November 13, 2015•Volume 101, Issue 15•nique.net

News 2 Opinions 6 Life 10 Entertainment 14 Sports 24

technique.

Record Retention Rates p5

NEWS

.

H2H: Social Media p9

OPINIONS

SHOOTING FOR STRONG NEW SEASON p24

See FINALS, page 13

‘Good grief!’ Charlie Brown returns in endearing film

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Woodstock, Snoopy and Charlie Brown display their magic. The iconic dog and bird were voiced by their original voice actors.

ENTERTAINMENTTop L: Photo courtesy of Wei Liao Student Publications; Top R: Photo courtesy of Kropekk_pl; Above: Photo by John Nakano Student Publications

SPORTS

How to Study for Finals

SHWETA BHATCONTRIBUTING WRITER

As we approach mid-November, the thought of finals is increasingly on students’ minds. A lot of students, particularly freshmen, are facing the question of how to approach studying. A few upperclassmen sat down to share their study stories and tips.

It seems common among students to take study breaks with TV shows or videos. “The best way for me to study was to break the studying into chunks — watch half of an episode every two or three hours and then go back to studying,” said Leila Harrison, second-year ENVE.

“I can only work for 45 to 60 min-utes at a time … me and my friends will find a funny YouTube video and send it to each other. I’ll spend like 15 minutes taking a break … sometimes I’ll play games to keep my mind active because just zoning out for a few min-utes isn’t refreshing for me,” explained Emma O’Bryant, third-year IE.

“If I’m doing a study break, I’ll watch an episode of one show — then I

LIFE

JACK WEINKSELBAUMCONTRIBUTING WRITER

The “Peanuts” cartoon strip has always had adult meanings beyond the age of the characters in the strip. This still rings true with “The Peanuts Movie.”

The movie stars newcomers Noah Schnapp as Charlie Brown and Hadley Belle Miller (“Sofia the First”) as Lucy. It also reuses the voice of Bill Melendez, who died in 2008. The reuse of Melen-dez’s voice was unnoticeable, be-cause of Snoopy’s limited vocabu-lary. The voices of the newcomers

were very similar to those used in previous “Peanuts” TV specials.

The movie mainly follows Snoopy and Charlie Brown. In fact, in foreign markets, the movie is actually called “Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie.” The main story of the movie revolves around Charlie Brown and a new kid, The Little Red Haired Girl. Throughout the movie, Charlie Brown attempts to muster the courage to talk to her and often attempts to impress the nameless character. This includes his practicing for the school dance

See PEANUTS, page 16

FILM

The Peanuts MovieGENRE: Family, Animation, ComedySTARRING: Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez, Francesca Capaldi and Hadley Belle MillerDIRECTOR: Steve MartinoRATING: GRELEASE DATE: Nov. 6

OUR TAKE: «««««

2 • November 13, 2015• technique // NEWS2 • November 13, 2015• technique

nique.netsliver

That moment when you lose the game... and then realize you’re 22 and still playing the game.How to fit so much culture in one weekend?Looking at all the new emojis just stressed me out. School work, fine. Smiley faces, I can’t do it!TOO MANY OPTIONS APPLE! TOO MANY!Can I start the Michael Buble CD yet??Skiles has its own tropical microclimate. And a collection of bi-zarre fauna.Maybe the Technique should get all sides of the story before pub-lishing a biased article dealing with a controversial topic. Just sayin.I realized it was sunny outside from a photo posted on Facebook. I need to stop studying...I’m an avocado.never tell the truth, not worth iti srsly dont get itlike whyWHYnothing makes sense and everything hurtscompetencies: digging self into a hole i will never escapeI can’t feel my face when I’m with you takes on a whole new meaning when your roommate picks you up and drops you on your face...So cold. So sickMixing up the “Buzz Around Campus” question and answers led to some hilarious results.

Georgia Tech’s Journal of the Arts and Literatureart, n. - The expression or application of creative skill and

imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting, drawing, or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their

beauty or emotional power.

“It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substi-tute whatever for the force and beauty of

its process.”– Max Eastman

The South’s Liveliest College Newspaper

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:Brenda Lin

MANAGING EDITOR:Nick Johnson

NEWS EDITOR:David Raji

OPINIONS EDITOR:Vidya Iyer

LIFE EDITOR:Samira Bandaru

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR:Trishna Chandarana

SPORTS EDITOR:Jonathan Long

DESIGN EDITOR:Brighton KamenPHOTO EDITOR:

Tyler Meuter

HEAD COPY EDITOR: Alexis Brazier

ONLINE EDITOR: Kripa Chandran

WEB DEVELOPER:Ross Lindsay

Founded in 1911, the Technique is the student newspaper of the Georgia In-stitute of Technology, and is an official publication of the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications. The Technique publishes on Fridays weekly in the fall and spring and biweekly in the summer.ADVERTISING: Information can be found online at nique.net/ads. The dead-line for reserving ad space is Friday at 5 p.m. one week before publication. To place a reservation, for billing informa-tion or for any other questions please e-mail us at ads@nique.net. You may reach us at (404) 894-2830, Monday through

Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

COVERAGE REQUESTS: Requests for coverage and tips should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief and/or the relevant

section editor.

Copyright © 2015, Brenda Lin, Editor-in-Chief, and the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any man-ner without written permission from the Editor-in-Chief or from the Board of Student Publications. The ideas expressed herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Student Publications, the students, staff or faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology or the University System of Georgia. First copy free — for

additional copies call (404) 894-2830

technique

JON LONG, NICK JOHNSONSPORTS EDITOR, MANAGING EDITOR

TECH WINS BIKE CHALLENGEIn its tier of organizations,

which included those with more than 2,000 employees, Tech took first place honors for the Atlanta Bike Challenge.

The competition involved or-ganizations’ employees utilizing bikes during the month of Oc-tober. According to Johann We-ber, a PUBP graduate student as well as Tech’s ambassador for the event, Tech fielded a total of 145 participants; of these, 18 were new to the Challenge. Tech’s riders, who collectively rode approximately 12,000 miles,

earned about 60,000 “points” for the institute.

Love to Ride, a nonprofit or-ganization, was responsible for event. In last year’s Challenge, Tech placed third in its category.

The victory was celebrat-ed this past Monday evening in the Bill Moore Student Suc-cess Center.

TEACHING THE TEACHERSTech’s Human Resources

department has announced its plans to hold Employee Learn-ing Week from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4. The week is intended to help faculty learn new skills that can benefit them in both the workplace and their per-sonal lives. Manager of Work-place Learning and Professional Development LaTrese Ferguson hopes that it will give the faculty an opportunity “to continue de-veloping themselves profession-ally and personally.”

The week will consist of three main events: Food for Thought, Seasoned Employee Experience and Service Learning. Food for Thought will be a series of hour-long workshops combining cooking demonstrations with in-

struction in relevant professional skills. The Seasoned Employee Experience promises to give vet-eran member of the Tech com-munity a fresh perspective on the university’s culture. Finally, Ser-vice Learning will send faculty members to the Georgia World Congress Center where they will give instruction to young stu-dents in business and financial management.

Tech is hoping to make Em-ployee Learning week an annual campus event.

#WEAREBLACKGTIn solidarity with the black

students of University of Mis-souri (UM) and their move-ment, the Georgia Tech African American Student Association (GTAASU) encouraged Tech students to action by wearing all black clothing early Thursday morning, Nov. 12.

GTAASSU stated in their email call to action that it be-hooved students to participate and support the group in their efforts to create safe spaces for Black students at Predominately White Institutions (PWI) across the country.

The email called for students to post on social media with the hashtags #ConcernedStu-dent1950, #Mizzou and #Geor-giaTechStandsWithMizzou.

The football team also par-ticipated by wearing all black tape for the game. Students were also encouraged to stand togeth-er in the student section of the stadium.

SHOTS FROM ABOVEIn June of 2014, CNN

teamed up with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to explore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to gather news in a new and unique way.

In addition to getting bet-ter angled photos, these drones can be sent to areas ravaged by earthquakes or floods, places inaccessible or highly unsafe for humans.

The issue was that the Fed-eral Aviation Administration regulates the flying of drones for commercial purposes, and this requires a year-long certification process. However, a special ex-emption was taken advantage of, where the drones may be flown under certain restrictions.

HASIT DEWANASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

DULLEST BLADES IN THE GRASSOn Nov. 2, an officer saw

a group of Tech students near Perry Residence Hall smoking marijuana. Upon approaching the group, the boys ran toward the Perry courtyard.

When advised to stop run-ning, four of the six stopped; however, the other two kept run-ning When questioned, the stu-dents claimed they were smoking normal cigarettes. The officers discovered the two students who had run in their residence

hall. The students admitted to smoking marijuana and were all given student code of conduct violations.

NOT QUITE HUNKY-DORYOn Nov. 1, GTPD received

a sick call from Hopkins Hall. The student was found to have consumed alcohol along with his roommate. Upon arrival, the of-ficer encountered a student who was heavily intoxicated. The stu-dent was conscious but could not speak or do much of anything.

The officer directed the stu-dent to a Grady Hospital am-bulance that arrived on scene. By this time, the student had re-covered considerably and could speak. When questioned, she could not recall where she had consumed the alcoholic bever-ages. The officer issued her a stu-dent code of conduct violation.

STUDENT ON THE LEDGEOn Oct. 31, an officer heard

laughter coming from the roof of the Architecture East Building. The officer ascended the staircase

and found three individuals who claimed that there were more on the roof. An additional offi-cer arrived, went to the roof and escorted four additional people from the roof.

After advising that climbing the roofs of buildings is not al-lowed, the individuals were told that if they returned, they would be subject to arrest. The indi-viduals who were identified as students received Code of Con-duct violations. Only verbal tres-passing charges were given, and the officers did not proceed with prosecution.

Later on the same day, GTPD received a call that one of those students in the Architecture East Building sent the caller mes-sages about committing suicide by drug overdose. The student believed that his family would be disappointed by his violation and the assumed legal troubles that would follow. The officer contacted the suicidal individual and clarified that he was in no legal trouble. An officer was dis-patched to the student’s on-cam-

pus residence until housing staff arrived. The student felt better after the clarification that there were no legal consequences and stated that he was just having a moment. There was no further incident, and officers cleared the scene.

FALSE ALARMOn Saturday, Oct. 31, and

officer was dispatched to Center Street Apartments in response to a call made by the Director for Center Street Apartments about a fire alarm ringing in the north building.

The responding officer pro-ceeded to the control panel lo-cated in the basement level and identified that the alarm was set off from the first floor of the building.

It was noted that there were no signs of fire or smoke. Af-ter Atlanta Fire Rescue arrived at 10:45 p.m. The alarm panel was silenced and reset without further incident. The reason for the alarm being set off re-mains unclear.

technique • November 13, 2015• 3// NEWS

NICK JOHNSONMANAGING EDITOR

CHILD FATALLY ATTACKSYOUNGER SIBLING

An eight-year-old boy was charged with murder in Birming-ham, Ala., on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

According to the Birmingham Police Department, between Oct. 10 and 11, the boy was left at home with his four siblings, none of whom were older than he.

When the one-year-old child began crying and would not stop, the eight-year-old began violently beating the child, eventually lead-ing to severe head trauma, “major internal organ damage” and even-tual death, according to CNN.

The mother, Katerra Lewis, left the children alone under the supervision of the eldest in order to go clubbing with friends late on Oct. 10. When she returned at 2 a.m., according to police, she did not check on the children. The police finally received a call at 10:30 a.m. concerning the death of the child.

Lewis stands charged with manslaughter, and the eight-year-

old is under the custody of the state’s Department of Human Re-sources along with his siblings.

MEMBERS OF VENEZUELAN FIRSTFAMILY ARRESTED FOR DRUGS

On Nov. 10, two members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s family were detained in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The men, identified to be Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores Freites, claimed at the time of arrest by U.S. Fed-eral agents and the Drug Enforce-ment Administration to be the nephews of President Flores’s wife.

According to CNN, the two were about to finalize a deal that would let them transport 800 kg of drugs into the U.S. Both Flores and Freites had Venezuelan pass-ports and claimed to have diplo-matic immunity.

Haitian authorities were not involved in the raid, and the Ven-ezuelan government has not re-sponded.

FANTASY SPORTS BETTING SITESNOW ILLEGAL IN NEW YORK STATE

Fantasy sports betting sites FanDuel and DraftKings have been deemed illegal gambling under New York state law by the state Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman on Nov. 10.

In the statement to The New York Times on Tuesday, Schnei-derman said, “Today we have sent a clear message: not in New York, and not on my watch.”

Fantasy sports were specially exempted from a 2006 federal law prohibiting the online wagering of money due to the amount of skill

required to play and win. How-ever, by allowing bets for multiple sport and offering prize sums of money, the issue has arisen wheth-er the sites are skill-based and le-gal under exemption or luck-based and illegal gambling.

Last month, daily fantasy sports in Nevada were driven out after being considered gambling and illegal without gaming licens-es. More states are looking into legislating fantasy sports, includ-ing Florida and Massachusetts, and the decisions from Nevada and New York serve to promote legal action.

According to The New York Times, both sites combined have 1.1 million active users in New York, constituting 12.8 percent of all daily active users. This results in $384 million in entry fees and $35 million in revenue per year. From Tuesday, the sites have five days to convince Schneiderman that fantasy sports are not gam-bling under New York law. Failing this, it will be decided in court.

EX-POLICE SENTENCED FOR 2013 TAXI DRIVER MURDER

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Judge Bert Bam of South Africa sen-tenced eight ex-police officers to 15 years of prison for the Feb. 26, 2013 murder of a Mozambican taxi driver.

The man, Mido Macia, was handcuffed in the back of the former officers’ police van and dragged on the ground before being placed in a holding cell and beaten. It was determined that Macia died from blunt force trauma due to these injuries, and

the former officers were charged accordingly. However, the judge held back the 25-year maximum penalty as the former officers had no history of misconduct, and the murder was not premeditated, ac-cording to The New York Times.

Macia was originally arrested in Daveytown, east of Johan-nesburg, for suspicion of having parked illegally. He resisted arrest, at which point the former officers turned violent.

“This was a barbaric act com-mitted by the police, who are there to protect the community, and not to kill the community,” said Jose Nascimento, lawyer for Macia’s family, courtesy of The New York Times,. “This was just madness.”

The initial arrest of Macia was recorded by bystanders and was posted to social media, where the case drew attention. Since apart-heid ended in 1994, migrants to South Africa have experienced xenophobia, violence and police brutality.

Macia’s family has sued the South African government for 6.5 million rand, approximately $460,000.

BEAUTY PAGENT QUEENDELAYED TO FINALS IN CHINA

Anastasia Lin, crowned Miss World Canada in May, claimed on Tuesday, Nov. 10, that her visa to travel to the Miss World finals in Sanya, China, has been delayed due to her condemnation of China’s human rights policies. Furthermore, she claims her fa-ther has been harassed by Chinese officials for her statements. Lin

specifically highlighted religious persecution of the group Falun Gong, of which the China-born Lin is a member.

The Miss World organiza-tion’s Canada chapter has been supportive of her statements, but the London headquarters has not yet found a solution or resolution with China.

MAYOR TRAPPED BY FIREOn Monday, Nov. 9, Roberto

Sanchez, mayor of Concepción, Argentina, was trapped in the town hall by protestors who were burning tires.

Sanchez’s predecessor, Osvaldo Morelli, had city authorities hire about 500 workers. However, Sanchez took office days later, on Oct. 31, and refused to honor these contracts.

“This town works well with the 650 workers it already has, and many of those hired by the pre-vious administration have never worked for the town before,” San-chez said, courtesy of the BBC.

Due to demonstrators protest-ing the alleged irregularities in the gubernatorial election in August, the tensions in Tucuman province have been strained.

VIENNA HOSTS SYRIAN MEETINGSTomorrow, Nov. 14, Vienna

will host meetings to discuss the conflict in Syria. Specifically, at-tendants will discuss which groups in Syria should be considered ter-roristic versus Syrian opposition, according to TASS, a Russian news agency. Included in the del-egations will be the U.S., Russia, Turkey and France, among others.

4 • November 13, 2015• technique // NEWS

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DAVID RAJINEWS EDITOR

On Nov. 7, Teasley Professor Mark Hay, Ph.D., received the Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorer’s Club.

Hay, a professor in Tech’s School of Biology, has made great efforts at understanding coral reefs and threats to them through-out his career. The award was pre-sented from the Explorer’s Club due to what they saw as innovative methods and techniques towards the goal of coral reef conservation.

“Dr. Hay’s research and dis-coveries have influenced the foundations in the field of marine chemical ecology and created new procedures for effective conser-vation and management of the world’s coral reefs,” the Explorer’s Club said in a statement.

Hay has made over 5,000 dives during the course of the past three and a half decades, and much of this field research is aimed at gain-ing a greater understanding of the reasons why coral reefs are being steadily lost in the world at large.

According to Hay, roughly 50 percent of coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean as well as about 80 percent of those in the Caribbean Sea have died in the last half-century.

“For about a billion people around the world in the tropics, coral reefs are one of the major sources of protein, so the loss af-fects food security for these areas,” Hay said in a statement. “Reefs

also provide storm protection for low-lying villages, absorbing big waves coming into shore. And coral reefs are kind of the under-water version of tropical rain for-ests because they have significant unexplored potential as a source of new therapeutic drugs.”

One other revelation that has come from some of Hay’s field

work has been the discovery that, when coral reef organism are in the process of dying, they send out certain chemical signals.

These signals are interpreted by young fish and young coral organ-isms as an indication to stay away from the reef. According to Hay, this is one factor that often pre-vents damaged reefs from healing.

“We want to switch from cata-loging the demise to asking how we can fix things,” Hay said in a statement.

“We are looking at it more or less like a molecular scientist or human health researcher would. We’re asking what are the chemi-cal signals involved, and whether there are opportunities to make

minor adjustments that can have huge benefits.”

According to Hay, the team tries to organically determine in-teractions between organisms like coral in nature rather than by uti-lizing a lab setting. Hay’s work is mostly done in the field, despite the fact that he has a lab on Tech’s Atlanta campus.

Coral reef work integral in professor’s award

Photo courtesy of Jim Maragos USFWS

Professor Mark Hay, Ph.D., has worked towards coral reef conservation for much of his career. He recently was present-ed with the prestigious Lowell Thomas Award by the Explorer’s Club, a New York based group with roughly 3,200 members.

technique • November 13, 2015• 5// NEWS

A CAPPELLA CONFERENCESGA considered bill 16J096,

which would fund the registra-tion fee for Taal Tadka to attend SoJam, an annual a cappella con-ference attended by over 30 differ-ent teams from regions across the United States.

Taal Tadka is a South Asian Fusion student organization at Tech. In the bill, the club details how its goals include networking with professionals in the a cap-pella world as well as improving members’ a cappella education.

The bill originally requested $1,200 worth of funding from SGA in order to cover $100 reg-istration fees for 12 members of Taal Tadka to attend the a cap-pella conference.

Joint Finance Committee (JFC) policy changes to the bill solely consisted of the reduction of the total amount to be allocated from $1,200 to $1,000. Both GSS and UHR amended the bill per JFC policy. GSS passed the bill with a vote of 35-3-3, while UHR passed it with a vote of 37-0-0.

CREW ROOF BILL POSTPONEDSGA also considered bill

16J101, which would fund an al-location to Tech’s Crew team.

The allocation would go to-wards the replacement of the or-ganization’s current boathouse roof with a new metal one. In the bill, the organization stated that the current roof had a number of problems, mainly in the form of physical damages, including holes and tears in the structure.

According to the organization’s bill, these have resulted from the endurance of much inclement weather during the many years of use since the roof was constructed in 1986. Furthermore, the organi-zation stated that they had worked with a “contractor” in order to de-termine the proper avenue to go about fixing the roof.

UHR saw limited discussion of the bill during its session this week. It was ultimately deter-mined that the bill would be post-poned in order to wait for GSS.

CREW ROOF BILL POSTPONEDSGA considered bill 16J095,

which would allocate money to the Women’s Gymnastics club to pay for gymnasium rental fees as well as funding for coach-ing positions.

The amount originally request-ed by the organization was $2,750 and was not changed by JFC. There a question raised in UHR as to whether the organization paid for any of the items, to which the organizational representative responded no.

Both GSS and UHR passed the bill, with votes of 30-9-4 and 37-0-1, respectively.

PASSED & FAILED BILL SUMMARY

BILL AMOUNT GSS UHR

$480$672.50$2,750$1,000

$0$1,124.80

N/A

31-0-2*32-5-330-9-435-3-335-2-123-7-323-0-0

37-0-038-0-037-0-137-0-034-3-138-0-037-0-0

Alternative Service BreaksAsha-GT Speaker Fees

Gymnastics Gym RentalTaal Tadka SoJam Conference

Jingle Jog 5k FundingDance Association Event FeesCampus Organization Policy

Each week, this section of News will include the coverage of different aspects of bills that

passed through Student Government This will include the Undergraduate House of Representatives, Graduate Student Senate and the Executive Branch of both government bodies.

DAVID RAJINEWS EDITOR

*Indicates conference bill voteNot listed are bills yet to see UHR, GSS or conference committees

DAVID RAJINEWS EDITOR

This year, Tech’s first-year re-tention rate reached a record high number of 97 percent.

The statistic has steadily in-creased in the last two decades; in 1996, first-year retention was roughly 85 percent, and in 2005, first-year retention was about 92 percent. This year’s figure again puts Tech above the national aver-age for public four-year universi-ties, which is roughly 80 percent.

“It takes an entire campus community to achieve these high retention and graduation rates,” said Steven Girardot, associate vice provost for Undergraduate Education, in a statement. “I’m proud of the efforts of our faculty and administrators, who work very hard to support student suc-cess from the first day a student arrives on campus until the day they graduate.”

Tech’s rates of graduation by a freshman class’s fifth and sixth years are also above national av-erage values. The averages are 55 and 59 percent for graduations by fifth and sixth year (accord-ing to the National Center for Education Statistics), respectively, whereas for Tech they are 80 and 85 percent. These have also been shown to increase over a large

span of time. In 1996, the fifth and sixth year rates for gradua-tion percentage were 59 and 68 percent, respectively. In 2005, the numbers were 72 and 79 percent for fifth and sixth year gradua-tions, respectively.

“It’s important for every stu-dent we admit to have the re-sources to be successful,” said Debbie Pearson, Tech’s retention and graduation coordinator, in a statement.

According to Pearson, Tech prioritizes and places emphasis on degree completion, and successes arise from the fact that a large per-centage of Tech’s programs have a long lifespan.

Pearson additionally works to ensure that Tech is working towards the Complete College Georgia (CCG) plan. The system, which was introduced by Geor-gia Governor Nathan Deal in August of 2011, was intended to increase the level of attainment of high quality education. The plan mainly focuses on five major ar-eas of concern: college readiness, improving access & completion for underserved students, shorten-ing time to degree, restructuring instructional delivery and trans-forming remediation.

According to the CCG’s web-site, many University System of Georgia (USG) institutions have taken steps towards these goals.

Records broken in retention rate

OPINIONS EDITOR: Vidya Iyer technique6

Friday, November 13, 2015

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. — Robert Frost“”

BEN CARSON’S TALL TALES BY COLLIN CALDWELL

Opinions

Write to us: letters@nique.netGot something to say? Then let

your voice be heard with the Tech-nique. Sliver at Nique.net, tweet us @the_nique or check us out on Face-book at facebook.com/thenique. We want to hear your opinion and want to make it known to all of campus.

We also welcome your letters in response to Technique content as well as topics relevant to campus. We will print letters on a timely and space-available basis.

Each week we look for letters that

are responses to or commentaries on content found within the pages of the Technique. Along with these letters, we are open to receiving letters that focus on relevant issues that currently affect Georgia Tech as a university, in-cluding its campus and student body.

When submitting letters we ask that you include your full name, year (1st, 2nd, etc.) and major. We ask that letters be thought provoking, well written and in good taste. We reserve the right to both reject or edit letters for length and style.

For questions, comments or con-cern, contact the Opinions Editor at opinions@nique.net.

OUR VIEWS | Consensus Opinion

Steps to alleviate racism in universitiesAll students contribute to a college campus

In the last few days there has been an escalation in racial tensions in universities across the country. In particular, the stu-dents at the University of Missouri (UM) have experienced increased racial harass-ment on their campus.

Exacerbating the overwhelming amount of day-to-day racism that black students of UM face is the lack of value given to the general student population, in stark contrast to the importance placed on those who generate revenue. The Presi-dent of UM, Timothy Wolfe, only stepped down after the football students protest-ed and refused to play in their upcoming game. This would have resulted in the loss of over $1 million for the school.

Although administrators claimed that the football team had nothing to do with the steps being taken to alleviate racial tensions, they should have made it clear that something was being done before the situation escalated to this extent.

The situation at UM and racism in gen-eral are not simple issues to resolve. People who hold these toxic beliefs will continue to hold these beliefs regardless of what anyone tells them. Therefore, a complete solution to racism on college campuses is fruitless to pursue right now. Rather, cam-puses — including ours — should make it known that racism is still an issue and is not to be tolerated.

This racism is present on our own cam-pus. Students should not casually accept that certain campus groups are racist with a “that’s just the way they are” attitude.

Tech has taken steps to promote diver-sity by creating taskforces and promoting discussions. However, campus-wide dis-cussions have not been maintained.

To prevent more incidents, Tech needs to continue to listen to all student, regard-less of the revenue they bring to the insti-tution. Ultimately, every student on this campus should feel heard and valued.

The Consensus Opinion reflects the majority opinion of the Editorial Board of the Technique, but not necessarily the opinions of individual editors.

technique editorial boardBrenda Lin EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Nick Johnson MANAGING EDITORJonathan Long SPORTS EDITOR

Samira Bandaru LIFE EDITORTyler Meuter PHOTO EDITOR

Vidya Iyer OPINIONS EDITORTrishna Chandarana ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Brighton Kamen DESIGN EDITORRoss Lindsay WEB DEVELOPER

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up and drops you on your face...

Procrastination level: taking delta flight satisfaction surveys.

My girlfriend has been busy playing Fallout 4. First thing I heard from her all day was that she now wants

kids eventually. No stereotype is safe.

Blood is thicker than water, but gravy is thicker than blood.

On a scale of 1 to pom-pom, how fluffy is your grandma’s hair?

Sloths always win in street fights with koalas.

Why learn things I mean cavemen didn’t know anything and they did fine

People who say extra are too extra.

technique • November 13, 2015• 7// OPINIONS

There’s a trail near my home known as the Indian Seats. It’s a trail I often walk with my father. My father and I can have in-credibly intense and philosophi-cal discussions about morality or walk in pure silence. Both are comfortable for us because when we’re not pas-sionately defend-ing our beliefs, we let our eyes take in the un-derrated beauty of the trail in front of us.

Beams of sunlight seep through the thick trees that shroud the skies. The tempera-ture is always little bit cooler than normal and a blanket of silence covers the forest like the fresh morning dew. For me, what makes these hikes more beautiful is being present. I try to be fully aware, take in every-thing, and enjoy the moment that I am in.

It seems that in this ultra-modern world of ours, this is becoming increasingly more dif-ficult to do. With the world as our stage, we are able to instan-taneously engage with a large audience through merely our smart phones with social me-dia apps like Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook.

The issue here is not that our generation has become too self-obsessed — it’s actually quite the opposite. We want to be able to remember everything share these moments with others. From when we wake up to what we eat to where we’re going, we want to document everything and let the world know about it.

As it is widely recognized that “sharing is caring,” perhaps we, as a society, are sharing just

a little too much.I often feel that people fail

to enjoy what is right in front of them because they’re too busy snapping a picture to remember

a moment for later in the fu-ture. To fully en-joy life, I think it’s important to stop snap-ping pictures and sharing once in a while.

I believe it’s important to keep certain experiences to

oneself because those experi-ences belong to the individual. A certain amount of effort goes into doing something or going somewhere. For example, people cook dinner to satisfy their hun-ger and appetite, not to take a picture of it. So why not be pres-ent and enjoy the meal you’ve created for yourself? Why pose for an artificial picture and cre-ate fake memories to look back on instead of living in the pres-ent — the real?

It seems that we are too wor-ried about creating memories for the moments we fail to live, which is incredibly unfortunate. Constantly thinking about the future and looking back at the past takes away from the qual-ity of life and replaces it with a façade. The only difference between the lifestyle of a photo addict and the Kardashians is that they have professional photographers following them around, and they’re being paid to live, what seems to be, an unfulfilling life.

So, put that phone away. Don’t Insta the latte art in your coffee cup or update your snapstory to show that you’re hanging with your friends. Just be present.

JONATHAN ALLENFOURTH-YEAR AE

“Have more cultural aware-ness type events.”

COLIN ANDREWSFIFTH-YEAR EE

“Introduce new cultural traditions to the campus.”

BEN GORDONFIRST-YEAR ENVE

“The promotion of new organizations helps a lot.”

TIM Z.FOURTH-YEAR MSE

“Have a game show with different cultural chal-

lenges.”

What can college cam-puses do to improve cultural acceptance?

Stop living life through the lens of a camera

“ ... people fail to enjoy what is right in front of them because they’re

too busy snapping a picture ... ”

VIDYA IYEROPINIONATED PERSON

Photos by Tyler Meuter Student Publications

A common joke I hear is “How do you find the vegan at a dinner party? Don’t worry, they’ll let you know.” While I think it would be polite for a vegan, or anyone with a specific dietary prefer-ence or food al-lergy to inform the host of this beforehand, this joke implies that vegans are pretentious and preachy, when this is not the case.

I am not claiming to be bet-ter than you. I am just trying to align my actions with my be-liefs, like most humans. For me, I do not feel comfortable with the reality of inflicting pain upon creatures for a tasty dinner or fluffy coat.

Other vegans may have cho-sen this way of life because of the vast environmental damage caused by the dairy and meat industries or for the health ben-efits of avoiding fat- and choles-terol-packed animal products. Did you see that WHO report?

Other people may disagree that all species are equal and decide that humans have a right to farm and kill some animals (while keeping the cute ones as pets). If you are aware of the horrors of factory farming and still want to eat meat, your choice is fine by me. I do not care what you eat. Of course, I would prefer if you did not, but I am not here to tell you what to do. Similarly, you are not here to tell me what to do.

It fascinates me how quickly people can become nutrition experts, questioning my protein and iron intake. I have plenty of other unhealthy habits, like sleeping for far less than eight

hours per night and consum-ing too much caffeine, but these choices never seem to be cri-tiqued. Being different or doing something against the norm is

bound to invite ridicule, whether friendly joking or hostile ac-cusations. I am not angry; I am just annoyed and mildly confused. The point of veg-anism, for me, is not harming an-imals. Why do people feel the

need to harass me for not harm-ing something?

Not harming a few animals does not make me ethical. In this modern world, it is impossi-ble to not leave nasty footprints everywhere. From cheap clothes manufactured in slave-like con-ditions to the pollution caused by all the electricity needed to power my conflict mineral-ridden electronic devices, I as-sure you that I am not better than anyone.

Everything we do has some negative consequences, but that does not mean that we should not care. For me, that caring is not a question of animals versus people; the two are not mutually exclusive. I want to help both, and in fact I would argue that by helping animals, people are helped as well.

Of course, the preachy veg-ans exist, just as the man-hating feminists and Starbucks-cup-hating Christians exist. In all cases, these people are in the minority and do not represent the whole. Please, do not assume I am judging you. I can happily coexist at omnivore dinner par-ties, especially if you save your hypothetical questions about desert islands for someone else.

Why I don’t want to hear your vegan jokes

“I am just trying to align my actions with

my beliefs.”

MONICA JAMISONASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

I love RPGs. There’s some-thing about making numbers go up and down that attracts me to this genre above others. Despite this, I hate RPGs. There’s some-thing about the lack of diversity in the characters, bad guys and plots that have made this genre stale and unappealing recently.

As I browse the 200 new re-leases tagged as RPGs in Steam, four things stick out: wearing 100 pounds of armor is no big deal, some people need a second opinion on their awful icons, there are more undead than women, and there are zero black people. And I’m not surprised.

The only pre-made charac-ters I’ve played as recently who remotely represent my race are two — the only two — of the over 100 heroes in Dota 2: a guy who hates magic and a lady who makes you fight her. I don’t even play Dota anymore, and I still default to those two. This isn’t to say that playable black char-acters don’t exist anywhere, as I don’t tend to play or enjoy the more popular genres. But what I am saying is that they hardly exist in games and don’t exist in RPGs. When they are included,

they are often stereotyped, usu-ally as “big black guy” or “come-dian” or, my favorite, “slave.”

People of color shouldn’t be included in a game to fulfill a diversity quota, submit to “SJW demands” (whatever that’s sup-posed to mean) or be the token rap verse of video games. People shouldn’t need to be convinced to make games look like the world around themselves. Yes, this even applies to fantasy worlds, where imaginary elves, dwarves and monsters are seen in troves while people of color are the real fantasy. It makes games more relatable to more people instead of pandering to the ones they already cater to.

Boring, white, scruffy, male

protagonists make me not want to pick up a game, but boring baddies make me sorry I ever played the game. Bad guys al-ways want to destroy the world, yet that’s probably the most bor-ing modus operandi that you could come up with for a villain. Literally anything is better than a guy with a dark purple cloak wanting to enslave humanity or destroy the world or summon an ancient demon to do either of those. What’s worse is the ultimate baddies’ motivations, usually not straying far from “ultimate power” or “the good guys picked on me millenia ago” or “because I’m evil, duh.”

Besides being stale, this lack of characterization makes me

unable to connect with the vil-lain. He is objectively bad from any viewpoint, including his own, and my motivation to beat his face in never wavers. Half-decent villains should be the heroes of their own storylines, trying to accomplish good ends using questionable or objection-able means or being corrupted by their choices. Maybe the vil-lain is a straight-up hero, unlike what the King of FirstTown-Land told you at the end of the tutorial. Honestly, purely evil bad guys are a sign of purely lazy character development.

I’m going to write the story of the next RPG I won’t buy. The game begins in a small town with you, a white or Japanese teenager. One NPC in town, the Old Codger whom everyone tells you not to listen to, regales you about The Prophecy from a thousand years ago. Wouldn’t you know, today is exactly a thousand years later.

Dark clouds threaten the land, and Evil beckons for your podunk town to offer up The Protagonist to subvert The Prophecy. You escape to the

I’m tired of saving the world from evil“People of color shouldn’t

be included in a game to fulfill a diversity quota ... ”

NICK JOHNSONMANAGING EDITOR

See RPG, page 9

8 • November 13, 2015• technique // OPINIONS

In the animated featurette “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore,” the titular Eeyore spends most of his day looking morose. The rest of the Hundred Acre Woods crew find him struggling to stay afloat in the river after Tig-ger bounced him in, and they at-tempt to rescue him with adverse effects. In response to the charac-ters asserting that Tigger should be more considerate, Eeyore sadly replies, “Why should Tigger think of me. Nobody else does.” He also later states that “no body minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that’s what it is.”

In today’s world with beautiful photographs of gatherings com-plete with the #squad over-satu-rating social media, it can be dif-ficult to not to feel left out when it appears that others seem to be getting together without you, and thus, do not care about you. You may even feel similar to Eeyore in “Winnie-the-Pooh” when the self-deprecating donkey quips, “I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’ The Social Round. Al-ways something going on.”

University of Michigan psy-

chologist Ethan Kross document-ed in a recent study that Facebook actually frequently makes users feel sad and lonely, contrary to its supposed purpose. However, no matter how lonely you may feel, it may not be true.

In some cases, as in Eeyore’s friends — in all their perfectly imperfect selves — are inher-ently human in spirit. Imperfect people inevitably create situa-tions fraught with imperfection. In other words, those friends who posted their #squad pictures most likely had a lot on their mind and may have forgotten to call. When people focus so narrowly on what is directly in front of them, it is often hard to recognize anything out of their immediate peripheral. We are all NPCs in another per-son’s world.

The feeling of loneliness is a universal one. It is estimated that one in five Americans suffers from persistent loneliness despite the in-crease in social media connectiv-ity. There is some point in every-one’s lives when they experience that moment when they think, “I am all alone.” It is why this year’s John Lewis Christmas Ad-vert “Man On The Moon” about a young girl reaching out to an

elderly man isolated on the moon has resonated so strongly around the world. Yet, there is a societal stigma about being all alone that prevents people from discussing loneliness for fear of others think-ing they are weird.

Loneliness, unlike solitude, is not isolation by choice. It indi-cates a discomfort or emptiness associated with being alone.

For the chronically lonely, there is actually neuroscientific explanation. A recent study con-ducted at the University of Chica-go by husband and wife research team, Stephanie and John Caciop-po, and their colleague Stephen Balogh, provided evidence that lonely people’s brains are wired differently than their non-lonely counterparts.

Those who identified as lonely were overly alert to the differenc-es between social and nonsocial threats and more focused on the negative. In contrast, non-lonely people focused on both positives and negatives.

Eeyore, with his self-deprecat-ing, cup-half-empty point of view, is part of the lonely group, who inherently views his surroundings negatively. However, when he dis-closed his sadness to his friends, they rallied together and worked to help ameliorate his lonely and self-deprecating feelings.

The next time you feel like Eeyore and claim “no presents. No cake. No candles,” perhaps, you will be surprised as he when he discovered his friends planned a surprise party all along. If not, reach out and discuss with oth-ers why you are feeling lonely and take comfort in that the fact that you are not alone.

Everyone can be a little bit like Eeyore sometimes

“Loneliness, unlike solitude, is not isolation by choice.

It indicates a discomfort or emptiness ... ”

BRENDA LINEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

OUR VIEWS | HOT OR NOT

Finding Dory TrailerThis trailer has been long

awaited by many. The sequel to a movie we grew up with is fi-nally coming out. This adven-ture follows the best character in the original: Dory! Dory apparently has a life and fam-ily that we were unaware about in the first movie. The trailer definitely gives viewers high hopes about the movie. As with every Pixar film, it seems like there will be a perfect bal-ance of comedy and sentiment.

HOT– or –NOT

Starbucks DramaPlain cups, red cups, cups

with designs — does it really matter what is on the Star-bucks cups? The issue isn’t the design of the cups (which are 10/10, by the way); rather, the fact that there is even contro-versy surrounding these cups is truly concerning. There are actual problems in the world, and instead people are upset that Starbucks has waged an imaginary war against Christ-mas? People be cray.

Fallout 4For seven years we’ve wait-

ed, plagued by a ravenous hunger for the sequel to 2008’s Game of the Year, Fallout 3. Now that it’s out, Tech’s col-lective GPA is about to drop in response. Although the game may have its flaws, it is one of the most expansive titles in re-cent memory. If there seems to be an unusually low number of people out enjoying the nice weather, the allure of Fallout 4 is to blame.

UM Death ThreatsChaos has engulfed the

campus of the University of Missouri. To add to the mess, people are making death threats — on Yik Yak. It seems that people, students and non-students, have jumped on the hate bandwagon by posting these death threats. Do they not understand that Yik Yak is not truly anonymous? Regard-less of who is posting these messages or why, death threats are never okay.

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technique • November 13, 2015• 9// OPINIONS

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the technique

KRIPA CHANDRANONLINE EDITOR

Social media is a won-derful way to keep up with people; you can see who they’re with, you can see what events they’re going to and you can see what your friends are up to. But that connectivity also what makes social media so dangerous. Whether its Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of the other social media outlets that so people our age use, the simple truth is that these apps keep peo-ple from making the most of their lives.

One of the reasons these forms of social me-dia are so harmful is that they cause people to be ri-diculously nervous about missing out. This fear of missing out is so strong that people force them-selves to go to various events because they do not want to miss out on some-thing potentially exciting.

This fear of missing out is often shortened to FOMO, and is cited by people as a reason for not missing out on things, of-ten paired with a sad sigh.

Another side effect of this overexposure to social media is that people start comparing themselves to the people they see. For example, Instagram is a popular platform through which so-called “Instagram models” take painstaking pictures that are staged to look casual while promoting various teas or body sprays.

This causes people all around the world to look at their own lives and fo-

cus time on trying to cap-ture the perfect picture rather than just having a good time.

Recently, one of these models, Essena O’Neil, took down this illusion by replacing her casual captions with the real sto-ries behind the pictures. They’d been staged, and were often hours in the making; that perfect life was a myth.

Above all, social me-dia is a massive time suck. People waste hours on so-cial media instead of be-ing productive. They sit on their phones and dou-ble tap on pictures or have conversations via Snap-chat instead of studying or actually enjoying a meal with friends. Before they know it, they’ve wasted hours switching between apps, too busy trying to keep up with the lives of others to stay on track with their own.

Social media can be a wonderful way to stay in touch with people who you can’t see often, but it can consume people’s lives. Social media keeps people from living their full lives because the whole thing is a show. People will only post the most exciting parts of their lives to seem excit-ing, sometimes at the cost of sacrificing a good ex-perience just to capture a single moment.

If social media was less important, perhaps people would stop doing things just to impress peo-ple who may look at their social media profile, and simply focus on having a good time.

YESZAHRA KHAN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The virtual world of social media is as diverse and vast as ours. Social media has been used to inform people of their weekend plans and to overthrow regimes. With hundreds of Face-book friends, Twitter and Instagram follow-ers, social media is our amplifier, giving us an opportunity to connect with thousands. What we record, publish and share can reach differ-ent corners of the world instantly. Combine that with the difficulties in regulating content on social media, and it be-comes a megaphone for our ideas and the great-est tool an activist can have at their disposal.

In 2011, the Middle East experienced a radi-cal change in its politi-cal, social and economic landscape. The Arab Spring was blossoming in Egypt. An action by a roadside vendor and vid-eos taken by strangers with cell phones changed the world. Amateur vid-eos of protests and street conflicts spread on social media like wildfire. In a virtual world run by its own denizens, there are no boundaries. The cell phone was proving to be a powerful weapon for citizen journalism, and social media was its platform. You no lon-ger had to be a journal-ist to publish and share news. Dissatisfied by po-litical corruption, police brutality and poverty

among other factors, a young and idealistic population struggled for change in many Middle Eastern and North Afri-can countries.

An increasingly young population meant a high percentage were part of online networks. In this virtual world without censorship, us-ers are free to say what they believe in. Per-haps one of the great-est sources of surprise from the movement was the sheer number of supporters who mo-bilized at protests. The Facebook event for the first protest in Cairo at-tracted 80,000 people, many of whom claimed that its online popular-ity had given them the courage and reassurance to attend. In a virtual world where no one can be prosecuted, citizens discovered that their grievances were shared by hundreds of thou-sands. As the events un-folded, activists planned opposition events on social media, and popu-lar mainstream media sources began reporting this online activity.

Facebook and Twit-ter do not overthrow governments, but they connect people with others, giving them the courage to stand up for what they believe in. To assume that social media prevents people from liv-ing their lives to the full-est is to ignore the grass-roots, on-the-ground activism and move-ments that it inspires and records.

NOKingdom Next Door, and Evil destroys or enslaves your home-town. You just roll up to The King and tell him Evil is coming. He believes you and warns the other kingdoms, then Evil’s henchmen destroy the kingdom as you and he escape underground. Or he doesn’t believe you, gets his king-dom destroyed, gets killed by Evil who teleports away and then tells you to warn the other kingdoms in his dying breath.

You traverse the land, prefer-ring diversity in monster species over diversity in your own species, until you encounter Evil, who can attack twice per turn. You defeat Evil, but it turns out that person was only possessed by Evil. You traverse some more, find Aerial Transportation and discover the Tree of Life, who tells you that you need to backtrack to find the Sacred Relics, which are hidden in each Kingdom of the Old Alli-ance that sealed Evil away a thou-sand years ago. The Tree then tells you The Full Prophecy and why Evil is evil, but it can’t predict if you or Evil wins in the end.

Evil then posts up on the World Map in a Tall, Dark Castle. You gather the Relics, fly within Evil’s Radius of No Return, leave, save game, then reenter. You ascend the tower and eventually use the Relics on Evil. This weakens Evil, who then turns into Evil Phase 2. You beat Phase 2, and then Evil sacrifices himself to summon God of Evil, who wants to destroy the world for some reason or other.

With your Motley Crew, help from the Tree of Life and your Fi-nal Sword Ability, you defeat the God of Evil and restore peace to the land. You either marry a prin-cess or disappear in the aftermath, preferring a simpler life. You un-lock a Secret Dungeon for New Game Plus. There still haven’t been any black people in this game. Roll unskippable credits.

Sorry for spoiling it for you.

RPG FROM PAGE 7

technique10Friday,

November 13, 2015

LIFE EDITOR: Samira BandaruASSTISTANT LIFE EDITOR: Alex Covingtonlife@nique.net

Life Be BoldTech hosted its 19th Women's Leadership Conference, inspiring women to be confident and ambitious.411

CHRISTIAN SHAHEENSTAFF WRITER

“Everyone has a diverse per-spective,” said Humans of Geor-gia Tech photographer, Karen Yiu. In a world of diversity sta-tistics and affirmative action, the idea that someone’s story is what makes them diverse is radical.

Of course, Brandon Stanton — better known as Humans of New York (HONY) — established this contagious theory. Truth be told, race, gender and sexual orienta-tion do affect a person’s perspec-tive. But none of these filters can be determined by one look or even one picture.

Karen Yiu started Humans of Georgia Tech as her graduate proj-ect while in a joint program be-tween UGA and Tech. This proj-ect required her to use technology to further her goal to explore di-versity though the different filters of race and gender.

A required disclaimer is that Yiu’s project is separate from the student-led Facebook page. Yiu started a Tumblr dedicated to her project well before this better-known page was founded. Yiu still posts daily without fail.

Her favorite post is one of her first posts. She interviewed a fa-cilities worker who had been born in Georgia, moved away and later returned. She recalls his incred-ibly warm and inviting demeanor and his surprising honesty. “The honesty of most of the people I interview surprises me,” Yiu says.

Her goal with each interview is to start a conversation. She ran-domly goes up to students who aren’t studying in the Student Center or the CULC and asks them for an interview.

Once she finds an interviewee, she asks them a question or ques-tions along the lines of “What is something you wish you could control?” or “Do you collect any-thing?” to start off the conversa-tion. She then will use those an-swers to build more questions in an attempt to get to the core what makes the interviewee unique. The stories she tells through Hu-mans of GT prove her capable of this treasure hunting.

By the end of her graduate project, Yiu had over one hundred followers on Tumblr, so when she was offered a full time position in Student Diversity Programs on campus, she continued the page. She keeps a backlog of interviews

and photos, so that on days when she is really busy she can still post one a day faithfully.

Yiu still strives to shed light on the diversity on campus. Whether it is one’s sexual orientation, race, gender or birthplace, Yiu wants to explore and expose a person’s hu-

manity and diversity. The overall goal is to celebrate the multicul-turalism at Tech and allow each student to have respect for every other student and his or her own unique perspective.

Currently, Yiu is the Coordi-nate for Student Diversity Pro-

grams, part of the Division of Stu-dent Life. The goal of her work on the blog is in line with the mission of the program, which is to coordi-nate and plan educational oppor-tunities for underrepresented and under-served groups on campus, as well as to eliminate discrimi-nation and acts of intolerance on campus. They promote diversity and multi-cultural communities on campus with programs like Diversity through Art, Diver-sity Week and the Multicultural Competence Plan. The program seeks to promote the understand-ing, appreciation and celebration of Tech’s cultural diversity.

Yiu does just that in capturing the many faces of Tech as well as their voices. Although the conver-sations are just snapshots into their lives, Yiu’s questions always seem to touch upon topics of signifi-cance and relevance in everyone’s life. Her questions educe new and unique insight from each person she interviews, and demonstrates the variety of backgrounds, per-spectives, interests and talents of not only students, but faculty and staff as well.

Student and faculty profiles can be viewed on the Humans of Georgia Tech Tumblr page.

Photo courtesy of Karen Yiu

Yiu sits by the newly installed Einstein statue. She is dedi-cated to providing snapshots of the lives of people at Tech.

Photographer chronicles Tech students’ stories

VERONICA FOREMANSAMIRA BANDARU

LIFE EDITOR

Exemplifying the ideals of progress and service, Veronica “Ronnie” Foreman, AE ‘14, is a prime example of a yellow jacket who has followed her passions with grace, humility, drive and true Tech spirit. Now studying for her masters at MIT, she imparts her wisdom on Tech students, not just study tips, but advice on how attitude makes all the difference.

Technique: What was your ex-perience in transitioning to gradu-ate school at MIT? How did Tech prepare you?

Foreman: I don’t know if I could have had better prepara-tion for MIT than Georgia Tech. I loved everything about being a Georgia Tech student. It was a part of me. I will always be a Yellow Jacket. Tech fueled that ‘go-getter’ attitude that a lot of graduate students at MIT have and taught me to be excited about new challenges. So, coming into graduate school I never had a sense of being nervous or wanting

to shy away from anything. I felt prepared to start the challenge. It’s definitely been a lot to take on, but it’s fun.

I’m working on two mas-ters degrees, one in Aeronautics and Astronautics, with a focus on space and satellite systems, and the second one is a Technol-ogy and Policy degree. I’m work-ing on both because I think that there’s a really important place for engineers to advocate for their own work. In the public realm, it means they’re explaining to peo-ple why what they do matters, and from a policy perspective, I think it means explaining to the Ameri-can voter why space and science programs should be funded, why they’re important, and what ben-efits they offer.

Technique: Do you have words of wisdom for Tech students?

Foreman: Really make the most of [your experience at Tech]. The opportunities that I had at Georgia Tech one hundred per-cent paved the way for everything I have done. I had phenomenal professors, I had amazing friends, and being a Tech student and re-ally embracing everything that it has to offer is what opens doors. I think that being the best Tech student I could be and by seeking the “work hard, play hard” atti-tude as much as I could, I became prepared for grad school at MIT. I did work hard at Tech, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t because I worked so hard that opportunities opened up; it was because I had so much fun that the next challenge seemed like the exciting next step to take.

Also, I had the greatest friends a person could possibly ask for. I had those nights where I was com-pletely drowning in homework, had three tests the next day, and we’d just drop everything and drive to Krispy Kreme. It was the

type of friend group that I know will be people who will be in my life forever. They were the people who I went to the homecom-ing game with this semester, so when we stormed the field it was like nothing had changed. I don’t know how I would have done it without a really good friend group. I was incredibly fortunate to have a broad support network that included people who were Tech students, faculty, staff and people within the broader Atlanta community.

Technique: What are some of the most prominent experiences at Tech that shaped your path to where you are now?

Foreman: The President’s Scholarship program was abso-lutely one of them. It is a phenom-enal group of kind and talented people. I learned a lot by working with them. Within PSP, I was also fortunate to be a Stamps Leader-

ship Scholar, which was an incred-ible opportunity to meet students from around the world who were making a difference early in their careers. I was incredibly lucky to be a part of that group.

Alpha Omega Epsilon, defi-nitely. Being surrounded by am-bitious women who really were unapologetically themselves — everyone in that organization is incredibly independent, strong-willed and [many are] tremendous role models for me. I have no idea how I could be where I am today if it weren’t for them.

Undergraduate research also played a huge role in my desire to go to graduate school and use my work to help make advances with-in the field of aerospace engineer-ing. I started off doing research in the Economics Department, which was the first opportunity I had to do research, and it re-ally fueled that interest. Then I

did different projects within the Aerospace Systems Design Lab and Space Systems Design Lab, both within the AE department. They were each incredible op-portunities, which I was not only fortunate to have, but also helped shape me into the student I am to-day. The research I did with Dr. [David] Spencer in the Aerospace Department was the reason I se-lected the program I did at MIT; it was just such exciting and in-teresting work that I knew it was what I wanted to pursue longer term. I also interned with CNN and SpaceX, both of which were awesome opportunities.

Technique: Who is your greatest role model and why?

Foreman: One of them is defi-nitely my younger sister, Ali, who is also Tech student. To be totally honest, she’s just incredibly tough. She’s really creative, she’s smart,

Photo courtesy of Grant Grussing

Veronica Foreman stands with the Georgia Tech flag at McMurdo Station for re-search in Antarctica. Foreman was proud to carry Tech’s colors wherever she goes.

See FOREMAN, page 13

technique • November 13, 2015• 11// LIFE

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Fan favorite Jake Shimabukuro redefines what it means to play the ukulele. Declared a musical hero by Rolling Stone, he is renowned for his lightning-fast fingers and revolutionary technique. He is a genre-demolishing artist who plays jazz, blues, funk, classical, bluegrass, folk, flamenco, and rock.

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ALEX COVINGTONASSISTANT LIFE EDITOR

Last Saturday saw the develop-ment and celebration of promi-nent women figures on campus with the Women’s Leadership Conference. Since 1998, the con-ference has served as a means of cultivating the leadership qualities of the women at Tech to help pre-pare them for the struggles they’ll face in life and the work force. The theme for the event was “be bold”, placing an emphasis on confidence and forwardness in both its recog-nition of the achievements of past women leaders and its strength-ening of the skills they will need in the future.

A large portion of the event was given over to workshops which would help develop the skills and knowledge women will need to deal with issues in the work force. Of the many workshops that were offered during the conference, including “Be Bold: Envision-ing Yourself as a Bold Leader,” a hands-on workshop about creat-ing a vision board to envision a future as a bold leader, “Power, Influence and Bold Leadership,” on understanding the difference between positional power and in-fluence and “Stand Up and Stand-out,” a presentation that reviewed gender differences in communica-tion, especially in the workforce.

One popular workshop was “Sorry Not Sorry,” headed by Dr. Erin English of Georgia Tech’s counseling staff. The workshop aimed to make participants aware of the tendency in the work-place for women to be expected to apologize excessively, and sought to help women counter-act this tendency by becoming

aware of it. Many of the exercises tended to focus on confidence, a quality singled out this year for development.

“In the evaluations of the con-ference, there’s an area where it asks, what skill or quality do you think was most developed and supported by the conference pro-gram? A lot of them talked about confidence,” said Colleen Riggle, director of the Women’s Resource Center and advisor to the event.

“The two workshops I attended

consisted of learning about my in-dividual leadership style and how we have different styles of leading within a group. Being aware of each style’s strengths and weak-nesses can help us be more aware as leaders,” said Sheena Patel, third-year EE. “My favorite work-shop was the one on startups. En-trepreneurship is something that really interests me so it was neat to learn about certain things that should be taken into account dur-ing the design of a product. I also

enjoyed getting to create my own ‘prototype’ of an eating utensil using Play-doh! It’s not everyday you get to relive your elementary school years, which was fun.”

“‘Be Bold’ was the theme chosen for this year’s conference in the hopes that the conference would provide a vibrant discus-sion on the theme of achieving dreams,” said Bindi Patel, the overall conference chair. “Some-times we don’t reach for things that we think are ‘too ambitious,’

but at this conference we wanted to reject that notion and encour-age people to try to go for those things, and to be bold enough to achieve them.” The theme was emphasized many times through-out the conference, and was rep-resented by a logo sporting appro-priately bold colors.

The conference also featured a number of guest speakers who served to inspire attendees while celebrating the guests’ achieve-ments. One such figure was Parisa Khosravi, former senior vice presi-dent of CNN. Also present was pastor Donna Lynne Hubbard, who overcame domestic violence and gang crime in her home life to create the Woman at the Well transition center, a non-profit ministry which helps support women emerging from prison.

A number of awards were also given out during the course of the event to students and faculty who had proved themselves to be “women of distinction”. Siham Adous, the undergraduate woman of distinction, was recognized for her involvement with different groups around campus, having acted as a Residence Hall As-sociation peer leader, officer for the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and president of Georgia Tech’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

The goal of the conference was to inspire women as leaders through the description of specific strategies and the presentation of success stories as ideals to strive for. Bindi Patel ultimately ex-pressed satisfaction with the con-ference. “I think the conference went really well,” she said. “We hope that everyone walked away from the day believing that they can reach their goals.”

Conference inspires women on campus to “be bold”

Photo courtesy of TJ Funso

Attendees of the conference listen to and engage with Deborah Sudbury, one of the event’s key-note speakers. Sudbury is considered a leading labor and employment lawyer in the industry.

12 • November 13, 2015• technique // LIFE

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International students get a taste of thanksgiving RYAN BIRMINGHAMCONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the fall semester, Thanks-giving is almost perfectly posi-tioned. Right before the stress and loneliness of the weeks just before finals, students have a chance to see their families, have a meal fan-cier than all of the Woodies meals combined and get off campus to give themselves a last break be-fore exams start. However, while campus is quiet and deserted, a few students are often left behind year after year: the international and exchange students.

As if being hours on a prohibi-tively expensive inter-continental flight away from home is hard enough, international students can be stuck on Tech’s barren campus with the few other people who likewise have nowhere else to go. While some communities, like the Graduate Living Center, have a built-in thanksgiving celebra-tion for that very reason, other international students don’t have that option, a car, or anyone they know well enough to ask to come over for the holidays.

With Home for the Holidays, International students can sign up to be guests, and local fami-lies sign up to be hosts. The two groups are paired, and the final preparations are made. While SGA manages all of the logistics of this program, the generous families who graciously invite international students into their

home for Thanksgiving and share their family time are the reason why this is possible.

Michaela Bartram, fourth-year CHBE and long time Host, shared her experiences with Rash-mi, the most recent international student she hosted Thanksgiving 2014 and new friend. “She went to

my mom’s house and to my aunt’s house. A lot of my family came over; she got the family experi-ence and it was great for everyone. People kept asking her questions, so everyone gained something from the experience. I’m doing it again this year,” she said. She also recounted how her family made

most of the Thanksgiving meal vegetarian anyway, so there was no difficulty at all accommodat-ing her, and that it was good that Rashmi shared her dietary infor-mation, as it is easy to forget to ask that kind of thing.

Alex Berry, fourth-year IE, also shared his insight. “I learned

how important it was to make sure that every single student on Tech’s campus, undergraduate or gradu-ate, feels like they have a home. After studying abroad this sum-mer, and having so many people reach out to me and make me feel safe and loved, it really hit home.”

Another benefit to interna-tional students is a further famil-iarization with American culture. Thanksgiving is one of the more uniquely American holidays, and while other harvest feasts and festivals are common, there’s no doubting that Thanksgiving con-veys the American spirit in a way that nothing else can. Internation-al students get included in family traditions, whether it be watch-ing football, working in a soup kitchen, playing board games or whatever unique traditions a fam-ily may have.

“After the Thanksgiving meal, I didn’t know what else to show her, so we went to the shopping which opened early on Black Fri-day,” Bartram said. “She hadn’t been shopping in America, and I thought that Black Friday was the best way to immerse her in Ameri-can shopping. It’s so crazy and American, I thought it would be an interesting experience.”

Just as international students learn about America, the families hosting have an opportunity to listen to international students’ recollections of home and expla-nations of traditions, as well as ask questions and possibly forge new friendships.

Photo courtesy of Laura Margaret Burbach

The Eckert family hosts international students during Thanksgiving. Hosting internation-al students is not only a gracious gesture, but also a way to understand a different culture.

technique • November 13, 2015• 13// LIFE

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL

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UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH @ GT

Showcase, Present, and Inspire

can go back and keep studying for an hour,” said Jasmine Denizard, third-year CE.

On the other hand, for those with little self control, it’s prob-ably safest not to start watching shows during dead week because it may be impossible to stop. Even those who do not watch shows take small breaks to relax their minds. “I study with my friends and we implement the ‘Pomodoro’ method. You work for 25 minutes, then take a five minute break. You do this three times, and the fourth time you take a 15 minute break,” explained Nidhi Koshy, fourth-year IE.

Most people begin their study-ing the weekend before dead week. There are some who do not like to study too far in advance, because retaining information over a week-long period can be difficult. “I feel most prepared when I start studying three to five days before,” Denizard said.

A popular approach for study-ing, particularly for math-based courses, is doing as much practice as possible with the available re-sources such as re-doing practice tests and previous tests as well as old homework. “I start by going over all the lectures [PowerPoints]. After that I look through tests and quizzes. I look at the type of problems the professor has given. At the very end I look at my own notes. I split studying for harder classes over three or four days … the closer the exam is, the longer I spend,” explained Veena Ganapa-thy, third-year BME.

“I re-do homework problems.

Basically as much practice as I can get hold of, I do ... but I don’t spend time reading the textbook or reading the notes unless I have a specific question,” Nidhi said.

“If it’s memorization then I’ll re-type my notes on word ... if it’s more math-based I’ll do more practice problems,” said Jasmine.

Locations where people study best depends on individual prefer-ences — some focus best in their apartments, the Clough or the li-brary. “I spent a lot of time in the library cubicles … I stayed up very late,” Leila recalled.

People also have different sleeping habits during finals time. “I’m super diligent about getting a normal amount of sleep. I get a good eight hours — I’ll go to bed, latest, 2:00 a.m.,” Jasmine said.

Students have very different ways of studying but many have a common motive — fear of failure. They also share a common method of putting off work — napping.

All students should find both the motivation and the method of studying that best suits each individual person.

Photo by Tyler Meuter Student Publications

Students study in the computer cluster in the library. Be sure to get there early during dead week if you want a spot.

and she’s always encouraged me. We’ve honestly been best friends as well as sisters, and even though she’s younger, I often go to her for advice. She really did a lot in terms of teaching me how to see potential in myself. When she be-lieves in you, you want to believe in yourself.

Beyond that, I was incredibly lucky to have the support of the entire aerospace department at Tech. All of my professors, actu-ally, not just within the aerospace department. I can’t just pick one because they were all so support-ive, and encouraged me to pursue my passions.

Technique: What would you say is your greatest accomplish-ment or accomplishments?

Foreman: I was named a Graduate Research Fellow by the National Science Foundation this year, and that is probably my greatest accomplishment to date, especially because of how it is awarded. The fundamental crite-ria they judge you on are broader impacts and scientific merit, and that essentially boils down to ‘Progress and Service’. Receiving the award also felt like an accom-plishment that was bigger than me; it felt like they were recogniz-ing what a great education I re-ceived as a Georgia Tech student, as if they were saying, “You have this amazing Georgia Tech educa-tion, now go do even more with it,” and that really felt good. It’s an incredible honor.

I did some research in Antarc-tica too, through a program with another school, which I was able

to find because of the resources in the PSP. The trip was awesome. Being able to represent Georgia Tech in Antarctica was fantastic. I took a GT flag with me that Dr. Peterson gave to me right before I left. When he went to Antarc-tica with the National Science Foundation, he took this amazing picture with a Tech Flag at Mc-Murdo Station, and I think that image is what first inspired me to go to Antarctica. After I saw it, I wanted to take Tech’s colors with me everywhere I went, so getting a flag as a gift from him to take with me to Antarctica, to take my own version of that photo was incred-ibly important to me. It was a tes-tament to me that no one at Tech is ‘just another student.’ Everyone has tremendous value. I felt sup-ported by him in that, and I know that he has that respect for every student at Tech. All of our faculty members do, and that’s part of what makes Tech so special.

Being a Ms. Georgia Tech fi-nalist was also important to me because it was recognition of how much I want to be someone who embodies the Yellow Jacket spirit. Being recognized for that passion for our school and representing a group of women who I believe in so much was a really exciting moment. I had such a great time at Tech - the best part was genu-inely being there. I would go back in a heartbeat. It was a very hard decision for me to not stay there for grad school, but I was excited to take my Tech experience with me and share it with my new col-leagues at MIT, too. I’ll always be a Yellow Jacket, though. Tech is home.

FINALS FROM PAGE 1 FOREMAN FROM PAGE 10

technique14

Friday, November 13, 2015entertainment@nique.net

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Trishna ChandaranaASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Jamie RuleEntertainment

NICK JOHNSONMANAGING EDITOR

Last Friday, Nov. 6, Netflix debuted “Master of None,” a new comedy series created by Aziz An-sari (“Parks and Recreation”) and Alan Yang, a “Parks and Recre-ation” writer. The fully released ten-episode first season features Dev (Ansari), an actor in com-mercials who wishes to hit the big screen, as he navigates New York City, relationships, social issues and life choices.

Although “Master of None” is a comedy, this show has realistic themes. Adding new dimensions and depth to its plot without de-tracting from the comedy, the show tackles issues such as racism and sexism.

Dev’s crew includes Brian (Kel-vin Yu, “Cloverfield”), another first-generation Asian-American; Denise (Lena Waithe, a writer for “Bones”), a black lesbian, and

Arnold (Eric Wareheim, “Tim and Eric Awesome Show,” “Great Job!”), who is a typical Wareheim character. These characters do not appear in each episode; however, each has his or her own limelight in specific episodes.

Because of this diverse cast, episodes can deal with each per-son’s own unique social concerns and life struggles without becom-ing boring or repetitive.

In the episode entitled “Par-ents,” Dev and Brian try to hang out with their parents to learn and appreciate their struggles when emigrating from India and Tai-wan, respectively. Ansari’s own, real life parents, Shoukath and Fatima Ansari, play Dev’s parents, Ramesh and Nisha.

In the episode “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Denise and Rachel (Noël Wells, “Saturday Night Live”), Dev’s love interest, dis-cuss, as well as actually encounter, both casual and criminal sexism and misogyny.

In “Old People,” Rachel and Arnold spend time with their lonely grandparents and hear stories about their youths. These episodes provide characterization and character development that a supporting cast does not often receive in television. The episodes also suggest to viewers that maybe they should spend more time with family or not post toxic messages to women on Instagram.

Not to be outdone, Dev also evolves through the season with his own unique experiences in-volving representation and rela-tionships. In “Indians on TV,” Dev and his friend and fellow actor Ravi (Ravi Patel) are asked to do stereotypical Indian accents for a role. When Dev later gets a chance to expose the studio’s in-ternal racism or suck it up and get

paid for the role, his friends want him to seek blood.

On the other hand, rapper Busta Rhymes, as himself, tells Dev, “Don’t play the race card. Charge it to the race card.” There is never a clear right or wrong an-swer presented for this situation; rather, the episode focuses on the struggles of being in this position to begin with. This makes the

scenes more emotional and empa-thetic, and this unique approach is taken in the other episodes of “Master of None,” as well.

The episode “Indians on TV” in particular also exposes an irony — the studio claimed that having more than one Indian character on-screen automatically makes it an “Indian TV show,” which, in

Photo courtesy of Netflix

Dev and Rachel meet each other for the second time after attending a concert. ‘Master of None’ al-lows characters to explore important social issues as well as emphasizes the importance of family.

‘Spectre’: one of the better bad Bond movies

NOAH ROBERTSCONTRIBUTING WRITER

“Spectre” plays exactly how any Bond fan would expect it to. Director Sam Mendes (“Skyfall”) fabricates a picture-perfect copy of nearly any other new Bond film. The lovable hero (Daniel Craig, “The Girl with the Dragon Tat-too”) finds himself surrounded by a huge criminal organization known as Spectre, which is com-posed of past antagonists. Bond sets out to destroy it by cutting off its head — the intriguingly evil Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”).

“Spectre” is a conglomeration of spy film cliches, encompass-ing the ludicrous values parodied in “Austin Powers” or “The Pink Panther.” Mendes immediately tosses us an overused taste of classic Bond combined with 21st century blockbuster action in the form of an unnamed girl, a felled building, a lengthy foot race and

ridiculous hand-to-hand combat in a helicopter above a crowd of innocent bystanders.

The film hints at a change in direction by straying from the usually strict formula adhered to by previous Bond films, since the 00 branch of MI-6, called “pre-historic,” is threatened with an impending shutdown. Mendes creates big roles for M (Ralph Fi-ennes, “Harry Potter”), Q (Ben Whishaw, “Paddington”) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris,

“28 Days Later”), who all have even bigger shoes to fill.

These are interesting takes on classic characters, but, as the film progresses, the production’s inher-ited structure becomes increas-ingly evident. Like nearly every other Bond plot, the story opens with Bond realizing his mission, then gathering gadgets and an Aston Martin from Q. He sets off to destroy this evil force which is threatening world domination, destroying it with the help of an

absurdly attractive woman. This contributes to a film that is pain-fully predictable. Before every plot point, the viewer, provided he has seen a Bond film before, can easily guess the outcome of the in-sane situations Craig’s Bond finds himself in.

While Mendes tends to copy many story elements instead of shaping his own story for his two recent Bond films, he does add one new aspect — complex an-tagonists, undoubtedly drawing

inspiration from Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz in his 1899 novel, “Heart of Darkness” (those familiar with “Apocalypse Now” also know this character). Kurtz has huge, yet malicious plans for the people of the jungle. He is noble, yet twist-ed — a personified contradiction and evocative character.

In “Skyfall,” Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”) logs a spectacular performance as Silva, an extraordinarily evil, yet weirdly alluring foe. Similarly, Christoph Waltz’s Oberhauser is the crown-ing jewel of “Spectre.” Mendes has a knack for shaping his actors into twisted sculptures of exactly what he intends to convey, and he uses this to transform Waltz, a fantas-tic actor on his own, into a dark work of art. There is no doubt that Oberhauser is bad, but he attracts audiences with his stinging grin and strangely bouncy demeanor, a creative departure from the typi-cal Bond villain.

“Spectre” is a fun film to see in theaters. Packed full of stereotypi-cal thriller explosions and high-budget car races, the production is decent, but is missing some of the classic Bond moments. Daniel Craig’s pursed lips and hardened action scenes present him as too intense compared to the smooth, campy performances of every-body’s favorite hairy man Sean Connery, Bond’s original movie actor. The series can be compared to Aston Martins: the beautiful 1963 DB4 is far superior to the DB10 Craig pilots, a car simply trying too hard to be “cool.”

Photo courtesy of Eon Productions

Madeleine Swann, despite being a doctor and a pretty face, still knows how to hold her own when pre-sented with a weapon. In stereotypical fashion, Swann is related to the villain, but still helps Bond.

‘Master of None’ approaches reality with diversity

See MASTER, page 17

FILM

SpectreGENRE: Action, ThrillerSTARRING: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz and Léa SeydouxDIRECTOR: Sam MendesRATING: PG-13RELEASE DATE: Nov. 6

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Master of NoneNETWORK: NetflixWHEN: released Nov. 6STARRING: Aziz Ansari, Kevin Yu, Lena Waithe and Eric Wareheim

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16 • November 13, 2015• technique // ENTERTAINMENT

ALICE BARSKYCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Once a month, three local filmmakers showcase comedy sketches in a variety-show style at The Village Theatre. The name of the show may be grammatically incorrect — which the hosts play-fully pointed out with a hilarious drunken voicemail they received condemning their apostrophe faux pas — but “Ladie’s Night” is anything but ill conceived.

“Ladie’s Night,” the only show in Atlanta to meld sketch comedy and stand-up, features comedy sketches from the “Ladie’s Night” team as well as four sketches sub-mitted by local groups and stand-up comedians performing brief sets between films.

Nestled in the Pencil Factory Lofts in the Old Fourth Ward, The Village Theatre hosts vari-ous improv and sketch shows, along with offering improv classes and entertainment for corporate events. The location has plenty of seats and a full bar. Good news for college students: all of the shows are five to ten dollars, and “Ladie’s Night” is free. On the first Thurs-day of every month, at 10:30 p.m., hosts Zach, Brian and Joel take the stage for “Ladie’s Night.”

“We decided to create ‘Ladie’s Night’ as a way to motivate our-selves and others in the comedy scene. It gives everyone a deadline every month to finish a project. There’s no submission fee, and

there’s no admission price, so if you’re making something for the show, it’s purely because you want to push yourself,” host Zach Lamplugh said.

Audience members are en-tertained at every moment of “Ladie’s Night” — the comedy sketches are quick and witty, and brief stand-up pieces provide stimulating variation. This month included stand-up acts from Ded-rick Flynn, Andrew Markle, Paige Bowman and Trey Dunn. For a show that begins at nearly 11:00 p.m., everyone seemed awake, alert and amused.

“The comedy scene in Atlanta is amazing, it is one of the reasons I moved to Atlanta. Just this past season on ‘Last Comic Standing’ featured five comics from Atlanta; not to mention one of those five, Clayton English, won the whole season. Over these last few years the comedy scene in Atlanta has been getting more national no-tice. A lot of locals were featured as ‘New Faces’ at the ‘Just for Laughs’ comedy festival, and one of them, Caleb Syan, was just on ‘Conan’ a few months ago,” Lam-plugh said.

At the end of the show, audi-ence members can vote for their favorite performance of each of the submitted shorts. The win-ning team is granted a spot to de-fend their title next month.

“The submission block we run is fairly simple ... that is the way we designed it. A lot of festivals or shows like ours have a rigorous

entry process or a submission fee. We wanted to encourage people to just work on shorts and have an audience to show them in front of,” Lamplugh said.

This month’s winner was Church Socks, who presented a spooky sketch set in a bookstore. Several writers and editors from Adult Swim have served as guest judges at the show, a truly unique feature of “Ladie’s Nights.”

“The impact has been great. Bringing out these guest judges is a huge kick for the submitting teams and the audience alike. It is a really cool thing to know that people that have worked on shows like ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force,’ ‘Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell,’ ‘Archer’ and more watched

your short,” added Lamplugh. The “Ladie’s Night” teams’

sketches typically star the part-colleagues, part-friends and part-roommates — Zach, Brian and Joel — encountering some absurd scenario set against the banality of ordinary life.

When asked what wisdom he would impart on aspiring film-makers or comedians, Lamplugh advised, “Work hard. If you want to get into the field, just do it. As soon as you finish something, start working on the next project. The main thing that you need to do as a new filmmaker is learn from your mistakes, if you make something and it doesn’t land, find out why and don’t do it again. Just keep working.”

Photo by Meghna Das Student Publication

“Ladie’s Night” draws comedians and performers to their ac-cepting stage. The variety provides something for all viewers.

‘Ladie’s Night’ is melting pot of standup

competition and writing an ex-tensive book report on “War and Peace.” With the help of Snoopy and other friends, Charlie Brown eventually learns a lesson about being true to himself and follow-ing what feels right in his heart.

In a parallel storyline, told through his typewriter and imagi-nation, Snoopy must save his new-found love interest, Fifi (Kristin Chenoweth, “The Pink Panther”), from the dastardly Red Barron. Snoopy’s adventures go through a somewhat similar plotline as Charlie Brown’s. When Fifi gets kidnapped, Snoopy, with the help of his trusty sidekick, Woodstock, attempts to bring Fifi back.

“The Peanuts Movie” may seem like a simple attempt to prof-it from “Peanuts” nostalgia, but it is so much more than that. With-in its hour and a half runtime, life lessons are repeatedly brought to the viewers’ attention.

“The Peanuts Movie” makes sure to remind the viewer that problems such as being too afraid to act on something or feeling like an outcast are normal and that life is not always as effortless as de-sired. The movie is not, however, depressing, noting that those with friends will persevere, learning how to be a better person from these experiences and recognize that they do not always have to deal with problems by themselves.

Most can relate to Charlie Brown in some way, and this is what makes the movie so enjoy-able. The movie provides advice on how to deal with the bumps of life while not being preachy.

PEANUTS FROM PAGE 1

technique • November 13, 2015• 17// ENTERTAINMENT

KRIPA CHANDRANONLINE EDITOR

Odesza, the indie-electronica duo from Seattle, recently played two back to back sold out shows in Atlanta at the Masquerade on Nov. 3 and 4. Members Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight started making music in 2012, around the time the two graduated from Western Washington University.

Their debut album, “Summer’s Gone,” was released in 2012, and since then they have risen swiftly to fame. They have performed at various music festivals and opened for several artists in the last two years. Some of “Odesza’s” most popular songs are “Say My Name” (ft. Zyra) and “Sun Models” (ft. Madelyn Grant).

An electronic show is tricky; there has to be a visual compo-nent, but it cannot be so aggres-sive that it takes away from the sound of the artist. Odesza had the perfect balance between a great visual show and an amazing sound. As they entered, the lights were bright white and flashed in

rhythm to their drum beats. Then, as the show went on, different vi-suals that resembled water, fire and lanterns played behind them while the duo mixed their mes-merizing music.

While the opening acts to the show were rather mellow, Odesza started their set with “IPlayYou-Listen,” a song that perfectly cap-tures the essence of their sound. They interspersed their more popular songs with their lesser known, more relaxed songs and kept the audience dancing. After a performance of their very popu-lar remix of the song “Faded” by Zhu, they left the stage for hardly a minute before they were coaxed back for a spectacular encore.

The artists had a live band with them, including a trombonist and guitarist, which added to the ex-perience of seeing this group live. Overall, seeing the instrumental parts in conjunction with the duo made for a unique experience. Additionally, while typical elec-tronic artists tend to stick to their mix boards or fiddle with their Mac in between songs, Mills and Knight incorporated a drum set into their concert.

Despite playing for a couple of hours, Mills and Knight were energetic throughout the whole performance. The audience could feel the passion they had and mu-sic they made as they pumped out their energetic beats. Additionally, the Masquerade is a cozy venue, which made the audience feel much closer to the performers.

The audience itself was very lively, and did not stop moving all night; they kept dancing and cheering as Mills and Knight played the night away, with their gradually building melodies. In a normal electronic show, there is a

distance between the performer and the audience; Odesza bridged that gap with a combination of music, visuals and overall stage presence, bringing a warm com-fortable emotion to a normally distant concert experience.

Photo courtesy of Odesza

Odesza, despite being electric musicians, played the drums live. Other instrumentalists also played to liven the stage.

Odesza electrifies crowd at Masquerade turn, makes the show less relatable to a wider audience. However, at one point, there are three Indian characters on-screen — Dev, Ravi and the bodybuilder Anush (Ger-rard Lobo, “My Parents are Cra-zier than Yours”) — and it does not feel forced, stereotypical or anything other than simply yet another funny scene.

Despite the heavy overtones, the comedic scenes are frequent and funny. When it is revealed to Anush that the movie “Short Circuit 2” cast a white actor in brown-face makeup to play an In-dian character, forlorn, he pauses and then asks, “Is Mindy Kaling real?” At another point, in the epi-sode “Nashville,” Dev and Arnold intensely discuss Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” before Denise inter-rupts, “Can we please talk about literally anything else?”

With “Parks and Rec” alumni backing the show, Ansari’s stand-up background, Wells’ “SNL” experience, and Wareheim’s abil-ity to just be Eric Wareheim, it would have been difficult to make a show that was not inherently funny. Nevertheless, the comedy in the first few episodes of “Mas-ter of None” is a bit lacking and overextended wherever it does appear. Thankfully, the comedic scenes pick up and tighten up as the show progresses.

As masterfully crafted as the Italian pasta dishes that its main character loves to eat, “Master of None” performs its five hours of comedic duty while also allowing its audience to empathize with a diverse ensemble of characters.

MASTER FROM PAGE 14

CONCERT

OdeszaPERFORMER: Harrison Mills and Clayton KnightLOCATION: MasqueradeDATE: Nov. 3-4

OUR TAKE: «««««

18 • November 13, 2015• technique // COMICS

XKCD BY RANDALL MUNROE

SMBC BY ZACH WEINERSMITH

FOXTROT BY BILL AMEND

ZIGGY BY TOM WILSON & TOM II

CLASSIC

ACROSS1. He helps those lost for words (8)6. Letter from Europe takes time to reach Mark (6)9. Society leader frequently shows temper (6)10. Request certain to provide delight (8)11. Nice policeman? (8)12. Fatigued when restricting Ecstasy in ranks (6)13. Mother, awfully sad at heart, is absolutely crazy (3,2,1,6)16. Singer is against note being heard (7-5)19. Credit given to goddess in difficult time (6)21. Bloomer left social worker in agony (8)23. Control price of fashion? (8)24. Left in centre of spooky Portuguese city (6)25. Yankee almost upset North African (6)26. They pay for colonisers (8)

DOWN2. Tradesman ho spends a day on the tiles? (6)3. Subdued slander about Lawrence (5)4. Not up to game in Kentish Town (9)5. Restrain salesman on ship (7)6. Caught a whiff of fish (5)7. Edited one script for Morse? (9)8. Concerning racehorse, raised Cain perhaps (8)13. Brothers are kept in order here (9)14. Stay to suspend a fight (4,5)15. Two pairs make ’em we’re told (8)17. Put the French in elevated spot offering view of Bristol (7)18. Very cold beer (6)20. Blemish isn’t a problem (5)22. Ring about right nuisance on the internet (5)

CROSSWORD PUZZLE LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

BY ALBERICHCROSSWORDS.COM

technique • November 13, 2015• 19// COMICS

DILBERT ® BY SCOTT ADAMS

CUL DE SAC BY RICHARD THOMPSONCLASSIC

CALVIN & HOBBES BY BILL WATTERSONCLASSIC

BY SUDOKUCOLLECTION.COM

SUDOKU PUZZLE

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE BY STEPHEN PASTIS

LIO BY MARK TATULLI

* This is a contest of skill. Each contestant must be a registered and currently enrolled student at Georgia Tech for the full duration of the contest. Every entrant is responsible for supplying their own computer as well as installing their own version of all software required for entry into this contest. Winners will be notified at the end of judgement via email or phone call. Contest entry automatically enters contestants for consideration for an internship. Internship is not guaranteed to any contestant as a right. Entries must be submitted before noon on Monday, November 30th EST to be considered. To see full rules and guidelines for the zForce Awakens Hackathon Competition visit www.zpaper.com/zforceawakens-rules. Void where prohibited.

zforcE aWAKensTHE HACKATHON TO END ALL HACKATHONS!

Friday the 13th

Soon we will see who is the student and who is the master.

Win aniPad Pro

and ends on Monday the 30th.

zforcE DeTails

The November hackathon starts on

www.zpaper.com/zforceawakens

technique • November 13, 2015• 21// SPORTS

Whether you’re interested in joining our team after class, an intership, or a co-op, Chick-fil-A has an opportunity for you! Chick-fil-A Howell Mill Road has proudly

supported the Georgia Tech campus for 16+ years, and we’re so excited to serve your community at our new location in West Midtown! We are currently hiring for a variety of positions at our new restaurant, and we would love to add some Yellow Jackets to

our team!

Stop by on Tuesdays at 9AM and Thursdays at 4:30PM for open interviews!

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No ExperienceNecessary

HARSHA SRIDHARCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Illinois State. Iowa State. North Texas. Maryland. Indiana.

These are not the opponents of a national contender: not in foot-ball, anyway. They’re middling at best, the sort of teams a power-house schedules to give its starters some rest.

They’ve been the bread and butter of Iowa’s 2015 schedule. And with three games left in the regular season, the Hawkeyes are undefeated, and, perhaps more importantly, knocking on the door of college football’s four-team playoff, the winner of which earns a National Championship title. At the time of writing, Coach Kirk Ferentz’s team is ranked fifth in the College Football Playoff Committee’s weekly poll, as well garnering the eighth spot in the Associated Press’s rankings. But the Big Ten Cinderella’s success raises a few questions.

Should a team who has played a grand total of two ranked teams compete for a national champi-onship against college football’s fiercest teams? Should a team that narrowly edged Iowa State, a team that needed a fourth-quarter out-burst to put away the lowly Hoo-siers, get the chance to face the likes of the Clemson Tigers?

The fact that the playoff com-mittee uses admittedly subjec-

tive methods to suss out its four participants doesn’t make things easier. Nor does the fact that two of the four teams ranked ahead of Iowa have already lost a game.At the end of the day, it’s easy to root for the Hawkeyes. Though, barring a surprise, it’s hard to see them winning it all this season.

In order for Iowa to win a national championship, they’re going to have to win a confer-ence championship, and the Big Ten is no pushover. The chances are good that the Hawkeyes will face fellow undefeated rank three Ohio State in the title game, and despite the latter’s issues with de-termining a starter at quarterback, they’ll be tough to unseat.

The Buckeyes have a glut of talent, and it’s led them to be the sixth-highest scoring defense in the nation (and a top-20 offense.) They aren’t out of the woods yet, with games left to be played against No. 14 Michigan State and No. 15 Michigan, but should they represent their division, Iowa will be hard pressed to beat them.

Of the four teams ahead of Iowa, two have likely cemented their spots. After dispatching LSU in convincing fashion, Ala-bama closes out its regular season with a good-as-guaranteed contest against Charleston Southern and a matchup versus Auburn in the Iron Bowl.

While the in-state rivalry gen-erates plenty of excitement, it’s un-likely to be particularly close this year. They’ll be the overwhelm-ing favorites in the SEC Cham-pionship. And Clemson’s last three games are against Syracuse, Wake Forest and the South Caro-lina Gamecocks. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives the Tigers at least an 85 percent chance of win-ning each of those three games, and like the Crimson Tide, they’ll be a heavy favorite in their confer-ence championship.

Furthermore, there are teams currently behind Iowa in the rank-ings that could make a push as the

season wanes. Baylor is dealing with the loss of starting quarter-back Seth Russell, but backup Jar-rett Stidham looked like a veteran against Kansas State last Thurs-day. If he leads them through a final gauntlet that includes three top-15 teams in Oklahoma, Okla-homa State and TCU, it would be virtually impossible to keep the Bears out of the playoff for a second consecutive year. Stan-ford would find itself in a similar

situation if it runs the table from here on out: a win against fourth ranked Notre Dame would cer-tainly vault them into contention, particularly because the playoff committee weights recent results more heavily, and the Cardinals suffered their lone loss in Week 1 at the hands of a surprisingly tough Northwestern team. If ei-ther wins out, it would be tough to justify keeping Iowa in its current spot.

This isn’t to diminish the Hawkeyes’ performances this sea-son. Under Coach Ferentz’s watch, the Hawkeyes haven’t had a dou-ble-digit win season since 2009. That’s highly likely this year. The Iowa faithful have every reason to be proud of the team that has cap-tured the attention of even casual fans. It just isn’t enough to make them one of the top four teams in the nation, though, barring some kind of miracle.

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Becker

Kirk Ferentz, head coach of the Hawkeyes, speaks to his team during a 10-6 victory against Wisconsin. He is currently on track to lead his team to their first ten-win season since 2009.

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” John Wayne

Contact Greyson Daugherty President, GT Sport Parachute Club

sdaugherty3@gatech.edu

technique • November 13, 2015• 23// SPORTS

HARRISON BUTKERKICKER

ALISON LAVERYCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Kicker Harrison Butker made his mark in the program’s his-tory with his 53-yard field goal to propel the team to a victory over Georgia last year. Unfortunately, he did not get the chance to at-tempt a field goal in the team’s recent loss to Virginia. He shared his thoughts on that game and looked ahead to Virginia Tech prior to the team’s Thursday night contest against the Hokies.

Technique: What is it like coming off of a big win against Florida and doing as poorly as the team did against Virginia?

Butker: I mean, stuff happens. We’re just looking forward to Virginia Tech. It was a great win against FSU, and unfortunately we couldn’t pull it out against Vir-ginia. We’re looking forward to Virginia Tech, and it’s going to be

a big game; both teams need the win, so it should be a tough fight.

Technique: What’s the dy-namic like with the team now that you have to win all three final games for a chance at bowl competition?

Butker: I think we’re ready for it. I mean, it’s a challenge, but we’re ready and looking forward to these next three games com-ing up. So, we flush this game away, and we’re going to finish out the season.

Technique: Is it difficult as a kicker to watch from the side-lines and wait for your moment on the field?

Butker: I think that’s part of our role as kickers. You’re not go-ing to have that many opportu-nities, you know, a couple field goals. Against Virginia, I didn’t have any field goals, but I’m just trying to do every kick the best I can. I only have a couple opportu-nities, so I am trying to maximize those and help the team as much as I can.

Technique: The game wasn’t a complete disaster. Many players were at their season bests. Justin Thomas was at his best for pass-ing, and Clinton Lynch matched last season’s career high of three touchdowns in a game. What do you think were the biggest mis-takes made against the Cavs?

Butker: I don’t know, I think that’s a question for the head guy. I think that if we all just focus on our job and do our best, I think we’ll come out and do pretty well. I mean, we have the talent on the team. I think we’re capable of a lot and can hopefully put it together this week.

Technique: A lot of people around campus predicted that the Jackets would win; especially after UVA’s high number of injuries and poor defensive performance so far. Do you think you underes-timated the Cavaliers?

Butker: No ... they’re a great team; we’ve always had pretty close games with them. Two years ago we barely brought it out. I

can’t remember last year, but I think it was close. They’re a good team; you can’t take any team for granted. So no, I don’t think we underestimated them at all.

Technique: Which of the two ACC teams that are left in the schedule are you looking forward to most?

Butker: The next one, Virginia Tech. It’s going to be a big game,

Thursday night. So we’re looking forward to it. Hopefully we have a great home crowd, so I am look-ing forward to it.

Technique: What mistakes does the team need to avoid in or-der to best Virginia Tech?

Butker: If every position just focuses on their job, I think we’ll be happy with the results. Just do our job and see what happens.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTSiham AdousGRADUATE STUDENTKhatereh HadiSTAFFLynn Durham

FACULTYDr. Beril ToktayDr. Ellen ZeguraALUMNACheryl Weldon

WOMEN OF DISTINCTION

Photo by Tyler Meuter Student Publications

Harrison Butker kicks a crucial field goal against the Florida State Seminoles during the Home-coming game. He feels that the team can pull out a victory if they focus on doing their jobs.

SPORTS EDITOR: Jon LongASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR: Joe Sobchuk

Smooth Like ButkerThe Technique sat down with kicker

Harrison Butker to discuss the second half of the season.423

Sportssports@nique.net

technique24Friday,

November 13, 2015

BasketballPreview2015-2016

CORNELL LOYOLA@ 8:00 PM @ 5:30 PM

The Jackets are coming off a 12-19 season in which they lost thirteen games by five points or fewer. If they can make some changes for this year’s campaign, Tech could sur-prise some teams. Led by returning senior Marcus Georges-Hunt, who averaged 13.6 points and 1.3 steals per game last year, Tech hopes to turn those close losses into resound-ing victories. In addition to Georg-es-Hunt, returning senior Charles Mitchell looks to improve upon his 2014–15 numbers of 117 rebounds and 9.8 points per game. Although the Jackets brought in new talent, they are also losing Demarco Cox, Robert Sampson and Chris Bolden. Cox and Sampson both had over one hundred rebounds, and Bolden led the team in free throw percent-age and three-point percentage.

Their presence is missed, but is not irreplaceable. In fact, Tech has four new players this year, each looking to make an impact. Sylves-ter Ogbonda is the team’s only fresh-man. In high school, he averaged a double-double in points and re-bounds, 13 and 11, respectively. The transferred graduate student from Arkansas-Little Rock, James White, looks to spend his final season of college hoops wisely by coming to play at Tech. Over the past three seasons, White has scored on more than half of his field goals, with a 50.7 shooting percentage. After sit-ting out a year due to NCAA rules, senior Nick Jacobs, who transferred from Alabama, looks to assume some deserved responsibility while occupying the Jacket’s front court alongside Charles Mitchell. While with the Crimson Tide, Jacobs, a sophomore at the time, started every game. He scored 7.6 points per game and averaged 4.1 rebounds each con-test. Finally, shooting guard Adam Smith transferred to Tech from Vir-ginia Tech last season where he led the team in points per game (13.4) and had the fourth best three point

percentage in the ACC.In addition to the incoming tal-

ent, Tech returns a lot of players in the guard position. Tadric Jackson, Josh Heath and Travis Jorgenson all have a year of experience under their belts and will look to use this expe-rience to improve their play. Tad-ric Jackson was a phenom in high school, but his brilliance only came through at times during last season. Last year was Josh Heath’s first year as a Jacket, but he had spent a year as a Bull at the University of South Florida prior to it. Heath has the talent to energize the offense with his shooting ability and capability of making smart plays. Travis Jor-genson had the ACC’s eighth best assists-turnover ratio last year at 1.85:1. Coming into the season with a career average of 3.3 assists per game, Jorgenson aims to slash de-fenders with his passing ability and create opportunities for his team-mates to score.

Role models include junior Quinton Stephens and redshirt ju-nior Corey Heyward. Likely players who will come off of the bench, these two each have the ability to change a game’s momentum. Stephens is a 6’9” forward who can shoot the three, and Heyward is a guard who plays good defense and doesn’t turn the ball over. Sophomore Ben Lam-mers (6’10”), sophomore Abdoulaye Gueye (6’8”) and junior Rand Ro-land (6’7”) will come into games as needed. Each of these men can crash the boards with ferocity as well as get points in the paint. Tech led the ACC in rebounding last season and looks to do the same with the help of these three this year.

As usual, Tech will have its hands full when conference play begins, but this team can match up against any opponent. As the Tech basket-ball season gets underway, look for a senior-filled team to rely on its re-bounding, guard play and defense to carry them throughout the season.

After a 2015 season that culmi-nated with a berth in the National Invitation Tournament, the wom-en’s basketball team looks to build on the success from last year. The team returns four of its five starters from last spring and has a chance to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014.Senior forward Roddreka Rogers started every game in 2014–15 and will keep that role for this upcom-ing season. She has 18 career dou-ble-doubles and should easily add to that total over the course of the sea-son, as she averaged a double-double in conference play last season. Her 335 total rebounds last year were second-best all time for the team, and her .596 field goal percentage was the best among starters.

After coming off the bench in all but five games last season (starting the remaining five), junior Katarina Vuckovic is poised to receive a lot of playing time, whether via starting or by remaining as a formidable bench player. She scored in double figures six times last year and amassed 161 total rebounds. Standing at 6-foot-3, she has an advantage over most players around the basket on both offense and defense.

Sophomore Zaire O’Neil started 21 games and is expected to main-tain that role for the team this year, assuming she can fully recover from tearing her ACL towards the end of the season. She is a force on both sides of the court; her 36 blocks led the team while her 11.3 points per game is second among return-ing players. She also racked up 100 turnovers on defense, which was good for second on the team.

Junior Nariah Taylor played in 22 games a year ago and started at center in the exhibition game against West Georgia last week. Based on the availability of O’Neil over the first stretch of the year, she may earn a lot of playing time.

The departure of guard Kaela

Davis, the team’s leading point scor-er in 2014–15 and current South Carolina Gamecock, and Sydney Wallace, another strong player who was sidelined midway through the season with an ACL tear, opens the door for some younger team mem-bers to fill important roles. Sopho-more guard Antonia Peresson is ex-pected to assume one of those spots. She played in all but two games a year ago and took over for Wallace after her injury. Although she aver-aged just 3.9 points on 22.9 minutes per game, she has shown flashes of brilliance in important situations. She made five three-pointers against Virginia Tech in February and played a solid nine-point, five-assist game in a win against the Clemson Tigers in the ACC Tournament.

Senior Aaliyah Whiteside will be the other starting guard. She played the most minutes of any player last season and put up the numbers to justify it. She scored 13.4 points per game and had 46 steals (both marks second to Davis) and was a rebound-ing force, totaling 216 on the year. She also led the team with 77 assists and will be instrumental in setting up scoring opportunities.

Sophomore Imani Tilford should see a lot of action off the bench at guard. She started in 12 games last year and came off the bench in an-other 16. Her 43 assists were good for fifth best on the team, and her 42 steals are second only to White-side’s 46 among returning players.

The team opens with four home games in a row, followed by their first road test at Georgia on Nov. 22. The team will play at Indiana as part of the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge in December. The first conference game will be at home against No. 3 Notre Dame in late December, followed by a slate of ACC games highlighted by home contests against No. 8 Louisville, No. 22 North Carolina and Notre Dame again.

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