MTA Raises Fare Price…Again

One of many seemingly minor MTA service chages that become a major inconvenience for thousands of people. Photo by Khalid Straker

One could almost feel the collective inaudible groan when the MTA fare prices increased yet again in March.

In an interview, twenty year old York College Student Jason Robinson said “It’s pretty annoying. I remember being in high school and paying two dollars to get on the bus and here I am just a few years later in college and taking that same bus for two seventy-five. I feel like if I blink I’ll be paying three bucks all of a sudden. They know they have a monopoly going and they know this city needs them so they can pretty much jerk us around however they want and we have to take it I guess.” There are many people in New York City that are angry like Robinson. There are other are simply saddened by the hike. In an interview York College Student and mother of one Christine Rhodes said “It’s just another money hole in my life that grew. I have to worry about feeding my son. I have to worry about tuition I have to worry about rent. I have to worry about so many other things that take tiny bites out of my paychecks. The extra twenty-five cents to get on the train may seem small to people that have money but for me little things like that add up. I get inflation, I know things just go up in price every few years. It’s just really hard to keep up you know?”

While customers seem to view the hike as a greedy move by the MTA, the employees that work for them see a different picture. In an interview, a train operator that opted to remain anonymous said “People don’t really look at the full picture. They just see the price go up and they complain. They complain about the trains being slow or dirty. But they’re dirty because those same people leaving trash on it and they’re slow because of things like people throwing trash on the tracks. And then who has to clean up that stuff? The MTA. How are they going to pay those people. How are they going to pay to repair the damage Sandy did? How are they going to pay for those tons of free passes all the kids use to go to school? How are they going to pay all those unsung heroes that keep the best public transportation system in the world going? The trains and buses don’t grow on trees either. Eventually they have to raise the price. And then people complain about track repairs. It’s like, you know we do that to stop an accident that kills like a thousand people right?”

There are several ways to look at the MTA but traveling in New York City can be very difficult and it may just be complete chaos without the MTA. In 2005 when there was an MTA strike, a plethora of major problems were caused despite the strike lasting only 60 hours. There is already another price hike on the horizon and whether the general public accepts the hikes as a fact of life or a breaking point is reached remains to be seen.

Nano Days 2015

By Khalid Straker, 4/16/15

During Spring Break the New York Hall of Science swarmed with visitors who took turns stopping in their tracks wondering what the two explainers behind the table were up to, sometimes even forming lines.

The New York Hall of Science were one of the many museums that took part in the annual Nano Days event. Nano Days is a nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering and its potential impact on the future crated by the Nanoscale Inform Science Education Network. The first week of events that went nationwide was in 2008 with over 100 institutes participating. Now in 2015 over 250 institutes participated and one of those is the New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens. Nano Days is made with people of all ages in mind and tries to engage them in learning about the growing field of science, which holds the promise of developing revolutionary materials and technologies.

The Hall of Science employs Explainers for the purpose of facilitating the museum experience and helping visitors understand exactly what they are seeing. Throughout Nano days there were two explainers at the exhibit at all times. In an interview, Hall of Science Explainer Shanna Ramsamooj spoke about how much she enjoyed the event. “I was looking forward to it since we were told it was going to happen.” She said “We got to use these tools that the [Nanoscale Inform Science Education Network] sent us and they helped us explain Nano-Technology and what it can do for us in the future. It was really cool to see visitors react to the exhibits and be really interested in the science behind them. It’s a shame it only lasted a week though.” The materials she mentioned include sand coated in the polymer polydimethylsiloxane which turns it into kinetic sand and sand coated in silicon which turns it into “Magic Sand” which is basically hydrophobic sand that doesn’t let water go through it as if it were a table made of marble. There were also aluminum blocks and pieces of graphite that showed off exactly what thermal conductors can do by quickly melting blocks of ice in comparison to a block of foam.

A piece of graphite quickly cuts through an ice cube to demonstrate thermal conductivity. Photo by Khalid Straker

“The goal here is to make the visitors aware of what Nano is,” said Explainer William Davalos in an interview. “We want them to know that it’s referring to a measurement that it one billionth of a meter small. That means we’re talking about things that are so little, you can’t even see this stuff on a microscope. We also want them to see how those billions of happenings on the Nano scale affect what happens and what we see with our own eyes on the macro scale. So there’s so many little tiny things going on that it becomes a big thing and that’s what we want people to learn.”

Another driving point of the event is to encourage visitors to think of how these things can be used.  The hydrophobic sand coated in silicon was actually created to clean up oil spills in the ocean. The sand can coat the oil in the water and bind to it while never mixing with the water so it can actually serve as an isolation balloon for the oil. The oil will eventually clump together and sink to the bottom of the ocean. This method isn’t done anymore as it is very expensive and scientists aren’t sure about how environmentally safe it is. However silicon is still used on other objects because its resistance to water is very useful. There are a lot of electric wires and even pants that use silicon to avoid getting wet. Aluminum and graphite are also used for their ability to quickly conduct heat. There is actually graphite in laptops that take the heat generated and pass it from the processor to the fan where the hot air can be blown out to keep the computer cool. Foam is a poor thermal conductor so it actually keeps heat where it is. That is why there are many jackets laced in foam so keep the heat on the wearer. Foam is even used in food containers for the same purpose. Many visitors actually figured out these uses on their own and some came to much more colorful conclusions like using polydimethylsiloxane, a polymer that helps objects stick to one another, to climb walls like Spider-Man.

Needless to say, Nano Days 2015 was a success in the New York Hall of Science and the staff is looking forward to Nano Days 2016.

New Cameras are Coming to York College

By Khalid Straker

 

The York College Communications Technology department is filled with classes that help to prepare students for real-world production. This ranges from audio editing, to shooting scenes and adding effects. Naturally, this requires a lot of production equipment and the department is constantly trying to get more equipment to improve it’s capacity to teach.

When asked if the York College Communications Technology Department had any new equipment on the way, College Assistant Kevin Aponte immediately pointed out the new cameras on the horizon. “The cameras should be arriving soon. It may sound like a little thing but they’ll really do a lot for the department” he said.

Aponte also confirmed that the incoming cameras won’t be replacing the ones that are currently in the studio but simply adding to them. Right now the studio is capable of a three camera shoot which is good. However, adding to that number would vastly increase the production potential. Several course would benefit form this such as CT 240, the Studio Television Production course. The class revolves around producing a live studio show and a major part of is to play the production director. That role includes monitoring several camera shots, giving the camera operations instructions, and telling the technical director when to switch between the camera shots. Right now students of that course can only monitor and switch between three cameras. However, with the new cameras that number would increase. It would be more challenging but on the other side of that coin it would be more stimulating and productive. On top of that, it would create a more realistic situation since live high quality productions often have much more than three cameras. A regionally televised NFL game has about ten cameras, a  nationally televised game has about twenty, and the Super Bowl has up to sixty.

Even a class such as CT 210, Portrait Documentary, can benefit from having more cameras. Documentaries tend to be shot with one or maybe two cameras. However there is a part of the course where the professor will have to give the students a hands-on tutorial of how to use the cameras and properly light a set. Normally this leads to large portions of the class bunched together trying to share the three cameras and making sure everyone gets a chance to touch them. But with more cameras, the hands-on portion of the tutorial would go a lot more smoothly as more cameras would help expedite the process.

In addition to the cameras, adjustable poles that can raise and lower studio lights are also on the way. These poles can hold onto lights from above and someone can easily adjust the height of the light. Once again this sounds like a minor detail but can go very far in production. Lighting is essential in production because the manipulation of shadows can make or break a visual. These poles would help speed up the lighting process and time is crucial in both school assignments and real world production.

With more cameras come more possibilities and since the Communications Technology department is such a vehicle for creativity and production training, that is great news. They would help student prepare for more realistic scenarios while improving the efficiency of camera tutorials overall. The Communications Technology department is a farm for workers in the production field that is constantly looking for news ways to improve its output.