Month: October 2009

The Gilmore Wire

By Evan — — Culture

My wife and I have been flipping back and forth between DVDs of Gilmore Girls and The Wire. Sometimes this gets a little confusing…

Lorelai GilmoreLorelai Gilmore Life always spinning out of control.

Makes poor relationship choices.

Hates all authority figures.

 Jimmy McNultyJimmy McNulty
Rory GilmoreRory Gilmore Smart, ambitious, wonkish, and idealistic.

Dangerous debating skills.

Has a lot of growing up to do.

 Tommy CarcettiTommy Carcetti
Emily GilmoreEmily Gilmore Community powerbroker.

Enjoys the spoils of playing The Game.

A consummate streetfighter; never surrenders.

 Avon BarksdaleAvon Barksdale
Richard GilmoreRichard Gilmore A businessman above all else.

Expects high standards from his co-workers.

Not afraid to shiv someone who gets in the way.

 Stringer BellStringer Bell
Paris GellerParis Geller Smart, ambitious, and efficient.

Extremely direct, almost to a fault.

Very annoying, particularly when right.

 Cedric DanielsCedric Daniels
Sookie St. JamesSookie St. James Quirky, funny, and earthy.

Loves food.

Sometimes a help, sometimes a hindrance.

 Jay LandsmanJay Landsman
Lane KimLane Kim Trying to escape a miserable homelife.

Career choice not accepted by family.

Should probably avoid dating boys.

 Kima GreggsKima Greggs
Michel GerardMichel Gerard Fastidious and highly fussy.

The best-dressed character on the show.

Highly dangerous when crossed.

 Brother MouzoneBrother Mouzone
Luke DanesLuke Danes Street smart and skilled at crafts.

A man of few words.

A fine partner, but not fun to be around when cranky.

 Lester FreamonLester Freamon
Dean ForesterDean Forester Means well, but not terribly bright.

Torn by family loyalties.

A patsy for the more powerful characters on the show.

 D'Angelo BarksdaleD’Angelo Barksdale
Taylor DooseTaylor Doose Wealthy and successful community leader.

Knows the rules inside and out.

Always willing to drive a hard bargain.

 Proposition JoeProposition Joe
Mrs. KimMrs. Kim Has a long memory.

Loves raking subordinates over the coals.

Not someone you want to fuck with.

 William RawlsWilliam Rawls
Jess MarianoJess Mariano Impulsive and aggressive, but not really a great fighter.

Charming only up to a point.

Not as quite as smart as he thinks he is.

 BodieBodie
KirkKirk Weirdly charismatic.

Always trying out new business opportunities.

Desperately needs professional help.

 BubblesBubbles
Logan HuntzbergerLogan Huntzberger Young, wealthy, surrounded by an entourage.

Loved by the ladies.

A narcissist and probable sociopath.

 Marlo StanfieldMarlo Stanfield
OmarOmar Nobody on Gilmore Girls is as cool as Omar. OmarOmar

At Least I Minored in PPOWER

By Evan — — Tech

Via Timothy Burke, I ran across Course Hero, a Web 2.0 startup whose mission is:

Accelerating and maximizing educational breakthroughs (“Ah-Ha” moments) of students from inquiry to Course Hero Responses via an open, best-of-breed content sharing model.

Or in other words, a site for collecting student notes and papers. Now, Prof. Burke isn’t particularly worried about term paper download sites in general. (He has an excellent defense strategy — don’t hand out boring, easily-copied assignments.) However, in the case of Course Hero he observes,

“What you find in the folders for Swarthmore is a bunch of junk pulled straight out of specific folders on the server, with the server folder titles on it, most of them connected to the oldest layers of our web presence. Almost none of the stuff in there has got anything to do with actual courses taught here: it’s some old .pdf handouts, some faculty c.v.s, a few papers or publications by faculty. Useless to anyone, especially to some would-be plagiariser at another college who is hunting for a paper to rip off. It’s a lot of noise. But seriously, don’t even try to pretend that this is all coming from user submissions, that’s laughable.”

It seems like a bad idea In These Economic Times (TM) to launch a site whose business model is obviated by typing site:swarthmore.edu {query} into Yahoo! or Google or Bing. But I’m not an MBA or a VC, so what do I know.

Anyway, I was particularly tickled not by the bad content, but the bad metadata. Here’s the landing page for my alma mater:

> Harvey Mudd College) is a private university in California. Harvey Mudd College has over 738 undergraduate students. The top 10 departments are CS, ENG, MATH, LIT, E, FOOL, PPOWER, WIN, WMF, and WINW.

What an idiot I was to major in FOOL!