Published on
October 15, 2006 in
School.
When I decided to attend the University of Rochester (or rather, when they offered me a scholarship and by doing so made my decision for me) I had a feeling that this school was on an upward trajectory. It’s quite well known in New York, as well as among the academic community, but most people that I know still confuse it with RIT or RPI. I think that this is about to change.
University of Rochester Main Entrance
Rochester recently received two very prestigious rankings, one national and one international. At the end of the summer, Newsweek and Kaplan included us in their list of the 25 Elite New Ivies. The article gives a short blurb about what makes us special — the lack of general education requirements and the high percentage of students that go on to grad school top the list. I was surprised, however, that Brown and Cornell were on our list of “Overlap Schools.” The article defines Overlap Schools as schools specified by admissions directors that many students also consider in addition to their school. Continue reading ‘Rochester’s Recent Accolades’
Today I finally got fed up with the traditional X11 keyboard mapping in Mac OS X. I’m talking specifically about the meta key. Any Mac user who has not delved into the wonderful world of X11 will not know what a meta key is, so let me give some background here. The meta key is a function key, similar to the command key (on Macs) or the ctrl key (on Windows machines).
Its main use is in my favorite text-editor, Emacs, which requires X11 to run. The Emacs philosophy is something that would take hours to discuss, but in short, Emacs users believe that you shouldn’t have to move your hands from the home row typing position when editing text. No use of the mouse or the arrow keys is required. All moving around, deleting text, cutting, copying, etc. is done with a combination of the control key, the meta key, and the standard letters. Check out some of these common Emacs keyboard shortcuts to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Productivity is curbed in Emacs when there is no meta key or when it is in an unfamiliar keyboard spot.
There is a way to switch which key that Mac OS X recognizes as meta by using an X11 keyboard mapping preference file. First, uncheck the “Use the system keyboard layout” option in X11 preferences. You may also have to disable the “Enable keyboard shortcuts under X11″ option as well. Then, create (or add to) the file ~/.Xmodmap and insert the following six lines:
clear Mod1
clear Mod2
keycode 63 = Mode_switch
keycode 66 = Meta_L
add Mod1 = Meta_L
add Mod2 = Mode_switch
It clears the keymappings for alt and escape and then reassigns them to the reverse of what they were before. Restart X11 and it should pick up the changes.
If this was (or wasn’t) helpful, please let me know in the comments!
One of the things I enjoy most upon returning to school in the fall is noticing and appreciating all of the things on campus that have changed during the summer. Longer hours at the dining hall, a new BME/Optics building that is much closer to completion, and some recently renovated classrooms were some of the highlights. The thing that I am most excited about, however, is a new, very cool partnership that our school has begun with a company called Zipcar.
I say that it’s very cool because as of right now it is only available in about ten cities — cities like Boston, Chapel Hill, San Francisco, NYC, Providence, and Washington DC. Also, there are only a limited number of universities with Zipcars on campus, and even fewer with special student discount programs. In partnering with Zipcar, University of Rochester joins the ranks of schools such as Harvard, Brown, BU, Princeton, Columbia, Northeastern, and Georgetown. I did an informal survey of the terms and conditions of the programs at these schools, and found that not only did Rochester have some of the lowest hourly and daily rates, but we are a rarity in that any student here who is older than 19 can sign up for Zipcar. At almost all of the other schools the requirement is that students must be 21+ to register.
This is very exciting for Rochester, as it is a sign that administrators here are looking for creative and innovative ways to make student life better. Continue reading ‘I’m A Zipcar Member’
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