Maclean’s 2014 University Rankings were published Oct. 31 and, for the first time in six years, SFU is not the number one comprehensive university, beaten out by the University of Victoria (UVic) for the top spot.
SFU has been ranked the top comprehensive university in Canada a total of ten times since Maclean’s started publishing rankings 21 years ago, and was on a five-year streak in the top spot from 2008 to 2012.
Each year, Maclean’s publishes three sets of university rankings under three separate categories: medical doctoral, comprehensive, and primarily undergraduate. Universities in the comprehensive category show a significant amount of research activity and have a wide range of programs at the undergraduate and graduate level.
All three rankings are based on six main categories: students and classes, faculty, resources, student support, library, and reputation. Mount Allison University topped the primarily undergraduate category, and McGill University came in first among institutions under the medical doctoral category.
The Peak spoke to SFU VP Academic, Dr. Jon Driver, about the new rankings and how SFU administration reacts to rankings such as Maclean’s.
“Rankings are interesting, because they are fairly crude attempts to measure very complex institutions,” said Driver. “On the one hand we recognized that what goes on at SFU, both in terms of teaching and in terms of research, is a very complicated story and it really can’t capture them so easily in rankings.”
Driver pointed to a significant drop in SFU’s ranking under scholarships and bursaries as especially concerning.
He continued, “On the other hand, we always pay attention to rankings, because they do influence public opinion about the university, [and] they influence student choices about whether or not to come to a particular university.”
Driver described university rankings as a tool for university administration to focus in on areas of possible concern, and address potential problems. In comparison with last year’s rankings, SFU went up in three of the judged categories and down in three, while UVic had scores go up in two categories and down in four. “That’s a bit of a conundrum for us,” laughed Driver.
Driver explained that SFU administration will be looking into the math and the data supporting the rankings, and checking that all information that was submitted to Maclean’s was accurate. He pointed specifically to a significant drop in SFU’s ranking under scholarships and bursaries as especially concerning.
Last year SFU was ranked sixth among the 15 comprehensive universities for contributions to student scholarships and bursaries. This year, that ranking has slipped to 12th.
“This appears at first look to be a really strange change, a really significant change. That’s the area that causes me the biggest concern, and I am fairly sure that that change in our ranking is probably what’s driving the move from being first to second position,” said Driver.
He continued, “If this really is a significant change for SFU and it’s not caused by the methodology or something like that, and presuming that the data are correct, we will have to take a hard look at how much we are contributing to scholarships and bursaries.”
When it comes to UVic taking the top spot, Driver had nothing but encouraging things to say. “I think it’s wonderful that the two comprehensive universities from British Columbia are sitting at one and two,” he said. “I think it says a great deal about the quality of both of those universities, the quality of the faculty members, the quality of the students, and the attention that both universities pay to trying to create the best educational experience we can.”
In 2012, President Andrew Petter cautiously celebrated the university’s success in international rankings writing: “I’m reluctant to attach too much significance to university rankings given their selective criteria and varied methodologies. But it’s hard not to take some small satisfaction from the recent reports of two leading international ratings,” alluding to the Times Higher Education (THE) and QS rankings.
Last year, in the THE 100 Under 50, SFU placed 26th in the world, and third in Canada. In the QS Top 50 Under 50, SFU was ranking 30th in the world, and second in Canada.
Who would have dreamed film would die so easily?” – Roger Ebert
It’s 9:30 a.m. and I’m about to sit down with Rob Groeneboer, one of the Senior Lecturers at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. I’ve come to interview Rob about the school’s film program.
Students in the program write, direct, shoot, edit, act in and mix sound for their own motion pictures. They take courses on the history, theory and criticism of film, while learning the practical skills required to make their own movies. The program is among the most well-regarded in the country: just last year, 21 of the 60 films in the Canadian Student Film Festival in Montreal were made by SFU students.
Many SCA graduates go on to become important members of the film industry. “For such a small program, we do exceptionally well,” Rob remarks. It’s not difficult to see why: the program is notoriously selective. Only about 20 students are accepted to the program every year, from over 100 applicants across the world.
The campus itself is located in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, inside Vancouver’s historic Woodward’s Building. Film majors rub shoulders with dancers, visual artists and screenwriters, in the heart downtown Vancouver. The third floor — reserved for film students — is often decorated with art installations, film posters, and folded issues of Cinemateque. It’s hard to believe this is Simon Fraser University.
What interests me most about the film program — and the reason I’ve come to speak with Rob — is their dependence on analog equipment and celluloid film. Until recently, first year students in the program would shoot films on spring-wound Bolex cameras, which use 16 mm film and weigh about six pounds. They would then edit the analog footage on flatbed film editing machines called Steenbecks, which are large desks with metal discs and knobs on which students and filmmakers can physically cut their films together, tape, scissors and all.
Each Steenbeck features a small screen on which students can review footage from their film and tape different sections together. It’s a tiring but ultimately rewarding process. “It’s physically draining,” says Alysha Seriani, a second year student. “It’s not like throwing it into Final Cut Pro and pressing undo if you don’t like the way those shots look together. When you make a cut, you can’t put those back together . . . but you learn the value of a cut, and you learn the value of a shot.”
Though these analog processes have been the film school norm for decades, institutions worldwide are now beginning to move towards digital cameras and computerized post-production tools to teach students. The School for Contemporary Arts has been slow to follow suit. When I ask Rob whether SFU is the last school in Canada to use analog film to teach students, he laughs and adds, “I think possibly in North America, possibly the world.”
However, even the SCA is making the transition towards digital. Sixteen mm is the main film stock that SFU students use. As opposed to 35 mm, which is the standard format for analog motion pictures, 16 mm is “a very square little image,” Rob says. “It’s not a great latitude, it has definition that isn’t great, you have to fight for depth of field; there’s all kinds of limitations. With the new digital technology, none of those limitations exist.”
This year is the first in which new students will be editing digitally — all of the program’s Steenbeck machines have either been given away or put in storage.
An Industry Divided
Five years ago, SFU’s move from analog to digital might have shocked us — today, it feels inevitable. Filmmakers across the globe have traded their analog cameras for state of the art digital models, and some of the most popular films in recent years, such as Avatar, Gravity and The Hobbit, have been shot entirely on digital. The rise in digital filmmaking has been exponential; only one decade ago, three major motion pictures were filmed entirely in digital, whereas in 2013, the number is closer to 40.
Digital distribution has also become commonplace: in 2012, Screen Digest reported that over 91 per cent of theatres in the United Kingdom had made the switch from analog to digital projection. All of the major movie camera companies — Panavision, ARRI, and Aaton, to name a few — have quietly ceased production of film cameras, citing decreased revenues and a flooded market of used equipment. Fuji has officially stopped producing motion picture film, and Kodak isn’t far behind. It seems that the writing is on the wall for celluloid.
“We wouldn’t survive in the film industry if we weren’t designing a digital camera,” says Jean-Pierre Beauviala, the co-founder of Aaton. “Almost nobody is designing new film cameras. Why buy a new one when there are so many used cameras around the world?”
Still, many of Hollywood’s most revered filmmakers have refused to give up on analog. In an interview with the Director’s Guild of America, Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight and one of digital’s most outspoken critics, defended his continued use of film: “It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable.”
Quentin Tarantino, the man behind such po-mo flicks as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, took his passion for analog even further by threatening to stop making movies altogether, should film ever stop being an option. “I’ll probably just be a writer,” he quipped in an Oscar roundtable. “All of this digital stuff, this is not what I signed up for.”
However, many directors have embraced the digitization of filmmaking. In Side by Side, a 2012 documentary about the digital vs. analog debate, Danny Boyle recalls shooting one of the first digitally shot films, the zombie flick 28 Days Later: “You could shoot illegally, surreptitiously without people knowing, and you could do unconventional things. The rhythm of film which had been passed on since it began, and crews had learned . . . you interrupted that. And I loved that feeling.”
Institutions worldwide are now beginning to move towards digital cameras and computerized post-production tools to teach students.
Six years later, Boyle’s film Slumdog Millionaire — shot almost entirely on digital cameras — would become the first of its kind to win an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Others have similarly championed the retirement of celluloid: George Lucas, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro and Steven Soderbergh have all been key supporters of the digital revolution. Before the advent of the HD digital cameras used in the big-scale productions of the day, digital was a popular choice for independent filmmakers on a low budget, such as Lena Dunham and Miranda July. Cheaper, lower-definition cameras are still popular with independent filmmakers.
Many students in the SCA’s later years have chosen to use digital cameras to make their films. “For the last probably five or six years, we’ve had students who have been able to make the choice [between analog and digital],” Rob remarks. “We had all the Super 16 gear here, and people were going out and renting cameras.”
Analog versus Digital
So, what’s the difference between the two? Unlike analog film, which has a certain permanence to it, digital filmmaking is constantly evolving, making this question a difficult one to answer. However, it would be a mistake to call them the same medium: though they bear many similarities, film and digital are separate formats, and thus create separate experiences for the viewer. For example, a magazine of analog film must be switched after filming 10 minutes of footage, whereas digital cameras in general have much more storage capacity.
This has a profound effect on the filmmaking process and the experience of the cast and crew: with fewer breaks between shots, actors are required to spend more time on their feet and directors are able to assess their performances immediately via a small pixelated screen. Digital filmmaking also affects the way that films are staged: with lighter and more versatile equipment, as well as the boon of computer generated imagery, filmmakers are able to shoot scenes and depict images that would never have been possible with analog cameras.
From a financial standpoint, film cameras are relatively inexpensive. “They’re somewhere between cheap and boat anchors,” Rob says. Many can be bought for relatively little, while high-definition digital cameras are expensive and run the risk of obsoletion. Digital filmmaking also requires updated post-production technology, such as editing software, memory cards and computer applications. However, developing film stock may become more costly in the future, as labs continue to disappear around the world.
The image itself is another point of contention: some prefer the grainier, more tangible look of analog film, while others consider the crispness of digital cinema to be superior. Ultimately, the resolution of most modern digital films is about the same as celluloid — depending on the quality of the camera. Analog film produces fuller skin tones and better dynamic range, while digital images are more precise, and tend to perform better in low light situations. Some prefer the cleanliness and precision of digital imagery, while others hold true to the authenticity and subtleties of analog film.
Founded by Jim Jannard in 2005, The Red Digital Cinema Camera Company has quickly become one of the giants of digital filmmaking. Red Epic, the company’s latest digital camera, is a model that SFU will begin using within the next few years. “There’s no question this is the future,” Jannard said in an LA Times interview. The Epic may be the most sophisticated digital movie camera ever designed: its lightweight structure, resolution and versatility have made it the industry standard, especially when shooting in 3D.
However, celluloid still dominates in the realm of archival. The key is simplicity: films made over a century ago can still be viewed today, provided you have a film projector and the patience required to set it up. Film preservation is far from perfect — about 90 per cent of silent films made before 1929, and 50 per cent of sound films made before 1950, are lost — but it’s the best we’ve got. “Digital formats don’t store well; you have to keep transferring it over and over and over,” Rob says. “They’re now looking at 35 mm primarily as an archival tool.”
Fade to Black
According to Rob, the switch from film to digital at the SCA was inevitable. “It’s like a party that’s over, and there’s great memories there, but you move on.” Though he assures me that the program will still be in possession of analog film equipment, he’s doubtful that students will use it — after all, shooting film is a more difficult and time-consuming process.
For his part, Will Ross, a fourth year SFU film student, welcomes the program’s digitized future. “When I switched from film to digital in third year, it completely solidified me as a pro-digital person,” he says. “There’s a school of thought that film is better to learn on because it instills discipline . . . that it’s a proving ground. I actually feel the opposite of that: I never improved more as a filmmaker than when I had the freedom to make mistakes, digitally. It just gives me so much more creative freedom.
Paradiso, a short film which Will edited, was recently featured at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was shot in — you guessed it — digital. “I no longer see any reason why anyone would work with film at any stage of the process,” he says.
Still, not all film students are celebrating the end of celluloid. “You have to be a really special kind of crazy to work with film,” Alysha says. When I ask her what the film program will lose when celluloid is eventually phased out, she replies, “It’s the blood, sweat, and tears of analog. It’s wasting away in the Steenbeck room, looking for the 12 frames that you need in order make a cut. It’s the idea of creating a work ethic, and not having a safety net other than yourself. It’s about learning that process of responsibility.”
Is this the death of film? Not necessarily. Though many have been quick to announce the impending doom of celluloid, it’s likely that the two media will continue to coexist, at least for the time being. However, it’s likely that digital and film will have traded places by the end of the decade — film may well become a medium reserved for the artistic, the independent and the alternative, while digital will propel the Hollywood industry into a techno-savvy future.
“I imagine there will always be 35 mm projectors at film festivals and various shrines of cinema,” the late Roger Ebert wrote in a 2011 post on his website. “But my war is over, my side lost, and it’s important to consider this in the real world.”
Ultimately, whether you prefer film or digital, the format used to make movies isn’t nearly as important as the work put into them by people. “The ideas are more important than the tools you use to capture them,” Rob says, and this rings truer than any argument on either side of the debate. Like any artistic medium, film is first and foremost a tool for personal expression, and the students at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts will doubtlessly continue to make immersive, thought-provoking films — regardless of whether they’re “films” at all.
The future of SFU’s film program may be made up of ones and zeroes, but analog-loving students still have a chance to use celluloid when they begin their degree — at least, for now. “It’s a great teaching tool — that’s what I miss about it,” Rob says wistfully. “The idea of being able to hold something in your hands and see the images and become conscious of what a frame is, just to have a tactile connection with what you’re doing, is I think invaluable.
“That’s why we still use it in first year, we continue to shoot films on the Bolexes and we hand-process it ourselves, here. Then we project it on the wall, film it, and edit digital. We’ll keep doing that just to give students that experience. And in second year, if you’re burning to use the Super 16s, God bless you, they’re there for you.”
Over the course of any regular season, in any sport, there are games that have more at stake than others — to SFU’s men’s soccer team — such a game was played last week.
It had all the makings of a classic: the second-last game of the season, and SFU’s final home game of the year, against their bitter Seattle Pacific rivals — the only team to have defeated the Clan this season.
Not to mention, the match was for all the marbles. A Clan victory meant a fourth-straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship, and a spot in the national tournament. A loss, and SFU would’ve needed a lot of luck to earn those honours.
“It was just perfect,” says junior midfielder Jovan Blagojevic, a man who would factor in quite significantly later in the game. “It was like a movie; you couldn’t have written it any better. The rivalry we have between each other is so strong, and them having beat us before, playing for the GNAC title . . . we were excited.”
Few games can live up to that kind of hype. This one did.
It wasn’t a barnburner — far from it, in fact. Instead, it was a close game that kept fans on the edge of their seats, despite being a scoreless affair heading into Golden Goal overtime.
“It was such a tight game,” says Blagojevic. “I think we were carrying the play a little bit, but there were tense moments both ways.” A Seattle Pacific corner kick, pushed just wide with about five minutes to play in regulation, comes to mind.
“Going into overtime, everyone on our team was holding our breath as much as the fans were. We didn’t think about it too much. We knew we just had to get it done.”
And that’s where Blagojevic comes in.
Freshman Robert Hyams lined up for a Clan free kick, 30 yards from the Falcons’ goal. He had the option to pass down low to sophomore Ryan Dhillon and potentially take a two-on-one to the net. He didn’t take it.
Instead, he laid a perfect cross into the box — three seconds and a couple of wild bounces later, Blagojevic tapped it in. Clan win. Another three seconds later, he was at the bottom of a team-wide dog pile.
“It seemed like the longest two, three seconds of my life,” he says. “It was a beautiful cross, [senior forward Carlo] Basso got his head on it and it went off the post — I thought it was going in originally — and eventually popped right back out to me. As Golden Goals go, it was probably the easiest I could imagine.” But he’ll take it.
“The best thing that’s ever happened to me in my career,” he says, with an ear-to-ear grin.
Better than making the Final Four of the the NCAA Division II tournament last year?
“Individually,” he clarifies. “I almost died; I couldn’t breathe at the bottom of the pile. Like, ‘Thanks, but get off me,’” he laughs. “It was pretty cool.”
But Blagojevic knows his work and his team’s, is far from done.
“We’ll call this season a success if we can win the National Championship,” he says. “It’s nice winning the GNAC; we completed one of our goals. And of course we would’ve wanted an undefeated season, but we won the conference, and you’ve got to be happy with that. But every year we have the ambition of winning the National Championship, and that’s our ultimate goal.”
The Clan came close last year, falling short in the Final Four.
“Obviously it was upsetting to get so close and lose. But in a way, it might’ve helped us, it maybe showed we need to push a little harder, do a little more,” says Blagojevic. “We’re ready for whatever’s coming at us.”
So when Nationals begin, for a team that preaches taking things one game at a time, Blagojevic’s goal against the Falcons will matter little.
But for a day, or maybe a week, Blagojevic is SFU’s golden boy, his goal having sent his team to the national competition, as well as earning the Clan a fourth consecutive conference title.
You know those rare people who are so down-to-earth and easy to talk to that you feel like you’ve known them a long time after just a few minutes of conversation? Sarah Louise Turner is one of those people. The SFU professor and stage actress is currently starring in Sandi Johnson’s play People Like Us, playing at the Firehall Arts Centre until Nov. 16.
People Like Us is a one-woman play that deals with Gulf War Syndrome and one family’s process of coping. Little discussed, Gulf War Syndrome is something that many people developed when the war was over. Symptoms are incredibly varied — from insomnia, to cancer, to one case where a woman’s bones actually expanded, making her grow larger. Such variety made it particularly difficult for sufferers to get any of the support they needed from their government.
“The argument in the United States was ‘well, we can’t give you compensation for this because we can’t call it a syndrome until we can say ‘these are the symptoms that it has resulted in,’” says Turner. “I think it’s really interesting that the play is told from the partner and family’s point of view, and the impact this has not only on the veteran, but on the veteran’s family. It really destroys the entire family.”
The story is not just about one veteran’s struggles with the health and psychological issues that go along with war, it’s also about, “one woman finding her strength and how she maneuvers and finds her way through the challenging blows that life can strike,” Turner says. Having the partner as the primary narrator in the play allows the audience insight into not only her husband’s experience of the war, but also her experience of it when he returns.
During the entire one hour and 15 minute play, Turner is the only person on stage; this is the first time she’s been in a one-woman show. When I ask her about the experience, she tells me, “It’s a huge learning opportunity. It’s been incredible and very challenging . . . and all of the challenges that I knew it would provide, it has definitely provided.” She laughs as she says this, and tells me that the hardest thing for her was to learn her lines without the back and forth energy that she is accustomed to when there are other actors on stage.
Another challenge is keeping her own energy up for the full show: “It’s got to come from her [the character’s] fight.” Turner draws on the energy of her character’s struggle of “having to really fight for [her husband’s] life, and fight for the truth, and having to fight for all these things that she expected someone to give her. And it’s not happening.”
“It’s a cautionary tale. It’s an important political piece, particularly right now, with all of the potential cutbacks in veteran funding. Warfare is changing drastically, and the implications of war are very different now from what they were in the past . . . we never know what we’re going to get in the next war. I also just think it’s a really beautiful story about love and partnership and what it takes.”
You can catch People Like Us at the Firehall Arts Centre until Nov. 16.
As the 2013-14 season begins for the Clan women’s basketball team, memories of their “Sweet 16” appearance and record-breaking 2012-13 campaign are still on the minds of many fans. But what may be more interesting and, of course, more relevant to this season is the question of reinvention for a team that lost three key seniors, notably Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe, the team’s first ever NCAA Division II All-American and GNAC and NCAA leader in numerous statistical categories.
But, after this past weekend’s tour through Portland, it’s clear that the new team dynamic will suit this Clan team just fine.
The Clan traveled to Portland for a two-game weekend of exhibition play with games against Division I Portland State and Division III Lewis and Clark. It quickly became evident that this would be a different team than the 2013 GNAC runner-up squad, but one that will rely less on individual talent, but more teamwork.
“We have people that can work and support each other in all positions this year, everyone just needs to stick to the basics and work as a team. We need to be very together to be successful,” explained co-captain Erin Chambers.
The 6’1” guard/forward combo has certainly emerged as the Clan’s leader in the early moments of the season, as the pre-season All-Conference honouree had 24 and 29 points in the Clan’s two games, leading all players on the floor in both.
Meanwhile, junior guard Katie Lowen, whose breakout season last year did not go unnoticed, had 19 and 14 points in the two games. The returning starter, whose fiery play and raw athleticism balances out her 5’6” frame, also added seven rebounds, seven steals and six assists on the weekend.
“I don’t ever notice how small I am,” confessed the GNAC Academic All-Conference athlete. “I anticipate and play hard which helps get the ball in and out of my hands when necessary.”
In the Portland State game, the Clan lost by only five points to the Division I institution falling behind in the first half, but outscoring the home side 44–40 in the second half. The second half pressure was not quite enough to overturn the experienced Portland State, but the team’s combined effort over the first 40 minutes of the season was an excellent indicator of the potential the team will have this year, even as they learn their new pairings and style.
“We definitely are a new team this year, but that isn’t a bad thing,” explained Chambers’ co-captain, Chelsea Reist. “ I think we are going to surprise people, and especially after our play this weekend. People will realize that we aren’t over without Nayo; we are going to be strong together.”
Reist factored largely in the Clan’s second game of the weekend as the 6’2” senior had 10 points and led the team with eight rebounds in the victory. The Clan won 86-66 over Lewis and Clark, leading by 12 points at the half.
Foul trouble kept the home team closer in the game than the Clan would have liked as the visitors sent Lewis and Clark to the free-throw line 43 times. “The rules have changed slightly this year for fouling in women’s basketball,” Chambers explained. “Things and movement that used to be allowed are now being whistled down as fouls which we really have to adjust to.”
The Clan have been known for their competitive and hands on play, so 2013-14 will see a change in movement on the court for the ladies as well as for all the teams in the conference, as adjustments to positioning, picks, and blocks will have to be made.
That being said, if the ladies can show the same teamwork and competitiveness in their upcoming pre-season, continuing to play in a poised and controlled manner, the pre-season will be an obvious display of the season to come. With their new workings on a court and the committed team mantra, the women should have no problem proving that not any one player makes a team, and that 2013-14 will be theirs for the taking.
TORONTO — Popular crack-smoking, alcoholic mayor, Rob Ford, is in hot water this week after he was spotted not picking up after his poodle on the streets of his neighbourhood in Etobicoke.
“He just let the dog go right there on someone’s lawn” explained Steve Johnson, a neighbour of Ford’s who claims to have witnessed the heinous event. “And to think, I voted for that guy, you know the guy who goes around and lets his dog do its business on other people’s lawns and doesn’t clean it up . . . it’s just common courtesy.”
These sentiments were echoed across, not only his community but also the entire city of Toronto which is in an uproar over the actions of its believed to be squeaky-clean crack-addict mayor.
“I don’t care what you do on your own time,” explained another neighbour who wished to remain anonymous, ”but you can’t just do that kind of stuff in public.”
Several council members have already called for Ford’s resignation following the dog-business scandal. “How can there be trust?” exclaimed councilman John Fillion during a media scrum last week. “How can you trust a man who doesn’t clean up after his dog to run a city!”
When reached for comment, Ford initially denied the claims. Upon being told there was video evidence however, he changed his tune.
“I can’t comment on what I haven’t seen. But, hypothetically, how can we be sure that it was really what they claim it was?” Ford reasoned with reporters. “Maybe it was a leaf. Like I don’t have to pick up leaves do I? Maybe it didn’t come out of the dog’s butt. Maybe it was just the angle, you know?”
The controversy has been a real blow to Ford’s credibility after managing to raise his approval rating by five per cent thanks to the discovery that he had smoked crack.
The crack-move was seen by many as revitalizing Toronto from their stuffy “no-crack city” image and also connected him to local youth through his willingness to seek out new experiences.
While there is a persistent rumour that the “crack video” was not in fact Rob Ford but an impersonator hired by the Ford campaign and also that the popular stories of Ford’s public drunkenness were also fabricated by his team, without any evidence of his innocence, it may very well help Ford escape this dog clean-up controversy unscathed.
Although it is still unknown how this event will affect his chances for re-election, according to recent polls his supporters are apparently still behind him.
“All these claims are baloney, I’ve seen him around here, trust me I know the real Rob Ford and he’s got my vote” explained one Torontoite and crack-enthusiast, Sleazy Dave, “It was probably just a leaf or something. I know he wouldn’t do something like that.”
Why she’s called this: Despite her impressive math skills, Devi actually earned this nickname due primarily to her uncanny ability to spell the word “BOOBS.”
James Brown, “The Godfather of Soul”
Why he’s called this: This nickname was more than just a title of honour, Brown was expected to take care of Soul in case of the death of its parents.
Margaret Thatcher, “The Iron Lady”
Why she’s called this: A stern and strong politician, Margaret Thatcher was also a huge fan of comic books and picked up her nickname after dressing as the female-version of her favourite superhero at a party in which she broke her jaw and had it replaced with solid iron.
Wayne Gretzky, “The Great One”
Why he’s called this: Although widely believed to signify his stature as the greatest hockey player of all-time, the nickname was, in fact, given to Gretzky as a child by his father Walt who hated his four other children.
Michael Jordan, “MJ”
Why he’s called this: “MJ” earned this nickname from teammate Steve Kerr who noted that Jordan’s skills on the basketball court were reminiscent of the stage presence of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger or “he got the moves like MJ”.
YOUR REGION — After toying with the idea for quite some time, a local amateur comic has finally decided to join the popular social network, Twitter, where he believes that his material will finally be able to be ignored by a significant number of people.
Leon Jones, who has been doing comedy every other Thursday in front of very limited crowds for the past seven months, believes that he is finally ready to have his material be unappreciated outside of just the confines of his local bar.
“I love doing stand-up, I mean there’s nothing better than that immediate and personal disappointment you get from a live crowd’s lack of response,” Jones explained, “But with Twitter, now I can get that lack of gratification all the time.”
Jones said that for the past year he’s had to live with having ideas that he thinks are really funny but has never had the outlet to feel them instantly rejected by a large group of people.
“I was so sick of doing all this material on stage that I thought was original and had nothing to prove me otherwise,” Jones told The Peak.
“With Twitter now I can easily see that a thousand other people did exactly the same joke as me and don’t have to wait until my Thursday night set to fall into a depression about what an unoriginal, insignificant being I am . . . it’s great.”
Since its unveiling one week ago, almost $100,000 in Canadian dollars has been exchanged for bitcoins at the world’s first Bitcoin ATM, located at Waves Coffee House on Howe Street in downtown Vancouver.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency which has been gaining traction as an investment asset and viable alternative to legal tender. In January this year, one bitcoin was worth about $130. On the heels of several high-profile press stories, including headlines of a Norwegian man who forgot he had purchased $27 in bitcoins a few years ago and found that they were worth nearly $887,000 today, the value of one bitcoin has skyrocketed to $240 today.
Business student Michael Yeung, founder and president of the SFU Bitcoin Club, has put SFU’s name in press outlets across the world with his involvement in promoting and facilitating the transition of Bitcoin into the mainstream.
He sees Bitcoin as a particularly strong disruptor of money services like Paypal and Western Union (which currently hold monopolies in their respective markets) but also, eventually, for credit cards and others used for many of our daily transactions. Fees are much lower, at about one per cent compared to 3.5 to five per cent with existing financial services. The fee is returned to the persons who “mined” the bitcoin.
Yeung feels that growing Bitcoin as a mainstream currency will change the way people, particularly young people, think about money. According to Yeung, because there is only a finite number of bitcoins (21 million in total) that can be mined, “the value of a bitcoin will only grow. This means that people are less likely to spend it unnecessarily.”
Yeung stated that this is the opposite of today’s economy, in which governments stimulate the economy by putting more money into the circulation. “This means that the money in your bank account loses value, which incentivizes people to spend it before that happens.”\
Yeung has his sights set on SFU eventually accepting bitcoins as payment for tuition fees.
Currently, the goal of the SFU Bitcoin Club is to push for the implementation of Bitcoin infrastructure, such as point of sale systems at campus businesses and Bitcoin ATMs on site. To this end, Yeung has begun approaching members of SFU’s administration.
Beyond simple transactions, Yeung has his sights set on SFU eventually accepting bitcoins as payment for tuition fees, much like Draper University has recently done. Draper University is currently the only university in the world that accepts bitcoins, in addition to accepting other non-conventional payments, such as shares in a student’s business or an in-kind donation of skills to the university.
For now, Yeung said, the SFU Bookstore and Chartwell’s would be a good start. “Doing this would put SFU on the world map,” he said. Yeung is also in early talks with the SFSS regarding the acceptance of bitcoins by SFSS-owned merchants and is teaming up with former SFSS director Kyle Acierno to present the idea to SFSS’s Commercial Services Review Committee. “So far we have just approached the chair, Jade Andersen, who is knowledgeable about it, and open [to the idea],” said Acierno.
Barrier of entry to accepting bitcoin payments is extremely low, requiring a merchant to simply register with a service, like Bitpay, and have their unique QR code on hand for customers to scan with their smartphones. A larger concern of merchants who may want to accept bitcoin payments is the volatility of the currency.
There are several methods to reduce seller-side risk by protecting them from any drops in the value of bitcoins — however, this protection also insures them if their value rises. “Low risk, low reward,” said Yeung.
At the end of the month, the SFU Bitcoin Club will also be hosting the first Bitcoin event, where attendees will be able to purchase bitcoins directly from Bitcoin Co-op members and be given a tutorial in sending money, with the option of actually sending money to a charity. Proceeds will go to Schools Building Schools, which currently receives a one dollar levy per semester from each SFU student.
Currently on a cross-Canada tour, The Zolas will be playing with Hollorado at The Commodore Ballroom on Nov. 14. As you might expect, guitarist/vocalist Zach Gray said that playing in their hometown of Vancouver is something they always look forward to: “Every city has its benefits, but it doesn’t really matter . . . where the most Zolas fans are — that’s the most fun.”
While on tour, the band has been working on performing new songs that they have never played live, such as “Cold Moon.” Gray said that they don’t really do much writing while touring because “it’s hard to find time to be creative on the road.”
Their songwriting process is a collaboration between all band members, and Gray’s ex-girlfriend also contributed to the chorus of their single “Knot in My Heart.” Gray said that the lines “It’s hard and weird not to know how your day begins though I’m lying next to someone new” are attributed to her, verbatim, from something she said over the phone. “I wrote it down and put it in the chorus. She gets royalties.”
Gray describes “Ancient Mars,” the title track of their second and most recent album, as being about “a beautiful place you can’t get back to once it’s gone. Mars used to have life and now it’s barren; relationships can work the same way. Give it time and there can be nothing between you. I find it sad and beautiful.”
When asked which artist or group they’d love to work with, Gray laughed and said André 3000, in a collaboration “where we stay out of his way.” Some other sources of inspiration — whether completely serious or not — that came up during our interview included Liberace, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Chris Angel, and Dave Matthews.
Mars used to have life and now it’s barren; relationships can work the same way.”
Zach Gray, guitarist/vocalist
There are a few references to ancient civilisations in their songs, including mention of a pharaoh and the Nile in “You’re Too Cool,” and in the song title “Euphrates and Tigres,” but Gray said that he doesn’t have a particular interest in the subject. “It’s just from being a nerd; it’s not a theme. I have a degree in history, so it percolated in.”
Another influence from his history degree is the band name. The name, chosen last minute because they couldn’t agree, was inspired by Emile Zola, whom Gray learned about in one of his classes. “He committed slander against the president of France which is a pretty badass thing to do.” He also likes the fact that it’s not a name that has to be spelled: “You can make any name cool.”
The Zolas have a great sense of humour and had a lot of fun telling me about the many new, exciting features of their live show. These include an animatronic spider, pyrotechnics, male dancers, and live bears. “If people aren’t excited for that, I don’t know what to do,” said Gray.
He also explained, “I start suspended in a block of ice and the audience has to watch me melt before we start our set. It was too cold in Montreal, so they had to chisel me out. Hopefully Vancouver will be a warm enough audience.” I guess you’ll have to check out their show to see if any of that is true.
