The birdcage has suddenly exploded with banners. Let's see... we've got the Energy Crossroads conference... pretty exciting (Thomas Friedman is speaking tomorrow!). The BASES eChallenge.... and then, lots of parties. Does anyone feel like their inbox is exploding with Facebook invites? Yeah, this would help explain it.

"Chi-Sino Royale," "Little Miss Kappa," "God Save the Queen" (?), "Ted Leo and the Pharmacists," the Frosh Talent Show, "The Winter of Our Disco Tent" (I love that one)... and, even though they don't have a banner, let's not forget the Queer Formal tomorrow!

100+ startup companies showed up in White Plaza today for the Bases Startup Job Fair. It's part of the Entrepreneurship Week activities, which started last Saturday. Lots of cute Web 2.0 logos to be had and a decent showing from Green technology companies. Check it out:

Mmmm.... Meebo. "Meebo: It fits your life. Or... the complete lack thereof." Great tag line for an instant messaging site.

PBwiki was giving away free Red Bulls... and I'm currently feeling a bit dizzy. But it's okay... I also happen to be typing abnormally fast. "PBwiki: as easy as a peanut butter sandwich!"

Yeah... can I get the marketing people over here?

The Stanford Daily's Loren Newman is reporting that senior Tommy Leep has selected the new Tree for 2007-08, freshman John Whipple.

What do you think of this guy?

Whipple did have a pretty nice stunt when he gave himself a dry ice burn, eschewing his original plan of metal branding.

But other than that, he really didn't do that much to impress me.

It seems Whipple may have won just because his opposition was pretty lame. Granted, the selection process is oh-so complex and mysterious. But instead of getting people on campus talking about their debauchery or craziness, Tree candidates had students fuming about messes they left behind in White Plaza from vomit, paint balls, egg shells, etc.

Is Stanford, even our notorious Tree, becoming tame?

According to ABC News, it was a 4.2 and struck at 8:40 pm, near Lafayette. Here it is on the seismogram.

In an ongoing effort to prove Ralph Nader fantastically wrong (re: “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” and “it being impossible to tell the difference between the two parties”), to silence those who don’t think government responds to progressive concerns anymore, and to pass good legislation, the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act today. This bill is relatively obscure, but a great move.

The Employee Free Choice Act allows card check organization of unions, rather than the current election system. Card check means that as soon as a majority of workers sign cards and ship them off to the NLRB, an accredited union that can engage in collective bargaining with an employer pops up instantly.

It’ll be great to see us in March Madness, and it’s great to see us win comfortably over a bad team. There were no jitters here.

THE GOOD:

Fred Washington. He had a great offensive game; he attacked the basket and got to the line thirteen times. Damn, that’s good. Defense was a little off but still pretty good.

Mitch Johnson and his Juvenation Machine: I’m afraid I’ll jinx his shooting touch; let’s just move on here…

Lawrence Hill: Glad to see him get back to his high-scoring, inside-out efficiency game.

THE BAD on the other hand...

Before there was Paris, there was GXM.
Everyone, buy a sex toy. You'll thank me later.

Share on Facebook using this link.

[9:56PM - Breaking News: Apparently six Stanford basketball players have food poisoning. Sounds like Arizona will win tomorrow.]

The game tomorrow is mostly for seeding purposes, and as a clincher. If we win, we clinch and get a much better seed. If we lose, no big deal, we’re still probably in the tournament. The game is also important as a pre-tournament scouting report. Do we go into the tournament with momentum, or not?

Last time, we played Arizona close, despite the deceiving final score. Most of the game was close until a late 19-6 run. That was at home, and Arizona was playing much better at that time, so this game is certainly within reach.

The recent cratering of stocks caused a lot of panic amongst the chattering classes. Fueling this panic was not just “Black Tuesday in Shanghai” but also everyone’s favorite former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan. He reportedly claimed that a recession was “possible,” and investors, who treat Greenspan as some kind of mystic oracle, panicked.

Leaving aside the weird messiah-seeking tendencies of investors (if it ain’t a CEO or Mad Money, it’s Greenspan), the whole question is why Greenspan continues to meddle with the economic matters that aren’t his job to do.

[Revised Saturday, 7:39pm]

Two years after declaring his support for the Iraq war in Kresge Auditorium in 2005, Thomas Friedman returned to Stanford today to declare "Green" as the way to "restore America to its natural place in the global order as the beacon of progress, hope, and inspiration."

The three most important issues facing America, he said, are "jobs, temperature, and terrorism," the solutions to which "are so large in scale, they cannot possibly be addressed by an America divided along red and blue state lines."

"The power of a new Green ideology is that it can, properly defined, mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, red states and blue states, big business and environmentalists around a core agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward."

"The next president," he said, "will have to rally us with a Green patriotism."

Friedman said that Green "hit mainstream" through the convergence of 9/11, Katrina, and the internet revolution. The "bad news" is that, while Green has hit mainstream, it has not "gone down Main Street."

Talking urinals. From The Associated Press:

SANTA FE - New Mexico is taking its fight against drunken driving to men's restrooms around the state. The state has ordered 500 talking urinal cakes that will deliver a recorded anti-DWI message to bar and restaurant patrons who make one last pit stop before getting behind the wheel.

"Hey there, big guy. Having a few drinks?" a female voice says a few seconds after an approaching male sets off a motion sensor in the device. "It's time to call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home."

Transportation Department spokesman S.U. Mahesh said the urinal cakes are a way to reach one group that's a target of state safety campaigns. Men commit about three times as many drunken-driving infractions as women.

The devices were invented by Richard Deutsch. "The idea is based on the concept that there is no more captive audience than a guy standing at a urinal," Deutsch said. "You can't look right and you can't look left; you've got to look at the ad."

Hi everyone, my name is Jason and I'll be a unofficial blogger for Stanford. I'm very excited to get started. I'll be blogging mostly about how we can improve ourselves and also improve the world we live in. I look forward to seeing what you all think about it.

A little more about me - I'm a junior, a Bio major, I like asking strange questions and I'm on the gymnastics team here at Stanford (We are having our last meet this weekend, so come to Burnham Pavillion this Saturday!)

PS - I love xkcd comics.

This world is filled with incredible people and incredible actions. A website, called "Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age," allows you to input your age and out pops a list of people and the incredible achievements they had accomplished by that age.

Here is a sampling for age 20.

• English novelist Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which was immediately successful.


• Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft.


• Charles Lindbergh learned to fly.


• Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, her second and most famous novel (dang that early huh?)


• The Greek philosopher Plato became a disciple of Socrates.

Holi, the very popular annual Hindu Spring festival was celebrated at Manzanita Park this last Saturday with lots of colors, water and some mud as well! Holi marks the onset of spring in India. So why is Holi celebrated? Well there are various stories in ancient Hindu texts but the three most important reasons can be found here.

On campus, the Hindu Students Council had really done a good job of guaranteeing a good party sans alcohol! People smeared each other with colored powders (gulal) and threw water on each other.

We're inching our way up the Google search results page for "Stanford Blog" and are now the top result for "Unofficial Stanford Blog." Tomorrow, we expect to receive our 2,000th unique visitor [reached at 1:16AM].

Come see the SImp's quarterly show on Friday and Saturday, March 9th and 10th at Pigott Theater. They'll have Theatresports matches on both nights, leading up to the finale on March 10th at 10:00pm, where one of the SImp teams will battle an all-star team of alumni players. Tickets are $5 and will be sold in White Plaza and at the door.

I hate how people make all kinds of metaphors for life. Just to prove how bunk they are, I'm using a random word generator to make 10 metaphors for life on the spot. Tell me they don't make sense somehow =)

Life is like...
1. Accents - everyone has one and they are all a little different - making it harder to understand some people more than others
2. A guarantee - you can find it with anyone, but it doesn't mean much except for a select few who truy honor it.
3. A disaster - (nothing more needs to be said)
4. An infection - it grows on you

Tuesday, March 6 at 7:30pm in the Language Corner
Watch the Trailer | Sign the Petition | Learn More

Then, catch Professor Zimbardo's Farewell Lecture on the Psychology of Torture on Wednesday morning.

Libby was found guilty today in his Valerie Plame-related trial for perjury and obstruction of justice. According to the Associated Press, “Libby is the highest ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandal of the mid 1980s.”

This is obviously a big break, as we’ll finally, finally see someone get punished significantly for this Valerie Plame scandal, which, by exposing a covert agent, damaged our national security.

Of course, Mr. Law and Order man, Fred Thompson, assures us that “it was not a crime.” (I actually enjoy his Law and Order work, he should stick to that.) This attitude is typical of Republicans. To wit, then, this is the conservative mentality on crime:

An individual lies about having sex with a woman: he should be thrown out of office, possibly immolated, and is a threat to the nation’s dignity.

On the other hand, if an individual attempts to cover up for an investigation about an administration exposing a covert agent as a dirty trick: no biggie, dude.

This will serve rational analysis well when we deal with the next Republican scandal, the Department of Justice Massacre. Essentially, after pressuring their own prosecutors to give Republicans favorable treatment, the Department of Justice fired eight prosecutors and replaced them with their own cronies.

The Democrats will be holding hearings.

YouTube's new channel for the 2008 Presidential Candidates now makes it dead-simple for voters to get in touch with the men and woman who have entered the race. The posted videos are exactly -- and only -- what the candidates want you to see, but they do several democracy-enhancing things.

First, the channel allows voters to see all of the candidates at once and get a sense of (and compare) what each of them is saying, both Democrat and Republican.

Second, it is currently -- and will likely remain -- an attack-ad-free zone, so you don't feel like shit every time you simply wade into the election. If a candidate wants to make a jab at another, he or she pretty much has to own up to it, at least here.

One of Stanford’s boldest artists shares her thoughts on the Stanford Arts Initiative, the work of Jenny Saville, and transferring from the East Coast.

Blog for Stanford: So, you live in Twain. Are you a transfer?
Sara: Yes I am.

BFS: Where are you a transfer from?
Sara: Vassar College, in upstate New York.

BFS: What was it about Vassar that pushed you towards Stanford?
Sara: Well, Vassar only allowed water-based paints. And water-based oils are really trash.

BFS: For health reasons?
Sara: Yes, and environmental reasons. So, I knew that wasn’t going to work, because I want to be an oil painter. So I just looked around; I wanted to come closer to home – I’m from Colorado – and Stanford is a good school in the West. Vassar was a little emo.

BFS: Can you talk about your early experiences with painting?
Sara: I started oil painting when I was about 8 years old, but I’ve been taking art classes since I was about six. I went to the Art Students’ League of Denver starting when I was very young, and I had one teacher up until I was about 13, and then I switched into the adult classes, and my teacher Kevin Weckbach has been sort of a mentor since then.

BFS: And how did you know that painting was it? What about it captured you?

Sign-up online at http://soca.stanford.edu by March 10th!

Sign-ups have been extended for this year's annual "An Art Affair," the largest arts festival at Stanford. An Art Affair, which is organized by the Student Organizing Committee for the Arts (SOCA), will be held this April 14th and 15th, and will coincide with Stanford's bi-annual Community Day. This is the seventh annual An Art Affair festival, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever before.

Now in its seventh year, An Art Affair has evolved into a true Stanford tradition.

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Previously recorded at the "Thinking Humanity" conference, and available here. Accompanying slides are also available here.

Professor Phil Zimbardo said goodbye to Stanford today in a farewell lecture on his signature issue, the psychology of evil. Entitled "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil," his talk was a guest lecture for Psychology 1 students, but he attracted so many other fans and students eager to hear him speak once more, that the TAs for the course began to block the doors, allowing only Psych 1 students in and challenging people entering to name their TA.

Zimbardo was introduced by Psych 1 Professor Benoit Monin, also a social psychologist, who said that many departments have "fairy godmothers" who help nurture and train the students and scholars there. Zimbardo, however, was more like a "godfather," or, rather, THE Godfather. As a token of the department's appreciation, Monin presented Zimbardo with a symbolic black hat, which Zimbardo promptly wore. Zimbardo then proceeded humorously to give Monin the famous Godfather "kiss of death."

Appropriate enough for a psychologist who studies evil.

Lost amidst the top Democratic presidential candidats' Iraq war one-upmanship (or womanship), is the looming threat that the US is about to embark on another adventure: Iran. It's easy for the very real possibility of an attack on Iran to be downplayed as presidential candidates fiddle vocally with details of troop deployment and funding levels for the war in Iraq. However, the threat of strikes against Iran is very real.

In January, I met with retired General Wesley Clark who was very concerned about the current situation in the middle east. (Disclaimer: he's my candidate of choice in '08.) The increasing possibility of strikes against Iran has become great enough that General Clark has made stopping such actions his top priority--at the expense of a possible presidential campaign. Together with VoteVets.org, General Clark has set up a website, StopIranWar.com, aimed at bringing attention to the situation and to push diplomatic efforts in Iran. The rush to war in '03 couldn't be stopped, but there are avenues available in the Democratically controlled Congress that can be used to push diplomacy over war. I'll be discussing upcoming legislation later here and elsewhere. For now, you can sign the petition. (Bill Richardson has a petition as well as Hillary Clinton)

We usually think of peace as coming from a macro-level: a treaty between two nations, a peace accord, UN intervention, or a cease-fire. But to what degree can the reality at the micro-level influence peace between governments?

There are numerous projects working towards this effect in the Middle East. A version of Sesame Street for the region has Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully in the same neighborhood, and for adults there are groups such as Arabs for Israel and Coalition of Women for Peace. A number of other groups work to foster dialogue and exchange between Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps these groups can succeed where governments have failed.

Here at Stanford there's a new group called the Stanford Project for U.S.-China Dialogue. The goal here is to cultivate cultural and political understanding between the U.S. and China, by posting articles on various topics by American and Chinese university students. While the two countries are not at war, the group aims to prevent the sort of misunderstandings that have lead to conflict in the past. You can check out the website at: http://dialogue.stanford.edu/

So what do you think? What are other opportunities for cultural bridge-building? Is this the future of peace?

Suddenly, by common consensus, we’ve become a bubble team. We’ve got a strong hold on a spot in the tournament, but we’re not a lock; if we lose tomorrow, we have to become the ogres everyone hates and root against the underdogs and also pray for the committee’s kindness. I don’t want either of these fates to befall me, so I hope we clinch a spot against USC.

Chris Larsen is the co-founder and CEO of Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending marketplace that has excited quite a few in the world of finance, business, and technology, notably the New York Times, SF Chronicle, and Businessweek.

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Chris Larsen is the co-founder and CEO of Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending marketplace that brings together traditionally inspired dynamics of lending between friends, family, and individuals, with the benefits and rigors of modern-day credit systems.

Prior to Prosper, Chris co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of E-LOAN, which closed over $27 billion in consumer loans, and was consistently ranked as one of the nation's most trusted consumer brands. E-LOAN took radically pro-consumer actions such as being the first company to provide consumers with access to their credit scores, and played a critical role in the passage of the consumer financial privacy protection laws. Chris led E-LOAN through a successful IPO in 1999, and oversaw the company's acquisition by Puerto Rican bank Popular, Inc. in 2005.

In this podcast, Chris chats with Julio and Min Li about Prosper's innovative vision, its unique challenges as an eBay platform for money (check out Prosper's cool tools for academics and researchers for performing case studies on its model), and the fine balance between the countervailing forces of transparency and privacy in the world of Web 2.0.

Chris holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University and a B.S. degree from San Francisco State University, where he was named the 2004 Alumnus of the Year.

- Min Li

--
Note from Min Liu*:
For more interesting interviews by Stanford business school students and recent grads, check out iinnovate.

*yes, there's a Min Li and a Min Liu ;)

Feel like the only one who hasn't chosen a presidential candidate for 2008? Well, you're not alone. Gallup has a new poll that shows only 15% of registered voters saying they made up their minds about who they will support and only 22% have a "good idea" who they will support.

If you're a tired of hearing about how great Clinton, Obama and Giuliani are, you are not alone. The rest of the country is taking their time. So should you. Get to know the candidates and look at their record. Some may be surprised to learn that one of the candidates got into some trouble for helping to get the Pentagon Papers out, that one of the candidates is a former ambassador to the UN, or that one of the candidates lost a lot of weight and has become a big advocate of preventative health care (hey, it's a Republican so, yeah, that's news).

The loss tonight to USC in overtime, it wasn’t the Trojans beating us, it was their adversaries, the Greeks who did us in. In Greek tragedy, of course, it is hubris and one fatal flaw coming back to haunt you that ultimately dooms the protagonist. That’s what just happened to Stanford.

An introductory video to the arts at Stanford, created for the Arts Guide, an interactive multi-media guide to the arts at Stanford, sent to all prospective freshmen in the Spring. I think this video really captures the essence of Stanford, the passion and creativity of the students here, their dedication to extra-curricular arts and activities, and generally some of the principles and values that make Stanford an incredible place to be. [studentarts.stanford.edu]

I just came back from a show by the Stanford Improvisers (SImps) called “Phantom of the Improv” at the Pigott Theater. I watched 8 members produce an improvised, unrehearsed 50 minute Broadway-style musical called “The Ballet Class” (the title was selected through many audience suggestions and subsequent voting).

It was incredibly fun.

I love SImps shows: they are funny, musical and surprising. This show was the best entertainment I could recommend to anyone. The songs were catchy, the actors were funny and real, and the plot had a great ending. The story was basically about a school where a new kid gets into trouble on the first day with a “bad kid,” then joins the homeroom art project of “expressing yourself” with two other students who learn ballet. The bad kid is eventually convinced to join the project as well and give it a chance.

State transportation planners have nearly finished designing a high-tech bullet train system that would take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just over two-and-a-half hours at 220 mph -- faster than a Ferrari. The electric train, which would extend from San Diego to the Bay Area and Sacramento, is slated to be put before voters in 2008 at a price tag of $30 billion. Given California's population growth rate -- we effectively add another San Jose to our population every two years -- the ensuing commuter flood will jam our highways and airports. An electric high-speed bullet train would be significantly more environmentally- and aesthetically-friendly, not to mention cheaper, than building more highways and/or expanding our airports.

Though the rest of the industrialized world has had high speed trains like this for as much as 43 years (in the case of Japan), America has yet to construct even one truly high-speed train (i.e. over 200 mph).

As always, California will show the way.

Visit the California High Speed Rail Authority Website for more >>

I was given an account and told to post...

Over the last several months the concept of stereotype threat has been on my mind a lot. (I realize I'm linking to my nemesis Wikipedia. So it goes. Follow the link for some very interesting data. If you're super ambitious, you can track down some of the published references.) I couldn't stop thinking about stereotype threat as I was reading an article several days ago which discussed the perception of male versus female leaders:

While more than half our 60,000 respondents said a person's sex makes no difference to leadership abilities, most who expressed a preference said men are more likely to be effective leaders.

Of male respondents, 41 percent said men are more likely to be good leaders, and 33 percent of women agreed. And three out of four women who expressed a preference said they would rather work for a man than a woman.

Like Ingrid Newkirk, but not as scary: Stanford’s loudest animal rights activist talks about Stanford’s animal research facility, famous vegans in history, and why he frequently foregoes footwear.

[Blog for Stanford]: Can you tell me what ARF is about and what your goals are as an organization?
[Jack]: ARF stands for Animal Rights on the Farm, and we exist to promote animal rights. Interestingly, we’re also Stanford’s only undergraduate and graduate student group that focuses on animal rights. Our main goal is to extend compassion to all sentient beings because we think that any being that has interests or can feel pain deserves respect. Just because they happen to belong to a different species doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect their interests. That’s bigoted, I think.

[BFS]: I’ve heard the speciesist argument before. Is that sort of what you guys are getting at?
[Jack]: Yeah, it is. The most widespread form of disregarding members of other species is eating them, and so we’d like to promote vegetarianism and veganism among all people, but especially students on campus, since we’re a Stanford group. Another activity that uses animals in painful ways is research, and there’s an animal research facility on campus. They don’t release any information to the public about what animal research is going on. We’d like to find out more about what’s happening at the animal research facility and be able to hold a public debate about what types of animal research people might feel are acceptable or unacceptable. Because we feel that when you’re doing research on an animal, you’re harming him or her, and you need to ask whether the benefits outweigh the harms. And if you don’t have any information, you can’t ask those questions. We are doing a disservice to the animals and to ourselves as ethical people.

[BFS]: Is it a medical research facility?
[Jack]: The research facility is in the medical school; it’s in the basement of the medical school.

[BFS]: Oh, so you know where it’s located. Very key.

Last night was Grove's Winter special dinner, and it was.... fabulous. Beef, chicken, and buttery crab goodness... with a lot of Nintendo and Great Book characters floating around. Thanks to our marvelous staff and talented chefs, there were lots of happy stomachs, and lots of happy faces.

It's Tetris

Last night, Stanford's men's gymnastics team defeated #2 Penn State and #9 Iowa at the last home meet of the year. It was one of the most exciting meets of my life, my voice is hoarse from all the screaming. I'm a junior on the gymnastics team, but redshirting due to a knee injury.

It was certainly an amazing send off for the class of 2007, Brice Rolston, Alex Schorsch, Dylan Carney, Peter Derman and Josh Goldman, all whom were honored at the meet. Penn State is hosting NCAAs and this was a huge victory for us and fuels our momentum into the post-season. We have conference championships during Spring Break and 2 weeks into spring quarter we will be at Penn State to chase the NCAA title. Wish us good luck!

If you have never seen a gymnastics meet, you have to come see one. See our youtube videos.

I was definitely sweating it for a while, but I’m glad we made it.
Now, obviously we shouldn’t be satisfied with just making it, but considering we were one of the last teams to get in, it’s definitely nice to make it.

Following a tumultuous day for him that included critical e-mails and a call home to his parents from readers of this Blog, the student who sent the offensive original message apologized to me in a letter on Facebook and requested that I take his name off of the blog. He said I could share the letter with you, and I think it is only fair to offer him a chance to provide his own version of the events.

Here's what he said:

I would like to personally apologize for my comment to you on Facebook. It is something that I deeply regret saying, and was merely a result of my propensity to speak without thinking. I am not sure as to how I was even put onto the list to receive messages regarding an event I had not RSVP’d for. I had already gotten multiple copies of the message, and was simply mad to see what appeared to be spam messages in my Facebook inbox (something that would not have been surprising had it been Myspace). Again, without even thinking, I quickly fired off the response that I sent to you. I never once viewed your profile, and I can assure you that this was NOT a deliberate act of homophobia; in fact, I have many gay friends and acquaintances...

Hopefully everyone has gotten the joke by now. I saw the Chappie Daily on my way out the door to class this morning, and about had a heart attack. In a cloud of shock and self-doubt, I wondered internally, "How will I explain this on tours?" At lunch, several people were just beginning to read the fake Daily and had similar looks of fear and uncertainty on their faces.

Way to skewer the issue, Chappie. The joke is definitely on us. Except for all of the profros who were on campus today. I wonder what it was like for them to find that headline!

For anyone who is still wondering, the US News and World Report's annual college rankings are released in the fall and Stanford currently sits at No. 4.

Not that it matters or anything.

Celebrities John Hennessy, Tony the Tiger, and.... someone else made lively appearances at the moderately-attended, annual Midnight Breakfast.

Usually, we try to set a pretty high standard for the kinds of videos we post to the blog, limiting ourselves generally to videos produced by Stanford students, or with some redeeming cultural or political value. This time, the cultural and political satire is just too good to pass over. It's an ironic merger of two well-known megalomaniacs who many believe are intent on taking over the world. And the satire ends with the introduction of another "i" product that is simply all-too-real a possibility for the US.

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." --Andrew Card, Former Chief of Staff to President Bush, on why the administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq in 2002.

Imagine a college where students get a rigorous, top-notch, all-expense paid education, in the tradition of military academies. But instead of years in the military, graduates would repay their education in public service - be it local, state, or federal government.

This amazing school is becoming a reality, thanks to Chris Myers Asch and Shawn Raymond, and their project: The United States Public Service Academy. Their idea has become a congressional bill and will be introduced next week by Senator Clinton, along with another Senator and 2 Representatives. This is very impressive from 2 thirty-somethings who did Teach for America together, especially since they first came up with the idea less than one year ago!

That is one impressive display of resourcefulness, gumption and passion.

I know you all are dying to help this project out, so here's what you can do: if you are high school student, college student, or recent grad, express your support for this awesome bill by "signing" the letter and mailing it to

asch@uspublicserviceacademy.org

It's so easy and this is such a great cause.

Dear Members of Congress:

We, the undersigned, are high school students, college students, and recent college graduates in the United States, and we are urging you to support the Public Service Academy Act. We think the U.S. Public Service Academy is the kind of school that young people would love to attend. If the Academy were around when we were applying to college, we would have applied to attend. We need to build it for future generations!

Signed,

______________________________

________________
(Name)
_____________________________________
(City, State)

Julio Vasconcellos and Matt Wyndowe, second year Stanford Graduate School of Business students, recently had the privilege of interviewing Silicon Valley legend, Andy Grove. From the iinnovate blog:

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Andy Grove is an iconic figure in technology and management worldwide. A Silicon Valley legend, he joined as one of the first employees at Intel and led the company to where it is today.

Andy Grove has lived the American dream, escaping his native Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution and arriving penniless in America. Andy became the 4th employee at Intel and eventually its CEO in 1987, a position he occupied until 1997, remaining in the Chairman post until 2004. Andy’s leadership earned him honors including Time Magazine’s Man of the Year (1997).

In this interview Andy talks about key strategic decisions at Intel, about Microsoft’s ability to change, his managerial style, and career advice. There's also video of a key moment where Andy discusses his opinion of Microsoft.

it's just so... stress-releasing. now back to this damn problem set...

update: i witnessed a hilarious primal scream moment the other night when i was sitting in meyer library just as the clock was striking midnight. a bunch of students, who had moments earlier been perfectly calm, suddenly burst into screams, but quickly remembering that they were in a library, they muffled their screaming and scrambled madly for the exits, wherein their screams could be heard faintly through the door.

the whole moment reminded me of a video i'd seen of the ScreamBody, an invention of MIT student kelly dobson, which allows users to scream silently to themselves without disturbing those around them. although MIT does not have the primal scream tradition as far as i'm aware, this sort of invention would be perfect for those oh-so-unfortunate moments when you need to scream, but it just wouldn't be proper...

Growing up, I've wanted to be many things: archaeologist, astronaut, scientist, science writer. But I never really wanted to be a doctor. It was stagnant, it was done for the money, and most importantly, my mother wanted it. So I fought against it. Yet I ended up majoring in Biological Sciences, where everyone either goes on to Medical School or graduate school in a bio-related field. But I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Sure, I had some ideas, but it was hard to figure out who would be paying me to do these things.

Then I saw Paul Wise speak at a SAID dinner, and he changed my mind. He said that if you work in any policy related field, you have to have "statistical compassion". You've got to feel just as good about seeing a drop in child mortality rates late one night, as you would after saving someone's life after an 8 hour surgery. I realized that I needed that hands on experience.

Speaking to a crowd of about 100 students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business today, Microsoft CEO and Stanford GSB drop-out Steve Ballmer questioned Google's ability to accomplish its stated goal of doubling the company to 20,000 employees over a one-year period. "They are trying to double in a year," he said. "That's insane in my opinion."

Ballmer also called Google a "one-trick pony" that is right now "milking" its success in search and advertising. Everything else Google does is either filling in the space around search or is just a "cute" side project (see video clip).

He also questioned Google's management philosophy, saying "A random collection of people trying to do their own thing -- that doesn't create value, in my opinion," referring to Google's policy of letting its engineers devote 20% of their time to pet projects (for more on Google culture, check out the EdCorner).

The GSB has not yet posted news of Ballmer's speech to its news website, so information related to it is limited to reporting by CNET and CBS News, both of which chose to focus on his remarks concerning Google. The speech was over an hour.

This post could be three hundred or three thousand words, and for the sake of my grades, I choose three hundred. Suffice it to say, it's a shame to see the players and the coaching staff give such a desultory effort. It's a shame to see failures to inbound the ball and to regress to our earlier free-throw form. It's a shame that we appeared completely unprepared--we've seen the press before (whatever Goods had to say about it in postgame conference), and, hint, Fred Washington is good at breaking it. And it's a shame that we have to listen to shit about how we didn't deserve to be there for the rest of the summer.

Stanford's Brook Lopez, right, and Robin Lopez watch the closing minutes against Louisville in a first round basketball game of the South Regional of the NCAA Tournament in Lexington, Ky., Thursday, March 15, 2007. Louisville defeated Stanford 78-58. (AP Photo/Al Behrman; retrieved from ESPN.com)

After attending a rally yesterday afternoon in Oakland (which you can see here), Barack Obama, junior Senator from Illinois and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, met with supporters at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco -- I know, very swanky. He spoke briefly and then signed books and spoke with audience members, mingling amicably and talking with supporters, including a bunch of Stanford students on hand.

I got to be *this close* to him and even shook his hand and said a few -- albeit brief -- words to him. About 40 Stanford students got the opportunity to go to the event since Dean Julie is working on the campaign. The event was invitation-only and thrown for donors to Obama's campaign. Because it was on a weekend (Obama was in the area for the rally), a number of the bigwigs originally invited were unable to attend. Dean Julie was notified and posted the information to (what else?), her Facebook profile.

(Photo from www.cnn.com)

In the past week, I've noticed two major news stories about terror suspects, currently being held at Guantanamo, confessing to major roles in 9/11 and the bombing of the USS Cole, respectively.

It struck me as odd that these two confessions should happen within the span of less than a week and 4-5 years after their respective events, especially since both confessions are quite weighty and come from supposedly high-up suspects. They are currently trying 14 "high-value" prisoners at Guantanamo, these two men included, but should we rationally expect this much candor from those on trial, after all these years? Honestly? Then, I remembered reading this little gem.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, talks about Google’s industry and competitors, about leading innovation, and gives career advice. [video also available].

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"All of the things that happen in your 20's are just the beginning of a professional career. With every ending is a new set of beginnings. It's important to understand that you want to be positioned for the very best ones. Now is the time, especially as a young person, to get those learnings. Not just about business but about life. All of the of things that you have to have to have a personal business compass."

More from the iinnovate blog.

Need another excuse to play Play Station 3 this week instead of cramming for that 8:30 a.m. final?

Last week, Sony announced that their hit entertainment system will support connection to Folding@Home, a Stanford project which utilizes the concept of distributed computing to understand protein folding, misfolding and diseases related to those actions.

While harnessing a machine's computing power was previously only available on PCs, the researchers can now pool the resources of the PS3 gaming machine, which reportedly "has a Cell/B.E. processor roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a personal computer."

When thinking of outdoor art on campus, what comes to mind for most people is the rich collection of sculptures affiliated with the Cantor Arts Museum. Lately, though, Stanford has seen several guerrilla art installations popping up across campus.

If you spend a lot of time touring Campus Drive Loop, you will have undoubtedly noticed the huge geodesic dome constructed on the lawn outside of Chi Theta Chi. This is an incredible feat of construction, and I have been told it started as a scrap project, and turned into a masterpiece.

Recently, the Tresidder Bollards were dressed up in what looks to be pajamas, with lace fringe. This installation only lasted one day.

i found this story while i was scouting around the web during my normal workday procrastination and part of it really struck me: why is it that the whole pet food craziness gets media coverage galore because of a dozen dead pets, but 12 fallen soldiers gets little to no coverage. are we that used to the daily war casualties? are we complacent enough that we say, "oh wow! only 12 dead soldiers! that's way less than yesterday...what a great day towards victory." i reckon that no news from iraq can be exciting enough for the american media/public after four years of hearing about it, but honestly.

at the end of the day, though, we have to trust the media and gobble up their take-home message:

like, omg. rat-poisoned pet food is, like, totally the new e. coli-ladened spinach!

From Professor Frankel:
This is the Age of Human Rights. Since World War Two, we’ve seen the rise of the concept of universal rights and the growth of a global movement dedicated to the cause. Governments have signed treaties and conventions committing themselves to opposing genocide, torture and other crimes against humanity.

At the same time, nation-states have jealously guarded their own sovereignty, cracked down whenever threatened and ignored outbreaks of genocide, while superpowers like the United States have forged alliances with despots of many stripes. The distance between what governments have pledged on human rights and what they actually do is a gaping chasm. It’s here---in the gray zone between ambiguity and hypocrisy---that journalism lives.

This course will discuss the role of journalists in exposing human rights abuses. We’ll examine a number of case studies...

So finally the quarter ends! And you are basking in the California sun in the spring/summer/winter break! Yeah, welcome to CA baby, its sun-shiny all year round. And even if you are a grad student stuck on campus (like me!), you still feel great now that the well-deserved breather is here. Weather news apart, its interesting to see how the classes that i took this quarter designed their last class of the quarter in a real fun way! So the three courses I took were (in short), Database Systems Design(CS245), Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (MSANDE 271) and Intro to Biomedical Systems Design (BMI211/CS271).

CS245: So Hector has this real kewl idea of having a joke-break in the middle of his classes - just to keep people from going into deep slumber. The class is usually in the afternoon so people cant sometimes help going to sleep. The thing is that one guy has to volunteer to tell a joke, of course its not necessary that one do it, and in that case Hector comes prepared with his own list of poor jokes, but usually some or the other wise guy cracks a very smelly and geeky joke. Anyways, at the end of the quarter, the guy with the best joke gets the Stanford InfoLab Tshirt (pretty much a collectors item as larry and sergey were both part of the InfoLab here - though it was called the DB group then). And yea, yours truly won a Tshirt this quarter. But yet again, I was second best, Hector had 2 prizes, 1st and 2nd. Ushah won the first prize, so I am happy that both prizes stayed in my alma mater! So I am the official comedian of the class, and judging by my grade in that course, I probably was just that - a comedian! Here is Jennifer Widom wearing the InfoLab TShirt.

This weekend, I took the Caltrain up to San Francisco to visit my aunt and uncle. Saturday evening, we dined (with great beer, I might add) at Walzwerk, an East German restaurant, and then got up the next morning and headed to Golden Gate Park to visit the fantastic de Young Museum, which showcases collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries, and art of the native Americas, Africa, and the Pacific.

Completed in 2005 and sheathed entirely in copper and brass, the building is meant to blend into its Golden Gate Park surroundings as the copper oxidizes and turns green with age.

Craig Newmark is the founder of Craigslist, the much-admired poster child for possibilities within a culture of trust and fairness on the Internet. Craigslist connects people with things that they need, as well as people with people.

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iinnovate's Owen Tripp sits with Craigslist's Craig Newmark to chat about Craigslist's humble beginnings as a "hobby" that eventually turned into a company--and how it continues to stay true to its original mission as a community service. Craig is named as one of 26 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs by Inc.com, crediting him for "putting the free in free markets."

In an interview with Wired Magazine, Craig notes that Craigslist's corporate mantra, if any, is to "give people a break." In a recent discussion, ScribeMedia.org points out that, "Craigslist still has the power to confound old line-media moguls and possibly change the face of 'glo-calism'--local reach spread globally."

Craig affirms these notions in his conversation with iinnovate about Craigslist, the Craigslist Foundation, as well as incremental steps and funny anecdotes along the way, while observing that "people are overwhelmingly good and trustworthy. People are okay, and that's true wherever you're from."

- OT, MLC & MW

From the iinnovate blog

I'm a huge fan of the TED Talks, which usually leave me floored, but this actress' performance simply left me floored. I don't know what comes after floored. Unconscious? Anyway, Spring Break has given me the luxury of sitting down to watch all of these talks, and I was really moved by Anna Deavere-Smith's performances, so I thought I would share:

Blurb from TED:

Actor Anna Deavere-Smith brings the TED audience to their feet as she brings to life author Studs Terkel, convict Paulette Jenkins, a Korean shopkeeper, and a bull rider - all people she interviewed for "On the Road: A Search for American Character."

For more from Deavere-Smith, I suggest watching her fantastic interview with PBS.

I was abroad last spring, so I missed the harrowing tales of students biking to class and ending up with caterpillars caught in their mouths or finding them crawling on a professor during lecture. Regardless, I have had my own run-ins with the furry creatures this week, which hang from trees on silk strings, swaying gently but menacingly in the wind. I don't know who they are or what they want, but I will say this: Keep your mouth closed while biking, and Watch Out. You could be next.

My favorite quote from last year's Daily article:

“I understand they’re necessary for our amazing northern California forest ecosystem, but if you get in my hair and you’re going to become a moth, then don’t expect warm relations with me,” freshman Ryan Noon said. “I think we can respect these caterpillars’ right to live, while at the same time cursing their existence in a public forum. Pretty much the worst experience of my life was biking around and having a caterpillar go in my mouth when I wasn’t looking.”

My friend sent me a video of these hilarious comedic musicians called Flight of the Conchord. They're from New Zealand and they are unbelieveably funny - albeit nerdy and awkward. This video is called "Business Time". Also check out Jenny, and Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.

At 3:00PM this afternoon, admission officers, all dressed in their Stanford sweatshirts, gathered around to celebrate the shipment of admission packages for the 1,715 applicants admitted through Regular Decision along with follow-up letters to the 750 applicants admitted early. At 3:00PM, admission decision information also became available online, and admits were able to register for a SUNet ID to access the new Admit Website.

This year was the most competitive in Stanford's history, with 23,956 applicants, so a big congratulations to this latest awesome pool of Stanford admits.

Some numbers:
% of admits from California: 39
% from public high schools: 60
% in the top-ten percent of their classes: 90
Number of states the admits represent: 50
Number of foreign countries: 59
Number of South Koreans: 35
Number of Canadians: 17
% of admits who are American and non-white: 52
% increase in applicants over last year (a previous record): 7

Also, a special thanks to the Admission Office for featuring this Blog prominently in the "List of Links for You to Explore" section on the admit website.

Psychology Professor Emeritus Phil Zimbardo put in a funny and enlightening performance with Jon Stewart in last night's The Daily Show. They start with a cute exchange wherein Jon notes that he was once a Psychology major himself:

Zimbardo: "What'd you get in introductory psych?"

Jon: "Introductory Psych 101? I got... uhh... 'Yes, your essay was long enough.'"

The very popular and notorious Stanford Psychology professor gave his farewell lecture at Stanford three weeks ago and is now making the rounds to promote his new book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, which discusses, in detail for the first time, the famed Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, and then draws parallels to the modern-day events of American prison abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

Watch the video online here.