Opinion
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2009
McCoy: Diets not always key to healthy eating
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--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
To contribute to Free for All, visit Kansan.com or call (785) 864-0500.
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
Overland Park Greek Republicans are suffocating our campus.
I keep waiting for the day Buffalo Bill buits down Jayhawk Blvd. doing his tuck done
As a GDI Republican from Topeka, I resent 1/3 of that remark!
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
I just had the best curried parsnips for breakfast!
Hey drummer boy. We've never talked to each other and you probably don't realize that I exist, but how about we get together this weekend?
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
Because of my job at Target, every time I see someone on campus who looks lost I have a burning desire to ask cheerfully, "Can I help you find something?"
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
Way too many jean shorts in Anschutz. Thank you.
I hate when people write to FFA in FFA. Seriously, it's annoying.
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
The foam party got the best of me on Sunday night. I started walking to class on Monday
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
To the girl on the white bike with the heart-shaped sunglasses; your smile made myday.
During class, I saw a guy use the end of his glasses to pick his earwax and eat it. Gross.
What does this mean? I don't get it!
So, I just got back together with my broom because my Swiffer was being an asshole to me, but I think things are going to work out with me and my broom. I am really hoping for good things.
There are five other libraries on campus. Why you always gotta pick on Watson?
Dear Free for All: I love towing tires. It's such a rewarding feeling when someone parks in your space and you get to move their car
To the parking department guy in the Union parking garage — thank you so much for being a decent human being.
This girl in my class kept on coughing until she left. better not wake up having swine flu
--businesses. Google was using my voice to build its voice recognition applications.
Preparing for the hip-hop season
MUSIC
As the highly anticipated Kansas, National Football League and National Basketball Association seasons approach, I find it appropriate to draw parallels between the upcoming sports season and the everpresent — but nevertheless upcoming — hip-hop season.
With so much hype around our Kansas teams and all the storylines pro-football and basketball have to offer this year, I thought I'd give a brief overview of what highlights the "rap game" has in store for us in the next few months.
The headline of every hip-hop season in the rap game is always this: Who will kill it in the game the most this year? Just as the NFL and NBA present their Most Valuable Player award to the athlete who displays the most dominance throughout the season, the hip-hop community has its own award for the same type of dominance in the rap game.
I'm not talking about Grammys and MTV awards voted on by wannabe fans through the Internet. I'm talking about extensive, heated debates among millions of hip-hop heads in living rooms and bars, barbershops and shoe stores across the nation and even the world. There is never a consensus, and successfully awarding a clear-cut winner is extremely rare.
Still, the question begs to be asked: Who will be killing the game the most this year? Who will be this year's LeBron? Who will be the next Tom Brady of hip-hop?
There are, of course, the usual suspects. The man many call the greatest rapper alive, Jay-Z, is slated to drop "The Blueprint 3" on Sept.11.
Already leaking tracks onto the Web, this one appears poised to deliver the goods with a potent production list loaded with the likes of Kanye, No I.D. and Timbaland, among distinguished others. This album will either cement Jay's status as the best alive or have heads questioning it. Stay tuned.
One of the main challengers to the title is the new kid. Do I even need to say his name? Drake, aka Drizzy, is about to be killing in the game this year like Cole and Sherron.
Lil Wayne, the other usual suspect, dropped his rock album last year. We'll see what happens this season, but he's always in the conversation.
Easily stealing Rookie of the Year honors in the rap game last year, Drizzy has only been gaining momentum since releasing such ear-catching mixtapes as "Comeback Season" and "So Far Gone." They will soon be re-released as an actual album. He also recently signed with Young Money (Lil Wayne's label) and is featured on the new Jay-Z album, so I'd say he's on the right track.
His first official album, "Thank Me Later," drops sometime this season. You should probably cop it.
Another contender for the throne lies in Washington D.C.'s
Wale and talented producer 9th Wonder impressed heads in the game earlier this year with the "Back to the Feature" mixtape.
Other All-Stars in the garned dropping anticipated joints this year include Raekwon with "OBFCL Part 2", Kid Cudi and his "Man on the Moon" debut (dropped Aug. 25), and the Clipse album "Til the Casket Drops", scheduled for release in October.
Deficit" has a tentative drop date of Oct. 20.
However, only time will tell who will wear the crown.
What can you do to prepare for the new season? Buy these albums, keep reading this column and you'll be fine.
Coldham is a Chicago senior in journalism.
BEN'S BREAKDOWN
Hot Track:"All I Do" by Brown Bag Allstars New Artist:Donnis Ill Blog:Nahright.com
BEN COLDMAN
FROM WEST VIRGINIA
Google's information gathering resembles Big Brother tactics
DAVID RYAN
West Virginia U.
The Daily Athenaeum
Somewhere, on some distant hard drive in some other state — nay, even country — my voice is asking for the Sabraton Pizza Hut.
In a moment of desperation, when getting myself up from the couch to find the number using the computer seemed an impossible task, I opted for Google's 411 service.
In that distant server, without even knowing it, my voice is being manipulated for another of Google's experiments for taking over the world.
That's right, Google. The online search engine that has since spawned an entire suite of information organization has its very own phone service.
But oh no.
Dubbed "GOOG-411," the system uses voice recognition software to help track down what you're looking for.
For the last two years, while I've called at various hours of the day asking for all sorts of Morgantown
Google 411 greeted me with a friendly notice that calls were being recorded — a standard notice that probably meant my voice could be used for training purposes.
In my case, Pizza Hut.
It was much more sinister.
If you've ever used Google's mobile phone voice application, you can thank my perfect diction later.
"So 1-800-GOOG-411 is about that: Getting a bunch of different speech samples so that when you call up or we're trying to get the voice out of video, we can do it with high accuracy."
"We need a lot of people talking, saying things so that we can ultimately train off of that," Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of Search Products & User Experience told Web Site InfoWorld in 2007.
For anyone who's ever used Google, this kind of information use isn't anything new.
In the last few years, more attention has been placed on what kinds of information we should voluntarily give out.
Google's entire name has been built on smart indexing and collection of data.
Facebook profiles are exactly what people complain about lists of addresses, phone numbers, locations and more.
Everything you search for has value for them — no matter how silly or how obscure.
Much of that focus has surrounded social networking and how willing we are to share our lives with the world.
Google, like other services, is offered free because it collects information from us.
We hate when people know what we're doing when we haven't invited them upon it, yet we display it freely of our own volition.
Were assured that this data is being used primarily by computers and not exploited by some suited, villainous executive.
Facebook, too, targets us with advertising based upon information from our profiles.
We can live with the constant bombardment of advertisers seeking us to sell us their wares.
Instead, it is something more sinister.
Google knows, for example, that I like pizza.
But it doesn't end there.
It knows what kinds of e-mails I'm getting, when I expected a specific package, where I live, what my last statement for my power bill was — everything.
I willingly allow it to access that information all for the sake of convenience.
For this reason, I cannot complain. Instead, I can search safer Google might be out to index the world's information for a greater cause.
Maybe I'll use Bing from now on.
— UWire
NIGHTLIFE
Summer renovations leave the Granada ready to rock
1
While slipping the door man my ticket, I could hear the bass
Each show, from hip-hop to classic rock, impressed me not only because of the music, but also because of the place I was listening to the music.
shaking ground under my anxious feet. I slid through security, not minding the search because I was looking past the guys in blue shirts and through the narrow halls that led to the stage. I could see the green lights, the smoke coming from the smoke machines and hundreds of hands in the air waving to the same beat. I was in the Granada.
As a fan of music, I like the Granada. The variety of musicians that have come to play there allow fans from all genres to have something to see.
If I had to complain about one thing in the old Granada, it would have to be that it would often become extremely crowded around the bar facing the stage.
That is a mild complaint, because it seems that almost every bar in Lawrence during the school year is packed with thirsty young people.
In my many visits there I have seen Atmosphere, Umphrey's McGee, Robert Randolph and The Family Band, Talib Kweli and even The Game.
While most students went home for the summer, the Granada was quietly transforming. Behind closed doors this summer renovators were gutting the place to reverse any of the complaints concert-goers might have.
According to Brad Hocevar, a
Noticeable improvements made during the first stage include more than just the extension of the bar in the lounge area.
There are no longer two entrances to the stage area, but only one, which helps the Granada staff control the crowds better and makes getting around inside easier.
Another welcome change is the improvements to the bathrooms, which will be further renovated during the second round of renovation.
With a new and improved Granada in Lawrence, the local music scene is only going to benefit.
The Cool Kids, who performed on Friday, started the year off with a bang — or a boom-bap — and with future musical groups such as Tech N9ne, Shwayze, Victor Wooten, Paul Wall, The Schwag, Brother Ali and Lotus, the Granada looks to put our hands in the air and make us stomp our feet much more this upcoming year.
Granada bar-back for one year, the summer renovations were just the first stage of a two step renovation process.
Roesler is a Denver junior in journalism.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Alma mater gets KU alumnus out of ticket
W when I once took my boyfriend's mom to O'Fire
International Airport, I missed the entrance into the terminal.
I saw a break in the concrete barriers where I clearly wasn't supposed to drive, but I just as clearly "could."
I asked her if we should go for it and she said, sure.
As soon as I went through he shook his head in disgust and pointed for me to pull over. He came over and said, "You know I'm going to give you a ticket, right?"
I looked up to see the traffic guard guy shaking his head "no" at me and pointing for me to go in the opposite direction.
In that split second my brain said, "Whelp, I'm in my car, already going this way, I'm pretty sure you can't physically stop me. Yeah, I'm going to go for it."
My boyfriend's sweet mother began pleading with him saying it was her fault.
I said, "Fine, can I just get her
bag out of my trunk so she can get inside?"
He responded, "Sure, it'll just take me a minute to write your ticket."
At this point I'm shaking, embarrassed and a little scared. After all, these traffic guards are never pleasant to deal with.
My boyfriend's mother was still pleading. I got out of the car wearing my Rock Chalk shirt.
I heard him say, "Oh, you're a Javhawk?"
I couldn't tell if this was a good or bad thing, so I just sort of ignored him and went to the trunk.
He said, "Those Jayhawks won me a lot of money in the tournament last year. I probably owe 'em."
We shook hands and I took off — ticketless.
Rock Chalk indeed
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