2 I Thursday, July 8, 2010 The Dtm Collegian Elizabeth Murphy Editor in Chief Kelsey Thompson Business Manager About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are pub lished by Collegian Inc., an independent, nonprofit cor poration with a board of directors composed of stu dents, faculty and profes sionals. Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both papers and solicit advertising for them. During the fall and spring semes ters as well as the second six-week summer session. The Daily Collegian publish es Monday through FTiday. Issues are distributed by mail to other Penn State campuses and individual subscribers. Complaints: News and edi torial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be pre sented to the business man ager. Who we are The Dally Collegian's edito rial opinion is determined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final responsibility. The letters and columns expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of The Daily Collegian, Collegian Inc. or The Pennsylvania State University. Collegian Inc., publishers of The Daily Collegian and related publi cations, is a separate corpo rate institution from Penn State. Editorials are written by The Daily Collegian Board of Opinion. Members are: Kevin Cirilli, Jenna Ekdahl, Bill Landis, Elizabeth Mur phy, Laura Nichols. Edgar Ramirez, Andrew Robinson, Heather Schmelzlen. Jared Shanker, Katie Sullivan, Alex Weisler, Steph Witt and Chris Zook. Letters We want to hear your com ments on our coverage, editorial decisions and the Penn State community. ■ E-mail collegianletters@psu.edu ■ Online www.psucollegian.com ■ Postal mail/ln person 123 S. Burrowes St. University Park, PA 16801 Letters should be about 200 words. Student letters should include class year, major and campus. Letters from alumni should include year of graduation. All writers should provide their address and phone number for verification. Letters should be signed by no more than two peo ple. Members of organiza tions must include their titles if the topic they write about is connected with the aim of their groups. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters. The Collegian cannot guaran tee publication of all let ters it receives. Letters chosen also run on The Daily Collegian Online and may be selected for publi cation in The Weekly Colle gian. All letters become property of Collegian Inc. Festival not just drinking holiday It’s early July, which means Penn State stu dents who are back in their hometowns or living elsewhere for internships will once again be coming back to State College in hordes. For one weekend in summer, Penn State’s downtown area will look like a football weekend, and every student and State College resident knows why: Arts Fest. While some may be coming for the art part of the annual Central Penn sylvania Festival of the Arts, the majority of Penn State students return for what has become a week end to visit Mends and, more important, consume alcohol. Arts Fest has become synonymous with alcohol consumption and less about what it was original ly meant to be a cele bration of the wide-rang i\ t« ! ' r Apple, Jobs creating illegal By Andrew Metcalf I’ve never loved Apple as a company, but I’ve never had any huge beef with it. I actual ly admired it during its renaissance in the early 2000 s with the release of all sorts of sexy hard ware. But lately, co founder Steve Jobs’ controlling and paranoid tenden cies have con cerned me. With the recent release of the iPhone, I worry that Apple has gone a bit too far. Specifically, I’m referring to the company’s decision to completely block the Flash player on the iPhone in favor of HTMLS, which Jobs claims to be the future of the internet Fbr those of you who are less technically inclined, HTML is the most basic language used to make websites. We’ve been on the current version, HTML 4.01, since late 1999, which is an eon ago in the comput ing world. The reason for this incredibly long gap is largely ing arts inhabitating and being cultivated in State College. There is no stopping the massive amount of exces sive drinking that will be done this weekend, but there is something to be said of responsible drink ing. This weekend is not just another excuse for students to come back to State College and have a good time and reconnect with friends. Arts Fest is supposed to be about the countless number of families, specif ically young children, who come to our little town to enjoy the art, the music and just the overall atmosphere of Arts Fest. Artists from all over the country come to Central Pennsylvania to showcase their work. When making the deci sion to go out and have a few drinks, keep in mind IWA& = SWG i m \ &X. J 'vJvj because of the difficulties the lead ing browser manufacturers Microsoft, Apple, Google, Mozilla, etc. have in agreeing to a com mon standard. Experts have pre dicted it could take years before an HTMLS specification is finalized. As a result, other technologies, such as Adobe’s Flash, have provided devel opers with the ability to create rich, dynamic, and cross-platform online content. Apple is apparently fed up with both this long wait for an HTMLS specification and with Adobe, so the company has decided to harness its virtual monopoly on the smart phone market. It has prohibited Flash from running on its iPhone in any capacity, and are requiring developers to use its version of HTMLS to play audio, video, or dis play highly interactive content. As a web developer, this pisses me off. Flash can be a memory hog and certainly isn’t perfect, but I find it pretty obnoxious that Jobs wants to single-handedly decide the future of the internet while ignoring its evolution for the past 10 years. I have nothing against HTMLS, but I’m really frustrated that any content I have made in Flash will MY OPINION the fact Arts Fest is and always has been a fami ly affair. Also, take the time to go out and experi ence all Arts Fest has to offer. And few art festivals around the country have as much to offer as State College’s. Arts Fest is con sidered to be one of the best arts festivals in the country, and it isn’t because of its lively nightlife; it’s because Arts Fest creates an atmos phere few festivals can rival. Before going out for the night, take a walk down Allen Street to see the exhibits or walk over to Central Parklet and watch Brad Goll make sculp tures from a 25 ton pile of sand. Whatever you decide to do this weekend, take time to enjoy Arts Fest for what it ready is. I \\M i lot w a m CM Nfe. ■MvW oms> m j mmil I IjW UUy/ i\ U^M Int. Herald TnUliie monopoly with HTMLS “As a web developer, this pisses me off. Flash can be a memory hog and certainly isn’t perfect, but I find it pretty obnoxious that Steve Jobs wants to single handedly decide the future of the internet.” simply show up as a blank box on an iPhone or iPad. HTMLS is still veiy much a draft, and it could be years before an actual standard is agreed upon. Moreover, I am not really convinced that HTMLS’s new features will truly be able to do everything that Flash can do today. Jobs occasionally blames the technical requirements of Flash, claiming it wouldn’t run well on a phone. However, Adobe recently released Flash on the Android plat form which powers many smart phones, including the Droid series, and early reports claim that it runs pretty damn well, so I’m fairly cer tain that’s not the issue. Instead, I believe that Apple wants to have control over the developing HTMLS specifications, and by forcing developers to code for Apple’s version, Apple gives The Daily Collegian Webster’s Bookstore Cafe more than just a bookstore As a Delta Program alum, I cannot stress my complete and utter disappoint ment at the closing of Webster’s Bookstore and Cafe. It was much more than another shop downtown. In actuality, it had become the central hub of State College for many others and myself. It was forever the answer to the question, “Where should we meet?” and would serve as somewhere to go when you had a couple of minutes with nothing to do. It was a study spot, a tasty food venue and friendly. It was something special and original downtown, and it’s something that simply cannot be replaced, especially by another chain or bank. Nathaniel Peters sophomore-interdisciplinary digital studio Snap, Crackle, Pop Liz Phair, an alt-rock indie goddess turned pop sellout to some, the voice behind the deliciously generic 2003 sin gle “Why Can’t I?” to me. (Cut me some slack. I was in eighth grade and it was on the radio constantly.) The flaxen-haired songstress scored rave reviews with the release of her angry, seminal, 10-fi mas terpiece “Exile in Guyville”,in 1993. So, naturally, when she released a self-titled fourth album filled with sugary pop non sense 10 years later, the indie communi ty exploded with hatred, anger and grief. Read more from the arts blog Snap, Crackle, Pop and the rest of The Daily Collegian’s blogs at psucolleglan.com/blogs. Footblog A week ago, the Penn State football team had one commitment for the 2011 season prompting debate among Nittany Lion fans as to whether Joe Patemo’s health was impacting recruiting. But in the last six days, the Lions have received two commitments, the most recent com ing from Fairview High School defensive end Jordan Kerner, according to FightOnState.com. Kerner is the 16th ranked defensive end recruit in the state. As far as rivalries go, there’s no telling what the future holds for Penn State and Nebraska. We’ll have a better idea once divisions are aligned and 2011 schedules are set, but until then, former Penn State tight end Mike McCloskey wants to clear up a few myths surrounding his catch during the 1982 matchup, which helped Penn State to its first national title. The question he’s been asked numerous times about whether he caught the ball inbounds is something he doesn’t know the answer to. Though he was ruled to have caught the bail that set up the Nittany Lions’ decisive touchdown, he still wishes he knew whether or not he was inbounds. Read more from the football blog Footblog and the rest of The Daily Collegian’s blogs at psucol legian.com/blogs. Small World Confession: I can’t make a decision to save my life. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t be that bad. But after 18 years of stammering through everything from choosing an entree to lining up weekend plans, it’s become laughably (if not painfully) obvious: I can be that bad. My propensity to draw out even the most mundane decisions seems to make its way into everything I do, but nowhere was this tendency to be exasperatingly indecisive more apparent than when I was wrestling over where to go to col lege. Read more from the study abroad blog Small World and the rest of The Daily Collegian’s blogs at psucollegian.com/blogs. itself leverage for pushing the com pany’s own agenda. What’s funny to me is that this sort of anti-competitive behavior is exactly what Microsoft was sued for in 1998. Back then, Microsoft was accused of maintaining an unfair monopoly in the browser market by packaging Internet Explorer with Windows. The prosecution alleged that Microsoft could require devel opers to code specifically for its browser by supporting non-stan dard code, and therefore control the development of web standards. Sound familiar? Whether that lawsuit was fair, legal or necessaiy is up for debate, but judged by that same standard, Apple is equally guilty. Andrew Metcalf Is a senior majoring in computer science and is the Collegian's Thursday columnist. His e-mail address is mjn2l7@psu.edu. >
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