All Posts Tagged With: "online voting"
Waterloo’s King of Nerds, budget cuts & sports media B.A.
What students are talking about today (March 13th)
Celeste Anderson TBS
1. First-year University of Waterloo student Celeste Anderson has won $100,000 and the title King of the Nerds on the eponymous American reality TV contest show. Contestants competed in events like Segway races, debates and Cosplay (costume play), according to Metro News. Before the show, Anderson traveled across North America competing in video game tournaments where she excelled at Halo. She’s considering a career in video game design. The show’s finale is tonight on Slice. Totally missed this sleeper hit? Don’t worry, it has been renewed for a second season.
2. Even supposedly conservative Alberta has spent so much that they are now forced to make drastic cuts to post-secondary education. An editorial writer for The Gateway student newspaper isn’t pleased, in part because programs at some schools could be eliminated if others offer them nearby. “The new plan for Alberta education doesn’t see the point in the same programs being offered between two nearby schools,” writes Andrew Jeffrey. “But this policy hurts post-secondary accessibility as fewer students will be able to qualify for these programs… with tougher competition.” Alberta has traditionally provided more funding than other provinces, which are now cutting too.
Continue reading Waterloo’s King of Nerds, budget cuts & sports media B.A.
Space contest, food at Ryerson & Facebook hookups
What students are talking about today (February 13th)
Space contestant Humphries (Axe Apollo)
1. The Queen’s Journal at Queen’s University is the latest to report on a very cool competition that promises to reward two Canadians with a ticket on a commercial flight that will blast more than 100 km into space. The Canadian competitors with the most votes on the Axe Apollo Space Academy website will join winners from around the world on a Space Expedition Corporation expedition sometime after 2014. If the flight doesn’t happen by the2017, winners will get $85,000 instead. Queen’s student Steven Humphries, currently 21st, got support by way of a Tweet from Queen’s president Daniel Woolf.
2. It’s not often that more than 1,000 people show up at a student union meeting but that’s what happened at the University of Toronto Students’ Union’s gathering on Tuesday. They were there to settle the debate over online voting, which has been pushed by reformers. The motion was narrowly approved by a vote of 575 to 567, reports The Varsity. UTSU president Shaun Shepherd and his colleagues are opposed to web voting while several of the college and faculty leaders who backed the motion are frequent critics of the executive. “I’m just so fed up with this school,” Shepherd said. Still, after an emergency meeting of the Elections & Referenda Committee, Shepherd added that “irrespective of whether or not we agree with them, we have to honour them—that’s democracy.”
Continue reading Space contest, food at Ryerson & Facebook hookups
What students are talking about today (Sept. 25 edition)
Bacon shortage. Study-space shortage. The #1 poker school.
Feist (Jason Persse/Flickr)
1. In a Yale University study, 127 scientists were given information on supposed recent graduates applying for laboratory jobs. A fake applicant named John tended to be viewed as more competent than a fake applicant named Jennifer, despite identical qualifications. The conclusion is that women will find it harder to get science jobs than men. The anti-female bias wasn’t limited to male professors; women were just as biased.
2. Feist, the only nominee to have been on Sesame Street, sung at the Grammys and been in an Apple commercial, took home the $30,000 Polaris Music Prize last night for her album Metals. Feist gave a humble speech and toasted fellow nominees Cold Specks and Grimes. Ironically, the Polaris Prize is supposed to be a counterweight to sales-focused Juno’s, where Feist tends to clean up (she has eight).
3. Bacon fans, you may want to be sitting down for this one. “A world shortage of pork and bacon next year is now unavoidable,” according the National Pig Association in Britain.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 25 edition)
Western University elections sabotaged
Voters asked to choose Justin Bieber’s haircut in “erection”
A hacker at Western University has sabotaged the University Student Council elections by asking voters to pick Justin Bieber’s haircut, suggesting “Selena Gomez is wonderful” and by renaming the process the “University erection,” reports the Western Gazette. It was noticed on Valentine’s Day and online voting was shut down. The vote tallies weren’t hacked, say USC officials, but the two days of polls will be thrown out and a new vote is forthcoming, writes the London Free Press.
