by Liyun Jin ’12
December 2009 Issue

Our lucky makeover winner is all smiles!

At the kickoff of Reading Period and winter formal season, few things are as refreshing and motivating than a thorough pampering session. Fresh snow on the ground beckons for a fresh look for ourselves, but as college students, money and time aren’t exactly working in our favor to renew our bodies and spirits.

That’s where our December Makeover Contest, promising a free full makeover at Carriage House Salon in Harvard Square, fit in. Nominations poured in for cosmetically clueless pals and gorgeous gals hidden behind sweatshirts and thick glasses, but none melted our hearts as much as Nora Ali’s earnest plea on behalf of her friend Elaine Chen ’11. We had to help this girl out. Read all about the transformation after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing double?

For the past few days, there have probably been some contacts on your Gchat list with the cryptic status “11.10.09 | 8:07 pm.”*

Well, it all became clear today when The Crimson unveiled its new Web site, which bears a striking resemblance to the Yale Daily News homepage. It’s complete with a photo slideshow, a tag cloud, and a large banner at the top urging you to “See Yourself At Deloitte”! Noice.

The release–though hyped–was not without its technical glitches. As of 10:45 p.m., many students complained of not being able to see the new site owing to being blinded by too much red.

Critiques aside, we give the new Crimson a hearty thumbs up. It’s certainly an improvement over the old eyesore: the “news” page was updated maybe every few months, weird spacing was everywhere, and icky banners abounded.

Perhaps now, with a new look, more than 20 percent of the undergraduate population will even bother to check The Crimson’s Web site on most days. But then again… probably not.

*How ironic is it that they didn’t use AP style?

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise must be feeling a bit neglected lately. With HarvardFML.com launching Harvard students to fame almost daily, students just don’t get excited anymore by the so-called celebrities frequenting our campus. Rather, our attention has been captured by the likes of red scarf Polish girl, Wigg A girl, or — most recently – K-pop Loving Turk.

The last person — Mr. Turk, let’s call him — is perhaps the most obscure of all. Sure, we know where Wigg A is, and what red scarves are, and hopefully where Poland is, but what’s all this about a K-pop loving Turk? Is K-pop a type of soda? Should we stock up, so that we can sip it conspicuously during Gov20 in the hopes that we’ll capture the attention of some tanned Turkish hottie?

Noice knows such questions are running through the minds of Harvard students everywhere, so we’re here to unravel a bit of the mystery surrounding Mr. Turk. Thus, Noice presents A Guide to K-pop. Because how else are you going to impress this famed personage without versing yourself in his interests?

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Soon, the view from your window will look like this.

Hey Californian froshies,

You might have noticed that the nights are getting colder.

No, Noice isn’t referring to your lack of a lover. We’re referring to the temperature. With lows hitting the 40′s and the imminent threat of bitter cold on the horizon, now is probably the time you start to regret turning down Stanford.

That’s especially true if you didn’t heed the warnings about the frozen pit that is Boston (“Last year at Harvard-Yale someone got frostbite.. Despite wearing two pairs of wool socks!” “I forgot to dry my hair once and it turned crispy when I walked outside!” etc). We understand. Cold is a pretty foreign concept when you’re used to just palm trees and sunshine.

Luckily, Noice is here to help you naive warm weather babies out, in case you forgot to buy a balaklava before shipping up.

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Donating to Harvard could get you 1.) your name stamped on a building, 2.) called unethical by NYT's Randy Cohen.

NYT’s Randy Cohen thinks not. In fact, he thinks it’s downright morally reprehensible:

Do not donate to Harvard. To do so is to offer more pie to a portly fellow while the gaunt and hungry press their faces to the window (at some sort of metaphoric college cafeteria, anyway).

Noice would like to point out that to give to Harvard might, at this point, be to offer some piping hot breakfast pie to students who don’t have it. But anyways. Cohen’s evidence why Harvard isn’t worthy of your charity? Our endowment, while down 27 percent, still exceeds the GDP of Estonia. Our alumni are still money-mongers, with 40 percent of the class of 2008 going into banking. And the median base salary for the B-school’s class of 2009 is $115,000.

Under the current circumstances, the more honorable course is to write that check to a community college or a historically black college or a small Catholic college or other modest institution that genuinely and profoundly transforms the lives of its graduates.

Anyways, argue what side you will. The jewel of the piece is the hilarious comments that ensued:

Someone named Park called it a “very obnoxious, polemical article by someone who obviously has an anti-Harvard bias” and then went on to slap Cohen around some more:

Obviously, this writer is trying to draw a crowd to his article by name-dropping Harvard. Perhaps it is time to get over how you didn’t get in when you applied, eh?

Eek, that was perhaps a bit uncalled for. But for most of us, our reaction is probably this:

I give to Harvard. It’s called “tuition”. I give til it hurts.

Wise, wise words.

This afternoon, the Harvard Book Store cut the ribbon on its newly-christened Espresso Book Machine, Paige M. Gutenborg. The name of the on-demand book printing contraption was sifted from over 500 contest entries, among them Tome Machine, Humphrey Bookart, and Gutenplenty.

Before the unveiling, speakers Professor Robert Darnton (Director of Harvard Libraries), Jason Epstein from The New York Review of Books, and Dane Neller of On Demand Books LLC gave a few remarks about the future of books, publishing, yadda yadda. Then, finally, everyone got to see what they came for: Paige giving birth to its (her?) first paperback.

Before an ooh-ing and aah-ing audience, Paige printed a copy of the 300-plus page Bay Psalm Book (chosen because it the first book printed in North America, specifically, Cambridge in 1640) in a matter of minutes, which was then bound and funneled out out of the machine, glossy, crisp, and warm, just like fresh-baked cookies emerging from an oven.

Then, the prolific Paige moved on to Einstein’s Relativity. Noice was in awe.

Noice thinks the only thing that would make the Espresso Book Machine even more perfect and ingenious would be, well, if it pumped out espresso alongside your reading material. Dane Neller said he’s working on that.

Quote of the day: “I hope when I cut this ribbon, the damn thing doesn’t explode.”

Who knew an email could be this exciting and dramatic?

We at Noice are unabashed gossips, in the best sense of the word. We like checkin’ Harvard out, talking about who’s doing what, where, and to whom.  So when this vitriolic thread went over Quincy open list earlier today — with indignation nearly bursting out of its cyberseams — the drama could not escape our attention.

So what set off the little tiff? (Okay, not so little, it’s actually pretty long.) Just the Peer Health Exchange spamming Quincy House, as well as every other list, about its “FREE Pancake Breakfast” this morning.

Sounds innocuous, right? I mean, who actually reads stuff that gets pubbed on House lists? But, my oh my, the responses that ensued…

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