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March 26, 2012

3 notes

WVFS Pledge Drive

Hi Friendlies,

I just wanted to take a second to write about something that’s near and dear to my heart. WVFS Tallahassee (V89), FSU’s college radio station, kicked off its quadrennial leap year pledge drive today. I’m writing to ask that you donate whatever you can afford to help keep V89 on the air. Every little bit helps - $5, $10, $20, or more if you can spare it. You can donate online here (http://wvfs.fsu.edu/donate/index.php?menu_id=donate_now), or by calling in at (850) 644-1837.

I became a WVFS DJ in September 2001, when I was a wide-eyed freshman at FSU. I’m not at all exaggerating when I say V89 changed my life. My senior year of high school, I couldn’t make up my mind whether to go to FSU or UF. My mom and I took a weekend trip to Tallahassee in the spring of 2001, and I stumbled across V89 while I was flipping through radio stations. I was hooked. I’d never heard anything like it before. I decided at that precise moment that I would be going to FSU in the fall.

I became friends with many of you through the radio station. Many of my very best friends in the world (AMY I LOVE YOU!!!!!!) are V89ers - people I met through the station, or people I already knew and dragged in with me. Oh, and I should probably also mention that in the fall of 2003 I met a new DJ, one Tal Yariv, in the V89 hallway, just outside the news and sports offices. So yeah. V89 completely altered the course of my existence.

It took me leaving Tallahassee (a few times) to realize just how unique V89 is. Even living in the purportedly urbane northeast, I never came across anything quite like it. During my 2.5 years living in Miami, I streamed V89 on my phone way more than I listened to any local Miami station. (Although I gotta say, 93.9 MIA was kind of the jam… I never knew Gloria Estefan’s catalog was so extensive and varied).

V89 is completely volunteer-run and operated, yet we’re on the air literally 24/7/365. You know how, if you listen to the same top 40 station for more than, say, an hour, you start hearing all the same songs over again? That doesn’t happen at V89. We have a catalog of close to 25,000 CDs and about 3,000 vinyl records, and our DJs pretty much have free rein over what to play (so long as it’s FCC-compliant)! Put simply, V89 is a totally unique, irreplaceable gem of a cultural institution.

That’s why I’m asking you guys to donate whatever you can spare - any amount at all. V89 has been kicking since 1987 (25 years!!!), but times are tough, and it’s going to take the support of the entire community - people who love independent music, people who love V89, and people who love people who love V89 - to keep us on the air for 25 more.

Many thanks,
Meg

Donate: http://wvfs.fsu.edu/donate/index.php?menu_id=donate_now

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March 13, 2012

176 notes

theoceaniswonderful:

A Friendly Face by Frank Peters

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March 13, 2012

98 notes

Customer Service Stories You Won’t Believe

mentalflossr:

Everyone has a long list of crappy customer service stories. But these will restore your faith in humanity. At least for tonight.

Read More: 11 of the Best Customer Service Stories Ever

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March 13, 2012

426 notes

npr:

Turning Homeless Men Into WiFi Hotspots At SXSW Ignites Debate

Wired magazine says it “sounds like something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia.”

BBH Labs, the “skunk works” of marketing firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty, created “Homeless Hotspots” in Austin for the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival that’s underway in the Texas capital.

As CNet News writes: “Yep. It is exactly what it sounds like—walking, talking homeless people who provide access to a 4G network in exchange for a donation (BBH Labs suggests $2 per 15 minutes). … The 13 men who have been chosen to participate in the program are roaming the streets of Austin in T-shirts that say ‘I am a 4G hotspot.’ The campaign has drawn ire from some who claim it’s dehumanizing.”

Jon Mitchell at the ReadWriteWeb blog says “the digital divide has never hit us over the head with a more blunt display of unselfconscious gall.”

BBH Labs, though, says its “test program” lets the “Hotspot Managers” (the homeless men) keep all the money they earn. It sees the project as an attempt “to modernize the Street Newspaper model employed to support homeless populations.”

And one of the homeless men — Mark from Houston — tells ReadWriteWeb that the program is “awesome.” It “helps kill the stereotype” that all homeless people don’t want to work, he adds. BBH, he says, “is not taking advantage of us.”

It’s a case of teaching him how to fish, “rather than just giving me a fish,” says Mark, because he’s learning how to market himself thanks to the program.

-Mark Memmott

Does this “Homeless Hotspot” program sound like a good idea to you?

This is just awful.

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March 13, 2012

19 notes

ibelieveingatsby:

Good morning.

(Source: rotmydarling, via rightsandwrongs)

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March 13, 2012

2,685 notes

(Source: milktree, via rightsandwrongs)

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March 13, 2012

327 notes

npr:

Science Follows A Dark Path As It Tries To Explain The Observed Universe
It was a major fail. There I was, a naive undergraduate, waiting in my professor’s office as he spoke with an older student about some theoretical problem that wasn’t working out. After the student left I boldly asked him: “Couldn’t you just redefine everything to make it come out OK?” The withering look that followed told me all I needed to know about how really stupid my suggestion had been. Rewriting X as Y in all the equations wasn’t going to help anything.
But what are the options when a scientist faces a problem with no obvious solution?
That is the dilemma astronomers have faced over the last few decades as they took a census of cosmic matter and motion. Mapping the beautiful pinwheel arcs of spiral galaxies, they found the constituent stars moving far too fast to be explained by the galaxies’ known mass. All matter produces a gravitational force that tugs surrounding material into motion. But summing up all the matter they could see in the pinwheels left astronomers with far too small a reserve to explain how fast the galaxies were spinning. -Adam Frank (Photo credit: M.J. Jee and A. Mahdavi/NASA/ESA/CFHT/CXO)

npr:

Science Follows A Dark Path As It Tries To Explain The Observed Universe

It was a major fail. There I was, a naive undergraduate, waiting in my professor’s office as he spoke with an older student about some theoretical problem that wasn’t working out. After the student left I boldly asked him: “Couldn’t you just redefine everything to make it come out OK?” The withering look that followed told me all I needed to know about how really stupid my suggestion had been. Rewriting X as Y in all the equations wasn’t going to help anything.

But what are the options when a scientist faces a problem with no obvious solution?

That is the dilemma astronomers have faced over the last few decades as they took a census of cosmic matter and motion. Mapping the beautiful pinwheel arcs of spiral galaxies, they found the constituent stars moving far too fast to be explained by the galaxies’ known mass. All matter produces a gravitational force that tugs surrounding material into motion. But summing up all the matter they could see in the pinwheels left astronomers with far too small a reserve to explain how fast the galaxies were spinning. -Adam Frank (Photo credit: M.J. Jee and A. Mahdavi/NASA/ESA/CFHT/CXO)