For anyone having flashbacks during last week’s Oregon State game to UCLA, 2005, the similarities were strictly coincidental. Jim Harbaugh is NOT Walt Harris, and anyone suggesting this ought to be shipped to the nearest sanatorium.

That said, the game wasn’t exactly encouraging, either? The defense, in particular, worried me. The run defense was great; the pass defense not so much. Yes, I realize there were three turnovers, but the Oregon State passing offense moved the ball too well and too quickly on us. The problem was, I suspect, the secondary. When the secondary tried to play the Beaver wideouts close, they went long and over the top. Results: an easy touchdown and a should-have-been touchdown. When the secondary laid off—and this was most of the game—it was nothing but quick hitters, three step drops to the wideouts. This meant that the front seven couldn’t generate a lot of pressure, and the Oregon State offense nicked us, nearly to death.

Thank god for Bo McNally’s pick six, Toby Gerhardt and Catchings’ (ironic name in this instance) fumble into the endzone. But Arizona State’s probably a better team, so we simply cannot have the same flaws as last week in order to win. Carpenter’s a better QB than Moevao—he certainly won’t throw that boneheaded interception to McNally where McNally read his eyes for the entire play. On the other hand, Arizona State’s line is weak and their running game not particularly strong. I suspect a loss for Stanford, but Stanford will cover the spread. Then again--and this is a salient fact for anyone to remember--I don't actually know anything about football, I just want to finally see Stanford join the ranks of the mediocre and go to a bowl, dang it!

At this point, no one can know the full effects of Sarah Palin. Initial reception was shocked and more than a bit contemptuous; the reception to her speech was as rapturous as the earlier reaction dumbfounded. But, in the end, my guess is that the 2008 election will be the 2004 election run again—for considerably better results this time around.

Continue reading "The Rest of the Election" »

As Sophomore College draws to a close, and first-years and the rest of us come back to campus, many of us will return and ask each other befuzzledly, I'm hungry -- Where should we eat?!

And while some of you may have taken Food and Politics with Rob, Erin Gaines, and co., some others of you might have passed by Slow Food Nation this last weekend in SF.

I myself took part in Slow Food Nation as a youth delegate, attending an Eat-In for young leaders in the good, clean, fair food movement, held this last weekend in Dolores Park.

But let's skip the trans-fatty introductions for a moment, get the skinny (my skinny) on it, on this question of where (not!) to eat on Campus. This is clearly a biased guide, but then again, that's what blogs and baedekers are for--to help you find your own way.

What follows is a first draft of a Guide to Sustainable Deliciousness at Stanford. It is both incomplete and not unbiased. But it is a start. With that, let's eat!

Where to Eat

The following establishments receive an A-class rating/grade in terms of sustainable deliciousness.

A+ -- Cool Café at the Cantor Arts Center (hours here) gets one of our highest ratings. As its website reports, this "chic café overlooks the Rodin Sculpture Garden" and offers a "menu of gourment sandwiches, soups, and salads [that] changes seasonally".

Jesse Ziff Cool's CoolEatz restaurants make a point of offering regionally and sustainably produced foods. For example, Cool Café often offers pasture-raised chickens, grass-fed beef, and an array of seasonally based salads, fruits, and wines.

Dishes are served on re-usable plates & dishes, with pitchers of water and real silverware nearby. (For a map, see Cool Cafe on Yelp!.)

A+ -- Columbae and Synergy House, vegetarian co-ops. Our next two establishments to receive an A+ in sustainable deliciousness are Columbae and Synergy House. Founded in the 1970s, these co-operatively run Houses offer strictly vegetarian fare to their undergrad & grad residents, and "eating associates" that pay a certain board bill every quarter.

Like Cool Café, these co-ops try to source local, sustainable, and ethical food products whenever possible. For example, dairy goods may come from Clover-Stornetta, the first dairy in the States to be American Humane Certified, flour may come from Giusto's--the brand favored by artisan bread bakers--and produce may come from co-located gardens tended by hand.

Also like Cool Café, these co-ops offer easy access to composting bins, and err on the side of container and silverware re-use. (You can find these Houses on the Campus Map. If you'd like to try the food some time at these co-ops, talk to a friend that lives there or a student manager for more details.)

A -- Nexus / Bytes. Nexus and Bytes, two cafes located near the Engineering campus, offer tasty dishes, re-usable plates & silverware, and fast service. Unlike Cool Cafe or co-ops on campus, these establishments may or may not serve organic, sustainable, or fairly-traded goods. More research is needed to understand the provenance of their meats, dairy, and vegetables.

---

The following establishments receive a B:

B+ -- Treehouse. A Stanford student favorite, although the Treehouse hands out an excess of plastic and cardboard containers every day, food quality is generally high, with reportedly hand-made focaccia breads (para tortas) and "fresh" chicken, whatever that means. (At Tresidder.)

B- -- Thai Cafe. Another hit-and-run establishment favored by students who need to grab a quick meal between classes. Props for the price and speed, but synthetic food service containers abound. No claims made on where the Chicken Sautee comes from, and it seems unlikely that the Shrimp offered are raised in a highly sustainable way.

---

Where not to Eat

The following establishments receive a C-class grade, or lower, in terms of sustainable deliciousness.

C+ -- the (old) CoHo. Please don't eat here. Say No to the CoHo('s food), or, if you feel the need to support their business, bring your need-to-gain-weight friends or you buddies who were unblessed with a lack of tastebuds (non-tasters as they say on Wikipedia) and have them eat here.

I posted a review on the CoHo re-opening earlier this year, but have to downgrade my rating based on further experience at this Corporate Bread-serving institution, where I was served sandwiches and Vienoisserie that looked decent but tasted... far from decent.

The CoHo does sometimes serve food on an actual plate, but the questionable ingredients, taste, and food sourcing bring the sustainable deliciousness rating down to our lowest score of the bunch, a C+.

(05-SEP-08) Update: I have retracted the previous paragraphs as per in-depth interviews I had today with multiple staff members, bakers, and managers at the new CoHo. While the old CoHo still has some length to go towards sustainable deliciousness, it's clearer from my discussions today that they are headed in a great direction. Thus, I will abstain from re-grading the new CoHo until these new measure are applied (hopefully soon after the school year begins), and describe these improvements in another post.

Continue reading "Where (not!) to eat on Campus: A Guide to Sustainable Deliciousness at Stanford" »

This summer I read a book that shocked me. It made me realize that I, an intelligent female, had put myself in situations where I could have been date-raped. And before I read the book, I never even realized how close I could have been. Now perhaps I'm slightly naive- but honestly, until it happens to you or your friend, who isn't?
I was lucky- I wasn’t one of the unfortunate women who said no and were ignored. But I want to share with everyone “The mindset of justification” that can lead some men into date-rape. Without remorse. Without regret. Without recognizing that they did anything wrong.

The following are sections of the book I read- How Dangerous Men Think. This is from the date rape chapter. (Note- the book was written in Australia, so some of the words are a bit foreign- like lift instead of elevator)

“I remember interviewing a young guy under arrest for the rape of a young woman he had met at a nightclub earlier in the evening. To my surprise he was quite happy to talk about the events of the evening, even to the point of admitting that he had had intercourse with the young woman in question when it was quite clear that she didn't want him to. In an attempt to defend his actions he told me he had been invited back to the woman's place, that he had been buying her drinks during the night and had even paid for the taxi. He added that they had already had sex once that evening and that about an hour later he wanted to do it again, but she wasn't so keen. He told me she "wasn't so keen" because she was yelling and screaming at him to stop and trying to push him off. I asked him what he did at this stage, to which he replied, that he held her down and had sex with her. When I asked if he could see the problem with that he said "mate, I’d been buying her drinks all night; I paid for the bloody taxi; we'd already done it once. Yeah she was saying "no", come on mate, they all say "no" what's the problem?” The “problem” was he had just admitted to committing sexual assault. The "problem" was he ended up going to prison for it. The "problem" was that he didn't think he had done anything wrong"

Continue reading "Buy Your Own Drinks: A Warning of the Mindset of Justification" »

adapted from ICanHasCheezBurger

My good friend Anuraag had some excellent observations about Google Chrome which he shared with me via gChat while I was in jury duty today (don't get me started). Since I have gotten home and found time to play with Chrome, I wanted to share with you our (combined) opinions on the new browser.

The bottom line: it's worth your time. Here is some of what I took away from our conversation after revisiting my chat history in GMail, in no particular order.

1) Pro: Chrome is light (memory), fast (speed) and clean (UI).

It is in this way the quintessential Google product (like GMail when it first launched way back in 2004). It was well-engineered, with efficiency and simplicity in mind. Just start it up and you'll see what I mean.

2) Con: there is very little customization (so far).

With the above-mentioned simplicity comes with what is for an end-user, a lack of sophistication. (Chrome under the hood, might I add, appears to be anything but "simple" as it has a brand-new JavaScript engine and a novel memory allocation system which allows each tab to be treated as an individual process-- and let's you see them in a Chrome task manager). This is only the beta release so I expect much more from future releases. In fact, this is hardly a "con," since even where there is room to improve, we see the seeds for growth-- such as tight Google Gears integration. However, so far as customization goes, the bigger problem is the lack of Firefox-y about:config fun or toolbar personalization. Again, I'm confident that will change in the future but at this point ("launch early and iterate"), that's a disappointment.

3) Pro: Omnibox, "Speed Dial," download manager are good.

The Omnibox behaves similarly to Firefox 3's "Awesome Bar," looking through your browsing history and bookmarks to suggest as you type; Chrome also does Google search through this bar. The default start page, which looks something like Opera's Speed Dial (which you can mimic in the 'Fox with this add-on) is intelligent, useful and good-looking. The download manager by default is large enough to read descriptions easily on one line.

4) Con: Ugly icon.

Anuraag thought the icon was ugly. I agree. I don't get what exactly it is...a compass...a robot eye...a stylized Noogler hat with propeller...?

5) Pro (and this is a biggie for me): Chrome is respectful.

Much has been wondered about Google's distribution for Chrome. Sure, Google doesn't need to do much to get the blogosphere in a tizzy about its release of any product (let alone a web browser) but some have suggested that Google may use the Google homepage to promote Chrome, or package it with updates to Google Toolbar or some such thing a la Safari and iTunes. I hope not. And the way Google has acted so far with regards to the product has been respectful. When asked to import preferences from other browsers or whether to add desktop shortcuts, Chrome was respectful and made it easy for me to deselect any or all of it. It didn't step on anyone's toes to make itself the default browser on my machine, it delicately-- even graciously-- asked me at each step what I wanted to do with it, and when. Even upon starting up, Chrome asked me if I wanted to leave Google as the default search engine. Search! The one thing you'd think Google can get away with pushing hardest with the least resistance, is search with its 60% market share.

The ultimate question is, of course, how many people will use it. How many people, perhaps not over the next few months, but over the next 2 or 4 or 6 quarters will switch from IE or Safari (or even Firefox) for day-to-day browsing?

Right now, Chrome is Windows-only but Googlers are "actively working" on Mac and (more importantly, at least for me) a Linux version. I'll expect them soon. There are many arguments that can (and have been) made about Chrome as it pertains to Google's advertising arm-- where I worked this summer-- but for a moment, I just wanted to comment on the pure fun of playing around with and getting to know a piece of software which, without a doubt, will become verryyy important to an increasing number of consumers in the near future.

With the season kick-off to Stanford football tonight, the first question is Why? I mean, why tonight? Listen, if you’re going to broadcast a message asking for the fans to come on, and offer a Gridiron Guarantee—refund season tickets to those who are unhappy with their Stanford football experience—you’re sending the message that you want plenty of fan support. If, on the other hand, you move one of your five home dates to a day far before the school year even starts—staff isn’t even training yet!—then you have a problem with fan support, at least with those fans who call themselves students. Part of the idea behind moving the date up was to move from the icky FSN network to ESPN, certainly a worthwhile move to increase exposure. But what worth is the exposure if the stands are half- to three-quarters empty, as is the definite risk? I hope for the best but you never know.

Continue reading "Stanford Football Preview" »

With the run-up to the Democratic National Convention and Obama’s epic speech (we know it will be that), it’s useful to remind everyone that you should not pour all your hopes in him; he is a weak vessel, as he is human after all.

Continue reading "Denver, Obama and What to Expect" »

hey (soon-to-be) freshman, here's a guest post by Anne Crossman, a Stanford-educated author with some tips about how to, uh, get the best out of orientation (and then some!) --darius

So, you’ve got your dorm assignment for the year…your summer reading well underway (!)…and you’ve most likely been hitting the Back to School sales pretty hard in the hopes of making your new home at Stanford a bit, well, homier. Ah yes, I remember the nauseous excitement well.

It was just a few years ago that I, too, had packed every crevice of my parents’ white minivan with what I thought I couldn’t live without for the year, pulling up to Stern Hall at 7:30am as my Twainie RA’s were getting set to unroll the red, uh, foil gift wrap. It took me by complete surprise when they welcomed me by name as if they had been waiting for me for the last four years; any qualms I had about moving away from home vanished.

Continue reading "Guest Post: Getting the Best Out of Orientation-and Then Some" »

Presented in TIME Magazine under the title Are Oil Prices Rigged?, the controversial Officer-Hayes Hypothesis claims that oil producers have artificially boosted prices by speculating in the oil futures market. It relies on the fact that the futures market is smaller than the physical oil market, so it is in an oil supplier's interest to boost prices in the smaller, price-setting market.

In light of the realization that one firm did, in fact, control 11% of the oil futures market, Officer-Hayes has proved plausible.

Ari J. Officer studies financial mathematics Garrett J. Hayes studies materials science and engineering at Stanford.

In between writing this summer I've been knitting. In particular, I've been knitting scarves. It's an activity which lets me be creative, yet gives me an "output" rather fast.

I'm rather pleased with myself because after a bit of screwing around I've figured out how to embed beads in my scarf and using a variation on the "cheater's lace" pattern, I've created what I'm calling my "sea scarf." I chose the colors and beads to evoke the nets fishermen use.

I just need to finish the scarf by weaving the yarn tails back into the scarf before snipping them, and am still deciding what I'm going to do with the scarf (I give away the majority of the scarves I make to friends and family).

While it doesn't look that big, the scarf is 5 1/2 feet long. I like to make my scarves that way so that you can wind them around your throat and still have play.

Continue reading "Knitting - A Diversion from the Dissertation" »

Friday, August eighth was a monumental day for the incoming freshman of the Class of 2012. Tears were shed in both glee and sorrow. Since the last mailing received on June 27th, the incoming frosh, including myself, have all been anticipating the day where yet another piece of information would be shared to bring us closer to New Student Orientation on September 16th. Rooming assignments haunted me since August began: would I be roomed near my Admit Weekend friends, in THE Branner, the dorm every incoming frosh seemed to be hoping for, near the library, or in the middle of nowhere? Nightmares seemed to occur each night, in which my roommate was incompatible with me and everyone in my dorm was rude, introverted, and unhygienic. Well, this message came rather rapidly, appearing in our stanford webmail inboxes. I immediately clicked on the link to see my future.

Continue reading "Your Housing Assignment" »

MP3 File| Subscribe via iTunes | Add to del.icio.us

Alyssa Rapp is the Founder and CEO of Bottlenotes, an online wine retail business that helps individuals discover and learn about wine. Alyssa started the company while at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she headed the school's 500-person wine club. In this interview, Alyssa gives key insights on starting and running a hybrid online retail business, talks about her personal and entrepreneurial story for Bottlenotes, and gives leads to the most amazing wine regions in the world. Her goal for Bottlenotes, she says, is to create the "Pandora of wine".

Alyssa earned a B.A. in Political Science and the History of Art from Yale University in 2000 and an M.B.A. from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2005. In between her first and second years in business school, she spearheaded the sales and marketing efforts at RO Imports, an importer of boutique New Zealand wines in New York.

Thanks to Julio, iinnovate emeritus, and Roger for contributing to this interview.

- Min Liu of iinnovate

I’ve always been a firm believer in the separation of Church and state. Even as a young child, I intuitively understood then necessity of keeping religion out of public discourse, even though my parents were evangelical fundamentalists.

I’m a believer in the firm separation of church and state because I’ve had the necessity modeled to me in both my parents family. You see, a couple years before I was born quiet a few of my aunts and uncles converted – to different religions and branches of Christianity.

My parents converted to a Protestant Fundamentalist sect, another couple of uncle’s became a Jehovah’s Witnesses, other became just plain Protestant, a whole branch of my Mom’s family became Mormon, along with one of my Dad’s brothers, while other aunt became a practicing Pagan. On my father’s side his parents were nominally Mexican Catholic while my mother’s mother and stepfather were agnostics.

Fired up with the zeal of their new found beliefs family members began immediately trying to save each other and those who took the live and let live approach. Protestant’s fought with each other and with the Catholics (some declared Catholics weren’t really Christians), then ganged up on the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons (whom they considered to be a different religion). Family gatherings became small religious wars in which each participant was determined to prove the others’ religions false. Individuals (such as my parents) began insisting on prayers over meals, which raised the question – whose prayer would be said. Relationships became strained.

Independently, each set of grandparents arrived at the only set of rules which would keep the peace – there would be no discussion of religion at family gatherings, at all. Those who did so would be asked to stop or to leave.

Continue reading "When Everyone Converts to Something Different - Why I Believe in the Necessity of the Separation of Church and State" »

The American Scholar - The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - By William Deresiewicz

I just finished this great essay by a professor at Yale who realizes that he has nothing to say to his plumber; he has no way to make small talk with a lower-middle class guy. Deresiewicz goes on to discuss the three disadvantages of students who graduate from elite universities:

1) You don't know how to talk to people who are not "smart" in the analytical sense (like you are)
2) You get a false sense of self-worth through the way the school bends over backwards for you
3) You lose the ability to accept less than prestigious lives - elite universities do not produce many elementary teachers, artists or poets
4) You don't get a chance to truly explore the intellectual life because you are too busy trying to jump through hoops

It reminded me of Rick Perlstein's essay "What's the matter with College" which I responded to rather viciously. But this essay is either coming at the issue from a different angle (less aggressive, more humble and introspective) or I've just changed my mind over the past year. Maybe a little bit of both.

Even though I've changed career paths from medicine to business (Applied to the Harvard 2+2 program last week), I still agree with the essay's ideas.

One of my friend might make a great teacher, but even his parents told him: "If you wanted to be a teacher, you could have gone to San Jose State. If you go to Stanford, you'll have to do more". So he's applying to law school.

I'm lucky that I've learned a lot about failure through sports - specifically gymnastics. When only one person/team can win, you learn that often, you are not good enough. You learn how to fail and smile and keep trying. There is no equivalent in most other collegiate endeavors.

I daydream about traveling the world, but wonder what my parents and classmates would think. I'm eager to make an impact on the world, but also wish I could spend a whole summer just reading books and playing video games. But how stupid would that be?

Anyway check out the essay and tell me what YOU think. The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

I've blogged about my friend and Stanford alum ('06) Jack Conte on here before, but I couldn't help but put this one up, too. It's a collaboration with Nataly Dawn (aka Natalie Knutsen '09) called "Pas Encore" and released under the collaboration name Pomplamoose.

As if the awesome group name wasn't enough, the song is better. If I were cool enough to say the word bumpin', I would say this song is effortlessly bumpin'. I downloaded the mp3 from Jack's mySpace and have been playing it on my iPod all morning. It's my "new, awesome, hot" song for the summer. And, much like Jack's other YouTube videos, this one was first released in VideoSong format, so there's some fun stuff to watch. A particular delight for you CCRMA folks, I would think.

The CoHo reopened Monday morning, to some Stanford Facebook fanfare, after almost a year of absence. Was it worth the wait?

A friend of mine and I stopped by for lunch to give the "new" old CoHo a try. She ordered a Portobello mushroom sandwich, which came in a clear plastic container and looked encased in two thin slices of Corporate Bread. My friend, a vegetarian for many years said the sandwich had "way too much cheese".

I ordered a Pear and Goat Cheese salad for 7.04 USD with tax, and some minutes later received a small bowl of baby spinach, tiny pear slices, soft bits of goat cheese, and a mild but seemingly omnipresent glaze of oil-based dressing.

We noted the aged wood tables still present, the odd Stanford alum? caricatures on the wall, and a large wall-sized poster of a Spanish matador. It was a quiet, Stanford summer scene, but after that small salad, my stomach asked for more.

I inquired about the provenance of the 1.75 USD Croissants on display, not the ones Satura-made, but the ones the cheery cashier claimed were made in-house by Guillermo, a trained pastry chef, she said. I asked about the flour -- organic and/or refined? She didn't know, just saw all-purpose flour, and Sysco Wholesome Farms butter.

As an artisan baker myself, spoiled by the organic Giusto's flour and (American Humane association Certified) Clover Stornetta organic butter I use when preparing my own Viennoiserie from scratch, I gave the 1.75 USD CoHo-made croissant a try and was somewhat disappointed. Although the execution was good and the visual aesthetics pleasing, the quality of the ingredients, or shall I say the lack thereof, clearly shone through. I put the croissant back in the bag after two bites and left the new old CoHo.

First impressions?

Overall food rating: B+
Ambiance: A-
Sustainability: B (no mention of organic ingredients, dairy sourced from large corporate farms (SYSCO), non-compostable utensils and plastic-heavy food containment)

For a campus that prides itself on being at the vanguard of sustainable food and dining for a college campus, I for one hope we can and will do better.

Finally, it's time for summer, which means eating ice cream, heading to the pool/beach and playing lots of video games. Well, I guess at Stanford that mean doing internships at big companies, working at start-ups, doing research, studying for a standardized test, training for an athletic team or some combination thereof.

I'm taking it easy this summer - just working part-time at the Stanford Calling Program, doing gymnastics training and doing a little work for Gumball Capital. More about that next time.

What are you up to this summer?

While perusing PZ Meyers’ blog I read an interesting entry about a brouhaha brewing up in the paleontological world over alleged theft of naming rights to specimens.

In Summary
A graduate student, Bill Parker, completed his master’s thesis using a New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science specimen

He argued that the specimen was unique enough to warrant its own name and submitted a paper to the Journal of Systematic Paleontology in which he bestowed a new name on the specimen.

The rules of paleontology apparently state that whoever publishes first gets naming rights. I’m not a paleontologist, but apparently naming a new specimen is very important and can make a Paleontologist’s career.

Parker’s article to the Journal of Systematic Paleontology was reviewed by Spencer Lucas.

Here comes the murky and alleged parts:

Lucas then published a paper in an New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science’s in-house publication (which is not peer reviewed) two-weeks prior to the January 2007 publication date of Parker’s article.

Parker is alleging that Lucas used his position in the Museum and as journal reviewer to steal the naming rights away from Parker.

Given the timeline presented, Parker’s allegations have a lot of merit

after the break - the allegations mount

Continue reading "Paleontology Scandals and Alleged Theft from Grad Students" »

I'm on my way to class, but read this and just had to post the article I read in the LA Times -
The California Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage ruling that the state marriage laws are discriminatory! The right to marry the person you love should be a basic human right.