On “Self Control” (What a Silly Concept) : thank you thank you thank you!
On Manufacturing Chomsky: Does anyone know if a video or audio of this talk be available at any stage?? Thx
On The Curious Case of Chatroulette, II: Don’t I know you?: I saw someone I knew on Chatroulette within my...

Having trouble staying off the Facebook and Gmail while working on your midterms? Here's a hint: http://bit.ly/d7i9IP 2 days ago
No but seriously. He's been playing the same four chords for about an hour. 3 days ago
Dude playing piano in Frist: Move along, please. 3 days ago
What is it about midterms that warps people's sense of cleanliness? http://bit.ly/aS1VF3 3 days ago
Sunny, 40s, bright blue skys... Perfect day to spend in Firestone. 4 days ago
More updates...

Posting tweet...

Articles filed under “Goings On”

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…

Mar 9, 2010

“Self Control” (What a Silly Concept)

By Julia Bumke

Posted in Goings On Tagged Facebook, midterms, self-control One comment

In a 2003 interview for the documentary Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause, Chomsky said: “I’m a boring speaker and I like it that way.” The swarm of people who flooded McCosh 50 (and the simulcast room in McCosh 46) to hear Chomsky speak tonight might attest to the contrary. During his speech entitled “I am Kinda: Reflections on the Culture of Imperialism” Chomsky ruminated on how the media “manufactures consent” and how historical memory is often lost.

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

Mar 8, 2010

Manufacturing Chomsky

By Samantha Pergadia

Posted in Goings On Tagged debt, intellectual, Noam Chomsky One comment

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.

Mar 8, 2010

Midterm Week Notes: Bad apple edition

By Will Saborio

Posted in Goings On Tagged apples and oranges, bananas, frist, gross, McGraw, midterm week One comment

: 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.

Mar 7, 2010

Little Black Box Doesn’t Just Represent the Future…It Predicts It

By Abby Greene

Also posted in Faculty Tagged Global Consciousness Project, little black box, paranormal, psychic, Robert Jahn, Roger Nelson Leave a comment

http://susty.com

Hello Princeton student. Did you think you went to the apathetic, relatively conservative Ivy? Well, shhhhhh. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Princeton’s actually commie.

What am I referring to? Why, this comment, among many others, from the Prince’s comment sections on the recent and controversial appointment of Van Jones to be a visiting fellow next year:

Mar 6, 2010

Oh Princeton, you commie, you…

By Miriam Geronimus

Also posted in In the news, Politics Tagged comments, Communism, Daily Princetonian, Derek Gideon, environmental justice, Glenn Beck, Princeton Climate Dispatch, Princeton University, Van Jones, visiting faculty Leave a comment

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.)

Mar 5, 2010

CONTEST: Midterm Mania, Spring ‘10

By Will Saborio

Also posted in Contests Tagged Midterm Mania, midterms, spring 2010, work One comment

(source: oscars.org)

The Oscars are upon us, Tigers! I know you all would like nothing better than to waste all your waking hours on the NYTimes Carpetbagger blog (for the uninitiated, it’s the Times’s Awards-Season blog, and is frankly the best thing since sliced bread. Despite the fact that sliced bread has never seemed particularly awesome, but there you go.). However, midterms are once again upon us…which is decidedly not conducive to wasting time. Obviously. Why on earth would we waste time when we have tremendous pressure to get approximately ten zillion things done before spring break hits? Silly question.

Mar 4, 2010

Paint [the Oscars] Black…and Orange…

By Julia Bumke

Posted in Goings On Tagged Coen Brothers, midterms, Oscars, Princeton Leave a comment

from thecenter.fsu.edu

Congratulations, freshmen and sophomores! Did you wander into Frist today hoping for your paycheck, only to find a thick envelope stuffed with fancy embossed paper telling you that your stellar grades “may have earned you a nomination for membership in The National Society of Collegiate Scholars?”

Yeah, you and a few hundred other people.

For $75, you can join the Princeton chapter! And, you know, put that on your resume? I guess? You’ll also get a “personalized diploma” (Is there any other kind?) from the society. Which is, cool? …Yeah, it better be MADE OF GOLD.

If you’re going to fork over the money, here’s the only reason you have: discounts!

Among the fancy sheets of paper you might have thrown into your recycling bin is a listing of a few “Scholar Exclusive Discounts.”

25 percent off textbooks from Pearson Textbooks. OK, that’s pretty sweet. I mean, if you don’t already get your books from Amazon, for half the price.
5 percent off at Barnes & Noble (with a super double-discount of 10 percent that you can get three times throughout the year!) Or you could, you know, become a B&N member and get 10 percent off…all the time. (And 40 percent off bestsellers! No, seriously! Get in on that!)
10 percent off participating Motel 6 establishments in the U.S. I don’t really have anything to add to that one.

Mar 4, 2010

National Society of Collegiate Scholars = That Coupon Book You Bought For Your Little Sister’s Band Fundraiser

By Angela Wu

Posted in Goings On Tagged discounts, mailtime mailtime mailtime, motel hotel Holiday Inn, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, scam 10 Comments

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.

Mar 2, 2010

The Curious Case of Chatroulette, III: You’re nice! Or, not.

By Will Saborio

Posted in Goings On Tagged awkward, chatroulette, Facebook, missed connections, that's unfortunate, Turkey Leave a comment

Such a majestic creature

Stop reading this post right now if you want to get any work done this week.

Seriously, stop reading. Close the browser and do something else.

Still here? Ok, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Robot Unicorn Attack is the single most addictive game on the planet. We discovered it around 3:30 a.m. early Sunday morning. We didn’t go to bed until 6. We just couldn’t. Stop. Playing.

The game designers describe their creation thusly on the website:

Jump into the steel hooves of a robot unicorn, prancing freely amongst the lush purple grasses and rainbow-strewn backdrops of your wildest fantasies.

Right. Anyways, the game’s delightfully simple controls and game play make it a pleasure to spend five hours at a time playing. Z makes the robot unicorn jump. X makes him (her?) crash through stars. And if you hit anything, you lose.

But the highlight of the game is the original song that accompanies the game play, performed in the style of the great power ballads of the 80s. The opening line: “Open your eyes/I see/Your eyes are open.” Poetry!

So why are we posting a flash game on a blog about Princeton? Because we’re college students. And we have stuff to do. And we need other, funner stuff to do while we should be doing the original, less fun stuff. That’s why.

(P.S. Personal best as of Monday afternoon: 45,756.)

(P.P.S. Monday night: 56,486. 87,884. Fear me, mortals. And post your high scores in the comments section!)

Mar 1, 2010

Time Waster of the Week: Robot Unicorn Attack

By Spencer Gaffney

Posted in Goings On Tagged Adult Swim, Robot Unicorn Attack, Time Waster, Time Waster of the Week One comment

Do you think they'd be proud?

Hey Princeton, think you’re learning useful things in those history classes? Think again, says the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). The institute administered civic engagement quizzes in 2007 and 2008 to individuals across the country (click here to try your hand at the quiz). Reaching a grand total of 16,508 adults and students at 50 colleges, the ISI returned some startling statistics.

Take, for example, this one: the average score of a senior on the civics knowledge test was a 54.2%. Or maybe this one: 30% of office holders didn’t know that “life, liberty, and happiness” are the inalienable rights to which the Declaration of Independence refers. Or how about this one: 51% of Americans were unable to name the three branches of government. Kind of scary, isn’t it?

But to those of you who suspect that Princeton might be the exception to the rule, here’s the kicker: college seniors across the U.S. showed an average 4-point improvement since freshman year. But Princeton? Not so much. Freshmen at Cornell, Yale, Princeton, and Duke scored better than seniors on the exam.

Hold on, what fine print told us that we were actually going to be unlearning while at Princeton? Because I certainly didn’t see it. Interesting, though, that the ISI website makes it a tad difficult to locate the average scores that yielded this discrepancy…

From these results, the ISI has determined the following:

Universities are becoming round the clock factories churning out poorly instructed liberals with little civic knowledge and even less faith and less devotion to principles of liberty than those Americans who didn’t go to college…what a formal education at one of America’s university [sic] does so effectively, however, is engender doubt in the American way of life, incubate irreverence for the pillars of liberty upon which the nation was built, and perhaps most disturbingly, sap the faith in God and the institutions of religious worship.

(Insert fist pumping here).

I guess this doesn’t bode well for the Woodrow Wilson School.

(image source: www.flickr.com)

Feb 28, 2010

On Civic Knowledge and Badmouthing that Freshman in Your POL Precept

By Abby Greene

Also posted in In the news Tagged ISI, scores, tests Leave a comment

This Spring, the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library chronicles the history of student publications at Princeton in an exhibit “Princetonians in Print: 175 Years of Student Publications at Princeton.” Drawing on the holdings of the University Archives housed at the Mudd Library, the exhibit includes original newspapers, artwork, photographs, letters, silkscreens, and artifacts.

Here are some photographs from the from the exhibit. Pine away for yesteryear! Just gloss over the whole anti-female, anti-minority part… Click for full-size images.