten this past tour? Have you gotten one yet? From what I understand, this tour was pretty light in scarves; only four were given. I remain scarfless, but I do have three years left…

Want to nominate a friend (or yourself) for 21 questions?  Email theinktips@gmail.com.

Your time has passed, my friend. (image source: wikipedia.org)

So we all stopped believing in ghosts and witches around the time that we didn’t receive our Hogwarts letters of admission (and don’t pretend you didn’t check the mailbox every day for a year). And we’re all pretty sure that it’s impossible to predict the future, that paranormal investigation is a load of hooey, and that even the Princeton psychic can’t save our love lives.

But it seems that there are professors right here at Princeton who are challenging some of those very assumptions through their work on the Global Consciousness Project, an endeavor spearheaded by engineering anomalies researcher Dr. Roger Nelson.

The project is centered around a small black box located in a library in Edinburgh that, through the process of churning out random numbers, appears to reflect global human sentiments and to predict tragedies such as the September 11 attacks and the tsunami that ravaged Asia last December.

The idea for the little black box was conceived in the 1970s at Princeton with the work of Professor Robert Jahn. His ultimate goal was to study paranormal phenomena using modern technology, specifically a “Random Event Generator” that generates random sequences in binary. Just like when you flip a coin, a graph of the ones and zeros should reflect a 50/50 distribution of numbers, but Jahn and his colleagues started to note deviations. They took random person after random person into their labs and asked them to try to control the graph’s deviations with their thoughts. And time and time again, these people did.

Dr. Nelson heard of the machine and began bringing it to group meditation sessions. Soon, he had set up 40 of the machines all over the world, and from his Princeton lab he noticed something astonishing: these machines registered deviations up to hours before catastrophic events.

Could it be possible that these little boxes are indicating a shared consciousness and predicting the future?

Of course, there are skeptics. To their criticisms, Dr. Nelson replies,

We’re perfectly willing to discover that we’ve made mistakes, but we haven’t been able to find any, and neither has anyone else. Our data shows clearly that the chances of getting these results by fluke are one million to one against. That’s hugely significant.

Bottom line? Think twice before you throw out the Jungian lit. Oh, and skip the psychic; just get yourself a little black box.