Lest we forget that celebrities are people too, Alan Cumming, Tony recipient and voice of Rumpledkiltskin, was spotted co-mingling with students after speaking in Meyerson this past Saturday. Cumming tweeted about it later that evening, further cementing the evidence. (Social media, you dirty minx!) The Internet may be forever, but stories don’t age so gracefully, so to all you kids lucky enough to be a part of this photographically felicitous testimony, our suggestion: milk it while you still can.
The .xxx domain was approved by THE INTERNET (formally, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in March and went on sale to the public in December. As Philly.com reports, the classification works just like .com, .org, and .edu domains, but is (as the name suggests) reserved mostly for pornography and fansites for the classic Vin Diesel masterpiece of the same name.
Penn is reported to have snatched up a couple websites, although the administartion didn’t reveal which they had purchased. Our expert guesses, after the jump:
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Perhaps you’ve seen this on your newsfeed recently— a “Masturbation Notice” from, oh, just about any college at this point. While most state schools are lazy and just Photoshop their logo in, it appears someone at Penn actually took the time to print out their own fake warning and post it for all to see. Don’t be fooled; this apparently infallible meme has been around for ages.
Blackboard is the worst
– it’s always crashing, terribly laid out, and it’s downright user un-friendly. With this in mind, junior Dan Getelman and sophomore Joseph Cohen set out to right the wrongs of the counter-intuitive course management service by launching Coursekit. The site’s design is significantly smoother looking than that of Blackboard, and at this stage in the game, the site is partially user-maintained and directed. It even keeps track of due dates and assignments, which sounds especially handy to automatically have all in one place. Students can sign up to manage courses on the site, with a possible payout of up to $200 per course over the entirety of a semester. It’s only active for a few courses that are in the testing stages right now, but it’s possible that service will be expanded in the coming months.
Mashable describes the site as “a Facebook-like Learning Management System,” but the aesthetics make us think “tumblr” more than anything else. Twee, but like, in a good way.
The internet: It’s a big, big place. You can shop online, learn online, listen to music online, and now, even find your Penn soulmate online. With PennMatch, the newest social-networking-or-something site, you can find the love of your life. Basically, it works (we think) by using a highly complex algorithm which generates one random male and random female who are part of the Penn Facebook network. Besides the obvious question (Why am I paired with someone who has a Sailor Moon profile picture?), we’re wondering a lot of things.
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College students are a notoriously 
jaded bunch, getting their kicks from depraved exploits like “hook-ups,” “one night stands,” and “freak dancing.” But The New York Times reports that, thanks to the internet, everything is different now! Apparently Skype, iPhones, sexting, and texting have revolutionized the way high-school sweethearts stay in touch between campuses across the country.
Don’t believe them? Ask junior Jake Blum, whose relationship with Connecticut College freshman Alia Roth was cited in the piece. In contrast to the rest of the students interviewed, Blum and Roth are traditionalists, preferring handwritten, kiss-sealed letters to texts or emails. How adorable (or embarrassing, depending on how you choose to view the serious listserv attention the article’s been getting).
See? Penn kids do like to date – just with distance/the internet as a comfortable buffer.
One of the best things about Foursquare, the location-based social-media craze, is the ability to become “mayor” of your favorite places. Simply go somewhere the most, prove it by “checking in” on your phone, then volia! Power is yours. We’d like to introduce you to the social governance of campus with our new section, Meet The Mayors. This week: a man we’re not sure we envy, the mayor of Huntsman.
Charley M. (Foursquare lets you share everywhere you go but respects the privacy of your last name?) is, ironically, a College kid from California.
UTB: What’s your favorite thing about Huntsman?
Charley M.: Little known fact: Huntsman printers actually print money too.
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“Like a Little” is Craigslist Missed Connections + (Shoutouts/CollegeACB) – negativity x GoodCrush. You anonymously write to someone that’s caught your eye, using as much or as little detail as you deem “anonymously flirty.” LAL is still pretty new, so could everyone please start using it? We’d love to see more gems like this:
Twhat’s up, tweeple!? We know hip internet folk love when we use e-lingo, especially when we’re talking about e-trendz. And nothing says e-trend like Twitter sensation Follow Friday!
For those of you who are so two thousand and late, #FF is when users suggest people to follow on Twitter for a variety of reasons (generally, attractiveness and/or the ability to link to pictures of cute animals). UTB would love to share with you our favorite Penn, Philly, or Penn-in-Philly accounts. We think you should get @ them (and us) after the jump!
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A vision of the not-so-distant future
Turns out the internet isn’t a series of tubes at all: it’s a nation.
If you check your Facebook right now (if you haven’t already), the good ol’ folks at everyone’s favorite social networking site released the following statement, probably in response to the overwhelmingly negative response to attempted policy changes that tried to steal our souls.
Today we announced new opportunities for users to play a meaningful role in determining the policies governing our site. We released the first proposals subject to these procedures –- The Facebook Principles, a set of values that will guide the development of the service, and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that governs Facebook’s operations. Users will have the opportunity to review, comment and vote on these documents over the coming weeks and, if they are approved, other future policy changes. We’ve posted the documents in separate groups and invite you to offer comments and suggestions. For more information and links to the two groups, check out the Facebook Blog.
