I <3 Pandas

This is why I don't get any work done.

Panda the Gunner

Wow, I haven't updated since last December. I started blogging back then because I was procrastinating for finals, and since it's final exams again, I guess I will start blogging again? Who knows. I've been pretty good about studying this time around actually. Alas, I cannot resist the temptation.

I'm sleeping at school again tonight. People think I'm super studious and am always staying overnight to study. They call me a silent red hot because I never outwardly worry about my grades, yet I lock myself indoors outlining on my computer all night.

In reality, I'm just here chatting online and browsing the Internet. I do what I would normally do at home, except there is no TV here, so I get tiny bit more work done. And the couches are comfortable here.

The number one perk of being a law student is that people presume you are studying simply because you are typing away furiously. The only thing I need to watch out for is not physically react when I get funny IMs from my friends. Indeed.

Taiwanese People Dissatisfied with Colleges

An excerpt from the Taipei Times article:

Mou Tsung-tsan (牟宗燦), director of the university, said that the public feels that colleges nowadays are low quality, due to the surging number of schools established in recent years.

"With so many colleges around, the quality of education plummets and there is a lack of competition among schools," Mou said. "This is bad for our country's future, because with globalization we need positive competition among schools."

The poll indicated that 42.34 percent of the public would like their children to remain in Taiwan for college, while 36.31 percent wanted to send their children to US or European colleges, Mou said.

Survey results also showed that most think the biggest problems college students face are their own laziness and lack of motivation, Mou added.

Mou said that the university has been carrying out new education plans with the Ministry of Education budget and hopes to address the problem from the beginning.

Social Psychology of 2004 U.S. Election

I got the newest issue of the Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (Vol 5, Issue 1) in the mail today. There is a special feature section called the "Social Psychology of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election." Two articles from that section look particularly interesting, based on the abstracts. If you're affiliated with a college or university, you can get the online version through your school's subscription.

American Roulette: The Effect of Reminders of Death on Support for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election

An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. On the basis of terror management theory and previous research, we hypothesized that a mortality salience induction would increase support for President George W. Bush and decrease support for Senator John Kerry. In late September 2004, following a mortality salience or control induction, registered voters were asked which candidate they intended to vote for. In accord with predictions, Senator John Kerry received substantially more votes than George Bush in the control condition, but Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, suggesting that President Bush’s re-election may have been facilitated by nonconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

Lies in a Time of Threat: Betrayal Blindness and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

Exit polls from the 2004 U.S. presidential election indicated overwhelming support for President Bush among voters who said they valued honesty, even though the Bush administration had been sharply criticized for deceiving the public, especially concerning the reasons for invading Iraq. A psychological theory recently developed to help explain memory loss in trauma survivors sheds light on this paradox. Betrayal Trauma Theory (Freyd, 1996) states that memory impairment is greatest when a victim is dependent on the perpetrator. The theory also predicts who will be “blind” to signs of deception—those who are emotionally or financially dependent on the person who is lying. Although every American is dependent on the U.S. President to some extent, religious conservatives may be more psychologically dependent than others. Because they believe their core values are under attack, they depend on powerful leaders such as President Bush to defend these values. This psychological dependence may make it difficult for them to notice the administration’s deceptions.

Taipei 101 Causing Earthquakes?

An article in The Guardian from a couple of weeks ago reported that Taipei 101, completed in 2004 and currently the tallest building in the world, may have opened up an old fault line, resulting in the increase of micro-earthquakes.

Scary.

(Found this out from One whole jujuflop situation).

What Happened To Me At Property Exam Today

Warning: This is pretty gory...

Racist E-Card. Argh!

From angry asian man:

Oh hell no. What would be the point of sending someone this e-card? Why would this be a good idea? Oh yeah, I guess it would be a good idea... if you're racist.

What the fuck?

SFO Installing Message Screens for the Deaf

From today's SF Chronicle:

Passengers with hearing disabilities will be able to read public-address announcements on dozens of large video screens at San Francisco International Airport in the coming months under terms of a lawsuit settlement announced Wednesday.

"We're hoping SFO is going to be a model for other airports to follow,'' said Kevin Knestrick, an attorney for Disability Rights Advocates, an Oakland nonprofit that claimed in a lawsuit filed in 2002 that the airport was not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The key part of the settlement requires SFO to install 80 visual paging monitors in the airport. Large plasma screens will display text messages duplicating announcements made over the airport's public-address system. The text announcements will scroll on the screen so that travelers can view recent messages, including pages and emergency messages.

Read the full article.

Pandora - Very Cool Music Site

Mike told me about this site a few days ago - Pandora. It asks you to type in musicians or songs you like, and it will play other songs it thinks you may enjoy using whatever algorithm they use, for free!

Enjoy!

UC Berkeley Enrollment Numbers

The final student enrollment numbers at UC Berkeley for Fall 2005 were officially released today. Nothing particularly surprising, I don't think.

Read the press release and the data.

Straight Asian Man Magazine?

A new Asian American men's magazine, SAM, is having their launch party this Saturday, in case anyone is interested in going.

I am intrigued by what SAM stands for. I couldn't find anything about this on their website, but the first thing that crossed my mind was Straight Asian Man. The website seems to only show half-naked women, so that might make sense.

Or it can just be named after the publisher/editor, Samuel Choae (an AsianWeek article on Choae).

I emailed them with this question...hopefully I'll get a response. If anybody knows the answer, please let me know.

Edit: So it stands for Successful Alpha Male, according to the AsianWeek article. Maybe I should start reading the things I link to...thanks Anonymous!

University Law Amended in Taiwan

The Taiwanese Legislature amended the University Act to allow universities to choose their own presidents, abolish the Taiwan citizens only requirement for presidents, require some kind of a faculty review process, and allow for greater student involvement in university governance.

It is now awaiting President Chen Shui-bian's signature to be official.

I think this is great. Greater autonomy, accountability, and access is always good. I don't necessarily think a non-Taiwanese president would be better for Taiwanese universities, but presumptuous and discriminatory requirements like this must be abolished.

Read the full article.

High School Fines Students for Cursing

$103 fines. This principle seems to be clueless about (and proud of) the classism of this policy. From the article:

The tickets accuse students of creating a public disturbance and require them to appear in Superior Court. No one has yet paid the fine, which some students and parents say is excessive, especially for students from low-income families. Hartford educators said the fine was intended to be a financial burden. "If it was $25, maybe they would pay and curse just the same," Ms. Gordon said.

Modern Day M. Butterfly?

A former US official said he made false official statements when trying to hide a trip to Taipei and his romance with a Taiwanese spy, Isabelle Cheng. Read the full article.

Is Cheng, in fact, a man?