Column

Not everyone wants to be a doctor For the sake of this column, the humanities’ unlikely hero is me. I would like to be taken seriously for once, and I’d like to defend my brothers in English, history, design and all of the other “useless” majors. Entering my first year at Davis, I didn’t comprehend […]

It’s time we join cities around the world and make serious attempts to transition away from cars My utopia is a city with car-free streets. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities, but the traffic and congestion is a primary reason for my irritation with cars. Two summers ago, during a brief visit to […]

Algorithms have taken over and they may never give it back Our social media feeds are no longer an indicator of a ‘natural’ social media experience. The feeds and timelines that are put in front of our faces are algorithmically constructed by the elite in silicon valley.  Of course, social media was never a reflection […]

Treating film as visual literature can make it more worthwhile On the first day of my Intro to Film class, my professor said taking this class would ruin movies for us forever. No longer would we just sit back and take in the thrilling plots or gush over our favorite actors. Instead, a voice in […]

Social media is a game we play against others and ourselves  The video game industry is expected to generate more than $160 billion in revenue this year. It is estimated that 65% of American adults play video games, but we all play digital games of our own each time we scroll through social media.  Gamification […]

No one cares that you’re by yourself I remember being in the eighth grade, reading S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” (as eighth graders do) and coming across the line: “When I see a movie with someone it’s kind of uncomfortable, like having someone read your book over your shoulder.” It always struck me as strange that […]

Why your long-distance relationship is tethering you down In what is the most unabridged capitalization of my own personal turmoil, I’d like to discuss the long-distance relationship. At it’s best, long distance is a best friend in a phone, and at its worst, it’s an incessant obligation to the melodic ‘ping’ of a text.   I’m […]

Raising fares is a possible option for financing public transportation, but it’s more complicated than we think  Public transportation is great for a myriad of reasons — like reducing greenhouse gas emissions and aiding regional economies — but getting public transportation to work effectively is complicated. One possible solution to improve the quality of American […]

Predatory catfish are preying on our loneliness and desperation Tinder announced last week that it would give users a blue checkmark if they passed its new catfishing test. Tinder’s community team will initially screen verified photos to check for potential catfish, with software eventually taking over. But should humans even be trusted to identify catfish […]

Just read the subtitles “We don’t make films for continents or countries — filmmakers create films for their personal dreams and obsessions,” said “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho in an interview with The New York Times. Bong Joon-ho’s achievement of having the ninth foreign film nominated in the Best Picture category is a big accomplishment for […]

Enrich your next urban adventure by leaving the car at home and deleting the Uber app I have spent my entire life in the San Francisco Bay Area. My parents immigrated to the U.S. from Punjab in 1999, and we have been here ever since. Growing up, we always had family visiting, and one of […]

CCPA the first step in race to take back our data privacy In 1890, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called privacy “the right to be left alone.” But we live in a time where it is impossible to be left alone due to technology. Privacy in the digital age is difficult to even define.  […]