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    More Blue Sky

    Nice job Jennifer McCusker, Brown and White staff reporter: hopefully your front page article on my favorite cafe will attract more than just me to the Blue Sky's extended hours.

    LINK: Popular Blue Sky Cafe adds longer hours, dinner options

    Bonus:
    Courtney Jackson, '08, an enthusiastic regular at the café, said the regular breakfast and lunch menus are still offered as are a few dinner specials starting at 5 p.m.
    ....
    She said she wrote 90 percent of her thesis for her major at the café because it caters to students with its study-friendly environment and popular coffee.

    LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

    Techno- infographic-y storytime!

    LINK: Slagsmalsklubben - Sponsored by destiny on Vimeo

    The Satanic Verses: 20 years Later

    In one of my South Mountain College classes, we are reading the excellent novel "The Satanic Verses" By Salman Rushdie.(Wiki)
    A book that speaks on so many levels, the novel is more popularly known as the one that sparked controversy in the muslim community, leading to Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa declaration.
    One of Rushdie's friends, writer Hanif Kureishi, speaks out on the impact of the Verses on British culture.

    Link:Interview: 'Kureishi on the Rushdie affair' by Kenan Malik | Prospect Magazine April 2009 issue 157

    New Look.

    Wider, cleaner, better.

    Thanks to all my readers who keep this site going.

    Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

    where do i go when i don't have a friend?

    where do i go at another day's end?

    nobody loves me, somebody loves me on...

    Twitter!


    MP3: Ingrid Michaelson-Twitter Song

    NYT asks: is facebook growing up too fast? My answer: yes.

    Facebook, once the greatest tool for college students to stay connected, is not exactly college-friendly anymore. This week, facebook will add it's 200 MILLIONTH account- a number even more staggering when put in context: less than 8 months ago, facebook had only 100 million users. The New York Time's Brad Stone expands on this in his huge article on the company:

    Facebook at 5 - Is It Growing Up Too Fast? - NYTimes.com

    Facebook's utility, economically speaking, has drastically dropped in recent years. Imagine this situation: I click on a old friend's profile: i can see his status updates(what he's been up to), events he's attended, clubs he's in, read his blog, see his vacation pictures and even see recent conversations he's had with his classmates.


    Do you see what's wrong? I did not even speak or contact this individual. Yet I don't need to, i've caught up with him without his knowledge. To many college kids, this is the reality.

    The Peek Pronto- Still not good for college students.

    A pat on the back for the Peeksters- your new Peek Pronto software is great.

    In short, I'm still gonna go with my iPod touch. Better email program, iCal support, a wonderful browser, etc.

    The only problem is that it has no cell access, just wifi. If you can get me an iPhone(or a similarly featured Peek) that would just allow me to get email and texting for the price of a Peek's monthly service, then I'm sold.


    Peek Pronto

    Design of the Day:

    Cool automated origami landscaping/kinetic installation called "The Yakuza Lou"

    Extra Credit: MetropolisMag contributor Bruce Sterling wrote a great essay offering advice to industrial designers working in these tough times. (Link)

    An Open Letter to the Peeksters

    Disclaimer: I do not own a Peek. Yet.

    Dear Peeksters,

    Last October, I discovered your great little device, and it fit everything myself and many college students need:

    • always-on email on-the-go

    • unlimited texting

    • dirt cheap price

    Until you guys came around, the only good options were Blackberries or iPhones. The lowest cost of ownership for a 'berry is in the hundreds, and good luck paying less than a grand a year for an iPhone(it's still wonderful, though.)


    Then you arrived. A device with sleek looks, no nonsense software, long battery life, and 2 functions: Email and Text. It's basic, but that's all I need. It works on T-Mobile's cell network, so it works practically everywhere. The best part of it all, however is it's price: $50 for the Peek itself, and $20 a month for the service. To sweeten that deal, you also have the freedom of NO CONTRACTS.

    It sounded too good to be true. For some demographics, it is.

    • As a student at a university, we are provided with a very wonderful email system, which uses a different protocol(IMAP) than the one the Peek currently supports(POP3).

    • The Peek system does not receive emails or texts instantly. It could be up to 10 minutes before you receive your messages. This makes a huge difference in such a fast-paced world.

    • The software is very low-tech, and very slow.

    Thankfully, you Peeksters are great folks. You are exactly what a small business should be: great niche ideas and excellent customer support. In fact, you guys are already rumored to fix everything I've complained about. You're adding premium features and keeping the Peek at a rock-bottom price. If you can effectively roll out a few good software updates, you might just break yourselves into a huge demographic: the college students. In the mean time, keep up the great work!

    College Quick Advice: Entrepreneurship Edition

    CNN This morning:


    Ben Lewis- College Sophomore: the man behind Give Water


    Kairos Society at Penn: College Soph in Wharton school, Ankur Jain (who lived next door to Mr. Lewis): "One should do well, and do good."

    Book of the Day


    "Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life" (Neil Strauss)

    A Sunny Day

    Growing up on Facebook

    This Sunday's New York Times Magazine has an interesting Essay by Peggy Orenstein on what I call the "Facebook Generation", the group of teenagers that constitute the majority of Facebook's 125 million users. Life is different for this generation, as we are unable to go anywhere without having some tie to our friends and family. Orenstein provides some contrast:



    As a survivor of the postage-stamp era, college was my big chance to doff the roles in my family and community that I had outgrown, to reinvent myself, to get busy with the embarrassing, exciting, muddy, wonderful work of creating an adult identity. Can you really do that with your 450 closest friends watching, all tweeting to affirm ad nauseam your present self?



    This Facebook Generation is powerful. The recent expansion of Facebook's user base to members outside of the High School/College realm has sent shivers thorough the younger users of the social networking program. Orenstein admits that this, in the end, may ruin facebook:



    More likely, though, the very thing that attracts us oldsters to Facebook — the lure of auld lang syne — will be its undoing. Kids, who will inevitably want to drive a stake into the heart of former lives, may simply abandon the service (remember Friendster?) and find something new: something still unformed, yet to be invented — much like themselves.



    In the end, Orenstein wants to leave you with the point that the "Facebook Generation" may not actually grow up.



    It could be that my generation was the anomalous one, that Facebook marks a return to the time when people remained embedded in their communities for life, with connections that ran deep, peers who reined them in if they strayed too far from the norm, parents who expected them to live at home until marriage (adult children are already reclaiming their childhood rooms in droves).


    THE WAY WE LIVE NOW - Growing Up on Facebook (New York Times Magazine)

    The Self Made Scholar: What the internet shoud be used for.

    There are many lists that you can find online that consolidate the internet's best resources on to one page.


    Yes, you could just open up a new "google" search, but what if you are just browsing, or looking for something with a little more "authority" than a wiki? There are thousands of sites that collect and provide many academic resources free of charge.


    "The .EDU Underground" on Lifehacker concentrates on sites in the .edu domain, and


    "100 Websites You Should Know and Use" on TEDBlog is a random assortment of interesting and worthwhile education resources.


    But the most comprehensive list that I have seen is the "Self Education Resource List" on Self Made Scholar. With categorized links for such specialties such as "audiobooks" or the "Open Textbook Movement", one has the resources needed to create your own high school or college course.


    Lifehacker: Discover the .EDU Underground


    TEDBlog: 100 Websites You Should Know and Use


    Self Made Scholar: Self Education Resource List