One student examines her life for opportunities to be an ethical consumer.
December 10th, 2008

Pictured: Joe Tschetter, of Des Moines, packages vegetables for a customer at the Cleverley Farms naturally grown produce and garlic standard at the Des Moines Farmers’ Market in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Amy Lorentzen)

During most of my time as a student at the University of Chicago, I rarely thought about the wider social impact of the vote in my pocket. My prevailing argument against my ethically-minded, upper middle-class friends who always have “disposable income” was that the ethics of consumer choices are relative. If the cost of buying Fair Trade coffee over regular coffee means that I had to forego buying toothpaste that month, then my decision to pass on the “ethical” product could not be branded as socially irresponsible. I tended to make decisions about which printer paper to buy based on price. I didn’t give a second thought to whether more trees were planted for every ream I bought. I cared more about the springiness of my vegetables than whether the farm where it was produced maintained environmentally sustainable farming practices. For people whose consumer choices are completely restricted by day-to-day needs—people who really need the $5 they can save at Wal-Mart—spending is not a social act, or even a personal choice.

But in the past few weeks and months, I have started to pay more attention. It is not that my boycott of unethical food will save the planet or bring a megacorporation like McDonald’s to its knees. But when I deny my role in global issues such as human rights violations and climate change, I am shirking my social responsibility—and this is habit-forming. Perhaps the immediate goal is not to build a more ethical society (whatever that might mean), but to build a society in which people are more aware of how their decisions affect the world and desire to make informed choices.

The amount of conflicting information about a product or a company can be overwhelming. We should give credit to a company like Wal-Mart for carrying organics, but the company also has a lot of allegations of labor violations. In the cocooned environment of our supermarkets and shopping centers, the story behind each product is hidden. It is easy to believe that our meat and vegetables, wrapped in seamless, shiny packages, have always existed that way. Indeed, often the only criterion by which we can compare our choices is price—and there are many institutions set up to keep the unhealthy and unethical choices the cheap ones.

Pictured here: MySpace pageviews for The Webelos, courtesy of Next Big Sound

In case you have ever hesitated to take the call of a Diskord reporter … check out the awesome peak in site stats for The Webelos on March 22, the day the Diskord article “Making It As A College Band” went up. Now, admittedly, a dozen to a couple dozen of those are ours, as we tested links and dealt with mp3 embedding and browser crashes. As for the rest … we’ll let Diskord readers take some of the credit for those. (It’s a little thing we like to call “the Diskord bump.” … haha.)

Diskord is all about reporting on cool (or spectacularly un-cool) local people and movements, so if you have a story that you want heard, pitch it to us! E-mail: editor@diskordchicago.com

The U. of C.’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship hosted multiple entrepreneurship panels in Winter 2010, with excellent turnout. Here’s a quick mash-up of the highlights:

Exploring Entrepreneurship: Innovations in the Midwest Education Industry

Best Talk: Provider of online learning K12 Inc (NYSE: LRN) reported an astounding 96% parent satisfaction rate for their curriculum quality. CEO and founder Ron Packard made the case that as virtual classrooms become more mainstream, they have the potential to completely eliminate the need to build new schools in the US.

K12′s online delivery platform allows students to take classes from their homes 4 days per week, and requires students to be present in a physical classroom setting only once per week. The advantages of having reusable curriculum content delivered via scalable technology has obvious advantages — reusability justifies spending more dollars on developing a truly quality curriculum.

K12 schools are accredited by respected accreditation bodies and boast 160+ courses, including World Languages and AP. More than 10 years in the making, K12 has achieved traction as the largest provider of online learning, with over 1 million courses delivered to date.

Noteworthy: Check out social language learning on-line with Live Mocha, the world’s largest language learning community with 4 million+ members.

Innovation Workshop “The Current Environment of University Startups”

RPX Group‘s co-founder and managing director Bob Okabe discussed startup activity at universities across the nation, in an effort to understand the new venture development process and its relationship to university support in a systematic way (the full presentation and set of slides are available here). Slides 54-59 descrbie investor activity and a statistical breakdown of why investors are so interested in the oft-heard multiplier 10x (as in, VC’s are looking for companies that may be sold for at least 10x the initial investment). Slide 66 describes where investors gain the confidence to invest in a deal — the 2 biggest sources of confidence are interest by fellow investors and past successes of the entrepreneur.

Noteworthy: University of Chicago, while it does not have an engineering program, across other disciplines is faring well with regard to support for research patents and associated start-ups.

Net Impact Conference

Best Talk: This conference included speakers from both Zipcar and I-Go. Both companies take pride in reducing the societal and environmental costs of driving, although I-Go differentiates itself as 1) a not-for-profit and 2) the only car-sharing company that has 100% low-emission vehicles. While a smaller enterprise than Zipcar, I-Go is also the only car sharing service that offers a combined CTA / I-Go smartcard.

by Sue Khim

Just returned from watching the band Califone, one of Chicago’s own, play a live soundtrack to their Sundance-selected film All My Friends are Funeral Singers at Lincoln Hall. The film lives in the world of the supernatural, with superstitions lingering on the screen (e.g. It’s bad luck to say ‘pig’ on a fishing boat) followed by clips relevant to the particular lore. Most of the clips take place in the home of Zel (played by Angela Bettis), a fortune teller. Zel lives with a group of ghosts who help the business by lending their other worldly powers to call winning horses for a comical gambler (desperate and sleazy in turns), heal headaches, and channel the voices of dead loved ones. The ghosts, perpetually dressed in white, play soulful, urgent, surreal music in rooms throughout the quaintly decorated home — music that was, on this Tuesday night, played live by the band and filled the large acoustic room.

The film and music are both experimental, but keep from being overly meandering. While the film introduces many open-ended questions and artistic sequences, the character definitions are clear and there is a linear and accessible story arc, as Zel and the ghosts realize that the ghosts, who Zel embraces as family, are trapped inside the house by a legacy spell that thwarts the ghosts’ newfound desire to move on. The band members (Joe Adamik, Jim Becker, Ben Massarella, Tim Rutili) multi-tasked between multiple instruments (note the contraption of bells inside the briefcase above) and vocals. From kitschy decorations trembling dramatically atop likewise kitschy furniture, to religious overtones as two ghosts discuss their vision of heaven and hell, Califone offered a wide range of soundscapes that interacted fluently with the narrative and the film’s digetic sounds. Califone has a previous track record of performing cinematic music, having contributed live improvised soundtracks to silent films.

Afterward, the band played songs from their new album, eponymous after the film. Due to the configuration of the equipment — facing the movie screen — the band was forced to play the whole set with their backs to the audience! (The band extended a joke and their apologies.)

Califone plays again on March 10th at the same venue, this time as a concert instead of as a live soundtrack.

Do you enjoy visiting prisons? Join the Diskord staff at the Stateville Correctional Center to visit one of the few facilities in the world modeled after Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. It’s a long road trip, yes, but on the way we will read from trip-related classic Kafka’s The Castle and play clips from the prison drama series Oz. And on the way back we can all Tweet about what we saw. Just kidding.

Trip date will be cemented based on a democratic process. Possible open dates are Feb. 1, Feb. 5, Feb. 8, and Feb. 11. Please e-mail editor@diskordchicago.com to vote on a date and receive e-mail updates.

by Sue Khim

Call me a cynic, but market forces say that when the going rate for student information is high, people with access to it are probably selling it. And think about it: You’re tech savvy. You have admin access privileges to the e-mail of everyone you see at the gym. It’s been a long day. You want to have a little fun, harmless snooping at someone else’s expense — find out what kinds of listhosts they’re subscribed to, what websites they’ve visited recently, and whether she hasn’t responded to your e-mail because she hasn’t checked it today or if she’s simply ignoring you …. if you had the power, wouldn’t you?

I met with Bob Bartlett, the University of Chicago’s Director of Network Based Resources at Network Services & Information Technology (NSIT), to find out. Bartlett built the U. of C.’s mail system, and according to him, potential snooping by NSIT is the least of our problems, and only the tip of the iceberg. Sun MicroSystems CEO Scott McNealy is reported to have said  “Privacy is dead.” Bartlett believes this is sad, but almost true. There are a handful of people at NSIT (about 4 or 5) who, by their job description, have to be able to access the mail system to do their jobs, and are able to look at our e-mails and information.

“What’s the market value of the information?” I asked.

“Market value is probably pretty good,” Bartlett replied.

“If someone were to sell this information, could we track down the culprit?”

“No. I guarantee you that nowhere could you find out what happened.”

There is a permissions system in place at NSIT, where technicians must have permission from lawyers before accessing certain information. There is auditing in multiple places, with the exception of when the system is in “imminent danger,” in which case certain people have the right to go in to fix the problem.

“But how will the lawyers know if you are looking at information unauthorized?” I asked. “They’re not techs.”

“It’s really a personnel issue,” Bartlett replied.

In NSIT’s defense, Barlett asserts that “the people who are in charge of mail systems tend to be privacy advocates.” This includes the security technicians as well as the lawyers. For the truly privacy-conscious, what should be disconcerting is that there are about a dozen places that e-mail is routed through (regardless of where you are sending e-mail to and from) before reaching its final destination, meaning there are about a dozen points at which a group of people in a room somewhere have access to the network just the same as NSIT. Mail can very easily be sniffed as it goes through.

“So if I stole 8 billion dollars from the government, and I wanted to tell somebody about it but I didn’t want my e-mail to be read by anyone else, is there any way to do it?” I asked.

“The only way to do it is to use strong encryption on your message body,” he replied.

Bartlett says that encrypting e-mail is “always a good idea.” (The idea being that if you only encrypt sensitive information … it’s pretty obvious that you’re encrypting the important stuff.) The encryption breaks down if the person who responds to your e-mail doesn’t have encryption enabled, and the body of your e-mail is sitting in the response.

The challenge with e-mail encryption is social, not technical. For the system to work, the people who send encrypted messages to each other must all exchange something called a GPG key. It is, of course, unsafe to send this key via e-mail, but transmitting a copy via a USB key would work.

The most critical security issue, however, and one that happens all of the time, is theft. The easiest way to hack into a system is at the source. The way to safeguard against this, again, is by encrypting your hard drive.

Bartlett asserts that, anyway, the NSIT staff are busy and have more important things to do than read private e-mails. Among the technical challenges that NSIT faces, 67%-85% of the mail which comes into the University is regarded as spam. This is comparable across universities. A typical day for NSITers is spent battling hackers who have set up botnets to have zombie computers send us the latest on Cialis. On Tuesday, the University received 55,000 mail messages in 20 minutes. It is not the students’ fault for signing up with too many websites. Spam is an arms race between spammers trying to make messages stealthier and counter measures. When the mail system is slow, it likely has nothing to do with the number of people on campus simultaneously clicking “Inbox” and “Send”.

“Why does the University even give us e-mail accounts?” I asked, referencing the multitude of free e-mail accounts that are available.

“Until recently, it was desirable to try to give students accounts,” Bob replied.

Now, a good half of U of C students use Gmail but this was not the case when the mail system was built.

Bottom line? Yes, some people at NSIT can read our e-mails. And see what websites we’ve been to and whether we’ve Googled ourselves lately. If you’re interested in keeping your e-mail private from someone with the power to read your e-mails at NSIT specifically, it can’t hurt to use another e-mail provider. On the other hand, if it’s important to keep the e-mail private from everyone but the intended recipient, encrypting the exchange is the only way.

by Dahlia Rizk

The year’s technology: hands-on and hassle free.

This past week the streets of America have been abuzz with technological news regarding items that until recently, we never knew we needed, but now, will never be able to live without. One such item has been the Apple iPad—the iPhone with the really big screen and a personal message that says, “Hey, you, average consumer. Give us more of your money for redundant-but -flashy gizmos. Love, Apple”. But that is not the technological wonder I am recommending you today. No, this device of which I speak is far more humane and comforting than the feel of cold steel and plexiglass in your palm.

Meet Roxxxy, the lady robot powered for your own hands-on experience. Marketers have labeled her the most advanced talking sex robot yet. According to her home at TrueCompanion.com, she comes complete with soft silicone “skin”, voice recognition and speech-synthesis software, and even 5 distinct personalities in varying friskiness to match the consumer’s, er, preferences. She even has sensors in her womanly organs that are to gather a vocal response when touched. Barring any major malfunctions, and as long as her battery doesn’t run out, she is yours for about $7,000. While her creators have assumed that Roxxxy is only meant for a niche clientele (or at least one hopes) preorders have been flooding in, in the thousands, since her debut at the Las Vegas Adult Entertainment Expo last month.

This story is disturbing on so many levels, but where to begin? For me, personally, it’s not the idea that there are thousands of lonely (and gullible) men who are actually eager to spend $7,000 on a sex robot than say, on a high end prostitute, who is, at the very least, a real-live person. (I’m not trying to make an argument for prostitution; I’m only trying to argue the alternatives to such an investment). Rather, it’s the idea that today’s technology, as embodied by Roxxxy, can be manipulated and marketed to replace what is arguably the most human and intimate of functions—human procreation. Now, in 2010, there is no real need for single, lonely men who “have trouble meeting girls” to do anything to establish a real personal connection with a member of the opposite sex if they consider the idea just too horrifying or haven’t left their house for the past two months since they’ve started to build the next supercomputer by hand.

Similarly, the iPhone application Brushes offers “mobile painting”, and such “paintings” have actually appeared on the cover of the New Yorker several times. Why bother, Brushes argues, with years of training and tuition and messy paints when all you need is a gizmo on an iPhone? Once again, with the right amount of greenbacks and with not a whole lot of self-esteem, technology is trying to make things that are supposed to be difficult, very easy. Creating and sustaining relationships that might involve sex can be one of the most exhaustive things one can ever do, and yet, today, a high-tech blow-up doll has managed to do just that. Roxxxy may never turn into a real live human being, but hey, at least we humans are willing to settle for what we pay for, without having to put in too much effort. A Brushes painting may have not taken the training or contemplation that a normal painting would require, but if the New Yorker can put it on its cover, then clearly then it must be art enough, no? In other words, we’re finding all kinds of ways for the instrumentality of technology to replace tasks that would usually require input from our emotions, our moral judgment and human esthetic, and I’m starting to wonder if one day we’d like to get rid of these purely human capacities altogether. Just as long as we get the job done, we’re starting to care less and less how it’s done.

Well, as with my take on sex with robots, I think I’ll just have to say no.

I clicked away on my camera as Ted Harris wove through his large, high-ceilinged West Side warehouse studio stacked bottom to top with musty, junk-like matter. “Photographers love the clutter,” he grinned. The warehouse featured an open-door crawl this past Sunday, inviting in the public to a free show of the latest work of the artists who live there. The crawl was part of a series of Art Walks for Chicago Artists Month. Harris, the Chicago-based lighting designer who created the dining room chandelier from used Harley Davidson motorcycle parts and the recycled lightbulb fixture for the MSI Smart Home Exhibit, cleaned up his studio for the event. (Check back soon for before-and-after pictures. For those of you who keep up with us, this is Part II of the article featured here.)

He’s known to everyone he meets as ‘the lightbulb guy’. Parents, friends and neighbors will collect used parts and bulbs in bags for the next time he stops by. Harris started out in commercial advertising, designing ads and illustrations for McDonald’s and Suave, among others. He later switched into lighting as a hobby when he moved into a house in which he decided to make everything. “Everything … should be filled with lightbulbs,” he says. I asked what inspired him, and, simply put, the answer was ‘everything’. It may begin with a certain spring or lightbulb, but “one idea begets the next idea, ” says Harris. “Fortunately, it keeps coming.” This partially explains Harris’s versatility — he repaints and repurposes lamps, but has also taken on larger projects such as antiquing kitchens.

From used shot glasses to mink hats to heavy duty rope, Harris’s work is transforming junk into art. Although green has become a fad and using recycled materials has become a “thing to do,” for Harris it’s always been simply a cheap and sensible way of creating. There is beauty in discarded things, he says, and “You can make lights out of anything. I like to think everyone can afford it.”

“Is there a struggle between producing the work people will buy and producing the work you like?” I asked. He replied, “You [have to] do what you want because you don’t get to do what you want often enough . . . A lot of people don’t get the beauty of [a lot of my work]. And I don’t care. I like it.” But often enough, he says, “People trust what you like, that’s why they like what you do.”

Favorite artists, one living, one dead – go.

Living: Chuck Close, painter

Dead: Jasper Johns … “I think he’s dead,” says Harris. (He’s actually still  living … but we’ll let it slide.)

Harris’s fixtures are known to trickle on to Scout after shows and exhibits, at 5221 N. Clark St., 773-275-5700. Or you can call Harris at 773-332-1001.

The next and last even for Chicago Artists Month is the Artists at Work Forum on Thursday, October 29 at 6 pm at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington Street, followed by an after party at the Hard Rock Hotel. Visit www.studiochicago.org for more information.

There are only two institutions on campus that offer banking services – Citibank and the University of Chicago’s Maroon Financial Credit Union, and in case you’re still searching around campus for an ATM by any other name, you’re out of luck. Chances are, you’ll open an account with one or both of these if you haven’t already. We’ll compare the two institutions and examine the University’s special relationship with each.

Maroon Financial Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative. This means that when you deposit funds into your credit union account, you become a partial owner and participate in the union’s profitability. To join the union, you must be a member of the University of Chicago community. Said its President, Cristian Hernandez, “We exist to exclusively assist the University [of Chicago] community and all their financial affairs.” The pros: the cooperative structure; free checking and savings forever; free ATM access at more than 65,000 ATMs in all 50 states, the UK, and Canada; a clear summary of rates and fees for all products made readily available on their website; automatic payroll deduction. The cons: no credit cards; only two free ATMs on or near campus, with the one 24-hour ATM located two blocks farther west than the Citibank Ellis Street ATMs.

Citibank is an international bank that is a branch of Citigroup. Citigroup is a company owned by its shareholders. Major shareholders include US taxpayers, who own more than a third of Citigroup following the $45 billion bailout in 2008, the government of Singapore, Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Capital Research Global Investors, Capital World investors, Citigroup employees, and many large asset management and pension funds that manage money for investors. Jared Evans, the manager of the Citibank branch on campus, said, “Because of our location here, we want to offer the best accounts for the students.” The pros: 10 on-campus ATMs, including 3 24-hour ATMs at the Citibank branch on Ellis Street; globality and reach — 1400 branches and free ATMs in 46 countries; student credit card availability, including credit cards for international students; may qualify for Checking Plus Overdraft Protection, which transfers funds from your credit line to your checking account to cover banking transactions for a $10 fee — this prevents checks from bouncing as long as you have enough credit available, 24/7 live person customer service. Neutral: ThankYou Network rewards program. The cons: free checking and savings valid only as long as you are an active enrolled student at U of C, only 26,000 surcharge-free ATMs worldwide.

Both institutions offer the basic cadre of banking services, including online banking (including BillPay), direct deposit, and 24/7 Automated Telephone Banking.

After completing this basic research, I still found it curious that the University’s own homegrown credit union had such a dirth of ATMs on campus. I paid a visit to the credit union and sat down with its President to find out the reason.

Sue: Is it expensive?

Mr. Hernandez: No.

Sue: [The university administration] won’t let you?

Mr. Hernandez: I can’t comment on that.

Sue: Is there a lot of policy to go through?

Mr. Hernandez: No comment.

After several minutes of further questioning, Mr. Hernandez finally replied “We would work on putting ATMs on campus if we were allowed,” but he had no comment on who I could speak to regarding the credit union’s inability to place more free ATM’s closer to campus. Intrigued, I did some digging.

I interviewed John Kroll, the Comptroller of the University. Citing data regarding the phenomenon of colleges in the US fostering exclusive relationships financial institutions, I asked whether the University was aware of any such relationship between the University of Chicago and Citibank.

“You’re absolutely right about what takes place around the country,” Mr. Kroll replied, adding that indeed, campus institutions focus on striking a deal with a single financial institution. The deal with Citibank, he explained, started with a “very detailed . . . Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP) … It was a formal process when all major banks were invited to make a proposal … including the credit union.”  This took place at a time when the credit union did not have a big cadre of products (Maroon Financial Credit Union confirmed that it had only opened its doors to students two years ago, and prior to that had served employees of the University and Medical Center).

The choice was made to go with Citibank as the on-campus provider, with the provision that the credit union could continue to do business without interruption. As a part of this agreement, the credit union was allowed to have an ATM on campus as long as it was “within the facility space that they are using,” which is the basement of the Administration building on 58th and Ellis. The first right of refusal regarding the placement of ATMs on campus is with Citibank, and unless Citibank specifically waives that right, no other financial institutions may place ATMs on campus.

What did the University get in exchange for granting Citibank these exclusive rights? Mr. Kroll said that globality was a huge motivator since the University has students from all over the world, and in addition cited free checking and savings with no minimum balance, unlimited check writing, no surcharge at Citi ATMs and other ATMs networked with Citi, and twice a year discounted airfare. The most important aspect that drove the deal was that Citibank provides a solution for students when they are away from campus domestically or internationally. The moment that they try to renegotiate the terms of the deal with Citibank to allow students on-campus ATM access for other financial institutions, everything is up for renegotiation, especially regarding anything with the words “no” (i.e. no minimum balance), “no charge,” and “free” (free checking and savings as long as you’re a student at the U. of C.)

But what else does the University get? I asked,

“Does the University profit from this deal?”

“I wish,” Mr. Kroll replied. “Citibank gets a small amount of retail space across from the school. In exchange for that, they pay us rent … The University does not benefit from this deal in a financial way.”

In a follow-up e-mail exchange, I asked about credit companies and credit-card issuing banks. I reproduce the questions and responses here:

Does the University of Chicago disclose students’ contact information to credit card companies or credit card-issuing banks? ***NO***

Do credit card companies or credit-card issuing banks strike partnerships with any University-affiliated group or entity in order to market to the University’s students? ***NO***

Does the University of Chicago have any revenue-generating deals with credit card companies or credit card-issuing banks? ***BASED ON THE TERMS OF OUR CONTRACTUAL TERMS,  RELATIONSHIPS WITH CREDIT CARD COMPANIES ARE CONFIDENTIAL***

I was unable to obtain any further information regarding the last question, but representatives of Chase Bank at the Booth School of Business orientation fair verified that, to their knowledge, they did not pay to have a table at the fair and that they did not pay for student information from the University.  (If anyone has a tip, please write me at sue@diskordchicago.com.)

Now, if I may proffer my personal, layman’s opinion on Mr. Kroll’s response and my advice regarding banking on campus — other than the discounted airfare (which, by the way, was news to me — I’ve never heard of anyone taking advantage of this and have myself always found great rates via price comparison shopping on the Internet. If any of our readers can verify that the offering from Citibank beats those, I would love to hear from you: sue@diskordchicago.com), the globality, and the credit card offering, Maroon Financial has the same services, including unlimited check writing, and they ask only for a $5 minimum balance to open the account, which will probably not break anyone’s back. But globality is indeed a critical factor. The single credit union branch location may not affect those who can handle their banking by phone or on-line, but would be an inconvenience to anyone who wants or needs to take care of their banking affairs inside a physical office after moving away from Hyde Park.

The move made by the University was a shrewd one in the sense that they are getting terms from Citibank that they would not have gotten without the deal (for example, Citibank does not offer free checking and savings to all college students), whereas Maroon Financial Credit Union would do all of the same things with or without an exclusive deal.

Regarding the lack of a rewards program, Mr. Hernandez of the credit union said, “Our knowledge of rewards is that the consumer ends up paying a lot more than the reward is worth … Obviously, any institution would not offer rewards unless they’re getting a profit off it.” It was not the small size of the credit union that prevents him from offering rewards — he wants to offer simple, easy-to-understand products, and given a very competitive interest rate vs. rewards, he will go with the very competitive interest rates. He does not see the rewards as beneficial. My position on rewards vs. no rewards is neutral, and the interest rates on the savings account won’t make a difference for most of us anyway, who probably have at most a couple thousand dollars in checking or savings at any given time.

The only fee that I’ve ever come across is the overdraft fee — this is $34 at Citibak and $26 and Maroon Financial Credit Union.

The 24-hour ATM for the credit union on the first floor of DCAM, two blocks further than the Citibank ATM is indisputably more inconvenient. DCAM is not a 24-hour building, but if you have your student ID with you the 24-hour security guard will let you into the building as long as you have business there.

Bottom line: If you want a credit card and convenience when you’re traveling abroad and you’re looking to open an account with a bank close to campus, Citibank is the way to go. But it will never cost you anything to have an account with the credit union, which comes with its own set of conveniences. My advice is to open an account with both.