OMA launches ‘queer peers’ online chat program

The new program is coordinated by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Columbia’s Counseling and Psychological Services, and currently has 10 student advisers staffing an online chat three nights each week.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs is now available to chat.

A pilot program online chat called Queer Peers and Allies now allows students to anonymously connect with peer advisers, similar to Nightline—but instead of calling a phone number, students talk via a secure online chat, adding another layer of privacy.

“Campus is really great about taking care of the macro issues that address the queer community, but we’re here to take care of the personal issues,” said one peer adviser, who asked not to be named because of the anonymous nature of the program.

The new online chat program is coordinated by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Columbia’s Counseling and Psychological Services, and currently has 10 student advisers staffing the online chat three nights each week. Lea Robinson, assistant director of LGBT programming and advising in OMA, said she hopes to attract more users by doubling the number of advisers next semester and adjusting the chat hours.

“It is only going to become more of a resource, especially around times with high stress levels like midterms … We want to make sure we’re creating spaces students can feel safe in and where students can get the support that they need,” she said.

The anonymity of the online chat program is one of its key aspects. While the online chat does require students to submit their UNI in case a dangerous situation arises, neither the students seeking help nor the queer peers know each other’s names.

“It’s trying to create some sort of programming that maybe speaks more to confidentiality, to more private spaces,” Robinson said. “Students may feel more comfortable getting online and chatting with someone about things going on as opposed to stepping in to a meeting or coming to a program.”

One of the peer advisers said that she would have taken advantage of the service had it existed previously.

“A lot of times people think since so many people are out and fine, it’s not a big deal, but it still is a big deal for a good deal of people,” she said.

While Queer Peers and Allies is new this semester, it has been in the works for several years.

The process began with Robinson’s predecessor, Kerry Poynter, who worked to formulate the program’s mission and obtain funding from the David Bohnett Foundation before leaving in 2008. In spring 2010, OMA developed its relationship with CPS, and it began recruiting and training “queer peers” last year.

“This program was created initially in trying to find a way to support students wherever they are in their own identity,” Robinson said.

Now that the program online chat is up and running, Robinson says she is excited to continue improving.

“We know that the need is there. We’re just continually working to figure out what the program will look like and how to get there,” she said.

Live chat with ‘Like Crazy’ filmmaker Drake Doremus on Nov. 2

Writer-director Drake Doremus, whose own long-distance relationship was the inspiration for the new feature “Like Crazy,” will be joining us for a live chat at noon on Nov. 2.

After its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the drama about the sometimes troubled love affair between a Los Angeles furniture designer (“Star Trek’s” Anton Yelchin) and a London journalist (“The Tempest’s” Felicity Jones) sparked a spirited bidding war, with Paramount Pictures and independent producer Indian Paintbrush grabbing the film for some $4 million. The largely improvised film, whose cast includes future “Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence, opens this weekend in Los Angeles and New York to strong  reviews.

The 28-year-old Doremus, whose last feature was the 2010 Sundance selection “Douchebag,” recently completed principal photography on his next feature, which also stars Jones. The as-yet untitled movie also stars Guy Pearce, Amy Ryan and Kyle MacLachlan.

To register for the live chat and schedule a reminder, please fill out the form below. And be sure to join us next Wednesday.

A former State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) employee has been accused of spending more than 500 work hours on telephone chat lines and incurring more than $20,000 in improper phone charges to the State.

Edward Reilly, 52, of Delmar, a former DEC environmental engineer II, was accused in a criminal complaint filed in Albany City Court with making more than 760 calls to premium rate telephone services over a more than six-year period from his office phone and conference room phones at DEC headquarters in Albany.

In total, the calls, mostly made to phone numbers located in the Caribbean, added up to $20,125 billed to the DEC and lasted more than 500 hours chat at times Reilly was supposed to be working for the State, according to the state Inspector General’s office.

“The charges allege he not only misappropriated State resources but that he did it while on the taxpayers’ time,” Inspector General Ellen Biben said. “Theft from the State will not be tolerated, and my office will continue to vigorously root out individuals who abuse the public trust.”

The charges allege Reilly made numerous phone  chat to such premium rate telephone services as VIP Sensual Chat, VIP Club Sensual Chat, Quest Chat, Secret Encounters, Metrovibe and Local Chat.

Reilly was charged with third-degree grand larceny and five counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree, felonies. He was arraigned before Albany City Court Judge Rachel Kretser and released on his own recognizance pending further court action.

The top charge alone, third-degree grand larceny, carries a maximum potential prison sentence of 2 1/3 to 7 years.

14-year-old Russian wins Skate Canada women’s short program

Russian Elizaveta Tuktamisheva, who is only 14 years old, took a big lead in the women’s singles at the Skate Canada International figure skating competition on Friday.

The Russian, who earned 59.57 points for her short program, was so good that Alexei Mishin, the veteran Russian coach helping guide Tuktamisheva, calls her “the main hope for the gold medal at the Sochi Olympics” in 2014.

Tuktamisheva won’t meet the International Skating Union age requirement to compete in a senior worlds until 2013. But she certainly appears ready to take full advantage of the green light the ISU gave her to enter senior Grand Prix meets this season.

Tuktamisheva, the 2011 world junior silver medalist, was the only skater to cleanly land a triple-triple combination.

Americans Ashley Wagner (54.50 points) and Rachael Flatt (54.23) were second and third.

In pairs, world silver medalists and Russian champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov earned 70.42 points to outdistance their closest rivals in the short program: Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada.

The men’s and dance short programs are scheduled to follow Friday.

Russian woman voters

Accused rapist Hugues Akassy, charged with raping Russian tourist, portrays himself as irresistible ladies’ man

Microsoft’s likely strategy for Skype

Wall Street is warming up to Microsoft Corp’s $8.5 billion purchase of online chat service Skype.

After initial shock at the price — more than double its expected public valuation — investors think Microsoft made a smart move buying advanced communications technology it can put into its products along with a ready base of users.

But there are still concerns the world’s biggest software company — with a patchy record on pleasing consumers and making acquisitions work — can really pull it off.

“It’s got huge potential. It pulls them directly into the telecoms area and they need to diversify,” said Nick Landell-Mills at Indigo Equity Research. “But they haven’t really made a lot of acquisitions. And Microsoft has noticeably failed so far on consumer. They are essentially an enterprise organization.”

Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and Skype’s US base in Silicon Valley are buzzing as the two companies start the process of working together.

Skype chief Tony Bates has been in Redmond with his team for much of the past two weeks, after the deal closed.

Microsoft has not said what it plans for Skype — its biggest acquisition to date — except to say it is “incredibly excited” about getting the service into its products.

Most expect Skype video chat and messaging will start to appear soon on Xbox game consoles, Windows phones and Windows Live messenger, and later as an expansion to its Lync messaging and video chat service for businesses.

The strategy
Skype, which popularized the VoIP — voice over Internet protocol — method of using a computer as a phone, is the clear leader in the market, with 145 million users who sign in at least once a month.

Its online chat service is free, but it has 8.8 million customers paying for premium services such as placing calls to mobile phones or landlines from a PC and video-conferencing, which it is pitching strongly to businesses.

Microsoft is hoping Skype will enrich its own programs and platforms and become a vehicle for ads, without frightening off Skype’s loyal customers.

The most likely first step will be to bring Skype to the nearly 35 million active members of Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming setup, allowing players to video-chat while they play games or watch movies.

“They are turning the Xbox form purely a gaming device to being a communications or entertainment console,” said Mark Moerdler, senior research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “You can sit at your Xbox and be able to talk to other people through the camera in Kinect.”

Microsoft will then look to introduce Skype as an app on its Windows Phones and make it complementary to its PC software, analysts said, helping it battle rival services Google Talk and Apple Inc’s FaceTime.

The strategy will be to draw more people into Skype, especially business users, pushing them towards paid services.

“It’s a huge installed base and Microsoft can target them with services from Bing, ads and so on,” said Jack Gold, head of J Gold Associates, a telecoms research firm. “Skype can also plug into the Lync environment and give Microsoft scalability way beyond what they can do now, as many companies already use Skype.”

Track record
Microsoft regularly buys small companies as a way of bringing new technology and talent into the company. But it rarely makes big purchases.

Aside from its failed 2008 bid for Internet giant Yahoo Inc, the company tends not to venture into multi-billion dollar deals.

Of the big acquisitions it has done, the record is patchy at best. A decade ago it spent almost $2.5 billion buying business software firms Great Plains and Navision, which now form a central part of its offerings for corporations.

But its $6 billion deal to buy online ad firm aQuantive in 2007 — its biggest deal before Skype — was a flat out failure, with aQuantive’s managers fleeing the new regime.

On the consumer side of the business, its record is also unconvincing. Microsoft made a great deal buying video game maker Bungie on the cheap in 2000 and used its wildly popular Halo combat game to establish the Xbox as a power in the console market. Despite that success, Bungie split from Microsoft in 2007.

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