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T H E O R E D I G G E RVolume 94, Issue 16 February 10, 2014

The student voice of the Colorado School of Mines

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

Sports 6

Opinion 8

Features 4

News 2

Resource

companies

recruit at CSM.

Asian Cultural

Festival:culture and fun.

Minds at Mines

asks: hot or

cold?

Softball has a

rough

tournament.

Katerina Gonzales

Content Manager

Chemistry demos are not only

a thing of freshman year General

Chemistry. The student chapter

of the American Chemical Society

mixes, burns, explodes, and displays

chemistry for anyone to enjoy and

learn about. On Tuesday, February

4, ACS treated Mines students to a

BBQ dinner and chemistry demo to

attract students who want to know

what ACS does on campus.

The purpose of ACS here oncampus is to bring chemistry and

science to as many people as we can

and really just get people interested

in looking at the world in a scientic

perspective, said Trevor Stanley, who

is a senior in Chemistry. I would say

my favorite thing about being a part

of ACS is all of the interesting things

Ive learned about. There are so many

eclectic topics that I just never would

have considered before. Its a lot of

fun. You get to learn a lot, you get to

blow things up. Dr. Mark Seger,

the faculty advisor of ACS cut in, I

can conrmsome of these things

he knows more about than I do.

ACS is one of the smaller clubs

on campus, and though its mem-

bers are passionate, they will not bearound forever. All of the ofcers are

graduating this May. We are looking

for younger members to take over

next semester, said Carly Paige, the

ACS secretary. This opportunity is

not only open to Chemistry majors,

but to anyone with a deep passion

of chemistry. The openings in leader-

ship positions for the upcoming year

ACS demos boom

American Chemical Societys Colorado School of Mines Student Chapter entices new members with dramatic explo-

sions and mad scientist antics.

KATERINA GONZALES / OREDIGGER

present opportunities for members to

really make the club their own.

That is not to say that ACS has not

fared well under the current leader-

ship, but rather it has thrived. ACS is

not only a society that meets for the

benet of its members, but also seeks

to serve the campus and community.

Said Stanley, We have done some

volunteer work at a local elementary

school judging their science fair. It

is a lot of fun and it is really great to

involve the younger generation. On

campus, we also offer free tutoring

for the underclassmen, for the introlevel chemistry courses. We really try

to help out the students and bring

the knowledge base that we have

gained and try to distribute that out

to everyone because we believe that

everyone should understand chemis-

try because it is a subject that a lot of

people have trouble with and struggle

with. And because it is something

we love, we want to kind of package

it in a way that says it is not a scary

subject, this is not something that you

should be like, Aw, man, I have to do

chemistry. It should be something

that is fun and relevant to your life.

Those holding an interest in chem-

istry or wanting to explore more about

the subject should check out CSM

ACS. Their next event will be Tuesday,February 18, as ACS wil l host Dr. Paul

Oggs talk about fermentation in Cool-

baugh 219. ACS will likely have more

demos this semester, hopefully with

more delicious ice cream made from

liquid nitrogen. The club encourages

students to get in touch with the of-

cers if they are interested in becoming

a key part of ACS in the future.

Jessica Deters

Staff Writer

Currently, women comprise ap-

proximately 28 percent of the student

body at the Colorado School of Mines

and make up an even smaller percent

in technical industry. Organizations

such as the Society of Women Engi-

neers aim to encourage more women

to pursue degrees in engineering in

order to increase the percentage of

women in what are currently male-

dominated elds.

Mines chapter of the Societyof Women Engineers hosted the

second annual Girls Lead the Way

Conference on Feb. 8 at CSM. The

conference invited high school girls

interested in engineering to spend a

day at Mines and learn the ins and

outs of being an engineering student.

The conference featured an En-

gineering Student Panel full of cur-

rent Mines students who answered

various questions the high school

girls had about engineering, Mines

and college in general. Attendees also

received advice on how to choose

a major, how to write an effective

resume and how to dress for success.

Christin Mastracchio delivered a

keynote address to attendees en-

couraging them to pursue a degreein engineering. Mastracchio grew up

in Houston, Texas with a desire to be-

come an astronaut. She attended the

U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado

Springs, Colorado and received a

degree in astro engineering. Mastrac-

chio proceeded to obtain a masters

degree from MIT and currently serves

as an Air Force Bomber pilot.

Girls as leadersPursuing a degree in a technical

field opens the door for so many

more opportunities than a degree in

a non-technical eld, according to

Mastracchio.

Mastracchios advice applies not

only to future engineering students

but current students as well. During

your study in college youre going to

go through all kinds of struggles and

late nights working on problem sets,

but stay the course, Mastracchio

said. If you are having trouble stay-

ing motivated, keep in mind that just

because you major in engineeringdoes not mean that you will be doing

strictly engineering for the rest of your

life. So, use your interests to further

your success in engineering.

In addition to offering advice to

all engineering students, prospective

and current, Mastracchio strongly

encouraged the room of girls to go

for a degree in engineering.

Girls are well suited for engineer-

ing, so go for it. Girls tend to focus

better and can put in the hours of

studying and doing problem sets

at a desk whereas boys often times

prefer hands-on learning. This state-

ment is of course a generalization,

but many class standings have

shown that women outperform men

academically.Women are born problem solvers

and often have more common sense

and intuition for readily nding a better

way to do things. Women also have a

heart to improve the world. Combine

that compassion with the engineering

smarts to be able to make a difference

and theres no limit to the good you

can do.

COURTESY CSM ATHLETICS

DEPARTMENT

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Oredigger Staff

Deborah Good

Editor-in-Chief

Emily McNairManaging Editor

Taylor PolodnaDesign Editor

Connor McDonaldWebmaster

Lucy OrsiBusiness Manager

Arnaud FilliatCopy Editor

Katerina GonzalesContent Manager

Jared RiemerContent Manager

Karen GilbertFaculty Advisor

Headlines from around the worldLocal News

Dr. Cindy Stevenson, thesuperintendent of the Jeffer-

son County School District, an-nounced her retirement. Sheis leaving the district just a fewmonths before her planned re-tirement on June 30. Stevensonhas served since 2002.

66-year-old Harold Eastonhas pleaded no contest to reck-less endangerment. Easton re-portedly hit a 10-year-old boy inthe face with a book at a GrandJunction elementary school.Easton explained that he lost histemper.

A dog woke its owner andsaved her from a mobile homere on Friday Morning. The dogs

barking woke up Rene Hickmonat 6:30 am. Hickmon managedto escape the re and thanked

employees at the Department ofCorrections for pulling over anda Fremont County reghter who

turned off her propane tank. The

mobile home is a total loss.

U.S. Representative CoryGardner, R-District 4, is urgingPresident Obama to changepolicies so that the price ofpropane can continue to drop.Many of Gardners constituents

complained that they were hav-ing trouble affording propane toheat their homes.

27-year-old Carissa Kochof Broomeld has pleaded not

guilty to appearing with evidenceand being an accessory to acrime. Koch is accused of try-ing to remove blood stains aftera deadly argument at her home.Kochs husband, 32-year-old

Matthew P. Burnett, has been

charged with rst-degree mur-der.

Ramiro Rodriguez, Staff Writer

Jessica Deters, Staff Writer

Step Closer to Beginning of Time, Israel - Amajor breakthrough made by researchers at Tel Aviv

University may hold answers pertaining to the origin of

the universe. When the rst stars formed, the universewas lled with hydrogen atoms. This study suggests

that the black holes that formed from these rst stars

heated the hydrogen gas that lled the universe later

than previously estimated. According to Professor Ren-nan Barkana of Tel Aviv University, the discovery of the

delayed heating of the universe results in a new pre-diction of an early time at which the sky was uniformlylled with radio waves emitted by the hydrogen gas.

As of Tuesday February 4, the

Committee to Regulate Marijuana

Like Alcohol in Alaska receivedenough valid signatures to placea measure on a ballot before vot-ers. If the initiative passes,Alaskawould be the third state to le-

galize the sale of recreational

marijuana behind Colorado andWashington. According to a poll byPublic Policy Voting, 55% of regis-tered voters in Alaska support themeasure. The measure will also call

for a $50 per ounce excise tax onmarijuana coming from cultivation

facilities and stores.The Kentucky Senate passed

measure Senate Bill 16 whichwould allow for students in highschool to use computer pro-gramming courses to satisfy

foreign language requirementsto pass high school. Supportersof the bill say it will help preparestudents for well-paying jobs in thecomputer industry and point to agure saying that less than 2.4% of

students graduating from collegein the nation are graduating witha degree in computer science de-spite high national demand.

After one of the longestdroughts in decades, the Cantar-eira water system, which supplies

10 million people in the Campinasregion of Brazil, is at less than aquarter of its capacity. If there isno rain, then the water systemis projected to run dry in ap-

proximately 40 days. A spokes-person from Brazils largest water

utility, Cia. de Saneamento Basicodo Estado de Sao Paulo, claimsthat once it falls below 20 percent,there may be difculties transfer-ring waters between reservoirs.

Following a series of complaints

about the conditions in Sochi be-fore the 2014 Winter Olympics, adeputy prime minister in Russia

claimed that Western visitors

are deliberately trying to sabo-

tage the event and cited videocoming from surveillance camerasthat either are able to see into orare in the showers of assignedhotel rooms. A spokesperson fordeputy prime minister Dmitry Ko-zak later denied claims that thereare any surveillance cameras in ei-ther hotel rooms or bathrooms.

The National Energy Authorityin Iceland has unveiled the worldsfrst magma-based geothermal

energy system in Kraa, Ice-

land. According to a document byIceland Deep Drilling Project, theavailable power was sufcient to

generate up to 36 megawatts elec-tricity, compared to the installedelectrical capacity of 60 megawatts

in the Kraa power plant. This proj-ect breaks the world record forgeothermal heat and power.

The Guardian, the UK newspa-per which reported on the EdwardSnowden leaks, reveals that theBritish government threatened

to jail editor Alan Rusbridgerand close the paper over report-ing the Snowden leaks. On July 20of 2013, the government sent twoagents to oversee the destructionof memory cards and hard drivescontaining the encrypted les sent

by Edward Snowden. Footage de-

tailing the destruction was releasedby The Guardian on Friday, Febru-ary 7. Furthermore, David Miranda,

a partner of the journalist who pub-lished the leaked information, iscurrently being investigated underespionage charges following an il-legal detention at Heathrow Airportand the seizure of personal itemsto check for encrypted data.

Cure for Diabetes on Horizon, San

Francisco, CA - Living with type one dia-betes currently equates to frequent injec-tions of insulin to make up for the bodys

inability to produce insulin. A researchteam from the Gladstone Institutes founda method by which to reprogram animals

skin cells into endoderm-like cells, whicheventually mature, mimic pancreas-likecells and produce insulin. The study found

a direct link between the transplanted, re-programmed cells and a decrease in theanimals glucose levels. Matthias Hebrok,

PhD and one of the authors of the study,believes this discovery is an importantstep toward a much-needed cure for typeone diabetes.

New Evidence of Pre-Historic Human Migration, United King-

dom - Researchers at Queen Mary University of London, the British

Museum, and the Natural History Museum discovered evidence that

suggests human movement in northeast Norfolk in the United King-dom over 800,000 years ago. Scientists believe the footprints wereimprinted into the bank of an ancient river at a time when Britain andcontinental Europe were still connected. These footprints provide the

rst-known evidence of humans in northern Europe and offer insightinto the movements and migration of people over 800,000 years ago.

Quantifying the Gender Height Gap, Finland -A study from the Universityof Helsinki found correlations between the X chromosome and height. Dr. Taru

Tukiainen of Massachusetts General Hospital said, Studying the X chromosome

has some particular challenges. The fact that women have two copies of this chro-

mosome and men only one has to be taken into account in the analysis. We nev-ertheless wanted to take up the challenge since we had a strong belief that open-ing the X les for research would reveal new, interesting biological insights. The

study did, in fact, reveal new biological insights in its nding that the variant in the

X-chromosome between men and women accounts for anywhere between oneto two percent of differences in height between genders in the Finnish population.

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Ramiro Rodriguez

Staff Writer

The Humanitarian EngineeringProgram held an open house todiscuss changes to the curriculum,a refocus of their efforts, introducetheir faculty and staff, and an-

nounce scholarship and internshipopportunities. The event was cen-tered around the programs transi-tion, as program director Dr. JuanLucena out it, from compassionatehelp to serving sustainable com-munity development. The purposebehind this revamping is to transi-tion from a unilateral model of com-munity development where engi-neering students try to directly solvethe problems of a faraway commu-nity that has very little input on theprojects in mind to a system whereNon-Governmental Organizationsmediate between the two so thatcommunities can help dene their

problems and have that be present-ed to engineers.

As of Fall 2014, the Humanitar-ian Engineering minor is now aneighteen credit program divided intoa three credit introductory course:LAIS 377 - Engineering & Sustain-able Community Development,six credits from the topic of Com-munity Culture and Social Justice,six credits from the topic of Engi-neering by Doing, and a capstonecourse. Community Culture andSocial Justice comes in the form ofsix three-credit LAIS course whichinclude: Service Learning, Cultural

Anthropology, Corporate SocialResponsibility, Engineering Culturein the Developing World, Engineer-ing and Social Justice, and Energyand Society. Engineering by Doingis made up of the two three-creditcourses Human-Centered ProblemDenition and Human-Centered

Design. The capstone will be a se-nior design project centered aroundcommunity development or assis-tive technology for people with dis-

Changes to HE programabilities for students of the Collegeof Engineering and ComputationalSciences or CEEN 477 - Sustain-able Engineer Design for studentsthat are not under the CECS.

A third of the credits for the minorare now coming from CommunityCulture and Social Justice, two out

of six LAIS courses designed to ex-plore the interactions between so-ciety and engineering including thenew course, LAIS 430 - CorporateSocial Responsibility. CorporateSocial Responsibility is an explora-tion of the idea of corporate socialresponsibility as the relationship be-tween engineering rms and com-munities local to their projects witha focus on the extractive industries.

The class aims to teach how to ac-cess opportunities for participationin corporate social responsibility aswell as how to create a strategy forcommunity engagement.

Engineering by Doing is madeup of two EGGN courses centeredaround teach how to design around

people as well as how to accesswhere problems are coming fromto better tailor human-centeredsolutions. EGGN 301 - HumanCentered Problem Denitions is

designed to be a practical explora-tion of how to access how thingsconsidered to be problems or so-lutions for engineering are thosethings when designing with peopleand communities in mind throughpractical lab methods as well asexercises made to teach empathywith people projects are designedfor. EGGN 401 - Projects for Peopleis a class made to bridge the tech-niques learned in Human CenteredProblem Denitions with technical

skills to address problems broughtto the class by community partners.

The Humanitarian EngineeringProgram encourages member-ship in Engineers Without Borders/Bridges to Prosperity for its stu-dents to put to practice the sustain-able community development tech-

niques learned within the programfor the betterment of communitiesboth locally and abroad. The stu-dent run organization is devotedto sustainable community develop-ment through the process of de-signing and assembling bridges forcommunities in need.

The possibility of needing to takean additional semester at Mines be-cause of taking a minor exists; how-ever, the costs can be mitigated bya newly announced scholarshipfrom the Shultz Family Leadershipin Humanitarian Engineering Fund.

The scholarship is for students in-volved with the humanitarian engi-neering program and wish to ex-plore connections to humanitarianengineering in the extractive indus-tries. For a student to be eligible forthe scholarship, they must: have aminimum 3.0 GPA; be enrolled inthe Humanitarian Engineering pro-gram; have taken one or more ofthe following: Engineering and Sus-tainable Community Design, Engi-

neering and Social Justice, Projectsfor People, or Human-centeredProblem Denition by the end of

Spring 2014; register to take Cor-porate Social Responsibility in Fall2014; and submit an essay in re-sponse to two prompts on an inter-est in humanitarian engineering orlinking humanitarian engineering tothe extractive industries. The schol-arship will be ofcially announced in

March of 2014, with selection oc-curring during the Summer of 2014,and funding in the form of $8000will be made available for the Fall2014 semester.

Students wanting to sign up forthe humanitarian engineering minoror area of special interest can startthe process by meeting with pro-gram director Dr. Juan Lucena tomap the minor and ll out the minor

declaration form. Further informa-tion on the program and contact in-formation can be found at humani-tarian.mines.edu.

Leah Hill

Staff Writer

Some have probably seen theapocalyptic scenes of the Ukrai-nian protests. With smoke and re

in the background, people wearing

gas masks or with bloodied faces,and the police with their shieldsand full body armor bracing foran angry crowd. What started aspeaceful protests in late Novemberescalated when police started us-ing tear gas and batons to controlthe protesters as they seized gov-ernment buildings, broke windows,and toppled a statue of VladimirLenin in Kiev. As the governmenttook greater measures to stop theprotesters, the protesters foughtharder to be heard. On January 21,unknown men abducted Igor Lut-senko, a Ukrainian activist and jour-nalist, along with Yuriy Verbytsky,a prominent protester known bythe people, from a Kiev hospital.

They left Lutsenko in a nearby for-est to nd his way back to the city

while Verbytsky was found dead ina city suburb. Though there werealso reports of protesters stabbingthree police ofcers, one of which

died later of his wounds, protest-ers have reported being torturedby the police. Elsewhere, securityforces killed three more protestersas security forces moved againstUkrainian protest camps. Ukraine

Ukrainian revolt continues during Olympicshas begun to look like a war zone.

But what started it all? Ukraineoriginally meant borderlands andis the largest country separatingRussia from Western Europe. Go-ing through Ukraine is the easiestway for Russia to trade with west-

ern countries due to the foreststhat cover much of northwesternUkraine and the countries to itsnorth. Throughout history, Ukrainewas conquered and divided byneighboring powers. Then about250 years ago, during RussiasGolden Age, Catherine the Greatcontrolled southeastern Ukraineafter colonizing it. This part of thecountry is home to some of themost productive farmland in theworld and was used to gain accessto the rest of Europe. EventuallyUkraine was occupied by so manyRussians that the Russians startedcalling it New Russia hoping tomake the territory permanentlyRussian. Then, in the 1930s, whenJoseph Stalin led Soviet Union,Ukraine was part of Russia. Dur-ing his rule, the Ukrainian peasantswere collectivized into state-runfarms and their lives were controlledby Soviet Russia. Several millionUkrainians died of starvation astheir food was restricted and cropstaken away. Stalin then repopulatedthe devastated eastern farmlandsby shipping in ethnic Russians.

This act of genocide took more

lives than the German Holocaust.It was not until 1991 that Ukrainebecame an independent countryagain. Modern day Ukraine is divid-ed into two sections: the Ukrainianspeaking Northwest which dislikesRussia, and the Russian speaking

Southeast which sees no problemin receiving help from their neigh-bor.

Now to the issue at hand: theman in the middle of all the con-ict is Ukrainian president Vik-tor Yanukovych. Born in 1950 inSoviet-controlled eastern Ukraine,

Yanukovych is culturally Russian,shares opinions with many otherRussian-speaking Ukrainians, anddid not speak Ukrainian until hewas in his 50s. In 2004, there weremass protests against him when hewon the presidential election underwidespread suspicions of fraud.

Those protests, which succeededin blocking him from ofce, were

called the Orange Revolution. Butnow, he is back. Since winning the2010 election, Yanukovych and hisgovernment have mismanaged theeconomy and have been viewed ascorrupt.

The protests started when Ya-nukovych reversed a decision tosign a trade deal for greater eco-nomic integration with the Euro-pean Union. This deal, which waspopular with Ukrainians, was morethan just a trade deal. After Ya-

nukovychs neglect, the deal couldhave helped revive the strugglingUkrainian economy. Symbolically,

Yanukovychs decision was seen asa turn away from Europe, and to-wards Russia. Putin then rewardedthe Yanukovychs decision with a

stimulus worth billions of dollarsand a promise of cheaper gas ex-ports. The protests had begun todie down until January 16 when

Yanukovych signed anti-protestlaws which restricted free speech,the media, driving in a group ofmore than ve cars, slandering

government ofcials, and wearing a

mask or helmet.While half of the Ukraine wants

to join the European Union, abouta third of the country would preferintegrating with the Russian-dom-inated Eurasian Customs Union.

The huge crack in Ukraine has evenstarted whispers of civil war whichis why nobody dares to take anysort of military action in Ukraine. Apush from any side, Russia, the US,any European nation, or Ukrainesown military could result in war.

On January 28, Ukrainian of-cials repealed nine out of the

twelve anti-protest laws and tabledthe stimulus offer from Russia. Thegovernment has also offered am-nesty to detained protesters pro-vided that the occupied govern-ment buildings are vacated. Then,in an effort to calm some of the

protests, Ukrainian Prime MinisterMykola Azarov and Yanukovychspresidential cabinet resigned andoffered senior jobs to the opposi-tion. Yet all offers were rejected asprotesters continue to demand thepresidents resignation. Yanukovych

made a statement saying, theopposition continues to iname the

situation calling on people to standin the cold for the sake of the po-litical ambitions of a few leaders. Ithink this is wrong. He also added,From my side, I will show moreunderstanding to the demands andambitions of people, taking into ac-count the mistakes that authoritiesalways make... I think that we cantogether return the life of Ukraineand its people to peace.

But the people do not seemto want to return to their old lives.

The unrest even spread into east-ern Ukraine and Yanukovychshomeland, where he previouslyexperienced unhampered support.People protest because their presi-dent rejected what they saw as anopportunity to improve their livesand their country and instead madean attempt to further relations witha country that has a history of starv-ing them to death. Their demandfor his resignation still fuels theirprotests, and the cruel treatment ofthe protesters has convinced someUkrainian citizens that a new gov-ernment is absolutely necessary.

Evan Ford

Staff Writer

Colorado School of Mines cel-ebrated the third annual GEEE In-dustry Panel with a remarkable in-dustry representation in attendance.Companies in attendance were

CH2MHILL, ARCADIS, and TetraTech. These companies were invitedto present mission statements anda brief synopsis of their companyculture, which has a large bearingon what is desired for potential hires.Students were able to ask these in-dustry professionals specic ques-tions regarding work environments,

job searches, and were even giventhe opportunity to network near theconclusion of the event.

GEEE catered specically to ca-reers in Mining, Geology, Civil andEnvironmental Engineering. A lightdinner was provided before eachcompany presented. The rst busi-ness to present was CH2MHILL, aglobal and wide-reaching enterprise.

The company name comes fromthe initials of the founders in 1946.CH2MHILL employs 30,000 in 60countries worldwide. The companyis a client based rm, and their ser-vices span from accounting, hu-man resources, engineering, andconstruction. A representative fromhuman resources informed the stu-dents in attendance about CH2M-HILLs history and purpose. Thecompany receives many resumes aday electronically, so students at thecareer fair should expect a similarexperience in submission for theircredentials, as opposed to a hardcopy.

The next presentation came fromTetra Tech, a company with 330

ofces worldwide and large proj-ects around the globe, includingmining in New Mexico and Austra-lia. The vision of the company is toachieve max economic performancethroughout the life cycle of a particu-lar resource, with an emphasis on

Industry optionsthe nal restoration portion. It was

pointed out that when working withsensitive job sites, companies mustrealize that environmental permit-ting is for life; something contractingcompanies can forget. Tetra Techalso emphasized the importance ofne-tuned networking skills. With the

right attitude and approach, alongwith the necessary abilities to backit up, the company representativedelivered the notion that any job canbe attained.

An environmental engineer rep-resented ARCADIS on Thursdaynight. Like CH2HMILL, ARCADIS isa large international company. Thecompanys US headquarters is lo-cated in Highlands Ranch, here inColorado. ARCADIS has catered tomany commercial since the 1800s,and has experienced many merg-ers and plenty of growth throughoutthe years. ARCADIS breaks downtheir company into four pillars, in-cluding TKI (Technical KnowledgeInformation) and safety. The com-

pany stresses safety, as this leadsto a complete reduction of injuriesat work. ARCADIS believes that stu-dents seeking a job need to be ableto solve complex problems with astrong core knowledge, but also adiverse interdisciplinary approachin the application of critical thinking.It is also important for engineers topractice and rene communica-tion and writing skills, which can beoverlooked in a math and sciencefocused curriculum.

A common theme from all of thecompanies presentations was a fo-cus on work-life balances and nd-ing the job that was the correct t for

an individual and the company. Thenight presented a valuable learning

experience for the students in searchof internships and specic careers in

geology and civil engineering. Thecompanies that attended the GEEEIndustry Panel presented a widerange of career paths and avenuesfor potential success.

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Chris Robbins

Staff Writer

As technologies improve, access

to technology improves, and the

number of people available to use

technologies increases, the sizes

and complexities of various kinds

of networks continue to grow at analarming rate. From literal networks

such as those of communication

and information to more abstract

denitions such as social networks,

dealing with these large and com-

plex webs can be more than

a little intimidating. In his pre-

sentation at this weeks AMS

department colloquium, titled

Relaxation Methods for the

Matrix Exponential on Large

Networks, David F. Gleich of

Purdue University explained

through the results of his joint

work with Prof. Kyle Kloster of

Purdue how the level of com-

plexity of these networks can

be greatly reduced to a point where

they are much simpler to work with.To do this, Gleich worked with the

exponentials of rather large square

matrices (often millions to billions

of rows and columns) representing

these complex networks, and used

the columns of these resulting expo-

nentials to nd localized solutions.

While this method will technically

produce thousands to millions of

solutions, the vast majority of these

are small enough to be deemed

insignicant and the emphasis is

placed on the handful of signicant

solutions. Once these signicant so-

lutions are in place, the exponentials

of the two more related matrices are

also found. These are the transition

Computing exponentialsmatrix, which returns the probability

of each path length between node

pairs within a network, and an adja-

cency matrix, which nds the num-

ber of possible same-length paths

between any two nodes.

With this data, a single column of

the original exponential matrix (with

one column representing one node

within the network) can be used to

calculate link prediction scores for

the node, which according to Gleich

represents the likelihood of getting

to one node in the network begin-

ning from another. But with modern

networks being as massive in size

as they are, this could take a very

long time to compute exactly, and

by then the network in question has

likely changed signicantly. So, Glei-

ch placed more emphasis on speed

of the calculations while sacricing a

small level of accuracy, resulting in

a method that will quickly produce

localized estimates around results.

The goal was to achieve suf-

cient results in less than the amount

of work to calculate one matrix vec-

tor, or matvec (this was used as the

standard measure of efciency for

this study). Based on an underlying

method of direct expansion, Gleich

was able to convert these massive

networks into much simpler lin-

ear systems, which allowed for the

setup of the relaxation method to

be implemented. Due to the error

analysis step of the relaxation meth-

od, it has also come to be known

as the push method, because it

will essentially push the residual

error from one node and spread

it out across all of its connecting

neighbors through a series of spe-

cic computations and key assump-

tions. This process repeats

several times until the error

present on the original node

in question is basically zero,

and the error transferred

across the other nodes are

so spread out across a wide

area that they are essentially

zero as well.

Compared to other meth-

ods used for this and similar

purposes, the relaxation

technique described by Glei-

ch not only maintains decent accu-

racy and precision levels, but short-

ens runtime nearly by a factor of ten.

Aside from nding more applications

of this methodology (as variants are

already in use in social networking,

network centrality in computer sci-

ence, and network alignment in bi-

ology), Gleich explained that he and

his colleague Prof. Kloster would

like to further rene the relaxation

method as well. As part of their

ongoing research, they would like

to nd better linear systems to use

for faster convergence (and therefor

faster computation) of the system,

as well as scaling the process up to

deal with even larger networks and

matrices.

Chris Robbins

Staff Writer

In geophysical exploration, one

of the most expensive aspects of

research tends to be the storage

and archiving of rock samples from

the eld and their corresponding

data. In particular, the storage of

numerous cores within sheds and

warehouses can cost businesses a

rather large sum of money, and that

cost only grows as more research

is done and more core data needs

to be stored. Even worse than thecost, however, is the fact that the

vast majority of these stored cores

will only be temporarily useful as

time in storage exposes the sam-

ples to potential damage or altera-

tion. As much as 80% of a com-

panys exploratory budget can be

spent on these eventually-useless

cores, an issue Brigitte Martini of

Corescan services addressed in

this weeks edition of CSMs Van

Tuyl lecture series.

Martini, a volcanologist, geo-

thermal expert, and now employee

for Corescan, presented on how

her company is aiming to minimize

the amount of money and data

lost to trying to store core sam-

ples, and that is through the useof hyperspectral core scanning.

She explained how even though

this technology has existed for

roughly 40 years, Corescan is one

of only two companies in the world

implementing it for this particular

purpose. This is due to the rapid

growth of computational power

available over the last several

years, as nowadays there are com-

puters capable of handling the vast

A new way to store coresamounts of calculations and data

involved with core sampling. The

basic goal of this technology, as

Martini put it, is to allow research-

ers to digitally archive both images

and data from core samples in

an effort to minimize and possibly

even eliminate the need to physi-

cally store large quantities of rock.

The process for these auto-

mated core scan imagers is based

upon infrared spectroscopy and

works similarly to a magnetic res-

onance imaging (MRI) scan. The

device pushes samples within acore-box through, gathers data,

and constructs a digital image of

the core one row at a time. The re-

sulting data and visualizations are

highly accurate, more detailed, and

more descriptive than that of ear-

lier technologies. These signicant

improvements do come at a cost

of taking slightly longer to scan

than earlier methods (roughly ve

to ten minutes longer per scan ac-

cording to Martini), but seem to be

well worth the extra wait.

How Corescan managed to

increase these accuracies were

changes to two key ideas. First,

the possibilities for precision were

greatly improved, as models of this

device can be found with preci-sions ranging from several millime-

ters per image pixel down to only a

few microns per pixel. In addition,

while most past programs were set

to label each pixel of a samples

image with whatever mineral lled

up the majority of that pixel, Cores-

can will instead record all traces of

mineral in a pixels worth of space

and label that pixel as such. This

process does throw off the total

gures of minerals by percentage

within a sample, or semi-quali-

tative data (meaning that total-

ing percentages of mineral A, B,

etc. will result in a number slightly

above 100%), but it allows for a

much more intricate and descrip-

tive map of the samples structure

to be formulated.

In order to handle this massive

increase in data and precision, as

well as the highly detailed images

of cores, Martini explained how

Corescan has turned to cloud stor-

age for its vast capacity. With theirown cloud-shared servers, com-

panies using Corescan devices

can permanently store any amount

of data and imagery from cores

and access them at any time. In

addition, these servers also allow

companies and researchers to put

together multiple data sets and run

tests and visualizations for surpris-

ingly large areas of samples. This

effectively allows one to accurately

map out the composition and

structure of a sizeable area rather

than just a single core site.

While the technologys use for

this purpose is still a very young

idea according to Martini, sev-

eral mining companies around the

world have already discovered itsusefulness and made these de-

vices integral parts of their opera-

tion. Martini also stated that work

is already in development for a

Corescan device more specically

geared towards properties of inter-

est to oil and gas companies and

that, in a few years, these devices

will have the same level of function-

ality and use within that eld as is

already present in the mining eld.

Kenneth Osgood, associateprofessor and director of the Mc-

Bride Honors Program, recently

published a collection of essays

that explores the history of civil

rights policies in the postcivil

rights era. His book titled, Win-

ning While Losing: Civil Rights, the

Conservative Movement and the

Presidency from Nixon to Obama,

addresses the common percep-

tion that the civil rights movement

ended in triumph a half century

ago. Osgood wants to challenge

that notion.

When Obama was elected, ev-

eryone was ecstatic. But half of the

prison population was black; pov-

erty rates for African Americans

were double those of whites, Os-good said.

This summer, Americans will

commemorate the ftieth anniver-

sary of the landmark 1964 Civil

Rights Act, which ended segrega-

tion. No doubt many Americans

will describe Obamas historic

presidency as the ultimate victory,

Osgood notes. But the reality is

much messier. During the previoushalf-century, there were successes

in some areas, but set-backs in

others.

Osgood hopes his readers walk

away with the picture that civil

rights politics can be more compli-

cated than originally understood.

Everything we think we know

about the past is oversimplied

and distorted, Osgood said. To

me thats what I love about the

study of history. We develop these

really simple pictures, but when

we really look at it, we nd out

how wrong we are. Almost every-

thing we remember, we remember

badly, simplistically, or incorrectly.

So I hope people will read this

and think: thats not quite how Ithought it was.

Osgood is currently working on

his sixth book, The Biggest Lie,

which connects propaganda and

intelligence. The book will be pub-

lished around 2016.

Courtesy of Mines

Newsroom

Honors directoron Civil Rights

COURTESY MINES NEWSROOM

McBride Honors Program director Ken Osgood poses with

his new book, Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, the

Conservative Movement, and the Presidency from Nixon to

Obama

Corinne Packard, Colorado

School of Mines Department ofMetallurgical and Materials Engi-

neering assistant professor, has

been awarded a National Science

Foundation Faculty Early Career

Development (CAREER) Award

for her research Controlling

Pressure-Induced Transformation

in Rare Earth Orthophosphates.

Packards study is looking at

how to improve the properties of

high temperature ceramic com-

ponents such as combustors,

nozzles and thermal insulation

in aircraft engines, turbines and

rockets. Cracks in those com-

ponents can lead to catastrophic

failure.

Some unique ceramics un-

dergo a change in shape andvolume when they are deformed;

researchers want to harness this

crystal structure change to in-

crease a materials toughness by

absorbing energy caused by an

impact or propagating crack. Re-

searchers will determine how to

use chemistry to control the point

at which this change occurs.

Information and new materialsdiscovered through this research

could be useful in designing coat-

ings to improve the performance

of ceramic components used in

high temperature aerospace ap-

plications.

Undergraduate and graduate

students studying materials sci-

ence and engineering at Mines

will be involved in the research.

The project will also develop sci-

ence-learning modules for local

elementary school teachers and

the Rocky Mountain Camp for the

Dyslexic.

The NSF CAREER award is the

most prestigious award in sup-

port of junior faculty who exem-

plify the role of teacher-scholarsthrough outstanding research,

excellent education and the inte-

gration of education and research

within the context of the mission

of their organizations.

Courtesy of Mines

Newsroom

NSF award forMines MME prof

Compared to other methods used for

this and similar purposes, the relax-

ation technique described by Gleich

not only maintains decent accuracy

and precision levels, but shortens

runtime nearly by a factor of ten.

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f e a t u r e sfebruary , page 5

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

Spectranetics teammates are dynamic and

truly global in composition and perspective.

Joining this fast-growing business means

tremendous career opportunities coupled

with the satisfaction of being part of a team

that developslife-saving productsthat help

transform the medical industry.

visit us at: www.spectranetics.com/careers

{There are really good jobs, and then there are

save the world kind of jobs.}

BE INNOVATIVE.

Hope Sisley

Staff Writer

While Disney has closed down

their animation department, that

does not mean the end of the de-

lightful fairy tales they have long

been known for. The latest Dis-

ney feature is a CGI musical set ineighteenth-century Scandinavia,

starring two sisters, a love triangle,

a reindeer, and a talking snowman.

While the plot has a few unresolved

holes (to be discussed momen-

tarily), the overall story is good and

the characters are likable and fun.

Supposedly the lm is based on

the Hans Christian Andersen tale of

the Snow Queen, but those familiar

with the (rather dark) source ma-

terial will not recognize any of it in

this cheerful, wholly un-depressing

picture.

The scene opens on a pair of lit-

tle princesses who are best friends.

The older sister, Elsa, has magical

powers that allow her to create

snow and ice with a wave of herhands. The younger sister, Anna,

has a playful spirit and eagerly eggs

her sister on. After a tragic acci-

dent, however, Elsa and her parents

become convinced that her powers

are a curse rather than a blessing,

and that she must hide them away

lest anyone else get hurt. Because

strong emotions exacerbate the

chill, Elsa shuts herself in her room

and shuts Anna out. After both girls

are orphaned (this is Disney, after

all), Elsa becomes a complete re-

cluse.

The turning point in the story

comes at Elsas coronation. This is

the rst time that she and her sis-

ter have been outside of the castle

in years, and Anna, still playful asever, decides to take full advantage.

She immediately meets, falls in love

with, and agrees to marry one of the

party guests. For some reason Elsa

seems to think that this is a bad

idea. She refuses to bless the mar-

riage, Anna gets pushy, Elsa gets

ustered, and the transition from

gurative to literal ice queen is com-

plete. The kingdom is plunged into

winter; Elsa ees to a mountaintop

where she gures she can be who

she is without having to worry about

hurting anyone.

Probably the best part of the

whole lm is a baby reindeer named

Sven who appears during the open-

ing song, which is based on Norwe-

gian folk music. Sven, now a verylarge adult reindeer, and his owner,

an ice-seller named Kristoff, return

to the plot to help Anna track down

her sister before the magical winter

becomes permanent. They are later

joined by an enchanted snowman

named Olaf, who seemed in the

previews like he would

be obnoxious, but in fact

is endearing as the

only snowman in the

world who dreams of

lying on a warm tropi-

cal beach and getting a

sun-tan. The interac-

tions between Kristoff

and Anna, who bicker

rather than make lovey

eyes at each other, arealso quite entertaining.

For instance, as Anna tells

him about how unfair and aw-

ful it is that she is not allowed to

marry the man that she met about

twenty minutes earlier, Kristoff is,

astoundingly, in agreement with her

sister. In fact, at no point in the story

does anyone besides Anna - who

is somewhat lacking in common

sense, having been stuck in a cas-

Frozen warms the hearttle most of her life - and her beau,

Hans, think that marrying someone

he just met is a particularly brilliant

plan. This is almost like a recanting

on Disneys part since movies like

Snow White have long established

that love at rst sight is a per-

fectly valid reason for jumping into

a long-term relationship in search ofa happily ever after. Contrast Love

is an Open Door, a duet between

Anna and Hans, with one of the old

classic Disney love themes, such as

Once Upon a Dream or A Whole

New World. The lyrics are pretty

similar. Love is an open door / Life

can be so much more / With you

is not too different from A whole

new world / A new fantastic point

of view... Now Im in a whole new

world with you, but the message is

quite different in Frozen. Without

delivering any spoilers, sufce it to

say that, by the end of the movie,

Anna will nd that the people telling

her not to marry the stranger shes

known for a couple of hours were

right all along. This is a departurefrom the Disney romance model

and a refreshing perspective from

Hollywood.

In many ways, in fact, this is a

feminist lm. [Warning: spoilers

ahead.] After Anna is struck in the

heart with a piece of magic ice,

shes told that she must perform

an act of true love to melt it and

prevent her becoming an ice sculp-

ture before the day is out. Naturally,

like many a Disney heroine before

her, Anna assumes this means

true Loves kiss, so she high-tails

it back to the palace to nd Hans,

her ance of three hours, and give

him a smooch. When that does not

work, she realizes that it must be

Kristoff who is her true love sincehe had a less supercial connec-

tion with her and seems to actually

return the feeling. But ultimately, it

is not a kiss from a man she met

that day that saves Anna - its an

act of self-sacrice done protecting

her sister. Which, really, makes con-

siderably more sense. The bond

between close family members is

much stronger than most other

relationships; hence the saying

Blood is stronger than water. How

on earth could Anna have found

true love with someone she has

spent a mere afternoon with, and

how could that have been more

powerful than her love for her sister,

whom she has known her whole

life? This is Disneys way of saying,

Actually, we lied. The whole mean-

ing of a womans life is not wrapped

up in her romantic relationship

with a man. A woman can actually

have other relationships, too! And

they can be way more importantthan romance! Is not that revolu-

tionary? Ariel might have given

up any chance of ever seeing her

family again so that she could be

with some prince she saved from a

shipwreck, and Cinderellas horric

upbringing might cease to have any

effect on her as soon as she meets

some guy at a dance, but Anna and

Elsa understand that there are more

important things than so-called

true love. In fact, Elsa does not

even have a love interest. Shes too

busy running a kingdom and deal-

ing with her issues and her broken

family to worry about that just yet.

Disney seems to have entered a

new era, at least for now.

The only real problem with theplot of the movie involves Elsas de-

us-ex-machina discovery of how to

control her powers. Its something

that there is no reason she should

not have discovered already, and

it is expressed in so abrupt and

nebulous a fashion that it feels like

the Disney writers got to the end

of the script and realized that they

had not gured out how to resolve

the problem of the kingdoms be-

ing frozen, so they quickly added

in something that sort of sounded

okay and called it good. Otherwise,

the ending is satisfactory, the char-

acters are well-rounded, and the

message is wholesome and uplift-

ing. The music is quite good as well

- another thing viewers have cometo expect from Disney - so its no

surprise to see it nominated for the

best song Oscar. A high point in

the lm is the costume and set de-

sign, which give a strong sense of

place. If the magic were removed,

this could be a documentary of dai-

ly life in old-timey Norway, complete

with folk art and music. All in all, its

a wonderful spectacle both visually

and musically, and well worth see-

ing.

4 out of 5 stars.

Rated PG for... no reason at

all, actually. There is nothing in this

movie that would make it more than

a G. A preschooler might be scared

of the trolls.

COURTESYWALTDISNEYHOMEENTERTAINMENT

In tweets Saturday, February 8,

Don Nguyen, creator of the insanely

popular game app Flappy Bird,revealed his intentions to take the

game off

app stores.

The Ha-

noi based

developer

has been

p r o g r am -

ming for

ten years, but never thought the

game would take off like it did. Said

Nguyen on Twitter, I will take

Flappy Bird down. I cannot take

this anymore. He also does not

intend to sell Flappy Bird, despite

its popularity and social media atten-

tion. People are overusing my app,

tweeted Nguyen. I can call Flappy

Bird a success of mine. But it alsoruins my simple life. So now I hate it.

Since its creation, Flappy Bird

has generated feelings of both love

and hate from its many users. The

game is simple yet seemingly impos-

sible to do well in. College students

Katerina Gonzales

Content Manager

Flap no moreCreator to take down viral game

to elementary-aged kids around the

world have been engrossed as the

game spread like `wildre through

social media and word-of-mouth.

Nguyen undoubtedly has had

trolls plaguing his inbox and timeline,so the removal is understandable.

The creator maintains

classiness by replying

to fans who give good

reviews of the game,

despite the amount

of attention from trolls

and haters. He also

conrmed the removal

has nothing to do with legal issues.

It will not be game over for the

developer, however, as he plans to

make more games. On his website

dotgears.com, the independent

company states, Everything is pure,

extremely hard and incredibly fun

to play, so users can expect future

games from Nguyen to be of the

same simple, retro style and graph-ics. Included in .GEARS list of avail-

able games are Smashing Kitty,

Droplet Shufe, Shuriken Block,

Ninjas Assault, and Super Jug-

gling, which is also a top download

on app stores.

I will take Flappy

Bird down. I cannot take

this anymore.

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#idigminesPHILANTHROPY DAYFEBRUARY 27CELEBRATE THE DONORS WHO

SUPPORT 1/3 OF YOUR EDUCATION!

Participate by using #idigmines to post a

photo on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook that

thanks donors for supporting your education

and shows how much you dig Mines.

The photo contest winner will be determined

on February 27 by DigNITARIES Mines

student philanthropy group.

For more info visitgiving.mines.edu/students.

PHOTO CONTESTTHE WINNER WILL

RECEIVE $500

TO SUPPORT A

MINES AREA OF

THEIR CHOICE!

Asian Cultural Festival photo recapALL PHOTOS COURTESY AMOS GWA / OREDIGGER

The CSM Asian community celebrated the new year.

Students celebrated the Lunar New Year, complete with a twisting dragon dance.

In addition to food, the Asian Cultural Festival had other events to intrigue attendees.

Asian hip-hop gave variety and a modern air to the evenings performances.

Martial arts demonstrations showcased amazing feats, which captivated audiences.

8/13/2019 The Oredigger Issue 16 - Feb. 10, 2014

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With snow all around, life has be-

come a little more exciting and a little

more dangerous. With the ground

icy or covered in slippery packed

snow, everyone is forced to take a

little more care unless they want to

end up at on their back, staring up

at the sky. One solution for the slick

ground is YakTrax. These remark-

able inventions are like tire chains

for shoes and provide extra traction

against the ground to prevent slip-

ping and falling. They are incredibly

useful when there is ice or packedsnow but they also help when

walking across loose

gravel. Addition-

ally, they also

make really

cool foot prints

that look like

criss-crosses.

The YakTrax are

easily attached to any

type of shoe and come in a variety

of sizes for different size feet. They

attach using a combination of rub-

ber edging and a Velcro strap. The

strap can be removed depending

on how they need to be used. They

can be worn with any kind of shoes

from womens boots to tennis shoes

to hiking boots. Within the packag-ing for the product there is a detailed

explanation of how they can be tted

for a variety of uses. Different posi-

tions make them optimal for walk-

ing, running, trekking, and mountain

climbing. This allows both versatility

and convenience for whatever uses

that they may be required for.

The one downside of these mi-

raculous inventions is that they only

work when walking outside on rough

Jacqueline Feuerborn

Staff Writer

YakTrax a slick trickor icy ground. The YakTrax also gripquite well on carpet so when in-

doors and walking across carpet

they seem no different than normal

except there is a little extra spring

in each step. However, when going

down the hallways of Meyer Hall, for

example, they are too slippery on the

tile oor which results in tumbling to

the oor and some bruising.

So while the YakTrax work ex-

ceptionally well in the outdoors, they

are not well suited for the indoors.

This can be xed by removing them

from the bottom of the pair of shoes

when entering a building but it can

be a bit of a pain to do each time.Another possible solution to this is

to only place them on the bot-

toms of the shoe when walk-

ing around in the snow for

quite awhile. It is not worth

taking them on and off

just to walk around

in the snow for

a few min-

utes but if for

some reason

it is neces-

sary to walk for

qui te a while over slick

ice or snow then they would be very

handy.

All in all, while the YakTrax are in-

credibly useful for walking around in

the snow with a decreased chanceof slipping, they are not practical for

everyday use. If they are to be used

everyday then there has to rst be an

understanding that they take some

time to put on and take off. Also,

there is some risk to the wearer if

they are worn indoors, especially on

tile. With all of those recommenda-

tions in mind, the YakTrax are an

amazing invention that make walk-

ing in the snow less of a chore.

COURTESYYAKTRAX

As the students of Colorado

School of Mines have all undoubt-

edly noticed, there has been a little

bit of snow lately. While snow can be

pretty to look at, surely everyone can

but in agreement that is hasnt been

the nicest thing to trudge through onthe way to class. Anyone who has

experienced pulling off wet freezing

socks in a futile attempt to save a

couple frostbitten toes should know

that they arent the only student on

campus to endure them; others can

commiserate and share in the pain.

The ice is cold, wet, annoying and

yet for some reason it is still pos-

sible to love it a little bit (well some

of us do), for no other reason than

the wind seems to disappear while

it is snowing.

Almost all little kids idolize the

snow. There were a variety of rea-

sons for this but the most promi-

nent was because it was seen as

a chance of freedom. With snow

comes snow days, somethingeven adults look forwards to. Who

wouldnt rather be spending their af-

ternoon building snowmen and pelt-

ing their friends with lumpy chunks

of cold wet snow? However, this is

something that Mines students can

only dream about. After the false

alarm a few months back, everyone

has been forced to come to the con-

clusion that the school refuses to let

us live out our childish dreams of the

snow. Instead, students have been

packed into cage like rooms to listen

to teachers drone on about some-

thing not nearly as interesting as the

snow. Meanwhile outside, children

Jacqueline Feuerborn

Staff Writer

The joys of snowcan be seen running across Kafa-

dar Commons, whether or not these

children are real or just part of a re-

membered childhood is a mystery.

Growing up somewhere warmer,

perhaps inside a volcano or in Texas,

can make the snow seem com-

pletely and utterly perplexing, well

then...get use to it because the state

could be getting more snow as lateas May. Welcome to Colorado, the

land of bipolar weather, where it can

go from snowing to 80F in just a few

hours. Anyone that does not under-

stand how that can even be possible

shouldnt worry because plenty of

people are also wondering the exact

same thing. Colorado was blessed

(or cursed) with this crazy weather so

unless someone gures out how to

control the weather (dont forget, this

is Mines -- there is a chance it could

actually happen) everyone is just

going to have to put up with it. So

head outside and make something

of it, but not a snowman because

it is to dry for that...or snowballs

because they wont stick together.

Basically, our snow is pointless foranything other than blowing around

and making us all cold and miser-

able. In a search for better snow?

Then there are only two choices:

either wait a few days for the snow

to soften into a weird squishy mush

or move to Canada. There is noth-

ing anyone can do to avoid the snow

without leaving Golden so just keep

on going and hope it will disappear

soon, hopefully without taking your

extremities with it.

So with snow all around there is

just one thing left to do: go ll a travel

mug with warm hot chocolate or cof-

fee and head off to class.

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Jordan Francis

Staff Writer

There are plenty of poorly writ-

ten comics and plenty of potentially

great stories that fall into the hands

of mediocre writers, but rarely does

one see a story with such poten-

tial fail so hard at living up to what

it could have been. There was a

good premise here. The main play-

ers were well-established and in-

teresting characters. There was

some excellent history behind all

of the motivations in the story. This

should have been a compelling,

dramatic epic of a story, focusing

on the relatable struggles of deal-

ing with personal demons and the

impotence of being to x someone

elses problems, even for those who

can see exactly where the troubles

are headed. Instead, it comes off as

a lackluster, sloppy piece of work

thrown together by a writer who

started with an outline of where

the story needed to go and did not

progress much beyond that point.

But, before tossing this work aside

as the sloppy and frankly insulting

drivel that it is, readers and fans

should actually take a look at this

comics story.

Rise and Fall was a pre-52

story from 2010. It is a direct sequel

to Cry For Justice, which told,

among other subplots, the story

of Prometheus, a super intelligent

villain from Batmans rogue gallery,

attacking the Justice League of

America. In his attack, he managed

to surprise the JLA in their watch-

tower, sever one of Red Arrows

arms, and destroy much of Star

City, the home base for most of the

Arrow clan. Red Arrows daughter,

Lian, was among those killed in thedestruction. Prometheus escaped

from the League, but Green Arrow

tracked him down and killed him

with an arrow to the face. These

comics took place during a time

when DC was attempting to make

many of its iconic, idealistic heroes

and their stories much darker than

they had previously been. Some of

these attempts actually led to de-

cent and sometimes good comics,

but, as is often the case with edito-

rial mandates, some of the stories

were just dark for the sake of be-

ing dark and thus the content of

the comics often fell at on its face.

Unfortunately, despite its interesting

premise, Rise and Fall entrenches

itself rmly in the latter category.Rise and Fall is really a comic

split into two halves for two sepa-

rate stories that are supposed to

be intertwined but really just end up

co-existing in the same timeline: the

Fall of Green Arrow and the tragic

Rise of Arsenal from the ashes

of Red Arrow. Green Arrows tale

begins with a recap of the events

Justice League: Rise and Fall: Disappointingfrom the end of Cry For Justice

followed by Green Arrow returning

to Star City to hunt down Electrocu-

tioner, the supervillain who helped

Prometheus devastate the city and

who Green Arrow blames for Lians

death. The other heroes attempt to

track down Prometheus and even-

tually nd his body with a green ar-

row sticking out of it. Flash (Barry

Allen) and Green Lantern (Hal Jor-

dan) go twice with Black Canary to

confront the Emerald Archer about

the murder, only to have Green Ar-

row evade them both times. He

eventually meets up with the cur-

rent Speedy (Mia Dearden), who

has caught the Electrocutioner and

who asks for the chance to kill him

herself, as she feels guilty for letting

Lian die while under her supervi-

sion. Green Arrow has a strange

and fairly unconvincing change of

heart and refuses to let Mia or him-

self kill Electrocutioner. Arrow turns

himself over to the authorities, lead-

ing to an unintentionally hilarious

scene where Green Arrow is ar-

rested, yet nobody recognizes him

as the former mayor, Oliver Queen,

until his incredibly small domino

mask is pulled from his face. Arrow

then spends some time in jail where

Black Canary breaks up with him.

In an impossibly quick manner, he

is given his day in court where the

jury nds him not guilty of the mur-

der he committed. The judge dis-

agrees, but instead of overturning

the verdict, simply banishes Queen

from Star City with the threat of in-

carceration should he ever return.

And so Green Arrows story ends,

with Queen supposedly learning a

lesson but not appearing to have

changed at all and having man-

aged to get away with literal murderscott-free.

Green Arrows story, while un-

compelling and poorly executed,

at least avoided having any major

consequence. While Roy Harpers

tale is not handled any better, he

unfortunately does not escape his

mess of a plot without permanent

damage to his character. The sec-

ond half of the comic begins with

a more detailed look at the ght

between Roy Harper (Red Arrow)

and Prometheus, which Cry For

Justice skipped over. Roy gets his

arm chopped off and wakes up in

the medical facilities, surrounded

by members of the League. As

the realization hits him that his arm

is really gone, he learns about thedestruction in Star City and the

death of his daughter. Understand-

ably distraught and medicated, he

begins hallucinating a conversation

with Corey, his old drug dealer. (For

those who were unaware, in 1971

DC published a storyline that re-

vealed teenage Roy Harper as a

heroin addict. Harper eventually

managed to kick his addiction with

help from Green Lantern and Black

Canary.) In pain, Roy swipes some

pain pills from Dr. Mid-Nite and, af-

ter seeing Lian in the morgue and

convincing himself that she is re-

ally dead, returns to his home. He

rejects the company of his friends

and continues hallucinating en-

counters with Corey alongside

nightmares about Lians death. He

later nds out that Green Arrow

killed Prometheus and gets even

more angry at being denied his re-

venge. Roy stops by S.T.A.R labs

to attach a new robotic arm to his

stump before attending Lians fu-

neral. A few heroes attempt to offer

comfort but Roy lashes out at all of

them and leaves for home. There,

he is attacked by Chesire, Lians

mother. They ght, blaming each

other for not protecting Lian, which

somehow leads to them attempting

to get intimate. Roy later hits the

streets in his old Arsenal costume,

beats up some thugs, and scores

some heroin. He then ghts a few

druggies and Batman, hallucinating

that they are all Prometheus. Bat-

man subdues him and alongside

Canary, dump him in a rehab facility

for villains. Unsurprisingly, this is not

a very helpful move and once he

starts hallucinating visions of Lian

urging him to kill the other man re-

sponsible for her death (Electrocu-

tioner), Roy breaks out of rehab and

breaks into the jail where Electrocu-

tioner is currently being held. This

is the same jail where Green Arrow

is incarcerated, so Queen ghts

Roy in an attempt to stop him.

Roy, however, manages to evade

him long enough to kill Electrocu-

tioner. He then leaves, burns down

his house, and strikes out to bringjustice to the streets once more as

Arsenal.

There are so many things wrong

with this story that it is hard to know

where to start. However, what ulti-

mately ruins what could have been

a salvageable, possibly even good,

comic is the way the characters are

written. Good storytellers should

know their characters and their

world well enough to come up with

a scenario, drop the characters in,

and let the resulting character ac-

tions and interactions dictate or

at least guide the direction of the

story from there. In this book, the

characters serve as little more than

cardboard cutout mouthpieces for

the writer, saying and doing what-ever was needed to move the story

along in the direction the author and

editorial team thought it should go.

This is straight-up lazy writing that

really hurts what could have been

a really interesting story. As a re-

sult of this lack of effort, the char-

acters come across as wooden,

hollow, cliched, and often irrational

or nonsensical. The way most of

them are written ies completely in

the face of established character

traits and spits in the face of the

long, in-depth history of personal-

ity and experiences each of them

have accumulated over their years

of existence. Roy goes from under-

standably angry and in pain over his

daughters death to a raging, delib-

erately spiteful jerk for no adequate

reason. Most of the other heroes

consistently behave like idiots and

even Black Canary, who helped

Roy through his original addiction

and withdrawal, does a complete

turnaround and dumps him in a re-

hab clinic to deal with his problems

alone at the rst sign of drug abuse.

Expecting anyone to believe real

people, much less these charac-

ters, behave this way is a slap in the

face to longtime fans and an insult

to the intelligence of new readers.

Most of the other problems stem

from this. It is really hard to get in-

vested in the pain of a character

who is not acting like the person

fans know him or her to be. It is

hard to enjoy the ght scenes when

characters are not acting like them-

selves and the audience has no

reason to believe that there is really

anything at stake in these clashes.

Even the deaths in this story fall

at, carrying none of the emotional

weight or signicance they should.

The reader has no reason to care

whether or not a boring and unlik-

able character will kill one that the

audience did not get a chance to

know.

The cover and between issues

art is actually pretty good but the

actual artwork featured in the com-

ics is inconsistent as all get-out and

shifts from acceptable to distractingto annoyingly bad on a regular ba-

sis. Readers could be forgiven for

assuming that the artists were go-

ing for a superheroes with scolio-

sis theme in this book, what with

all the odd and impossible angles

between the characters torsos and

hips. Proportions in this comic are

all over the place and after seeing

the fth or sixth hero standing or

moving in a way that would make

professional contortionist do a dou-

ble-take, one starts to believe that

the artists either have no concept

of basic human anatomy or are

under the impression that all super-

heroes are made of bionic rubber.

Additionally, while it is unfortunately

somewhat expected that womenin comics tend to be drawn in a

sexual way more often than men,

this book is blatant and bad about

it. Every panel that features a fe-

male that has gone through puberty

nds a way to show off her chest

or rear, even when the artists have

to twist her spine to do so. Girls

get dialogue in this book largely

when the author needs someone

to have a brief lets talk about feel-

ings interlude and they are usually

silenced quickly after. No female in

this comic does anything signicant

to the plot; though, to be fair, few of

the men drive the plot much either.

In fact, for all the action this book

seems to contain, the plot does not

go much of anywhere. Point be-

ing, women in this book are drawn

and written here as little more than

talking blow-up dolls. Heck, Roys

hallucination of Lian is a more inter-

esting and better-drawn character

than any of the other girls in the

comic.

The art is at-out terrible at its

primary job: supporting and en-

hancing the story being told in the

comic. Exaggerated detailing often

give dramatic moments a ludicrous

feel while a complete lack of detail

in other scenes prevent the reader

from understanding what is going

on or how a character is reacting to

a situation. When facial expressions

and body language are readable,

they are usually clash with the tone

of the scene. The most obvious

example of this is during the scene

where Roy nds out about Lians

death. As he collapses onto the

oor, one would expect his friends

to want to comfort him, or perhaps

to be angry and sad on his behalf,

or maybe even uncomfortable and

uncertain of what to do. But when

Roy Harper falls to the oor in pain,

a broken man realizing he has lost

everything, almost all of the others

strike some sort of heroic pose in

the background. It is stupid, dis-

tracting, and subtly takes the read-

er out of the drama of the scene,

greatly reducing its impact.

Overall, this comic hits everynegative stereotype that gives com-

ic books a bad name. It is poorly

written, mindless drivel that is gritty

and violent for the sake of shock

value instead of story. The charac-

ters are at and unbelievable, the

story that could have actually been

really good and compelling is re-

duced to a poorly-translated mess

of a summary of what could have

been, and the art is overall sloppy.

It seems like the comic is trying to

re-create the magic that made the

(admittedly awed but still way bet-

ter) Identity Crisis but with far less

effort. The attempt falls on its face

so hard, that this comic is still trying

to surgically remove pieces of the

ground from its forehead. DiehardDC fans might want to give this

book a quick look if only to say they

have read it. Everybody else should

take a pass. There is no shortage of

quality stories about these charac-

ters; there is no need to waste time

on a comic that attempts to make

them more generic than off-brand

aspirin.

Lee Daniels The Butler is a

2013 historical lm directed by Lee

Daniels and starring Forest Whita-

ker, Oprah Winfrey, and John Cu-

sack. The Butler is a ctionalized

version of the life of Eugene Allen

(Cecil Gaines in this lm) who acted

as head butler for the White House

between 1952 and 1986. The lm

paints the story of Cecil and his

family within the backdrop of the

changes to the political and racial

landscape between this time period.

The lm opens to a day in Cecil

Ramiro Rodriguez

Staff Writer

Lee Daniels The Butler a spectacular flmGaines childhood where his father

is murdered by the plantation owner

who had also raped his mother. This

event lead to him being taken to

serve inside of the house instead of

as a eld hand by the other ownerof the plantation. Cecil eventually

leaves the plantation and nds work

as a butler in a restaurant he stole

cake from in the middle of poverty

induced starvation. This would set

the stage for his life as he progress-

es from the restaurant to a hotel in

Washington D.C. where he would

meet his wife (played by Oprah Win-

frey) and eventually be asked to be-

come a butler in the employ of the

White House. The rest of the lm

follows and juxtaposes the events in

Cecils family life, the actions of the

sitting president and his administra-

tion, the promotion of the civil rights

movement by Cecils oldest sonLouis, and various moments in US

history such as the assassination

of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam

War, and the King assassination ri-

ots. Throughout this stretch of time

both Cecil and Louis go through life

and perception changing events

that shape and mold their images of

themselves and each other. The lm

closes with Cecil meeting Barack

Obama after his inauguration as

president of the United States.

The Butler is a spectacular re-

telling of the American civil rights

movement through a set of view-

points that historical retellings often

are not told by: a servant to the menresponsible for responding to the

events as well as the view of a family

man who has no battles or crusades

and merely wants to live a peaceful

life. Forest Whitaker gives a master-

ful performance that creates a deep

level of empathy with Cecil through

the best and worst parts of his life

and makes Cecil Gaines a character

to root for throughout the lm. While

John Cusack as Richard Nixon

and Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan

gave rather good performances, it

can be rather immersion breaking if

the twos political views are known.

While there were no bad perfor-

mances in The Butler, it sometimesfeels like the presidents and rst la-

dies were chosen purely based on

who the lm crew wanted to work

with that week. Furthermore, the

lm has a complete lack of subtlety

which, depending on the part of the

movie, can be hit or miss. Ultimately,

Lee Daniels The Butler is a power-

ful portrayal a turbulent part of this

nations history that should be seen

by the masses.

COURTESY DCCOMICS

8/13/2019 The Oredigger Issue 16 - Feb. 10, 2014

9/12

f e a t u r e sfebruary , page 9

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

Jacqueline Feuerborn

Staff Writer

In K. M. Peytons novel, Snowfall, read-

ers nd themselves thrown back to Victorian

England. In a small village, Peyton introduc-

es the main character of the story. Char-

lotte is a sixteen-year-old girl who dreams

of being anywhere but the vicarage that

she feels trapped in with her grandfather.

With no parents or dowry, her grandfather

has arranged for her to marry the man who

will replace him as the village vicar, Hubert

Carstairs. Charlotte feels that this arranged

marriage with Mr. Carstairs is bringing an

end to her life. It is a little over-dramatic, butthe author successfully conveys Charlottes

sixteen-year-old emotions. In order to avoid

her arranged marriage, Charlotte arranges

with her brother Ben, an Oxford student,

to go away on one incredible vacation. Her

brother, while hesitant at rst, helps con-

vince their grandfather to let her go with on

a trip to the Alps that Ben was already plan -

ning with several of his Oxford friends. From

there the reader jumps aboard an adventure

in the Swiss Alps. Upon arriving in Switzer-

land, Charlotte is introduced to a range of

new characters. Bens friends include Milo,

the dashing aristocrat who feels more at

home on a mountainside than at a fancy

party; Mar, a man hiding from the law for a

crime he did not commit; Roland, a garden-

er and several other fascinating characters.

During her time in Switzerland, Charlotteembraces a variety of new experiences that

she never would have encountered in Vic-

torian England. She falls in love and has her

heart broken. She helps her maid who has

fallen pregnant and climbs all over the Swiss

mountains. The way that Peyton describes

all of the scenery makes the reader feel as

though they are actually in Switzerland with

the characters. The characters are also very

well done with hidden depths and almost

constant character development.

Snowfall is intriguingAs Charlottes time in Switzerland comes

to an end, she braces herself for her inevi -

table return to England and her marriage

to Mr. Carstairs. Peyton makes it incredibly

easy to sympathize with Charlotte and her

return to that fate is almost palpable. The

others on the trip all sympathize with Char-

lotte. None of them are eager to return to

the lives they left behind. Milo, one of the in-

credible people she had met on her adven-

tures in Switzerland, was the one to offer

a solution. After purchasing a small manor

house, Milo admits that he has no one to

run it and he hates the idea of living there

alone. This leads to an offer to his compan-

ions. He offers each of his friends a positionin his household that suits their preferred in-

terests. Charlotte nds herself taken on as a

housekeeper and friend, the perfect escape

from her dreary life with Mr. Carstairs.

From there the story continues on to

their lives and experiences living together in

Milos home. There are new characters and

interactions paired with tons of new drama.

The reader gets to read all about the conclu-

sion of Mars criminal accusations and see

Milos interactions with his aristocratic family

and his lover. It is fascinating watching their

new lives develop and the plot remains in-

teresting throughout the entire novel. Up to

the very end, the reader will be fascinated

until the last pages where Peyton throws in

a new twist that will leave the reader reeling.

Snowfall by K. M. Peyton is an intrigu-

ing story all about life and how to change

fate. The novel tells the alluring tale of a

woman who would do anything to escape

her dreary life and, in the end, found a life

that she never even could have imagined.

This is a great book for anyone who loves to

cheer for the underdog or seeks an exciting

adventure lled with romance and excite-

ment. This book has aspects that would ap-

peal to almost any audience. So to ll these

snowy days, why not pull Snowfall off of a

shelf and give it a go?

Geek Week...Eric Charrier, PhD Student: Mining Engineering

ofthe

Plenty of Mines students gothrough the school with a goal of

running through their academic

gauntlet as quickly as possible.

Others take a bit longer to leave this

haven of geeks, either by choice or

by trial and error. However, only a

privileged few can claim the honor

of knowing the campus as well as

Erik Charrier, who, after wresting

both a Bachelor of Science and a

Masters degree from Mines, con-

tinues to do battle with the school

in pursuit of a PhD in Mining Engi-

neering.[Oredigger]: Why did you

pick Mining Engineering?

Its an application of Mechanical

Engineering [my Masters degree]

in an interesting area. Ive alwaysbeen fascinated by mining equip-

ment...Here, I am doing what I al-

ways thought would be wonderful

fun as a kid.What has been your favorite

class so far?

Either Technology and Social

change with Mark Eberhart, Ma-

chine Design, one of Steeles Ro-

botics classes, or Turners Design

class. We decided to build a ro-

bot in Design class and ended up

equipping a ten pound robot with

BattleBots-gr