The Internet-in-Brief, 10/20/09

• What’s driving up college tuition? According to the Atlantic, the Atlantic has nothing but baseless speculation to offer.

• What with the 6.5% average increase in the cost of public education, at least we have our libraries back.

• WE HAVE YOU BY THE BALLS, REPUBLICANS! (and libertarians). “Presidential election outcome changed voters’ testosterone.”

• The Washington Post is dead: “The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.”

• The Clog is creeped out by the cyborg beetles project. Me, the Clog, and Professor Brian Harvey*? Dear boyfriend, the research project you’ve been assigned to is a priori creepy.

*”That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard of.” – Brian Harvey, from a totally legit source, bro!

Hey, and if any of you non-porn-surfing readers still care about Iran (or ever cared), the Iranian Student Alliance in America (what a mouthful) is holding a rally at 12 on Thursday, on Sproul Plaza (of course). Other happenings that day:

2-3:30 – Tilden Room, MLK Student Union, 5th floor – Panel Discussion with Dr. Arash Naraghi and Omid Memarian

6:30-9 – Chevron Auditorium, I-House – Documentary screening (subject matter: the June election), Theatrical Performance, Panel Discussion with Dr. Nayereh Tohidi, Reese Erlich, and Alireza Eshraghi

9-10 – Sproul Plaza – Social Justice Week Candlelight Vigil

These are some really interesting people they’ve snagged for the event, so if you were glued to your screen during the Week that Twitter Did Something Useful (… like I was…), you might want to check this out. That said, if you were glued to your screen during the Week that Twitter Did Something Useful, like I was, you are probably also a pale, fragile shut-in who can’t stand being around so many yelly people.

Haha just kidding I am totally awesome and cool I AM NOTHING LIKE THAT

The Internet in Brief: 7/22/09

• The Daily Clog has a post on the future of telekinesis. I see your mind explosions and raise you subvocal phone calls!

The first is very old (like a year!) but I still find it horrifically creepy. I guess it’s still not as bad as that research project on remote controlled beetles… :(

There’s a lot of fucking weird shit out there, and as a sheltered liberal arts major, I reserve the right to be really freaked out by it.

• Oh, remember four years ago, when your math SAT II score wasn’t in the 90th percentile and your parents regretted giving birth to you? Ahaha, oh right, you’re not me. Riley Waggaman has a new blog, where he gets to hate on college counselors, college fundraisers, college everything, just like we do, except with real facts and real quotes!

“It’s annoying when people complain about the money,” the Vermont-based counselor, Michele Hernandez, said. “I’m at the top of my field. Do people economize when they have a brain tumor and are looking for a neurosurgeon? If you want to go with someone cheaper, or chance it, don’t hire me.”

Burn. kill. destroy.

• Remember how the whole Panda thing was a really big fucking deal and all those coop kids kept getting in your face with self-righteous rhetoric, while all those fratty assholes kept complaining about how there’s not enough disgusting faux Chinese in Berkeley? I’m glad that there are people out there who really honestly think that Panda is an affordable student-friendly option, because that means there are parents out there who still pay for their kids’ shit! The last thing I got out of my parents was a dying houseplant and a demand to know why I’m at Berkeley and not at Harvard… I’d like to know that as well; at least at Harvard I’d have 24 hour study time at the library during finals week.

Anyways, Panda might be out, but the shit is still on, with lots of anonymous commenters complaining about the horrible food at Heavenly Foods they probably never tried because there’s perfectly good corporate faux Mexican across the street– though you know, that kind of gets old when you eat it every day ifyouknowwhatmean. (Paaaaanda…)

The latest Daily Cal comment disaster involves some non-anonymous jerkoff blabbing about how the shutting down of Heavenly Foods is exactly what students want and need, thanks to some survey.

Oh yeah, that survey, the one that Beetle Aurora “Huge Fucking Oatfield-lovin’ Hippie” Drake wrote about here. Quoth my favorite Green-Party-voting-tofu-eating-gun-control-espousing blogger:

The questions are clearly designed to elicit a “Yay Lower Sproul spending” response, and discount those who don’t want to see it.

In short, it is pretty obvious which side I fall on in the Panda debate, but that is not even the point.

I am fucking sick of the shitty rhetoric surrounding the “controversy” and I am fucking sick of people talking shit about Heavenly Foods as though suddenly doubling rent is a fair and logical policy, as though being spiteful to small business is the same as being “in touch” with student concerns, as though Heavenly Foods deserves to go out of business.

You guys fucking suck as people. At times like this I really wish I could puke at will so I could go around to all your frat houses and barf on your shoes. Then I would stare wordlessly into your soulless, empty eyes and pray to the god that isn’t there, pray that one day you will be reincarnated as a big old plate of orange chicken. And then I will eat you with a large Mountain Dew, and I will cry.

:o hope u get better soon!

Internet in Brief: 6/04/09

• The gender of a judge does matter.

[W]hen it comes to sex discrimination cases…. we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only.

Chalk one up for Sonia Sotomayor, whilst we weep bitterly for a society built on the illusion of impartiality.

• Wordle! Here is the Sqlog’s wordle:

I really expected porn to be bigger than that.

• Heh. (from Matt Yglesias)

• Today is June 4th. No more said, or Chinese readers* won’t be able to access this blog. (*in the wondrous future, when we have readers)

• BART fares are up. Christine Borden writes, “Want to go into the city for some shopping? Your roundtrip will be $7.30 (PDF link) instead of the previous $6.80. If you’re flying in and out of SFO, expect to cough up $17.30 for your back and forth. Live it up, suckers.” That fucking sucks.

• Man this would have so helped with Metaphysics. Although I guess I could have taken that Incomplete that the Tang Center offered to get me on the grounds of my crippling alcoholism. (from MarginalRevolution)