Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 21 | Friday, February 26, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Corp. to consider budget priorities By Sydney Ember and Nicole Friedman News Editors
Faced with the task of further reducing the University’s projected budget deficit by $30 million, the Corporation will convene this weekend to finalize plans to balance next fiscal year’s operating budget and discuss the University’s academic priorities. Brown’s highest governing body will receive the University Resources Committee’s recommendations — which include the Organizational
adding that the University expects to come away from the weekend with a more solidified plan to further reduce the budget deficit. Part of the Corporation’s decision will involve analysis of the 14 ORC subcommittees’ recommendations for reducing the budget and increasing the University’s efficiency, Carey said. The ORC recommendations were outlined in a report released Feb. 2 and include streamlining University administration and cutting operating costs from various
Review Committee’s proposed solutions accounting for $14 million of the total reduction goal — and President Ruth Simmons’ recommendations for next fiscal year’s budget, tuition and other fees, including increased investment in financial aid, said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, senior vice president for Corporation affairs and governance. Discussion of significant capital projects is also on the Corporation’s weekend agenda, he said. The goal of this weekend’s summit is to “balance the budgets and deal with the deficits,” Carey said,
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French film festival starts at Cable Car By Corina Chase Contributing Writer
The 13th annual Providence French Film Festival opened Thursday with a screening of “Flandres (Flanders)”, directed by Bruno Dumont, followed by Andre Techine’s “La fille du RER (The girl on the train).” The festival this year will consist of 18 different films, which are all “a little bit on the edge,” said Senior Lecturer in French Studies Shoggy Waryn.
ARTS & CULTURE The Department of French Studies, along with numerous faculty, graduate and undergraduate
news in brief
Student robbed at gunpoint on Transit Street A Brown student was robbed at gunpoint at approximately 7:41 p.m. on Tuesday, according to an e-mail sent to members of the Brown community Thursday. The victim had gotten out of his car behind his Transit Street residence when the suspect pulled out a handgun and told the victim to hand over his money, according to the police report. The suspect, a black or Hispanic male in his early 20s, escaped on foot with the victim’s BlackBerry and cash after attempting to steal the victim’s car, the police report said. The victim was unharmed.
inside
— Claire Peracchio
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volunteers, organized the festival, which is co-sponsored by the Department of Modern Culture and Media. The festival runs through March 7 at the Cable Car Cinema. Though several films focus on “changing states” and “changing status,” Waryn said, this year’s festival aims to showcase the great variety of films produced in the Francophone world. Youenn Kervennic, a lecturer in French studies, said the organizers wanted to present an “eclectic” mix of films. The Department of French Studies incorporates the films, which are screened in French with English subtitles, into many of its courses, encouraging or requiring French students to attend some of
the screenings. Waryn explained that the festival was designed to complement the activities of the department. Both Waryn and Kervennic said they hope the festival will help to dispel some myths about French cinema — for example, that French films are always serious and usually confusing. The organizers of this year’s festival began working almost immediately after last year’s finished, Waryn said. They looked at films that did well in 2009, returned to films they previously could not show and got ideas from several other film festivals, eventually accumulating a wish list of titles. continued on page 4
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Occidental College professor Ron Buckmire participated in a panel on California’s Proposition 8 in Salomon 101 Thursday night.
Prop. 8 panel discusses race and sexuality
By Kristina Klara Contributing Writer
Civil unions give same-sex couples “only half a loaf” because they are still denied many federal rights and the title of marriage, Occidental College professor and LGBT advocate Ron Buckmire told a nearly empty Salomon 101 Thursday night. About 20 people gathered to hear a panel of advocates for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community discuss race,
sexuality, religion and same-sex marriage. Roger Williams School of Law Professor Courtney Cahill, Washington Consulting Group advocate Reverend Jamie Washington and Buckmire comprised the panel. The panel discussion centered around California’s Proposition 8, which declared, “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Supcontinued on page 2
With iTunes apps, students join the gold rush By Sara Luxenberg Staff Writer
iPhone users have hundreds of thousands of choices at their fingertips, and now some Brown developers are getting in on the game. Through the App Store, iPhone and iPod touch owners can download apps — extra features that users can download to their Apple phones — that pertain to every aspect of their lives. The possibilities, however, don’t stop at the users.
FEATURE Through the app market, Apple has opened up opportunities for independent software developers: a chance to make a profit, a new medium for development and the opportunity to compete with huge companies to make the next hit app. Several games, an automatic volume adjuster and a pregnancy test all got their genesis from Brown students who have already experienced the rewards and challenges of entering this growing market.
Applying themselves Creating an app is not a simple process, as new developers must familiarize themselves with both Apple’s programming language and the compilers that contain the numerous files of code. Developers must work exclusively in Objective-C, a programming language developed by Apple that is “different from what’s taught” in computer science classes at Brown, said developer Eshan Mitra ’12, a Herald cartoonist. Eric Stix ’12, who created his first app just over a year ago, described the language as a “Java-C hybrid.” He added that knowing both Java and C before writing his first app “was a big help” in learning to code in Objective-C. “When I started making apps, the iPhone had only been out for maybe a year or two,” said Ethan Richman ’13. “There were not that many resources online” for using Objective-C and handling error messages and other problems, he said. While today there are many tutorials online, “there’s still a lot of trial and
error” in the coding process, Richman said. Developers are responsible for coding everything that users will see. “You have to program your app and create all the content for it, whether it be images, sounds or textual content,” said Paul Kernfeld ’12. “With the iPhone, it is specifically a challenge to make sure you can fit everything you want in the pretty small amount of screen space,” Kernfeld added. New developers must also register with Apple. This registration has a $100 price tag and gives the developer all of the software needed to create an app, including a way to test applications, Kernfeld said. Critical review Once a developer has created an app, it can’t hit the marketplace just yet. The program must also be approved by the App Store Review Team — a process that can be a serious hurdle. “The approval process is pretty notorious for being opaque,” Kernfeld said. “They often don’t provide
much information about what goes on behind the scenes.” Stix attempted to make an app that recreated the iPod shuffle on the iPhone, but he said it was denied by Apple early in the development process for copying an Apple product, even though it was going to be produced “exclusively for their devices,” he said. “When you sign up to be an apps developer,” the company’s agreement “basically says Apple’s allowed to accept or reject whatever they want,” Stix added. Richman also ran into problems with the review team. After creating an information-based app that included a questionnaire to help determine if the user might be pregnant, Richman also created a humorous, vulgar version of the same questionnaire. “I got a call from Apple when they were reviewing,” he said. “This guy was giving me a hard time for having little stick figures” reflecting varying levels of sexual promiscuity, he said. Richman added that he was forced continued on page 3
News, 2
Arts, 4
Opinions, 7
The regulator A RISD senior designed a device to end all devices (on standby)
Alum’s play opening Curtains up on “Dead Man’s Cellphone” by Sarah Ruhl ’97 MFA’01
Got absolutism? Emily Breslin ’10 takes on the moral relativists at universities
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