Letter from OhioState AD Andy Geiger received today, probably sent to the entire alumni association:

Dear Ohio State Football Fan,

Will any of us ever forget the thrills of the 2002 Football Season and the Buckeyes’ triumphant journey to the Fiesta Bowl and the National Championship? An unprecedented fourteen victories. Thrillingly close games. Individual and collective heroics that carried Ohio State to the very top of college football. Most of all, I treasure the sportsmanship, teamwork, and integrity our team demonstrated along the path to success.

Regrettably, other aspects of last season won’t soon be forgotten either. All season, we witnessed and received letters, email, and phone calls telling us of the vulgarity, rudeness, poor sportsmanship – even vandalism – exhibited by some Ohio State “fans.” These people chose a most unfortunate way of “supporting” our team – with a lack of respect for our opponents, for fellow Buckeye fans, and for themselves. They spoiled the day for many.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when the put-down, trash-talking and humiliation have become part of the entertainment and sports culture. This is not the Ohio State way. Not now, not in the past, and certainly not in the future.

Our student-athletes are expected to be role models as representatives of The Ohio State University and I support this notion. However, I believe everyone associated with the University has the same responsibility to make a positive presentation to this community, and to our visitors, any time we host an event.

This season, I am asking for your help. Please let us know of any incidents you witness – or any indignities you suffer personally – either at Ohio Stadium or at an away game. Help us identify those who inflect their poor behaviour on others. Our Department of Athletics has adopted six fundamental values that our coaches, student-athletes, and support staff strive to live by. They are: Education, Integrity, Excellence, Innovation, Respect for the Individual, Leadership.

I urge you, as a member of the Ohio State community, to embrace these core values. You will contribute to making The Ohio State University the very best in everything we do. And, you will help us make our events friendly, wholesome and welcoming for our opponents, their fans, and of course our own Buckeye family.

Cheer heartily for our Buckeyes. Rejoice in the essence of intercollegiate athletics, which allows us to send our sons and daughters into competition with their sons and daughters. But, remember that the great rivalries we enjoy in the Big Ten are built upon a tradition of trust and cooperation. This, tos is worthy of celebration!

Sincerely,

Andy Geiger
Director of Athletics

My take: It is great that the University sent this out. It is a fine first step, and the fact that it did not come bundled with an appeal for money gives it more weight. I hope the University sends this message out 4-5 more times during the season, repetition will help.

Satoshi points to a survey of expected buying behaviour in the US – Satoshi’s Wireless Weblog: User Interface is an Art: Camera phones in US – lots of people want camera phones and p2t. Colour me dubious. I had a p2t phone for years and after a burst of initial activity i quit using it, it just wasn’t that much more convenient than a regular phone call. And I’m on my third camera phone and i hardly ever use the camera. The pictures suck and it is too hard to do anything useful with them. Sure, the pictures will get better, but so will those of my regular digital camera, there will still be a gap. and it will get easier to send and blog the pictures. but geez, i just wish the phone was better at being a phone. better at syncing my address book with my desktop. not dropping so many damn calls. better coverage. easier call history use. all these other non-phone features are just clutter.

I’ll be building a coffin this weekend. Lots of plan choices to choose from. Between Google and the MonsterList there are plenty of plans to start from: Casa de Sade, Full Coffin, The Body Slinger, the Casket Jumper, Scott’s How-To.

I’m reading all these plans tomorrow and then I’ll form my own. Definitely will be animating the lid.

With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative – makes sense. I’d like to see Yahoo groups provide RSS feeds as well.

We were at Pomona College last week and I have to say, the staff was great, everyone was super helpful. And the fact that the student body is the 2nd happiest student body in the country makes us feel good. Good luck L.

Update: some quick feedback on the Pomona IT and telecom resources. Not much WIFI on campus – a few access points but it is not pervasive in the dorms, that’s too bad. Of course they do have 10Mbit links to all the dorm rooms – I wonder when they will switch to 100mbit? On the telecom side, the school recommends T-Mobile but I am underwhelmed with the coverage. Word on the street is that Verizon may be the way to go.

Wow these just keep getting better – PhotographyBLOG -:- Home 4 megapixel AND a 3x optical zoom in a small form factor. I have loved my casio ex-m2, but the picture quality has been so-so. The ex-z3 looks like a great holiday gift i can ask for.

This sounds like a killer product – HP Introduces DVD Movie Writer dc3000 – if you’ve spent anytime trying to move vhs tapes to dvd, you know what a pain it is.

Great counsel here – The Sells Spout – The idea is, no matter what projects you work on, no matter what groups you go to, no matter what tasks you’re into that day, to have an underlying agenda that pushes you forward and drives your decisions. Somewhat a corollary of one of my favorite quotes by Socrates – An unexamined life is not worth living.

OK it is time to get really serious about Halloween preps. I’m way behind as the summer was so busy. Door To Door Storage is delivering my two containers of props next week. And I am planning to do a lot more cemetary work this year, some pneumatics work, perhaps a mad scientist lab setup, some ghosts, and some sound system innovations. Going to be a busy fall.

BallBlog: Fanblogs seeks authors – ok i sent mail to kevin, i might post a few things at fanblogs if they want my admittedly biased views.

Derek compiled a great set of college football previews, many of them a little off the beaten track – BallBlog: Readings

Good pointer from Mike to Spywareinfo – Life of a one-man IT department – great resource for tracking spyware.

Bring On The Bandwidth – start wanking away on DV files – just one tape in raw format from my canon gl1 is 25G in size. Totally a pain in the ass just to transfer around the house, let alone moving it across the WAN. I’m a huge believer in ongoing demand for bandwidth, especially for consumer apps.

If you are a user, time to pony up – Jason DeFillippo’s Journal: Blogrolling Woes

I mentioned this a while back but here is some more press on MIT’s Open Courseware – Wired 11.09: MIT Everyware. What a great great initiative. I want to work my way thru some of these courses in the next year – I haven’t taken a college level course in years, I need to dip my toe back in the water. As my grandfather Cleo says, “the day you stop learning is the day you start dying.”