May 11th, 2008

Is sleeping valuable?

By raizacanelon on May 11th, 2008

Ever since I was little I have never had a problem sleeping. I love it, I crave it, and I can’t wait until the end of the day when I can peel back my covers and crawl into bed. I used to be able to sleep until noon or later. My parents always tried to wake me up early, and I just didn’t want to.

According to a student health review on Brown’s college homepage, only 11 percent of college students have a good sleep quality. People need to sleep on average seven to eight hours per night, so they can go through the R.E.M. cycle and feel refreshed when they wake up. People also tend to have worse mental health, with more of a tendency toward depression, tension, and irritability. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 11th, 2008

Apple products - shouldn’t they work?

By brittneyclyde on May 11th, 2008

How is it that a person can spend a ridiculous amount of money in one quick trip to the Apple Store? Right away there goes $250 on an iPod, $29 on earphones, and if a person wants a cover to protect the iPod from being dropped, from water, sweat, or any other possible accidents, the gadget in question then breaks, freezes, or suddenly loses the little earbud on the headphones?

I’ve owned two iPods, the first lasted about two years but froze periodically throughout the time that I had it and eventually died after I dropped it in a puddle. The case that I had purchased to provide it with protection ended up being useless. Then the earphones stopped working after a while (I’m guessing that it was due to the fact that I listened to the music quite loudly), but still, shouldn’t these things be made to last against a variety of obstacles?
Read the rest of this entry »

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May 7th, 2008

Oracle: The ‘Success’ Story

By Ryan Chartrand on May 7th, 2008

As many of you know, Cal Poly has had an interesting history with Oracle, the collaboration suite responsible for several successes indeed in the last five years. Or at least that’s what Oracle says on their Web page here.

A success in campus-wide migraines.
A success in e-mail access never being available when you need it most.
A success in excessive amounts of spam filling your inbox.
A success in being slower than a 14k modem.

Yes, Oracle, I suppose you can boast Cal Poly being a success story on your Web site. After all, you did successfully trap Poly in a five-year contract (which in technology years is a lifetime). But, alas, Oracle, Cal Poly must depart and finally find a less ’successful,’ more efficient system known as Zimbra.

Until next time, best of luck, Oracle, in finding your next success story.

Thanks for the link from David Hansen.

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May 6th, 2008

Remembering 15

By Marlize van Romburgh on May 6th, 2008

A smudge of red lipstick, tussled hair, a rumpled sheet covering all but a bare back. And that coy, come-hither gaze that seems to know so much more than can possibly be known at 15.

That’s the image of teen star Miley Cyrus that’s been thrown on every news talk show on every channel; the image that’s had mothers apparently throwing their hands up in despair, father’s covering their little daughters’ eyes, and talk show pundits lamenting about the sexualization of a child.

I found myself surprisingly intrigued, too. Me - the person that is clueless about celebrity news, could care less about Hollywood starlets, and has never watched thirty seconds of Hannah Montana in her life. Yes even I was intrigued.

Why? For the same reason we all are. Because with the snap of her shutter, Annie Leibovitz captured a frame of our society’s view on sex, beauty and women in general.

Miley Cyrus looked beautiful. I’ll say it: she looked natural, classic, and feminine. It was a sexy picture, maybe even a little provocative, and that’s OK. Read the rest of this entry »

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April 28th, 2008

“The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo”

By brittneyclyde on April 28th, 2008

Over the past 10 years it is estimated that more than 200,000 women and young girls have been raped. Sexual violence in the Congo is considered taboo, and so after a female is raped she is either abandoned by her husband or shunned by the village. One woman in the documentary actually said she blamed herself for the rape and her husband had told their eight children that she had wanted to be raped. This is, of course, ludicrous and by no way did she want to actually be raped.

These women and children, who can sometimes be attacked by as many as 20 men, are severely traumatized after being assaulted with razors, knives, and chunks of wood. The rapists in the documentary said that they had no regrets for doing the things they did and it was just a naturally induced reaction for them after staying too long in the bush.

This kind of treatment to any human being is appalling to me and I hope that there will be some sort of solution for these horrible acts soon. I am glad that there are documentaries like this made to open our eyes to what is going on in the world. I definitely recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the topic.

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April 23rd, 2008

Getting my protest on

By aarongaudette on April 23rd, 2008

After viewing the protest escapades that have occurred all over the world in response to Chinese human rights abuses, I thought a little parallel could be drawn between what’s occurring around the globe and what could be happening right here in San Luis Obispo.

The torch has been accompanied by protests as a way of raising awareness of and expressing opposition to alleged human rights abuses in China, at a time when China is in the global spotlight as the host for this year’s Oympics. What if I was to protest say, the abuse of college students by local law enforcement at a time when the city of SLO was in the spotlight, such as this past weekend’s Cal Poly Open House?

Not to say that the slight college students endure at the hands of the local police force is anywhere near comparable to having your village razed by an authoritarian dictator, but what if we as college students could actually dedicate ourselves to such a cause?

I can see it now: crowds of inebriated Poly and Cuesta students standing on street corners all throughout campus, doing keg stands and beer bongs to protest unfair police treatment of drunken college students while visiting high school seniors gaze in awe and their parents shriek in horror. Now that would raise some awareness!

Because, after all, what better way to protest police hassling me when I’m getting wasted than by getting wasted in a public manner before they can come and hassle me?

SLOPD and other local law enforcement would be wise to ease up on us college kids, because soon enough you might see me on a street corner at Poly, with a picket sign in one hand and a thirty pack of natty in the other.

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April 23rd, 2008

Join a Community Supported Agriculture group

By brittneyclyde on April 23rd, 2008

After taking the class World Food Systems for my GE area F, I have come to appreciate even more than I already had the great quality, intense flavors and decent prices of scrumptious produce and fruit from the Farmers’ Market on Thursday nights and the food grown by our very own Cal Poly students.

Ever since I was little I’ve always appreciated food that was grown in my own garden as a child and now that I am older, even though I have no room for a garden of my own, I seek out ways to get locally grown food to support the farmers around here.

It was crazy for me to learn that most produce actually travels more than 1,000 miles to get to its final destination to be sold. This just seems so ridiculous to me. There really is no reason that this should be happening. If people would stop and take a little more time to visit a Farmers’ Market or join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group, then local farmers would be supported, less gas would be used by the big trucks that haul all the produce everywhere, and you would be enjoying the freshest, most flavorful food you have ever had. This seems like a win-win situation all-around.

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April 7th, 2008

Ethics

By brittneyclyde on April 7th, 2008

Recently in my journalism ethics class, we watched the film “Under Fire,” which basically consists of two journalists putting aside their “journalistic integrity” and ultimately deceiving thousands of people for what they believed to be the greater good to stop a war in Nicaragua.

The journalists befriend the rebels that are against the government and become sympathetic to their cause.

The film makes one go back and forth about the concept of what the public “needs to know,” and what is their “right to know.”

Ultimately, it can be a difficult situation for a journalist to tackle, and each and every person in the news/media industry may at one point have to ask themselves, “Am I a journalist first, or a human being?” Read the rest of this entry »

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April 3rd, 2008

Celebrity Rehab

By caryconrady on April 3rd, 2008

One of the very few original reality TV shows to come out this season was Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. This 10 part VH-1 series shows nine celebrities who struggle to defeat their drug and/or alcohol addictions at the Pasadena Recovery Center. Home viewers were able to see exactly what happens when a “Brittney Spears” or a “Lindsay Lohan” goes to a rehab center for treatment. And the realty is quite different from what one would expect.

Celebrities on the show include:
* Jeff Conaway, actor (Kenickie in Grease)
* Daniel Baldwin, actor
* Mary Carey, adult film star and former candidate for California Governor
* Joanie Laurer (aka. Chyna), former professional wrestler
* Jamiee Foxworth, former child actress (Judy on Family Matters)
* Brigitte Nielsen, actress/model (connected with Sylvester Stallone and Flavor Flav)
* Jessica Sierra, singer and former American Idol contestant
* Ricco Rodriguez, former UFC Heavyweight champion
* Seth Binzer, singer and frontman of the band Crazy Town Read the rest of this entry »

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March 17th, 2008

Leave the economy alone!

By Marlize van Romburgh on March 17th, 2008

The Fed worked overnight this weekend to exactly what it’s not supposed to do: get its hands dirty to bail out the private sector.

The New York Times reported yesterday that in hopes of avoiding a “systemic meltdown in financial markets” the Fed had swooped in to offer a $30 billion credit line to “engineer the takeover” of firm Bear Stearns and at the same time announced an open-ended (so no limits on the amount) lending program for Wall Street’s biggest investment firms.

Unbelievable. Every one of our economic woes, from the now-bursting housing and credit markets, to our $9 trillion national debt, comes from the fact that the government could never leave the economy well enough alone in the first place, and now the Fed proudly announces that it’s coming to the rescue once again. Read the rest of this entry »

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