Fri 20 Nov 2009
This is an archive of Speak Up comments from the last two weeks. Going forward, I am going to separate this feature from the weekly Purple Noise open thread. I will (try to) have Purple Noise be a weekly feature on Friday but I will only archive Speak Up when there seem to be enough comments to merit doing so.
It seems that our Purple Noise conversations are sometimes still-born because they begin with dozens of old, disjointed comments from Speak Up.
Feedback is always welcome.
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31 Responses to “Spoken Up”
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PTC says:
I was in Vegas last week and got to see a couple of cirque du soleil shows… LOVE, and KA… I highly recommend a trip to Vegas to check out these performances. Both were absolutely stunning.
Cheers!
aparent says:
Wiiliams students rallying in support of Linguistics as announced on WSO:
http://wso.williams.edu/discuss/comments.php?DiscussionID=2128
kthomas says:
Opening 26NOV Mexico City. Thalion. Depending on your US locations, … ok, Vegas is cheap, but it might be cheaper. And it would certainly be… different than Sin City.
Jr. Mom says:
Was EB down today?
And, FWIW, I have been having trouble getting on for at least a week. Often, the site won’t load until my second or third attempt.
There are also some strange time lapses. I saw DK’s comment on the Lunch W/Professor post before the post was on the front page.
David says:
1) EphBlog was down for most of the day, from noon till about 8:30. Sorry!
2) EphBlog has been having trouble for the last week. Thanks for the report. This technology stuff is hard! I will let those more knowledgeable than I give a report. Perhaps we should take back all the bad things we used to say about Dreahost . . . ;-)
3) The comment lapse was that the post was up briefly. I commented. And then Will (I assume) decided to delay the post until later in the day. So, he changes the time which meant that it disappeared. But, when that happens, the comments that have been made are still considered live comments and don’t disappear from the comment widget.
Ken Thomas '93 says:
Just back from the Berlin Wall celebrations, with several notes in my email re: eB.
eB will not load from Firefox from my flat in Berlin but will load here via Google’s Chrome. eB will load in FF from a remote server in New Jersey. Ronit is having a life somewhere and not responding to chat.
Looking at the logs, eB had a major incident today from approx. 1-2 EST. Otherwise, it seems to have not been working for certain people, but working for others.
As Ronit has pointed out, in some cases eB will serve cached (old) pages but not new ones that need to be generated from the database.
Our friendly friends at HostMySite (Hosting.com) rebooted the server sometime today. I also did this when I got back about … forty minutes ago.
The infrastructure team continues to wrangle with the beast. I, however, need to decompress from a long day and prepare for another.
Sorry for the delay in responding. Ms. Royal is cuter than David, though her German…
Jr. Mom says:
Thanks Dave.
Just double-checking because I didn’t see any mention of it and wondered.
And sorry for the troubles for Tech. Wish I could help.
Ken,
We cross-posted. Thanks for your update as well.
Can we get a post (or comment) from you about Berlin?! I was listening to NPR and someone said something to the effect that even though it was pouring rain, spirits were not dampened.
Dick Swart says:
‘Men who stare at Goats’ – go see!
Eph says:
@Will Slack ‘11 -
I know stickying and promptly thereafter locking your post makes you feel self-important, but perhaps neither the sticky nor the lock are justifiable. There are wonderful, powerful posts about the state of veterans — on Veteran’s Day no less! — at the College and veterans in general that you are covering up. If the story is really of the UTMOST importance, then I’m sure there will be follow-up posts down the line. Until then, why not let the discussion continue? I, for one, am anxiously awaiting a reply to adian’s query!
Ben Fleming says:
Agreed on both counts.
Ronit says:
@Eph: I have no problem with the sticky, but find the decision to lock comments, without explanation, incomprehensible. Still, he can do what he likes. If anyone else wants to do a follow-up post on the Moore story, they’re free to do so.
wslack says:
http://www.advocateweekly.com/ci_13763793
I locked the comments at the request of another student, and might do so again. If someone else wants to create a follow-up post for comments, that’s their choice, but I’m fine with that choice.
The sticky, not so much. Blame it on the excitement, and the fact that lots of students were going to Ephblog without knowing anything about post location. I wanted them to see the press release immediately, but that was presumptive. I will not do so again.
Eph says:
Wait, what right does a student have to request that a post not about him be blocked? If I don’t like one of Dick’s photoshop images, can I request that comments be locked on it?
David says:
EphBlog authors have the right to do (almost) anything with the posts that they author. If I write a post, I can then a) delete it, b) edit it, c) block comments, or d) sticky it (keep it at the top of the blog). So, if you don’t like a photoshop, you can ask Dick to block comments. He is free to do so.
The tricky cases arise when people want to do something to a post (delete it, enable comments, whatever) that the author disagrees with. We have a process for handling these disputes. See the FAQ. Fortunately, over 6 years, we have managed to handle almost everything via consensus.
aparent says:
It’s a bit disheartening to see, on WSO, a poster who’s obviously in the minority as an avowed conservative being shot down so quickly by several who aren’t — is the expectation of civility and tolerance on college campuses essentially a one-sided proposition?
http://wso.williams.edu/discuss/comments.php?DiscussionID=2140
rory says:
aparent–it looks like Mr. Liu is a gadfly of wso…consider him a potential dkane of wso and the shooting down becomes more about him and less about his conservatism.
aparent says:
rory: hmmm … a couple students, though, actually discussed the issue he raised — I guess the same thing happens on EB as well.
PTC: Although this item from today’s Williams Daily Messages is addressed to Faculty and Staff, they might appreciate your input into the project (I recall that you’ve mentioned the B&L in the past):
“Researching the B&L Service Station
Three Williams students from Professor Brown’s Junior History Seminar are researching the B&L service station that existed on Spring Street until 2002, and its owner Art Lafave, as a part of an extensive documentary history project. Any stories or information about Art or the station would be greatly appreciated. Please contact Alison Pincus at asp1@williams.edu.”
PTC says:
aparent- Art had an extended family in town that was around me quite a lot while I was growing up. I knew some of his family fairly well.
I did not know Art well. My brother knew Art some and others who knew him well… Art was a very solid working class guy, who wore coveralls and worked the place he owned pretty much non stop pumping gas and working on cars.
The station was the most visible to me during the 70s/80s when Spring street was two way and all the boomers were cruising in muscle cars and hanging around on the street. Believe it or not, on any given night, you could find 20 or more locals from early and even pre teen age to mid twenties hanging around Spring St partying all night long… Once upon a time when local youth thrived in the Berkshires, and the country in general was less restrictive about such behavior.
Not sure what kind of stories the students are looking for? I bet there are pictures from those days floating around though… most of the people who were family and friends with Art left town to find work a long time ago.
PTC says:
Aparent- If they start by going into the American legion any day at about 4-6 pm, they will find quite a few (5 or many more) locals who knew that place well. Also, they would be able to talk to people from a vantage that is right across the street… which could make for interesting perspective… they could actually walk outside and talk about it with people who knew it well… while looking at the location.
PTC says:
There are also some Williams profs who will remember it… as well as a lot of the workers. If the students were to stop by Buildings & Grounds and ask around they would get a lot of leads for their project. No doubt about it.
Aidan says:
what happened to the Admissions Website post? its like Stalinist Russia around here – stuff’s just falling down the memory hole.
Ronit says:
@Aidan: the post was removed at the request of Admissions Office [and students involved with the project, with permission of the author, David. --added by 93kwt as Ed.].
kthomas says:
@Aidan: Perhaps we deleted it because the site was a public nuisance likely to crash your browser? I think you may have to ask Ronit…
aparent says:
Were I a Williams prospie, I’d likely be discouraged by the unwieldy website offered up by the Admission Office — perhaps Admission can consult with the Record staff about the successful overhaul of that site. Rather disappointing overall — lacking / misguided in function and design. (My Eph was favorably impressed several years ago by the MIT site for prospectives, at a time when Williams Admission, of course, had nothing similar / but chose to attend Wiillams for various reasons nevertheless.)
Vicarious '83 says:
I’m not sure where the best place is for this comment to go so I’ll put it here.
Readers will recall David’s post of 11/6/09 about the recent theft of a laptop computer containing social security numbers.
From David’s post on 11/11/09 we have the actual public document that describe how Moore stole the identity, and obtained the official college transcripts of someone referred to as “KM.” “KM” was “a former associate” of Moore’s. This was a real person, who graduated from the Univ. of Puget Sound with a BS in mathematics. Using KM’s name and social, Moore got an $8,000 student loan in the mid 1980s. That loan still has not been paid back.
In the Plea Agreement, to which David also provided the link, we see that on 9/30/09, Moore agreed to:
We now know, thanks to David, that there was an individual on campus at the time of the laptop theft who was skilled in the art of identiy theft, and that this person had just agreed to do whatever is asked of him to help restore a previous victim’s credit rating.
If the KM of the Statement of Fact, is in fact Kamau Mposi, then this guy has spent the last 20+ years of his life with a very messed up credit report.
To those of you who have received notice that yours was among the stolen social security numbers, I would, as someone who has worked a number of years in the business of consumer credit, urge you to take the letter excerpted in David’s post very seriously, and consider taking real steps to safeguard your identity and credit rating.
To the college administration, I urge you to put significant energy and resources to a thorough investigation of the theft of this laptop and any other possible breaches of security that may have occurred now that it is known that a person with the skills to use this information was on campus occupying a position of significant trust. I would also urge you to vigorously pursue filling and prosecuting any criminal charges tht might pertain to Mr. Moore’s specific dealings with Williams College.
Lastly, I urge the editorial staff at The Record to put links to these two public documents in its reports – also a suggestion that David Kane has already made to you directly.
kthomas says:
@aparent: As I now understand that this is a student effort, I am likely to rephrase my criticism. And perhaps the topic has been sufficiently covered before. But Williams’ current web offerings are simply shameful, and reveal some serious internal deficiencies.
JeffZ says:
I continue to believe that Williams’ web presence needs a serious upgrade. I actually believe, however, that the admissions site is quite good — easy to navigate, conveniently organized, a large volume of useful and readily-accessible information, plus the good virtual tour (which should actually be expanded a bit, but so far, so good). I think a few student blogs added to the site would be great, but I wouldn’t change it otherwise. There are plenty of other aspects of Williams’ web presence that are FAR more problematic in my view.
aparent says:
JeffZ: I should have been more specific — a specific portion of the Admission website, publicly linked to on sites such as College Confidential and promoted in communications to applicants by the Admission Office, is the part that’s unwieldy and lacking in function and design (in my opinion).
http://www. [censored] .com/WilliamsAdmissions/ [Temporarily obscured --93kwt as Mod.]
It may be the case that prospective Williams applicants don’t share that opinion, and have lower expectations of the form that such a site (“GraffitiWall”) should take.
kthomas says:
^^ Admissions/creators of this site have asked us not to publish that URL (quite yet). Anyone on the board want to pipe in?
aparent says:
Ken: I didn’t know about the Admission Office request — do you know if they’re planning to ask the admins at College Confidential to delete the prospie’s post about it (in further discussion of which the link is posted) or “recall” / cancel all their communications to prospies that promote it?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/williams-college/812418-exclusive-admissions-website.html
kthomas says:
@aparent: Hi. I’ve obscured your direct link (for now).
To speak around your question– I don’t want to be critical at-this-point of a student-initiated project that is trying to get something done, that hasn’t been done before.