This is the ‘pro’ side of a pro/con feature.

Published: Monday, April 6, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

Whitworth will soon be diving deeper into the digital age with the addition of online classes to the curriculum.  This is perhaps the only major academic area that I can think of that Whitworth has fallen behind its peer schools in. The advantages of online classes are many, and I’m excited to see the program expand in future days. Here are just a few of the reasons online classes are a positive direction for Whitworth to move.

Flexibility: Online classes are inherently more flexible than traditional classes,  because there is no set time that the student has to be in class. As someone who was home schooled through high school, the value of this is immediately apparent. The ability to create your own schedule of when you will do homework and spend time studying enables students to have more effective lives outside of school. Getting a job is easier because you don’t have a rigid schedule at school that can’t be infringed upon. Social lives are more fulfilling because if needed your schedule can always be rearranged to fit in lunch with that friend who needs some time with you. In short, online classes provide a way to custom fit your academic pursuits to the rest of your life.

A broader audience: This is the advantage that schools like Liberty University, the largest Christian school in the world, have used to their full potential. Though the school is located in Virginia, I personally know several Spokanites who are currently, or have in the past, taken online classes through Liberty – people that probably never would have considered the school otherwise. Online classes are a powerful way for Whitworth to expand its student body beyond the pinecone curtain by providing a way for students unable or unwilling to travel to Spokane to still take classes through Whitworth. In addition, current students will be able to take advantage of summer classes while still being able to travel home for break.

Easier access for adult students: One of the biggest barriers to adult students attending college is time. For many adults, time is in short supply. Balancing a career and family is difficult enough; adding a full-time education to the mix is often just not plausible. Online classes provide a way for adult students to work towards a degree at their own pace without sacrificing the rest of their lives to do it.

Limitless expansion: Online classes have another crucial advantage over traditional classes in that they don’t take up space, physically or on a class schedule. With online classes, there isn’t any need to worry about classroom space or other classes competing for the same period. It’s always available for anyone who wants to take the class. This translates into very few boundaries for the expansion of online classes. We can have any number we choose. They can be any size.  They can last just as long as makes sense for the class, even if it’s longer or shorter than a traditional semester. The only limits are those set by the professor teaching the class and the subject’s department.

Whitworth is wisely starting out small with its online program, but it’s a near shoe-in for success, which will lead to expansion.

Online classes are a bold step for Whitworth, but it’s a necessary step, and one that I’m certain will serve to enrich and expand Whitworth’s sphere of influence.

Published: Monday, March 16, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

Oh, those gamers. That subculture of keyboard commandos; that society of cyber-athletes; that clandestine club of code-monkeys. It seems like they’re everywhere these days: in the dorms, in the back of the classroom, in their parents’ basements. Most of them subsist solely on Bawls energy drink and Captain Crunch, and are most active around 3 a.m.

To most of the world, the gamer is a curiosity. At best he is an object of admiration from that one guy who can never seem to run and aim in the same direction while playing “Halo 3.” At worst he is that creepy, unshowered creature who smells like stale Cheez-Its that your mother warned you about. However, the truth is that gamers are people, too, and a few of them are even likeable fellows tragically misunderstood.
And so I have taken it upon myself to attempt to bridge this gap. I delve daily into their world and attempt to understand their ways. And here I present to you the first of my findings: A glossary of gaming terms, translated and explained.

These are the terms of engagement, the words and phrases that gamers have either invented or twisted to their own nefarious ends. Some are entirely new words that have no meaning outside of gaming; some are real words that have entirely different meanings to a gamer than to the rest of the world. A great many are acronyms, most of which can be used as words when spoken phonetically. Read and comprehend, you outsiders, and you’ll be trading jargon with the pros in no time.

Noob: Traditionally, someone new to gaming, but expanded definitions can include anyone or anything that just isn’t quite up to par, aka Apple computers, movies based on video games, people who are not named Harrison Ford, and anyone who isn’t reading my blog (conveniently linked to at Whitworthian.com).  Traditionally spelled with two zeroes: n00b.

Hacks: A term used to describe behavior not sanctioned by the rules of a game. Also known as ‘h4x’, ‘haxorz,’ ‘cheats’, and ‘WTF, mate?’

Spawn point: A point of origin; in the real world, this would be known as the womb, for most people anyway.

Pwn: To ‘own’, as in to utterly defeat, as in “I totally pwned u at frizbee, LOL”. And it’s pronounced ‘own’, not ‘pone’.

Gamer Name: A bit like a code name, a series of characters meant not only to identify yourself to the gaming public, but also to hide your real identity from any relatives you might happen to stumble upon (and you’d never know it, since your grandpa never told you he was your nemesis, OldMan1ndaTea99).

CAPS LOCK: The typing format used by people who take themselves far too seriously.

WTF?: An old baking term; literally, Where’s The Flour? The story of this term’s curious migration from the bakery to the gaming world is long and mostly boring, but the gist of it is that in olden days, n00bs were known to steal bread ingredients.

FTW: Curiously enough, this does not stand for Flour’s The Where. Instead, this handy acronym is translated ‘For The Win’ and is synonymous with ‘awesome’, as in the phrase, “Cap’n Crunch FTW, LOL!”

LOL: An intensely overused acronym that once stood for Laughing Out Loud, but now merely means ‘I am mildly amused.’ Can be improved through the use of various extensions, such as LOLerskates; LOLerpop, or LOLOLOLOL.

ROFL: This acronym has taken the place of LOL as the term used when wanting to communicate actual laughter — literally, Rolling On the Floor Laughing
ROFLCOPTER: A curious convergence of the terms ROFL and helicopter; and, truthfully, the image of a helicopter rolling on the floor laughing is pretty much LOLOLOLOL.

STFU: Another acronym, standing for Silence, Thou Foolish yoUth!

Death: In the real world, the end of a life; in the gaming world, a temporary annoyance which is easily remedied by loading a saved game.

Leveling up: A bit like graduation, except with more epic; when, in the game world, one has killed enough bad guys/collected enough jewels/stomped enough small animals, a level-up is the reward, enabling your character to become stronger and kill badder guys/collect huge jewels/stomp large animals.

!: traditionally, the exclamation point is used to denote surprise or intensity. In gaming terms, however, a single exclamation point merely indicates a level of excitement barely over comatose. To truly communicate surprise, try adding several. For shock or intense surprise, add one or two 1s to the end. For example, Surprise = OMG!!!!! Big surprise equals ZOMG!!!!!11

So there you have it, the terms of engagement. While this is indeed only a partial list of gaming lingo and terminology, these core terms will get you in the door. Go forth now, and enter the world of gaming without fear.

Published: Saturday, March 7, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

If there’s one distinguishing feature that will be remembered about the birth of the digital age, it will be the explosion of social networking. Sites like Facebook and MySpace have millions of subscribers, but a decade or two ago no one had even conceptualized them. One of the more interesting concepts that has been born out of all this is blogging.

Born in the early 90s, the word ‘blog’ is a contraction of ‘weblog’, and at its core is a website that is regularly updated with individual entries. Though it is used in many venues, perhaps the most popular is personal publication.

Self-publication isn’t a new phenomenon, but blogging offers anyone with a computer an opportunity to put their words in front of everyone else with a computer. Sites like Blogger and WordPress offer people an easy to use set of tools with which they can do anything from keeping an online diary to maintaining a news feed to publishing fiction.

Anyone can, and everyone should, maintain a blog, especially if you have any interest in writing or a career in communications. Maintaining a blog will force you to practice your writing skills and it can also be a useful portfolio piece for a potential employer. Writing is a skill that nearly every profession demands, so it is well worth your while to give that skill a workout in a public format like blogging.

And if you haven’t already noticed, Whitworth is home to a rather fine bunch of writers. Some of them work for this newspaper, and so you get to bask in their typographical excellence. Others, however, do not – but that, of course, doesn’t mean they haven’t written anything worth reading.

I would be willing to bet that most Whitworth students know at least one person who maintains a blog. I would also be willing to bet that only a very small percentage of students ever actually read other people’s blogs. This is a tragedy.

Blogs are a fantastic way to keep people updated on how things are going, to tell crazy stories or to share that collection of poetry with your friends. But if you never take the time to read that blog your friend keeps telling you about, you’ll be missing out. People often find it easier to write out feelings or thoughts on a subject than to vocalize them. Reading a friend’s blog can often reveal a side of them you never knew existed, and open the door to a more meaningful relationship.

whitworthian.com maintains several blogs that are well worth reading. These blogs give information about ASWU meetings, campus construction, security alerts and more. All of them are quite informative and will give you the inside scoop on what’s going on around campus – and all of them are criminally underread.

The Whitworthian.com also includes links to student blogs. At the time of this writing, there are only two lonely blogs in the student section, one of which may or may not be my own… if you’re into gaming, give it a look. The Whitworth Forum is also linked. Anyone with even a passing interest in open-minded debate should definitely check out this blog maintained by Whitworth students and alumni that serves as a forum to discuss Whitworth-related issues.

The shameless plug for this article, for those of you who only read the first and last paragraphs of things, is that you should check out the blogs hosted on whitworthian.com. They’ll keep you informed, entertained and even intellectually challenged. The public service announcement for the article: dive into blogging! Go read the one your friends keep telling you about, and maybe even start your own.

Published: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

Part of me thinks that the groundhog returned to his hole this year more out of discouragement at the financial situation in our country than some notion about the weather.

Unless you’ve been living with him in that hole in the ground, you know at least a little about what’s been going on. In very short recap, we’re in a recession because a lot of people made very poor decisions regarding debt. The economy has been building up to this for years – the United States has been becoming more and more credit happy for the past couple of decades, slowly filling the cup of financial backlash until it spilled violently over last year. Some have compared it to the Great Depression. If things keep heading down the road that they seem to be, the likeness will probably keep getting more eerily correct.

Of course, there have been a few winners, people and organizations who are still doing rather well for themselves in spite of the situation. And I’m happy to report that Whitworth counts itself among that number. Our fine university is on its feet in this shaky time, while many organizations are being forced to make layoffs and close their doors. The same is not necessarily true for all colleges. Those reliant on government funding in particular are hurting as the green waterfall from Capitol Hill slowly dries up.

In contrast, Whitworth is still able to build and expand, albeit at a slower, more cautious rate. The new residence hall is still on track. Some projects, such as the HUB expansion and the new science building have been pushed out a bit, but this is such a small concession to the economic situation that it could almost be seen as a victory cry.

Whitworth, being a private organization, has a much lower reliance upon government funding than public universities. Another source of funding that Whitworth has had little reliance on is that of debt. Traditionally, Whitworth has taken a very conservative stance in regards to debt – and that’s a big part of why the school is keeping its head above water in this tough economic time. Whitworth’s current debt hovers somewhere around $26 million dollars – which, according to Whitworth’s self-study report published late last year, is well below the average balance seen in comparable neighboring institutions.

Whitworth is now at a crossroads, however. We live in a time when technology, business and education are advancing much faster than the funding can keep up with. According to the self-study, Whitworth is considering moving into more debt in order to fund upgrades and expansions to keep up with the times. To quote the self-study, “Conventional wisdom is now shifting to the realization that debt avoidance may be more costly for the institution in terms of academic reputation and institutional viability than the actual cost of debt.”

Now, I’m no financial expert, but I personally tend to agree with Whitworth’s traditional stance on debt. It seems to me that staying out of debt is what has kept us out of the deep waters – and now when those deep waters are particularly stormy and full of sharks, is it really a good time to be wading in?

Brian Benzel, vice president for finance and administration, laid out in a nutshell what Whitworth is looking at doing on the financial front.

“Our primary financial goal is to sustain and support the people and programs that serve students and who comprise the university community,” he said. “Debt is a vital strategy for businesses, including universities, and it must be managed with care.”

Benzel also said that Whitworth’s financial strategies have been reviewed by many experts, including Moody and Fitch, both of whom have given Whitworth a positive review.

In short, Whitworth is looking at getting into more debt, primarily in order to fund the new science building. Thankfully, there has been a substantial amount of looking done before any leaping was considered, and the university seems to be maintaining its traditional conservative approach.

“Investing in our facilities is a major contributor to these [financial] goals, but not the only one,” Benzel said. “The fact that we’ve modified the pace of our plans while continuing to pursue them is reflective of our conservative approach.”

So while the groundhogs outside the pinecone curtain might be gulping Valium, the ones that call Whitworth home have little to worry about while they wait out the next few weeks of cold. I recommend that they spend the time sending some advice to Congress.

Published: Monday, March 2, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

So you’ve played a video game or two in your life. Don’t lie, admit it. Maybe it was “Minesweeper,” maybe it was “Pokemon,” maybe it was “Super Monkey Ball”; maybe it was 10 minutes, maybe it was a weekend-long “World of Warcraft” binge.

The point is, you’ve done some gaming. I know this because I have yet to meet an American of my generation who hasn’t. It’s a rather fascinating phenomenon. Video games have risen in just a few decades from the hobby of under-socialized nerds to a multi-billion dollar industry and are fast becoming the fourth major entertainment venue, alongside literature, music and film.

Video games are now in their adolescent years, much like film was back in the day. When the first movies were released, they were seen as little more than a gimmick. People indulged in them as a pastime, art critics derided them and most people insisted they would never catch on.

History, of course, has proven them all wrong. As the medium of film matured and people learned how to use it, it slowly but surely became the dominant form of entertainment. Games are now at that point. They’ve developed into a serious industry, and are now just starting to see potential as an art medium.

The best thing about all this, and the reason you should care (especially if you’re looking to go into visual communications of any kind), is that games have the ability to absolutely surpass all other forms of entertainment, both in mainstream acceptance and in creative possibilities, and I predict that they will.

Those of you who are scoffing right now probably haven’t played some of the games that have come out in the past few years.  Storytelling is evolving in leaps and bounds in this medium. Whereas most games of several years ago boasted very simple narratives (if they boasted them at all), today’s video games offer experiences that rival the most engrossing Hollywood blockbuster.

“Bioshock,” a game set in a man-made undersea utopia gone wrong, unfolds around a nuanced and powerful story in which issues like utilitarianism, secular humanism, tyranny, human nature, ethics, sanity, morality and even the existence of God and what place he has in our lives are dealt with, either directly or indirectly.  And all this is experienced in first person; the tale unfolds around and is driven by the player. Other games, such as “Half-Life 2,” “Fallout 3” and “Portal” all feature first-rate stories that are all the more powerful and memorable because you are the main character.

This first-person method of storytelling has incredible potential. Even in the best films, you are merely a sideline participant in the story unfolding before you. Some directors are talented enough that they can cause their viewers to become emotionally involved in their stories, empathizing with the characters on screen, but the viewer still has no direct connection.

Games, on the other hand, present a medium where the viewer, or player, is the character on screen. How much more impactful and gut-wrenching would the death of Maximus Decimus Meridius’ family in “Gladiator” have been if you had been Russel Crowe? How much more awe-inspiring would the first encounter with the Death Star have been if you had been Luke Skywalker?

Granted, most games aren’t quite at that level of immersion and suspension of disbelief yet, but anyone who has played “Bioshock” or “Half-Life 2” will know that things are heading in that direction.

Games are also the logical medium for anyone with a message for their audience, once again because of the element of player interaction. If you want to persuade people that drugs are harmful, would the most powerful way to demonstrate this be to make a movie about how drugs have destroyed other peoples’ lives, or to create a game that simulates how drugs destroy the player’s life? Experiencing something first hand will always be more powerful than watching someone else’s experience.

Simulation has long been heralded as the best way to teach people things, outside of real-world experience. That’s why we have higher education; why those who wish to pilot aircraft spend hundreds of hours in simulators; why the military spends millions of dollars on battlefield simulations. Putting someone in a situation is the best way to teach them about what to do in that situation.

The upshot to all this is that video games are growing up. Give them a second look if you’ve been dismissing them all your life. Look into them if you’ve never given them much thought. I guarantee they will open up a whole new world of entertainment for you, and perhaps someday may even be the subject of your Core 150 papers.

Published: Monday, February 16, 2009 in The Whitworthian.

I really hate pirates.
Before you get your swords out, let me clarify:  I do not hate the fine students of Whitworth University; nor do I despise those less-than-noble buccaneers of old who were so fond of scallywagging about the high seas.

The ones that I have issues with, the ones that make me want to launch dramatically into a tongue-lashing tirade, are the Internet pirates. Specifically for this article, Internet pirates currently dwelling at Whitworth.

If you’re one of the ones who shares your iTunes library with your friends, uploads copyrighted movies for your friends to download or uses the Whitworth network to distribute any other kind of copyrighted file, I’m looking at you.  If you’re one of the ones who uses LimeWire to get and share free music, BitTorrent to get and share free games, movies or more unsavory things, I’m looking at you.

If you’re not one of those ones, then you should join me in looking at them, because they are making all our lives harder.

Let me explain.

When I first set out to write this article, I had it in my mind to slap the wrist of Whitworth’s network management because of our notoriously low Internet speeds on campus. I even had the article written and turned in to my editor.

I then had a chance to sit down and talk with Walt Seidel, Whitworth’s network manager, who showed me some of the nuts and bolts of how the whole thing works here.  And I still think that there’s room for improvement on their end. Our network is just slower than most other schools’.  But the bulk of the blame doesn’t rest with the faculty; the pirates are at fault.

Picture all of the school’s available bandwidth (connection speed) as a mighty river. Now imagine that river split into several tributaries of varying size, each tributary representing one group of people at Whitworth. Faculty have a tributary; students have a few different ones, depending on how and where they’re connecting; guests to the network have one; and there are a few others. Each of these tributaries is governed by a dam of sorts, a gateway that only allows so much water through.

The faculty have an unlimited connection. Their tributary isn’t dammed and they can have as much bandwidth as is available to them. The students’ connection, on the other hand, is dammed rather severely. Download speeds are unaffected. When you buy a song on iTunes, it downloads as fast as the network is capable of. But uploads are choked down to a trickle. This affects everything from e-mailing to online gaming to posting pictures to Facebook. It makes using the Internet a chore.

Why have we been restricted? What is this censorship? Where can we gather for picketing?

At the door of that pirate you know.

File-sharing is the only reason our network speeds have been capped so severely.  File-sharing eats up bandwidth. If it wasn’t regulated somehow, a few people sharing large files over the network would hog all the bandwidth and every other student on campus would suffer from speeds even slower than they are now.

And unfortunately, there are only two real options for regulating file-sharing: install invasive snooping software that examines the contents of everything that goes through the network, or slowing the connection speed down far enough that people don’t use it for file-sharing.  Whitworth has opted for the second option; it’s part of what Clean Access Agent does.

Is all file-sharing illegal pirating? No, but the vast majority of it is. However you try to justify it, it’s stealing. And if people would stop doing that, the problem would largely disappear and we could have our bandwidth back.

Slow Internet speeds are one of the biggest complaints that I hear from on-campus students. The ironic thing is, often the next thing out of their mouth is something about how they got that hot new album off of LimeWire for free. Several proverbs about “making your own bed” come to mind.

If you’re someone who does this nefarious stuff, don’t try to tell yourself it’s not really hurting anyone. It is hurting a lot of someones: an entire campus worth of students who have to suffer with a maddeningly slow Internet connection. And down the road there could be more consequences. The rate at which Whitworth has been receiving complaints from the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America – the ones in charge of tracking down pirates) has nearly tripled just in the last few months. If that trend keeps up, a more invasive approach to stopping copyright pirates will have to be taken.

The alternative, of course, is a bit foreign to many college students: actually buying and legally owning your own music and movies. What a concept.

Originally published on the Whitworthian.com 4.5.09

It truly is a fascinating time to be alive in our nation, particularly for those of voting age. Rarely in the history of our nation have two sides become so deeply polarized. Right vs. Left has become the new North vs. South – it has left the arena of rival ideologies for the battlefield of unyielding dogma.

While the vote-hungry are taking advantage of this new era, there are large groups of innocent people who are being caught in the cross-fire of politics. Christians are the villainous right. Traditional families are the roadblocks of progress. Unborn children are nuisances in the way of personal liberty. And a great many others.

But the latest casualty to politics is surprising, particularly considering where the fatal shot came from. Newly joined to the ranks of the fallen is science, that great method of research and discovery.

President Obama recently lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research, a ban that President Bush put in place in 2001. Ironically, he claimed to be endorsing science while he instead endorsed his political safety and the destruction of human embryos.

Some background. Most people have heard of stem cell research. It has long been hailed as the medical miracle of our times. Stem cells are essential biological blank slates, the building blocks of life. Depending upon the instructions given to it, a stem cell can grow into virtually any other kind of cell in the body. The potential benefits of harnessing this quality of stem cells are enormous, and the list of diseases and disorders that stem cells could cure is long.

It is, however, an issue that has divided not only the scientific community, but also the nation. The essential problem that many see with embryonic stem cell research is that harvesting those stem cells requires the destruction of their source – a human embryo. A great many Americans, myself included, see this as an unconscionable action. As Horton the Elephant said, a person’s a person, no matter how small.

However, in recent years it has been discovered that adult stem cells can be used in similar ways to embryonic stem cells. There are a few different ways of getting them, and many different bodily sources (fat, the umbilical cord, bone marrow, nasal tissue, and several others). But the bottom line is, these sources don’t require the destruction of an embryo, and thus erase the controversy from the issue.

Since the discovery of adult stem cells, potential cures have been discovered for over 70 human disorders, including HIV, diabetes and leukemia, and there have been several recorded successful human cures using adult stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, have yet to cure anyone of anything. Researchers have yet to discover a treatment using embryonic stem cells that is even viable for testing in humans, and while there have been many “breakthroughs” over the years from successful animal tests, little or nothing has come of these in terms of saving or improving human lives.

In addition to this, embryonic stem cells have been found problematic in other ways, sometimes developing mutations and producing tumors.

So the question is this: why would Obama sign an order the allows federal funding (translated: your tax dollars) to pay for research that has provided no results and that a huge percentage the country has a moral problem with?

There don’t seem to be any good answers. Part of it is apparently that it looks good on the news. The truth is that most people aren’t educated enough in the issue to truly know what the implications of either side are. So when CNN or Fox News runs a splash screen that President Obama has lifted a ban on science put in place by President Bush, all he gets is applause and higher approval ratings, while the minority of those who know the facts behind the facade aren’t as universally positive about it.

Now, certainly President Obama isn’t the only one to play at politics, so don’t think I’m singling him out. But the fact remains, this decision is a tragic display of misplaced priorities.

Even if you’ve educated yourself in the matter and fall into the camp of those who have no moral problem with embryonic stem cell research, should the government really be forcing the other half of the nation who doesn’t agree to pay for it?

Especially when there is such a promising and successful alternative readily available, why are tax dollars being funneled into a project that is so fraught with moral controversy? How can this decision result in anything other than more division in our nation?

It’s not only a fascinating time to be alive in our nation; it is also a sad time.  When true scientific progress is ignored while a concept that is morally divisive and has produced no results is lifted up, it’s a sad day.

One has to wonder what exactly is driving decisions like this, because it certainly isn’t science, and it certainly isn’t the kind of change we need.