The Apple of My Eye....Phone

The other day, I read a rather interesting article. It is about Abilene Christian University in Texas, where they are using iPhones for just about everything in their classrooms. Here, I'll let an out-of-context quote sum it up for you:

"The initiative’s goal was to explore how the always-connected iPhone might revolutionize the classroom experience with a dash of digital interactivity. Think web apps to turn in homework, look up campus maps, watch lecture podcasts and check class schedules and grades. For classroom participation, there’s even polling software for Abilene students to digitally raise their hand."

So let's see: you can turn in homework in and look at maps on your iPhone, you can watch lectures on your iPhone so you don't have to get up early, and you can raise your hand with your iPhone. That certainly sounds like it will "revolutionize the classroom experience" as the article phrases it. Only thing is, can't we already do all of that on computers? And with much greater ease and practicality? And raising your hand is not the most revolutionary concept I've heard this week. As for the polling technology, that can be handled by a device called the iClicker, which costs a mere 20 bucks. Sounds like all they're doing is making the classroom experience smaller. That's not my main concern though. My problem with it is as follows:

Who needs computers
When you can solely count on
an Apple iPhone?


I understand that the point of the iPhone for this campus is to revolutionize the college experience, but seriously- it is no replacement for a computer. You still need to write essays on a computer, and overall a computer is simply much more practical. While the iPhone might bring some degree of convenience, people are still going to be lugging laptops around with them to do their work. If they have a laptop, they can do all of that stuff the iPhone does, only with greater efficiency. All the iPhone does is bring novelty and slight degree of convenience to the students. And at what cost?

I am now going to ask another question about this plan, the question that most people avoid asking. What happens if you lose it? What happens if you misplace this wallet-sized device on which your entire education depends? If absolutely everyone has an iPhone and the classroom revolves around it, you're going to be needing it at all times. What happens if you drop it in the toilet? Hmm? Do you fish it out from your own excrement and talk on the phone knowing that its been in a toilet? Or do you just flush your college education down the toilet? It happens, believe me. And it's not pleasant.

So, for the time being, my stance is that ACU is not revolutionizing or streamlining the classroom experience, just making it smaller and easier to drop in your own shit.


The title has no real bearing. I just couldn't resist making the pun.

"Gold Man-Sacks"

Well, I had my first final exam yesterday! It went well, I think. I finished first, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but I'm relatively confident with it. If you take a look at my Twitter feed (lower right hand corner of the page), you can see some of my Tweets regarding it. Pretty much I owned the quote identification part, but was not expecting a definition portion. Needless to say, I used my extensive background in Latin to make up definitions (to clarify, the only Latin I know is from random sayings (illegitimi non carborundum anyone?) and from Harry Potter spells). My made-up definitions ranged from "a Greek delicacy" to "newer than Old English, but older than New English." I also identified some random guy I didn't know as "presumably a medieval scholar or author, who is important enough to be on this exam- which is quite the honor."

Now, to move onto more pressing issues. In the news, Goldman Sachs announced that they would be altering their bonus policy because they have gotten enough hate from the public (or to "quell uproar" as they might have you think). What do I have to say to this?

Finally, we know
The cause of the recession
Won't be too pampered


Am I right in thinking that? They're altering bonuses to be less ridiculous? Maybe?

Well, let's see what the article says:

"With a resurgent Goldman set to award billions of dollars in bonuses... the bank said that its 30 most-senior executives would be paid in the form of a special stock, rather than in cash. Goldman said that it would also let its shareholders vote on its executives’ pay, although the decision would be nonbinding." Source

Okay, great. Instead of money, they get "special stock." I suppose that's a reasonable substitute. Now what do they mean be "special"? Is it "special" like my mommy says I am or "special" like the special effects in movies? I personally would not mind the latter, if it entails explosives.

Well, the actual answer is that a "special stock" is one that cannot be sold for five years, and can be taken away if the executive is in need of a time-out. This is much better than a real stock, because it means that they can't instantly sell it (like they would normally). Instead, they need to invest it, something that they probably never do with their money. The horror. I suppose it's all just, though, right?

The second part is that the shareholders can decide the salaries. I think that may profit the company, in the end, what with all of the negative salaries the shareholders would demand. Oh, except the decisions are non-binding. In other words, it's like saying "we'll let you vote on the ice cream for our ice cream party, and we'll definitely take into consideration. However, in the end we are more than likely going to choose our favorite type of ice cream, even though we never, ever do things with our own profit in mind" I mean, come on- with a history like Goldman Sachs's you can't exactly trust them to listen to votes that might not satisfy them.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Too-da-loo.


Credit for the title goes to Jon Stewart, who had that phrase on an episode of The Daily Show

Forgotten Knowledge

Well, my first final is today. I studied about four hours (without moving, mind you... well, moving from the chair, that is), so I'm not too worried.

This final is for my medieval romance class, and, though it's an English course which is mainly oriented around essays and discussions, I feel that the final is justified. There's no other way for our professor to test if we've been reading or not, as essays allow you to focus on just one book, rather than all of them. I would not be surprised if a number of students in our class aren't reading the books, since it hasn't been enforced at all, but I don't really know why considering that the books are all quite enjoyable (seriously. King Arthur, anyone?). In any case, I'm sure that I have much less studying to do than many of my classmates.

This brings me to my topic for the post: finals. With a final like this, I think it's perfectly suitable to have one. You know what I have never, ever understood though? Cumulative finals for classes that already have exams.

What is the point of
Re-testing knowledge that will
Soon be forgotten?

I just do not see the point. It's pretty much the teacher's way of saying "I want to make sure you've understood the class, even though all of the tests that we've taken so far are supposed to show that. I also want to make sure that you retain the knowledge, even though you will likely forget all of it the minute you finish exam, considering that you're reviewing a semester's worth of reading over the course of a couple of days." I mean really. If you've already been tested on it, there's no need to retest it. You clearly know it, and you're clearly going to forget it- so why bother? No one can give a good answer for that question. Finals just result in more work for the professor and more work for students. And less sleep for everyone.

Try and use good grammar

Alas! Today is Wednesday, and tomorrow I have my first (and second to last) final exam! This one is for my medieval romance class, which thus far has been all fun and games, by which I mean that all of the readings have been more or less enjoyable and the lectures have been nothing but entertaining (and that wasn't sarcastic). Now, however, I will be asked to identify twenty passages, saying where they're from, when they're from, what language they're in, what the context of the passage is within the book, and whether the author was a cat or dog person. (That last one was a joke... all of them were dog people). Luckily we get a review packet with 60 passages (the 20 will be chosen from these), and we only have about 7 books. But a difficult task nonetheless.

I'm not too worried about it though, I've already done a good two hours worth of studying. I'm more worried about all of my papers. And Christmas. But mainly my papers.

The other day, I discovered came across something rather interesting. I learned that the word "acronym" does not cover as much as I had though. There is another word, "initialism," which is what I had thought acronyms were. Acronyms are abbreviation types thingies where you are supposed to pronounce the name. For instance, NATO or CAT (Condescending A-Hole Terrestrial). Initialisms, on the other hand, include all acronyms, but also those things that you are not meant to pronounce, such as BBC or CCCLLLCTAA (Center for the Containment of Celebrities who have Lucrative, Lovely, Lives but who Cheat and Throw it All Away (Current Population: Tiger Woods)).

This is one of those little tidbits of information I will always need to correct people on now, something I never get tired of doing.

There are some things in
Our language that are just plain
Wrong. Work to right them.


I'm talking about all of those little grammatical errors, but not like "you're" and "your." I'm referencing the errors that have become so commonplace in our society that even some of the most avid grammar police don't think about them. My prime example of this is "try and." The sentence is "try to." To "try and" implies that you succeed, which defeats the purpose of the word "try" which has a sense of uncertainty. For instance, if you say "I'm gonna try and kill him tonight" it means that you are going to kill him tonight. And if you are going to kill him, why don't you just say that? You mean to say "I'm going to try to," which suggests that there is actually a chance of failure (even though you probably thought it all out and have that elaborate trap set up under his mattress and everything).

There are other little errors such as "who" vs "whom," but I shall not go into further rambling regarding this.

Pop Goes the Culture

Well, last night I partook (partook... that's a nice word. I shall make more frequent use of it) in a trivia contest on popular culture, which was raising money for "Prevent Child Abuse America." CUPB, a club I'm part of, created its own freshmen team for it, and- in case you haven't figured it out, I was on that team. Needless to say we failed, and were eliminated in the second lightning round.

We got the first three lightning questions right, and the proceeded to get 1 of the next 3 wrong, which apparently justified our elimination. And if you care, we knew the next three.

The questions ranged from topics like Sex and the City to various facts about actors. We ended up being eliminated for not knowing which Jackson 5 song Mariah Carey covered (in 1992, at that). This brings me to my topic for today's post: Popular culture.

Now, I know that this is quite the general topic, but I am hoping to grasp what exactly popular culture is. So that's my question for you- what is popular culture?

My answer:

Popular culture
Is the double-edged sword of
Our society


What I mean by the "double-edged sword," is that pop culture provides our society with great entertainment. Popular culture is that CD you listen to on repeat. Pop culture is the movie that you go to see with your significant other. It is the clothes you buy. It's the effort to save our planet. It's the campaign of millions to elect our nation's first Black president. There are so many good aspects of popular culture that really bring out the best in America, and show the world why we are what we are.

On the other hand, there are number of negative aspects that come from it. Popular culture is going to see New Moon. It is being trampled to death by people looking to save a couple of dollars on luxuries. It is spending hundreds of dollars on a new iPod, even though your old one works perfectly fine. It is having the entire world hear about your new boyfriend just because you were in some movie. It is Ugg boots. Popular culture is, in essence, the energy of our society. It keeps us running and makes us who we are, but at the same time results in an increased number of trips to the crapper. That really doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, I'm tired and in need of a booster.

And I'm sorry that this post wasn't very funny. I'm not very creative. And there's so much I could've done with this topic. Bleh.

Prophet FAIL

Well, it's another day. Feels the same as yesterday, even though it's a Monday. This was all explained in yesterday's post. I shall be spending today in the library, working on my essays due Friday, so as to clear up more time for studying for my Thursday final. Yep, it will be a fun-filled week.

I will try to keep posting, but I can't guarantee being able to update the blog every single day. But I will try... as I just said in the previous sentence.

Earlier today, I read quite the entertaining article. If you don't want to read it, it's about the top "15 Failed Predictions about the Future." It gives a number of different out-of-context predictions various people have made regarding the future. It makes the people look rather silly, and/or stupid either because they were proved wrong, or they could not have possibly been more wrong with their guess. Here's what I have to say all of this:

If there's any chance
Of something, don't act so sure
When predicting it


Seriously, if there is even the slightest offchance of something occurring in the future, don't say that it will never happen, because it just might happen, and you just might look like a moron. For instance, Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM in 1943 claimed that "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Fantastic premonition. He's practically a prophet. And it's good to know that Watson had high hopes for his company.

Another prediction was made by a non-famous person, but it's funny nonetheless. A random Boeing engineer said "There will never be a bigger plane built" in reference to a 10-seat plane. If there's one thing I know about predictions, it's that you never, ever say "there will never be" in reference to a record, because there will almost always be. For instance, If I said something like "there will never be a 5G network." This is on par with that other statement, because, like the number of seats in a plane constantly increases, the generation of phone networks does.

Now, I will make a couple of predictions of my own regarding the future, which are sure to be right.

There will never be a female president.
There will never be a Jewish president.
There will never be a dragon-man president.
There will never be another you (this is the name of a jazz standard, if you didn't get the reference).
Bob Woodward will never die (really, he's immortal)
By 2022 every man, woman, and dog (2025 for children) will have an iPhone. Even in Africa.
Soon enough, cell phones will have webcams, and no car accidents will ever result from them.

There you have it. Keep all of those predictions in mind in the upcoming years, and when all of them come true (even though saying something such as that has no expiration date on it, and as such can never come true), I can say "I told you so." And of course, they definitely won't be wrong.

This is the start of something new...

Alas, 'tis Sunday, but I am afeared not. For, now that studies have ceased, a Sunday by any other name remains a day, and no day holds greater precedence over another.

If you were unable to read that, what I was trying to convey is that a weekend during finals means absolutely nothing. Quiet hours remain ridiculous on weekends (22 hours a day... only at Cornell would there be quiet hours at 3PM in the afternoon), dining hall hours are mostly the same, and finals are even given on weekends (preposterous as it is).

On that note, I think I will dedicate this post to finals week(s). Not finals themselves, that will come later. Maybe when I actually have a final.

Finals weeks could be
Great, were it not for those which
Take place during them


I know I'm a bit ambiguous, but I did that on purpose... mainly to fit the syllable requirements, but also for effect. By "them" I'm referring to "finals weeks," and "those" refers to finals. Yes, finals weeks would be amazingly awesome without finals. Although I probably don't need to tell you that. Two weeks, no classes? It's just like orientation week, only you already know people. Imagine, if we didn't have to spend the whole two weeks studying, we could spend the whole two weeks doing fun stuff, such as watching all three The Lord of the Rings movies in a row, playing Life in the lobby at 2AM, or make an epic hopskotch game across the whole arts quad (please note, all 3 are things I've either  wanted to do and/or seen people doing). Instead, however, we are expected to spend all of our time studying for finals. Sad days.