With less than 48 hours to go, the web is buzzing about the unveiling of Apple’s shiniest new toy. To be honest, though, when I see my RSS feed filled with posts containing the words “Apple” and “tablet”, I purse my lips and shift my eyes to the right a la Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada. I know, I know, technically I’m just adding on to the plethora of blog posts – feel free to point fingers at me and exclaim “Hypocrite!”
Admittedly, Apple has done an excellent job in generating a crap ton of hype for the tablet, but it’s burning out. Fortunately for them, the product is finally (and that’s a “finally” with the i and y drawn out) being revealed this Wednesday, so we won’t have to endure any more “Apple Tablet Has Been Spotted!11one1″ posts. I mean, it’s great that people are speculating, but by this point do we really need confirmation on the product via web analytics? On the other hand, there will instead be an influx of “AMAZINGEST PRODUCT EVAR” and “Ew, this sux so much lyk lolwut” review posts.
I don’t doubt that the tablet will be anything short of revolutionary in the tech world, as Apple seems to have a knack for taking on the First Mover role and succeeding. I’m sure that when it’s officially released in stores, I’ll be right there elbowing my way past thirty-something tech execs and thirteen year olds to get my hands on a demo. And then I’ll walk away after ten minutes of fiddling, with my curiosity satiated. If anything, what I’m really looking forward to is Lenovo’s Ideapad U1, which has the best of both worlds.
Anyways, it’s time to sit back and await The Big Event. I have to say, it’ll be pretty funny if they don’t end up announcing the tablet. However, I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen, as it would subject us all to another X months of rumors and speculation.
It’s almost comforting to know that even in this uncertain job market, you can’t have it as bad as this fool who’s dug his own grave at the age of 21.
Enter Jeffrey Chiang.
The entire story is over here at Dealbreakers, so I’ll just give you the quick and dirty. Jeffrey Chiang is the prime example of what to do if you want to see your potential career go up in flames after dousing it with a hefty amount of gasoline. So Jeffrey Chiang was interviewing for Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was asked if he had received any other offers so far. He claimed that he was currently in his second round of interviews for Morgan Stanley. Lucky for Jeffrey, a BoA-ML associate had a buddy over at Morgan Stanley, whom he contacted about Jeffrey’s prospects. Apparently, he only had a phone interview with Morgan Stanley, at which time he claimed to have gotten an offer from BoA-ML. He was even so nice as to forward the “offer” over to Morgan Stanley, which was then forwarded to the associate at BoA-ML. After performing a bit of recon and finding out that the letter was a fake, the story was forwarded to the rest of Wall Street and has found its way onto the rest of the internet.
As the reign of social media grows every day and extends into previously uncharted territories, more and more people are becoming solely reliant on such tools for many aspects of their lives. For example, even healthcare has begun branching out into the hip social media arena – Obama hosts virtual town halls regarding his healthcare plans and health information websites are popping up all over the place.
According to this article, social media is “revolutionizing your doctor visits.” I won’t argue that websites haven’t made our lives easier in terms of finding out if you have symptoms of H1N1 or researching which specialized hospitals are best for what. However, there is still a long way to go until healthcare becomes “revolutionized” vis-a-vis social media. It seems that a significant number of people are expecting to find great doctors in the same manner we find nomnom-licious restaurants on Yelp. This isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why? While the crowd who scours the internet looking for the best underground cafes and undiscovered treasures certainly can contribute to the social media-lizing of healthcare, there is a significant chunk of people, people who are the majority players in the healthcare community, who don’t.
Here we are, on the eve of the grand UC Faculty Walkout that will be taking place across all the UC campuses tomorrow. I have to admit, when I first learned about the walkout I thought, “What’s the point?” Sure, once upon a time Berkeley was the epicenter of student action and protests, circa the Free Speech Movement era. However, all that has remained is the FSM cafe, where static black and white photographs of Mario Salvio and the rest of the fighters look down upon us from the walls. Every year, we have protestors at some point – UC service workers, etc.- but honestly, no one really pays them any mind. Some may object to this observation, but come on, we know it’s true.
As the countdown to the walkout gets shorter and shorter, I realized that this time things may actually be different. Instead of the normal grumbling from students about the “suckiness of the UC system,” we have a solidarity among students, faculty, and alumni alike that hasn’t been seen in years. There has been a series of faculty lectures on the walkout and budget cuts throughout the system. In particular, this video of Professor Ananya Roy is definitely worth watching:.
There’s more information about the Berkeley walkout over here. But now, it’s time for me to get some shut-eye for optimal Sproul-crowding performance tomorrow, of course.
About, oh, 1000x worse. Okay, so we’re used to China and their constant censorship of US darlings like Google Apps, Youtube, whatnot and what have you. By now, it’s actually alarming if one of our social media sites isn’t being censored by the Great Firewall (let’s call that the GFW from now on, a la the lovely Twitter hashtag #FuckGFW).
Apparently, AT&T has decided to block 4chan. 4chan. Let’s say that again – 4chan. Of all the sites they could have censored, 4chan? Really? Really? Did they not see what 4chan did with TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list? And TIME didn’t even do anything to them. AT&T’s got some real cajones if they’re willing to take on the wrath of 4chan, which of course, comes bundled with the army of anon. You just don’t mess with 4chan, unless you want your homepage to start displaying 2girls1cup or meatspin- and that’s only the start of it.
As per TechCrunch:
AT&T has just opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms it could have possibly found. Blocking any site seems like a breach of user trust, but the decision to block 4chan in particular just seems stupid. Expect the web equivalent of rioting if this doesn’t change soon. – Jason Kincaid
The troops have already begun rallying here and on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I don’t know about you, but I’m stocking up on my popcorn. Unless 4chan decides to blow up AT&T’s servers, in which I will be /wrist, because sadly, my service provider is AT&T.
This isn’t like going to war with Anontalk, or Scientology, or some website, it’s AT& fucking T. There will be no lulz in this war.
This time the internet IS serious business.
Kristy is an artist, designer, dancer, and ex-gamer
who is currently studying Political Economy at UC Berkeley. This is her blog
& portfolio site, where you can find her daily musings and doodles. Read more here.
Kristy Wen 
