Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Cornell”
Approximately a Year Later: Top 200 Photos #5
When I created my Top 200 Photos feature, this was #5: now it’s:
Approximately a Year Later: Top 200 Photos #12
Originally, my #12 photo was: and now it’s: which was originally #9. This photo, which was once my most viewed photo continues its slow descent.
Top 200 Photos: #25
Cornell once again for today’s Top 200 Photo
Once again, it’s the Pre-Dragon Day Runners previously featured here(link).
Top 200 Photos: #51
Winter and Math in this Top 200 Photo
I’ve always loved how trees demonstrate fractals and I think that’s almost nothing so beautiful during the winder as a tree covered in a small bit of snow. It really brings out the structure of the branches and makes it easier to notice them.
Top 200 Photos: #81
A return to Cornell for this Top 200 Photo
This is another panorama from Cornell. This is on Libe Slope, where Slope Day takes place. It is also climbed by nearly every upperclassman living on West Campus or beyond. Engineering students can avoid climbing it most of time as most of their classes are in the Engineering Quad which is south of West Campus. You just need to walk the circumference of the slope which isn’t nearly as steep. It is NO FUN walking up Libe Slope when it’s recently snowed and the university hasn’t cleared the walkways yet.
Top 200 Photos: #96
Once again a trip to Cornell during the winter for today’s Top 200 Photo.
This photo was taken during my freshman year with my brand new digital camera. That was actually a very mild winter. So mild, in fact, that my cross country skiing class became a hiking class. It did NOT prepare me for the rest of my time at Cornell. This dorm, where I stayed my freshman year, was brand new that year. It actually had air conditioning!
Top 200 Photos: #107
Staying at Cornell and adding a bit of celebrity for today’s Top 200 Photo.
Bill Nye got his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. In an example of the awesome professors you can have at Cornell - one of his professors was Carl Sagan! Cornell has a program that invites alumni to come back once a semester and teach a class for a day. Here Bill Nye was teaching my Physics 213 class. My wife had alumni and former attorney general Janet Reno teach one of her classes. Anyway, I knew Bil Nye both from his appearances at the end of the animated Back to the Future show and from his show Bill Nye the Science guy, which I used to watch religiously.
Top 200 Photos: #108
And we bounce right back to Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photo.
It’s a shame that we go to school in the winter instead of the summer. I know it has to do with our rural past and having to help out in the farm, but it’s extra annoying at Cornell. Summer is really the best time to be there. It’s so pleasant and awesome. The campus is huge and has lots of greenery and it just feel so much better to be there during the summer. I think Cornell should be the first northern university to buck the trend and have school during the summer and no school during the winter.
Top 200 Photos: #110
Time for another Top 200 Photo.
I’d been a fan of Mo Rocca since I saw him on The Daily Show. I also enjoyed his contributions to VH1’s “I love the [decade]” series. These days I’m likely to hear him on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” as a panelist. It was his involvement with the Broadway show “The Putnam County Spelling Bee” that made want to see it. Although he’s not Jewish, he was invited to Cornell in 2005 at the behest of the Hillel Club. He gave a talk about his career and interests. Highlights included his incredulity at being hired an as editor for men’s magazine Perfect 10, his friendship with Flava Flave, a clip of him on The O’Reilly Show, and his love of presidential childhood homes.
Top 200 Photos: #112
And we’re at Cornell once again for today’s Top 200 Photo.
This is from the Andrew White reading room at Uris Library. I didn’t properly take advantage of the library spaces in my freshman and sophomore years. It was when I really got serious about my studies in my Junior Year (after a scare in which bad grades almost got me kicked out of the electrical engineering program) that I began to utilize the libraries. In my first two years I would go back to my dorm between classes even if I could only be there for 10 or so minutes and I’d check my email and the net. I only did my assigned homework so I didn’t need all the time I was wasting going back and forth. Once Junior Year rolled around and I started doing extra problems in order to ensure I understood the material well enough to gets Bs and As, I needed to use the libraries to study. So I started to frequent the Uris and the Engineering Library at Carpenter Hall. The engineering library was my first introduction to Linux (they had Mandrake installed) and Firefox (before it was even called Firefox).
Top 200 Photos: #114
Still at Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photo.
Another photo taken from the top of the clock tower. This time it has the business school as the most prominent building. It’s crazy how much that skyline has changed with new building construction.
Top 200 Photos: #115
Cornell again, for today’s Top 200 Photo.
Most of the buildings at Cornell had multiple entrances. Because of the hilly nature of the campus some of these entrances, like this one into Uris Library, went unnoticed by the majority of the student body.
Top 200 Photos: #119
Back to Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photo.
This is Cornell’s famous clock tower and the attached Uris Library. The clock tower is called McGraw Hall. I knew that at some point in my freshman year, but pretty much everyone just calls it the clock tower. It houses chimes that are played throughout the day. Every quarter hour it’s the usual chimes that every clock tower plays. About four times a day they play a few songs. At least once a day they’d play our Alma Mater. I loved hearing that when I walked through campus. It almost always brightened my spirits and made me feel happy to be a student there. Also every day (or nearly every day) they played the evening song at 1800. At one chimes concert I attended they cheekily said that it “resembles Oh Christmas Tree”. No, it IS “Oh Christmas Tree”. But they invented these songs back before copyright. For example, I learned that something like four other schools have the exact same Alma Mater song as ours. And I think that it, like The Star Spangled Banner, also was originally a drinking song. According to Wikipedia (caveats about the accuracy of Wikipedia apply), our Alma Mater, “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters” is “set to the tune of “Annie Lisle”, a popular 1857 ballad by H. S. Thompson about a heroine dying of tuberculosis.” Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the Alma Mater “theft”:
Top 200 Photos: #128
Cornell is once again the subject in this Top 200 Photo.
This is another photo from the top of the Clocktower. In this photo you see Ho Plaza, Willard Straight Hall, a chapel, Olin, Ganett, and Ithaca in College Town and beyond. (And a bunch of other buildings on the periphery)
Top 200 Photos: #135
Back to Cornell for this Top 200 Photo.
I took the source photo for this on the footbridge that leads to College Town. Then I threw it into Photoshop and started messing around. I arrived at this look by accident, but I really liked it.
Top 200 Photos: #144
Back to Cornell for this Top 200 Photo.
One thing that all Cornellians should make sure to do is climb the iconic Clocktower. It’s so great to just look out over the entire campus that you spend all day navigating. I climbed it about four or so times and each time I enjoyed looking out over the campus.
Top 200 Photos: #149
Back to Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photos.
I’ve already spoken about Slope Day in a previous post. We have one other huge tradition at Cornell - Dragon Day. I’m not sure if there will be more Dragon Day photos (I’ve only captured up to photo #121 at this time), but I have a bunch up on my Cornell set.
Top 200 Photos: #153
Still at Cornell for this Photo.
I was just walking back to my apartment when I passed by this mail truck. I’d never seen the inside of a mail truck before, so I took the shot. I also remember thinking it was neat how the back of the truck framed the inside which framed the windshield which framed a view of the outside. (If only it were more scenic out there)
Top 200 Photos: #154
Back to Cornell for today’s entry in Top 200 Photos.
One day we were just walking around campus and just pulled into the stadium to watch some lacrosse. Unlike hockey, there was no fee and there wasn’t really anyone in the stands. So I practiced my sports photography with the team. I was into photo editing back them and I decided that this shot would be perfect for a cutout (selective colouring) because we were The Big Red and red is so vivid. I think it work perfectly with this photo. I think it’d look great in a book of Cornell sports photography (without my byline/watermark, of course)
Top 200 Photos: #160
We stay at Cornell for this entry in the Top 200 Photos.
photo #160 is:
This has to be in the top 3 most depressing photos I took at Cornell. There’s a certain beauty in the photo, especially now that I don’t have to deal with that weather anymore, but just remembering trudging up that hill in that unforgiving weather is enough to make me happy to have graduated.
Top 200 Photos: #161
Back to Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photo
Ah, the Cornell Arts Quad. It’s where everyone plays frisbee. It’s where a large portion of Cornellians go to class. I was really into panoramas at Cornell. If I had the technology in today’s software back then, I probably would have done even more of them.
Top 200 Photos:#172
Back to Cornell for today’s Top 200 Photo.
Slope Day is an annual day of debauchery at Cornell, taking place on the last day of classes. Slope Day has gone through quite a few evolutions. This photo was taken in 2002, my freshman year, which was the last year in which Slope Day was a free-for-all day of drinking. I’m not sure why Cornell went back to a structured festival the following year (as it apparently had done way back in the day), but I think it probably had to do with the emergence of digital cameras and nascent social networking sites that were giving the University a bad reputation. Additionally, a few Ithaca High School kids died of alcohol poisoning. While I feel this wasn’t Cornell’s responsibility since Slope Day was not an official school function, apparently they felt differently. I had mixed feelings about what it evolved to. On the one hand, they started inviting bands to come perform and they had carnival games and food. On the other hand, in order to keep non-College students from getting any alcohol, they fenced off the area which made it really annoying for those of us who had to get to class or lab on that day.
Top 200 Photos: #176
No #177 because it was already covered.
John Cleese is a comedic genius. I think that history will eventually give him and his Monty Python collaborators a place equivalent to Charlie Chaplin. They helped transform not only British comedy, but American comedy. Many in the US, most notably the creators of South Park, were inspired by this strange brand of humor and created a special blend of American and British humor.
Top 200 Photos: #185
For the Top 200 Photos,
This arch is part of some of the oldest dorms on Cornell’s campus as well as being an arched entryway to West Campus. In 2001 when I started at Cornell, they made the change that all Freshmen would be on North Campus and all the Upperclassmen would be on West Campus. During most of my four years, West Campus consisted of a mix of old, gothic dorms and “temporary” dorms built to accomodate GI Bill students in the late 1940s. In my Junior year they began demolishing the old dorms (all named after graduating classes) and building new, modern dorms. This photo was taken in my Senior year when I used to walk around with my Fuji almost everywhere I went. From the date/time stamp, I was probably walking back to my apartment after getting lunch at The Ivy Room.
Top 200 Photos: #187
Today’s Top 200 Photo.
What I love about this photo is that it captures two things that were key to the Cornell experience - passing out quarter cards (known as carding) and attending a Capella performances. It’s not far-fetched that the Andy character from The Office was in an a Capella group at Cornell. There were about six of them when I was there. Some were all male or all female and some were unisex. Pretty much every semester each of them had at least one concert. This group was called The Hangovers. Here are some other ways they advertised on campus:
Top 200 Photos #188
Today’s Top 200 Photo.
I got my first digital camera over Christmas of my freshman year. It changed my photography forever. Since the photos were essentially free, I took my camera EVERYWHERE on campus. A lot of my photos, especially one of my favorite ones from my top 10, came from this impulse. I am able to look back fondly on nearly every single one of my Cornell memories because if something was going on, I probably had my camera there.
Top 200 Photos: #189
Back to Cornell for this entry in Top 200 Photos.
This photo is from of the earliest batch of photos I uploaded to flickr. I had just discovered Photoshop and was using what I learned from a book to create paintings from my photos. After spending a good semester doing stuff like this, I realized I preferred straight photos much better than these bits of art. It doesn’t mean I’ll never do it again, but I prefer for my photos to be photos.
Top 200 Photos: Photo #198
In my Top 200 most viewed photos,
When people find out that I’m from Florida ask me how I’m dealing with winters in Maryland, I just smile and tell them that I went to university in Ithaca, so no Maryland winter can compare with what I’ve seen. Cornell tends to be in perpetual winter from December until March. I think the lack of sun is part of what contributes to the low spirits of so many students. I didn’t mind the snow in January and February so much - after all, that’s winter. But when it snowed in March or April, it just made me feel as though this would be the year where winter never ended.
February Desktop Background
Here’s the background for February. A little shoutout to my alma mater. Click on the image and then right click to set as your desktop or save to your computer to manually set to the desktop.
[caption id=“attachment_4050” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“Feb 2011 desktop for more square monitors (1024x768)”] [/caption]
[caption id=“attachment_4051” align=“aligncenter” width=“480” caption=“Feb 2011 desktop for widescreen monitors (1680x1050)”] [/caption]
Twitter-like Post: A look into Cornell's Past
I am just sharing this because it’s about my alma mater, it’s a little funny in a geeky way, and I like Mark’s blog.
Check out this story about CIT and Cornell labs.
The Effects of a Cornell Graduation
As I’ve mentioned before, although I think it was on It’s A Binary World 1.0, a Cornell education does something strange to you. Like seeing vectors when speeding up and slowing down your car. Or in the way in which you explain why Dan will be escorting two bride’s maids at Phil’s wedding:
?(09:00:29 PM)Danny: and here’s what this one guy had to say about it(09:00:38 PM)Danny: Also, I would like to concur with Dan’s sentiments. Given Dan’s unique relationship status amongst our fraternity of groomsmen, it would be logical and just to assign him the surplus of bridesmaids. However, giving him three would stretch the bounds of the reasonable. It would be awkward and contrived. Naturally, six bridesmaids would be pigeonholed amongst four groomsmen in the currently arranged manner: 2 would have 1 each, 2 would have 2 each. Perhaps Margot would appreciate the subsequent metaphor. Since the current combinatorial arrangement is the natural consequence of an application of the Pigeonhole Principle, we can liken the current circumstance to that of the most stable or lowest-energy state. Although I am sure Mr. Mesa’s propensity for being an attractive nucleus for members of the opposite sex is considerable, keeping three bridesmaids in an orbital around his personage would undoubtedly require a good deal of energy on his behalf. Also, let us consider another physical fact. As Margot has indicated we may likely be in “arm-in-arm” contact with our respective bridesmaids. Based off my prior observation of Mr. Mesa, his anatomy appears nominal in that he possess, as do most members of our species, two arms. A third bridesmaid would have to reside in some outer orbital and would have a greatly increased probability of being snatched by another groomsmen to fill his inner orbital. As such, this arrangement is unstable.