Tuesday May 18, 2010 year: 130 No. 109 the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com sports
The Chekwas: a family of athletes
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arts & life
thelantern Your dot: more than a number
Lantern reporter demystifies name-dot-number system, hears from a .666, Smith.1 Name.# accounts
By the numbers... 170,000 name.# accounts exist in
OSU’s system Five most popular name.# names: 8,000 Smiths 5,500 Millers 4,700 Johnsons 4,600 Lees 4,300 Browns 32 characters is the length of the longest name.# account name. Source: Kristina Torres, communications manager, Office of the Chief Information Officer. All numbers are approximate because of privacy issues, Torres said. MOLLY GRAY / Lantern designer
JACK MOORE Lantern reporter moore.1732@osu.edu Who are you? The question bombards us every time we check our e-mail, log on to a library computer or schedule classes, though we seldom think about it in that way. It proves that the age-old question of identity has not escaped the digital age. But for Ohio State students, faculty and staff, the answer is usually not the start of philosophical contemplation. The answer is a simple matter of name-dot-number. Shorthand for the more than
170,000 unique online identities at OSU, name-dot-number is made up of a last name, a period and a number. Students and employees use their name-dotnumbers to send e-mails, log in to OSU’s network and verify their digital identities. Everybody at OSU has one. But how exactly is it assigned? The numbers are assigned sequentially, said Kristina Torres, a member of the communications team for the Chief Information Ofÿ cer. It is based on how many people with the same last name have been admitted to or hired by OSU. Name-dot-numbers, which are the total package of the last
name coupled with a number, are unique to one individual and assigned for life, she said. Contrary to what students might think, numbers are not reassigned or recycled, she said. It’s something that’s “with you forever.” A computer program assigns name-dot-numbers to students and employees, so there’s no way to haggle for your lucky number. “You get what you get,” she said. But there are gaps between numbers sometimes. It’s because students who are admitted to
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Student orgs hold weeklong, non-stop BBQ ZACH TUGGLE Lantern reporter tuggle.17@osu.edu
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Lady Gaga coming to Schott
Live Nation announced Monday that the pop star will perform at the Schottenstein Center on March 10, 2011.
campus
More than 400 volunteers at Ohio State want to feed 40,000 people and raise $20,000 for charity over the next six days. The Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and the Buckeye Barbeque Qlub are hosting The World’s Longest BBQ — a 168-hour barbecue between Sullivant Hall and the Wexner Center. “We’re selling burgers for a dollar each,” said Micah Kamrass, Undergraduate Student Government president-elect and former president of Alpha Epsilon Pi. “We have cheap food that tastes good, and we’re in a good location.” The event was born last fall, right after the two groups collaborated for a four-day barbecue, also for charity. “We made over $5,000 that time,” said Andrew Weiner, a second-year in accounting and vice president of Alpha Epsilon Pi. The event’s purpose is to
ZACH TUGGLE / Lantern photographer
Olivia Karner, a first-year in education, and Katie Shutt, a first-year in marketing, grill hamburgers and hot dogs Monday afternoon during the World’s Longest BBQ. “The weather will never hold us down, we’re grilling for seven days straight,” Shutt said. The two are members of the Buckeye Barbeque Qlub’s Grill Team.
OSU student creates new Top teacher trades dance floor for diner video game continued as BBQ on 2A
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thelantern.com
Share your student voice online weather
BEN BROWN Lantern reporter brown.2959@osu.edu
Steve Yao has more ratings than any of the 4,509 Ohio State instructors reviewed on ratemyprofessor.com. But despite his near-perfect 4.9 out of 5.0 overall quality score, he was never a professor and is no longer teaching at OSU. He said he would have loved to teach dance fulltime but couldn’t get more than a month-by-month stipend teaching position. To make ends meet, he took the night shift cook job at Sloopy’s Diner in the new Ohio Union as an hourly employee who is paid bi-weekly. But university policy says that employees cannot be on both monthly and bi-weekly payment schedules. Although Yao’s jobs would not con° ict, the university would have had to treat him as a special case to let him continue teaching. According to ratemyprofessor.com, that’s just
what Yao is — a special teacher. “Steve might be one of the greatest professors ever … take his class, it might be the best thing you do at Ohio State,” a student said in a recent review of Yao. “He is a great teacher, funny guy, and really breaks down the dance … so you STEVE YAO learn it easily. I loved going to class … I deÿnitely recommend him,” another rater said. And those are just the comments on page two. There are 63 pages of similar reviews for Yao on the website, which covers “more than 6,000 schools, 1 million professors and 10 million opinions.” Ratemyprofessor.com receives e-mails stating
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Instructor to line chef: Stephen Yao 1999 Graduated from Ohio State with a degree in sport and leisure studies. February 2010 Hired as a fulltime line cook at Sloopy’s in the Union.
2001 Began teaching social dance classes at Ohio State. Spring 2010 First time in nine years Yao is not teaching at Ohio State.
MOLLY GRAY / Lantern designer
Murky water at MacQuigg unsightly, but not hazardous
high 61 low 53
JESSICA OSTRAU Lantern reporter ostrau.1@osu.edu
showers
WE 68/53 few showers TH 74/58 partly cloudy FR 73/62 t-showers SA 75/62 t-storms www.weather.com
Blake Williams stopped at a drinking fountain before class in MacQuigg Laboratory two weeks ago and was appalled by the brown muck that ÿlled his water bottle. Hustling to class with the bottle in hand, the third-year in journalism was more concerned about feeding his curiosity than satisfying his thirst, he said. For the entire two-hour class period, the water only slightly cleared. As it settled in the clear bottle, “black specs fell to the bottom,” and it remained opaque, Williams said. Although the water was odorless, Williams said he was shocked by its poor quality. This is nothing new. Discolored water ° ows out of faucets, toilets and drinking fountains at least a dozen times a year in MacQuigg, said Ken Kushner, material science engineering laboratory manager. He is also the building coordinator. The discoloration is the result of water being turned back on after repairs are
made to the pipes. The brown tint and particles are remnants of oxidized iron that builds up in the pipes when the water shuts off, he said. Although the “nasty-looking” water is not harmful, Kushner said, he does not recommend drinking it. By letting the water run for a few minutes, it will become clear again. This is a common problem with older pipes, and just one of the many issues that Kushner, who has been in MacQuigg for more than three years, faces every day. MacQuigg, Koffolt Laboratories, Fontana Laboratories and Watts Hall make up the building complex between 18th and Woodruff avenues that dates back to the early 1940s. The complex houses the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and an antiquated pipe system that requires constant repairs. But ÿxing the pipes is not meant to make the building more “desirable,” Kushner said. Plumbers and technicians from Facilities Operations and Development are trying to keep the building from falling apart, he said. Acting as a liaison between his department and Facilities Operations and Development, Kushner’s job has become reporting necessary repairs regarding
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