A Series of Tubes

With California in financial ruin, and the health care reform bill slowly transforming into the health care status quo bill, it’s hard to not become a pessimist.  Matt Taibibi is not helping.  The link below a video because it apparently auto plays and I didn’t want that when people loaded the main page: Read more

It is important to exercise your mind. That is why I try to engage in tasks that improve my attention, memory, and executive control. To be fair I don’t actively try to quantize my activities that way, but recently found out that one of my favorite activities has this exact side effect. That activity: video games.

Researchers at Beckman Institute, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL,  found that “Expert gamers and non-gamers differed on a number of basic cognitive skills: experts could track objects moving at greater speeds, better detected changes to objects stored in visual short-term memory, switched more quickly from one task to another, and mentally rotated objects more efficiently.”  I’m probably not allowed to repost sections of the body of the article, but the abstract sums up the findings nicely.

When I go home I think I’ll have to work on improving my cognitive skills.

Last week the UC board of Regents increased student fees by 32%. At UCSC there was an initial protest on Wednesday, and an Occupation of the Kresge town hall building which moved to Kerr hall (an administrative building)  on Friday. The Occupation at Kerr hall was broken up on Sunday. The reason that there are protests is in part due to the lack of change through “proper” channels.  I’d like to take the time to highlight the authority structure of the UC system.  After this, I will solve the future 2010/11 budget crisis.  First, the about page of the Academic Senate:

The UCSC Academic Senate operates as a legislative body and as a system of committees run by and for the faculty. The University of California has a dual-track system of authority and responsibility which presumes that faculty are best qualified to chart the University’s educational course, while the administrators are most competent to direct its finances and organization. In practice, these domains overlap and are interdependent. To function successfully, faculty and administrators depend on a high level of consultation, trust, mutual respect and a tradition of collegial collaboration.

So right from the get go there is a problem.  If you want to get something done through proper and official channels, which of this dual-track authority and responsibility tree do you navigate to get to a solution.  Do you attempt to take up your cause and petition the Academic Senate, or do you go to the Administration?  Obviously the Senate is the preferred authority track for a student.  It contains professors who see the effects of budget cuts in their day to day work and are more connected to the decisions being made.  However the description above suggest that if your problem is budget related, those decisions fall mostly under “finances” and would thus be an administrative decision.  To look at how this system works in practice, and not in theory, it is helpful to look at the minutes from the Academic Senate.

From time to time, budget decisions come up in Academic senate meetings (these meetings are held in Kerr hall which is the building that was occupied).  Below is a quote from the minutes between a member of the Senate and the EVC, EVC stands for Executive Vice Chancellor and is a member of the Administrative arm of the dual track authority system:

From the February Minutes:
Professor Kevin Karplus, Biomolecular Engineering, asked why, given the budget situation, is the campus paying for a security guard in an inactive parking lot. The EVC responded that he assumed Professor Karplus is talking about the future site of the biomedical building and the former site of the tree sit and the EVC does not want the fence torn down or any more destruction at the site. Professor Karplus asked if replacing a fence would cost less than security guards. The EVC said he will take that into consideration.

This request, made in February, seems reasonable.  Why pay for a more expensive guard if repairing a fence is cheaper.  Karplus, seeing wasted funds, tells those in charge of finances to quit wasting money.  I’ve seen the guard in question (actually I’ve seen 2 guards, possibly during a change in shift). I know that there was a private security guard at the construction site last month (I’ll check again next time I go by the site).  At a minimum there have been private security guards, protecting a fenced in parking lot from February till at least last month, if not to this day.  What the EVC meant when he said he would take Kevin Karplus’ comments into consideration is that he hoped that nobody would look into it when he promptly ignored this concern.  This is a minor budget issue.  More serious budget concerns were brought up in May.  Please note that Chancellors fall under the administrative arm: Read more

This is a great video to understand the problems facing the University of California system (must have javascript enabled):

So I had written up about 90% of a post about the rumblings happening on various blogs about another potential occupation.  The main evidence for this is the posting of a new manifesto entitled “this is our emergency“.  I had to scrap a majority of my original post because the rumblings of a new occupation are no longer rumblings, they are a reality.  Recently the UC regents approved a massive student fee increase.  There were large protests blocking traffic to the University yesterday.  After a day of protests, a portion of the protesters decided to occupy the Kresge town hall.

The main entrance to campus (with this and the west entrance blocked, no traffic can enter or leave campus)

A meeting at the Kresge town hall after the initial protests

Before addressing the new manifesto and the New occupation, I would like to point out briefly some other recent events.  At UCSC there was a semi occupation of the Science Library that started on Friday the 13th.  I’m not 100% sure when it ended, but I didn’t see much if any of it still there on Monday.  I call it a semi occupation because there are apparently library staff participating and University officials retained control of the doors.  Postings regarding this action can be found here:

http://thenewuc.wordpress.com/

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/14/18628646.php

Being unsure of the specifics of the Science library occupation I cannot comment with any detail beyond what is posted by others.  I do, however, want to pour over the latest manifesto by the occupiers entitled “occupation: a do-it-yourself guide“.  This is a blueprint as well as a philosophical justification for occupying buildings Read more

I’ve been busy recently and haven’t had time to finish my follow up to the last post.  Until I finish it, please enjoy this Venn Diagram:

Today I read “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell, and felt the need to share.  The essay acts as a guide for writers to be more effective and avoid poor style, with the political consequences half inferred.  Hopefully it will help my writing, but one of the examples that Orwell uses caught my eye:  It is an excerpt from a communist pamphlet:

All the “best people” from the gentlemen’s clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

After giving the example, Orwell explains the failings of such writing in terms of the English language, and from this failing in language its failings politically.  Those of you who read my blog regularly will probably already have anticipated where this is going.  The Occupiers at UCSC publish pamphlets, manifestos, communique, blog posts and other writings.  The above example from Orwell could easily be an excerpt from something they wrote.  Because of this, Orwell’s essay should be required reading for them. You can download the essay by Orwell for free online (here) or just search around if you prefer different formatting.  Examples of some of the poor writing for it’s robotic collection of empty phrases:

http://wewanteverything.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/communique-from-an-absent-future/ (This one is particularly egregious)

http://likelostchildren.blogspot.com/2009/10/gilles-dauve-is-our-mothafuckin-homeboy.html

http://revcom.us/Manifesto/Manifesto.html

I have another post related to the last link.  I will update the site soon.  Also if you hadn’t guessed already, Orwell’s essay lays the foundation for newspeak in his later novel 1984.

I think I am required to post this:

Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a boob:  here.