Issuu

Pipe Dream and the student body shares their love with ehart filled valentines. See Page 2

Bhangra Fever

Bringing Sexy Back

Binghamton University hosts Indian dance competition, See page 2

With a new album out, Justin Timberlake is again trying to top the music industry, See page 6

PIPE DREAM Tuesday, February 19, 2013 | Binghamton University | www.bupipedream.com | Vol. LXXXIII, Issue 7

BTV relaunches channel, once again After three turbulent years, BTV, rebranded TheNewBTV, celebrated its official comeback with a grand opening ceremony Friday afternoon. BTV President Alex Kleiner, a senior double-majoring in computer science and cinema, spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony held in the New University Union basement before a crowd that included BTV staff and curious students, as well as Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger and Brian Rose, vice president for student affairs. “Just two years ago, BTV was nothing

more than a basement,” Kleiner said in his speech. “It lacked focus. It lacked motivation. It lacked dedication and it lacked equipment. Despite having the odds against us, by constantly being followed by the stigma of the previous generations of BTV that they endured, and despite having the SA last year cut our funding to just a few hundred dollars, we have successfully completed TheNewBTV.” Kleiner added that TheNewBTV had been running for some time before the launch party. “We have had all-day content on our station for months,” he said. “We know it works because we’ve done it for months. So this grand opening is us opening up and

saying, ‘We are here, we are ready, we know it, and we are going to run full-scale operations from here on in.’” It was an important milestone for an organization whose future looked bleak after crushing budget cuts from the Student Association left BTV with only $1,000 for the year, compared to $5,000 in 2011-12 and $15,000 in 2010-11. “When I first started with BTV about a year and a half ago, they had just gotten cameras,” said Scott Sommer, production manager at BTV and a senior majoring in cinema. “We didn’t have any money for GIMs or for equipment. We could barely keep all the equipment we had from breaking because

it was all so old. Our budget was at the point of being cut completely. We didn’t think that we would survive the semester, and that really scared us into shape.” However, TheNewBTV received support from University administrators. In particular, Brian Rose assisted TheNewBTV in acquiring the necessary broadcasting and production equipment to get the station up and running again, according to Kleiner. “We actually met with them in the beginning of the fall semester and went through some of their needs,” Rose said. “We helped them make some decisions about

— Harvey Stenger BU president

Too close for comfort, or not

After thousands of videos flooded YouTube this month featuring wild dances to Baauer’s “Harlem Shake,” Binghamton University students Rob Miles and Gilad Gamliel are organizing students to gather at 9 p.m. today to create their own version of this month’s seemingly biggest web trend. “My roommate of two years and current housemate … and I were sitting around Friday afternoon and watching a ton of ‘Harlem Shake’ videos,” said Miles, a junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law. “We just thought the videos were ridiculous, fun and generally a good time, so we decided, ‘Let’s put up a Facebook event with “Harlem Shake” in giant capital letters and see what happens.’ All of a sudden the event starts blowing up and we are nearing a 300-person threshold.” Though they share a name, the “Harlem Shake” videos that went viral this month seem to be their own craze, unaffiliated with the dance made popular in the early 1980’s. Typically, the new wave of “Harlem Shake” videos begin with one person dancing to the song as it builds, followed by a room — or office, swimming pool, stadium or library — full of people dancing. The “Harlem Shake” has been recreated by countless others, including several others from BU, but Miles was confident that he and Gamliel could produce a version of the video that could compete with the others out there. “If even close to 300 people show up, it’s an automatic win,” Miles said. “Just the sheer number of Binghamton kids showing up and having a good time with hysterical moves and

costumes is awesome in itself. Plus, who doesn’t want to see a video of kids going crazy and their school getting a little YouTube love?” Tonight’s “Harlem Shake” video will keep with the common trend of having its participants dressed in random, crazy costumes. Other videos have featured outfits ranging from Big Bird to Star Wars characters — and everywhere in between. “I’m looking for kids to bring their weirdest costumes and outfits and, when the camera comes on, take it to an unheard of level of ‘Harlem Shake,’” Miles said. Gamliel said he wasn’t sure what to expect. “We’re really hoping to just see a huge turnout” said Gamliel, a junior majoring in English. “We know that some of these videos are pretty crazy and ridiculous so we’re recommending people bring costumes and hats. I know a couple of people are bringing hot dog and Batman costumes and we have a pretty decent selection of hats in our house.” Hannah Kittrell, a sophomore majoring in integrative neuroscience, plans to attend the video shoot in footie pajamas. “It’s cool how a lot of the student body is coming together for the same random reason,” Kittrell said. “Hopefully it’s funny!” Lindsay O’Neill-Caffrey, a junior double-majoring in environmental studies and political science, said she just doesn’t understand the “Harlem Shake” video meme. “This is just another one of those Internet phenomena that is going to serve as a way for older generations to look down on our clearly anti-intellectual obsessions and ambitions,” O’Neill-Caffrey said.

closeness. “How close is a healthy amount of closeness?” Frost asked. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re too close or not close enough.” According to Frost, what matters is the discrepancy itself. “People who have the least discrepancies tend to be the most satisfied,” Frost said. “Closeness discrepancies are negatively associated with relational wellbeing and mental health outcomes.” The studies measured relational well-being by relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and how often an individual considered breaking up with his or her partner. In Frost’s studies, thousands of individuals rated both their ideal and actual levels of closeness on a scale of one to six — one being Michael Contegni/Contributing Photographer the least close, six being the closest. David Frost, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, speaks to students about The average ideal level of closeness relationships in the Science Library on Monday afternoon. was between four and five. “The majority of people in the Health, spoke before roughly 100 two recent studies on closeness sample were not getting as much people Monday afternoon about in relationships, which focused closeness as they wanted,” Frost relationships that are too close — specifically on the discrepancy said. David M. Frost, an assistant or maybe, not close enough — for between individuals’ ideal level Those who claimed that their professor at Columbia University’s comfort. of closeness to their partner Mailman School of Public Frost shared the findings of his compared to their actual level of

Paul Barone became Binghamton University’s Jeopardy champion on Saturday, comfortably winning the campuswide competition to bring the title home to Newing College. A contestant each from Dickinson Community, Hinman College and Mountainview College, in addition to Barone from Newing College, competed in the finals at Old Union Hall. Each community had previously held building and community preliminaries to select a champion. After several rounds of Jeopardy, Barone took away the first-place prize of a Kindle Fire and $75 to the University Bookstore. “I didn’t really expect to win, but

I still was hopeful,” said Barone, a event from their budget. in biology. “I thought it would be sophomore double-majoring in “I hoped people would have a great to make it a University-wide biology and Italian. lot of fun, learn a few things,” said He won with a final score of Frodey, a sophomore majoring 2,900 points. His fellow competitors lost with scores of -100 and 100. The categories in the event included “I said ‘No,’” “Science,” “’Holy’ Category,” “Cooking” and “The Webs of Websites.” Barone, a trivia game veteran, said he hopes to participate in more campus-wide trivia events. “I would do it again, given the chance,” Barone said. “I knew I had nothing to lose.” University Jeopardy was initially a Hinman College event, according to Brian Frodey, a coordinator for University Jeopardy, but other Kendall Loh/Assistant Photo Editor communities joined in after Frodey Michael Levine, left, a junior double-majoring in finance and actuarial science, reached out to them. He said each covers his answer from Matthew Teich, a junior majoring in geology, and Tim community contributed to the Friedmann, a sophomore majoring in biology, during the Final Jeopardy round of the competition on Saturday afternoon.