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February 14, 2012, 8:24 pm
Video Wednesday
Kissinger is a former U.S. secretary of state. Kissenger (with an “e”) is a “kiss-transmission robot” equipped with artificial lips to convey physical affection over long distances. Hooman Samani of the National University of Singapore is also at work on miniature surrogate robots for a similar purpose. We can’t wait to see where else this technology is headed.
In other robot news, students at the University of Manitoba created a robot that plays hockey. Sort of.
Finally, Dominican University just can’t seem to get enough of Valentine’s Day. In addition to a “speed-faithing” event that was reported in this space a couple days ago, Dominican students got to, uh, experience being serenaded on Tuesday by a woman wearing a viking helmet with horns. Rose Guccione, the woman behind the voice, is an adjunct professor in Dominican’s music department an…
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February 13, 2012, 12:04 pm
Can’t Write a Good Mash Note? Ask a Student to Help.
A video from Emory University (below) suggests that, “in the age of texts, Facebook, and email, the art of the love letter is fading fast.” Perhaps that’s true in Georgia, but at Minnesota State University at Mankato, creative-writing and MFA students have spent the past few days composing Valentine’s Day notes, letters, and poems for romantically challenged people willing to pay a small fee. The money will help cover lodging costs for students attending the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Chicago.
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February 12, 2012, 12:33 am
‘Speed-Faithing’ at Dominican … Professorial Trivia … MacArthur Competitors … Lampooning Again
SPEEDY SPIRITUALITY: Forget speed-dating, that 20th-century hook-up relic. Dominican University, outside Chicago, is pioneering the practice of “speed faithing,” a meet-up opportunity for students who want answers to deeper questions than “What’s your sign?” and “What’s your major?” As part of a yearlong partnership with the Interfaith Youth Core, a national organization promoting ecumenism on college campuses, Dominican staged its first speed-faithing event last fall. Students, faculty members, and staff members from a varietyof faiths sat down with strangersfor five-minute conversations about their religious beliefs. This Valentine’s Day, the university is reprising the event for students only. “Being a Catholic institution, we’re already gearing up for future weddings, babies—lots of babies—and christenings,” says Jessica Mackinnon, a spokeswoman for the university.
A…
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February 7, 2012, 9:47 pm
Video Wednesday
Students in a Design, Art, and Technology course at Hampshire College converted 1,500 plastic bottles into an art installation at a campus bus shelter to “spark a wider environmental discourse about waste, labor, consumerism, violence, transportation, and energy.” They documented their project in this video.
get upCYCLED | Hampshire College from DART Program on Vimeo.
The University of Alberta reclaimed the world dodge ball record last week from the University of California at Irvine. A Guinness World Records adjudicator confirmed that 4,979 players turned out to pummel one another.
Students at the University of Bayreuth, in Bavaria, stage a flash mob with beer during an engineering lecture.
A compilation of machine-vision footage explores how robots see the world.
Robot readable world from Timo on Vimeo.
Via MetaFilter
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January 17, 2012, 8:51 pm
Video Wednesday
After we whined last week about the dearth of “genuinely funny or quirky” videos from colleges, we were deluged with submissions that were … largely promotional. A couple of them, however, made us smile.
First, West Kentucky Community and Technical College produced this lively video to the tune of J.Lo’s “Let’s Get Loud” to celebrate being recognized by the Aspen Institute as one of America’s top five community colleges.
Then the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering sent us this clip of what may be the world’s fastest-ever campus tour. Our only complaint comes at the 26-second mark when we’re introduced to the “world’s fastest running robot” — which we never actually get to see running. (Tweed has a thing for robots, in case you hadn’t noticed.)
Finally, if your students (or their professors) are suddenly unable to marshal their facts in the classroom, it …
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January 10, 2012, 10:12 pm
Candidate for Governor Falsely Claims a Degree in Economics
Let’s be very clear about one thing: We respect the academic study of home economics.
We’re just wondering why Dave Spence, a Republican candidate for governor of Missouri, seems embarrassed about his own bachelor of science degree in that field. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Mr. Spence, who majored in family economics and management, claims on his campaign Web site that he holds a degree in economics.
According to the University of Missouri at Columbia, Mr. Spence earned his bachelor of science degree in home economics in 1981. Mr. Spence told the paper on Monday that he chose home economics because his grades did not permit him to enter the business school. “I’ll make fun of myself,” he said. “I was a 60-watt bulb in a 100-watt society.”
We’re sincerely hoping that this gaffe doesn’t disqualify Mr. Spence from holding office. If nothing else, he’d have a strong…
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January 10, 2012, 8:48 pm
Video Wednesday
Weeks like these make us wish that colleges and their students were producing more genuinely funny or quirky videos (and taking a moment to send them our way — hint, hint). Thank goodness for the riches of the Web.
A couple reveals what happens in bookstores in the middle of the night.
A short and sweet history lesson for the History Channel.
And finally, another football bowl-game video, in which the Orange Bowl mascot gets creamed (juiced?), then gamely plays along by feigning illness afterward.
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January 3, 2012, 8:07 pm
Video Wednesday
Artists have been using the University of Prince Edward Island as the backdrop for music videos since October in a series called Campus Sessions. In the latest session, Meaghan Blanchard performs “Chasin’ Lonely Again” in the stacks of Robertson Library.
Also out of Canada, a student at the University of Western Ontario and a friend have created a comedy series about group of fictional students at the institution. Macleans reports that real-life university administrators are less than thrilled about the raunchy humor and depictions of excessive drinking at the institution. Caution: The trailer for 3 Audrey (below) includes gratuitous profanities. (This is supposed to be college, after all.)
In college football news, a remote-control television camera hits the field in the fourth quarter of last Friday’s Insight Bowl.
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December 20, 2011, 5:08 pm
Video Wednesday, Holiday Cards Edition
It’s that time of year, when colleges deluge us with their video greeting cards. Here are some that we enjoyed. If your institution’s card isn’t featured here, please add a link in the comments.
Happy holidays from Tweed!
Occupy Harvard delivers lumps of coal to Harvey Mansfield, Niall Ferguson, Larry Summers, and Robert Rubin, among others.
We liked the University of Oregon’s video greeting card because it was short and to the point.
Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg, in real life a Dickens scholar, experiences his own “Scrooge” moment this holiday season.
Eckerd College’s holiday card tackles the debate over the value of a liberal-arts education.
American University’s holiday card features individual holiday wishes.
Towson University offers its own twist on “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
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December 15, 2011, 8:05 pm
The 2011 Ph.D. Challenge: the Author as ‘Dirty Old Man’
Tom Schaul correctly predicted that his adviser would not be happy when he saw that the paper that they and other colleagues submitted to an artificial-intelligence conference had, at the last minute, gained a sixth co-author: “Muammar ‘Dirty Old Man’ Gaddafi.”
The unwitting adviser, Jürgen Schmidhuber, director of the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence, or IDSIA, in Switzerland, was initially “panicked,” says Mr. Schaul, the paper’s lead author. “He thought it was some outside force that had corrupted our paper.”
The only outside force involved was the shadowy group behind the annual Ph.D. Challenge, an irreverent contest that encourages grad students to insert a pre-established name or phrase into the final version of a peer-reviewed journal article or conference paper as a scholarly prank. Last year participants were asked to slip the phrase “I smoke crack rocks”…
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