But what was Steve Wozniak’s Cal experience really like? We at the Daily Clog sat down with the Wizard of Wozillia himself to find out.

The Daily Californian: Can you tell us a little bit about how you arrived at UC Berkeley? Why did you choose to transfer here for your junior year?

Steve Wozniak: My parents had me apply to the University of California because it was an awful lot less expensive. So I applied. Berkeley really was the school I would have wanted to go to, because it had a reputation for intellectual free-thinking. Civil liberties and the politics and economics of war were being challenged. Freedom of speech was being brought up as a subject. So I really admired Berkeley in that sense. I just wanted to be among great thinkers. So in my third year of college, I transferred into Berkeley.

DC: After your first year at UC Berkeley, you left and founded Apple with Steve Jobs. But you made sure to return to UC Berkeley to finish your degree. Why? Why does a college degree matter to you?

SW: I had done a lot outside of Cal that would have been equivalent to Master’s and PhD projects, but having a symbol to represent these accomplishments is very important. Also, just being able to tell your kids what college you went to is going to encourage them to go to college. And college is just the most fun four years of your life.

DC: Where, in your experience, is the best place for experiencing what it means to be a Golden Bear?

SW: Oh my gosh. The first place that comes to mind is the rallies before the Big Game. As part of Berkeley itself, Sather Gate stands out in my mind as the most prominent feature of the university.

DC: Sproul Plaza has always been a center of campus activity. Any memories, strange encounters or lessons that you learned there?

SW: I often saw musicians sitting down and playing the guitar. I was into that kind of folkish approach. Sometimes, I’d sit down and listen to them — and even skip class for it.

DC: Do you still like the same kind of music? What’s playing on your iTunes right now?

SW: [laughs] Usually something a little bit country. A little bit folk. Ariana Gillis is one of my favorites. Let’s see, I like The Airborne Toxic Event, Train, Counting Crows — oh my gosh — Counting Crows. Right out of Berkeley! I love them so much. We got to meet the guitarist and we go out with him and his girlfriend all the time.

DC: Do you have a favorite song from Counting Crows?

SW: “Round Here,” “Mr. Jones,” … actually, all their songs. They are just so incredible. I actually take most songs I like and go online, read the lyrics and think about them. This kind of thinking is what college is about and it means a lot to me. Music was a big part of my life in learning how to live.

DC: Cool. Other than music, Sproul is known for its demonstrations. Was this true when you were at Cal?

SW: We had sit-downs in those days. But there was one protest where marchers went to Bancroft and Shattuck and smashed every window. We had large demonstrations; the police would show up and start firing tear gas and everyone would run. The cops would be shooting rubber bullets, so the kids in the dorms would love to go looking for them. I kept hoping … to get a picture taken next to a tear gas canister spewing out smoke. But I never achieved that. I never found a rubber bullet either — but thank God I never got a hit by one. Although, one time I was at a payphone on Bancroft and Telegraph and all of a sudden cops pulled up in “blue minis.” They started shooting their guns; the crowd started running but I was trapped in the phone booth, waiting for an operator to get back to me. I was ducking down. The windows were already broken on that pay phone. I was so scared I was going to get hit. But I didn’t. They left me alone. [laughs]

DC: While living in Norton Hall, Unit 3, you describe phone phreaking. Can you tell us a bit more? What experience stands out?

SW: Wow. I discovered, the day before coming to school at Berkeley, this whole idea that you could put little tones into a phone and dial calls anywhere in the world. It was  a bug in the phone system. I was talented enough to build tone makers — I did this with Steve Jobs — and I was excited that we would be able to make a device that would make calls all over the world. We were honest enough to tell our parents what we were doing. They just said not to make any of the calls from their phones. So we would mostly do it from the dorm rooms.

I had read about phone phreaks that were great engineers. They would hook into payphone cables in Arizona and set up worldwide networks. They were smarter than phone company engineers and drove around with vans full of equipment. And oh my gosh, they were just like science fiction heroes — except they were real.

DC: Tell us about the Blue Box. We know it’s a device that you used to make international calls for free, but what did you do with it?

SW: It was never my idea to sell a Blue Box — just to make one to show off. But Steve Jobs said, “Why don’t we sell these to students?” He was always short on money. So we would set up demonstrations in dorms around campus. We would knock on doors until we found someone that looked cool … so, you know, they wouldn’t turn us in. Then we would set up an appointment to come back that night. Usually a group of about 12-20 people would be in the room. I would be the master of ceremonies. I’d tell stories about what phone phreaks have done and what they could do. I’d make a demonstration Blue Box call and we would wind up calling around the world. At every single demo, we sold a Blue Box.

DC: Wow, it sounds like you could do some crazy stuff with the Blue Box. Did you pull any pranks with it?

SW: We called the Pope. I pretended to be Henry Kissinger with Richard Nixon at a summit meeting in Moscow. I said that I wanted to talk to the Pope. I reached the Bishop, who going to be the translator, an hour later — but he had called the real Henry Kissinger. So, I was busted. We didn’t have caller ID in those days.

DC: That’s awesome. Are there any other wild experiences you had because of your phone phreaking hobby?

SW: One day, we had a Blue Box to sell to somebody in the dorms. We stopped at a pizza parlor and demonstrated it to some people there. Then they came up to our car and robbed us of it at gun point. But they left their phone number so that we could call and tell them how to use it. They wanted to pay for it but just didn’t have the money.

DC: Wow, that’s intense.

SW: [laughs] We did a lot of incredible interesting things that people couldn’t believe.

DC: Looking back, what advice would you give graduating seniors?

SW: Don’t expect that right away — even though you’re smarter than someone else — you’re going to stand out and have better ideas and approaches. It takes a while to learn that.

Contact Alex Mabanta at amabanta@dailycal.org.

The post The Clog interviews Steve Wozniak appeared first on The Daily Californian.

In 1995, Anderson took one of his grad student’s suggestions to heart when he proposed combining the power of personal computers to do some work in the name of science. His grad student was thinking more of finding aliens, but Anderson was thinking more along the lines of pulsar and black hole discovery.

Combining the power of computers across the globe to work toward one common goal? It’s almost too romantic of a notion. But it could work. So Anderson quit the startup company he was working for at the time and developed the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. When people signed up for BOINC, they were essentially volunteering the processing power of their computers that they weren’t using for whatever project the network needed it for. With all this extra power, there was no telling what could be accomplished. And this was in the 1990s.

Boasting more than a million participants in its earlier years, BOINC now only has about 400,000 personal computers running on the software. That’s where your Android phone comes in. Anderson, attempting to revitalize BOINC, is adapting the program to run on smartphones and tablets. Technology has advanced significantly since the ’90s, and now almost all our little gadgets have enough power to to be useful to BOINC. And when combined with the millions of other Android devices in the world … we could be finding black holes left and right.

Now, we think we know what you’re thinking. I don’t have any extra power to give away from my phone. I have enough trouble keeping it charged for the day! But lo and behold, Anderson is cognizant of our culture’s hyper-dependency on smartphones and promises to only use your phone’s processing power when it’s charging or connected to a Wi-Fi network.

We haven’t forgotten about you Apple buffs, either. It’s not that Anderson doesn’t want to utilize the power of your iPhone or iPad, but the code of BOINC’s app needs to access the processing heart of your mobile device, and that isn’t really Apple’s cup of tea. Despite the (extremely) high volume of people who use iPhones, Anderson thinks that the power he’ll (hopefully) gain from Android mobile devices will be more than sufficient.

So, for all you Android users out there, keep your eyes peeled for a new BOINC app that’ll let you sign up your device to do some analysis for Einstein@Home, a project dedicated to discovering cool stuff like black holes. Maybe they’ll name one after you! Probably not.

Contact Sabrina Werts at swerts@dailycal.org.

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The relevant case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, is scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in late March and concerns California’s voter-approved referendum defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

“Proposition 8 eliminated more than the equal right to marry,” Perez said in the statement. “Proposition 8 also eliminated the ability of those seeking equal marriage rights to pursue those rights through their elected representatives. That deprives a historically disadvantaged group — a group of which I am a member — of access to traditional representation in a representative democracy.”

Perez is among 22 legal scholars and numerous corporations, including Apple, Facebook and Intel, that have filed briefs in support of same-sex marriage.

Mitchell Handler covers academics and administration. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

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He has his own category on Jeopardy! For $1,000: “Woz was the creator of this ’80s event that brought music fans out to see an all-star lineup”

He competed on Dancing with the Stars. As far as we know, he is the only person who can pull off the cha-cha-cha in a pink feather boa.

He dated Kathy Griffin. Did you know that the ever-naughty female counterpart to Anderson Cooper’s New Year’s Eve Live romanced Woz? Here he is on her show in a bear convention.

He cameoed on Big Bang Theory. And called Sheldon a nerd. Major swag.

He is a third-degree Freemason. National Treasure profiled it. He’s on par with 14 Presidents, Mozart and Bach.

He has four patents, 10 honorary doctorates of engineering and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He’s is listed next to the Wright Brothers, Walt Disney, Edison and Tesla. That’s Berkeley.

He has a street named after him. Woz Way is located in San Jose, the capital of the Silicon Valley

He gave a Game Boy to President H.W. Bush. Woz also scored 702,000 playing Tetris on his Game Boy.

He graduated UC Berkeley in 1986 as an EECS major. That’s not easy to do.

He is a really good friend. We cried when he talked about Steve Jobs too.

Image Source: The DEMO Conference under Creative Commons

The post 10 random facts about Commencement speaker Steve Wozniak appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Hansen has not disclosed many details of his new work at Apple. In an article written by CNN, Hansen expressed excitement about his work with such a brilliant group of people, describing them as “the best there is.”

In addition to his faculty position at UC Berkeley, Hansen has been a consultant for many major companies around the world and has published award-winning research in business management.

According to the story, Hansen was first approached by former dean of Yale School of Management Joel Podolny to join the program in 2009 but declined the offer of a full-time job so he could finish his book “Great by Choice” with co-author Jim Collins.

CNN reported that Apple approached Hansen again in late December and that Hansen accepted the job at Apple’s MBA training program under the condition that he could remain at UC Berkeley to teach one course per semester.

Apple University, an in-house MBA training program instituted by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, trains the company’s executives within Apple’s business culture.

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“I was one of maybe five students on my dorm floor to have my own computer,” he said, “so my room, as a result, was a hub of activity, as my floormates clamored to finish up their term papers, or, more commonly, to play what in those days qualified as awesome video games.”

It seems impossible for us now — with projectors in nearly every classroom, multiple computing facilities within reach, and bSpace — to fathom this world in which personal computers were so scarce. Visions of dystopian landscapes emerge. They are barren, barbaric landscapes where people had to walk, check out and — it pains me to say — turn pages in a book to find out what exactly was the Jugurthine War (note: an old war, apparently).

This sad scene may have been the case for other, less fortunate schools. However, when it comes to technology, UC Berkeley has nearly always been at the forefront of innovation in education.

Flush with federal funding after World War II, UC Berkeley commenced an unprecedented rush of computer science development that hasn’t ceased since. The computer mouse, digital libraries, the Apple desktop computer, course webcasts and online databases can all be traced back to UC Berkeley faculty. Finished in 1951, the California Digital Computer, or CALDIC, was one of the first inexpensive and accessible computers for its day. The only catch: it consisted of nearly a thousand vacuum tubes. But, this combination of low cost and high efficiency has been the overarching trend of Berkeley innovation.

UC Berkeley electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart worked with the men who created the CALDIC, and he did them one better in 1963 by inventing the computer mouse that has now become the staple, computer accessory.  By the time former campus electrical engineering and computer science student Steve Wozniak helped develop the Apple personal computer in the early 1980s, technology had become a full part of the average students’ lifestyle.

According to the Pew Internet Project, a 2010 survey of computer-usage among college students, 88 percent of undergraduate college students own a laptop computer. And, according to a Group Logic Inc. survey from the same year, more and more of those laptops are Macs.

It’s hardly a surprising statistic given the high visibility of laptops in classrooms. But, it’s in the classroom where the significant changes can be seen. When Noreña was a student, though, he only used that “large, boxy”  computer outside of the classroom.

“I do not recall any of (my professors) using any technology whatsoever,” he said.

This phase did not last long. In 1995, Berkeley was one of the first American universities to offer video and audio of courses online with the Berkeley Internet Broadcasting System, now known as Berkeley Webcast. A year later, the campus became one of the first sites in the United States to install SunSITE — a digital catalog of the millions of books held in UC Berkeley’s 10 plus libraries.

Now, as a campus professor of history, Noreña’s utilization of several digital outlets, such as bSpace and PowerPoint presentations to showcase the several “slideshows, maps, images, texts and key terms” that might be overwhelming without the accompanying visual element.

In addition, for his United States history survey course this fall, associate professor Brian Delay decided to participate in a nationwide e-book pilot program. For her international and area studies class, lecturer Tara Graham began using Twitter as a means to guide student discussion in class.

It’s a brave and virtual new world, with seemingly endless possibilities for enhanced interaction and communication within the academic atmosphere. Already, individual intellectuals such as Howard Rheingold, an adjunct professor in UC Berkeley’s School of Information, have founded their own online universities, complete with video lessons and online quizzes.

Whether developments like these are positive or negative, the future is unclear. But, as computer science student Aatash Parikh remarked, “The prominence of technology in our lives is always going to be increasing, so we need to be aware of the negative implications while taking advantage of all the positives.”

The post A look back at UC Berkeley’s computer evolution appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The Joint Administrative Computing Standardization Program — announced Wednesday — is a result of combined efforts from UC Berkeley and UCSF administrators working on broader efforts to reduce costs at both campuses. Under the program, campus departments will be required to purchase from a menu of Dell and Apple computers chosen by a committee of administrators from both campuses, unless doing so will affect the direct performance of academic research.

“From what I’ve heard, they’re being very sensitive to parts of the campus that have more specialized purchasing needs, like labs and places like that,”  said ASUC senator Elliot Goldstein, who also facilitates a DeCal course on Operational Excellence, the campus cost-cutting initiative which encompasses the program.

Equipment options are based on current preferences at both campuses that are reflective of the desires of the user community, quality of the equipment and technology preferences, according to Sian Shumway, manager in the Information Services Technology department of Campus Technology Services at UC Berkeley.

Faculty and staff are encouraged, but not required, to purchase computer systems through the program. Staff members that require computer systems not covered by the program will be accommodated, Shumway said.

“An example of this would be staff supporting research that requires the processing of huge amounts of data requiring more computing power or a computer supporting a piece of scientific equipment requiring specs outside of the standard,” he said.

Initial costs of purchasing pre-configured computers directly from Dell and Apple may be higher, according to the program announcement, but administrators are counting on reducing long-term costs associated with paying information technology personnel to configure and troubleshoot computers purchased separately that are not standardized.

Choices available under the program include either Dell or Apple desktops and laptops which are equipped with either Windows 7 or OS X Lion. Prices for the Dell options range from $796.50 to $1,334.80 while the Mac options range from $1,218 to $1,973, according to the announcement.

The program is one of the newest initiatives released under the Operational Excellence procurement program, BearBuy, which will save the UC campus an estimated $45 million annually, according to initiative spokesperson Bill Reichle.

Operational Excellence was initially estimated to save the campus a total of $75 million annually, but according to a report released Jan. 13 is now expected to save a total of $112 million this year.

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They walk like the sidewalk’s a runway, and speak like no one else knows what they’re talking about. Your seemingly typical generational, conforming non-conformists, hipsters don leather belts on jeans already too small for them, and wear turquoise-shell Ray-Bans that annoyingly nuzzle their thick heads. Scrutinize or glorify their style as either a fad or a movement — hipsters are everywhere as they occupy the bike lanes and sidewalks of urban sprawls like that of the Bay Area.

Breeding in cities like Oakland and San Francisco (where they can afford their liberally self-righteous lifestyles), hipsters are part of a phenomenon as organic as the dining hall’s salad bar. Like produce that used to have a market only wealthy and food-conscious folks could afford, the hipster swag has begun to seem more like a brand as the elegantly disheveled shelter Apple products in their Chrome messenger bags.

If you just scoffed or gagged a little, I get it. Nothing used to make me cringe more than talking about “hipsters” among desperate claims of not being one, in spite of the relish irony often brings. Parts bouge-y, bohemian and “stuff white people like,” hipsters echo pretense and hype. Stuck in the purgatory of consumer-based identity, the paradoxical hipster drinks or serves deliciously over-priced coffee in ghetto superstar rising areas like West Oakland; They present themselves heavy with the guilt of life-sucking trendiness, and repent with sustainable diets and do-it-yourself budgets.

Though only a fraction of the population embodies the variable hipster (taking note of septum piercings + handlebar mustaches per urban dweller might make a good sample), no other runway stands out as much. Hipsters aren’t just self-righteous nerds or stylish baristas who have nothing else to contribute to society but post-post-post-modernism and burnt coffee. Hipsters are today’s flappers and beatniks, attaching pop-social justice, digitalized art and progressive self-destruction to their iPods, bicycles and patchwork cardigans.

As one-dimensional labels represent exclusivity rather than community, the paradox of being a hipster is not something you can buy at Urban Outfitters. Whether you’re in, out or safely ironic, be aware of the hipster spectrum that ranges from a low of desperation to a high of condescension, as their presence reminds us that Hollywood and McDonald’s are not the only defining elements of American culture.

Developing diversity with another wave of consumerism, the likes of vegan restaurants paired with trendy thrift stores have ironically led to the increase of housing prices in pockets of the Bay Area, driving lower-income residents away. The Mission district of San Francisco is one of many neighborhoods that is changing to accommodate so-called “hipsterfication.” Hipsters aren’t just the credit-whores of rich parents, but self-sufficient pimps establishing another socioeconomic class. Duly an American development, does the hipster stem from this country’s colonial roots?

Academically the phenomenon of gentrification, insurance-backed and temp working hipsters alike are taking over every nook and cranny they can afford without getting shot in a drive-by. You’ll see a health supermarket or two in the midst of Oakland’s liquor stores, and dimly lit jazz bars among the Tenderloin’s poppin’ streets. Though the fashion-friendly hipster may not yet be your imaginary Oakland resident, our neighboring city’s development is a reflection of the hipster culture’s growing legitimacy in society.

It’s nothing new, this reality of being poor and rich at the same time, a spectacle of being a well-dressed, self-proclaimed rebel and a mindless drone altogether. Owning a Macbook while paying for a phone without a web connection, shopping at the Salvation Army with a platinum credit card, drinking cans of PBR after swilling five different kinds of whiskey in an evening of repose. The hipster culture could be just another part of consumerism that we love to hate, or another lifestyle that we might try to emulate.

We may lazily mock them with beanies and flannel shirts at costume parties, and glare when their vapid gazes and slouching backs counteract our hurried walks and caffeinated grins. But what does that even mean? Their deadpan demeanor seems to make such an effort to piss us off. Cop-outs, posers, losers and burn-outs, they perch at BART stations and bus stops in clouds of smoke so thick that they can’t even see what’s going on around them. Hipsters suck worse than their imported beer and organic cigarettes, and they don’t really care.

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In a matter of seconds you can get updates from your favorite news outlets or tell the world about your meanderings. You can check out your favorite website to get a good laugh, or you can post something obnoxiously personal on one of your many social media profiles.

Have five minutes to kill before class? Browse through pictures on Reddit. Think of something clever? Tweet that thing — the world is waiting on all 140 characters of your drivel. Hanging out with friends at Jupiter’s? Check in on Facebook; that person who just happens to be everywhere you are (alone, though) might need an update.

But like most things, the smartphone has a few drawbacks. Battery life is something a lot of people complain about. Another is the fact that you buy a phone today, only to see Apple or one of its competitors offer an upgraded version tomorrow for a similar price. These are legitimate concerns that should be addressed by someone, but I think I’ll pass.

Instead I’d like to bring to light one of my core concerns regarding smartphones: their users.

Full disclosure: I, too, am guilty of some of the ensuing smartphone sins. But since it is the Lenten season, let’s thump some Bibles and let the wild repent start.

The concept is pretty simple: When you are hanging out with someone or some people, leave your phone in your pocket. And for God’s sake, please don’t put it out on the table.

Are you timing our conversation? Or just recording it? Oh, I get it, you’re not doing any of those things. You’re just being an ass.

When someone puts their phone down on the table, it makes the conversation at hand seem suddenly less important. It’s as if at any moment, that special call (like anyone calls anymore) or text will come through and rescue you from the dullness of person-to-person interaction. What good are facial expressions when you have the emoji? And an actual conversation, Face Time included (Skype doesn’t count), is so obviously inferior to the range of tone, inflection and body language you can achieve via text that the former is nearly obsolete.

But even then, there are things more socially egregious than putting your phone out on display. You could text and talk, which is about as distracting as texting and driving.

If you’re waiting on a text, just let it wait in your pocket. Is there anything more obnoxious than someone looking at their phone, grinning or, even worse, laughing, as you sit across from them? For the sake of argument, I am going to say no.

Texting while sitting with your friend or friends says you’ve got more important people to attend to. And even if that’s true, you are still violating a code of social conduct (being present) by actively texting in front of company. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, a text-and-talk kind of person — someone who does this regularly — is the kind of person who is their own biggest fan. A schmoozer, a hand-shaker, or in short, a very bad politician in the making.

But we can’t really call them out, because most of us have been complicit in the same behavior at one time or another. And since most people wouldn’t get the goodnatured humor of smacking the phone from their hands screaming, “Are you not entertained?” our options become few.

Hence our Lenten challenge. It’s nondenominational; hell, it can even be nontheist and called the 40-day nondouche dare. But no matter what you call it or how long you endure, just give it a go. Put your phone in your pocket and release yourself from the quotidian nightmare of Tweets and check-ins. Throw caution to the wind and dare to strike up a conversation with someone outside of your classroom instead of browsing Reddit, and give your friends a fighting chance to have a real conversation with you.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll notice the contours of a person’s face actually do hold some value the emoji can’t capture. Or that the sound of their voice synced with the movement of their lips and the language of their body can actually relay what someone means pretty well compared to the text message. And if none of those reasons entice you, think of your fingers. I think they’re probably overdue for some rest — God knows they deserve it.

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