Filed under: Life
Thieves. Shitheads. Greedy bastards.
Sunday morning. Parking is free. Correction: city parking is free. Fuck No Tow and fuck Robbins Parking.
75.00 must be paid on the spot. This saves you from being towed!! Fuck YOU. Greedy shits.
Filed under: Current Events
I am tired of Miss California. I am tired of reading about Miss California and gay rights.
We should embrace the fact that a Miss America contestent has an opinion that wasn’t written for her beforehand. It was a genuine response and I respect that a lot. I completely disagree with her but I am glad she didn’t give another cookie-cutter answer.
Leon Leyson, the youngest survivor from Schindler’s Factory, speaks today. I think it will be a hard evening but a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Filed under: Life
Final Exams done. Twelve courses completed. A good school year indeed.
Filed under: Life
Quoted from Concept420: Informing the World Since 1999
What does 420 mean? There are varying theories on the origin of 420. Some say that 420 originated from a police code that announces marijuana use is taking place. Yet another story is that a group of guys (Waldo’s) in the 1970’s made 4:20 their official meeting time to smoke marijuana after school. Whether or not 4:20 p.m. is the best time of day for your first hit depends on your own body, your own needs. Some folks feel that waiting until 4:20 enhances ones appreciation of the herb. Of course, your mileage may vary.
In the 21st Century, 420 is firmly established as a code amongst tokers, a time of day and even sort of a toker’s New Year’s Day. It’s in our culture now and only time will tell where it ends up.
April 20th (4/20) is another usage, meaning that it is time for to plant before the summer.
Whatever the real story is, 420 has been an important part of the marijuana culture since the 1970’s. The significance of 420 has been kept underground and is mostly known only among marijuana smokers. Many non-smokers aren’t aware of the symbolism when they see someone wearing a T-shirt or baseball cap that says 420 across the front.
When the 420 icon is somehow discreetly worked into a mainstream product like a film, marijuana users take notice. The film Pulp Fiction is rumored to have had all clocks throughout the movie set to 4:20. Marijuana smokers familiar with the symbol picked up on it—most people, however, did not.
While some marijuana smokers are using 420 as a code that enables them to openly speak about marijuana in front of parents or teachers. 420 has been to some, a sacred symbol for nearly 30 years.
Simply put, 420 is a symbol of cannabis and its culture. Today, April 20th events are international, and 4:20 pm has become sort of a world wide “burn time”.
Known 420 Myths (Ohhh just like Myth Busters!)
Police dispatch code for smoking pot is 420. The number 420 is not police radio code for anything, anywhere. Checks of criminal codes suggest that the origin is neither Californian nor federal. For instance, California Penal Code 420 defines as a misdemeanor the hindrance of use of public lands.
There are approximately 420 active chemicals in marijuana. Actually, there are approximately 315 active chemicals in marijuana. This number goes up and down depending on which plant is used.
April 20th is National Pot Smokers Day. Well, it is now 
; but that wasn’t the origin.
April 20th is Hitler’s birthday. Yes, it is his birthday. But, as 420 started out as a time, not a date, his birthday had nothing to do with it.
The date of the Columbine school shootings. This happened after the term was already in use.
4:20 is tea time for pot-smokers in Holland. Tea time in Holland is at 5:30 pm, or is it 2:30 pm? Seems no one is quite sure when the wonderful people of Holland drink their tea.
http://www.concept420.com/what-is-420.htm
If I was Hitler I’d be pissed. I do not smoke pot but I enjoy movies in which it is promoted. Yay for medical marijuana, nay for the way it fucks up students.
Filed under: Life
Lower grades among university students correlated to Facebook use: study 13/04/2009 6:35:00 PM TORONTO – The time students spend “poking” friends, posting photos and updating their status on Facebook may bear some relationship to how they’re faring academically, a new study suggests.
Lauren La Rose, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Researchers found that students who use the popular networking site spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages compared to those not on Facebook.
Study co-author Aryn Karpinski, a doctoral student and graduate teaching associate at Ohio State University, said the researchers wanted to look at demographic differences of student Facebook users and non-users and to investigate their typical profiles.
Karpinski and Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University are presenting their research Thursday in San Diego at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Foundation.
The researchers surveyed 219 students at Ohio State – 102 undergraduates and 117 graduates – in the summer and fall quarters of 2008. Of that total, 148 said they had Facebook accounts.
Facebook users were typically younger, full-time students majoring in statistics, technology, math, engineering and medicine, Karpinski said.
When it came to academic achievement, Facebook users surveyed had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, a B, compared to non-users with GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0 – an A, said Karpinski.
What’s more, researchers found those on Facebook spent one-to-five hours a week studying compared to their non-Facebook-using counterparts who devoted between 11 and 15 hours weekly to hitting the books.
When asked whether Facebook had an impact on their academic performance, 79 per cent of Facebook users said it didn’t. Students also said it was not having an impact on their grades because they weren’t using it frequently enough – even though nearly 65 per cent said they use their account daily or multiple times daily, Karpinski said.
While not drawing a direct causal link between Facebook and academic achievement, researchers found the disconnect between qualitative and quantitative findings are “cause for concern.”
“I totally agree you cannot say Facebook causes lower GPA or less time spent studying, but there is some kind of relationship there,” Karpinski said. “I hope that the more people that research this area will tease apart the intricacies of this relationship.”
Karpinski hopes students will be inclined to do a little more self-monitoring when it comes to such activity outside of the classroom.
“There are plenty (of) case examples, I’m sure, of students who may read this and say, ‘Well, I’m on Facebook all the time and I have As,”‘ she said.
“I understand there are individual differences, but on the whole, students need to also be aware of how they’re using their time. Do they have good time management skills? Do they have the ability to say, ‘I’ve been doing this activity for too long and I need to cut myself off?”‘
Karpinski said there are a host of other variables that could be influencing the relationship, such as visits to different websites, like YouTube.
Students surveyed were also asked about what other kinds of academic and non-academic websites they use, and Karpinski is hoping to analyze those responses in the future.
The study also found a link between Facebook and activities outside the classroom. Students who worked 15 hours or less a week in paid work or were more involved in extracurricular activities were more likely to be Facebook users.
“Conceivably students that are working and attending college full-time may have large social networks that may include friends at school and work,” the study said. “Therefore, using Facebook to maintain their friendships may be of great importance to students who work long hours.”
Katherine Giroux-Bougard, national chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, said the site has been a great tool in promoting activities on campus, and helps keep students engaged with issues they wouldn’t necessarily hear about elsewhere.
Yet like anything else, the use of social networking sites is a question of self-regulation for students, she said.
“I think on the one hand, like anything else, like television or any other previous social networking tools there’s students that go overboard, but I think in the meantime, students can also lose out if they aren’t part of those sites.”
Filed under: Current Events
The comments from Republican Rep Betty Brown came on Tuesday, when the state legislature heard testimony from a Chinese-American group on voting difficulties. Asian voters’ names are often spelled differently on different documents.
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese,” Mrs Brown said to a representative from the group, “do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?”
But as a New York City councilman demanded an apology, a spokesman for Mrs Brown defended her, saying she was not making a racially-motivated comment, but simply trying to resolve a problem of voter identification.
Mrs Brown said on Thursday that she had reached out to Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organisation of Chinese Americans.
“I tried to call him this morning to talk to him about it. And if I had offended him to apologise but I haven’t received a call back,” she said.
Mrs Brown told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW that she “misunderstood a little bit about what he was presenting as the problem”.
She also said “At 1 am, after we’d been through about 10 hours, I probably wasn’t speaking just as I should.”
When asked by a reporter if she was saying Chinese people should Americanise their names, she responded: “No, and I didn’t choose my words very well evidently from what the transcript, from how the transcript reads.”
The Texas Democratic Party has called on Mrs Brown to apologise.
In a letter to Mrs Brown sent Thursday, New York City Councilman John C. Liu called on her to either apologize or resign.
“It’s outrageous and insulting for you to suggest it would ‘behoove’ us to adopt another name, to give up our birthright and a part of our own identity, in order to exercise our right to vote,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5137240/Texan-lawmaker-says-Asians-should-adopt-surnames-that-are-easier-for-Americans-to-deal-with.html
Give the Texans a break. They need simplification.
