Philip Fibiger

This is an interesting tool that’s supposed to pick out where would be an ideal location for you to live. Granted, it doesn’t take into account important things like ‘can I find a job in this city/town as a computer programmer,’ and it picked an awful lot of cities in Oregon and Maryland for me, but I would definitely consider living in Providence, Boston, or Baltimore.

Here’s my list:
Eugene, Oregon
Corvallis, Oregon
Charleston, West Virginia
Frederick, Maryland
Salisbury, Maryland
Danbury, Connecticut
Portland, Oregon
Salem, Oregon
Baltimore, Maryland
New Haven, Connecticut
Providence, Rhode Island
Boston, Massachusetts

Harvard is going to ignore other schools’ early-decision contracts and allow students who have already been accepted at other schools in the early decision program to apply and enroll at Harvard. The college admissions system is already so royally screwed up, this break from the system will force other schools to react, dropping the entire process into near anarchy. Since schools just below Harvard in selectivity will now no longer be sure that students accepted early decision will attend (and something around 1/3 to 1/2 of Ivy League students are accepted via early decision now), they’ll be forced to put an even larger number of students on a wait list, and the uncertainty will trickle all the way down the system.

Although the author of this piece thinks otherwise, I feel this move would lead to the collapse of the early decision system. The only reason that schools hang on to this system is that it guarantees them 100% yield on the students they accept. When the system becomes no more reliable than the regular decision, they would do better selecting from a larger pool of applicants. Perhaps getting rid of Early Decision will be better for the incoming students. Going back to a single admissions period for all might allow kids to choose the college that is really right for them, rather than simply going to the school they happened to get in to via ED.

I just now discovered Giving Good Weight, a wonderful essay by John McPhee that originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1978. McPhee is my favorite non-fiction writer, with an uncanny ability to write beautifully about nearly anything. His intense and varied curiosity shows through in his writing, with topics ranging from experimental aircraft to ecology and of course including his monumental, Pulitzer Prize winning treatise (written originally as 3 books over more than a decade) on the the geology of North America. Giving Good Weight is a perfect snapshot of a couple hours in New York City, and of the gentle collision of cultures that occured.

Yum. Right now it is just a dream, but some day it will be mine! I wish dealers gave test rides, but it’s just the bike I rode out in the desert, a few generations evolved. That bike was a blast, and I imagine this will be even more impressive.

I went to see The Get Up Kids with Leonard this evening. It was a brutally loud show. I’ve been to some loud concerts, but this one might take the cake. Before I managed to adjust to the volume (somewhat), my skull felt like it was being pushed in by the music.

I realize that the ringing in my ears means that i’ve sustained some (hopefully very small) amount of permanant hearing damage, I still find the state oddly comforting. I remember going to see Orbit at The Haunt in Ithaca with Emily my sophomore year just before the Thanksgiving break. That show was loud as well, and I came home to an absolutely silent dorm suite and room (all my roommates had left for the break). The ringing was astonishing in that noiseless environment. I put the single I had purchased (for the 2nd album for A&M that they never released) into my cd changer and let the crunchy guitars mix with the noise in my head. It was wonderful.

That said, I think next time I’ll bring earplugs.

if i was an artist, I think i’d want my slogan to be:

“ROCK ON WITH YOUR SMOCK ON”