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As we start the university school year in North America, more students are buying and using Macs and iPhones. In a few cases, universities are giving freshman students Apple hardware. 9to5mac has an excellent article on this trend called iPhone takes a seat across university campuses. Jonathan D. Glater also discussed university Mac adoption in his New York Times article called Welcome Freshman. Have an iPod. 

With the high cost of gas, fewer students are driving themselves to campus.

Will fewer students be tempted to use their iPhones and iPod Touches as heads-up video displays in their automobiles, as shown in jiggymatt’s YouTube video called “Heads Up” iPhone Display and discussed in a bookofjoe article called ‘It’s great - I can watch my stuff while I’m driving’?

If you’re dumb enough to watch videos while you’re driving, you probably shouldn’t be going to college.

Related articles and pages on billso.com

• iPhone
• 19 August 2008: Teaching college students online
• 16 August 2008: Divided attention and food in the classroom
• 14 July 2008: Rising gas prices fuel online course enrollments

I enjoy reading June Watanabe’s Kukua Line column in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Sometimes she runs an auwe section where anonymous readers point out shameful behavior they have witnessed.

Wednesday’s column featured a Honolulu firefighter from the Nimitz station who was seen raising the US and state flags while he was out of uniform. HFD personnel are supposed to wear an HFD shirt, along with pants and shoes. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he was wearing rubber slippers. Auwe!

The firefighters from the Beretania station are always properly dressed to raise and lower the flags at Fort Street Mall by my office.

Thursday’s column was a two-for-one deal with an initial item about vulgar vanity license plates that slipped past the state’s application process. Auwe!
There was another story about a man who parked his car at a stoplight by Central Middle School to buy a plate lunch. He parked in the center lane of the Pali Highway. That’s a big auwe!

The Web has spawned a legion of sites devoted to reporting rude behavior. Some Craigslist users post their auwes on the rant and rave board for their city. There are sites devoted to rude drivers, restaurant patrons, employees, and other topics.

The Honolulu Advertiser ran a front-page article this morning about the growing parking problems in Chinatown. I’ve worried that downtown businesses and colleges might face problems as more customers face longer waits to find that elusive parking space.

Companies keep moving downtown, and they sometimes wind up with more employees than dedicated parking spaces. The solutions range from shared parking spaces to subsidized bus passes!

Too many vehicles? Or not enough mass transit?

Recent figures indicate that there are 734,270 registered vehicles on Oahu. Another article in this morning’s Advertiser indicates there are 1.13 million vehicles in the state, while our population is 1.28 million people. Of course, the large rental car fleets on our islands are a part of this total, but it’s still alarming that there’s so many vehicles in our state.

Hawai’i: Traffic can get bad in Honolulu. Racing is still a problem. The city proesecutor wants the state legislature to consider a bill that allows judges to revoke a driver’s license for up to five years for speeding more than 90 mph. The same bill was killed by the state senate last year. Meanwhile, Mayor Harris is moving forward with his plan to reduce traffic in Waikiki by narrowing two major roads, Kuhio and the Ala Wai. Waikiki residents are upset because the project involves removing street parking, which many residents rely on to park their own cars.

Hawai’i: It hasn’t been a great week for students at UH-Manoa. Parking is a nightmare as usual. The university’s implementation of its Banner registration software had some gaps, including a feature that would have allowed UH administrators to see how manys tudents were on the wait-list for each class. As a result of this and an unexpected surge in enrollment, several hundred UH students have been unable to enrolll for the classes they need. Thirty new classes were added on Monday, but some classes have many more students than the recommended maximum. It reminds me of my college days, when students were lurking outside offices and classrooms, hoping that another student had dropped the course. This will cause problems with the teachers union.

At least the football season opens 11 days, although the Warriors may have trouble beating Florida Atlantic.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• University of Hawaii
• 2 August 2004: Frear Hall sits dormant on UH-Manoa campus
• 16 July 2004: UH-Manoa has no short-term fix for dorm crunch
• 15 July 2004: Oahu students get low priority for UH-Manoa housing