Back in the day...

Technology ruined baseball. And Times Square. Or maybe that was Bloomberg and the throngs of tourists. Either way, Times Square is getting an overhaul to make it, if you can believe it, “minimalistic.” (NY Daily News)

In one of the most poorly kept secrets of all time, it’s official: Jay-Z and a small consortium of Russian billionaires are “moving the Nets to BK.” Same name, new stadium. (NYT)

Technology isn’t all that bad though; IBM and handful of other companies are planning on pumping $4 Billion research dollars into New York State. (CNET)

Your newly bought Macbook Pro is safe too! Three suspects have been arrested for snatching laptops after a joint operation with 26^th Precinct and Columbia Public Safety, after thefts at Hartley, ADP, and Theta. (Spec)

Now you’ll finally be able to Tweet and update your status from the comfort of the 14^th Street Subway Station with the arrival of AT&T and T-Mobile wireless. Don’t hold your breath on the remaining 271 stations; the rollout costs upwards of $200 million dollars and is expected to be completed in 2015. (Gothamist)

Retro Times Square via Wikimedia Commons

SCIENCE

Columbia scientists take no vacations!

Defying conventional medical technology, one Columbia engineer has decided to build his way out of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The mChip, now passing its fourth year of testing, aims to deliver the diagnostic capabilities of a full-fledged lab to patients on a hundred-dollar chip. In case that’s not impressive, the lab-on-a-chip has a 100-percent detection rate for HIV in only 15 minutes testing time. The project’s team hopes to extend the chip’s superpowers to also detecting hepatitis B or C as well as the most common sexually-transmitted diseases. The team even plans to integrate the chip with satellite or cell phone equipment in order to transmit results wirelessly to doctors—though in a post-Steve Jobs world, we can only hope that all that miniaturization doesn’t get in the way of usability.

Seismologists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory briefly poked their heads into the media to help ease New Yorker’s concerns over this week’s earthquake. In addition to helping bump up the quake from a 5.8 to a 5.9, the scientists are going to use the collected data to learn more about the underlying rock. Who knows, maybe they’ll find an entire village buried beneath Central Park.

For the first time ever, Columbia neuroscientists were able to convert ordinary skin cells into functional forebrain neurons using direct reprogramming techniques. The recent achievement offers a glimmer of promise for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. While gene therapy has shown its success in treating “bubble boy” disease, we wonder if someone has tried their regeneration experiment on a familiar campus icon.

A new study by the university’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has found that teenagers who use online social networking sites are more likely to engage in drug use. The risk increases fivefold for tobacco, threefold for alcohol, and twofold for marijuana. Some even say a parallel can be drawn to another cultural phenomenon involving ironic facial hair. (Just say no, 2015ers)

Scientists via Wikimedia Commons

No hipster mustaches or fedoras were harmed in the making of this Bwog post.

Two Joe employees examine the existential questions surrounding seafood-dish viscosity, in front of the new vending machines:

”I’m just uncomfortable with calling ceviche a soup.”

Image of a seafood dish that can’t be comfortably referred to as a soup via Wikimedia.

Just in case you needed another reason to hate hipsters.

That’s right, Urban Outfitters has officially landed in the Upper West Side–on Broadway near 100th street. It’s still above 96th. That means it’s close! This is sure to give the 110th-based American Apparel a run for its money in the formerly uncontested onesie/bodysuit market (Playboy Bunny costume sales from Ricky’s don’t count).

These are hipsters. Photo via ret0dd's Photostream.

But if you were worried about UO’s arrival corrupting the serene character of the UWS, never fear! This UO masquerades as four separate storefronts–a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar, and a bodega. According to Ron Pompei, the creative director of Pompei A.D., the firm that designed the store, ”The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses. It’s the story about the streets of New York as they once were.” Oh, hipsters and their ironic facades (in this case, we mean the architectural ones). Just stick with clever t-shirts and go back to Billyburg.

A lovely spring afternoon on the Steps. A man wearing a tie-dye shirt gives some advice to a friend:

“It’s spring, so you need to get Tevas. These things are unstoppable!”

Break out the cheap wine and hors d’oeuvres: there’s an art installation on your Metrocard. (NY Times)

Mayor Bloomberg makes a $125 million impulse buy. (NY Daily News)

Hipsters are arrested in Williamsburg for their overzealous labeling (and drug possession). (The Brooklyn Paper)

The Department of Transportation says it’s “Gridlock Alert” Day; thanks, but we already had a reason to celebrate. (1010 Wins, Spec)

Times Square buzzes with the thrill of creation. (LoHud)

Andrew Cuomo v.  the President of 9/11 (NY Post).

The University Senate gets meta (Spec).  

There’s something in the water at Harvard (Gawker). 

The Office of Multicultural Affairs: Where Everyone Knows Your Name  (Spec).

Rachel Ray saves the world with whole-wheat flatbread and free-range chicken (CityRoom).

Hipsters worry that Williamsburg = Belfast circa 1970 (NY Daily News).

Barnard girls just can’t decide who they want to be president — lets hope no one demands a recount (Spec).

Rich people are getting old men arrested for trying to save cats (NY Post).

Columbia students are allowed to go places no one else gets to go, but not on the South Lawn (Spec).

Super Size Me be damned, Moms claim that McDonald’s is actually good for you (NY Daily News).

“It’s just a cultural thing”: H&H sells more bagels on Yom Kippur than on any other day of the year (NYT).

Graduating this month? The new Fed‘s got great advice to help you through your transition over the next few weeks. You won’t find the inside scoop on graduating from college anywhere else!

Do not, by any means, let the stress of graduating affect your vigilance in the War on Hipsters. If we don’t stop them, they’ll be starting their own country any day now.

It’s probably a good idea to have sex in some outrageous place on campus before you leave. Once you’re just a creepy grad hanging around, it gets a lot harder.

If you’re about to graduate with an Urban Studies major, well, don’t do that.

Academic jargon doesn’t fly in the real world. Familiarize yourself with the hip lingo before you leave Morningside and make an ass of yourself.

If you haven’t had the nightmare about bagging groceries for the rest of your life yet, you should get on that. 

You should also probably start mentally adjusting to your shitty new job as soon as possible. Seek counseling in advance. Meth always helps, too.

Since we know there’s only so much Hulu you can keep watching, Bwog’s enlisted comedy expert and television aficionado Rob Trump to guide us through the wonderful world of web series. First up: The Burg. 

The Burg’s most recent short, “Jump,” [Sorry, we would embed video, but it's not working -- Ed.] opens with a cheap jab: “Have you guys seen this new ‘Hipster Olympics’ video?” gushes Ryan, the preppie-out-of-water, “They make all these jokes… like hipsters wearing tight jeans.  It’s so true!”  Cue Xander: “I couldn’t get through that shit.”  And uber-hip Jed: “I don’t watch things with the word ‘hipster’ in them.”

Just like that, The Burg shows why it’s so much funnier and smarter than all the other milquetoast hipster-satire out there.  The show, a sitcom centered on five hipsters (well, four hipsters and Ryan) living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, doesn’t just check off hipster stereotypes laundry-list style, it engages the truly hipper-than-thou persona of the main characters.  There’s Xander, the excitable film auteur whose dress style pushes the boundary between intentional and unintentional irony; Courtney, the morally indifferent aspiring actress; Spring, the righteously liberal activist of the group; and my favorite character, Jed, the sour know-it-all and bass player in the band Sea Monkey Do.  They’re all hipsters– that’s obvious enough — but they have importantly differentiable personae and potentials for disparate storylines and conflicts, which the team behind the show exploits wonderfully.

Read more…

Is Morningside Heights doomed to the depths of hipsterdom?

All signs point to yes. Hipster overlord Todd P‘s Showpaper, a Brooklyn-based DIY zine focusing on upcoming independent concerts, is coming to Morningside, specifically Kim’s. (In other news, writing the phrase “Brooklyn-based DIY zine focusing on upcoming independent concerts” is something like a crime against humanity, or a sign of the impending apocalypse. Or maybe both!)

“Previously the sheet could only be found in the lower east side, Chelsea, Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Green Point,” explains an email announcing Showpaper’s arrival.

And so Morningside Heights joins the ranks of Bushwick and the Lower East Side as the latest area to experience the chilling aftermath of American Apparel’s manifest destiny. Godspeed, irony, godspeed.

- JNW

A motley band representing Philolexian Society cell CRUSHP (a one-syllable shortening of the Committee for Rectifying the Unphilolexian Sneaky Hipster Problem) has gathered on the Sundial and is hurling insults at passing hipsters. Hipsters, thus far, have not been too affected, because the catcalls are still quieter than the Norwegian middle school-themed songs blasting on their iPods.

For all the hipster-haters out there seeking oneliners, CRUSHP’s finer slogans include “no label, no talent!” and “their new album is better than their first!” Manhattanville expansion opponents might appropriate the chant, “What do we want? Sincerity! When do we want it? Now!” And they would surely ask CRUSHP’s permission before taking it for themselves.

In the interest of honest journalism, Bwog has been debating among itself all morning whether it has been infiltrated by too many hipsters to cover this story without bias. Indeed, Bwog may have been the target of a CRUSHPer hollering “skinny jeans reduce your sperm count.” Bwog was only semi-hurt, as this correspondent would prefer to keep her sperm count low.

More photos after the jump

Read more…

It’s the summer, The Heights is painfully empty, campus is strangely quiet, maybe it’s time to go beyond Columbia’s gates and head into… the outer boroughs. Bwog staffer Lucy Tang treks to Bushwick to get punched in the face, so one day, you can too! 

The last time I was in a mosh pit, I got punched in the face. Serves me right, I suppose, for seeing Fall Out Boy (though to be fair, I was 13, and not actually there to see Fall Out Boy). Then last Friday the 22^nd, my face was once again trampled; same skinny jeans, less studded Hot Topic belts.

The occasion? 

A Todd P show. Read more…

Yesterday was a perfect day in our ever-more perfect union for a perfect sport:  kickball. Emma Jacobs writes in that WKCR crushed WBAR in the semi-annual Station Game, held in Central Park. The final score was 13-2, ‘KCR.  Unfortunately WBAR members forgot to bring the trophy.  They did, however, remember their vintage boombox. 

Which station’s programming reigns supreme? You be the decider. Or the commander guy.

More skinny jeans and kickin’ kicks after the jump!

Read more…