September 30 2010

the backpage

the inside

The social network conundrum

page 8

A carpe noctem guide to Nuit Blanche

page 4

the newspaper University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly

Vol. XXXIII N0. 3

Economics of A&S

September 30, 2010

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s...an ornithopter!

A&Sucks YUkon dAMoV

JAMAiAs dAcostA

Continued on page 3

DAVE BELL

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Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

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Students reacted against cuts made to A&S at two town halls held over the past week.

Making LOVE @ UT MnrUPe Virk Given the daunting size of U of T’s student body, most students find asking for lecture notes a challenge, let alone finding “the one” on campus. Despite this, the students behind Love@UT believe they have the solution to this problem.

Love@UT is a brand new online dating service designed to help U of T students in meeting new people, starting a new relationship, or simply making friends. The brainchild of Joey Nodalo, Matthew Saunders, Samantha Joel, Andrew Danks

and Lori Lee, Love@UT seeks to make campus a “more friendly and romantic place.”

“The U of T student body is so large that it creates a barrier for students to be able to find others with whom they can develop a meaningful connection” explains Danks. “In addition, we all have assignments, tests, and perhaps part-time jobs which leaves little room for building a social life.”

Unlike other online dating sites, which match individuals up using automated algorithms, Love@UT puts the work in the hands of the students. Students

create profiles for themselves containing information regarding their academics, their appearance and their lifestyle. In addition, they can also write up little blurbs to provide more personalized information about themselves.

Other students can search these profiles by filtering a number of properties (such as program of study, campus, drinking habits, hair colour, etc) and then scanning through the resulting profiles. If a profile of interest pops up, they simply send a message and see where the budding interaction go.

University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) PhD student Todd Reichert has recently become kind of a big deal, especially in the world of aeronautical engineering.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of international interviews and media coverage, making headlines in every major media outlet worldwide.

The big deal is Reichert’s recent triumph: the world’s first fully functional, human powered ornithopter, which Reichert and his team have dubbed “Snowbird.”

What exactly is an ornithopter, you may be wondering? According to Reichert, it is a lightweight aircraft that takes flight just as a bird would: through the flapping of wings.

Reichert began his project four years ago under the supervision of Dr. James DeLaurier, Professor Emeritus at UTIAS. “Dr. D,” as he is affectionately Continued on page 2

the news

2

September 30, 2010

Ornithopter cont’d from page 1

known amongst his students, established a research team in the 1970s that eventually led to what DeLaurier refers to as “the Grandfather of the Snowbird” – the world’s first, successful radio controlled ornithopter flight in 1991, and later in 2006, a powered, piloted ornithopter using a small engine from a model airplane.

It was this groundwork that made it possible for Reichert and his team to develop the world’s first human powered ornithopter. “Working in Dr. D’s lab, the dream was always there. Simulations showed that it would be possible.”

DeLaurier agrees, “A student a few years back did a study with positive results. I indeed felt the distinct possibility of human powered ornithopter flight. I

knew that Todd was motivated and athletically capable.”

“This is what man has always dreamed of doing.

We’ve been able to go to the moon and back, but not fly like a bird. Now we can.”

-Dr. DeLaurier The Snowbird took flight on August 2nd at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ontario. One of the biggest chal-

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lenges was getting it off the ground. “We used a smart car, towing the Snowbird until it lifted off. During the 20 second flight, when [Reichert] flew over us you could literally hear him grunting as he was [operating the ornithopter].” DeLaurier describes, adding that Reichert had literally trained for months just to be able to do the 20 second flight.

Although the ornithopter weighs in at a mere 94 lbs, the wing span is 105 feet, similar to that of a Boeing 737, and of course, the fuel is strictly human based. Reichert had to lose 18 lbs in addition to his rigorous training to be able to take flight.

When asked what kind of practical use the ornithopter could have, DeLaurier replied, “I’m not sure that this will give rise to flocks of ornithopters taking to the skies anytime soon...however it is an incredibly useful educational tool as it extends the knowledge of unsteady aerodynamics and nonlinear structural analysis.”

Both Reichert and DeLaurier also agree that the Snowbird is monumental in the sense that it is “the completion of the last of aviation firsts.” Reichert elaborates, “This is what man has always dreamed of doing. We’ve been able to go to the moon and back, but not fly like a bird. Now we can.”

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was able to come up with solutions to improve the time and energy spent on each rib.”

The Snowbird team, dubbed “the five amigos,” consists of Reichert, along with another U of T Engineering Grad student Cameron Robertson who played the role of chief structural engineer, the Dueck father and son team and of course, DeLaurier.

Reichert says he is looking forward to finishing his PhD and has many ideas, as well as options due to the success of the aircraft, including the possibility of applying some of the engineering to aerodynamic bicycles. Dr. DeLaurier says of his student’s success, “For a Professor, students are often akin to academic sons and daughters.

It was a proud moment, such a beautiful and amazing day.”

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Cara Sabatini Mnrupe Virk

DeLaurier notes that the success of the Snowbird ornithopter project was also in part due to the ability of the project to attract capable volunteers.

In particular, a father-son team who happened upon the Snowbird project in the summer of 2009, quite by fluke.

Robert Dueck and his high school aged son Carson were visiting from Vancouver, and had initially stopped by the UTIAS building in hopes of getting a look at Dr. DeLaurier’s 2006 ornithopter, known as “The Great Flapper.” Upon suggestion, they instead made a trip to the Snowbird base in Tottenham, Ontario, where Reichert and his team were toiling away. The two ended up staying on for the rest of the summer, as well as returning this summer and were an integral part of the volunteer team.

When asked about the experience of being part of this monumental project, the senior Dueck says: “It was exhilarating to be part of the project and to see the team through its production phase. The success as a possible aviation first is an added bonus…”

Reichert credits Dueck’s ability to streamline solutions saved days of work. “There were over 100 wooden ribs to make for the wings…a painstaking process.

With each wing Robert Dueck

Illustrations Editor

OMSAS

www.ouac.on.ca/omsas/

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September 15, 2010: Last day to create an account for the online application October 1, 2010: Application deadline

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Contributors

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Dave Bell, Dan Christensen, Jamaias DaCosta, Yukon Damov, Andrew Gyorkos, Cara Sabatini, Mnrupe Virk, Aaron Zack

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November 1, 2010: Application deadline for first-year English programs May 1, 2011: Application deadline for upper-year programs

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the news

September 30, 2010

HED AND OR DEK cont’d from page 1

Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Pellentesque lacinia est at nunc adipiscing non consequat turpis lacinia. Praesent ut pulvinar lacus. Aenean non urna ac justo aliquam dignissim. Aliquam gravida tortor ac justo accumsan lobortis. Nunc in tincidunt felis. Quisque tincidunt fringilla euismod. Integer at est nibh, eget congue justo. Donec nec neque ut augue.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus nibh risus, placerat eu tempor eu, tincidunt vel quam.

Donec elit eros, dapibus sit amet dignissim quis, varius id enim.

Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Pellentesque lacinia est at nunc adipiscing non consequat turpis lacinia. Praesent ut pulvinar lacus. Aenean non urna ac justo aliquam dignissim. Aliquam gravida tortor ac justo accumsan lobortis. Nunc in tincidunt felis. Quisque tincidunt fringilla euismod. Integer at est nibh, eget congue justo. Donec nec neque ut augue.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus nibh risus, placerat eu tempor eu, tincidunt vel quam.

Donec elit eros, dapibus sit amet dignissim quis, varius id enim.

Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Pellentesque lacinia est at nunc adipiscing non consequat turpis lacinia. Praesent ut pulvinar lacus. Aenean non urna ac justo aliquam dignissim. Aliquam gravida tortor ac justo accumsan lobortis. Nunc in tincidunt felis. Quisque tincidunt fringilla euismod. Integer at est nibh, eget congue justo. Donec nec neque ut augue.

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Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient

montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Pellentesque lacinia est at nunc adipiscing non consequat turpis lacinia. Praesent ut pulvinar lacus. Aenean non urna ac justo aliquam dignissim. Aliquam gravida tortor ac justo accumsan lobortis. Nunc in tincidunt felis. Quisque tincidunt fringilla euismod. Integer at est nibh, eget congue justo. Donec nec neque ut augue.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus nibh risus, placerat eu tempor eu, tincidunt vel quam.

Donec elit eros, dapibus sit amet dignissim quis, varius id enim.

Curabitur vitae odio magna, et auctor sapien. Fusce et eros massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

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8877-Fosters Campus Flexform_10x13.57.indd 1

gravida tortor ac justo accumsan lobortis. Nunc in tincidunt felis. Quisque tincidunt fringilla euismod. Integer at est nibh, eget congue justo. Donec nec neque ut augue.

3 Given the size of Love@UT’s user base already, students will have a lot to choose from. There are already 196 users signed up, with “new users signing up every day” according to creators.

Contrary to the idea presented by the overfilled reading rooms at Robarts near closing, university does not have to be just about studying. In fact, university can be just as much about meeting new people, finding new relationships and making new friends as it is about poorly cited essays and piles of problem sets.

11/08/10 9:35 AM

4

the arts

September 30, 2010

All night long ...

Those passing through the University after sunset this Saturday may find themselves in a bit of a squeeze. Originally performed in 1977, Marina Abramovic’s Imponderabilia involves a narrow doorway flanked by two performers...in the buff. The space between the nude performers is tight, forcing viewers to turn sideways, inevitably choosing one performer to face. The participants have already started tweaking their diet and exercise regimes in preparation for the project in which visitors literally penetrate the “physically and emotionally intimate space between the performers,” says Program Coordinator Rebecca Gimmi.

The project is part of this weekend’s

Nuit Blanche exhibition, One at a time, concurrently curated by the University’s Art Centre and the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery. The exhibit revolves around the means and procedure of measurement.

Says Gimmi: “Each project reflects how one creates units of measurement to manage information on a daily basis.”

One measurable work of art is that of Gerald Ferguson’s, by which viewers can see how large of a pile one million pennies produce. Being quite the logistical feat, works such as Ferguson’s are not typically viewed in an institutional setting.

Gimmi sees the exhibition as a chance for students to experience “some of the greatest hits of conceptual art that are not

the arts

September 30, 2010

One at a time often staged in institutions.” A large part of the exhibition consists of the re-imagining and re-installation of prominent conceptual artwork curated by Barbara Fischer, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

According to Gimmi, the components of One at a time have the intentional effect of questioning “the academic and administrative organization of institutions such as universities and art galleries.”

A key part of the exhibition relies on student involvement. Flags are to be installed to represent the birthplaces of U of T students and staff, recorded by survey. This work of Danish artist, Jens Hanning, showcases the multiculturalism of the school, displaying “a micro-

cosm of the ever-growing diversity of the city of Toronto itself,” says Gimmi.

The Orgasm Energy chart requires participants to be even more intimately involved as they are asked to record the number and “energy level” of orgasms over a certain amount of time. Viewers of the installment will even be provided with their very own charts – so they can continue the artwork at home.

Something even hotter will be served by the city’s own artist and “Barchitect,” Dean Baldwin, as he hosts the bar and grill for the evening – or rather all night.

In the Hart House courtyard, food and alcohol will be available until 4 am. A drink – or two – might ease the passage back through Abramovic’s Imponderabilia.

by Cara Sabatini & Mnrupe Virk Illustration by Dave Bell

5

the inside

6 Science

Inner voices not so bad after all AndreW GYorkos It used to be that talking to yourself was a sign of craziness, but now it turns out that it might just be a rather healthy practice. New research from UTSC, headed by PhD candidate Alexa Tullet and Associate Psychology Professor Michael Inzlicht, is demonstrating how using inner voices can lead to better self-

control.

“We essentially had participants complete a classic selfcontrol exercise - the Go/NoGo task - while we attempted to block their inner voice,” explains Alexa Tullet. “During the Go/No-Go task, participants saw symbols that indicated that they should either press a button or refrain from pressing the button. The "Go" (press) trials were more common than the

University of Ottawa

"No-Go" (don't press) trials, so the impulsive response became pressing the button.”

Subjects had the luxury of using their 'inner voice' during these trials, as they were only focused on a single simple exercise free of distractions. “To block the inner voice, we had people complete the Go/No-Go task while they repeatedly said the word "computer," thereby preventing them from talking

September 30, 2010 to themselves in their heads,” continues Tullet. “As a control, we had participants do the Go/ No-Go task a second time, but this time they repeatedly drew circles.”

“Drawing circles was also distracting - like saying the word 'computer' repeatedly - but does not occupy the inner voice.

What we found was that occupying the inner voice caused people to act more impulsively to press the button more - relative to the control condition.”

It would seem that the average mind is only able to use one voice, either the 'inner' or 'outer'

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one, effectively at a time. When the internal monologue is interrupted with external dialogue, full control over the words and actions of that person are compromised.

“Situations where we are constantly talking make it difficult or impossible to use the inner voice and may have consequences for our self-control as a result,” concluded Tullet.

“Being at a dinner party, for example, might result in us eating much more food (or drinking much more alcohol) than we would have if we were monitoring our actions.”

the diversions

September 30, 2010

7

the crossword

the clues Across 5. Sags 7. Unique 9. Run away 10. Not true 12. Throw out (as a legislative bill) 13. “The Book of ___” (2010 Movie) 14. Common video file codec 15. Straight to the point 18. Tuck away for future use 19. “___ facto” 20. Desktop shortcut 21. Cottage, in French 22. Soil 24. Bullets 26. Fire (as a weapon) 28. Ostrich cousin 29. Dictator ___ Amin 30. Slender 31. “Following” director Christopher 34. Killer whale 35. Capable of floating 36. Tornado

ANDREW GYORKOS

Down

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the backpage

8

September 30, 2010

Zuckerberg pinned to the wall in

Status update: a Facebook exodus?

The Social Network

Aaron Zack

If there’s one thing that can be said about the trio of Aaron Sorkin’s script, David Fincher’s direction, and Jesse Eisenberg’s performance in “The Social Network,” it’s that they pull no punches to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and if there is any amount of truth we can attribute to the story they told, it’s not difficult to see why.

The story is that of Zuckerberg’s rise from his anything but humble beginnings as a Harvard computer programming prodigy to billionaire dot com CEO, through the lens of two lawsuits from peers whom he stabbed in the back on his way up.

No time is wasted establishing Zuckerberg’s twin traits of lethal ambition and impressive ability to be an asshole.

In the first scene, he mounts a rhetorical attack upon his girlfriend, borne out of an obsession with being accepted into an elite Harvard fraternity.

Upon being dumped moments later, he requests forgiveness as if asking for a term paper extension.

Eisenberg (Adventureland) can be credited with turning this nearly unforgivable jerk into a fascinating character of emotional depth. We can’t take our eyes off Zuckerberg, whether to see if he will crack a single smile through the whole picture or to watch him dangle on the precipice of slitting the throat of his best friend Eduardo Saverin, by whom he is sued in the presentday foreground of the story.

In adapting from Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires,” Sorkin (The West Wing) fashions dialogue that is flashy, at times to the point of being

DAVE BELL

dan christensen

glib. His characters engage in snappy verbal sword fights or pissing matches.

This in no way detracts from the film, however, and instead emphasizes the disappointing dichotomy between Zuckerberg’s peerless intelligence and wit, and his childish selfishness and starry-eyed infatuation with success.

Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) once again masterfully crafts a dark, ominous tone throughout the film, and even manages to imbue euphoric party scenes and the bright, hip Facebook headquarters with an uneasy sense of foreboding.

“

This is aided in no small part

by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, which deftly blends the classical Hollywood soundtrack sensibility with the pair’s industrial and dark ambient roots. The result is the sounds of Zuckerberg’s harsh social and professional self-torture.

You don’t have to use Facebook to appreciate this story of ambition and malice, but it may take membership to relate to Zuckerberg’s isolation – an isolation he’s managed to release upon all of us.

In today’s society, how does one balance the seemingly mutually exclusive worlds of data sharing and data privacy?

This was the question on the minds of four young computer engineering students at NYU’s Courant Institute when they began to develop Diaspora, an open-source distributed network tasked with decentralizing the world of social networking.

The four students, lya Zhitomirskiy, Dan Grippi, Max Salzberg, and Raphael Sofaer, funded their project through the website Kickstarter, which allows people to plead their case for funding to the net at large. The group initially asked for about $10,000 in funding, but the project quickly received an overwhelmingly positive response from the public, eventually receiving over $200,000 in individual donations.

On their website, the teamed stated “Together, we have struck a chord with the world and identified a problem which needs to be solved.”

Diaspora’s emergence marks a response to the recent privacy issues raised by social networking sites such as Facebook, whose voracious appetite for personal data have drawn ire from the public and from various privacy commissions.

Diaspora aims to address these issues through a totally new approach to data sharing.

The network functions via highly encrypted nodes or ‘seeds’.

This is where Diaspora begins to diverge from popular social networking sites like Facebook.

Whereas on Facebook, a centralized hub mediates interactions between users, Diaspora utilizes these encrypted seeds for direct computer-to-computer interactions, ensuring safe and private content sharing and communication. Speaking on the philosophy behind Diaspora, Mr. Sofaer explained, “In life, we talk

the campus comment

to each other. We don’t need to hand our messages to a hub and have them handed to our friends. Our virtual lives should work the same way.”

Large social networking sites continue to dominate, it would seem, because of the convenience they offer users. But as these sites demand more and more personal information to participate, an ever larger portion of the public has come to censor what they post, or optout from networking entirely.

“The value [networking sites] give us is negligible in the scale of what they are doing, and what we are giving up is all of our privacy,” said Mr. Salzberg.

“Our real social lives do not have entral managers, and our virtual lives do not need them.

Eventually, today’s hubs could be almost entirely replaced by a decentralized network of truly personal websites.”

-Max Salzberg Diaspora then seemingly exists not as an alternative to Facebook, but instead as the logical and ethical progression of social networking in general.

In fact, the site will offer users virtually all the same features as Facebook (yes, even Farmville), and in addition, individual seeds will be able to ‘aggregate’ all existing information from sites like Facebook, Twitter and other social media to provide users a safe, secure and convenient social networking experience.

Diaspora is slated to launch alpha testing later this month.

To learn more visit www.joindiaspora.com.

”

DIANA WILSON

the newspaper asks: Last Thursday, Facebook’s servers shut down temporarily. Dare we ask the difficult question: what would you do without Facebook?

Krystal Walsh, 2th year Humanities I would be unable to stalk people. That’s always fun.

Connor Bailey, Construction Worker

I pretty much live without Facebook anyway.

Matt Hunt Gardner, PhD Linguistics

It would be more difficult to find and talk to acquaintances.

I don’t have everyone’s number and I use it to plan parties.

I would actually have to talk to my friends.