| The Behrend Beacon In Memory: Reeve 1952 by Rob Frank calendar page editor Christopher Reeve passed on with his family by his side on Oct. 10. Reeve was a hero to many both on and off the set. He started his acting career at 15 performing at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. After graduating from Cornell University in 1974, Reeve continued toward his dream of acting. Studying at Juilliard under the direction of John Houseman, he made his debut on Broadway in 1976. Reeve continued his career as an actor, most prominently remembered for his role in the Superman movies. Even after he was paralyzed from the neck down in a 1995 equestrian competition, he continued his career, moving into directing. Reeve put a face on paralysis sufferers and moti vated neuroscientists around the world to continue research into spinal cord and brain injuries. In 1999, Reeve became the Chairman of the Board for the CRPF [Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation]. CRPF, a national, nonprofit organization, supports research to develop effective treatments and a cure for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury and other central nervous system disorders. They also allocate a portion of their funding to help others with disabilities. In addition to his numerous screen appearances af ter his paralysis, Reeve went on to write two motiva tional books Still Me and Nothing is Impossible: Re- Ask ASCII, scanning text By Logan Stack staff writer Dear ASCII. How do I scan a document with text and then edit the text using my program of choice with the scanners at Behrend? -Jerode Dear Jerode, When you scan something, the analogue paper and ink basically has its picture taken. If you want to edit text on a printout, you can use OCR soft ware (which should come with the scanner when it is purchased). OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition; basically what it does is look at the picture of the printed text and tries to match the squiggly bits of ink to what it thinks a letter looks like. So to take a paper's picture, follow the directions which came with your scanner or the directions which are taped to the top of the scanners in the labs on campus (the ones on campus are very simple). You will end up with a picture where the text is still squiggles. Now you need to run the OCR over the squiggles to convert them to text. The program Penn State uses for OCR is called “Microsoft Office Document Imaging". If you chose “tiff’ as the file format when using the scan ning software in the labs, then you can just double click on it to open with Microsoft Office Document Imaging. Once you’ve got the document open in Want your band featured in the Beacon? Know an interesting student? Have a story idea? E-mail us at IKS®/: Christopher -2004 flections on a New Life. These books explained how he turned his disability into an asset for the fight against spinal cord injury. More in formation about Christopher Reeve and his many accomplishments can be viewed at http:-// vvh'H’. apacure. com/index _gt. html there, click on "Send text to Word” under the Tools menu, which will copy all the text it can find in the picture of the document to Word. Word isn’t the best for editing a poster or other documents which are a mix of text and images, so you may want to copy the text from Word into an other program. Be sure to read over the document after running OCR, as it is not completely accurate and you may end up with embarrassing errors. In the one page document I tested (the “CD-RW Usage Guide” sit ting next to the scanner) I counted 27 errors such as missed spaces, using “?” instead of “M” and as sorted others. Better OCR software will have fewer of these errors, but it also costs more. There are a few things you can do to reduce the number of errors the OCR software makes. The easiest thing to do is scan in black and white, so that the OCR software doesn’t get confused about the blurry edges of the letters. You can also scan the document using a higher DPI (Dots Per Inch), which is similar to using better film when taking a picture. Also, change the brightness so that the text comes out clear and distinct from the background, but not so dark that imperfections on the paper are noticed. All of these options are available under “custom settings” if you’re using the scanners in the labs. Do you have a computer question? E-mail it to ASCII! Send a message with “Ask ASCII;” in the subject line to lwsl 18@psu.edu. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Hope comes alive on ‘Friday Night’ Review by Nick Hammond staff writer “Friday Night Lights” is the story of the small football-obsessed town of Odessa, Texas. In 1988, during Permian High School’s run towards a po tential Texas state championship, the people of Odessa continued to put more and more pressure on the team. The pressure put onto these young high school football players became enormous. The townspeople, especially those who played on past Permian teams, see these moments as the pin nacle of life for these kids. To a large extent and for a large majority of the players on the 1988 Permian team, this ended up being quite true. Billy Bob Thornton plays Coach Gary Gaines, the leader of the Permian team and the face in question for the town of Odessa. Derek Luke plays the team’s superstar, Boobie Miles, a highly tal ented player who is a bit delusional of his own immortality. Lucas Black plays the team’s quar terback and anchor, Mike Winchell. Rounding out the focal players on the team are Garrett Hedlund, as Don Billingsley, Jay Hernandez as Brian Chavez and Lee Jackson as Ivory Christian. Tim McGraw plays Charles Billingsley, the abusive alcoholic father to Don. One of the most interesting things about “Fri day Night Lights” is the fact that these people place all their hopes and dreams on this minute moment of high school life; that life afterwards is an after thought. As the young football athletes of Odessa pre pare for their season, the townspeople ask the same question over and over; “Are you going to win state this year?” McGraw, as the abusive father attempting to five vicariously through his son, puts it on an even more basic level which is probably all too true, telling his son to enjoy these times, because these are the best moments he will have in life. As a sports film, “Friday Night Lights” is too ALCOHOL POISONING Signs and symptoms: The person may be unconscious and cannot be awak ened They may have cold, clammy, unusually pale or bluish skin Their breathing may be slow or irregular ■ Less than eight times a minute ■ Or ten seconds or more between any two breaths They may vomit while passed out and not wake up during or after How you can help? 8 If you encounter a person who exhibits one or more of the signs and symptoms CALL 911. Do what you would do in any medical emergency—call immediately. 43 While waiting for 911 emergency transport: ■ Stay with the person until medical help arrives. ■ Watch their breathing. ■ Gently turn the intoxicated person on his/her side —CAUTION - You would not want to move the person if there is ANY chance of head or Brought to you by the Health & Wellness Center neck injury. Look out for the safety of your friends! Friday, October 15, 2004 typical: Adrenaline-pumping scenes filled with bone-crushing hits and the ticking scoreboard drama. Rock and rap music blares as the team comes from behind and exceeds expectations, win ning in the last seconds. This has been seen over and over again in other football movies. This one does have a few surprises, though, but you prob ably wouldn’t want the movie ruined for you, now would you? Overall, the football itself is one of the least interesting parts of the film. What happens around the games is the best part of “Friday Night Lights.” Possibly in the interest of staying away from the controversy and keep ing in the tradition of the pulse-pounding, edge of-your-seat sports thriller, this is the part that even tually fades into the background. Early in the season, Boobie Miles gets a very unfortunate dose of reality with a crucial leg in jury. He doesn’t learn the lesson and as he pushes himself to get back to playing before he’s ready. Miles jeopardizes his entire career. His emotional struggles with mortality are some of the strongest moments of the film. Likewise, the struggles of the rest of the team’s players off the field are the most interesting. These kids are being told to enjoy their youth; that these are the best days of their lives, but in reality, the pressure the town is placing on these kids is steal ing their youth right out from under them. The con flicts between Don and his father, Charles, are among the film’s most memorable moments. They are sometimes frightening and hard to watch. Peter Berg does a very good job directing these dramatic moments. The story starts out focusing on this emotional struggle, but midway through, the tone shifts and unfortunately moves towards a more typical rousing sports movie. The football scenes are fine, if maybe a bit over-adrenalized, with some shots that try to improve the action with fancy camerawork. “Friday Night Lights” was a great movie and definitely did not disappoint. Overall, I give this movie a rating of 4 out of 5.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers