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(03/24/06 4:28am)
If Iran attains nuclear weapons, it could lead to a new arms race in the Mideast and the end of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, said Bradley Gordon, an expert on the region at a lecture Thursday night.\n"If Iran gets nuclear weapons, I wouldn't want to bet the farm that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and other countries wouldn't want them, too," he said. \nGordon, who has previously worked for the CIA and as a policy assistant to a U.S. senator, is currently director of policy and government relations for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.\nThe committee is "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," according to a brief description on its Web site.\nGordon recounted efforts over the past several years by the United States, European Union and Russia to halt Iran's nuclear program, all of which have been rebuffed.\nHe also made a point of saying that nuclear weapons in Iran is a much more serious prospect than weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.\n"This ain't Iraq and the CIA," Gordon said. "All of this has been verified by UN inspectors on the ground."\nAnother key difference between Iraq and Iran is that Iran has put many of its nuclear facilities underground, often next to schools and hospitals. Complicating a possible military strike even further is the chance that Iran could cut off a good portion of the world's oil supply, Gordon said.\nIn the second half of the presentation, Gordon discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.\nHe said negotiations were going well as late as 2000, but the Palestinians' recent election of Hamas and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharonsuffered have been major roadblocks.\n"We are in as much of an uncertain period now as we have ever been in the last 20 years," Gordon said. "So my advice is to sit down, buckle your seatbelts and put your trays in the upright position because it's going to be a bumpy ride."\nMost of the audience members were receptive to the lecture.\n"It was good to have someone speak who's been directly there as opposed to the news, which can be so biased," junior Amanda Dudley said.\nHer friend, junior Sarah Kaplan, echoed that sentiment.\n"I was struck by his honesty since he's been in intelligence," Kaplan said. "He didn't seem biased by any political stance"
(03/23/06 5:46am)
Several hundred people gathered in the Whittenberger Auditorium Wednesday to hear Peter Bondanella give this year's Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture about his studies and critiques the work of acclaimed Italian director Federico Fellini. Bondanella is a distinguished professor of comparative literature and Italian at IU. \nBondanella has drastically changed scholarship on Italian cinema, according to a press release announcing the lecture. \n"His publications on Fellini alone represent a most important body of criticism dedicated to this pivotal figure," the release said.\nFellini has never been well-known outside of his native country, Bondanella said, yet the dream-like worlds he put on film have had a strong influence on highly regarded filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen and Terry Gilliam.\n"The reproduction of wonder is something Fellini always aims for," Bondanella said. "He tries to make you see something as if you never had."\nFellini, who began his career as a cartoonist and columnist for Italian magazines, was different from many other filmmakers of the 1960s and '70s in that he took much of his inspiration from popular culture, paintings and his own dreams.\n"A journalist friend once asked him what his 50 favorite films were," Bondanella said. "He laughed and said he had never seen so many films in his whole life."\nIn his opening remarks, IU Interim Provost Michael McRobbie said he wished the study of directors such as Fellini, as well as advances in technology, would spark a renaissance in art house film in Bloomington.\n"It is my hope to one day see Bloomington art house cinema revived with a digital twist," McRobbie said. "Art houses are to cinema what art museums are to sculpture."\nMuch of Bondanella's presentation featured the magic marker drawings Fellini often made in his dream book and influenced some of his most memorable scenes.\nMany originals of these drawings, similar in style to the early 20th-century comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland" can be seen at the Lilly Library on campus.\nBondanella showed how these drawings took on a more erotic twist near the end of Fellini's life.\nShortly before his death in 1993, Fellini presented his mistress with about a dozen magic marker sketches of her posing in the nude with several comically large penises.\n"That certainly tells us what he was thinking about before he died," Bondanella joked.\nPer tradition, McRobbie revealed that next year's Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture will be given by psychology professor Meredith West.
(03/10/06 5:22am)
Though the number of law school applications nationwide are on the decline this year, applications to the IU School of Law are up dramatically.\nAcross the country, applications have fallen to 60,397, down from 66,000 at this point last year, a decrease of 8.5 percent, according to a Feb. 9 article in The New York Times.\nLast year, the number of applicants nationwide dropped 4.5 percent.\nBut at IU, the law school office has received 2,450 applications so far this year, up from 2,200 total last year -- an increase of about 11 percent. Assistant Dean for Admissions Dennis Long said he anticipates another 200 applications to the law school by July.\n"This year we've had a considerable increase in applications from out of state," Long said of a possible reason for the higher number.\nLong said he has spent more time at other universities promoting the IU law school this year.\nAnother possible explanation is the law school's jump in rankings in U.S. News and World Report from 40th to 36th, but Long is the first to admit there is no one clear reason.\n"Everybody is asking the same question, but I haven't heard anything really defensible," he said.\nAnother theory is that the number of people interested in entering law school is \ncyclical.\n"The general consensus among pre-law professionals is that law school applications go in cycles," James Calvi, professor at West Texas A&M University and chairman of the Pre-Law Advisors National Council said in an e-mail. "What causes the cycle no one knows for sure, but one factor seems to be the general health of the economy. When the economy is down, many students see law school and graduate school as a way of postponing entry to the job market."\nA significant increase in medical school applications is another possibility for the national decline in applications.\n"The decrease in law school applications and the increase in med school applications may be related," Calvi said. "Both professions attract bright students and so the decline in law school applications may mean the brighter students are trying to get in to medical school."\nA downturn in the Indiana economy could also draw more Hoosier students to the IU law school, Calvi said.\n"It may also be that a local economy in the vicinity of your local law school may not be as good as the national economy," he said. "That would explain why your law school is seeing an increase in applications while nationally they are down"
(02/23/06 4:40am)
If you received an e-mail from the chancellor's office in the past few weeks, don't worry. You're probably not in any trouble.\nIn fact, your input on the survey linked to the e-mail will help improve the University.\nMore than 7,000 freshmen and seniors at IU are chosen randomly each year to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement, a document that questions students on their classroom and social experiences.\n"It's taken seriously," said Rachel Boon, IU research analyst for budgetary information. "I know that several departments come back the next year and ask for the results."\nFeedback from the survey is mostly used by deans to better shape courses, but RPS also analyzes the data to see how academic experience differs between students living on and off campus.\nOne person very interested in the results of this year's survey is first-year School of Journalism Dean Bradley Hamm.\n"We've actually not used the data, but we will," Hamm said. "The great part of the NSSE data is that it shows you what happens to students over four years. You can study what changes to make in a program to make it better."\nThe survey is given to hundreds of universities throughout the country each year, but Hamm said he feels it may not be used to its maximum potential at IU.\n"The NSSE data offers all universities across the nation a remarkable tool," he said. "Perhaps people at IU don't realize how other universities use this. The university I came from looked forward to getting this data."\nHamm was previously an associate dean at Elon University in North Carolina.\nIn comparing IU's responses on the survey to other large research institutions, IU appears to offer more challenging course work.\n"For reading and writing we tend to do better," Boon said. "Our students tend to write a lot more."\nEarly results also look optimistic for the School of Journalism.\n"Our initial look shows students scoring higher on the questions we want them to score higher on," Hamm said. "It reveals our program is challenging."\nOne problem with the survey, however, is actually getting students to respond. Those who don't take the survey in the first e-mail will get several more reminders between now and the end of March, and even then they have until at least June to complete it.\nTiffany Yoder, a senior majoring in journalism, said she ignored the first e-mail she received.\n"I didn't think anyone would actually pay attention to it or read it," she said. "But if they're actually going to be paying attention, I'll probably fill it out. It just seems like a lot of the time no one really pays much attention to what students have to say"
(02/16/06 3:31am)
There was more than love in the air at the Indiana Memorial Union Tuesday afternoon, with the electronic hum of dozens of gadgets on display for the annual UITS Information Technology Fair, "Making IT Happen!"\nMore than 1,000 people wandered through the Frangipani Room to check out some of the latest products from Apple, Dell and Microsoft, shoot the breeze with UITS consultants, or just play a quick game of "Call of Duty 2" on Xbox 360.\n"We want to make students more aware of some new and ongoing services available to them here," UITS Events Manager Diane Jung said.\nOne new group that attended this year's fair was the IU Gaming Club, which had an Xbox 360 and several high-end gaming PCs on display.\n"We're mostly PC players, but some console too," said the club's Vice President Aaron "Scopes" Sarazan. "We're trying to get the word out about our 200-person LAN events every semester."\nBut the IT Fair wasn't all fun and games. Several students from the School of Informatics were on hand to show off the projects they've been working on all year -- some of which could be worth big bucks after graduation.\nSenior Erik Johnson helped put together the Web site for Baron Hill's upcoming congressional campaign, which has opened several doors for him in Washington, D.C.\n"If he gets elected we've made a lot of connections," Johnson said. "People in Washington are coming up to him and asking him who put his site together."\nSenior Brad Weismann created a program called Net Defender to better help parents control what their children view online.\n"Something like Net Nanny blocks specific Web sites and it's difficult to use for parents who aren't so net savvy," he said. "Net Defender blocks the Internet at certain times if you don't want your kid online at 3 a.m."\nWeismann is also working on giving parents remote control of the program, from work -- for example -- in case their child arrives home early and they don't want him or her online.\n"There's a lot of parents interested in this," he said. "If someone wants it I'd be willing to sell the code."\nAttendees were impressed with the sheer variety of technology on display.\n"I just came to look at the Apple stuff in between classes, but a lot of this stuff is pretty tight," freshman Marc Momcilovich said.\n"Making IT Happen!" will be held at each of the other IU campuses starting this week and running until the end of March.
(02/10/06 6:18pm)
Pictures of a 19-year-old sophomore enjoying an alcoholic beverage have caused her father's congressional campaign to heat up just days after he announced his candidacy.\nPhotos posted on Facebook and Webshots of sophomore Andrea Ellsworth, daughter of Democratic challenger for Indiana's 8th Congressional District, Brad Ellsworth, surfaced on former IU law student Joshua Claybourn's political blog, followed by comments pointing out the student's underage drinking. Those photos were then picked up by the Evansville media.\nThe pictures have since been removed from Facebook and Webshots.\n"She deserves her privacy," reads a statement from Ellsworth's campaign manager Jay Howser. "Brad will deal with this privately, as a family matter. And like President Bush, who also had to deal with issues like this with his own college-age daughters, Brad realizes no one is perfect."\nClaybourn said he does not know who posted the comments on his blog, but said the comments came from an IP address that originated off-campus in Bloomington.\n"I did not seek out or find the pictures," Claybourn said. "The very public pictures were left as a very public comment by someone else."\nClaybourn is a registered Republican and said he worked on a campaign for incumbent 8th District Congressman John Hostettler six years ago, but has no \nconnection to him now.\nThe Evansville Courier & Press wrote a story about the photos after Claybourn submitted his original blog post to them and noted "interesting comments" followed the post on his blog.\n"As an irregular contributor to the opinion pages, I frequently share columns, information and pieces with the newspaper's staff," he said.\nStill, Claybourn said too much has been made of something so common as underage drinking.\n"No election, particularly not one of the few competitive House races in the entire United States, should be decided by such a story," he said.\nIncriminating Facebook pictures, particularly those involving underage drinking, have been used by several universities as evidence to punish students, but this might be the first time they have become an issue in a political race.\nThe University of North Carolina previously charged 15 students with underage drinking because of their Facebook profiles, and in November 2005, four students from Northern Kentucky University were fined for party pictures they posted on the site, according to campus newspapers.\nDean of Students Dick McKaig said Facebook is becoming a bigger issue at meetings he has attended involving representatives from other campuses, but said IU is not looking to punish students for what they post online.\n"Facebook-related issues" have been involved in a handful of judicial cases and discussed at several others, he said.\n"Realistically if you go to a movie and see someone in the movie killed, you don't believe that person was actually killed," McKaig said. "Pictures on an Internet site are not something actionable. They raise questions, but a picture doesn't really prove anything."\nAndrea Ellsworth did not return phone calls by press time.
(02/06/06 3:49am)
The prominence of a business school might determine a graduate's salary more so than the quality of education it offers, according to a new study from the University of Maryland.\nThe study found that soon out of college, the highest salaries went to students who graduated from well-known universities with top rankings in national magazines and have well-respected faculty, even when recruiters believe lesser known institutions offer better programs.\n"What we find is that the set of schools that are most prominent in the minds of recruiters is not the same as the set of schools they evaluate as producing the highest quality MBAs," Violina Rindova, assistant professor of strategy at Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business who co-authored the study said in an email.\nSuch studies have little effect on IU's Kelley School of Business said Dan Smith, dean of the school.\n"I believe we have the strongest business curriculum in the nation delivered by the most committed faculty in the nation," he said in an e-mail. "But ... We would be nothing without high-caliber students." \nStudents, he said, decided much of their own fate in school and in the job market.\n"The quality of the education provides a foundation, but a student's success depends on their intellect, motivation, and overall attitude they bring to the program and their jobs after graduation," Smith said.\nSenior Brandon Carder said he believes Kelley offers a good mix of both high prominence and high-quality education.\n"I think Kelley gives you a great opportunity with its distinguished faculty and recruiting services it provides its students, he said. "Fortune 500 companies are in Kelley every day sponsoring events, interviewing, presenting, and hiring the students."\nIn the Maryland study of 107 business schools with which, 1,600 recruiters were asked to answer questions about any three business schools they were familiar. The schools named the most were considered the most prominent.\nWhen comparing the difference in salaries between a school of higher prominence and one of average prominence, the survey found that graduates of a school of average prominence earned about $12,200 less annually than graduates of schools in the top 30 percent.\nHow recruiters ranked the prominence of schools was not released.\nThe study did not review if this gap closes as time goes on, Rindova said.\n"As for the higher salaries, these reflect the value companies associate with graduates from a given program based on their years of experience recruiting at that school," Smith said. "Companies are simply willing to pay more for a graduate that delivers high overall value and Kelley students deliver incredible value."\nSmith said studies comparing rankings to salaries might not accurately represent the job market for business-school graduates. Students in business schools near major financial markets -- like Columbia or Wharton -- tend to major in investment management, allowing them to enter into jobs within those markets, he said. Such jobs pay better than jobs in consumer brand management -- a major many students in Midwest business schools attain. \n"There are clearly alternative explanations for the findings of such studies," Smith said.
(11/10/05 5:00am)
This generation of consoles has been oversaturated with stealth and World War II games to a point few gamers can really enjoy anymore. But amazingly, with "Sniper Elite," Namco has come out with a WWII stealth game that is actually fun to play and brings something new to both genres.\nIn "Sniper Elite," you take on the role of a U.S. sniper in the closing days of the war who must stop the Russians from getting a hold of Germany's atomic secrets.\nWhile the story isn't the strong point, what's here is presented well. On Xbox the bombed remnants of Germany look top notch, though the actual textures and buildings seem to vary little among the game's 28 levels and roughly 10-hour story mode.\nVoice acting and music are much stronger. The score is right up there with a modern Hollywood movie, but unfortunately it also seems to blend together like some of the graphics.\nGameplay in "Sniper Elite" depends on what difficulty you play on. This game was designed to be the most realistic depiction of sniping ever, complete with meters to keep track of breath and heart rate and a physics system that makes you take gravity and wind into account for every shot.\nBut if you prefer a more arcade-type experience these options can be turned off too, which makes for faster but less stealthy and deep gameplay.\nStill, this is a game about sniping on any difficulty which can be a bit jarring for someone like me who usually plays faster-paced shooters, but after awhile, moving from cover-to-cover and popping Russians in the heads starts to feel natural, and fun.\nAnd though the controls are mostly intuitive (as they have to be for a game that requires such precise shots), switching weapons still feels a bit cumbersome and more suited for a keyboard and mouse set-up. If you get cornered by a bunch of troops and your only hope is switching to a machine gun or grenade, you're almost definitely done, but then again if you're in that position you're not really playing this game the way it should be played.
(11/10/05 1:44am)
This generation of consoles has been oversaturated with stealth and World War II games to a point few gamers can really enjoy anymore. But amazingly, with "Sniper Elite," Namco has come out with a WWII stealth game that is actually fun to play and brings something new to both genres.\nIn "Sniper Elite," you take on the role of a U.S. sniper in the closing days of the war who must stop the Russians from getting a hold of Germany's atomic secrets.\nWhile the story isn't the strong point, what's here is presented well. On Xbox the bombed remnants of Germany look top notch, though the actual textures and buildings seem to vary little among the game's 28 levels and roughly 10-hour story mode.\nVoice acting and music are much stronger. The score is right up there with a modern Hollywood movie, but unfortunately it also seems to blend together like some of the graphics.\nGameplay in "Sniper Elite" depends on what difficulty you play on. This game was designed to be the most realistic depiction of sniping ever, complete with meters to keep track of breath and heart rate and a physics system that makes you take gravity and wind into account for every shot.\nBut if you prefer a more arcade-type experience these options can be turned off too, which makes for faster but less stealthy and deep gameplay.\nStill, this is a game about sniping on any difficulty which can be a bit jarring for someone like me who usually plays faster-paced shooters, but after awhile, moving from cover-to-cover and popping Russians in the heads starts to feel natural, and fun.\nAnd though the controls are mostly intuitive (as they have to be for a game that requires such precise shots), switching weapons still feels a bit cumbersome and more suited for a keyboard and mouse set-up. If you get cornered by a bunch of troops and your only hope is switching to a machine gun or grenade, you're almost definitely done, but then again if you're in that position you're not really playing this game the way it should be played.
(10/18/05 5:30am)
Lisa, a junior, and Melissa, a sophomore sit in a Bloomington hotel room wearing low cut "boob shirts," as Melissa calls them, in hopes that the next few minutes could launch them into a successful modeling career.\nThe pair, who asked their last names not be used to protect their privacy, are auditioning for Playboy's "Girls of the Top Ten Party Schools" issue scheduled to hit newsstands in April 2006.\n"I heard about this from my friends so I figured I'd take advantage of the opportunity since it doesn't come along very often," Melissa said. "Great things might come from it."\nLisa echoed that sentiment.\n"I've always been into modeling and I competed in the Miss Indiana pageant," she said. "This could be a great opportunity."\nAfter an interview in the afternoon, both women had been photographed topless by the afternoon, an experience that bothered neither of them.\n"I was nervous before, but when I got here I felt fine," Lisa said.\n"They do a great job of making you feel comfortable," Melissa added.\nEach of them, however, expect different reactions from their families should they be selected. Lisa said her mother has always been behind her modeling career, but Melissa doesn't expect her parents to be as enthusiastic.\n"I'll only tell my mom if something comes out of it," she said. "I don't even want to think about what my dad will say though."\nWhen asked exactly what kind of women Playboy is looking for at IU, producer and makeup artist Cynthia Kaye replies "cute girls like (Lisa and Melissa)."\n"There's not one specific look," said Playboy Publicity Manager Theresa Hennessey. "Blondes, brunettes, redheads. We're just looking for girls that are college students. That could be the girl next door."\nThere is no age limit either. At another school, Playboy photographed one woman in her 30s for the spread, Hennessey said.\nThough IU has tried to shed its "party school" image since first being named the No. 1 Party School by The Princeton Review in 2002, Hennessey points out the list is not meant to be taken seriously.\n"Just because we include these 10 schools doesn't mean they aren't good universities," she said. "It's more of a fun list."\nHennessey said the universities on the list, which also include Ohio University at Athens and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, were selected for their social scenes as well as what campus representatives said about the schools.\n"IU is a great college town with not much else to do but socialize and party, so we do it extremely well," said former Playboy representative and IU alumnus Brent Coyle. "It also is home to some of the most beautiful college undergrads in the nation, many of which I would gladly mention by name if I could, and they are definitely Playboy material."\nMore than 20 women showed up for auditions Monday, a number Playboy only expects to increase for today and Wednesday's auditions before photographing for the issue begins Wednesday night and continues through the weekend.\n"We haven't had any problems finding locations," Kaye said. "We've had a bunch of frats and bars offer their places already."\nStudents who appear in Playboy likely will not be investigated by the University, unlike recent on-campus adult celebrities such as Teen Keira in 2004 or students who appeared in "Shane's World Volume 32" in 2002.\n"When students have posed for Playboy, the University does not condone the activity, but it is also outside the University to control it," said Dean of Students Richard McKaig in an April 13, 2004 article about Teen Keira.\nAt least one woman from IU will be included in the issue, but previous spreads have included as many as 14 from one college.\nAny woman 18 or older currently enrolled at IU interested in an audition can call Playboy's hotline at (312) 401-7341.
(09/02/05 4:47am)
Whether you're new to IU-Bloomington or a fifth-year senior, by now you've probably run into a curious species of creature scientists have dubbed the "Region Rat."\nThis species hails from an area in the northwest corner of the state that, while technically part of Indiana, regularly cheers for the Bulls and Bears rather than the Pacers and Colts and really, really wants to be part of Illinois.\nUnfortunately for the Region, Illinois looks down on this area and wants nothing to do with it, leaving Northwest Indiana in a perpetual identity crisis.\nStill, it's important to note that much like the Middle East, not everyone from the Region shares the same customs. While those from the tri-town area of Dyer, Schererville and St. John might be very familiar with pastimes such as "screwing around in the Wal-Mart late on a Friday night," those from Crown Point might be much more familiar with, "Hey, let's go check out that haunted hospital/school/graveyard we read about on the Internet."\nLuckily, having grown up in the Region, I can shed some light on the various towns and the important differences between them, helping you all to appear much more cultured to your Region Rat friends.\nGary -- This is the "big city" in the Region you've probably heard about, renowned for its ridiculously high murder rate in the 1970s. Michael Jackson and his family come from Gary, but since the time of the Jackson Five, the city has gained an entirely new taste in music. Now it's much easier to think of it as Compton, Calif., just without any talented rappers like Dr. Dre coming out of it.\nSchererville and St. John -- The area I'm from is pretty typical suburbia. These two towns make up two-thirds of the tri-city area, though Schererville is slightly better because it has a Wal-Mart.\nDyer -- The last part of the tri-cities, but no one actually lives there. Dyer is just streets and streets of smoke shops where overtaxed Illinoisans come across the border to shop.\nMerrillville -- Slowly being sucked into the black hole that is Gary.\nHighland and Munster -- These are the crown jewels of the region. The best schools, houses and shops are located here. Instead of a Wal-Mart, they have a Target. Lucky.\nCrown Point -- You know how when most people get really old they move to Florida? Well, if you're from the Region, once you hit 65 you move here. To the rest of the Region, John Dillinger escaping from the town courthouse is history. Most of the population of Crown Point lived through it and still complains about it like a current event.\nNow there are other towns in the Region too, like Hammond, which is renowned for its abysmal mill air, and Lowell, which has the best and biggest porn store in the Region, but those listed above are the real core of the Region. You should now have a pretty good idea of the psychosis of your Region Rat friends. \nBut it's not our fault. We just want to be part of Illinois.
(08/29/05 5:06am)
It wasn't quite wandering the desert for 40 years, but wandering around FaithFest in Dunn Meadow Sunday afternoon might have felt just as hot.\nSeveral hundred students turned out throughout the day for the annual informational festival of mostly Christian faiths sponsored by the campus religious leaders group.\n"People who come here have some interest in coming," said Ken Larson, director of the Christian group The Navigators, who helped organize the event. "We're not here to twist arms. We're not looking for membership so much as friendship."\nFaithFest debuted about 10 years ago as a means to give new students information about the Bloomington branches of their religion in addition to several new options. \n"Freshmen come down here after going to their home church for so many years and usually have an idea of what they want to join, but they're always welcome at another church as well," said Wes Burton, a FaithFest volunteer for the Reformed Presbyterian Church.\nLarson echoed that sentiment.\n"When people come down to IU, they have some desire to connect with people of their faith," he said. "This way we can get many groups together in a fun environment."\nFaithFest is also a great opportunity to learn more about the history of Bloomington and how its churches fit into it.\n"The Reformed Presbyterian Church is actually one of the oldest in Bloomington," Burton said. "It was also involved in the Underground Railroad."\nFreshman Nick Branch was one such student who came to FaithFest with a church already in mind.\n"I'm definitely looking for a Baptist church," he said. "I've been to Methodist and Lutheran churches, but the Baptist churches are loud. They have all this singing. They're full of energy."\nHe also found it pretty convenient to have all the different Christian faiths in one place.\n"I didn't feel like getting up this morning to try and find where the Baptist church was," he said. "But this is much easier. I'll definitely be there next week"
(03/25/05 4:18am)
With its one-way streets, bustling public transportation system and thousands of out-of-town motorists, driving around Bloomington can be a chore for even the most experienced drivers, and the site of damaged vehicles pulled off to the side of the road is a common one.\nUnlike some cities and towns that have certain streets or intersections known for a high number of accidents, Bloomington traffic can be treacherous anywhere.\n"They happen all over," said Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Bill Parker. "Mostly fender benders, but every so often one is severe or even fatal."\nJunior Lauren Mailloux was the passenger in one such severe accident in November and is still dealing with the consequences.\nWhile crossing the intersection of Liberty Drive and 45, the vehicle she was in was sideswiped.\n"The medical bills are outrageous," Mailoux said. "I know I am still receiving mine. My friend suffered from a separated shoulder. I had a dislocated rib cage. We are both still seeing doctors because neither one of us is completely at 100 percent."\nStill, there are several precautions Parker recommends to avoid such accidents.\n"Watch other traffic," he said. "Look ahead to see if someone is doing something out of the ordinary."\nParker also advises those in an accident to call the police even if there is not much damage to the vehicles to avoid problems with insurance companies in the future.\nFor accidents where damage appears in excess of $700, contacting the police is required by law.\nBack on campus, traffic accidents are somewhat more predictable.\nIn 2004 there were more 700 car accidents reported to the IU Police Department on the campus alone according to IUPD reports.\nOf those, more than half occurred on or around Jordan Avenue and its various intersections.\nMore than 100 occurred on 10th Street, either west or east of Jordan. That figure may seem high, but IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger emphasized that most of those accidents involved little damage and no or minor injuries because of the slow speed of traffic.\nHe also offered a rather simple explanation as to why most of the accidents occur around Jordan.\n"That's just where the traffic goes," he said. "More traffic means more accidents."\nMinger also said that most accidents are due to simple driver \nnegligence.\n"The number one indicator is often driver inattention," Minger said. "People might be on their cell phones and just not notice a traffic light."\n -- Contact Staff Writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(01/27/05 5:06am)
In the Buddhist tradition, your karma determines your fate after death, but at IU it can get you a free iPod.\nAn iPod was just one of many raffle prizes students could win Wednesday at Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union as part of the University's "Digital Karma" event to educate students about legal downloading alternatives.\n"When students arrive they get a quiz (about downloading), and when they pass it, they get good karma to use for the raffles," said Deputy Information Technology Policy Officer Merri Beth Lavagnino. "Some students are misled with software that claims to be 100 percent legal. The software can be legal, but the music and movies on it aren't."\nConsequences for illegal downloading have started to affect students already. Last March, lawsuits were filed against several unnamed IU students for illegal file sharing.\nMore than 1,000 students attended the event where their queries about technology were answered by the IU Copyright Office as well as representatives from iTunes, the Motion Picture Association and MSN Music among others.\n"We're supporting IU in its efforts to stop illegal movie downloads," said Anne Caliguiri, Worldwide Communications Coordinator for the MPA. "We encourage technology. We understand it's a good thing. We want people to get movies the way they want."\nOne avenue many universities have taken to curb illegal downloading is to team up with a legal provider of movies and music and charge students a small fee to use them.\n"We would consider it if students were interested, but there's just not a whole lot of student interest," Lavagnino said.\nOne such service in attendance at Digital Karma was Ruckus Networks, a legal downloading service that only works with colleges.\n"We take music, movies and TV and localize them to highlight what students want," said David Kochba, with campus relationships for Ruckus. "We update the site four times a day and work with campus media to give it an IU feel."\nKochba said the service, which offers more than 2,600 videos and 700,000 music tracks has spoken to the University in the past few weeks about the possibility of bringing Ruckus to campus.\nHowever, some students weren't quite sold by the much safer and legal alternatives to downloading presented at Digital Karma.\nJunior Andrea Hill said she stopped downloading music a couple years ago when the music industry began filing lawsuits against individual users, but she isn't quite ready to go completely legit.\n"I think it's a great concept, and I don't do it illegally anymore because I'm too scared of getting sued," Hill said, "But I don't want to pay for it either."\nHill did say she liked the idea of the University providing a downloading service.\nOthers were even more pessimistic about the idea of purchasing their favorite tunes online.\n"I like the technology, but I don't know if I'm going to buy music yet," said senior Daniel Gerstenhaber. "As long as you're ahead of other people you can get away with it."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Chris \nFreiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(01/20/05 5:33am)
While many students are just barely scraping by trying to pay for college by working in the food courts, senior Brent Coyle is getting paid to play video games.\nWhile it may be a little bit more complicated than that, trying out some of the latest video games is a big part of the job description for Coyle, the EA Sports campus representative.\nEA, the largest video game publisher in the world, is responsible for games such as Madden football, Need for Speed and The Sims, which together earn the company nearly $3 billion a year according to gaming site www.gamespot.com.\nCoyle, who has held the job for about four years, has been awarded three out of a possible seven awards by the company in a single year. Before that, no one had ever received more than one.\nHe has also used his success at IU to parlay two consecutive summer internships at the company's headquarters in Redwood City, California. \nBut with graduation approaching in May, Coyle is now looking to pass the torch.\nHe just wants his replacement to know that the job isn't all fun and games. Coyle's job is so time-consuming that he had to stay at IU for a fifth year.\n"The hardest part is dealing (with) handling school and a very demanding work load from EA," Coyle said. "However, the job itself becomes easy as long as you are organized, determined and enjoy what you do -- the rewards that come from that. If you begin to slip, I have seen reps at other schools fired just as quickly as they were hired. They either are unprepared for the change of pace and workload or aren't mature enough to handle responsibility."\nCoyle's longtime friend, senior Phil Nowak echoed that sentiment.\n"It's going to be really hard to fill Brent's shoes," he said. "(Brent) is very unique. I've never met anyone that's as responsible and reliable. He constantly has to make reports and he's constantly on the phone with EA execs. He's sacrificed the last four years of school for his career. I'm not sure he can find anyone to do that."\nAs campus rep, Coyle is responsible for posting fliers around campus advertising upcoming events, putting on said events to promote the newest EA games and letting the company know just how successful he was.\nCoyle's stipulations for a replacement are that he or she must be graduating in spring 2007 or later, and knowledge of the gaming world is a huge plus.\nCurrently he is e-mailing people who have attended previous EA events to gauge interest, but the position is open to anyone who meets those requirements.\n"The person I choose to replace me will take full charge of the program at the end of the semester, but if all goes well I will have a decision made in late March or early April," Coyle said.\nWhen Coyle was hired by the previous campus rep at the end of his freshman year he was given little advice on how to do the job -- something he plans to remedy with his replacement.\n"The best advice to them is to take the job very seriously," Coyle said. "The opportunities that are available far surpass the perks of the job ... I do not plan on pushing them into the deep end before they are ready."\nCoyle hopes to continue working in the video game industry after graduation.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(12/08/04 6:08am)
Bloomington Faculty Council President David Daleke began the last BFC meeting of the semester by announcing the 23 members of the IU-Bloomington chancellor search and screen committee Tuesday afternoon.\nThe committee has been charged with a nationwide search for the position, which was vacated by Sharon Brehm last fall. Ken Gros Louis is currently serving as interim chancellor.\n"The president is hoping to fill the position by July 1," Gros Louis said. "But when a committee starts in the middle of the year like this, sometimes the strongest candidates can be finalists somewhere else."\nSchool of Journalism Dean Trevor Brown has been chosen to chair the committee but said he won't know much more about his duties until he meets with IU President Adam Herbert Friday.\n"This is a committee in whom I have the highest level of confidence," Herbert said in a press release. "This position is the single most critical one I will fill. It has enormous consequences for the future of Indiana University." \nGros Louis has agreed to remain in the position until a successor has been chosen.\nAlso at the meeting, the BFC approved an item 30-13 to give priority registration to student athletes.\nIf the resolution also passes the University Faculty Council and the board of trustees, more than 600 NCAA-eligible students will be allowed to register for classes just after graduate students and just before seniors for the next three years.\n"What about students who work and student leaders?" asked IU Student Association President senior Tyson Chastain. "Students feel that with the problems with rainchecks, why are we making compromises? The two issues need to be addressed separately."\nThe only other Big Ten school that does not give priority registration to student athletes is Purdue, which uses a more stringent registration system based on demand for classes.\nMath Professor William Wheeler, chair of the educational policies committee, which presented the plan, said allowing student athletes to register early is different than allowing other students to register early because the University is responsible for the time constraints of athletes.\n"We can accommodate smaller groups, just not larger groups (with Peoplesoft)," Wheeler said. "Lots of groups feel like they have reasons to deserve priority. I've had freshman students in my classes taking 15 credit hours and working 40 hours a week at Old Navy to pay for college. My heart goes out to them, but we can't do anything about it besides increase financial aid."\nFinally, the BFC again read over the new policy on background checks for academic employees, which will go before the UFC next month.\nThe slightly revised policy calls for basic background checks for most academic employees and more in-depth criminal background checks for those people deemed to work with "vulnerable populations," such as children, as defined by state law.\n"There's really no reason we can see to do background checks for the academic positions," said School of Public and Environmental Affairs Professor Theodore Miller. "State law requires background checks of state employees. What we're proposing is a fairly standard background check of education, etc. -- the stuff we usually do."\nThe BFC will next meet Jan. 19. The UFC will meet Jan. 25.\n-- Contact campus editor Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(11/10/04 5:32am)
By day, 20-year-old Ryan Dyer is technically a sophomore at IU, though he's currently taking some time off to play online poker professionally. By night, he's "Dozer Makaveli, Expert Zombie Slayer and Unofficial Protector of America's Collective Yumhole."\nDyer, a native of Washington, Ind., is the Webmaster and main creative force behind www.duckmustard.com, a humor Web site in the same vein as www.ebaumsworld.com or the site of Internet humorist Maddox.\nThe inspiration for www.duckmustard.com came from Dyer's work on a blog for student-run www.thehoosierweb.com.\n"Everyone kept telling me I should write a book, so I decided to be lazy and just make a crappy Web site instead," he said.\nIn its first month online, the site has seen moderate success, receiving about 100 hits a day and generating enough revenue to maintain it for the next year or so.\n"We have loyal readers. Those loyal readers just happen to be hermits like I am, thus they have no friends to share the site with," Dyer said. "Also, our readers don't really contact us. I believe this is because of the extremely awkward nature of our content. What exactly does one say after experiencing the insanity that is duckmustard.com?"\n"Awkward" and "insane" are two of the more common terms to describe the site, mostly composed of bizarre, blog-like entries.\n"So about 10 months ago I was at Kroger at about three in the morning. I always do my shopping late at night, and since I live in a college town, all the stores stay open 24 hours a day," reads the beginning of one of the site's articles. "Anyways, as fate would have it, Satan was vacationing. Seems he has pretty much seen the entire world, and now he is hitting all the really lame spots he hasn't seen. I caught him in the middle of his Midwest vacation, as he was on his way to Odon, Indiana to go possum-beating with the locals."\nSophomore Danai Bastin, a fan of the site, believes the articles are much deeper than just the surface laugh-out-loud humor.\n"Even in the strangest stories that he writes, there's always some kind of message that seems to be there, usually political," Bastin said. "The key is to open yourself up to that different kind of humor and realize what's really being said."\nWith such surreal imagery and experiences, it's difficult to understand exactly where Dyer gets his ideas, even he doesn't know where they come from.\n"Really weird things just pop into my head out of nowhere," he said. "For instance, the other day I went into the bathroom (completely sober), and as soon as I opened the door, I saw Roseanne on the floor by the toilet. She was wearing sweatpants and a Tweety Bird sweatshirt. She had a giant ladle, like people use to dip soup with. Anyways, she was using the ladle to eat cereal out of my toilet bowl. Yes, she drained the toilet bowl and filled it with cereal because she couldn't find a big enough cereal bowl in my kitchen. I knew it wasn't real, but the image was so vivid I nearly wet myself. Sometimes I'll write stories around such experiences. In this particular situation, however, I just cried."\nDyer is currently taking time off from IU to pursue a career of online poker, where he estimates he makes about $30 to $40 an hour, and has even won several prizes of more than $1,000.\n"I am a mathematical genius and really good at figuring people out," Dyer said. "I began to realize that with enough practice, I could make a profession out of poker, which is totally awesome. Aside from being a pirate or a fighter pilot, I can't think of anything else a man would rather be."\nDyer plans to return to school eventually, though he will not major in psychology as he originally did; in fact, he doesn't even have a set career goal.\n"I guess my ultimate career goal is to never have to force myself to work. Almost everyone I know whines about their job. At the moment, I don't really work unless I feel like it. I think that is the way life should be. Most people spend 40 hours a week at a job they hate so they can get money to buy things they simply don't need. I don't have those kinds of goals. I want to be happy, that is it. Oh, and I want there to be a 'Ghostbusters 3.'"\n-- Contact campus editor Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(11/10/04 4:29am)
In a scene reminiscent of the recent remake of "Dawn of the Dead," hundreds of people poured into College Mall late Monday night to satiate an incredible hunger.\nBut unlike the zombies in that movie who were after brains, these "zombies" only craved a freshly shrink-wrapped copy of the Microsoft Xbox game "HALO 2."\n"'HALO' was possibly the greatest game of all time" said junior Aaron Lush as he shivered in the cold waiting at the front of the line for the mall doors to open. "With 'HALO,' there's a whole social factor behind it. Get 15 friends together and just blow each other up. It's always a good time."\nTwo stores in the mall, EB Games and Gamestop, opened at midnight Tuesday to sell the game to hundreds of eager fans. The line for Gamestop was nearly 300 people long. The EB line, nearly twice that. At 2 a.m. there were still people waiting to purchase the new game.\nAround 7,000 stores nationwide participated in the event.\nLocal Gamestop manager Aron Deppert said more than 500 people had reserved 'HALO 2' at the store, some since 2001, when the original game was announced. Last week, Microsoft announced that more than 1.5 million pre-orders had been sold for the game.\n"I have no idea why it's so popular," Deppert said. "I think people just like to hurt each other, just not in real life."\nThe original "HALO," released as an Xbox launch title in November 2001, has made such an impression on people that the first fans began waiting outside the mall at 7 p.m. for the game. Some of the predominantly male crowd even brought chairs.\n"I got a call from EB that said it might not be there if I don't take advantage of the midnight opening," said junior Ryan Murphy. "I can't imagine getting here five or six hours earlier, maybe a half hour, though."\n"HALO 2" comes in two forms. The first is the standard edition, packaged like any other Xbox game, and retails for $49.99. The second "limited edition" retails for $54.99 and comes in a metal case with a special "making of" DVD.\nBesides the standard graphic, sound and gameplay updates, the real hook of this sequel is online play -- something many gamers felt was sorely missing from the original once they experienced 16-player LAN games.\n"The game is not made for one player. It's made for Xbox Live," said Bloomington South High School junior Tyler DeLong.\nMeanwhile, Deppert still doesn't understand the widespread appeal of the game.\n"If I had a friend I wanted to shoot, I wouldn't play video games with him," he said.\n-- Contact campus editor Chris Frieberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
(10/05/04 5:56am)
With such a drastic toll taken on both the people and the layout of the land in Germany's worst natural disaster ever, new steps were taken in water management and the construction and upkeep of hydraulic structures, which is exactly what visiting professor Robert Jüpner discussed in front of a small audience at Ballantine Hall Monday.\nJüpner is a professor of hydraulic engineering at the department of water management and director of the Institute for Water Management and Ecotechnology at the Magdeburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.\nSurprisingly, Jüpner said some solutions to avoiding such future flooding problems are quite simple.\n"Flood disasters are natural events and can be expected," he said. "The reason people don't realize this is because the cycle of these floods is often more than a lifetime."\nWith increased emphasis on globalization, those in the audience were impressed with the understanding they gained of how another country copes with a problem such as flooding.\n"I didn't know much about the topic beforehand, but it was interesting to see how another country deals with disaster," sophomore Eric Smith said.\nJüpner also said that more people need to realize the risk associated with living in flood plains and that the protection offered by technical measures such as dykes is not absolute. \nHis final point of advice was for modern society to be more prepared for future catastrophes.\n"We have to expect these natural disasters in the future," Jüpner said. "There are some very serious theories that more conditions such as extreme droughts and floods (are on the way)."\nEven those in the country at the time of the flood weren't familiar with some of the information Jüpner presented.\n"I was in Germany at the time when the flooding was going on, but I had only seen some coverage on TV," sophomore Phil Johnson said. "It was a pretty interesting lecture."\nSince the Elbe flood more than two years ago, Germany, in cooperation with their neighbors in the Czech Republic, have come up with several new measures to prepare for the next major flood, such as an improved forecasting system, and better flood plain management and spatial planning.\n"What we see from history is that soon after a flood or other natural disaster we see cooperation between countries to have systems and give forecasts, but the process is going slowly," Jüpner said.\n- Contact campus editor Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu .
(09/30/04 6:14pm)
When Peter Molyneux, the head of Lionhead Studios, unveiled his latest creation, "Fable," to the gaming world nearly four years ago, he promised it would be the best role playing game ever made.\nFour years ago that may have very well been true, but now that the game has finally hit shelves, and several features that would have made the game groundbreaking have been removed, it's now merely a very good RPG.\nThe graphics in this game are very bright, varied and stylish. The world of Albion is reminiscent of a European countryside, and it really comes alive as you walk through it. Unfortunately, this breathtaking scenery also confines the player to set paths, so there's not much more to see beyond what's immediately visible.\nMusic and sound effects are also quite good, though not even the Danny Elfman-composed opening theme is particularly memorable. The music and sound effects fit the scene, and that's about it. Voiceover work is of a particularly highquality, however, and many of the one-liners in a cockney British accent made me crack up the first time I heard them.\nBut stylish graphics and a worthy soundtrack can only take a game so far if the gameplay sucks. Luckily, "Fable's" gameplay does not suck. A system that keeps track of good and evil choices similar to another Xbox RPG, "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic," is just as entertaining here. For some reason, randomly killing villagers because they boo you just doesn't get old.\nCombat, while only requiring two buttons to swing a melee weapon, is quite fun, and knowing when to block and when to use more powerful attacks and magic adds a nice bit of depth. I certainly prefer it to the turn-based borefest of most modern RPGs.\nWhile "Fable" may not be the best RPG available (sorry, that definitely goes to "Knights of the Old Republic"), it's still a damn good game and well worth $50.