BCIT considers integrating tablet computers into the classroom

Chad Klassen

Vice President of Education and Research Paul Dangerfield is considering how the power that technology can improve the student learning experience.

After all, it is the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

“I think we need to look at it,” says Dangerfield. “My iPad came out of the international office that’s doing some work on how to deliver ESL and Cantonese using an iPad as the platform, so we’re already doing a lot of that.”

Occupy Vancouver

Protesters at the Occupy Vancouver Rally on Oct. 15th 2011

David Swanson

Vancouver joins the Occupy Wall Street movement to fight political and economic inequality 

On Saturday October 15^th, close to 5,000 Vancouverites gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) to join the New York City occupy Wall Street protest and communicate their own distaste with the local inequality issues. Over 1,500 cities in 80 countries across the world held general assemblies and mass marches in urban city spaces to express their dissatisfaction with the current state of global politics and economic disparity.

The focus of the occupy Wall Street movement and the October 15^th Global Day of Action is to protest an unjust, oppressive and broken social system that prioritizes corporate interests above public welfare.   This global demonstration was organized to object faulty governance in developed nations that has allowed society’s wealthiest 1% to gain control of the world’s financial resources and possess a frightening amount of political influence.

Happy BC Day

For those who are working, enjoy your day off (if you get it off that is)!

Movie Review: The Devil’s Double

 The Devil’s Double is less entertainment than it is dirty laundry of Sadamm Hussein’s family.

 The Devil’s Double is based on the autobiography of Latif Yahia, the man who was hired (or forced) to work as the live-in double for Uday Saddam Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein. Uday is portrayed as the more corrupt, petulant, self-indulgent son, whom many feared for his unpredictable nature.

Pulled out of duty during the Persian Gulf War in 2003, Latif, an Iraqi officer, returns home only to be delivered to the Hussein mansion for a lucrative job offer. With the lure of the extravagance that is the Hussein lifestyle — including expensive clothes, beautiful women, and fleet of luxury cars — Uday tries to convince Latif to be his brother. After a nationwide search to find the perfect twin, the burden fell on Latif, a former childhood friend. He is also required to go under the knife, to ensure his facial features perfectly match the facial measurements of Uday’s.

It is also made clear to Latif that if he refuses the job his family will be killed. Caught between his loyalty of family and country, he begrudgingly chooses the accepts the role, if only to keep his family alive.

When his family believes him to be dead, Latif quickly realizes his spiritual death is inevitable as he slowly morphs into the evil Uday. Any hope of living as a free man become little more than a dream after Latif’s attempts at escape fail. Thanks to a clever twist in the end, and of course the historical facts of how the gulf war played out, there is some relief to this grim story.

Avoiding the relationship apocalypse

Surviving romance in university

Lauren Fielding — The Sputnik (Wilfrid Laurier University-Brantford)

BRANTFORD, Ont. (CUP) — University isn’t easy and neither is finding true love. So why would any sensible person want to combine the two?

Relationships demand proper maintenance and constant work, and that can be hard to balance with classes and assignments.

“It depends on if both people are willing to actually put effort into the relationship,” said Justin Ferrante, a first-year student.

He thinks relationships are worth fighting for, and what individuals learn from them is worth the sacrifices. However, he notes it sometimes isn’t easy to live up to your significant other’s expectations.

“Two people won’t want to be in a relationship when they realize that their lives are so hectic that they can’t make time for that other person, and it just collapses,” said Ferrante.

In general, relationships involve a lot of give-and-take. One must be willing to look past the hectic schedules, the short phone calls and hours between texts, and days without seeing each other. When your significant other expects a lot of personal time with you, it can be hard to focus on completing schoolwork.

A guide to reading nutrition labels

Victoria Alacorn & Christina Strynatka — Excalibur (York University)

TORONTO (CUP) — Packaged goods surround us, but the question comes when you’re faced with choosing what to buy and you’re wondering what is the better choice.

“When I’m looking at nutrition labels, I don’t really know what to look for specifically,” said Jai Mathur, a third-year student at York University. “I think if you’re like me, you’ll only look at nutrition labels when you want to lose some weight, but besides that you don’t care.”

There are many who disregard nutrition labels and go on eating what they want, but according to consulting dietician Cassandra Reid, knowing what is going into your body is an important way to stay healthy.

“Packaged foods are becoming a bit too normal in our society and because of that it’s important to try to make the better choice among the few,” explained Reid.

So how do you do that?

Technology affects sleep: expert

Victoria Alarcon — Excalibur (York University)

TORONTO (CUP) — It’s 2 a.m. and Sarah Alyana is receiving her fourth text of the night as she quietly moves to grab her phone. It’s getting later into the night, but just as quickly as she’s ready to go to bed, another text appears and sleep becomes the last thing in her mind.

“It’s very addictive,” said Alyana, a second-year student at York University. Her eyes dart downward as she glances quickly at her computer. “I don’t get much sleep because I’m always on my laptop most of the night, and otherwise I’m texting people at night.”

Alyana is not the only one who can’t let go of her very binding addiction to the computer. The majority of Canadians use technology right before sneaking into bed.

“We see this on a daily basis here in our sleep clinic, that many Canadians are not getting an adequate amount of nightly sleep,” said Robert Cohen, a Calgary-based sleep expert specializing in insomnia and sleep disorders. “They carry a sleep debt, and of the many factors responsible for that debt, one is certainly the prevalence of technology use before bed.”

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses

There’s a reason why a story of a horrible boss grabs our attention; at some point we’ve all experienced it, however Horrible Bosses has taken that shared experience and brought it to a whole new level.  Enter the three friends that will be the protagonists to this story of workplace misery: corporate climber Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman), chemicals company accountant Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) and dental assistant Dale Arbus (Charlie Day). Nick’s boss Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) is a manipulative hard lining boss, who’s pushed Nick to the edge with eight years full of unfulfilled promises of promotion. Kurt is stuck working for a coke-addicted nymphomaniac (Colin Farrell) after the previous head of the company and father to the nypho (Donald Sutherland) dies from a heart attack. Meanwhile, the recently engaged Dale is being seduced and blackmailed into having sex with his overtly horny dentist boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston).

After multiple crappy run-ins with the bosses, the three friends mutually decide to get rid of their bosses altogether by hiring a hit man. The hit man (a hilarious cameo by Jamie Foxx) ends up being their “murder consultant” instead, persuading the friends to do the deed themselves, while making it look like a perfect accident. And so, the hilarity ensues as each friend attempts to carry out the deed, which doesn’t carry out with at least one friend messing up in one way or another.

 Horrible Bosses is no doubt a funny movie, but it’s no Office Space (which seems to be the inspirational predecessor for the film). Our three heroes are not as lovable and believable as we’d want them to be, so cheering them on to victory gets lost along the way. The real stars of Horrible Bosses, surprisingly, are the bosses who the film is named after. Their outrageous behaviour is so entertaining that you almost forget that some of their antics would never fly in the real world, no matter how big of an oppressor. A well-deserving shoutout goes to Colin Farrell. He is barely recognizable as boss Bobby Pellitt, in a role that throws him completey out of his sexy leading man image.

As funny and outrageous as Horrible Bosses is, it doesn’t completely hit it out of the ballpark, nor is it as memorable of a comedy as recent amigos-turned-hero films such as The Hangover. But, if you want a laugh and perhaps feel a bit better that your boss is not a complete jerk, Horrible Bosses is your fix.

Horrible Bosses opened on Friday, July 11, 2011 and is now playing in theatres nationwide.

-Mana Mansour (BCIT Broadcast Journalism Alumni)

Kindness holds humanity together

Don Morgenson — The Cord (Wilfrid Laurier University)

WATERLOO, Ont. (CUP) — One of Kurt Vonnegut’s most memorable lines comes from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

It’s not only Vonnegut — we all acknowledge the blessings of kindness. Marcus Aurelius, emperor-philosopher, once said that kindness is humankind’s “greatest delight.” And certainly there has been much agreement on that principle, at least until our modern times.

Today we seem to lack a simple generosity of heart. We have given up on kindness, except for that one time of year hopefully referred to as “Random Act of Kindness Day.”

My, how such a day trivializes the gentle concept of kindness. One act of kindness during such a day over an entire year? Kindness should be a way of life, reflected every day in all of our interactions and permeating all of our behaviors.

It is a tough slog — the social sciences have convinced us that any act of kindness is really a strategy designed to maximize our own personal gains. According to such a doctrine, kindness is narcissism in disguise. We are kind because it makes us feel good about ourselves; kindness is deflected egoism. Or an even darker interpretation might be more Machiavellian, that an act of kindness conceals a raw quest for power — a means to other ends.

Happy Canada Day

Hope everyone has an excellent day partaking in Canada Day celebrations throughout the city!