Sam Purtill

The Avatar Wore Cardinal (Stanford Magazine)

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:51:22 -0800

The Avatar Wore Cardinal (Stanford Magazine):

From the Stanford Mag:

“Dr. Grace Augustine is the movie’s hard-charging but ethical ecologist, played by Sigourney Weaver, ‘72. And pretty much whenever Augustine makes the nifty switch into the body of an alien on the planet Pandora, her thin, blue, 10-foot-tall avatar sports a classic Cardinal-red shirt with STANFORD stamped across it.

Indeed, Stanford is one of only two “brands” from our time to be featured in the futuristic drama (the other is the U.S. Marine Corps). While we learn early on in the film that much else from the early 21st century has been lost—greenery has all but disappeared from Earth, for example—it appears that Stanford, at least, endures.”

The Limits of Rahmism

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:47:28 -0800

The Limits of Rahmism

IMG00136-20100305-2124.jpg the pack

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:31:36 -0800

IMG00136-20100305-2124.jpg the pack

"George Bush has recommended country-western music as an inspirational source of important ideals"

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:53:31 -0800

“George Bush has recommended country-western music as an inspirational source of important ideals”

- pg 2 of The Wild West — The Mythical Cowboy & Social Theory by Will Wright

Ok, there are some things he was right about.

Rumors of Carlos Slim buying The New York Times

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:15:00 -0800

Although these rumors have been squashed by Slim’s PR team, it is worth thinking about the ramifications of having someone like Slim own The Times. The NY Times is perhaps the most trusted newspaper in the world, and while it has a reputation of being a left-leaning publication, their influence is immense. If you take that last sentence and replaced ‘left’ with ‘right’, you would have the Wall Street Journal, which is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian.

In the hypothetical scenario that Mr. Slim was to purchase The Times and take it private, two of our most well-read and credible newspapers will be owned by foreigners.

I’m not proposing that media corporations that cater to the US market should be owned by an American. We have a choice of what to read and watch, which has a great influence on our thoughts and opinions. I largely stopped reading The Journal after NewsCorp purchased it and replaced the editorial team with Murdoch figureheads. I am also aware that Slim already owns a 6.4% stake in The Times, although I think this minority ownership in the company hasn’t had a large impact on the reporting of the paper. However, I have noticed that they never write anything negative about Slim, which is a bit disconcerting.

These two papers have immense influence on the American political landscape, foreign policy, local businesses, international corporations, and a host of other incredibly important matters in our world.

We all watched Murdoch make a slough of promises to the Bancroft family to purchase The Journal. We saw what happened to all of those promises as soon as the deal went through. History has a way of repeating itself. I hope The Times doesn’t make the same mistake that its rival did.

Stanford Special Fees Petitions Signer

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:54:30 -0800

Stanford Special Fees Petitions Signer:

Signing special fees petitions has become a tedious process at Stanford this year. I built this form to let students sign all of the petitions they want to support at once.

The Stanford Daily mobile site

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:50:12 -0800

The Stanford Daily mobile site:

I needed a mobile site for StanfordDaily.com to work on my BlackBerry, so I wrote this up on Friday afternoon using the Daily’s RSS feed. Just visit StanfordMob.com on your smart phone and voilà!

Photo

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:16:31 -0800

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Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:25:34 -0800

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Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:24:08 -0800

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"A much happier person now than when we first met him. He feels like he’s done good things, and..."

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:26:24 -0800

“A much happier person now than when we first met him. He feels like he’s done good things, and they’re greater than what he expected when he was young. If there is sadness in him at all, I think it is a tiny core of profound sadness of the kind that the Buddha understood—that we probably can’t use human rationality to make the world all better, and it would be really nice if we were able to.”

- The New Yorker: How Paul Krugman Found Politics

Beginning to feel like Spring… At Madison’s synchro...

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:16:06 -0800

Beginning to feel like Spring… At Madison’s synchro meet

"Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the..."

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:17:45 -0800

“Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.”

- Robert F. Kennedy

Odopod! Visited for the first time in SIX years. They are huge...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:35:05 -0800

Odopod! Visited for the first time in SIX years. They are huge now! Loved it.

COLBERT: Ben Bernanke, who oversaw the collapse of not only the United States, but pretty much the entire world financial system, and brought our economy to its knees, has been reappointed as head of the Federal Reserve... Does this give you hope for being reelected Governor of New York? [laughs] Because, mind you, he ...screwed EVERYBODY.

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:53:39 -0800

COLBERT: Ben Bernanke, who oversaw the collapse of not only the United States, but pretty much the entire world financial system, and brought our economy to its knees, has been reappointed as head of the Federal Reserve... Does this give you hope for being reelected Governor of New York? [laughs] Because, mind you, he ...screwed EVERYBODY.
SPITZER: I just became a big fan of Bernanke.

"That is not to say privilege is a bar to humor or empathy, but if the toughest experience..."

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:37:56 -0800

“That is not to say privilege is a bar to humor or empathy, but if the toughest experience you’ve had is Juanita ironing an inadequate crease into your golf pants even though you’ve told her about this before, you may struggle to wield the comedy of universal experience.”

- Why Aren’t Conservatives Funny? (Gawker)

Remembering Salinger: Dave Eggers

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:41:10 -0800

Remembering Salinger: Dave Eggers

You’re going to want this back

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:11:00 -0800

You will never turn in an assignment late. You will study for every single quiz, midterm, and final. You will be stressed out and have anxiety attacks. There’s no stopping. That’s the environment here; high stress, high energy, high achieving. At the end of the quarter, you will feel this great sense of accomplishment: you did it. All of it. You pulled the all-nighters. You bs’ed your way through a few IHUM sections. You slept four hours a night for ten weeks.

But everyone else is in the same boat, they’re all right there with you – same stress levels, lack of sleep, amount of homework and studying, etc. And you bond together through this common plight to make it through. I think this is intentional, because in the midst of our stress, misery, difficulty of midterms and finals, we are all becoming so close to each other.

Yesterday was the worst day I’ve had at Stanford – math midterm, IHUM essay, taxes, and six hours of classes – but I did it. I didn’t have an anxiety attack. I didn’t quit. I woke up and faced the entirety of the day. It was only possible because of all the support that I received from my close friends. And that’s why I really, really love this school: not because of what Stanford means when you go outside the campus; because the people here are truly exceptional.

SKI TRIP

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:41:05 -0800

SKI TRIP

"I have been asked this. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s irrelevant and I can shut it..."

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:32:30 -0800

“I have been asked this. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s irrelevant and I can shut it down completely with, “Well, seven, but only one is currently living. Feeling lucky?””

- Comment from the Gawker article ‘Weird New Way to Flirt’ Involves Evoking the Oldest Double Standard in the Book