All Posts Tagged With: "RIM"
What students are talking about today (November 12th edition)
Elmo scandal, Concordia on homestays, a regrettable tattoo
Kevin Clash (Bill Thompson/Wikimedia)
1. Concordia University has responded to complaints by Chinese students about homestays advertised through a link on its website. One student told CBC News that she hadn’t been fed enough, losing weight as a result. “While Concordia is not involved in providing homestay services, it has undertaken a careful review of the allegations,” reads Concordia’s statement.
2. Kevin Clash, the 52-year-old puppeteer behind Elmo, has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a man who was 16 at the time, according to a statement from Sesame Street. Clash denies the boy was underage, but he has taken a leave of absence and has been disciplined for inappropriately using work computers.
3. The Fiscal Cliff, a Jan. 1st deadline of doom that the U.S. economy faces if Congress doesn’t amend its agreed-upon package of tax hikes and spending cuts, is apparently a subject of interest for Star Wars fans. They took to Twitter with the hashtag #StarWarsFiscalCliff. Here’s one such missive from Tweeter John Podhoretz: “Ben Bernanke? That wizard is just a crazy old man.”
Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 12th edition)
What students are talking about today (Sept. 17 edition)
Occupy, a campus caffeine ban, campus radio and the NHL
j.dubb/Flickr
1. Ryerson lost its radio station CKLN for good last week after the CRTC denied an application to bring it back. “There were feminist programs, LGBT shows, even a series on prisoners’ rights. There was a lot of lefty politics and a lot of loopy politics. Not all of it was good, but you would struggle to hear it anywhere else,” recalls The Ryersonian. The station was shut down after years of fighting between the students’ union and non-students on the board, partly over the question how much airtime students got.
2. It’s officially one year since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. See Twitter for the latest action under #OWS, #OCCUPY and #S17.
3. One of the enduring scenes from Occupy was when University of California Davis students and alumni were violently pepper-sprayed by campus police at a peaceful protest following an eviction in November. The university just announced a settlement with 21 victims. UC spokesperson Jonathan Stein told the L.A. Times, “we did an injustice to our students that day at Davis.” Yes they did.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 17 edition)
What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
Guns on campus, a Bar Mitzvah video, teacher’s college…
nukeit1/Flickr
1. The University of Colorado Boulder announced it will require students who live in undergraduate residence halls to forgo bringing handguns to campus. That may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s a bold step for Boulder in light of a Colorado Supreme Court decision in March that affirmed students’ rights to handguns on campus. The rule does not apply to graduate students. Let it be noted that James Holmes, the man who killed 12 and wounded 58 others at The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado in July, was a graduate student.
2. A new $100 bank note with an Asian-looking woman peering into a microscope was deemed too controversial by a focus groups. Instead of simply rolling their eyes, the Bank of Canada purged the note in favour of a “neutral” Caucasian-looking figure. To quote from the report received by The Canadian Press: “Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology… Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes.”
3. Research In Motion is laying off so many people right now that it isn’t even bothering to meet with all of them in person. The BlackBerry maker dumped 100 workers in Halifax this week by herding them into a room and then showing them a teleconference link with someone at Waterloo, Ont. headquarters. One worker called it “inhumane,” because she couldn’t even ask questions.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
Lazaridis donates $21 million to Waterloo
RIM founder’s gifts now total $123 million
The founders of Research In Motion (RIM), the Waterloo, Ont. based produce of BlackBerry products, have fallen. But one of them, Mike Lazaridis, is ready to make a new investment. He and his wife Ophelia pledged $21 million to the University of Waterloo on Wednesday. “History has shown us that a relatively small investment in fundamental research in physics and in science today can lead to huge innovation tomorrow,” Lazaridis said. The money will fund chairs in condensed matter and astrophysics, a new science building and scholarships for mathematics students. The couple have donated $123 million in total, after funding the Institute for Quantum Computing and the soon-to-open Quantum Nano Centre. To get a sense of how big those donations are, consider that only one gift to a Canadian university exceeded $20 million last year, reports Academica.
