the iron warrior: volume 25, issue 13
DESCRIPTION
Fall 2004, Issue 3. Initially released on 5 November 2004. Editor-in-Chief: Andre Beltempo.TRANSCRIPT
THE NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO ENGINEERING SOCIETY volume 25 issue 14 | 5 November 2004
“Interpolation? What the hell does it matter?! It’s just a bloody number. . .” - Prof. Renksizbulut, ME 353
Engineering 6-yearplan to be developed
What’s NASAdoing now?
Half Life 2!
Check us out @ http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/
Page 5 Page 12 Page 13
It was a dark and stormy night, with thelurking horrors of impending midterms
and moderate to severe inebriation,Engineers of all years donned theirHalloween finest and showed up for whatwas to be one great night.
With pumpkins carved out courtesy ofa few of those Bond, Chemical Bondfolks, some decorations to jazz upPOETS, a little live music, some sugarytreats to keep the costumed hoards at bay,this MOT was poised to go down as one
for the record books.A few early arrivals had to wait for
Bar Services to finish setting up but agood number of people started coming injust after 9. Alas, something was wrong!These costumed people did not have anycandy!
So, set to task was one of our lovelyladies of security (thanks Melinda) onboth door guard and candy duty. All thosewho were in costume were provided witha few pieces to tide them over before thebeer kicked in—if it hadn’t already.
As the night progressed, an everincreasing array of costumes were seen,including a drag-queen, Superman, Duff-Man, an incredible Legolas costume, the
Mario brothers,two police offi-cers, a verylarge man inchain mail, acouple ofFrench maidsand fairies, var-ious super-heroes, a froshwho, despitefacing a CHE 102 midterm the followingday, wished to drink his troubles away(though Bar Services was less than forth-coming), and one peculiar head of securi-ty who carried a sword and wore chainmail as well.
As the rain tapered off, more and morepeople went outside to get fresh air.
BUSH WINS 2ND TERM AS US PRESIDENTUNLESS SENATOR KERRY WON, IN WHICH CASE. . .
KERRY WINS U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!!!
Continued on page 4 See MOT thatrocked the world.
Sheldon Petrie3B Mechanical
MOT YOUR AVERAGE TERM PUB
The Newspaper of the University ofWaterloo Engineering Society
Editor-in-ChiefAndre Beltempo
Assistant EditorCharling Li
Photo EditorsRichard HuiDavid Yip
Layout EditorKatherine Chiang
Technical Editor(Vacant)
WebmasterGiancarlo Fajardo
Distribution Manager(Vacant)
Offstream Editor-in-ChiefJames Schofield
StaffTsu Chiang Chuang
Brent CarraraAndrew DoddsQuoc Huy T. Le
Richard LiMatt MooreJonathan Ng
Sheldon PetrieAdam PhilipEdward Tan
Jason VerheydenMatt Zulak
Contributors
Hilary LockieTaneem TalukdarMatt Ueckermann
Erik WilhelmMelissa Choong
Cindy BaoWanda YuYang Sui
2 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Letter from the Editor
The Iron Warrior is a forum for thought provokingand informative articles published by the EngineeringSociety. Views expressed in The Iron Warrior arethose of the authors and do not necessarily reflect theopinions of the Engineering Society.The Iron Warrior encourages submissions from stu-dents, faculty and members of the university commu-nity. Submissions should reflect the concerns andintellectual standards of the university in general. Theauthor's name and phone number should be included.All submissions, unless otherwise stated, become theproperty of The Iron Warrior, which reserves theright to refuse publication of material which it deemsunsuitable. The Iron Warrior also reserves the rightto edit grammar, spelling and text that do not meetuniversity standards. Authors will be notified of anymajor changes that may be required. Mail should be addressed to The Iron Warrior,Engineering Society, CPH 1327, University ofWaterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1. Our phonenumber is (519) 888-4567 x2693. Our fax number is(519) 725-4872. E-mail can be sent [email protected]
Instead of focussing directly on the U.S.election, I’m going to discuss the most
hot-button issue facing U.S. electors, and theinternational community as a whole. I’mgoing to review the current situation in Iraq.Before going further, I’m not going to argueabout the justification of the war. Somethingthat I’ve noticed is that everyone is fixatedupon whether or not the U.S. should haveinvaded in the first place. This is obviously aserious issue, but I would like to highlightthat regardless of the decision or yourthoughts about it, it’s happened. The deci-sion, for better or worse, was made. Iraq hasbeen invaded. The U.S. troops are there now.We can’t reverse this. So let’s stop analysinga decision that was made in the past. What’sfar more important and immediate, especial-ly for Iraquis themselves, is what’s going tohappen in the future. My contention is thatthe U.S. must stay in Iraq for as long as ittakes to stabilize that country. By invadingwithout planning the peace, relying on polit-ical rather than military direction, and com-mitting the bare minimum of resources, theU.S. found itself ‘in over it’s head’ despitehaving the successful examples of therebuilding of Japan and Germany afterWWII to fall back on.
Firstly, the U.S. military is thefinest fighting force on the planet. No onewill dispute this. In a set-piece traditionalmilitary battle, they are unmatched. Wherethe American military has historically runinto trouble is when the military is not givena free reign on operations. As an example,FDR did not direct the tactical operations ofAllied forces during the Second World War,rather he established strategic policy, such asthe ‘Germany first’ decision. He left theremainder of the military decisions to hissubordinate, but far more militarily experi-enced General Staff. The military is a bluntinstrument, and this is why the decision touse them is so agonizing. Politicians need torealize that when the military is committed toan operation, that the primary purpose of themilitary is death and destruction. Talk of‘surgical strikes’ and ‘precision munitions’aside, war is a very messy, very bloody busi-ness, and once you start putting guys withguns in places, people will die. So, recogniz-ing this, once a war has begun and soldiersare on the ground, the best idea is to allowthe military free reign to complete theirassigned strategic objective, without impos-
ing restrictions which may be seen to reducepolitical or societal fallout in the short term.If you didn’t want too much death anddestruction, you shouldn’t have called in themilitary in the first place. These restrictionssimply have the effect of frustrating a mili-tary mission, and prolonging the conflict.The best way to minimize death and destruc-tion once a military is conducting a missionis to allow them to complete it. Vietnam is aclassic example of this. By not allowing themilitary to attack the North directly, and cit-ing certain targets ‘off-limits’ the Vietnamesewere immediately able to capitalize on theapparent haphazard conduct of the War. Weare witnessing something similar in Iraqtoday. The U.S. military needs to be given aspecific objective, and the resources to com-plete it. After the ‘official’ end of the war, theobjective should have been to ensure ade-quate logistics for the Iraqi people.
The greatest mistake that the U.S.made during the invasion of Iraq was notplanning for the subsequent peace. This isinconceivably short-sighted. The outcome ofthe war was not in doubt, yet the soldiers onthe ground, upon reaching their assignedobjectives, were not given further orderswith regards to policing, re-establishinginfrastructure or securing specific Iraqibureaucratic institutions. After Germany andJapan fell in 1945, literally millions of tonsof food, logistics and other essentials, whichhad been earmarked for the task, were deliv-ered by literally millions of troops. Theyrebuilt the bridges they’d destroyed, oversawreconstruction of the shattered cities, andensured that the populace was engaged inrebuilding and re-establishment of civilorder. Conversely, in Iraq, the U.S. allowedall civil institutions to disband, and literallywatched for a week while suddenly unem-ployed Iraquis destroyed their own infra-structure and bureaucratic institutions. Tome, this was one of the most blatantly stupidstrategic decisions in the history of modernwarfare. Unfortunately, the soldiers on theground were not equipped to deal with themaintenance of order, re-establishment ofinfrastructure, or gainful employment of theIraqi populace, nor were they present in suf-ficient numbers to ensure compliance withany U.S. post-invasion decision. In a per-verse decision, they were equipped ‘lightly’to ensure that their own logistic ‘tail’ andhence cost of maintenance were kept low,presumably so that the current U.S. adminis-tration could claim that the war was fast andcheap. In the traditional sense the ‘official’war was ridiculously small and cheap, butthe cost of this is the continued mess in Iraq.The Iraquis could not be expected to magi-cally re-order themselves after having livedunder a very strict totalitarian regime for 30
years. The problem that exists now is exac-erbated by the fact that the U.S. governmentis paying literally billions of dollars to pri-vate corporations for the ‘rebuilding’. Again,although this appears to benefit everyone,since corporations are more ‘efficient’ thangovernment operations, and free-marketcompetition should allow the most effectivecompanies to survive, the problem is thatthese companies are also entirely randomelements that do not provide a stable effort.Some are acting as security services, butsince they are civilian ‘security’ personnel,i.e. mercenaries, they do not obey the samerules of engagement as the U.S. Army, forexample. Therefore, the response of anygiven foreign man with a gun is entirely var-ied depending on who he’s working for,since they’re not all ‘professional’ soldiers.As one of Murphy’s laws of combat states:“Professionals are predictable, but the worldis full of amateurs.” By reducing real troopstrengths and throwing money at the prob-lem, the U.S. has created a situation wherethe total number of U.S. troops killed may belower, in the final analysis, but where ama-teurs are facing amateurs. This results in acomplete mess, since average Iraquis don’tknow whether the foreigner with the gun isgoing to shoot him or wave. By handing offcontrol of the country to these fragmentedgroups, while leaving their token force in thecountry, they have effectively relinquishedcontrol of the situation, since they cannotdictate any objective at all anymore. With themilitary occupying/rebuilding the country, atleast they would be able to specify concreteobjectives to be accomplished.
The ongoing insurgency in Iraq is adirect result of poor U.S. planning, andexhibits some dangerous parallels withVietnam. The U.S will not lose the samenumbers as they did in Vietnam, for the sim-ple reason that they don’t have the troopstrength on the ground to do so, but guerrillacampaigns historically have only been wonby removing the ‘base’, i.e. by going into anarea where they are operating, and thenworking with the civilian populace over along (years) period of time to rebuild thecivilian infrastructure and local economy.Doing this bit by bit, over the entire country,would erode the support base of the insur-gents, since people aren’t going to help guer-rillas with guns if they don’t agree thatthere’s any reason to be fighting anymore. Inany case, the U.S. had better do a ‘lookbefore you leap’ type decision whenever thenext President decides to look at Iraq. Someserious thought needs to be given to how toreally sort out the mess, but if I had to guess,keeping the lights on, getting some hospitalsrunning, and employing people is probably agood place to start.
Andre Beltempo
3B Mechanical
Editor-in-Chief
3F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Advice & Letters
Dear LowRider,
Do you agree with Byron?
-Who knows?
Dear I wish I know who you were,
Please don’t write nonsensical stuffall over campus. I can think of 5 betterthings that you should have written, suchas:
Do you agree with Donald Trim? Do you care who Byron is?Do you agree with LowRider? Do you agree with Random Graffiti?Do you agree with the hypothesis that
Marcellus Wallace’s soul was in thebriefcase, not some stupid diamonds?
Now, get some more chalk and get towork!
-LR
Dear LowRider,
As far as I can tell, everybody who isanybody has a theme song, from EDCOMto Mr. Ed. Do you have a theme song, orsome kind of LowRider anthem? I’d loveto hear it.
Thanks,-Some Guy
Dear Some Guy,
As a matter of fact, there IS aLowRider song. It’s not as popular as itonce was, and I’m not too sure why thatis exactly. It’s mostly kind of to the tuneof “Jingle Bells” because the copy-rite isexpired. Back in the 80’s they switched itto the tune of the “Knight Rider” theme
for 3 weeks when that show was popular.It’s been back to the original ever since.Here you go, by special request:
LowRider, LowRider,LowRider is cool!Oh what fun it is to give advice,In a super kick-ass column!
Writing for IW,Always on Page 3,Other people write, “Articles” too, (ha ha ha!)
I get tons of letters,LowReaders get witty advice,I always wear my bandana and frown.And the ladies treat me nice!-LR
Dear LowRider,
Long-time fan, first-time writer. Idon't want to go into too much detail(protecting the identities of thoseinvolved, you know), but, I am a formerexecutive of a large on-campus organiza-tion who, for reasons that I don't want togo into here, is working in a small SouthAmerican country. (That should do nice-ly.)
Anyhow, my question is: I think mysuccessor at this 'organization' is doing areally crappy job and tarnishing my well-deserved legacy. Should I...
a) live and let live and let him or herfind his or her own path
orb) Stuff an angry machete-armed
Malaria-infested Spider Money into a boxand Fed Ex it to room 1103 in the SLC
I am so confused. What would you doLowRider?
Sincerely,-Guessing in GeorgetownDear Person who I do not know in any
way, shape or form,
What’s up, dude? I hope that thingsare going well for you in South America.It sounds hot there. I had a letter from aguy who did a co-op term there once, butI haven’t heard from him since. I evenpublished his address andeverything…Jerk.
Anyway, you bring up an interestingpoint. What does one owe one’s successor– and what does one’s successor owe toone? Read that again slowly if you gotless that 85 on the ELPE. I don’t thinkthat you’re talking about Engsock. I bringa megaphone to all the meetings to makethings run smoothly, and I’m doing agood job because most of them (cough…Kate… cough…) aren’t messing stuff uptoo bad at all.
It’s definitely not Chem Eng Soc,because they run a tight ship and have adamn sexy President/Dictator For Life, ifI do say so myself. (Pause for emphasis.)
Maybe you mean FEBS, or some kindof club. You can read what I said aboutclubs last time, but as for FEBS, whocares?
-LR
PS: I bet you $10 that if you did mailthe monkey, Imprint couldn’t make it intoa readable story. Maybe that Heramb guycould, but he’d have to apologize for itthe next week.
Dear L.Rider,
I hear that you are not the originalLowRider, that you are just the most
recent (and best) in a long line of
LowRiders. Is this true? Does this meanthat you will eventually be replaced?
- Mechette
PS: Is there a LowRider fan club?
Dear Mechette,
Does your name mean that you’re likea Mech, except a girl? Who would haveguessed that one, eh? You must have thepick of… Mech guys. Good for you…
You are correct about me not beingthe Original LowRider. If you want tolearn more about the history of LowRider,read issue 5 from Fall 2002 at the IWwebsite. It’s somewhere in one of theinternets.
The truth of the matter is, I will bereplaced. Soon. If I don’t fail any courses.So I’m announcing that I AM LOOKINGFOR THE NEXT LOWRIDER.
In keeping with the great tradition, allapplicants must be in Chem or convinceme otherwise. You must be willing toobtain your own red bandana, and pass allskill-testing questions. More importantly,you have 2 weeks to email me, or seek meout, and answer this question:
Dear Applicant,
Why should you be the nextLowRider?
-LR
I’m looking forward to reading these.-LR
PS: Of course there’s a LowRider FanClub. Talk to Laura M, as she is the Prezof that club too.
LowRider
4A Chemical
Dear LowRider: [email protected]
One Ride Two Ride Red Ride LowRide
Sandford Fleming FoundationE2 3322, ext 4008, [email protected]/~sff
FALL 2004 TECHNICAL SPEAKER COMPETITION RESULTS
The Technical Speaker Competition was held on Friday, October 15. The competition was keen and the selection of a winner difficult accordingto Prof. R. Legge of Chemical Engineering. Prof. Legge is the Faculty Co-ordinator for the competition and the Foundation would like to thankProf. Legge and all the Department Co-ordinators for their effort in ensuring the success of the Competition.
FIRST PRIZE Anam Rabbani, Mechanical Engineering
OTHER COMPETITORS Priya Bhola, Chemical EngineeringTravis Kelley, Systems Design EngineeirngAdam Wilson, Electrical and Computer Engineering
************************************
Funding for these awards comes from engineering student contributions and depends on them for continuation
4 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
MOT/Reviews
D’oh! Simpsons actually reflects Society
On Friday October 22, author ChrisTurner came to visit UW and hawk his
book, "Planet Simpson", which details“How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documentedan Era and Defined a Generation”. Soundslike something any hardcore Simpsons fancould’ve written, right? Well, this hardcorefan actually went through the trouble ofdoing it, and he did a thoroughly good job.This 450 some odd pages isn’t your usualepisode guide or trivia compilation. It is anin-depth analysis of how the Simpsons sati-rized our world. In the 1 hour presentationand question-answer period, Turner showedclips from well-known episodes and thenread from parts of the book. The first clipwas from the episode where Homer tried tosue an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant fornot letting him eat all that he could eat. Thisled to a discussion on how Homer representsour insatiable and impulsive consumeristsociety. Turner brought up interestingpoints. While Homer lives out our society’sfondness of excessive consumption ofeverything and anything, Springfield is acity tailored to meet his demands. Storeslike the “International House of AnsweringMachines” and magazines such as“Ballpoint Pen Digest” are frivolous andirrelevant, but nevertheless find a market ina place like Springfield which may as wellbe Anywhere, USA.
The next clip showed Bart and Lisa atKamp Krusty, where the children werebeing mistreated and abused. When thecamp counsellors tried to pass Barney
Gumble in a clown suit off as Krusty, Bartdecided that he’d had enough. He’d beenscorched by Krusty before, he exclaimed.“I’ve got a rapid heartbeat from Krusty-brand vitamins, my Krusty Kalculator didn’thave a 7 or an 8, and Krusty’s auto-biogra-phy was self-serving, with many glaringomissions, but this time, he’s gone too far!”Bart proceeded to overthrow the campcounsellors, wreck havoc, and establish“Camp Bart”. In the end, however, Bart for-gave Krusty, as he always does. Turnerattributes this to Bart being representative ofa diehard member of the church of pop.Krusty can disappoint Bart over and overagain, but Bart never loses faith in him.
Other topics Turner touched on includehow Sideshow Bob is the most culturedcharacter on the show. He tries to take overKrusty’s show with a most altruistic reasonin mind: he wants to turn the show into acultured, high-minded educational hour forchildren, with lessons on “nutrition, self-esteem, etiquette and all the lively arts”.(And here I thought he was just a boringfreak show.) Turner delved briefly into theidea of Kent Brockman, Springfield’s iconicanchorman, being representative of ourglibly hysterical media. Whatever happens,Kent is always on the scene, providingeither misinformed commentary or his delu-sional fantasies, all with an unflappable pro-fessional flourish: “and THAT’s the news,folks!”
The question-answer period includedsome thoughtful and intelligent questionsfrom the audience (which gave me a senseof what being in an arts class might be like),and Turner proved himself to be genuinelywell-spoken with a deep wealth of knowl-edge with respect to his topic.
All in all, Chris Turner gave a convinc-ing case for his thesis. If you used to thinkthat the Simpsons was a complete waste ofhalf an hour (like I did), you will soon real-ize otherwise. There is more to theSimpsons than gratuitous violence (a láItchy and Scratchy) and overused phrases(think “D’ohh” or “Why you little…”). Ifyou’re a hardcore fan and think you knowall there is to know about the Simpsons,well, you’ll just know more. This book isnot heavy reading, and though it is on thelong side, it is thorough and easy to under-stand. If you would simply like to increaseyour vocabulary and general understandingof our pop-culture world, this book is foryou. “Planet Simpson” is reasonably pricedat $35 bucks at the Bookstore, and yes, theydid jack up the price at the book signingafter the presentation, but you can get it formuch cheaper if you just look on the ‘net.Happy reading!
Charling Li2B Mechanical
Fortunately those who came in costumeonly did not suffer too much in the mistyrain and cool temperatures.
With POETS quickly reaching capaci-ty, which was increased from BOT thistime as the Patio was licensed, the crowdinside seemed to be doing just fine,singing songs, comparing costumes andchatting it up with friends and peers—most of whom haven’t seen one anothersince BOT in some cases.
There was a large B-Society turn out,with many familiar EDCOM faces show-ing up here and there. Most of the execu-tive took time out from their busyschedules to take in the sights and soundsof MOT as well.
Around 10:20 there was a hush thatfell over the crowd as security cleared apath from the main doors to the stairwell.Once again, the TOOL was making itsappearance for the gathered crowd.
As the theme to 2001 played, the
TOOL bearers came indressed up in their typi-cal finest, but each bearerwas wearing aHalloween mask! Theengineers (and two art-sies wielding spatulas)chanted the typical TOOL chants androared as the TOOL was raised for all tobehold.
As the bearers received their refresh-ments, the hard-working P**5 directorsmade their way up to the balcony to revealthe MOT points standings. With Back inBlack playing in the background the ban-ner was revealed to show the points stand-ings:
3B SE-Xperts 195302B Bond, Chemical Bond 172903B Members in Tension 130103B Long Wrench Big Nuts 71152A SE(x,y); 5840Throughout all of these proceedings
Digicom (sorry Jeff, I had to) was filming
throughout most of the night. With anyluck you will make it into the TSN videoto be shown at EOT on December 3rd.
As the TOOL made its discreet exit,the long awaited band came on and playedgood tunes for the rest of the evening. Asthe night went on people left in smallgroups to go onto their unknown destina-tions, most of which included talk of theSpur or Kick-Offs. As these people lefteven more people were let into POETS asit was at capacity for most of the night.
As the band completed its session,people gathered just below the steps toPOETS to compete in the costume con-test. Winners were chosen by crowd pop-ularity with Security deciding on thewinners. Despite competition from Duff-
Man, the two Mario brothers and the bigguy in chain mail, without question thebest male costume went to Ryan Consell,in his amazing Legolas costume. It camecomplete with hand made maple bow, twofighting swords, prosthetic ears, and out-fit. Winning for both best female and bestteam, were the twins—conjoined at theback to be exact.
Congratulations and thanks to all andeverybody who joined us for one of thebest MOT pubs ever held. Please join usagain at End of Term. With any luck theweather won’t be too cold, though know-ing Waterloo anything can happen.
If anyone has any suggestions or ideasfor EOT or POETS in general do not hes-itate to email the POETS Management.
The MOT that rocked the world
...continued from Page 1.
Aquaint little city in BritishColumbia called Nelson decided to
build a monument honouring theAmerican citizens who fled to Canadaduring the Vietnam War to avoid thedraft. These citizens, numbering around50,000 to 125,000 in total and predomi-nantly in the middle class, settled mainlyaround that area of our country. Thisstatue, as well as the associated "OurWay Home” festival, was created to cel-ebrate the contributions to Canadian cul-ture by these people. The festival andstatue itself were privately funded.
Fox News managed to get wind ofthe story through the Associated Pressand decided that it didn’t like that verymuch. They headlined the story, incor-rectly indicating that the mayor ofNelson was involved, which prompted awhole flurry of citizens to e-mail the cityof Nelson to stop construction of thestatue. The Veterans of Foreign Warsgroup, the largest Veterans’ group in theU.S., is also working with President
Draft dodging andthe United
StatesJohn Ng
Graduated
Continued on page 10. See DraftDodging statue creates consternation inUnited States
Hello all Iron Warrior readers! Formy debut, I have decided to share
some of my most cherished recipes withall of you; the first being the suite-renowned
Tuna Pasta Salad! *cue chorus ofangels* But seriously, this has to be thebest recipe in the world for busy engi-neers! It’s quick, simple, tasty to thepoint of being addictive, and it’s impos-sible to screw this up.
TUNA PASTA SALADPrep: 15 min. Serves 2 144
Calories1 cup tri-coloured corkscrew pasta1/2 cup green beans trimmed & cut
into 2 inch pieces (just use scissors to cut them)1/4 cup red onion thinly sliced1/3 cup low fat Italian dressing1/8 cup chopped fresh parsley (or
dehydrated parsley flakes)1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in
half1 can (7 oz) tuna in water, drained1/8 cup sliced black olives (just buy a
tin of sliced olives)1) Cook pasta according to package
directions but do not add salt. About 7min.
Before pasta is done, add green beansto pot. When cooking time is finishedremove pot from heat & add onion.Drain mixture in colander & rinse undercold water. Drain again.
2) While pasta mixture is draining, inlarge serving bowl combine dressing, &
parsley. Mix well.3) Add drained pasta mixture to
dressing. Add tomatoes, tuna & olives.Toss to coat & serve. This recipe can behalved/doubled/quintupled/you get theidea
Isn’t that simple? Yes, yes it is verysimple. Don’t feel you need to followinstructions exactly; use whatever pastaand ingredients you want! For example,I don’t use onion because I don’t likeonions, and you may not use olivesbecause you don‚t like olives. Thanksmust be given to my aunt, who gave methis recipe. Unfortunately, she can’tremember where she got it from, but thepoint is that it’s here now, just waiting tobe put to use! So go now, go forth andcook!
Speaking of cooking, if you’d likesomething a little more labour intensivebut equally tasty, why not try a chicken& veggie stir fry with peanut sauce? Justbe sure to make sure the chicken is fullycooked (no pink anywhere; everythingmust be white), as chicken can be finickywhen it comes to things like salmonellayou know
WARM PEANUT CHICKEN VEG-ETABLE SALAD
Prep: 25 min Serves 4 271Calories
5F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Columns
CharobeemCooks:
Recipes forthe ages
Carolyn Sutherland1A Mechanical
So, it’s a weekday afternoon, classesare over and you just can’t seem to
gather enough interest to march to DanaPorter, Davis Centre, a computer lab, orwherever you spend 50% of your timestudying. Instead of that, you are lookingfor something to do--something enter-taining, sociable and most importantly:cheap. Well, for those of you who havenot yet been to one of the best places inEngineering to get to know and hang outat, consider POETS.
POETS (Piss on EverythingTomorrow’s Saturday) is located rightbeside the C&D in on the first floor inCarl Pollock Hall (CPH). The entrance toPOETS (also known as CPH 3383) isthrough a set of double doors on top of asmall set of steps and a side ramp. Otherthings to note are large wooden carvingsdepicting the map of the University(refer to the engineering handbook) and alarge wooden carving of a customPOETS logo.
The double doors and adjoiningwindows are white from the outside butfrom within a mural of sorts has beenpainted depicting a marching medievalarmy. At any rate, inside on the mainfloor you will find a whole bunch of stuffto enhance your lunch hours, afternoonsand pretty much any time between 8:30a.m. and 5 p.m. On the main floor arenumerous chairs and sofas to relax andenjoy you meal, snack, or breaks duringone of those darned pesky labs. The mainattraction, however, is the large 10’screen, projector and very nice 6 speakersurround sound system with an earth-quake-inducing subwoofer.
While the projector dates backto the founding of POETS (I heard theyused to play Duck Hunt on the darnthing, believe it or not) the speakers andOnkyo receiver were gifts from the grad-uating class of 2002 and are very, veryimpressive.
At the front of the room is a barwith counter which holds all of the stereoand video equipment. Behind the bar arepaper towels, an assortment of pens andmarkers, darts, and many, many morethings than I can list here.
If you hear a low hummingnoise in the mornings it’s probably thelarge refrigerator directly behind the bar.This refrigerator is typically emptyexcept for Thursdays and Fridays to keepthe beer sold on those days cold.
In the back are two dark boardsand a foosball table. Watch out for a tour-nament in the next few weeks.
Above the main floor is a studyarea which is fairly quiet and secluded—one of the few areas outside of an emptyclassroom or library you can study oncampus. If you take the time to lookaround POETS one will see the wallscovered with pictures of a few IRS cere-monies, pictures of the TOOL, notablevictories by Engineering student teamsand various exploits of those that shallnot be named.
POETS has regular operatinghours during the day between Monday toFriday and programming startingbetween 10 and 12 depending on the typeof content and day of the week. Thursdayand Friday programming typicallyincludes action and/or sci-fi/fantasyfilms, Kevin Smith movies on occasion,and comedies that you can enjoy no mat-ter what time you start watching.Monday through Wednesday program-ming tends to be slower, with TV fare
(Family Guy, Futurama) on Tuesdays andtrilogies on Thursdays.
POETS is also available for pri-vate bookings for anyone interested pro-vided there is no conflict—typically thisis never a problem. Past classes haveorganized coffee houses, meet and greetsand the like. Those who do not havecable TV, or have the privilege to live inUnit 36, are known to book out POETSto watch cable TV. AcademicRepresentative meetings are held thereon occasion (with free food for thoseinvolved). Additionally, three times aterm, pubs are held in to celebrateBeginning, Middle and End of the cur-rent term. ID is checked at the door sowhile frosh and those under 19 will beallowed in they will not be served—BarServices, which handles all of the alcoholserved in POETS and on campus is pre-sent. A band is booked for the Middle ofTerm (MOT) and the end of term videoshowcasing highlights of the previousOT’s, charitable events, and other eventsof note.
While having a good time ismost important, there is still one impor-tant and over-riding thing which makesthe term pubs great: it’s shiny, 60” longand weighs over 100 lbs. It’s the Tool andit is graciously brought out on each andevery term pub where it shown before allof the students present.
On a final note, it must be point-ed out that just like everything else at thisUniversity, what you get out of some-thing depends on what you put into it.Special Events like the Open House,Beach Day, term pubs and others all needvolunteer help to one degree or another.Any and all ideas are welcome and if youhave any questions or comments pleasesend them to the POETS managers.
POETS: More than just a 5 letterAcronym
Sheldon Petrie3B Mechanical
Continued on page 9. See Cook This
The Faculty of Engineering isin the initial stages of a
Faculty planning exercise, todevelop a 6-year plan for theFaculty and every department. Akey aspect of this planningprocess is broad consultation -providing students (undergradu-ate and graduate), staff, and facul-ty the opportunity to have inputinto their department's and theFaculty plan. To that end, theDean’s office wants to be sureevery interested communitymember is provided with infor-mation about the process as it getsunder way. Planning informationsessions for undergraduate stu-dents, graduate students, staff,and faculty will be held on thedates specified below. Each ses-
sion will be presented by DeanAdel Sedra, and will be about anhour long (including time for pre-sentation and time for discus-sion/questions from the group).More information will follow as itbecomes available.
Undergraduate Students:Where: CPH 3374Date: November 9, 2004Time: 5:00 p.m. to approx 6:30p.m.Please note that at this sessionthere will be pizza available.
Graduate Students:Where: DC 1350Date: November 10, 2004Time: 3:30 p.m. to approx 5:00p.m.Please note that there will berefreshments available.
Dean’s OfficeIW News Bureau
ENGINEERING PLANNING SESSIONSCOME LEARN ABOUT THE EXCITING FUTURE OF
ENGINEERING AT WATERLOO
“Back to the Future” - Marty McFlywould care about the FUTURE ofEngineering. . .come on out November9th and learn about whereEngineering at UW is headed. . .
Ihope everyone’s midterms have gonewell, and now that we’re into
November there’s a nice moment topause before the fury of project reportsand finals comes down on us. The exechas all been busy this past month withconferences at the beginning,Oktoberfest in the middle, and midtermsand MOT at the end. Our first EngSocswing dance lessons happened as well,with a great time had by everyone whocame out.
The EWB Wine and Cheese fundrais-er also happened this month at the oldSeagram building. The venue was fantas-tic, and the words from George Roter(Waterloo Engineering grad and founderof EWB) were very informative aboutthe work that EWB does both abroad andin Canada to improve the standard of liv-ing in third world countries.
The next EngSoc meeting is
November 10 in DWE 1501, and I lookforward to seeing many of you at themeeting now that midterms are over.We’ll be meeting the candidates for theupcoming EngSoc elections, startingPaul and Paula Plummer Award nomina-tions, and going through the usual bevyof announcements and class rep feed-back. Ciao ‘till then!
Ladies and gentleman, may I have theesteemed honour to present to you Exec
Report number 4. I also remind you toplease hold your applause to the end so wecan try and speed things up. With midtermscome and gone, it’s been a slow couple ofweeks for EngSoc stuff and I only have afew things to report on. So without furtherado, let’s begin.
The first thing I have to talk about thisweek is an update regarding the onlinecourse critique results proposal that theoffice of the Vice President Education (i.e.me) passed up to the Dean’s office forapproval and adoption. The Dean proceed-ed to present this proposal to all the depart-ment chairs and associate deans. The facultyhas chosen to accept EngSoc’s proposal foronline course critique results without anymodifications. For those of you who missedthat last sentence, I’ll summarize and repeat.The Engineering Society has receivedapproval from the faculty to post the resultsof the course critiques on our website to ourmembers. This is a momentous decision forEngSoc, but more importantly for the wholeuniversity. We will be the first faculty oncampus to allow our course critiques to bereadily accessible to students over the inter-net. This is just another example of howEngSoc and the engineering faculty are set-ting the bar for the rest of the faculties andstudent societies on campus. Now that wehave faculty approval for this system weneed to start working on the development ofit. Graeme Baer, EngSoc resident web-maven, will be heading up the development
of this system along with me. If anyone isinterested in helping out with the system’sdevelopment feel free to contact me [email protected]. Theplan is to get a system in place by the end ofthe term so it will be ready to go in the win-ter.
The second thing I have to say this weekis another update on an issue I touched onlast week. In my past exec report I men-tioned that the Ontario government is con-ducting a review of the post secondaryeducation system headed by former Ontariopremier Bob Rae. This past week, I had thepleasure of attending one of the stakeholderroundtable discussions hosted by the Raereview committee and Bob Rae himself.The stakeholder roundtable discussionbrought representatives from universities,colleges, students, and secondary schoolboards together to try and look at issues andpossible solutions to improve post sec-ondary education in the process. The ques-tions that were discussed were: how can we,as a government increase participation andsuccess in higher education, how should weimprove the quality of higher education,how can we make sure that our institutionsconstitute a coherent and coordinated sys-tem to meet Ontario’s goals for higher edu-cation, how do we pay for higher educationto ensure opportunity and excellence, anddo we have the right structures in place toknow our systems is achieving the resultswe want? Anybody interested in hearingmore about all this can come find me in theOrifice, and as anyone who was in the ori-fice when I got back from this meeting cantell you, I will be more than happy to discussit. The commission will also be hosting atown hall meeting in the Waterloo area onNovember 5th where everyone is invited tocome and share their thoughts on improve-ments for higher education. Watch for moreinformation on that.
The last few things that I have to men-tion is that the faculty has started the nextstage of its co-op review committee meet-ings of which I am a member. The commit-tee is currently sifting through all thestudent input it received in the previous termand using it to help identify the problems inand some recommendations for the co-opsystem. The PDENG steering committee isalso working hard to ensure that all you ‘09swill have a course in place when you go onco-op. There will be a PDENG presentationin the last of the GENE 010 sessions onNovermber 4th as well as members of thePDENG steering committee will be visitingthe first year concept classes to inform you‘09s of what to expect.
Well that’s all I got for this week.Ironically this is the first exec report I’vewritten that has spilled onto two Wordpages, especially since I said at the begin-ning that it would be brief. Meh. Just morefor you to read when you’re bored in class.
6 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
EngSoc
ENGINEERING SOCIETY EXECUTIVE REPORTS
The leaves are gone, and finals are justaround the corner…eek! It’s been a
crazy term and it’s not quite over yet,despite the signs that are around. I’ve got afew important conferences coming up, and Ineed some of you to attend with me. Thefirst is CFES (Canadian Federation ofEngineering Students) Congress, which willbe happening this year at the University ofToronto. It promises to be an amazing timewith Mike Lazaridis (UW Chancellor andRIM co-founder) giving the keynoteaddress. Students from all across Canadaand abroad will be descending on U of T fora entire week of fun, workshops and did Imention fun? All expenses will be paid forby the gracious funding by the Dean ofEngineering. This conference will be heldfrom January 3rd to the 7th. We will bestaying in a hotel in downtown Toronto. If
you are an eight stream frosh, a de-stream-ing fourth year, or planning on failing thisterm, your applications will be forwarded tothe B Society VP-X Christina Waters, allothers come to me. Applications are avail-able online on the EngSoc website, and aredue no later than November 19th. The sec-ond great conference is for first years only.It’s the First Year Integration Conference(FYIC). It’s being held at Ryerson this yearand will be held from Friday February 4th toSunday 6th. I want to get all the names innow, since all the possible first years are oncampus right now, and it’s a lot easier. Thisconference will see other first year engi-neers from all across Ontario gather to dis-cuss the trials and tribulations of first yearengineering, as well as socialize. The folksat Ryerson have worked incredibly hard onthis conference, and it is shaping up to be anexcellent experience. Like Congress allexpenses are paid by the Dean.Applications for FYIC are due FridayNovember 26th. On an internal externalmatter look for a Remembrance Day cere-mony at 11:00am on November 11th. Theceremony will be held in the CPH Foyer.
Nick Lawler
Vice President,External
VP External
Jonathan Fishbein
Vice President,Education
VP-Education
Wow, what a Halloween weekend, Ihope everyone had as a good a time
as I did! I heard MOT was fantastic with thealive music and whatnot. My cousin and Ialmost won a costume contest at Elements!It was fantastic! Soo much fun…….badcamera, my feet hurt…..
So,…whats going on soon? Lots ofstuff! Buy a semi-formal ticket! Its ‘Las
Vegas’ themed! Soo coooL! November 6th!I’ll totally be there, all dressed up andsnazzy and no date!
A**5 bowling is November 7th…thebus ride is free! Sign up! I’ll be there and Ibetchya I’ll beat Rajat…..and maybe Jon atbowling! And remember to dress up! TeamTheme is important!
The next EngSoc meeting isNovemember 10th, same bat time and samebat place…..Arts week is coming up.Novemenber 15-19th submit your artsystuff. Genuius bowl is the 17th, sign up yourteams!
Just a bit of advice before Igo….water…I love it!
Kate Kelly
Vice President,Internal
Participation is up this term I have not gotthe official numbers from the registrar’s
office as to the number of students enrolledin each class so I don’t have accurate stats.Thank you to everyone who continues tosupport WEEF. This is a big term for WEEF,there will be an election for a new WEEFDirector. If you are interested in becomingthe next director, get a nomination formfrom the orifice and get it filled out.
There are some important dates to notethat are coming up in the near future. Friday,November 12 at 4:30pm is the last day to
hand in WEEF proposals. A soft copy mustbe emailed to [email protected] a hard copy put in the WEEF mailbox inthe orifice or slid under the WEEF officedoor. Tuesday, November 16 at 5:00pm inRCH 302 proposal presentations will beheld. The following week on Thursday,November 25 at 5pm is funding council.This is the meeting in which the WEEFReps decide where the money is to be spentand is also in RCH 302. It is very importantthat one WEEF representative from eachclass attends both the proposal presentationsand the funding council.
If you have any questions or concernsabout proposals or other matters pleaseemail me at [email protected] orstop by the WEEF office (E2 2349A)Wednesdays between 11:30 and 1:20 orThursdays between 3:30 and 5:00.
WEEF Report
Hey guys!!!
Not much to say this time! TheBudget was passed at the last meet-ing. Donations were completed aswell, and if your organization won anEngsSoc donation, then email me atasoc_vpfin@engmail to get yourdonations cheque! And if you wantdirectorship money, fill out anexpense form and put it in my box!Other than that, I'm late and I don'twant to piss off Andre.
VP-FRajat Suri
Vice President,Finance
VP Internal
Nick Lawler
Vice President,External
The PresidentLaura Mooney
President
7F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
EngSoc Events & CECS
Want a Job? CECS Important DatesNovember 1:
- Co-op job postings begin to occurdaily.Each posting closes at the end ofthe following business day. Job rank-ing cycles and Job match results willcontinue until December 17. WatchJobMine login page for notification ofany change in the posting schedule.
- Co-op job postings open) at 6 amCareer Services Workshops: Job Search Strategies: Learn the “how
to” of job/work search, networking,and employer research. Creative andtraditional methods are explored.NOTE: Much of this information issimilar to the CO-OP 101 Job Searchsession. Co-op students should attendonly if they need a refresher. Registeronline at www.careerservices.uwater-loo.ca
3:30 – 5:00 pm, TC 1208 November 2- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings open at 3 pm
- Monday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Letter Writing: Learn how to use lettersto your advantage in the job search.Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca 3:30 - 4:30 pm, TC 1208.
Résumé_ Writing: Discover techniquesfor writing an effective résumé_.Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca 4:30 - 5:30 pm, TC 1208.
Rotman School of Management, U of TInformation session about manage-ment and accounting programsRegister online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca 11:30 am – 1:30 pm, TC 1208.
November 3:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Tuesday job posting close at 11:59 pmCareer Services Workshops:
Interview Skills: The Basics –Understand the fundamentals of successful interviewing. NOTE:Much of this information is similar to the CO-OP 101 Interview Skillssession. Co-op students should attend only if they need a refresher. Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca
3:30-4:30 pm, TC 1208Interview Skills: Preparing for
Questions- Discuss and learn from taped excerpts of actual interviews. Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca
4:30 - 5:30 pm, TC 1208November 4:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue
- Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings open at 3 pm Wednesday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Interview Skills: Selling Your Skills –Don’t stop at the fundamentals; youmust also prove your skills in theinterview. Here is your opportunityto practice and improve. NOTE:Please attend only if you can stay thefull two hours. Register online atwww.careerservices.uwaterloo.ca
3:30 – 5:30 pm, TC 1208 November 5:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am Thursday job posting close at 11:59 pm November 8:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Friday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Job Search Strategies: Special Sessionfor International StudentsInternational students will learn bestapproaches to search for work inCanada after graduation from UW,including visa requirements. NOTE:first hour of session covers generaljob search strategies; last half hourdetails visa requirements. Registeronline at www.careerservices.uwater-loo.ca
4:30 – 6:00 pm, TC 1208 November 9:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings open at 3 pm - Monday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Business Etiquette: Proper etiquette iscrucial to a successful job search and to your career. This workshop willcover dining etiquette as well asappropriate behaviour at interviews,employer receptions/sessions andother networking activities. Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca
2:30 – 3:30 pm, TC 1208 November 10:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Tuesday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Career Decision Making: After this ses-sion you will be in a better position toassess yourself and your “fit” in theworld of work. Register online atwww.careerservices.uwaterloo.ca
3:30 – 5:00 pm, TC 1208.
November 11:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings open at 3 pm - Wednesday job posting close at 11:59 pCareer Services Workshops:
Successfully Negotiating Job Offers:Increase the odds of getting what youwant when negotiating salary andother details related to the job offer.NOTE: This workshop is gearedtowards graduating students. Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca
4:30 – 5:30 pm, TC 1208. November 12:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Jobrankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Thursday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 15:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am -Friday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Letter Writing: Learn how to use lettersto your advantage in the job search.Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca 3:30 - 4:30 pm, TC 1208.
Résumé_ Writing: Discover techniquesfor writing an effective résumé.Register online at www.careerser-vices.uwaterloo.ca 4:30 - 5:30 pm, TC 1208.
November 16:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Jobrankings open at 3 pm - Monday job posting close at 11:59 pmCareer Services Workshops:
Job Search Strategies: Special Sessionfor International Students International students will learn bestapproaches to search for work inCanada after graduation from UW,including visa requirements. NOTE:first hour of session covers generaljob search strategies; last half hourdetails visa requirements. Registeronline at www.careerservices.uwater-loo.ca
4:30 – 6:00 pm, TC 1208 November 17:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Tuesday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Job Search Strategies: Learn the “howto” of job/work search, networking,and employer research. Creative andtraditional methods are explored.NOTE: Much of this information is
similar to the CO-OP 101 Job Searchsession. Co-op students should attendonly if they need a refresher. Registeronline at www.careerservices.uwater-loo.ca
2:30 – 4:00 pm, TC 1208 November 18:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings open at 3 pm - Wednesday job posting close at 11:59 pm November 19:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Thursday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 22:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Friday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 23:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings open at 3 pm - Monday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 24:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings close at 9 am - Job match results available at 10 am - Tuesday job posting close at 11:59 pm November 25: - Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Job rankings open at 3 pm - Wednesday job posting close at 11:59 pm Career Services Workshops:
Writing CVs and Cover Letters This workshop will show you how toprepare an effective curriculum vitae and cover letter when applying forpositions. Watch for TRACE flyerswith sign-up information. Registeronline at www.careerservices.uwater-loo.ca
12:00 noon – 1:30 pm, TC 2218November 26:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue - Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings close at 9 am- Job match results available at 10 am - Thursday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 29:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am - Friday job posting close at 11:59 pmNovember 30:- Co-op & Grad employer interviews con-tinue- Co-op job postings open at 6 am- Job rankings open at 3 pm- Monday job posting close at 11:59 pm
If you’d like toadvertise yourevent in the IronWarrior, pleasesend your infor-mation to iwar-rior@engmail
Exec ElectionNomination deadline
IW SubmissionDeadline
Faculty ofEngineering Planning
SessionRemembrance
Day
31 1 2 3 4 5 6
13121110987
MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAYSUNDAY
Upcoming Events from EngSoc
Shadow DayFooseball
Tournament WIE SocialVegas NightsSemi-Formal
A**5 BowlingEngSoc Meeting
#4
8 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Columns/Opinion
The price of the Engineer’s soul
This is the story of how I recently soldmy soul (or rented it out cheap, at
least).I work for a company in Calgary, and
our clients consist of all the major oilcompanies that are drilling for oil allover Alberta. So, theother day I was calledout for a service checkon our equipment on aclient’s site a few hun-dred clicks north ofCalgary.
Hidden deep in thewoods, only accessibleby roads hastilyploughed through by the clients them-selves, the oil rig was a hive of activitybuzzing with the sounds of man andmachine. While standing on top of one ofthe trailers and taking down our equip-
ment, I surveyed the place with my eyes.In the middle of the clearing, rising
high into the air, was the main drillingrig. It was painted bright red. I thennoticed the truck next to it: emblazonedacross the sides was the name“Halliburton”, followed by the compa-ny’s address (State code “TX”).
A company with practices and leader-ship like Halliburton represents to me
everything that stops usas a species from reach-ing for something high-er. And here I wasstaring at it in its ownelement.
Did I continue withmy work? Of course Idid. I am not one to sac-rifice myself in the name
of protest. But if I had to do this now,even before I’ve started on my career,where am I headed?
Taneem A. Talukdar2N Systems
“ . . .emblazonedacross the sides ofthe truck was the
name ‘Halliburton’”
By the time this hits the stands, hallwayfloors, or wherever else you like to
toss these things, midterms are over. Giveyourself a pat on the back. You buckleddown, let the books show you who’s yourdaddy, and with a little luck you came outof it with marks higher than the speedlimit on Ring Road.
That over with, it’s dawning on youthat you might like to spend time withthose things. You know, the ones that youplay “Where's Waldo” trying to find inyour lectures. Yeah, that’s right: girls.Well my friend, whether you’re looking torent or own, or you just want to take oneout for a test spin because you can’t affordthe cost, heed my warning. Women arepretty, like shiny knives. Everyone likes ashiny knife. The problem is that if youstart to get lost in the sparkle of that beau-tiful piece of work, you might cut your-self, or your food - both horrible fates tobefall any man. This fate is easily befallenif you date your fellow Engineers. Forthose of you who don’t agree with me, Ihave two words for you: Come-on!Should that fail to convince you, read onto discover my DON’T DO adviceacronym.
Dating someone as smart as or smarterthan you. It’s a good idea to surroundyourself with people smarter than you (nota concern for artsies), that’s not whatyou’re chasing her for. Never try to findsomeone who can argue you into seeinganother Hugh Grant flick, or to cultureyourself with things that don’t bash, crash,or bite into each other. Shakespeare mayhave caught your eye once, but after thatyou’ll gouge them out a la King Lear.
On you like glue. Busy people don’t
look for partners they won’t ever see.Here, you’ll never go weeks without hercompany. Or days. Or classes. Put simply,you won’t ever hang with anyone elseever again. You’re in class with her, whywould you want to be anywhere else,right? I don’t need to be a lifeguard to rec-ognize suffocation when I see it.
Not-so-cheap date. Unlike arts andAHS girls, our Engineers won’t be doneafter one BEvERage or two. Heck, somemight be thirstier than you. If ever youwanted to know what Fido felt after yourMom watched too much The Price IsRight, get yourself a girl who loves thenectar more than you.
Tough competition/low selection fac-tor. Class of 100, 5 girls, only one youever wink at. There’s no way you can giveher more attention than the 50 or so othersvying for her. Give up right now.
D is for Diversification (and otherwords if you still think Engirls are whereit’s at). You’ll find yourself talking abouthomework and everything else youalready have in common, and you’ll boththink you’re so clever for coming up withthe idea to go to the EngSocial together.Yawn. Broaden your horizons. Visit a for-eign country, or wander into Hagey Hallsometime.
Odd seating arrangement post-rela-tionship. You’ll sit behind her to avoid herstare, and never see or hear the educationup front. Maybe you’ll sit in front of her,and be unable to fall asleep under thewatchful eye of the professor’s lesson onChemistry: verbatim your textbook. Stillnot convinced? Sure, you can find a nicegirl in your class or faculty, but guys, it’snot like that’s going to happen. I mean, itcould happen that a girl in your class likesyou, and if she does, go for it. Otherwise,I’d rather save my luck for the next 6/49ticket I buy. A few million should help toease the pain of wondering about whatmight have been, or make you forgetabout it and everything else. See, there’salways an answer. Have fun finding yours.
Andrew Dodds
1A Mechanical
Pitfalls of EngDating
Welcome to this week’s rendition ofthe Sports Update Column. In this
week’s article we’ll take a look at the onlymajor sport I have yet to talk about: MajorLeague Baseball. Last edition’s article tooka look at the top and bottom 3 teams in theNFL. The picks I made turned out to bepretty accurate with the exception of givingthe Indianapolis Colts the top position.Since that time, the Colts have lost some ofthe offensive lustre that I was raving about,but be sure to check back after week 10 foranother update of the top and bottom 3teams. This week we'll take a look at thelively 2004 MLB playoff race that offeredup some great moments and historicalevents in the process.
This should go without saying, but theBoston Red Sox are our 2004 World Serieschampions. With all the publicity aroundthe event, however, I'm sure all my loyalreaders are well informed about the result.The Red Sox have officially laid to rest the“Curse of the Bambino”. For those of youjust being introduced to the curse, here’s alittle history lesson for you. The “Curse ofthe Bambino” is an 86 year old curse whichbegan in 1918. Prior to 1920, the BostonRed Sox had a pitcher named Babe Ruth.
You have undoubtedly seen a picture of theBabe or heard the legend that he has left onthe game of baseball. Most of you havealso probably seen the move “Babe” whereJohn Goodman gives us some insight intothe life of probably the most famed playerto ever play the game. He is the mostfamed player because of the curse he hasleft on the Red Sox for the past 86 years.During the years the Red Sox had Ruth theydominated, winning championships andpennants. In 1918 theRed Sox won their 5thand seemingly finalWorld series with theBabe leading the way.In 1920, however, thingstook a turn for the worse,when then owner HarryFrazee sold Babe Ruthto Colonel JacobRuppert of the New YorkYankees for a whole$10,000 so he could finance a girlfriends’play. Now I'm not a genius, nor do I pre-tend to be a master financier, but what thehell was he thinking?! What kind of a foolgives up the greatest player in the game fornothing to finance a play? Not only didFrazee give up his best player but he alsoput the Red Sox into a World Series funkthat just ended last week.
The Red Sox didn’t take the easy routeto their first championship in 86 years.
They were forced to go through their bitterrivals, the New York Yankees. TheYankees had dominated the Red Sox foryears and hold the professional sportsrecord for number of championships for asingle franchise. The Yankees took a 3-0series lead right off the bat, putting theRed Sox in a position that had never beenovercome in baseball history. With theirbacks against the wall, the Red Sox wereforced to win 4 games in a row, and you
know that they did,becoming the first teamin history to do so. Theythen went on to win 4straight games againstthe St. Louis Cardinals tocapture their 6th WorldSeries in team history.
Some of the otherhighlights of this year’splayoffs were the play ofCarlos Beltran, of the
Houston Astros, who tied the record forhome runs in the playoffs despite not evengetting to the World Series. Carlos willbecome a free agent in the off season andwith the Yankees looking for a center field-er they will probably be throwing big bucksat this bright young star. The play of AlbertPojols re-introduced us to one of the bright-est young stars in baseball with his fantasticnumbers at the plate and gold glove worthfielding at first base. Probably the greatest
story, however, was the play of CurtShilling of the Boston Red Sox. Curt suf-fered an ankle injury, in which the tendon inhis ankle was torn from the bone. With theintroduction of a new medical procedurecreated by the Red Sox team doctor, Curtwas able to pitch in the Yankee series andthe World Series, not losing a decision afterthe new procedure was used. All in all, thisplayoff run was one of the most memorableand exciting in recent memory. Hopefully,now that the Red Sox have finally claimeda World Series title, Bill Buckner can nowsleep in peace and harmony and we canthrow away the famed clip of him allowinga slow roller to go through his legs, givingthe Mets life in the 1986 World Series. Thatact ultimately led to the Mets capturing theWorld series and the Red Sox reveling inthe curse. I hope you all tuned into thesegreat games and enjoyed the playoffs asmuch as I did. Cheers!
Sports: Boston Red Sox finally lift curse
“. . .sold Babe Ruth[to] the New York
Yankees for $10,000...what the hell was he
thinking?!”
Brent Carrara3B Software
9F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Opinion
Open source. Those two sweet, sweetwords contain a world of possibilities
to the poor schmoe who happens to own apretty decent computer system. Not mak-ing sense? Okay fine. Throw in the words‘internet’ and ‘free software,’ and maybeI’ll start sparking some interest. What I’mtalking about is soft-ware freely available onthe web - powerfulenough to bring anyoneinto the competitiveworld of 3D computermodelling. I’ve heardso many people whineand complain that theydon’t have l33t 3Dmodelling skills to sellto employers becausethey don’t have enoughmoney to buy 3DS Max, Maya,Solidworks, AutoCAD, or some other out-rageously expensive software package.Well, I’m going to tell you how to getthose skills so you can finally create asuper model of a super model to importand play in your own game, withoutspending a dime... legally!
Okay, so let’s assume that you just fin-ished putting together a raw system... youneed an operating system. Most people“find” a copy of Windows to install, but ifyou can’t seem to remember where you
put that serial number, you might consid-er installing Linux. After wondrousWindows decided to completely die on mefor no apparent reason during the middleof last semester (taking a lab report withit), I have started to make the switch toLinux. There are quite a few different dis-tros out there, I like Mandrake 10, person-ally, but I’ll let you sort it out. Good, nowyou have an operating system.
Next, let’s hook you up with the firstof Matt’s picks for free 3D packages. Go
to www.discreet.com,head on over to prod-ucts, downloads, andget yourself Gmax(Windows only). That’s3DS Max’s little broth-er. You may know 3DSMax as the choice pro-gram for Lord of theRings. Well, I started inGmax and modelled aFerrari Testarossa as myfirst project. Gmax has
excellent tools for modelling using mesh-es, polygons, patches. The interface ispretty intuitive, and after running througha few tutorials you’ll be well on your wayto creating cool 3D graphics. Gmax doeshave a few problems though. First, itdoesn’t have any rendering capabilitiesapart from the real-time renderings yousee on screen. This means that you can’tmake any pretty photorealisitic images.Fine, just export it to another app...Problem: Gmax doesn’t provide easyexportation to other applications. This
makes sense because, after-all, Discreet IS trying tomake some money from‘little brother.’ So let’smove away from ‘free’ andon to ‘open source.’
Hop on over tow w w. s o u r c e f o rg e . n e t(great source for free soft-ware), and search forMatt’s second pick, Wings3D. This is a great littlepolygonal modelling appli-cation. At first I thought itwas horrible, but I gave it achance and discovered itspower. Start with a simplecube, and after ample cut-ting and tweaking you canhave an impressive modelof a face in half an hour(depending on your skill).It does come with render-ing capabilities, but I would recommend itmore as a modelling tool. After creatingyour model, you can export it as a widevariety of formats, or leave it as a .wingsfile to import into Matt’s last pick,Blender. Head on over towww.blender3d.org and get it... NOW!.Blender is a pretty freakin’ cool free 3Dapp. Free doesn’t mean crappy either, itwas used for pre-production ofSpiderman. Originally it was developed asan in-house motion picture application,and later released as open source. It comeswith almost everything a 3DS Max has,plus a few extras such as a game engine
for your super model(s). Being opensource you have the freedom to changeanything directly in the code and thenrecompile. Extras created by othersinclude a pretty cool physics engine thatyou can pick up at sourceforge.
I would also suggest getting Yafray, arenderer with caustics and raytracing, forbetter looking renders. The only downsideto Blender is its unintuitive interface... butgrab the quickstart guide, read the manu-al, and/or run through a few tutorials, andyou’ll be creating your own Gollum-likecreature* in no time. Happy modelling.
*of significantly lesser quality, n00b.
Camelot! Camelot! Camelot!It’s only a model. . .modelling and how you can learn it all
Matt Ueckermann2B Mechanical
3D Model created with Wings by the article author in under 30 minutes
Although many people may think of aclub as a bar or dance hall in which to
spend evenings getting their groove on,dictionary.com defines “club” as “a stout,heavy stick, usually thicker at one end,suitable for use as a weapon.” A beatingwith the latter seems more desirable, how-ever, upon having your ears molested withthe “music” that the former permeates itsdenizens with. This is an Engineeringnewspaper, so, in plain English, clubmusic sucks. And by club music, I meanhip-hop, rap, most techno and anythingthat doesn’t involve the band playing their
own instruments. Actually, I have a slight amendment to
that statement. Some of the aforemen-tioned music styles are cool, but only theold stuff. Everyone knows what I’m talk-ing about: Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, MenWithout Hats… But the new stuff is some-one talking to a beat and making up words(“thurr”). It’s crude, repetitive crap thatseems to be destroying the music scene forfuture generations; we can do without it.
I’m a member of rez council, and itwas my group’s responsibility to plan anupcoming residence-wide dance, so wediscussed what we needed to sort out. Onegirl said she knows a great DJ – super!Music for all! So I asked her: “Is the DJgoing to play just club music, or will heplay some real music too?” To which she
replied, and Iquote, “I don’tthink anyonewould have aproblem withclub music.Everyone I knowlikes it.”
Right…. Thisis tough for me tobreak to you, butNO ONE I knowlikes club music.There’s this thingcalled rock, it’sbeen around for alittle while. Itinvolves thiscrazy, new-fan-gled gadgetcalled a guitar…but you wouldn’thave heard of
that. The last time I checked, rap didn’tinvolve any musical instruments. It’s adamn shame.
Alright, I’m being a little harsh.(“Opinion: a belief held with confidencebut not substantiated by positive knowl-edge or proof.”) However, if you wouldlike to discuss with me the musical worthof the crap put out by, uh, Fifty Cent, orwhoever it is you kids listen to these days,be my guest.
Basically, I’m trying to say that Iwould like to go to a dance where they’replaying music that everyone can enjoy, foronce. I’m not saying they have to playBritney Spears and Spice Girls, but there isa plethora of songs out there that are feasi-ble alternatives. Time Warp, Love Shack,Rasputin, Cotton Eye Joe…. They may beold, they may not have those bass beatsthat come close to the frequency at whichhuman intestines erupt, but you can singalong! I don’t like dancing much (and afew people can attest to that after my per-formance during frosh week) but I can tol-erate boogying down enough to do 50sit-ups on a concrete floor during RockLobster. So why is it so hard for all theseorganizers to hire a DJ that will play acombination of songs that actually sounddifferent from each other?
University is a diverse environment.Being an organizer for a University eventrequires some flexibility and catering toeveryone’s wants and needs. A good startwould be to organize a social gathering ofsome sort that involves music that does notoffend the ears of so many eager event-goers.
AC/DC would be nice. And if youdon’t at least agree with that, why are youin Engineering?
For Those About to Rock...Hilary Lockie1A Chemical 1/4 cup Catalina dressing (or leftover
Italian from the Tuna Pasta Salad)1 medium red pepper, cut into strips2 cups broccoli florets1 lb. boneless skinless chicken
breast, cut into strips1/2 of a medium red onion, cut into
strips1/4 cup smooth peanut butter2 tbsp. light soy sauce6 cups torn salad greens
1) Heat dressing in a large non-stickskillet on medium-high heat. Add veg-etables; stir-fry 3 min. Add chicken; stir-fry an additional 5 min. or until chickenis cooked through (cut a thick strip open;if it’s white inside, it’s done).
2) Add peanut butter and soy sauce;stir-fry 2 min. or until vegetables arecrisp-tender and mixture is heatedthrough.
3) Serve warm over salad greens.This recipe can be halved.
Thank you to a Kraft insert inReader’s Digest for this lovely recipe.Just be sure to not use too much peanutbutter, or else the sauce will be tooheavy. Also, cut your chicken againstthe grain (perpendicular to the lines inthe muscle) and in fairly thin strips toreduce cooking time. As an added bonus,this is a LOW-CARB meal! It containsonly 15 g of those pesky carbs! Feel freeto contact me at [email protected]
...continued from Page 5.
Cook This
“. . .get yourself Gmax,that’s 3DS Max’s littlebrother. You may know3DS Max as the choice
program for Lord ofthe Rings. . .”
1 0 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Letters to the Editor
This article is in response to the articleentitled: “Women in Engineering:
Truly a dying breed?” in the October 1stissue of the Iron Warrior relating to thereduced number of women enrolled in 1styear engineering programs. As a formerWomen in Engineering Director, I haveseen the statistics for female studentsenrolled in first year programs. I hadtried plotting the data to see if there wereany trends. Unfortunately, at that time,the numbers were very scattered andthere were no apparent trends. Therefore,I was surprised to see an article indicat-ing that there was a trend. I obtained datafrom the same data source as the previousauthor and plot-ted the data forthe individualdisciplines, aswell as, the totalfor the entirefaculty, asshown in theadjoining fig-u r e s .Unfortunately,there are onlydata availablefor nine years and the data are limited tofemales enrolled in 1st year programs.
When you look at the overall picture,it is clear that the numbers have droppedin the last two years, but with only nineyears of data, it can not truly be consid-ered a “trend”. When you look at theindividual disciplines, there wouldappear to be a “declining trend” in thelast two of years, with the exception ofGeological, which has seen an increaseover the last two years, andEnvironmental Chemical, which is a pro-gram that hasn’t been offered in the lasttwo of years. However, when theEnvironmental Chemical program wasoffered, there were a large percentage ofwomen enrolled in the program. Perhaps,the latest “trend” can be attributed, atleast in part, to the cancellation of theEnvironmental Chemical program.
Although, it is difficult to determine astatistical trend based on the data that areprovided, the Dean’s Office and theWomen in Engineering Committee have
taken notice of thedecline of femalesenrolled in engineeringprograms in the lasttwo years. Upon read-ing the previous article,I invited the Dean’soffice, the Women inE n g i n e e r i n gCommittee, and the 1stYear Office to read thearticle and provide anycomments that theymay have.
Many initiativeshave been developed inrecent years to focus onyounger students, i.e.,pre-high school stu-dents. There are a fewreasons for this. Firstly,
students arerequired tomeet mathand sciencep r e - r e q u i -sites inorder to beconsideredfor admis-sion in anengineeringp r o g r a m .Therefore ,
the students need toknow ahead of timewhich courses theyshould be taking.Secondly, studies haveshown that girls aresubconsciously choos-ing careers early intheir lives. They decideat an early age whetheror not they like mathand science. If they arenot taught or shown the subjects in anappropriate manner, one that is fun andengaging, then they will never want totake any related courses again. Moreover,many girls also do not see the relevanceof engineering – they do not see howbeing an engineer can benefit society,like a teacher or a doctor. This is mostlybecause they do not understand whatengineers do. And this is a societal prob-lem!
Here are some initiatives that havebeing taken by the Faculty of
Engineering to resolve theproblem. Within the lastyear and a half, theWomen in EngineeringCommittee have partneredwith IBM to run outreachprograms for young girls.These outreach programsare intended to encourageyoung girls to exploremath and science. Another
important initiative is ESQ, which is acamp run on campus in the summer foryoung kids interested in engineering andscience. Another initiative co-organizedby the Dean’s Office and the EngineeringSociety is Explorations, which is anevent run every winter term for gradeschool students who are interested inengineering. The Engineering Societyalso runs Shadow Days that allow highschool students to “shadow” an engineer-ing student for the day. However, despiteall these initiatives, there is still a recentdecline of females enrolled in 1st YearEngineering programs. The general con-sensus seems to be that there is a lack ofmoney or funding. Kim Boucher, theAssociate Director of Admissions, agrees“we have a very limited recruiting budgetfor high school students, so if we takesome of that money away and focus onyounger students, we may end up losingstrong high school students and that willhave a very serious effect on UW
Engineering!”So, what are the solutions? Kim
Boucher suggests asking government andindustry to provide resources to help alluniversities to encourage girls to consid-er engineering. Students can do their partby volunteering for the number of out-reach programs offered through theEngineering Society, the Women inEngineering Committee, and the Dean’sOffice. Professors can help out byencouraging their students to participatein such events and perhaps volunteeringtheir time as well. We need to worktogether as a community to encourage thebest and brightest students, regardless ofgender, to consider engineering as apotential career field. Should you wish toknow more about the outreach programs,please visit the Engineering Society website www.engsoc.uwaterloo.ca/www andthe Women in Engineering web sitehttp://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~w-in-eng/.
Leanne WhiteleyGraduated
Letter to the Editor:Response to “Women in Engineering: Truly a dying breed.”
“. . .many girls do notsee the relevance of
engineering - they donot see how being anengineer can benefitsociety, like a teacher
or a doctor.”
Bush to apply pressure to Canada. Someof the angry e-mails attacked Canada ascowardly for accepting the draft dodgers,and some e-mailed to tell the regionabout their vacation cancellations to thatarea. Nelson itself has a significanttourist industry, and this is worrying forthem.
On the one hand, erecting this statueseems like an insult to all those that
fought in the Vietnam War, whether thewar was justified or not. We as moderncitizens have the benefit of hindsight tosee that the Vietnam War was bad. On theother hand, most of these peopleremained Canadians and became animportant part of the community. In addi-tion, this action seems to represent theUnited States’ overbearing attitude toanything it doesn't like - don’t like it andit’s not in your country? Pressure theother government using threat of force.
The threat of another draft, given thesituation going on in the United States,seems very unlikely (a bill was intro-duced in the U.S. House and defeated byalmost a unanimous vote). Militaryrecruitment at this point is steady andfulfills the requirements needed, but ifanother military action is needed (andthere are several targets that seem suspi-cious), there might be a need to draftagain.
It seems that military service does
bolster reputation in the U.S. rather sig-nificantly. John Kerry was praised for hisPurple Heart medals in Vietnam, whileBush was criticized for his attempt to“dodge” military action by serving in theAir National Guard. In fact, many politi-cians have been criticized by using theirstatus to dodge military service. This rev-erence towards people that fight and theperception that the military influencesgovernment policy makes the U.S. a veryscary country indeed.
...continued from Page 4.
Draftdodging statue causes consternation in United States
Women in 1st Year Geological Engineering
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1 1F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Facts
Late in October of this year GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger of California
officially opened the West Coast’s firstHydrogen refuelling station. Although thereare only a handful of vehicles in Californiacapable of running on Hydrogen fuel, thisunveiling marks the firststep towards the goal ofmaking Hydrogen aviable alternative fuelsource in the economy.
Most vehicles thatcurrently use Hydrogenas fuel are public transitbuses, which actually area hybrid of natural gasand Hydrogen, andexperimental vehiclesproduced by local uni-versities. But for those driving regular cars,the conversion from using gasoline tohydrogen isn’t so simple. The technologiesinvolved in converting Hydrogen intomechanical energy are almost completelydifferent than ones that use gasoline.
The principle behind the propulsion in astandard automobile has remained virtuallyunchanged since the invention of the assem-bly line. Gasoline is mixed with air, com-pressed, ignited and expands pushing onone of several pistons. The series of pistonsturn a shaft moving the car forward.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, makes useof a fuel cell. A fuel cell is basically adevice that produces electricity by means ofa chemical reaction. It is sort of like battery,except that the energy is not stored, it is con-verted from fuel. The Hydrogen fuel cell,therefore, uses Hydrogen fuel to create elec-tricity. The electricity can then be used withan electric motor to propel the vehicle.
What makes the conversion ofHydrogen into electricity possible is theproton exchange membrane (PEM).Basically, it is a thin layer in the fuel cellthat separates the Oxygen (retrieved fromthe air) and Hydrogen (injected into the sys-tem from a fuel tank). The membraneallows positively charged ions (protons) topass, but does not allow negatively chargedions (electrons) to pass. So, when theHydrogen reacts with the Oxygen to formwater, the proton parts of the Hydrogen canjust zoom across and meet up with theirOxygen counterparts, but the electrons musttake a different path around the PEM tocomplete the reaction. With several parallelchambers reacting in tandem and controlledpaths where electrons can flow, the result isan electrical system that can be used topower a vehicle.
Technologically speaking, the biggestproblem with Hydrogen fuel is the trans-portation and storage of the element.Hydrogen, in its gaseous form is not very
dense in energy (a unit volume of the gashas relatively little energy). In its liquidform the energy density is much better, butits storage and transport requires low tem-peratures as a result of high pressures whichrequires large amounts of energy to attain.In its pure form, Hydrogen is very difficultto deal with.
Currently, what many fuel cell manufac-turers are resorting to is a compromise.That is, use compounds that are rich inHydrogen such as natural gas andMethanol. Of course, because you’re intro-ducing an impure fuel source, a reformer is
required to extract asmuch Hydrogen as pos-sible to inject into thefuel cell. The problemwith such reformers isthat they lower the over-all efficiency of the sys-tem and they releasepollutants, most notablyCarbon Dioxide, anuncontrolled emissionthat contributes to globalwarming, and Carbon
Monoxide, a controlled emission that istoxic. However, it is important to note thateven the worst of these reformers producesa miniscule fraction of what even the clean-est gasoline combustion engine expels.Even the most inefficient reformers are sig-nificantly more efficient than the best gasengines. As such, the reformer fuel cell is avery attractive alternative to the gasolinepowered vehicle.
In light of all this, why doesn’t NorthAmerica cut its ties with the Middle Eastand start producing Hydrogen or Methanolpowered cars? Other than the fact that westill need plastics and such, from a techno-logical standpoint it’s all well and good.From an economical standpoint it’s a littledifferent.
Though Hydrogen is the most abundantelement in the universe by orders of magni-tude, on Earth, it is very hard to come by inits pure form. The cheapest way so far is torefine hydrocarbons. Where do we get thehydrocarbons? Yep…oil.
Why don’t we just get it from theoceans? Aren’t two-thirds of the atoms inwater Hydrogen? This is true. But fromwhere do you get the electricity to separatewater into its constituents? More than two-thirds of all the electricity in North Americais still produced from non-renewable fuelsources. Electrolysis is an inefficientprocess (depending on the conditions it canbe about 66% efficient) which means you’rewasting half the electricity you’re gettingback.
Especially with all the conflict that isgoing on in the Middle East, the growingdemand for energy, the growing concern ofthe world population over global warmingand environmental issues and the increasingprice of oil, the Hydrogen economy is in a
Quoc Huy T. Le
4N Electrical
HYDROGEN. . .Oil of thefuture?
James Burke, famous for his televisionseries/books "The Day the Universe
Changed" and "Connections" continueson in the same vein with his new book"Circles". The premise underlying"Circles" is that several famous inven-tions and ideas start and end in the sameplace. Burke takes an invention from itsinception, draws a series of historicalconnections and ultimately returns to theinventions’ origin. Thefinal connection oftentakes the form of a con-nection based on loca-tion, thoughoccasionally he willjump back in time tocomplete the chain.
This book is on thewhole not quite as entertaining a read as"Connections". Unlike his earlier workwhere each essay crosses other essaysonly occasionally, this book will repeatfacts frequently. A prime example of thisis his use and re-use of the invention ofgas-lighting and the various off-shoots tothe chemical industry. While this may bean interesting and useful fact it doesn’tneed re-iteration every fifth essay. Thisbook also fails to draw well established(if esoteric) connections between differ-ent areas. In Burke’s other work there isa definite A to B to C type connectionlinking ideas. In "Circles" the connec-tion is often of the form: guy A was
drinking buddies with B who lived in thesame town as the guy who grew up toinvent C. This form of connection mayenable Burke to maintain his centralpremise of circular historical develop-ment, but is on the whole more in the fac-toid category rather than the useful ideacategory. In spite of these criticisms"Circles" is not without its merits. Werethis the first James Burke book I had everread it would probably have been moreenjoyable a read as "Circles" re-toucheson many topics covered in his otherbooks. "Circles" also contains severalessays that stand entirely on their own as
convincing examplesof history repeating.Personally I feel thatthese gems (about athird of the book)should have been savedand used as essays inhis future writingrather than trying to
work an entire book around a limitedconcept.
"Circles" is a good light read but notof the same level of quality as Burke’sother books. If you are only going toread one James Burke book, this isn’t it.The style is often ambiguous, so you areleft unsure about the result of a particularevent, and the essays are more convolut-ed than necessary in order to slavishlyfollow a weak premise. If you happen tobe a fan of James Burke, "Circles" isworth a look, just don’t pay full price forit. This book is definite loaner from thelibrary rather than a book worth purchas-ing for your shelves.
Adam Philip3B Mechanical
“If you are only goingto read one James
Burke book, this isn’tit.”
Book Review:‘Circles’ by James Burke
“. . .from a technologi-cal standpoint [switch-ing to hydrogen] is allwell and good. Froman economical stand-
point it’s a little different”
Continued on page 12. See HydrogenEconomy
Influenza VaccineShortage
It’s that time of year again, the time whenpeople neglect to wash their hands and
cover their mouths when they sneeze andyou get infected with the dreaded influenzavirus. So what do you do? You run out andget vaccinated for the flu. This year, though,things are a little different for theAmericans.
One of the world’s largest manufacturerof influenza vaccines, Chiron, based inCalifornia, announced that it cannot supplythe flu vaccine for the rest of the 2004-2005flu season. The reason you ask? Britishhealth officials suspended their license forthree months due to problems at the plantwhere the vaccines are manufactured inLiverpool, England. Apparently, there wassome concern about slight contaminationcausing their vaccine to not meet productsterility specifications.
The U.S. estimates that they’re shortapproximately 40 million shots. Their gov-ernment immediately asked that healthyadults skip the flu shot this year. They hopeto save about 53 million shots that could beused for more vulnerable people includinginfants and the elderly.
The U.S. isn’t the only country that willbe hit by the halt of Fluvirin, one of Chiron’smost popular flu vaccines. About 2.4 mil-lion doses will be missed in Great Britain.There are also a host of other countries that
rely on Chiron’s production of Fluvirin.It is unquestionably the Americans who
are being hit the hardest with Chiron’sinability to meet demand. As a result, theBush administration has come knocking onour door for a solution to their problems.The trouble is that Americans may beexpecting too much.
The number of people who still need tobe immunized in the United States exceedsCanada’s entire population by several mil-lion. This means that Canada would need asurplus of about 100% to make a differenceat all. Relying on Canada to close theimmunization gap is, by no means, a goodplan. Several major Canadian manufactur-ers of flu vaccines including ID Biomedicaland Aventis Pasteur were contacted. Eventhe largest company could only muster 1.2million. Canadian clinics have been warnedto lookout for desperate Americans trying toget a dose. The Ontario Ministry of Healthhas even asked people to start providing I.D.
It is not like Canadians to turn away afriend in need of help. Tending to our ownfirst is a must. It is interesting how the FDAhave temporarily allowed the import of fluvaccines. Especially since the Bush admin-istration has fought so hard to prevent thecheaper Canadian drugs from crossing theborder. For the longest time it was illegalfor Americans to purchase certain Canadiandrugs (including flu vaccines.)
So that’s where it stands now. Canadawill continue to immunize all Canadianswho wish it. And it will send the surplusover to our American buddies down south.For those of you who usually don’t get flushots, I wouldn’t go to the States for a fewmonths.
Quoc Huy T. Le
4N Electrical
1 2 F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Columns
So. Earlier this week scientists reportedin the journal Nature that evidence of a
new species of human had been discoveredon a remote island off the coast ofIndonesia.
The new species, called homo flore-siensis, was discovered in a cathedral sizedcave on the island of Flores.Anthropologists call this find the greatestand most surprising find of the last 50years. The best specimen, an adult female,has been nicknamed “hobbit” by theresearch team. So that I can avoid typingHomo Floresiensis for the rest of the arti-cle, it will be henceforth referred to as‘hobbit”.
Hobbit likely grew no more than threefeet tall, with a brain about the size of agrapefruit. This is smaller than most chim-panzees. However, the presence of hobbitsize tools indicates that hobbit had superi-or intellect to that of modern apes. Charredbones by the site indicate evidence ofcooking. It seems likely they hunted localanimals, cooked them, and also had someform of language. The discovery of multi-ple remains of the same type excludes thepossibility of a mere short anomaly, andworn teeth and a fused skull suggest anadult.
Why is everyone so excited about this?One reason: according to the researchers,this species co-existed with ours, for atleast 30 000 years, up to around 18 000
years ago, when it is speculated that hobbitand its fellows were wiped out in volcaniceruption. This overturns existing theoriesthat modern humans, Homo SapiensSapiens, have basically been the solemembers of the Homo genus on the planetfor at least 100 000 years, and that othermembers of the human family existed justas the earliest civilizations were starting toform.
More tantalizingly, villagers inIndonesia tell of the ebu gogo, a creaturethat very much matches the physicaldescription of what hobbit likely lookedlike. The last reported sighting of an ebugogo was about 1 800 years ago, so with-out reaching too far into fantasy, this doesraise the possibility that other species ofthe genus homo may still exist among us.There are many caves in Indonesia andSoutheast Asia that have not explored, andtales of human-like species are not con-fined to Indonesian tribes. The orang pen-dek (Little Man) of Malaysian folklorecomes to mind. On a more practical levelthis means that anthropologists will beginto look for other unexpected humanlikeremains in other areas of Southeast Asiaand the world. To put this in context, newmammals have been discovered as recent-ly as 1993.
Researchers are also excited as this dis-covery offers more evidence in support ofevolutionary theory. Island dwarfing iscommon phenomenon observed amongmammals on islands where resources arelimited. In such a competitive environ-ment, smaller body sizes are advanta-geous. The discovery of hobbit suggeststhat even we advanced humans are subjectto evolutionary forces, instead of alwayschanging our surroundings to suit us, as
Agent Smith suggested. (Though withrecent technology I doubt theGreenlanders and Australians will beshrinking anytime soon.) In this theory, thehuman ancestors Homo Erectus built boatsand became marooned on this island, andevolved into smaller humans to suit theirenvironment. However, building boats istraditionally held to be outside the intellec-tual capacity of Homo Erectus. There isalso the possibility that hobbit arrived onthe island in its diminutive size.
Other questions that hobbit raiseinclude anatomical ones: how did a crea-ture with a third of brain size of homoerectus reach similar levels of intelligence?
However, other experts downplay thesignificance of this find. At least oneanthropologist challenges it’s classifica-
tion into the Homo genus. On a less scientific level, this find
strikes a certain existential note with some.Relatively speaking, we were not alone solong ago. We had relatives in the genetictree, just as house cats have jaguars andsquirrels have mice. Perhaps there aregroups of dwarf sized beings living else-where on the planet. Perhaps the tales oflittle people told by so many cultures havesome, if minute, measure of credit to them.Or perhaps not, and we still are the soleliving member of the Homo genus thatremains.While the discovery of hobbitdoes serve to make us feel smaller (ortaller – credit to my roommate for thatone), or more humble on the planet, ourfate and that of our planet still lies verymuch in our hands.
New human species discovered
David Yip
2B Mechanical
I just got a copy of HalfLife 2! And it |20X0|2z!!!
Actually no, but if you read the title and knewwhat I was talking about, and also knew that
there is no way I can own a copy of HL2 and arestill reading, then,this article is for you.In this section I willtalk to you aboutgame addiction.
Game addictionis real. Face it peo-ple, real life can sucksometimes, andgames are a goodescape medium.However, some peo-ple get tangled with itand take it toextremes. You mighthave heard of casesof Everquest addictsneglecting familyand friends, or of thatKorean kid who spent 98 hours at a Net Cafe anddied from dehydration. Even people who spendsleepless nights gaming at LAN parties or play-ing RPGs (ahem, not me) are guilty of overdos-ing on games. Gaming, like anything else, shouldbe done in moderation. With that said, get outthere and do something other than playing avideo game. Read a book. Play a sport. Heck, do
your assignments! Oh yeah, and that shiny brightdisc in the sky? That is the sun.
Top ten signs that you are addicted to gam-ing:
10. You don’t go to class anymore, becauseyou just need to level up, or frag someone.
9. You call your PS2 “precious?"8. You don’t leave the house anymore, since
the outside world offers poor graphic resolution,poor gameplay, and a crappy NPC AI.
7. You don’t eat anymore, you mainly drinkJolt, Pop or anythingthat gives you sugar.
6. After runningout of sugar loadeddrinks, you pass outfrom hunger and eatkeyboard food.Meaning whatevercrumbs are lodged inyour keyboard.
5.You gave upcrack for gaming.
4. J00 c4||$|>34|< 1337! (Inother words, youdon’t know how totalk “normally” any-more.)
3. When you gofor your daily checkup, you ask the doctor howmany lives you’ve got left. When he tells youonly have one, you ask him how you can levelup, so that you can get more.
2. When shit hits the fan, you try to “restore"to a previous save point.
1. After reading this, you shrug and go backto your GBA.
Tsu Chiang Chuang
4N Computer
“Skull Evolution” - Pictured are the various increases is cranial capacity leading tothe present situation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens
“The Lamda Complex” - If you recognizethis and immediately start thinking aboutBlack Mesa, you need to read this article
position to gain a lot of ground in the fightfor a cleaner fuel supply. The only twosources of Hydrogen so far are from waterthrough electrolysis or from the reformationof fossil fuels. The former is more desir-able, but expensive. The latter only solvesone of two problems.
The switch to Hydrogen, should it everhappen, will take decades. Experts estimatethat at least thirty years need to pass beforeour dependency on oil starts declining at asignificant rate. In the meantime, there isstill a lot of work that we engineers must doto prepare the world for the day when fullyrenewable resources can be taken advan-tage of. If we can capitalize on hydroelec-tric and wind power, for example, or if wecan increase the efficiency of solar cells togain free electricity, it would bridge theenergy gap needed to make the productionof Hydrogen economical. More efficientelectrolysis or even perhaps another methodof efficiently separating Hydrogen fromwater must be developed.
Imagine a world where cars literallyproduce pure water as their only by-prod-uct. Think of how much better life will bein large cities where even the busiest indus-trial zones eject nothing but clouds of watervapour in the air. The incentives, drive andtechnologies that can make this a realityalready exist. By necessity, though, thistransition must be and will be a gradual one.As engineers sworn to act in the best inter-ests of the society in which we live, it is ourduty to educate the public and to open a fewmore Hydrogen refuelling stations of ourown.
HydrogenEconomy
...continued from Page 11.
Canada’sLight Source
Quoc Huy T. Le
4N Electrical
Canada’s first synchrotron was openedon October 21 of this year. Over two
years in the making the Canadian LightSource (CLS) Synchrotron is one of only ahandful of synchrotrons in the world.Housed within the new CanadianSynchrotron Nanostructure Facility(CSNF) the new University ofSaskatchewan addition cost approximately$173.5 million in addition to investments inscholarship and research chairs.
So what’s so special about a synchro-tron as compared to, say, a cyclotron or aparticle accelerator? Well, all threemachines use magnetic fields to accelerateparticles to incredible velocities. The main
Continued on page 15. See CanadianSynchrotron at U of S very illuminating
1 3F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Columns
Sending out probes into the solar systemhas been like a bad news marathon. It’s
almost as if you’re a Boston Red Sox fanperpetually waiting for a World Series winthat never comes. Every time anotherprobe gets sent out to explore another plan-et – it always turns out to be another dud.That sentiment was never higher than whenthe first pictures of Mars were transmittedback to earth thirty years ago. For all thehype of Martian canals and little greenmen, Mars turned out to be nothing morethan a huge rock with some dry ice. Itmight have had flowingwater at one point in itslifetime, but it’s not evenclose today. Venusturned out to be a chem-ical cesspool. Lookingfor life on other planetshas been quite frankly adepressing research mis-sion. No matter wherewe look nothing looksthe least bit hospitable orfriendly.
NASA effectively stopped looking forlife elsewhere in the solar system years ago.The two best prospects of an earth likeplanet would have been Venus or Mars andboth turned out to be lame ducks. NASAhas pretty much decided that the only life tofind is life that is long dead. The Voyagerseries were the first probes to be sent outinto the outer solar system - nothing reallysurprising there, either. However a fewmoons seemed a little weird. One in par-ticular: Titan.
The satellites of Jupiter and Saturn arelike little solar systems inside our solar sys-tem. Titan stands out because the thing isthe only moon in the solar system that hasan atmosphere so thick no one can see thesurface. It has to be the last genuinelyunexplored area of the solar system. Thispast week the Cassini spacecraft made abrief flyby at 1200 km. On Christmas Evea small probe from Cassini will be releasedand with any luck will land on the surface
of Titan. No one knows for sure what itwill find. It could land on rock hard ice, orfall into a lake of methane.
So when Cassini made that flyby thispast week there was a fair amount of skep-ticism from people like me. I’ll admit tobeing a little excited, but that’s no confes-sion. There are still too many blow-driedMIT brats at NASA – every once and awhile they just do something cool. Thenthey do something stupid like using imper-ial units when the rest of the freaking worldhas moved on, and then they start crashingprobes for ridiculous conversion errors. It’seither that or its installing springs upsidedown on space capsule that are meant toclose a circuit by the force of re-entry. Allgo into the annals of the NASA hall of stu-
pid crap that defies stu-pidity.
So I waited for theimages to come backfrom that fly-by expect-ing Titan to turn out tobe some boring rockwith some fart gasatmosphere.Instead people don’thave a literal clue whatto make of these images.They can’t see any
appreciable craters anywhere from radar,and they know to that the atmosphere isdefinitely way too heavy to be methane. Soit ain’t a fart gas rock after all.
Most are figuring that Titan’s atmos-phere probably resembles Earth’s early inits development before life sprang up. Ofcourse that’s a theory. What freaks me outthe most about this is that all these gasesseem like some sort of weird gas leak gonewrong. I have the image in head of some-one lighting up a match and the thing willblow up. Kind of like Ron Hubbard’s"Battlefield Earth" where heavy nuclearradiation ignites Earth’s alien occupier’sbreathing atmosphere - which was theworst book I have ever read.
Most people will probably groan andcomplain that we haven’t found life onceagain. I’m starting to think we have every-thing backwards. Why are we looking forspace Indians anyway? What would we doif we found them? We’d probably screw
them over and exploit their resources.Mars, Titan, and even the Moon should-
n’t be seen as depressing results of spaceexploration. They should be seen as oppor-tunities for development. None of theseplanets have an environment we candestroy or a people we can exploit, theseplanets have nothing but minerals and espe-cially in the case of Titan who knows whathydro-carbon materials we could find therein that plastic soup. We should stop look-ing for an Earth clone either. How do weknow that other life in the universe will befound on another Earth-like planet? Wemight be unique - it’s just a little arroganceon humanity’s part that we believe that alllife is found on warm water luscious plan-ets with some Oxygen and Nitrogen toboot.
So back to Titan, we have an evengreater opportunity here. You have a sur-face that by all accounts could be an organ-ic soup on the surface. How can we use a
planet with plastics flowing around on itssurface? I’m thinking a big freaking plasticdepository. All those plastic water bottlesyou drink in class take some pretty big timeto degrade, meanwhile Titan could gobbleit up and it'd fit right in with the scenery.Besides that the entire planet could be agold mine for undiscovered polymers.
Of course that would only happen ifthey found some way of making the cost ofactually going there affordable. That’salways a stickler. Robert Heinlein used tosay that once you’ve gotten to orbit you’vegot half the energy you need to go any-where in the solar system. That’s thebiggest hurdle. Until then planets like Titanare good for planning but will be short onreality. Give it 15 years and a few accidentslater and we might make orbital flightaffordable.
Until then at least Titan turned out to bemore interesting than I thought it was goingto be.
Jason Verheyden3B Mechanical
Not your regular fart-gas planet. . .
So, how many of you guys rememberScorched Earth? For you young'uns
who don’t know Scorched Earth, maybeWorms? What about Worms Armageddon?Still doesn’t ring any bells? Oh boy, do Ifeel old now. Anyways, today I will like totalk about the next generation of ScorchedEarth: Gunbound.
To starts things off, Gunbound is anonline game from Softnyx that allows youto take control of little tanks. You use yourlittle tanks to blast your enemies to king-dom come. This is a simple idea that hasbeen done many times before, but now youget to do it online. Each team can be madeup of four players, so you can have a gamewith eight players blasting away at eachother.
Oh and did I remember to mention thatit is FREE? Yes, FREE, as in no moneyrequired. Well, Gunbound does offer thepurchase of upgrades if you want, but that
is lame. The download size is quite big,but it is well worth it. Go get it athttp://gunbound.net/ .
The graphics of this game are reallycute. The characters are big-eyed chibianime-like characters and the tanks areequally charming. For those who playedRagnarok online, the graphics will lookfamiliar. The game interface is also verypleasing to the eye andeasy to understand and,after a few minutes offiddling around, a merenovice becomes a sea-soned veteran ready toblast the next foolishenemy.
The game controlsare fairly easy to use.By using the keyboard, you move left orright, adjust the angle and power and justshoot. Sounds simplistic right? Well, thoseare the basics.
Gunbound comes with extra twists.There are different tanks to choose from,each with their unique powers. Some tankshave advantages or disadvantages whenbattling other tanks. Basically, think of itlike the rock, paper, and scissor concept.
Tank A can beat the crap out of tank B.Tank B kicks tank C’s ass. But, tank Ctotally owns tank A. You can also buyadditional weapon upgrades that will helpyou in epic battles. These upgrades aretemporary and you need to purchase themagain next time. However, as you win bat-tles, you gain merit points that can be usedto purchase permanent upgrades.
Battlefields alsochange as the battle pro-gresses, mountains aredestroyed due to the ran-dom blast or bomb,crevices are formed,winds shift. All thesefactors affect the wayyour battles are waged.Finally, there are four
different types of battle games. The four main game types in
Gunbound: Jewel, Tag, Solo, and Score. For Tag, Solo and Score, the goal is
simple: destroy the enemy. However, thereare some slight differences between thesethree modes. For Tag, you get to pick twodifferent tanks. And if either of your tanksdies, you lose. In Solo, you get to pick onetank only, and you get only one shot at it.
This means as soon as that tank getsdestroyed, you lose. For score, each teamgets a number set of lives, and as long asyour team has lives you can re-spawn andfight on. Finally, the Jewel mode is differ-ent and less confrontational, consisting ofshooting at targets with specific scores.The first team to score 100 point wins.
As most other games, Gunbound hasits shortcomings. The servers tend to lag atpeak hours, making it impossible to con-nect sometimes. But what do you expect?It is free after all.
In addition, Gunbound is a turn-basedgame, meaning that each person takesturns performing actions, while the otherplayers wait. Therefore, sometimes thegames can take quite a bit of time. Also,like most online games, you meet rude andobnoxious people, who will just make thegame less enjoyable. This last problem canbe easily resolved if you just play withfriends you know.
Overall, if you are looking for a goodgame to get addicted to or just want to killsome time, try Gunbound. Also, for anyScorched Earth and Worms fans, this gameis a must. Rating: 8/10
Tsu Chiang Chuang
4N Computer
Game Review: Tank Mayhem - Gunbound!
“Overall... a goodgame to get addictedto, or if you just want
to kill some time...Rating: 8 / 10”
“Why are we lookingfor space Indians any-way? We’d probablyscrew them over and
exploit theirresources.”
“Where did we park?” - This Apollo 14 astronaut illustrates the difficulty of exploringother planets as he consults a map.
F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 41 4
Attention engineers! As someone whohas been associating with engineers
for my entire university career (and that’s along time folks – I have a B&W picture onmy watcard), I have learned a lot aboutengineers and the engineering program. (Infact I was accepted to Waterloo for electri-cal engineering in High School). I knowthat you get more homework that you canpossibly complete, and spend countlesshours in the labs and DC. Now, here’s whatsome of you engineers don’t know. You caneither have a joint-major, minor, or optionin another program. I know that you haveextremely limited electives, but I’m here totell you about the benefits of combiningyour engineering degree with one fromspeech communication and to provide infoon a special career nightwhich occurredrecently.
First of all – coop interviews. Everreally messed up an interview? Don’tknow what how to express your achieve-ments without sounding cocky? Want toknow what to expect from interviews?Well you can take SPCOM 225 –Interviewing.
Another good courses is Spcom 224 –Interpersonal Communication – Thiscourse can help you with talking to your labpartners when they’re annoying you bydoing perception checks, learning how toimprove your listening skills (which mightcome in handy in a boring Calculus lecture)and how to deal with conflict.
Finally Spcom classes don’t havemidterms or final exams!! This is some-thing that engineers can appreciate.
But don’t take my word for it. WandaYu, a very busy 4th year ComputerEngineering student has this to say aboutthe Speech Comm program:
"Through my coop experience I'vecome to realize that in today's businessmarket, having only technical skills is notenough. Every job posting demands sometechnical knowledge, but even more impor-tantly, companies demand employees withstrong communication skills. The interper-sonal and communication skills that I havedeveloped as a major in SPCOM havegiven me an edge and set me apart from thestereotypical view of a "techie". TheSPCOM program has guided me to becomea more effective communicator, leader andteammate. Whether it be at work or in ourown homes, communication is the key tosuccess. The SPCOM program helps us torefine these communication skills andapply them to our everyday lives. I believethat anyone, in any discipline, at any stageof life can benefit from the skills taughtthrough the SPCOM program."
On Thursday October 28, a career nightoccurred, entitled "Fast Forward –Presenting the future to you!" The eveningwas a huge success highlighted by a num-ber of speakers from communications,broadcasting, writing, theatre, education,and consulting. 15 corporate and educa-tional booths and a business card draw(where prize packages worth over $500were given away, including a free 1 hourmassage and a $125 gift certificate toJosten’s photography) helped to make theevening a success. There are a number ofpromotional materials still available if anyengineer is interested in receiving moreinformation or to be added to the mailinglist for next year’s event.
For more information, please email usat [email protected].
Let us bring the future to you at FastForward – hope to see you there next year!
Melissa ChoongSpecial to IW
Wandy Yu4A Computer
Larning to right and talkgood.
Opportunities for options, minors,majors in Communication
Living in Stratford, population 30000,hasn’t exactly been my idea of fun
for a work term. As a result, I decided tofrequent the Festival. It all began withGuys and Dolls, a Stratford productionof the 1950 Broadway musical, and itturned out to be the best choice I haveever made in live theatre performances.
As a successful, long running musi-cal, Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling’sscript was packed with puns and thread-ed seamlessly by some unforgettablescores by Frank Loesser. However, thereal treat was to see that the Festival castand crew created the Big Apple in minia-ture and brought the story to life.
Designed to look both glamorous andretro, the stage was cast with lights in theshape of a pair of dice to contrast itsslightly washed out background colors.The flashing neon lights, overhead rail-way and a mixed crowd on the busystreets captured the essence of Broadwayduring the mid twentieth century.
Among the New Yorkers was NathanDetroit, a gambler busy looking for avenue to host his crap game away fromthe police’s perimeter. He was able tosecure a spot only with a thousand dol-lars of deposit. To obtain the requiredamount, he made a bet with the don ofgamblers, Sky Masterson that the latterwould not be able to take Salvation ArmySargent Sarah Brown to Havana for anight.
He did, only after Brown’s missionbranch was threatened to be closed dueto a lack of neighborhood interests, andhe promised a delivery of a dozen sinnersfor her next prayer meeting. Yet the twoended up falling for each other…
The chemistry between CynthiaDale’s Sarah and Scott Wentworth’s Skywas wonderful, especially during theirduos (“I’ll Know” and “I’ve Never Beenin Love Before”), which goes downsmooth with a few perks from Dale’shigh octave.
Wentworth had the delicate balancebetween the charisma of a men’s manand the sleekness of a ladies’ man. Hetook perfect command of the stage andwon me over from the beginning and fol-lowed through.
Not to be undermined, Dale’s perfor-mance was equally strong. It was surpris-ing to see that she was capable ofphysical comedy and delivered it withease as the jealous and drunk Sarah gotinto a brawl in the Havana nightclub.
Also deserving an honourary mentionwas Sheila McCarthy, who portrayedAdelaide, Nathan Detroit’s fiancée offourteen years. She sparked more laughsin the evening than anyone else on thestage. Slightly dry and weary, her lineshad the right timing without trying toohard at all.
However, the rest of the cast, besidesBruce Dow as Nicely-Nicely Johnson,fell slightly flat in the presence of theirthree co-stars above.
The real star, despite the fact youhave never seen him on stage, wasMichael Lichtefeld. Bold and vibrant, hischoreography made the evening allworthwhile. The two highlights of theshow, “Havana Night” and Nicely-Nicely Johnson’s “Sit Down, You’reRocking The Boat”, were comical butnot overbearing, leaving you wanting formore.
Guys and Dolls was a winner in near-ly all accounts and the finest the Festivalhas to offer among its musicals andcomedies. I strongly encourage all musi-cal lovers to come before the seasoncloses November 21 and exams get onyour nerves for an evening of good-natured, hearty laughs.
Guys and Dolls Rolled aSix on the Musical DiceStratford Festival Play Review
Cindy Bao
3N Electrical
Awise rock and roll man once said, “youcan’t always get what you want, but if
you try sometimes, you may find you getwhat you need.” This echoes my sentimentsabout my year in Germany almost exactly. Ifound in that country many new and refresh-ing attitudes towards life. Writing of thiswill lead to generalizations, so I will start bysaying that not every German person is thesame. Sharing experience and maintainingtradition are two examples of how attitudesdiffer there from in Canada. Many smallexamples surround this conclusion, but Iwill give just two.
I got to know two members of my fami-ly there, an uncle and aunt I had only seentwice before in my life. Just the chance toget to know these excellent people wouldhave made my exchange worthwhile, with-out all the other great moments that I had.They are German, and grew up in WestBerlin. It is through the relationship that wefostered with regular visits that I have dis-covered one aspect of what makes the
German people special, in addition to find-ing lifelong friends.
Sharing experience is something that myUncle and Aunt showed me is important toGerman people, especially when the experi-ence relates to German culture. Although itis common for Germans to travel abroadduring holidays, I was always astonished byhow much Germans travel inside Germanyto historic and cultural destinations. Sitessuch as the Industrial Culture district in the“Ruhrpott” area in Nordrhein-Westfalen,and the Reichstag in Berlin are filled byGerman tourists during all times of the year.My family explained to me that the Germanpeople are proud of the courage and strengththat carried them through the dark days afterthe World Wars, and that is why these placesare important. The shared experience thatbrings the people of Germany together canbe felt in visits to such places, and shone asone of the special characteristics of theGerman folk.
Nothing demonstrates the way thatGermans maintain German tradition betterthan the speed at which habit becomes tradi-tion there. I watched again and again assmall habits turned into tradition among myGerman friends: Frühstücken on Sunday,
Reeperbahn on Saturday, Fussi then Kneipeon Tuesday, Mensa on Wednesday, andcountless others in between.
This quality on a small scale expressesitself in larger scale I am sure. That wouldexplain the plethora of clubs and groups thatexist there, whose purpose it is to give peo-ple something that they can look forward toevery week at the same time. Probably moresuch clubs exist per capita in Germany thanany other country. If you like to do it, thereis a good chance the club meets Thursdaynights at 9pm, and this that this club is bet-ter organized than most major governments.
The differences between the Germanand Canadian higher education systems aretoo many to list. I struggled through theWinter semester and managed to pass all ofthe subjects that I took there, except forGerman. Well, easy come easy go, andGerman grammar is something that youreally have to know. Working at theUniversity and in the private sector duringthe second term rounded out my experience,and gave me a taste of what academic andindustrial research means in Germany. Ittastes like coffee and S-Bahn breakfasts.
In the end, what I brought back with meon the plane to Canada in August, was beer.
But what followed me back, and will staywith me for the rest of my life, are the lifelessons taught to me by a people with differ-ent perspectives from mine. I am a personwho has been fortunate enough to be pro-vided a chance to live two completely dif-ferent lives, and learn the same amount fromboth of them. Last year felt like it lasted 23years. I arrived a newborn on the streets ofHamburg, and left an adult. And I know nowwith certainty that there is at least one moreplace in the world where the people feeltruly happy and lead purposeful and fulfill-ing lives.
Erik Wilhelm4N Chemical
Columns
German exchange results in impressive learning. . .A special report by a UW student returning from German exchange
1 5F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 4
Arts Corner
Your local artsyArts directors are holdingA big arts contest!Yes that's right. We are accepting
submissions for the arts contest allterm long. Digital photographs,poems, stories, etc, can be emailed toasoc_arts@engmaill. uwaterloo.ca
We welcome poems, stories,paintings, drawings, scultpures,sketches, etc. Drop off your submis-sions at the Orifice, don't worryyou'll get them back. But put yourname on them.
We are especially encouraginghaiku poems because anyone (ie:you) can write one. It's a three linepoem, with 5 syllables on the firstline, 7 on the second, and 5 on thelast. If we receive enough we mightjust start up a separate category.
Judging will take place at the endof term, so you've plenty of time toget your work in. Submissions willbe exhibited in the display case bythe Orifice.
ARTS CONTEST
Yvonne Yip & David YipArts Directors (No relation)
ENGINEERING
HAIKUS
Steve1A Mechanical
Oh wondrous caffeineLifeblood of all engineersYou are good like WEEF
Dark mother Engineer’s lifebloodSweet Caffeine
Sixty hours of workNo time to sleep, eat or playEngineering sucks
difference is with the path the particle takes.In a particle accelerator the accelerated par-ticle travels in a straight line down a tubelined with electromagnets that propel the ionforward. Consequently, due to the nature ofthis design tracks often have to be as long astwo or three kilometres to allow the particleto gain enough speed.
A cyclotron is basically a giant disc thatis split in half across its diameter makingtwo semicircles called Dees. As the particlespin around inside the disc it crosses the gapand is accelerated a bitmore. In a cyclotron par-ticles to be acceleratedare injected into the cen-tre of the disc and, as itsspeed increases, thediameter of its rotationincreases as well. As aresult, energized ions areaccelerated in an out-wardly spiral fashion.The advantage here isthat the time it takes forthe particle to complete one orbit is alwaysthe same, so it will always stay in phase withthe RF. However, as particles approach rel-ativistic energies its phase begins to change.This results in a maximum obtainable ener-gy (for useful purposes) for the cyclotron.
A synchrotron combines the best of bothworlds from the previous two types of accel-
erators. It is basically a circular linear accel-erator. At CLS, Electrons are first accelerat-ed down a mini linear accelerator which isapproximately 37 metres long. They arethen injected into the Booster Ring (which isapproximately 103 metres in circumference)where they are accelerated even more. Lessthan one second after being injected into theBooster Ring the electrons are at full linearspeed (practically at the speed of light) theyare transferred to the Storage Ring which isabout 171 metres in circumference.
In the Storage Ring the electrons can bemaintained at almost any constant linear
speed. Although there isno linear acceleration,the angular accelerationforces the high-energyelectrons to emit photonsof very high frequencies.So, in addition to thehigh-energy collisionsfor which particle andcyclotron accelerators arerenowned, synchrotronsgive scientists the oppor-tunity to produce high-
intensity and high-frequency light (x-raysand gamma-rays). A very special feature ofthe synchrotron at U of S is that the light itproduces can be aimed at a specific target orsample. The image created by the collisionof high-energy photons and the small sam-ple is imprinted on a detector and sent to acomputer for analysis.
Of what practical use can this machineat CLS be? The new CSNF gives Canadianscientists a chance to fabricate micro-leveldevices that can be immediately used inindustry today. Using a highly focused beamof x-rays as a “laser carving” tool, so tospeak, could pave the way for a new gener-ation of nano-technology. Furthermore,being one of only six synchrotrons in NorthAmerica, CSNF has the potential to be acentre of commercial and private invest-ment strengthening Saskatchewan and ulti-mately Canada’s economy with the
inception of small start-up companies andspin-off businesses.
More impressive than its practical worthto Canada is its value as an educational andresearch tool for the scientific and engineer-ing community. History has shown that it iswith the invention of tools such as the syn-chrotron that theory and observation can becompared. With particles travelling at over99% the speed of light giving us almost fullcontrol over the electromagnetic spectrum,the possibilities in research and technologi-cal advancements are endless.
“Less than one secondafter being injected
into the Booster Ringthe electrons are at
practically the speed oflight”
...continued from Page 12.
Canadian Synchrotron at U of S very illuminating
ARTS CORNER
Want to show off yourartistic side?
Have some poetry you’d like to share? Gotany comics you doodled during calculusclass? Submissions are always welcome [email protected], or in the IronWarrior mailbox in the Orifice.
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F r i d a y , N o v e m b e r 5 , 2 0 0 41 6
Columns
“Get hit by a fire truck.”Keith Davidge - 2A Chemical
“I went to an interview.”Eric Migicovsky - 1A Systems
“I wrote my name on the paper and toldtheprof I had spontaneous diarrhea.”Marion - 2A Biotech Econ
“Pull the fire alarm - it’s a common tech-nique.”Loi Vanleeuwen - 2B Mechanical
“I got my ribs broken 1 year!”Ryan Consell - 3B Mechanical
“What? I love midterms? I don’t even goto class!” Hiro - 2A Comp
“Got drunk at MOT!”Ally Chan & Superman & SabrinaGiovanazzo - 2A Chemical
Iron Inquisition What would you do to avoidmidterms?
the
Richard Hui & Sarah Vandaiyar, 2A Chemical
“Slept with the prof.”Batman & Supergirl - 1N Electrical
I have been a witness, and these picturesare my testimony. The events I have
recorded should not be forgotten and mustnot be repeated.”
- James NachtweyJames Nachtwey is a war photographer.
He has covered more wars than most pho-tographers. Inspired by the images fromVietnam, America’s first living room war,Nachtwey studied Art History and PoliticalScience at Dartmouth, and decided tobecome a photographer. He has worked inalmost every conflict ridden hole on Earth,from Northern Ireland, to South America,the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, and any-where else you can find people doing whatpeople do too often.
Many times has risked life and limb toget the picture. He was in New York on theday of the terrorist attacks:
“Fortunately for me, and unfortunatelyfor people on the west side it [the building]listed to the west. But I was still underneaththis avalanche of falling debris, of structur-al steel, the aluminum siding of the build-
ing, glass; tons of material were fallingdirectly down on to me. I realized that I hada few seconds to find cover or else I’d bekilled.
"I dashed into the lobby of theMillennium Hotel, which was directlyacross the street from the North Tower, andI realized instantly that this hotel lobby wasgoing to be taken out. The debris wouldcome flying straight through the plate glassand just destroy it. There was no protectionat all.
There was no other place to turn, cer-tainly no more time. It was about to happenany moment. I saw an open elevator anddashed inside. I Put my back against thewall, thinking that it would afford some pro-tection, which it did, and about a secondlater the lobby was taken out. I had seensomeone standing outside, and there was aconstruction worker who dashed inside theelevator with me just as the debris sweptthrough the lobby and it instantly becamepitch black, as if you were in a closet withthe light out and a blindfold on.”
Nachtwey has worked for TimeMagazine on contract since 1984. He was amember of the celebrated agency Magnumuntil 2001, when he became a foundingmember of the VII photo agency. His workhas been shown in exhibitions all over theworld, and he was won many awards for hiswork. In 2001 he collaborated with Swiss
director Christian Frei in thecelebrated documentary WarPhotographer. Frei followedNachtwey into two years’worth of wars in Indonesia,Kosovo, and the Middle East.Filmed with conventionaltechniques and also with spe-cial micro-cameras attachedto Nachtwey’s camera, thisdocumentary was nominatedfor an Oscar, and has beenfeatured in many film festi-vals.
A lot of the credit in his
work comes from his atti-tude and approach. Wheresome photographers may besatisfied with shooting froma relative distance with longlenses, Nachtwey prefers touse short lenses, bringing theviewer close to the subject,and giving the feeling ofnear-interaction with the sit-uation. He describes hisapproach as: ‘slow and gen-tly, with respect and defer-ence to situation andsubject.’ The images are taken with timeand care, not quickly grabbed, as one wouldexpect in a war zone.
The nature of war and conflict itselfbears a lot of moral questions, and the pho-tography is not excepted. There is alwaysthat feeling that you, as a war photographer,are benefiting from the horrible suffering ofothers. In these situations Nachtwey sticksto the hope, the philosophy that pictureswill raise awareness of the suffering he seesIn his own words: “if I ever allow genuinecompassion to be overtaken by personalambition I will have sold my soul.” In thisaspect Nachtwey has distinguished himselfon a number of occasions by taking actionto save lives whenever possible in a crisis.
He is called a war photographer, but hewould prefer to be termed an anti-war pho-tographer.
“If war is an attempt tonegate humanity, then photog-raphy can be perceived as theopposite of war and if it is usedwell it can be a powerful ingre-dient in the antidote to war.
”In a way, if an individualassumes the risk of placinghimself in the middle of a warin order to communicate to therest of the world what is hap-pening, he is trying to negotiatefor peace. Perhaps that is thereason why those in charge of
perpetuating a war do not like to have pho-tographers around.”
In that Remembrance Day is comingaround, we will all take a minute of silenceto remember the horrors of war and the menand women who endured them. When thisminute is over the lot of us will go back toour equations, but photographers likeNachtwey will sadly have their work cutout for them every minute of the year, morethan half a century after we resolved “tosave succeeding generations from thescourge of war.”
With files from photography.about.com, war-photographer.com, andjamesnachtwey.com See more of his workat jamesnachtwey.com, and Time Magazinephoto essays at http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/
David Yip
2B Mechanical
Photographer Profile: James Nachtwey