Since I may never get around to a real commentary, I’ll give a link to someone who has a fairly good summary. And hey, I know her!

What the hell is going on here? Last night we lost our third student this year. Our third!!!

So far I haven’t known any of the three students who have died. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Sigh.

This is one of those “my life is so stressful” entries that I’ve attempted to avoid writing for a while.

The fallout of various major issues on campus (most notably the Justice one) has been a couple weeks of backlog that I have never quite recovered from. My German class is still two weeks ahead of me, because no matter how much I study they are still going forward, at the point now where the test on Ch. 5 is on Thursday and I’ve somehow managed to miss the Ch. 4 test and am still not at the point where I could remotely pass it. My AMST class is closing in fast on a final, with a major test on Monday that I’m still behind for. I was expecting that the paper for that class would be do on the day of the final, as is normally the case with AMST classes, but this one is certainly not normal – the paper is due on Wednesday. Whoops.

I’ve really been working on the assumption that I have a month of school left in which to catch everything up, and in that time context I was doing okay. But then I realized today that I actually have 10 academic days left, or about 2 weeks. And with this test+paper for AMST due this week, I’m going to remain very very behind on German, and with each passing day it becomes harder to catch up.

I’m doing well, at least, in my theater class, and I’ll get a “pass” grade in Practicum if I put in another dozen hours or so, so I have to fit those in (usually on Fridays). That can happen. And if I work really hard on this AMST stuff, I think I will pull off a B in that class. The issue really is German, and it just sucks. I can’t really see what to do about it. I mean, I can’t drop the class, because besides it being past the deadline, that would put me in a position of having a 2.5 credit semester, meaning I wouldn’t have been a full-time student. If I was somehow able to turn the class into a pass/fail, it would be worthless, because only one of my 3 semesters of language courses are allowed to be P/F, and I was saving that for 20, which I’ll do just as bad, if not worse at. Yeah, so I can’t do foreign languages. This makes graduation highly difficult, as a foreign language is a requirement, so I don’t know what to do about it.

Anyway, that’s the status of me. Meanwhile, there are five people whom I want to have lunch with, and there is no time in my schedule to do any of this personal stuff, and the semester is ending, ending, ending…

Just read a fascinating Washington Monthly article about the rise of MTV in the 80s to where it is today. The general thrust is that MTV started as a way for young people to experience the grown-up world and long for a future of urban coolness. The network (and perhaps our culture) has become increasingly younger-focused, to the point where the network is now representing the college crowd, and the message has gone from worrying about a rooted future to enjoying a life of fleeting fantasy. The author uses The Real World as his main object lesson, but also looks at MTV as a whole.

Here is the MTV of the early 90s:

The music also had political dimensions, from the militant black empowerment rap group, Public Enemy to didactic liberals like Pearl Jam and R.E.M. to the feminist strummers of the Lilith Fair. Although you sometimes got the sense that MTV had gotten itself into a public position it didn’t really know what to do with – such as when a flirty blonde asked candidate Clinton whether he preferred boxers or briefs – there was also something charming about the network’s earnest agenda. For all the tiresome chatter about Generation X’s ironic, disengaged, navel-fixated brooding, it was nice to see MTV plunging its teenaged viewers into the real world, complete with ideas, politics, and consequences.

And here is where MTV started moving:

By the late 1990s, all of MTV’s programming was getting less aspirational. In a 1999 article in The New York Times Magazine, Marshall Sella was moved to write: “All in all, MTV seems to envision daily life as an endless game of pool in which people antagonize each other, then storm off to points unknown.” But the same focus on teenage dramas and concerns that critics deplored has, in fact, brought more young viewers to the network.

And here is where MTV is today:

The network added a host of new reality programs. “Sorority Life” and “Fraternity Life” detail the weepy, vomit-soaked ins and outs of college life. “True Life” shows hour-long documentaries about typical teenage problems: a girl who’s too fat to make the cheerleading squad, a workout-obsessed boy trying desperately to beef up. “Spring Break: Undercover” tracks hyper-fit college students as they get drunk and contrive to hook up in party locales like Cancun. “Jackass” is a series of gross-out skater-punk tricks and stunts, the sort of stuff that bored suburban teens might pull in their spare time. Now the network’s programming effectively mimics the lives and experiences of its viewers. The shift in programming has helped MTV’s ratings climb for five consecutive years, and more people now watch the network than ever before.

What has MTV done here? It started off as a network on the cutting edge, a network that typefied the dreams and aspirations of a generation. But at the same time, how many people really were going to go live in New York and become famous musicians, like some characters on The Real World attempted to do? MTV was giving a picture of possible futures, of people looking beyond the now towards an unpredictable time years away. And in America, at least, that is not what gets you ratings. That is not what people want to do. People here are much more interested in short-term satisfaction, at least people in their teens. The MTV shift to younger programming, to shows that are more similar to the experiences that teenagers are going through as they watch, or that they wish they were going through, at least, is always going to get you more viewership. In a world as big and confusing as ours, where people who take risks are a very small minority, it makes sense that for MTV to become mainstream cool and not just edge cool, it has to lose a lot of it’s hope in order to connect with it’s target audience. Instead of lifting people into the future, MTV has decided to embrace the now.

Is it so very sad that I’m not the least bit interested in the third Matrix movie? The second was such a disappointment and a destruction of the original vision that I’ve just about given up…do I really want it destroyed any more?

Paul would argue that it is the Wachowski’s story to destroy as they see fit, as they are the architects, but I personally wish someone would have stepped in and given those two brothers a good beating for so terribly destroying a piece of art.

Yeah, I’ll end up seeing Matrix: Revolutions eventually, maybe even soon, but I’m dreading it. There is a nice Slate article on the phenomenom, by a reviewer who obviously hasn’t yet seen Revolutions either, and thus doesn’t spoil anything.

For all of the wonderful encouragement and positive reinforcement Adam gives, it took an email from Michael Schakow ’01 for it to really sink in. I’m feeling pretty darn good. Apparently I am doing something right for Brandeis with this whole Student Union thing. 😛

I’ll probably feel worse in the morning when I realize that I’m gonna fail out of German, but hey, things pass.

Yeah, need to catch up from the 9th. It’s been a very busy month. Very, very busy. More busy possibly then I’ve ever been, or at least it sure feels that way. Entries I owe you:

• Avenue Q
• Club resource center
• Justice incident
• Children of Eden

Let’s see when I get to them… 😉

Wonders never cease, as long as you never cease to wonder.

Only two weeks until Apple releases the fourth major release of their operating system in 3 years, Panther. This update to Mac OS X brings along a bunch of shiny new features, and, it is reported, some nice speed boosts. I like it when I pay for an upgrade and it makes my computer faster. This shouldn’t be a shocking or strange business move on Apple’s part, but to Microsoft it is.

I’ve noticed that our 300Mhz Dell at home works just fine with Windows 2000, perfectly adequate. At the same time, our 1.1Ghz systems in the Student Union, running Windows XP, take just as long, if not longer then the Dell, to do super-simple things like open the Start menu or a load a web page. It’s really pretty shocking. Basically Microsoft’s newer versions of Windows add more features, more shiny interface stuff, and more special effects (everything you do makes a noise and fades or shimmers or glows!) while at the same time making the user experience just as slow as it was before. This is quite astonishing when you realize that most times people upgrade Windows it is because they have bought newer, faster computers. The Windows “feature” bloat basically leads to people upgrading to a faster computer that runs just as slowly as before at most common tasks! So think about it that way when you go to buy a new PC: you’re paying $500 or $1000, not for the newest best technology, but so that you can run the newest version of Windows.

Meanwhile, I’m gonna pay $69 to get a new version of th Mac OS with over a hundred new features and a speed increase for a laptop I already bought, over a year ago!

It’s not that I’m as upset that she said no. I’m sad about that, but that’s a given. I think it’s more that I’m upset because it was such a fucking long build up, like, months, and after I finally finally asked her there was like a two day gap before she responded and my hopes were going up and I knew that it was okay to be mean to her now and be angry with her because it would all be better when she said yes. Irrational? Whatever. I’m allowed to be sad. Emotions are why we do this whole thing called life. I’m going to bask in my pure sadness so that when I look back on it in $time years I can smile and chuckle at how far I’ve come and how much more I’ve achieved and how much I’ve grown as an emotional balanced whole person-being.

Got about 18 mpg. Decent. Did a lot better on the highway and a lot worse in the city.

I’ve been talking to a girl most of the summer and eventually it became apparent to me that I was kinda falling for her. Despite all the warning signals I’ve seen, the feelings have persisted for quite a while. In recent weeks I’ve become increasingly conflicted because of what I’ve perceived to be mixed messages coming from her, combined with my own insecurity about the whole thing. I’m not sure if she’s clueless, afraid, or purposefully obtuse, but, regardless, my feelings have been having a fairly negative impact on my emotional well-being.

I haven’t ever really reached out to a girl for a relationship in the past, they have come to me. I find the whole process awkward and attempt to avoid it at all costs. This one was gnawing at me, though, so tonight, after a conversation about not being able to read people or understand what they’re thinking, I told her how I felt.

I wrote out a message in the IM window, then erased it. Wrote it again, slightly different, and the whole time I was typing I was terrified I might accidently hit the enter button. I cleared it again, and then opened up a word processor and typed it out a third time, and stared at it for a few minutes. Finally I copied and pasted it into the IM window, and stared some more. Tried to press enter a few times, but couldn’t. Finally, I just pressed it. And then I went and did laundry while listening to some Dashboard Confessional music.

I felt a tremendous burden had been lifted from my shoulders after I sent the message. This had been eating me up inside, and finally it was out there in the open. As I did my laundry I became increasingly convinced that she did not share my feelings, and would give me a pretty curt rejection. I didn’t feel that bad about it, actually. Acceptance or rejection, the important thing is that what I wanted to say had been said, and the ball was in her court. If she doesn’t want to go forward with anything, or doesn’t find me at all her type, that’s fine. I respect that and understand it and we can have a nice friendship and I can stop obsessing. And if she does want to try something, that’s great.

I felt really, really good. And I came back. And her response was that her IM client was misbehaving and she couldn’t talk right now and had to go do things.

Well, okay then. Whatever. My night was still pretty good.

Enlightening NYTimes article (no reg. req.) about the African AIDS problem and why it is a social, rather then physical disease. I look forward to more of this kind of reporting if we in the West ever hope to solve this terrible and ongoing problem.

I woke up this morning to my music, went and met with the Risograph person about our copiers, talked to her a bit about ink and stuff, and then, as we finished up, I checked the clock and realized that I had managed to miss my class. Then I woke up from this very strange dream to my music playing, checked the clock, and realized that I had managed to miss my class.

Weird.

Adam’s new kitty is soooo cute! Much cooler then Yanna’s cat. 😉

Those wacky scientists! First it was string theory, but now apparently Brane Theory is all the rage. Read it, learn it, love it, at least until the next cool explanation comes along!

Jon Zittrain of the Harvard Berkman Center spoke in what has probably been the best Cyberpsychology Colloquium so far. Here are my notes on the talk.

As someone who chose to go to a “Tier 2” college when I had an offer from a “Tier 1”, I’m very interested in the prestige question, which apparently is much more pronounced with law schools. Oh boy. Unless I really ace the LSATs, I doubt I’m going to give Harvard and Georgetown the privilege of rejecting me, so I guess this will be a question I will get to continue to deal with. Well, I don’t mind it. I think I can stand on my own without a silly school name behind me.

But on a completely seperate note, Yay for Jessica starting at UCLA on Monday (or Tuesday?)!

Derek Slater makes a good point about the EFF approach to file trading. First the civil-liberties organization lambasted the industry for suing technologists and not the actual infringers. Then, when the courts ruled the way of the EFF, the record industry did just what they had asked all along — started suing users. Now I’m sure the EFF knew that if the RIAA took the bait it would be bad news for the industry on the public stage, but then the EFF did two things, first started a “Let the Music Play” campaign that says file sharing should be illegal and secondly started pushing something called a “compulsatory license” in which everyone who uses music distribution software would need to pay a flat fee which would then somehow be distributed to artists. Ick. I don’t like that idea at all, and I’ve disliked it since the second I heard it. Well, I’d actually be happy to told off and see what the EFF proposes specifically, if they would just go ahead and actually propose something, which they haven’t done. Until they do, I can’t really support them, despite their lofty goals and the fact that they are one of only a few groups fighting the little guy part of copyright battle.

Look, copyright infringement is illegal, but 60 million American do it anyway. So the law is wrong. Let’s talk about actually changing it in a way that is consistant with both the principles of the Constitution and the past and the principles of today.

The Chronicle tells us:

Today’s federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour, although some states require employers to pay slightly more. Researchers say that diners generally understand that food servers are working for the tips, not the paycheck — which could total just $85.20 for a 40-hour workweek, before taxes.

But do not fear! Our cadre of scientists are on the case!

McCall looked at whether diners would tip differently based on the appearance of the tip tray, that plastic rectangle some restaurants use to present the bill. Patrons tipped more when the tray was embossed with a credit card logo than when it was blank.

Uh…huh. Average tip is going up from 15% to 20%. Great. Why is it that restaurants can’t pay people a decent wage like the rest of industry? I can understand how small restaurants must fight to survive, but large chains with fixed menus, Sysco-packaged ingredients, and cook-by-numbers charts in the kitchen couldn’t have it too hard.