Pop Culture Grid: Wasiolek vs. Guttentag

07 Oct 2011, Posted by Minshu Deng in News, Pop Culture Grid, 1 Comments

How much do you really know about Sue Wasiolek, assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students? What is the theme song to the life of Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions? These two administrators hold the strings to the marionnette lives of students but we don’t know much about them! The Chronicle’s Minshu Deng is here to fix that for you. 

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Welcome to Academia

07 Oct 2011, Posted by Melissa Dalis in News, Welcome to Academia, 0 Comments

Our new series called Welcome to Academia will give a weekly update about the interesting, weird and newsworthy happenings at Duke’s peer institutions.

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

To celebrate the Harvard University‘s 375th birthday on Oct. 14, a nearby Boston bakery will bake a gigantic red velvet cake in the shape of an H, according to this YouTube video. Serving 4,000 students, this cake will consist of 278 pounds of butter, 1,000 eggs and 1,290 cups of sugar as just a few of its ingredients.

Con artist Eugene Tinsley pretended to be a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania last year and was arrested in June for theft, forgery and receiving stolen property as well as deceptively executing documents, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. Tinsley even became pledgemaster of his pre-med fraternity, and would even “come home and write papers,” according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. Although Tinsley was banned from Penn, students and faculty have reportedly seen him around campus this year.

Emory University sophomore Sam Eshaghoff was arrested Tuesday for taking the SAT for six students from Great Neck North High School in New York for $1,500 to $2,500 per student, according to the Emory Wheel. Eshaghoff could face up to four years in prison if found guilty, and the six students who hired him were also arrested and now face misdemeanor charges.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University are building computer circuits made of diamonds rather than the typical silicon because diamond-based electronics are faster and more resistent to heat and radiation, according to InsideVandy.com. Because creating these diamond-based computers only requires methane and hydrogen, the researchers believe that the cost could compete with the silicon manufacturing.

Three recent assaults at Georgia Institute of Technology have prompted the university to increase its police presence on campus. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, all three attacks involved what could have either been one man or three different men coming behind three women on three different occasions, grabbing them and running away when the victim screamed.

China and theatre from the Cultural Revolution onwards

06 Oct 2011, Posted by Shucao Mo in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Durand/The Chronicle

Duke Theatre Studies hosted Lixin Yang, a Chinese actor whose career focuses on modern drama, in the Gothic Reading Room this Wednesday as he uncovered his personal and political relationship to theatre in China.

“Hold onto your traditions even as society modernizes so rapidly–and pass them onto the next generation,” Yang said in a speech.

In 1993, Yang starred in China’s first and most famous sitcom classic “I Love My Home” (我爱我家). He played a leading role in Thunderstorm (雷雨), a watershed play that established China’s own modern drama style. His recent film Aftershock (唐山大地震), released in 2010, broke all box office records for a domestic film in China.

Theatre Studies professor Claire Conceison, acted as both the hostess and translator for the event. She had her first encounter with Yang when writing her dissertation on Chinese conception of Americans in terms of theatre. Conceison noted his kindness despite of his famous reputation.

“He treats everyone as his neighbors,” Conceison said.

Yang Lixin joined the Beijing People’s Art Theater in 1975, nearing the end of Cultural Revolution. As the political turmoil swept the entire country, theatre arts in China blossomed and prospered.

“Mao made contributions [to stage arts] by socializing drama,” Yang said. “[He] learned [the idea] from the Soviet Union.” Yang’s theatrical career has lasted 36 years.

Although modern drama was not introduced to China until 1910—when western playwrights Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov, began to be known among Chinese artists, the history of theatrical performance in China was 600 to 700 years old. Unfortunately, only two indigenous artforms survived—Peking Opera and KunQu, which had its origin in Kunshan.

The Doll’s House by Ibsen and Black Slaves Cry to Heaven—a drama adaptation of Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin—were among the most famous.

After the 1980s, China witnessed its decline in theatrical arts as it lost its political role as governmental propaganda tool. Theatre had to be integrated into the capitalistic market system and to compete with those lucrative film and TV industries.

“Many plays performed in the earlier times lost their political appeal,” Yang said.

However, the construction of theatre houses was still bound by the old, pre-market standard. The quota of theatres houses was based upon the proportion of human population within each acre.

“A lot of theatre resources are not being fully utilized, [but at the same time] many theatre groups coming from outside the city are not allowed to perform [in those rarely-used theatres],” Yang said.

Yang applauded the Western theatre marketing strategy that, catering to consumers, has built a cultural symbol for cities like New York City and Chicago.

As member of political consultative committee in the city of Beijing, Yang made political efforts to change the structure of the theatre market, but China’s government failed to respond to his appeals.

“I admire [the way] Broadway [works],” Yang said. “Concentrated in one area, it brings theatre to the people.”

Yang noted the importance of combining liberal arts education and rigorous traditional Chinese artistic training. His son, Eric Yang, is currently a senior and theatre major at Duke. Yang was appreciative of what Duke offered to prepare Eric for his theatre career by teaching him to understand the essence of life through history, literature and theatre.

“A great stage actor has to acquire literary knowledge, imagination and personal expression before learning techniques,” Yang said. “Duke gives [Eric] full exposure to a liberal arts education.”

Yang said that he has loved all the roles he has played.

“An actor is always passive, [but] a great actor is trained well enough to like the characters he is cast in,” Yang said. “[that love] comes from learning to understand the characters and play them convincingly and wholeheartedly so that the audience loves the character.”

DevilWatch: Drunk freshmen, stolen calculator in Blackwell

06 Oct 2011, Posted by Melissa Dalis in DevilWatch, News, 0 Comments

In the weekly blog series DevilWatch, The Chronicle‘s Melissa Dalis highlights each week’s crimes, as released by the Duke University Police Department.

After Duke Hospital North, Blackwell saw the most crimes during the week of Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 with two counts of underage consumption and a stolen calculator.

Following what seems to be a weekly trend, Duke Hospital North saw the most crimes this week, including burning building and injury to personal propert, simple assault, three thefts and simple assault and communicating threats.

Thefts this week included a backpack, calculator, three cell phones, copper wire, currency digital camera, driver’s licence, iPad, two iPhones, three laptops, lighter, purse and television.

People were arrested this week for a concealed weapon and second degree trespass in Bostock Library, false bomb report in the Bryan Center and simple assault and communicating threats in Duke Hospital North.

Crimes were primarily reported during the weekdays. Only five crimes were reported on Saturday and Sunday, while 21 crimes were reported Monday through Friday. Tuesday and Thursday saw the most crime with six counts each.

BY THE NUMBERS

Total crimes: 26

Crimes closed or cleared: 18

Counts of theft: 15

Crimes in Duke Hospital North: 6

East Campus crimes: 5

Arrests: 3

iPhone 4S announcement

05 Oct 2011, Posted by Nguyen Tran in News, 0 Comments

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Apple released its latest version of iPhone—the iPhone 4S—at a launch event in Cupertino, California, early yesterday afternoon.

Even though there is no major change to the design, Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said that “inside, it is all new.”

The new iPhone features the A5 chip used in the iPad and is twice as fast as the iPhone 4, Schiller said. Battery life is also improved, with eight hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G and 10 hours of watching video. And yet, it will weigh 33 percent less.

The camera is also improved. It now boasts an 8-megapixel sensor, 60 percent more pixels than the iPhone 4’s camera. It has a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that captures 73 percent more light.

The iPhone 4S takes 1.1 seconds to take its first photo once you start up the Camera app. The Droid Bionic, by comparison, takes 3.6 seconds, Schiller said.

But perhaps the most important upgrade to the iPhone is the presence of a new application called Siri.

“It’s an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done, just by asking,” Schiller said.

To demonstrate the new application, Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software, asked the phone, “What is the weather today?” The phone answered, “Here is the weather for today,” and displayed the weather screen. Mr. Forstall then continued, “Do I need a raincoat today?” The phone replied, “It sure looks like rain today.”

Mr. Forstall noted that Siri can look for directions, set alarms, read text messages, schedule events, take dictation and create reminders.

“Remind me to call my wife when I leave work,” Forstall told the phone.

Siri knew who Forstall’s wife is from previous conversations and would use geolocation to find out when he left work.

Apple has also collaborated with Wolfram Alpha to provide data for Siri.

“Define mitosis,” demanded Forstall.

Siri promptly read back a definition.

But perhaps the most chilling demonstration of the capabilities of this virtual assistant came when Mr Forstall asked Siri, “Who are you?” and it replied, “I am a humble personal assistant.”

Prices for the iPhone 4S start at $199 for 16 gigabytes of storage, $299 for 32 GB and $399 for 64 GB. There will be an 8 GB iPhone 4 for $99. iPhone 3GS is now free, with a two-year contract.

Preorders for the 4S start Oct. 7 with delivery on the 14th.

Despite the new Siri application, some observers and investors were not impressed, with the Wall Street Journal calling Apple’a announcement “underwhelm[ing]”. Stock of the company dropped by 5 percent after the launch, before it regained most of the losses by the end of trading session.

“Apple is running out of innovative ideas for [the] moment and so creates the iPhone 4S to hold for one more year before iPhone 5 is out,” said Zhen Gou, a junior.

Others begged to differ, including Tim Cook, Apple’s new chief executive officer, who called the new phone “the most amazing phone yet.”

“When you think about it, only Apple could make such amazing software, hardware and services and bring them together into such a powerful, yet integrated experience,” Mr. Cook said.

Judging from the buzz the phone has already created, he is not alone in his confidence.

“The iPhone 4S? S is for Sexy,” said freshman Eddie Li. “Love it.”