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Creepy dating site not ambitious enough

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EIC
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By Bryce Warnes

 

VANCOUVER (CUP) — Peeked Interest is a website for people who are afraid of talking to people they are attracted to. The way it works is, you sign up, and then you post photos you have covertly taken of strangers you want to fuck. The strangers will (maybe) go on the website and see that someone they don’t know wants to fuck them. Then they might contact that person. Hopefully, in the end, everyone gets fucked.

Peeked Interest was invented by a University of Victoria grad named Darryl McIvor. Right now, the site’s scope is limited to the University of British Columbia and UVic campuses.

I have been spending a lot of time on Peeked Interest lately, checking out pics of my fellow students as they rush around campus, busy not knowing they are being photographed by strangers who want to fuck them.

Peeked Interest is totally groundbreaking, but it isn’t perfect. I’ve spent enough time studying the site in-depth, and I know exactly what it needs to achieve true greatness.

One thing that’s absolutely essential is some sort of virtual currency, perhaps called PeekBux, which you can purchase through Paypal with real-world money, but also accrue through online activities.

Say you really like this one person, you could earn extra PeekBux by taking lots of photos of them. This will encourage people to keep tabs on their crushes, and develop the sort of micro-celeb web-cults that Gen Y is all about.

The website would be more interesting if you could track certain individuals and see pics of them doing various activities, like hanging out with friends, going on night-time jogs, visiting their families, towelling off after hot showers, et cetera.

Once you’ve earned or bought PeekBux, you can spend them on special services, like “VIP Access” to certain crushes, which lets you find out where they live, their phone numbers or what types of medication they’re on.

I understand, though, that having people snapping pics of you all the time could begin to feel intrusive. That’s why, if you catch someone photographing you, you can report them online, and they will be fined some of their PeekBux. This will encourage your fans to take pictures while behaving tastefully and concealing their activities, maybe by hiding in bushes near your first class of the day, or installing a surveillance system that is rigged to take a photo of you every time you leave your house.

Alternately, some people will find that they are not getting enough attention. For instance, when I first went on Peeked Interest, I expected approximately half the photos to be of me, with comments like “hey sexy luv ur sexy walk its sexy” and “you have amazing hair.”

To make a long story short, I was disappointed.

That is why, with PeekBux, you will be able to hire others to snap pics of you. You get the attention that fuels your will to live while skilled mini-paparazzi will be able to make PeekBux on the side when they are not busy following attractive people.

These changes should not be too hard to implement, and I really believe they will make Peeked Interest a legit game-changer. Peeked Interest could allow us to take our first world problems to the next level and tweet about the paparazzi following us to the grocery store, laundromat, and public washroom.

Only then will we, Generation Y, reach our apogee.

An open letter to the president of the SFSS

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EIC
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By Erin Wyllie

Dear Jeff McCann,

Thank you for introducing yourself, . It’s the perfect time to let all the students know as you’re on your way out of office for the year. We need to clear some things up. You claim that students aren’t engaged, that we’re “apathetic”, and we “don’t give a fuck.” I think we need to find the source of this student pathology, so we can fix this, maybe during your next year in office as university relations officer.

I kindly request that for every finger you point at the “lazy students”, you turn around and question your board for what they have been doing to get students jazzed about student politics. It’s a two-way street to get students involved and, at the moment, it’s only going in one single direction: a dictating board that does not foster democracy.

This past school year I’ve been quite involved in program, faculty, and university-wide organizations. So, naturally, I’ve been incensed by the past year’s activities. Why have the recent elections garnered high voter turnout but a sore turnout of candidates? Why has the board — ‘16 student leaders’ — turned into 14 student leaders?

Let’s read between the lines here: students want to get involved, just not in our university politics. I’ve been to board meetings, to forum, and to your office. After all I’ve done to get involved I can say that it’s not a nice area to be occupying. No one wants to speak when there are snide smiles behind your back. Students don’t want to run for office because, when it comes down to the wire, your ethics change to finish a project. Participants don’t want to vote if you barely look up to count who is for and against.

Moreover, the article in The Peak illustrates my point. The finger is pointed solely at the students. Yes students do need to be proactive and want to get involved; however, if there is no progress for what they are doing, if the position they occupy has little to no meaning in the process, then what is the point? Why should a student give hours of their time to a process that does not encourage their participation? There are a select few individuals on campus who are so passionate about these issues that they are willing to forego time, and experience unpleasant environments if it means something might get done in the future. But you’re right, most students do not, and I can’t say I blame them.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s make student politics an exciting and inclusive experience for all students.

Here are my recommendations for what should happen next year. If anyone feels the same, let’s work to hold our representatives accountable. Let’s engage. Let’s chat in the hallways, and let’s reignite the community in SFU.

First, forum should not be chaired by an SFSS board member — it’s an absolute conflict of interest. The chair sets the tone for the meeting and manipulates it to the board’s interests.

Second, forum should reclaim the power that it’s let slip away. I hear rumours of a time some years ago when SFU’s student politics were controlled by forum and the board had to answer to this currently spineless body.

Third, more consultation. Yes, this word’s been thrown around a lot, so let’s take notice. We want consultation. Why is the Build SFU think tank closed now? After the big push to get students to vote ‘yes’, we’re finished with that fish bowl of a room? I want consultation day and night. I think that each committee needs to be tasked to investigate the best way to consult students and how students’ interests align with the committee. Let’s broaden these spaces and allow for all students to participate.

Fourth, Craig Pavelich needs to be instated as IRO. I was at the board meeting when this was being discussed and the issue was shied away from and those with the loudest voices in the room became the only ones. The board’s main reason for not instating him is to adhere to policy. Where was this reasoning with the other policies the board violated last year? Craig was voted in by the student population. 1,002 students voted yes and 310 no for his acclamation. Democracy spoke, and the board quieted its voice.

Thank you for hearing my concerns and I will see you at the next board meeting. I look forward to discussing my concerns and those of the students in the future. Because, yeah, I am one of those students who does ‘take this shit too seriously’.

Five myths keeping you from being debt free

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EIC
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0

By Erika Zell

It’s official: when I walk across the stage this June, I’ll be graduating debt-free. No student loans, no over-extended credit cards, no appreciative hugs for my parents — I won’t owe a nickel to anybody, and it feels great.

I was imbued with a strong sense of fiscal conservatism early on, nurtured by a long line of stingy relatives. I grasped earlier than most the idea that student loans are not gifts, and that an arts degree is not a guarantee of financial security. While financial management can seem intimidating and complicated, it’s actually deceptively straightforward: you need to earn more money than you spend. You know by now that a university degree doesn’t come cheap, so this makes the equation even simpler: with increased expenses comes the need for increased income. Fellow students, my thesis is simple: work. Work long, work hard. My friends thought I was crazy juggling three-plus jobs all these long years, but with so many of them now staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars in debt and pending unemployment, suddenly my plan doesn’t seem so outrageous after all.

The benefits of student employment also reach far beyond the purely monetary — yes, there were a few parties lost to long Saturday nights as a waitress, but there are crazy perks to being overemployed, too. My social circle expanded, not shrunk, as I was continually pushed out of my comfort zone, and seeing everything through the lens of school will severely limit the scope of your endeavours. Put more simply, post-secondary is a big, fluffy, shiny, bubble that will pop and throw you into the wild as soon as you graduate. Think of work experience as your survival skills — and there’s no time to learn like the present, baby.

In sum, working makes you a better person. Fact.

Not convinced? Check out my sage advice for busting these top five student-employment myths.

 

Myth #1: “I won’t have enough time to focus on my school work if I have a part-time job.”

 

Nice try. If you can’t spare a few hours a week to do something other than study you need a serious lesson in time management. (This is, incidentally, a major secondary benefit of working through school.) Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘If you need something done, get a busy person to do it?” It’s more than an adage; it’s a universal truth. The more you have on the go, the more you can miraculously manage, because you get better at using your time effectively. While some people are naturally predisposed to being schedule-busting overachievers, most truly effective people are made, not born, and this is a skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Your passion for homework is quite frankly depressing, and your single-minded focus is holding you back. Which leads me to my second point…

 

Myth #2: “Working is shitty and hard and not fun.”

 

You, young grasshopper, are the mayor of wrongtown. My work experiences have been hands down the most positive of my undergraduate career, and I’m not alone: 100 per cent of even the most cynical students can find a silver lining to terrible job situations. Maybe it was the friends you made to commiserate with along the way. Maybe it was the five per cent discount you got on shitty coffee once you finished your barista shift. Maybe it was the paid hours you spent watching cat videos during your downtime in a lame data entry position. What I’m saying is attitude is everything, and unless you get some, preferably of the positive variety, you can forget about work because your life is going to be shitty and hard and not fun. Luckily, there’s also an easy fix for this problem…

 

Myth #3: “I can’t find work I like.”

 

My first instinct may have been to roll my eyes and tell you to grow up, but I won’t do that. Instead, I’ll politely and calmly remind you that you can’t possibly know what you like yet. You’re in school; that’s the point. I don’t mean to sound like your mother, but you don’t know if you’ll enjoy something until you try. Maybe working at a XXX store pricing pornos doesn’t sound that great on paper, but maybe you’re secretly really great at say, evaluating adult novelty products, and all of a sudden that paycheque seems pretty darn rad. There’s not really a snarky moral to this story — you just need to put yourself out there and make the best of it.

 

Myth #4: “I can’t find work.”

 

This is the most common excuse I hear, which is funny because it’s also flat-out not true. Unsurprisingly, there are still so many employers willing to exploit the naivety of students and hire you for minimum wage. What you’re really saying is Myth #3, except that this time I’ve got even less  sympathy and I’m going to tell you to man the fuck up for real, and start writing resumes, because your tuition’s not going to pay itself. The economy is bad, but it’s not that bad. Are you willing to work evenings? Weekends? To get your hands dirty? To take instruction from people far less qualified than yourself? The answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’. Half a communication degree doesn’t get you $30 an hour and an office with a view. In all honestly, it probably doesn’t even get you $12 an hour in a basement. (Did I just spoil the surprise?) Think realistically about your odds, and then adjust your standards.

Myth #5: “My parents pay my rent, tuition, books, and beer money. I don’t need to earn my own dollah billz.”

 

It’s time to cut the umbilical cord. There’s something to be said for even the smallest degree of financial independence, after all.

Word on the Street: Finals!

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EIC
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0

By Gary Lim

Record renaissance

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EIC
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By Navneet Nagra

Vinyl — archaic or classic? Sales trends in the last five years have been tipping in favour of the gramophone

It’s 1991, the embarrassing ‘80s are behind us, and on the horizon is a new world of plaid shirts and grunge music. Our favourite songs are recorded off the radio onto cassette tapes and our albums are stacked up next to our turntables, but rumour has it that there’s a new way of listening to music. Music takes to the CD, and the vinyl record gets pushed out of the spotlight along with the cassette tape.

By the new millennium, BitTorrent and file sharing has yet again revolutionized the shape of music. Sales of physical albums fall gradually over the next decade and never recover, while vinyl sales increase overall.

While vinyl sales still comprise a small percentage of physical album sales, they have gained popularity in recent years.

In 2008, vinyl sales jumped 90 per cent from the previous year, and have been steadily increasing since. And perhaps not so coincidentally, this was the inaugural year of Record Store Day, which is now ingrained onto the calendars of music fans. Record Store Day happens every third Saturday of April.

Many artists have special vinyl releases for Record Store Day as well. Music shops across the continent as well as internationally, including those stationed at music festivals like Coachella, put on special festivities to celebrate the occasion, and would see up to a 50 per cent spike in vinyl sales the week of.

According to Nick Bragg, manager of Zulu Records, he noticed about a 20 to 30 per cent jump in sales at their store over the last few years. The sudden trendiness of record collecting has helped record sales. However, it isn’t simply the younger generations gaining interest — many older consumers are avid record collectors as well.

Many artists consider the vinyl record to be the purest representation of their album. So it isn’t surprising for artists to add on incentives for fans to purchase vinyl instead of their CD. Radiohead’s latest release, The King of Limbs, had a vinyl album package including a Radiohead newspaper, collectible art pieces, and access to a digital format as well. Almost any album purchased today comes with a digital download, which is what Bragg attributes to the decline of CDs and resurgence of vinyl.

For local prog-rock band We Are The City, vinyl is the preferred release for an album. The band released their High School EP on a 12-inch, and a later single on a 7-inch record.

For fans, it seems to have more to do with the smaller motions of putting on a record. The experience of listening to a vinyl record, like the dropping of the needle on the record, can’t be downloaded, says Cayne MacKenzie of We Are The City. In Nick Legasse’s case, it’s a different way to listen to music.

Legasse, host of CJSF world music radio show Wandering Rhythms, says that vinyl is synonymous with discovering something new. Record labels like Finder’s Keepers and Now Again have taken to repressing old music from around the world on vinyl form.

The vinyl record is rising in the music world and doesn’t show signs of stopping. While many people will argue that it is a simple fad, the resilience of the vinyl record over the decades shows that even in the digital age, the vinyl record is an important staple in music.

 

Record Store Day is April 21.

 

SFU receives financing for HIV/AIDS research

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EIC
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By Alison Roach

National Institutes of Health grants $2.7 million for vaccine reserach

The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S.’s largest government-funded medical research agency, has recently granted $2.7 million to four researchers working to further develop an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine. One of these researchers is Jamie Scott, an SFU professor and Canada Research Chair in molecular immunity.

Scott is the principle investigator and the main contact on two grants going towards the project; she, along with Dr. Naveed Gulzar, wrote grant applications to both the NIH and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), with both institutes granting funding. Thanks to the NIH grant, the team working on this research has been expanded to now consist of Scott, Dr. Jose Nieva of the University of the Basque Country, Dr. Bill Degrado of the University of California in San Francisco, and Dr. Shan Lu of the University of Massachusetts.

The series of vaccines the team is working on are based on an original vaccine conceived of by Dr. Marinieve Montera, a former student of Scott’s, which is how Scott came to be involved in the project. These vaccines being developed are meant to induce the immune system to produce antibodies that will bind to and block infectivity of HIV.

Of the science behind the vaccines, Scott explains, “The site those antibodies are targeted against is the MPER, a sub-region of HIV’s envelope protein located on the virus’s surface, and mediates infection by binding to special receptors on immune cells. That is the first step in the entry of the viral genome into the cell.” The MPER provides a potentially accessible site that does not vary from virus to virus and that antibodies can focus on. This is important since the challenge to creating antibodies to fight HIV has been that it’s a constantly mutating virus. The idea is to focus on the MPER site on infectious virus as a conserved region that is necessary for infection, and to stop this process from taking place.

The crucial step forward that has been made in this project is the closer copying of the basic MPER structure than has been accomplished before. “We have shown that the basic MPER structure we’re using in our vaccines is very similar to the viral MPER; so we think we’re mimicking it better than other groups that are trying to do the same thing,” said Scott. The group of researchers now hopes to build on this work by producing the vaccine in various different formats with the new funding.

Scott’s lab’s role in the upcoming stages of the project includes making a DNA vaccine that will facilitate the synthesis of the MPER and the presentation of it to the immune system.  In the larger scope, the team is now looking to work on engineering the MPER as a better vaccine, with the different vaccine formats helping to immunize with the MPER in a larger amount.

For the practical trials, Scott says, “[Dr. Lu’s] lab and my lab will test the antibodies the animals make for their ability to block the infectivity of HIV. We’ll be so happy if that works. It will be a first, very important step!” The potential implications of the project are huge. If the team develops an effective vaccine that produces positive results in test subjects in the lab, it could prove to be a crucial step towards creating a preventative vaccine for HIV/AIDS.

MBA grads win NASA contract

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EIC
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By Graham Cook

Water treatment technology for decalcification to be used on the International Space Station

A company founded by SFU MBA graduates Joshua Zoshi and Ben Sparrow won a contract to provide water treatment technology to NASA.  Saltworks, which was created in 2008, will provide the Ames Research Centre with a pilot system, which has the intention of effectively removing calcium from water.

Zoshi and Sparrow met at SFU in the Master of Technology MBA program in the mid 2000’s. The company they founded together is described as “providing sustainable and economic solutions for desalination and brine treatment.” In its first year, Saltworks won the B.C. New Ventures Award which recognizes entrepreneurship B.C.’s technology sector. In addition, the company is currently ranked number two on B.C. Business Magazine’s of the province’s 20 most innovative businesses.

The NASA Ames Research Centre, located in Silicon Valley in California, is described on its website as being “involved with many high-tech projects, ranging from developing small spacecraft to managing some of the world’s largest supercomputers, and conducting astrobiology research.” They discovered Saltworks design by putting out a public message that they were looking for a device which matched up with one of the technology platforms that the company produces. The International Space Station, which could utilize this technology, contains a water recycling system, which needs to process higher levels of calcium.

Co-founder Joshua Zoshi, who received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering in 2001 and graduated from the MBA program in 2005, spoke with The Peak about his company’s recent success.  He explained that they had been working on the unit for about the past month, calling it a “fast-tracked project” which would be delivered to NASA relatively soon.

The water treatment system will receive an initial look at the research centre to determine whether or not it will end up on the International Space Station, and Zoshi said it is still too early to tell if it will end up in space.  He explained that every water treatment application has a unique chemistry and that the ISS has requirements that involve the fact that they have to recycle as much water as possible due to the extremely limited supply.  While he was unaware of what the unit would be used for on the station, his understanding was that one of its uses could be recycling urine.

Saltworks was originally founded on technology that cuts electronic use by half for desalinizing water and now contains a variety of different platforms and holds a number of complete and pending patents.

Social networking for comedians

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EIC
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By Kristina Charania

Sin Bin owner Chris Hall has launched a website that promotes local comedians and comedy shows

It’s not a big secret. Yuk Yuk’s are not just noises made by Ewoks, but also a central stand-up venue to Vancouver, and Russell Peters is not our sole Canadian comedy export. Despite having a lively comedy scene and talented stand-up comedians, Vancouverites seem to know very little about comedy in the country and the city. The problem is simple: those looking for a few good laughs have no idea when comedy gigs are happening, and who’s in them.

“There’s probably 20 to 25 comedy shows a week in Vancouver,” said Chris Hall, owner of The Sin Bin, “but people just don’t know about [the shows] or don’t know how to find them.”

After observing friends in the industry and their frustrations with getting audiences together, Hall founded My ComedyBook. The new networking platform is a hybrid between a catalogue like IMDb, and a promotion platform like MySpace or Facebook. “I found it weird that there was no centralized database for comedy and comedians. Even burlesque has more out there online than comedy does!” said Hall.

Designed to eliminate the void between fan, comedy booker, and comedian, My ComedyBook’s homepage lists upcoming comedy shows in your region and displays a reel of featured local comedians that have received the most ‘laughs’, similar to a ‘like’ on Facebook.  Events can be clicked on to reveal performers who have individualized profiles with a ‘Book Me’ button for event organizers. The profiles provide a user-friendly experience and allow visitors to find comedians and their future events, read a biography, and watch high-quality performance videos.

This is essential for comedians because it provides fans with a place to learn about them and pass fair judgment on their sense of humour (or lack thereof). My ComedyBook may also ease the booking struggles faced by comedy venues like Yuk Yuks, benefiting both performer and entrepreneur. “[Comedy] is not like work experience, where you can look at a piece of paper and see that you’ve performed here and here. You really have to know if they’re funny or not in order to put them in a show,” said Hall.

Some have argued that Facebook has the same basic video-sharing and event-creating functions while being even more accessible, but My ComedyBook addresses an entirely new demographic. “Rather than just advertising to their friends on Facebook, they can reach a wider demographic of people that are actively searching for comedy shows,” said Hall.

“It’s a specialized thing. If you went on Facebook right now, you would have trouble finding a comedy show tonight in Vancouver. Unless you’re friends with a comedian on Facebook, and unless you’re one of his 400 friends, other people have no way to find out about the shows that he’s doing at pubs and bars around Vancouver.”

Ideally, My ComedyBook will also function for regions outside of Vancouver. “We’re starting with North America to see how that goes, and branch out if that goes well,” said Hall. “There’s a lot in Europe as well, but I think the main demographic is in North America, with the big cities being Vancouver, Montreal, L.A, and New York. We’ll start with that.”

Sin Bin owner Chris Hall has launched a website that promotes local comedians and comedy shows

Cheese specialist arrives to judge record-breaking wheel

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EIC
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0

Cameron Bere, a world-renowned cheese connoisseur hailing from Switzerland arrived at SFU last Friday to huge fanfare and applause. His reason for flying halfway around the world: to examine the authenticity of claims that the Cheese Whizzes, a campus club, had successfully created the world’s largest wheel of parmesan-reggiano cheese.

The enormous cheese measures at over 50 feet across and weighs a muenster-ous 550 pounds. If the cheese meets all the standards and regulations of the European Dairy Union, it will officially be recognized as the world’s largest wheel.

The Peak caught up with the Swiss cheese expert. “Let’s brie serious, the EDU gets hundreds of these claims a year, and only a handful ever paneer out. Frankly, I’m more than a little feta up with it, I’d even go as far to as saying  drives me emmental, the things people will do just to get into that edam book of world records. I mean, we’ve seen everything, from illegal food dyes to sawdust used as filler.”

“Not to mention the rampant bribery, it’s gotten to the point where we cheese inspectors have to wall ourselves off in the proverbial roquefort just to stay impartial. But in gouda faith we still fly out to each supposedly ‘world’s largest cheese’. Hopefully this won’t be the queso this time.”

In a press release, club president Jack Colby assured the community of the veritablity of their record-breaking wheel.  “Now we know a mozza things have been said about the authenticity of Parman Sandiego (the nickname given to the world-record contending cheese), mainly by the Lactosetmasters, our rival organization at UBC.  But we’ve been over our methodology time and again and we can assure you the work is Gouda.  Futhermo—

“We’ve already done that one.”

“What?”

“We’ve already used the ‘in Gouda faith’ pun. Pick another.”

“Um, alright . . . we . . . are certain that after all the Gruyère-ling work we’ve put in on Parmen, the weeks of waking up in a curd sweat in of the night, that the EDU will have no choice but to recognize that our cheese is the world’s largest.”

The record-breaking attempt comes at the same time as the club’s annual mixer, which organizers describe the event as a real “double cheddar”

theWAREHOUSE: Punny Double Feature

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EIC
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By Carl Huber at theWAREHOUSE

1...1,3841,3851,386...1,419Page 1,385 of 1,419

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024