The devil in the medical cabinet
Mike remembers what he was doing when actor Heath Ledger died.
He and his friends were speedballing — chasing lines of cocaine followed by crushed-up OxyContin, a pain reliever.
Ledger supposedly died by mixing the same pain reliever Mike and his friends were using with other drugs.
Mike, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, says he and his friends had laughed about it at the time, but he admits Ledger’s death scared him.
Digital classrooms
The dulled vibration of a cell phone or the whirring of a laptop fan are all too familiar sounds in university lecture halls today.
Technology has been on the rise on campus for both students and professors, and that begs the question: is technology distracting students from learning?
There are two sides to the debate of technology in the classroom.
This is your brain online
The Internet is often called the hallmark of the information age, bringing all of the world’s knowledge to our fingertips.
But some researchers argue that ease of access is destroying our ability to focus and changing the way our brains process information — consuming it at a rapid pace without proper reflection.
Artificially smarter
When people think of highly evolved artificial intelligence (AI), images of Hollywood science-fiction movies like The Terminator usually come to mind.
However, by the time scientists have created machines that match or exceed human intelligence, they will probably be different from anything humanity has seen or imagined before.
The term “the singularity” is often used to describe this point in time, when humans will no longer be as smart as their mechanical creations.
Nightlife: drivers for hire
In the rush to get to a party or catch a train, it can be easy to ignore the person behind the wheel of a last-minute cab.
But Carleton students are well-known to Ottawa taxi drivers for both good and bad reasons — and the drivers have some advice for their customers on how to make the ride smooth and respectful for everyone.
On the good side, taxi driver Macbel Abdullah says he has driven some courteous students and has showed the same courtesy to them.
