The Mercury 03 09 20

March 9, 2020

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Comet Love

THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM

Senior launches ledger tech start-up Student is second in school history to join entrepreneurial program

Inside romantic life at UTD

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

Mechanical engineering senior Janrose Samson met her boyfriend, computer science graduate student Alejandro Mestanza, on Tinder.

CINDY FOLEFACK Editor-in-Chief

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recent survey found that over 70% of UTD students want to be in relationships, but get held back by school, their personal lives and other commitments.

While this may seem to prove the stereotype that there’s little to no love at UTD, students have figured out how to make their relationships work in healthy ways.

Mechanical engineering senior Janrose Samson was swiping through Tinder after Valentine’s Day when she matched with computer science graduate student Alejandro Mestanza, who didn’t look like he belonged on Tinder, she said. Later that night, he messaged

her and they went on their first date the following Saturday.

“We ate and I don't remember much, honestly, besides just smiling a lot and thinking, ‘Oh, he's really cute.’ I talk a lot when I'm nervous,” Samson said. “I remember thinking near the end we got more quiet and awkward and ran out of things to talk about naturally. And then all of a sudden he's like, ‘Well I mean do you want to get boba?’

He prolongs the date and I'm like, ‘Oh he does like me.’”

After their first date, she invited Mestanza over to her apartment for cookies she’d made. Three weeks later, Mestanza asked Samson to be his girlfriend. She said their re-

→ SEE LOVE,

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MIRANDA BROWN | COURTESY

Miranda and Ian Brown met at UTD in 2015 while working as peer advisors in Res Hall West. The couple got married in January 2020.

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

Computer science senior Pablo Peillard’s start-up is meant to help developers build applications.

AYESHA ASAD Mercury Staff

UTD computer science senior Pablo Peillard founded a startup, Hashing Systems, as a platform for innovators and enterprises to manage and create projects using decentralized ledger technologies.

Ledgers are essentially a record-keeping system for an organization’s transactions. Peillard’s company helps developers build applications and focuses on easy-to-integrate code. Peillard said he saw that if he impacted developers, those developers would go into companies and prefer to use the tools they were accustomed to using rather than building from scratch.

“Say you set up a server to store students’ grades at a school or signing in the students.

That information is stored on different servers that anyone might have access to and make edits. Someone could change a number here or there. Anything could happen to that information unless you have some sort of undeniable proof that that data is not tampered with,” Peillard said. “Maybe create a signature that is based on the data of the object that is, at least, really difficult to tamper with. And you put it on something like a decentralized ledger, like a blockchain. And with that, you can now make your systems way more secure without having to put a bunch more capital to set up 20 servers, replicating everything.”

Peillard is the second UTD student in the university’s history chosen to participate in the spring cohort of LaunchPad Lift, a program from Blackstone LaunchPad that seeks to elevate top student entrepreneurs. In LaunchPad Lift, student entrepreneurs form long term mentor relationships and receive individualized support to get their ventures moving faster.

“At the end of the day … we’re going to be working with outside companies,” Peillard said. “Basically, (LaunchPad Lift) is going to help us talk with more companies who are startup oriented, maybe service a software, service oriented, but they may not jump into blockchain or crypto yet. So it opens up a very big market for us.”

Peillard said that his desire to win in a hackathon was what prompted him to build this company. The hackathon was based on a crypto ledger, a record of transactions for cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.

“My professor, (Eric) Becker, has this thing where he’ll give you a 100 for the final test if you place in a hackathon,” Peillard said. “I had been working crypto ledgers for a few years back, so I knew the space and what people were building.”

Peillard said that he built a domain name service solution and won first place in the hackathon. Domain name servers are essentially the Internet’s equivalent of a phone book, and they maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to IP addresses. Af-

→ SEE LEDGER,

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Billiards team joins UREC as club sport EMAAN BANGASH Managing Editor

After transitioning from club to UREC team, Comet Billiards took home a first-place win at a recent UT Arlington tournament.

The team was recognized as a club last spring, and was registered as an official UREC team this semester. On Feb. 22, the team competed at the Mavsconi Cup VI hosted by UT Arlington, and computer engineering junior Chi-Quynh Nguyen won first place for C-Class. Criminology junior Jeremiah Kincaid said he was approached to be president of the former billiards club last semester since all the officers had graduated, and he wanted to turn the club into an official team through UREC to make organizing practices and tournaments easier.

“I can't remember what the initial push for it was. I definitely wanted something bigger than just an informal club. I wanted to actually have an official team. One of the driving things was we weren't allowed to reserve tables and have practices unless we were a UREC team.

If we were a club, it would have been a lot more difficult, reserving it for a tournament, stuff like that,” Kincaid said. “It was just more of a logistic nightmare. It's easier being a team somehow. It's a lot easier to deal with running it through UREC.”

GRACE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF

Criminology junior Jeremiah Kincaid (center) serves as president of the billiards team, which recently saw members place at a UT Arlington tournament.

Kincaid has been playing for 15 years, starting in high school, but said he’s learned a lot from being part of the club and learning from

other members. The team holds practices every Tuesday and Friday and runs drills for two hours to train specific techniques such as cuts

and ball control, Kincaid said.

→ SEE BILLIARDS,

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Poetry slam showcases stories from students Presenters share tales of pain, healing at event CALIS LIM

Mercury Staff

CALIS LIM | MERCURY STAFF

Students who participated in the poetry slam attended training sessions beforehand.

“But I still can’t say goodbye,” said Ashmal Naveed, speaking her final words and softly closing her book. The room held their collective breath before leaping out of their seats and bursting into applause for Naveed, one of several students who performed at UTD’s Diversity Poetry Slam Contest.

In order to be a part of the contest, which took place Feb. 28, each of the contestants had to attend the three workshops that Joaquin Zihuatenejo, contest facilitator and successful poet, taught in the weeks prior, where they learned the skills that they would need to apply for the final performance. Although he was satisfied with the final products that the students created, his goal was to have them gain something, Zihuatenejo said.

“One of the things that I think that every group, every cohort, that's been a part of this workshop series has walked away from is just

how incredibly diverse UTD is and how wonderful it feels to celebrate that diversity on a stage in front of their colleagues,” Zihuatenejo said. “Seeing that look of satisfaction in their face when they're sharing their voice and their story about their collective ‘we,’ or about their sense of self. There's not much better feeling as a facilitator and teacher that that I could have.”

The performances were designed to allow UTD students to reveal their own stories of struggle, joy and hope, as Zihuatenejo had intended all along. The impact that he aimed for, however, was not intended to be short term or on a small scale. Rather, he hoped that the students would leave the experience inspired to continue writing, Zihuatenejo said.

“For me, I'm hoping that it makes them want to write poems and tell stories and write them down. Because the world is desperate

→ SEE POETRY,

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March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

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THE MERCURY UTDMERCURY.COM Volume XXXIX No. 45

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March 1 • Multiple vehicles in Lot U had their windows broken and items stolen, reported at 11:56 a.m.

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March 2 • A student reported they were scammed out of money by a stranger in a parking lot near Phase 8A at 2:36 p.m.

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March 3 • An unknown person used their iPhone to videotape a student taking a shower in the Activity Center at 11:30 a.m.

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Contributors Ayesha Asad Alesandra Bell Grace Chang Jenna Cherrey Bianca Del Rio Ellis Blake Hidalgo Pratik Koppikar Roshan Khichi Calis Lim Michael Lockwood Bhavan Mehta Shubechhya Mukherjee Elizabeth Nguyen Ben Nguyen Louise Nillas Shelby Perez Zachariah Qureshi Zaynah Rehan Cecilia Romero Andrew Sanchez Quinn Sherer Emily Smith Keerthi Srilakshmidran Mrunmayi Sathaye Sarah Streety Pavan Tauh Daniel Zargaran

LEGEND VEHICULAR INCIDENT

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CORRECTIONS Media Adviser Chad Thomas

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Mailing Address 800 West Campbell Road, SU 24 Richardson, TX 75080-0688 Newsroom Student Union, Student Media Suite SU 1.601 The Mercury is published on Mondays, at two-week intervals during the long term of The University of Texas at Dallas, except holidays and exam periods, and once every four weeks during the summer term.

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A story in the Feb. 24 edition of The Mercury incorrectly named Jacqueline Prince's title. Prince is the Assistant Director for Women's & Gender Equity Programs. The Mercury regrets this error.

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

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NEWS

DEVELOPING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT DIVERSITY Ambassador program aims to create dialogue about multicultural topics MULTICULTURAL CENTER | COURTESY

According to the University Profile, as of fall 2019, 72% of UTD students identify as non-white.

EMILY GAO Mercury Staff

A new ambassador program was created to allow students to find a forum for conversations on diversity and learn about initiatives at other universities.

The Multicultural Center has grown with UTD, and the Diversity Ambassadors Program, established spring 2019, aims to create more student engagement in MCC events and workshops.

“We wanted student input and students want to have discussions about diversity on campus. They see it, they

want to have a discussion about how different facets of (diversity) affect their lives,” said computer science junior and Diversity Peer Leader Ezinne Megwa. “We're specifically trying to also enhance the diversity education section and make sure that we can get more participation within the conversations that we have.”

The Diversity Ambassadors Program is made of UTD students who get together to have conversations on diversity and is open to any individuals or organization representatives to join. Megwa said that one of the goals of the new program is to understand what conversations UTD students are

actually interested in having.

“We can bring these conversations and have workshops around like, ‘Oh, what is colorism?’ or ‘How can I have these conversations of issues addressing generational and diversity (differences)?’” Megwa said. “If you want to have a conversation about anything related, come to the DAP program and let's talk about these topics and let's see how we can bring them to campus and we can have these conversations.”

According to the University Profile, as of fall 2019, 72% of UTD students identify as non-white. However, Diversity Education Assistant Director Danny Cordova said that diversity

statistics don’t tell the whole story about inclusivity.

“We do have diversity in numbers.

Other universities are trying to look like this with their diversity initiatives. Our initiatives are at the next level,” Cordova said. “Now that we have the demographics, where do we go from here? And that's learning about cultures — learning about differences — in how we live together in this multicultural environment. It's a new thing for a university to work through and understand.”

Cordova said that although there is a fear of unproductive conversations, blame, arguments and debates, which

hinder student engagement, the MCC and DAP aim to promote productive conversation.

“The question comes up about, you know, one is when we do workshops and you go to training diversity training, people will say, ‘Well, the people who really need to be here aren't here.’

We don't find that part in arguments, debates, you know, tension,” Cordova said. “Educate. It's all about education.

It's not about solving problems here, solving there. It's helping to educate so you can have those conversations.

Once we get that out there, the conver-

→ SEE DIVERSITY,

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What is historical studies research like? Students develop patient simulator ANJALI VENNA News Editor

ESTHER MATHEW| MERCURY STAFF

Monica Rankin, associate professor of history and director of the UTD Center for U.S.Latin America Initiatives, read 1,000 letters from Mexican citizens regarding World War II.

Letters, diary entries and photographs provide snapshots in time of people and places, serving as important resources for historians conducting research. However, how is that evidence studied and utilized by researchers?

For Monica Rankin, associate professor of history and director of the UTD Center for U.S.-Latin America Initiatives, much of the research for her first book, “¡México, la Patria!,” which studies propaganda in Mexico during World War II, was done in archives in Mexico and Maryland. These collections contain old primary documents held in environmentally controlled spaces.

“We sit in these archives and we go through these documents and try to reconstruct the past from what these documents are telling us. What those documents are varies from one scholar to the next,” Rankin said. “I spent a lot of time in the Mexican national archive and went through a lot of the old memos, correspondence from the offices in charge of creating propaganda information and pamphlets. The government archive sent me into really interesting directions.”

For instance, Rankin found a collection of letters of support from individual citi-

zens sent to the government, when Mexico entered the war. She read approximately 1,000 of these letters and categorized them to gain an understanding of how citizens viewed the war. To analyze a source, Rankin considers its intended audience, context and existing scholarship.

“My own scholarship, I pair with a lot of diplomatic history — so different ways in which nations interact with each other, leaders interact with the broader public,” Rankin said. “In the book I am working on now, it is centered very much on propaganda theory: what makes effective propaganda, what is it and how do people respond to it.”

Kimberly Hill, assistant professor of history, begins research by identifying an archive that holds sources she could use for a particular event, then analyzes those sources through theory and alternate scholarly perspectives. Her first book focuses on African American missionaries in the Belgian Congo during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

“We reach conclusions by reading much more than what we think is immediately relevant and trying our best recreate the total context of that person’s experience,” Hill said. “We usually do a lot of scholarly

→ SEE HISTORY,

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New dance floor in SU MADISON YORK Opinion Editor

As the semester kicks into full swing, the Student Union is allowing Comets to kick and swing even more by providing a new dance floor.

Registered student organizations and departments are able to request the dance floor for their events through their Electronic Management System accounts. Andrew Helgeson, assistant director of SU, said that the current dance floor has gone through some significant wear.

“We have a couple student orgs that use it every single week,” Helgeson said.

“And then there’s more far and few between, some more for larger scale events that student organizations are putting on: they want to do a banquet with a dance

floor in there. I’d say we’re probably doing the dance floor anywhere between six to 10 times a month.”

Helgeson said that, like the current dance floor, the new dance floor will only be available for use in the Galaxy rooms, due to how heavy and cumbersome it is to move. Also, like the current dance floor, the new dance floor will consist of 48 four-foot by four-foot square pieces that can be latched together into different rectangular configurations. After the new one arrives, Helgeson said, the old dance floor will no longer be available for use.

“First, we don’t have any room for storage for it, and then just it’s a problem because it could be a safety hazard,” Helgeson said. “A lot of times, people want the biggest dance floor possible, but we can’t put it in there due to size restric-

AI models created to help train future healthcare professionals

ROSHAN KHICHI| MERCURY STAFF

Walter, a digital character, interacts with prospective doctors who use his verbal and non-verbal cues to discern symptoms.

AYESHA ASAD Mercury Staff

SHUBHECHHYA MUKHERJEE| MERCURY STAFF

tions, due to other tables and chairs in there and making sure we are ADA compliant at all times.”

Despite the expensive price of a new dance floor — some quotes reaching as high as $40,000 — Helgeson said the wear and tear of the old dance floor justi-

fies the cost of the new one.

“We’re doing a rush order to get it in as soon as possible, and we’re hoping to have it in stock before we have that banquet season coming, before May,” Helgeson said. “We want to give something of quality to our students.”

Joel Rizzo, a student programmer in the humans and synthetics lab, sits in front of a computer screen featuring an old man sitting on a hospital bed. Rizzo speaks to the virtual patient, gaining knowledge about the medical field through augmented reality technology, which UTD researchers hope can be used to train future doctors.

This virtual character is “Walter,” who was created by a team of university students alongside assistant professor of arts and technology Marjorie Zielke in the Center for Modeling and Simulation.

Walter, who can also be interacted with using a Microsoft HoloLens, responds to the prospective doctor with his medical

→ SEE WALTER,

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LIFE&ARTS

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

GRACE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF

Tongue in Cheek Ice cream CALIS LIM Mercury Staff

GRACE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF

Owner Brett Smith was a firefighter before he discovered a passion for ice cream making and opened Tongue in Cheek.

If you’ve ever cruised down Arapaho Road following the bends, the brightly colored signs of shops all vying for your attention start to blur together. One sign, however, that stands out is a brazen graphic of a tongue sticking out at you with the words “Tongue in Cheek” surrounding it.

If that sign alone doesn’t make you want to come in, then the ice cream will probably do the trick.

When walking in, an indoor swings seating area, a gleaming case of 24 ice cream flavors and a smiling face are the first things you’ll see. That smiling face is likely a member of the Smith family, including Brett Smith, Misty Smith and their two sons. Run almost entirely by the Smith family, Tongue in Cheek is a small batch creamery that makes each flavor by hand.

The store boasts a wide range of rich, unique flavors from banana pudding to chocolate fudge. Some of the more unusual ones include hatch pepper butter pecan, a spicy ice cream with candied

peppers and creamy butter pecan, and jack and coke, which includes pepper to mimic the feeling that one gets when drinking alcohol. The shop also includes some delicious dairy-free options such as cinnamon honey and lavender, both of which are delectable without sacrificing the creaminess that dairy ice cream has. If you're a chocoholic, the chocolate fudge is perfect for you. Brett makes the fudge himself, and the creamy, gooey texture of the chocolate is reminiscent of molten lava crunch cakes.

Although Brett has now learned the art of ice cream making, this was not always the case. Before opening Tongue in Cheek, Brett was a full-time firefighter, which is a job that he held after college until now.

“It was one of those times where you're in between classes, waiting for the next one to start,” he said. “So I was just sitting there and there's a booth for a Dallas recruiter for the fire department, and I went over there and looked at the brochure.

This was almost 30 years ago now. They started out at $28,000 a year, you work 24 hours on, 48 hours off. That's enough time for career on the side. So that's what pushed me in that direction.”

In the two decades of working in the Richardson department, Brett enjoyed his time there, but one thing that he wanted to change was the food, he said.

“Some stations, you know, it's just go to the store, just buy whatever it is,” B. Smith said. “Same thing every shift. I always get tired of the same thing. I want to create something new, different and try new flavors and learn how to make sauces and how to make all these things.”

He started experimenting. Each meal, the firefighters would pitch in some money, and that was his budget for the food. As time went on, he started making more and more dishes, Brett said.

“As I got higher up in my career, or later

→ SEE ICE CREAM,

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Game Review:

‘Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem’ Action role-playing dungeon crawler similar to ‘Diablo III’ leaves much to be desired

ASK EMILY:

ALESANDRA BELL | MERCURY STAFF

BEN NGUYEN Mercury Staff

“Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem” is a topdown dungeon crawler in the same style of the Diablo series. Like “Diablo” and games like “Path of Exile,” the main gameplay loop consists of delving into dungeons, defeating a variety of demonic and fantasy monsters, and equipping the best loot while leveling up your character. After a $40 dollar investment and over 20 hours played, I can confidently say that it’s terrible.

Why is “Wolcen” bad? It boils down to one thing: It’s just a worse version of “Diablo III.” It’s not that the game comes off as horrible from the start: it’s that everything that makes up the game is mildly infuriating or annoying until the game becomes entirely unenjoyable.

First off is the annoying input lag depending on basic attacks. Whether you are using a sword, staff, two guns or a bow, there is a different lag for the next input depending on your weapon of choice.

For example, I opted to use two guns for my creatively named character, Gun. Gun used two different basic attacks at complete random, meaning that at one point I can shoot and immediately dodge roll, and then in another second I shoot and have to stand still for half a second before dodge rolling. That half a second might not seem like much, but when there’s a

massive monster barreling down at you, half a second makes the difference between half a life bar of damage and none.

There is no class system, as instead skills are found as loot or bought from a shop and are split between weapons instead.

So, instead of skills being earned as a paladin or a mage character, your character can use any skill in the game if you buy or find it in the world and are using the correct weapon for the skill. While this ideally allows for massive build variety for any character, in practice, there are viable builds that work past the first boss and builds that do not work at all. This is because the game itself has a messed-up difficulty curve.

The first three-phase boss is the first real challenge of the game, forcing you to utilize all the game’s mechanics besides becoming ascended, which unlocks after this fight, in order to beat him. However, the problem is that combining the strange input lag and occasionally laggy dodge roll mechanics, it is beyond infuriating to try and beat the first real boss. Up to this point there is nothing to truly challenge the player and teach them key mechanics of the game, because it’s entirely possible to stand still using any weapon and hold left click until everything dies. The boss then becomes a brick wall in terms of difficulty, and if your character build isn’t up

→ SEE WOLCEN,

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Mental health advice from one student to another EMILY SMITH

Mercury Staff If you and your friend both struggle with mental health issues, how do you balance being there for each other while also taking care of yourself? - Lovingly Here Lovingly, boundaries can be hard to set, especially with someone you care about.

However, they are imperative to a healthy relationship. When two friends struggle with mental illness, they can either build up or tear down each other. On the one hand, knowing that the other person has been where you are and experienced similar feelings can breed feelings of connection and understanding. In other cases, though, sharing a struggle can lead to spiraling and competition and shame.

Keeping a friendship healthy takes work, whether there are common struggles or not. Even acknowledging that it could be hard to keep the balance between support for the other and yourself is a good step.

Another aspect is knowing your own limits. If you are both having a hard day, leaning on each other could lead to a

downward spiral of shame and “shoulds.”

It is important to not be each other’s only support person, but rather have a whole network of friends or family to lean on.

If you find that they are your only support person, ask yourself who else in your life you can begin cultivating deeper relationships with. Don’t be scared to take other relationships to a deeper level by sharing struggles with them. Getting the help you need, whether that be seeing a therapist at the Student Counseling Center or dropping by at the Center of Students in Recovery for a weekly group, is also necessary. In addition to this, it may be helpful to sit down and talk about what you are each comfortable with. This must always be an ongoing conversation as both people learn and grow through their own recovery.

Where can I open up to people about my deeper stress and issues, when I haven’t developed deep enough relationships for such vulnerability? - Jade It’s great that you’re wanting to form those deeper connections and seek more intimate relationships. In an ideal world, we would be able to have a strong support system at the snap of a finger. However,

BHAVAN MEHTA | MERCURY STAFF

The Center for Students in Recoery, located in SSA 14.270, provides a safe space for students to open up.

the reality is that opening up to friends and family can get messy and chaotic. I know I feel more comfortable opening up to someone when they have been vulner-

→ SEE ASK EMILY,

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March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

5

LIFE&ARTS

ESTHER MATHEW | MERCURY STAFF

Q & A: Celebrity Chef Aarti Sequeira UTD Dining and Auxiliary Services hosted chef, television star and journalist Aarti Sequeira this month. Sequeira graduated from Northwestern University as a journalist, worked for CNN and produced a show on HBO. Not long after, Sequeira was the winner of the sixth season of Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star” and hosted her own cooking show “Aarti Party.” She’s known for her cooking

style: American classics with an Indian twist. The Mercury sat down with Sequeira to talk about her career path, her love of spices and diversity in media today.

Q: Something that you’ve consistently incorporated into your dishes is the influence of Indian and Middle Eastern flavors. Could you explain the importance of staying with those themes?

A: Guy Fieri calls me the spice queen.

It's like his new name for me. I was like ‘Alright, I'll take it.’ Because I am. I'm obsessed with spices. I'm obsessed with those flavors. And I think it's because, yes, I grew up with them. The idea of going to spice market, I mean, I would do that over going to see Beyonce, you know what I mean? I want to go to a spice market. I think for me, the thing about spices is that they’re just

little gifts. Not only do they offer so much flavor, they help take something humble, like a cauliflower, and they just transform it into something that is royal. There are dishes in India, and I'm sure it's the same all over the world, that the highest of high classes eat and the lowest of low classes eat, and it's the same dish. And to me, that's super

→ SEE AARTI,

PAGE 7

Why do students cram?

Mercury survey reveals only two percent of students do not cram for exams MRUNMAYI SATHAYE Mercury Staff

ESTHER MATHEW | MERCURY STAFF

A Mercury survey revealed that 16% of 121 respondents said that they crammed for all of their classes while 17% crammed for half of their classes.

Bioengineering freshman Meghna Jayavelu told herself that she wasn’t going to cram for this upcoming test, that she was going to study in intervals.

However, like 16% of students, she found herself only beginning to study the night before her exam.

A Mercury survey of 121 students found that several respondents crammed for their tests, beginning to study a day in advance.

“The final day before the exam, I start studying around 10 p.m., and it may go all the way up till 10 a.m.,” Jayavelu said.

“You know you’re in a do or die situation, and the 10 hours you spend (studying) are the most quality 10 hours you’ll ever spend. It’s like fight or flight. You’re going to cram no matter what. That focus you have in those 10 hours is incredible compared to any other time.”

From the survey, 43% of the respon-

dents, such as computer science freshman Samah Khan, said procrastination is the main reason for not studying in advance. In addition, 12% said that jobs and outside responsibilities cause the last minute pressure.

“The reason I end up cramming is because I end up waiting for that feeling of anxiety that eats you up from the inside,” Khan said. “That kicks me into action.

Even if I know that the exam isn’t for another week, I won’t begin studying for it until that feeling comes.”

According to Supplemental Instruction manager Neil Gregerson, the issue of cramming stems from early schooling. Around middle school, teaching begins to cater to tests and memorization, and that translates into the college studying experience.

“So one of the big things is students actually don't know how to learn,” Gregerson said. “There is a big gap in metacognition for students, which is the whole concept of thinking about think-

ing. Students think 'I can read the information, I can memorize it and then I'll know it and I will have learned it.’ That translates to cramming, and students think, 'Okay, so I have this test, let me read everything over and over and over again, and then I'll have it memorized,' when that actually doesn't happen.

Gregerson said that it is better to study ahead of time because it allows students to break up material into manageable chunks, and over time repeated exposure to this material allows students to know everything they need to know and have information fully built in the brain. A really good way to break it up, he said, is to build a calendar.

“I have plans that are really good,” Khan said. “I just don’t do them. I don’t have a plan for cramming — I have a plan to avoid cramming that I don’t follow through with that leads to cramming. My plan usually is to flip through notes while

→ SEE CRAMMING,

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6

SPORTS

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

Smash team competes at international competition

PAVAN TAUH | MERCURY STAFF

The Comets managed to face various match-ups at the competition and players often had to change their typical playstyle and accommodate to characters that countered their opponents' mains.

BEN NGUYEN Mercury Staff

UTD’s “Super Smash Brothers Ultimate” team went to the 2020 Frostbite Major where they faced off against international opponents and fought in match-ups not found in the DFW area.

The Comets competed at one of the largest “Super Smash Brothers Ultimate” tournaments so far with 1,235 players competing in the singles bracket where players play a best of five match. While esports coach Greg Adler declined to comment, ATEC freshman Gabriel “Kazma” Hernandez and computer science sophomore Marcel “Marce:/” Hayek shared their experiences competing on an international level.

One unique part about playing at Frostbite is the increased match-up variety from other players. With over 70 characters and

more on the way, players all over the world play a variety of different characters competitively, and one character plagued Hernandez and Hayek’s Frostbite run.

“There are no Warios in DFW and there’s only one good Texas one … and he’s Houston,” Hayek said. “He doesn’t even come to DFW ever.”

Because people don’t play Wario in the DFW area, it makes it hard to know how to play against him as Hernandez’s main character R.O.B or Hayek’s main Pichu. As well, players from other regions will have their own different match-up experiences, with Hernandez running into some trouble with people‘s familiarity with R.O.B. “I actually had a lot of unfamiliar matchups or people that just knew a lot about R.O.B. It was kind of tragic,” Hernandez said.

This match-up experience difference can go both ways, with Hayek’s Pichu prompt-

ing a lot of other players to pick Lucina, even if they were inexperienced in the character, to try and counter Hayek. However, Hayek took advantage of his experience playing against Lucina to take control of many of his games.

“A lot of people surprisingly counterpicked me. Nobody knew the match-up … so a lot of people pulled out their Lucina, (to) which Pichu is supposed to lose,” Hayek said. “But I like that match-up because I can just parry them for free. If they’re not really good at Lucina, then I pretty much win. I have a lot of experience … I’m just used to my bad matchups.”

Despite the varied match-up knowledge all around, both Hernandez and Hayek were able to get close to or within the top 10% of players in the entire tournament, with both getting knocked out of the bracket at 97th and 129th place respectively, and

against high caliber players. Hernandez was knocked out by William “Glutonny” Belaid, a Wario player currently power ranked at number one in France, and then by Joshua “Pelca” Bedoya in the loser’s bracket, who had a large amount of experience fighting R.O.B. Hayek was eliminated by Savon “Boobear” Riley, a R.O.B player who is power ranked number one in Michigan.

“I brought him to game three, last stock, last hit. That could’ve gone either way,” Hayek said. “I got greedy, and that’s understandable. He killed me.”

Playing in the tournament wasn’t the only part of Frostbite for the team: with a billing as a “conventional tournament” Frostbite provided plenty of opportunities for the team to have fun as well. Hernandez took advantage of the late-night lounge to play money matches, where both players pool together about $5 to play a best of five for

the money pool.

“They had a venue that didn’t close, so you’d be there super late. And I ended up doing seven or eight hours straight of just money matches, then went to bed and woke up and then immediately went and played four more hours of money matches,” Hernandez said.

Hayek said that one of the best moments of Frostbite was cheering on other Texan players, especially R.O.B player Grayson “Grayson” Ramos, with the Texan crowd bringing plenty of spirit.

“I liked seeing Grayson win very far and seeing all of Texas pop off, and get super hyped, being the loudest out of everybody with Texas.

Like we had 70 people from Texas show up and … they even brought a flag, a huge flag that they waved in front of everybody,” Hayek said. “We were all just the rowdiest people, I mean, and that’s awesome. Texas pride.”

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7

NEWS

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to snuff it’s easier to restart rather than grind the resources needed to build a new one. And did I mention that this boss is your adopted brother?

What led up to you killing your adopted brother? Well, the main cutscenes of the plot do not explain much besides you are an orphan, with two orphan siblings you fought alongside for some nebulous Republic. In the prologue of the game, you transform into a massive angel to fight a demon, which then brands you a practitioner of witchcraft. There’s no other lore given, nor is there any opportunity to learn more about the world other than random quotes on the world map.

The voice acting for all the characters is all over the place, with a disproportionate amount of characters sounding like American college students acting Australian. The only memorable NPC

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able to me. I try to remember this when sharing issues with others — that maybe by telling them my struggles, they are more likely to ask me for help when they need it. It’s scary to start taking steps towards deeper relationships. It can feel like uncharted territory.

However, with time and intention it does get easier.

UTD also has great on-campus resources for those who are struggling, regardless of whether it’s stress from school or diagnosable depression or anxiety. The Center for Students in Recovery is a safe space where students can participate in peer-led support groups, study time and recovery planning.

The CSR’s student workers are often hanging out and studying in the main lounge, and this is a great place to go to begin forming relationships and get things off your chest.

In addition to the CSR, the Student Counseling Center provides students with crisis counseling and recurring therapy sessions.

However, if this seems intimidating, the SCC opened up a location in Residence Hall North where you can get free 15 minute dropin sessions. Although these are

is Heimlock, your adoptive father who you don’t see for more than five minutes since you’re branded a witch Eventually, in the first act boss fight, you kill your adopted brother who’s been sent to hunt you down for practicing witchcraft. But there’s no emotional response, as the player has only really known this entire world for about an hour and a half and seen all the main characters for about five minutes each. The plot kills off your brother as an infuriating three phase boss with no emotional impact. I refused to spend more time with the game than was necessary and turned the difficulty down to story mode from normal mode to see what lay beyond the brick wall of a boss.

But the only thing that lay beyond was the same tired gameplay loop with no satisfying loot, a plot that was continually boring, and nothing better in sight.

The only positive aspects to the game are that the passive skill tree is unique via the ability to

customize which skill tree you can level into, and after the first boss you can turn into the massive angel from the prologue that is invincible and deals massive damage every 20 minutes for 30 seconds. This fleeting moment of awesome is also just a fastforward button — it just speeds up combat since you are both overpowered and invincible, in an already generically easy game.

Ultimately, “Wolcen” is a bad “Diablo 3” clone, and you might as well play any other game instead. Playing the game feels unfair due to the strange input lag, loot is unsatisfying to find as even legendary items are simply named “breastplate” or “tunic,” the plot is boring and forgettable and the only redeeming, interesting quality is the passive skill tree. The game itself still feels like in Early Access, to the point that I had to double check that it wasn’t on the Steam store page. Don’t waste your time playing this game that was already made in 2012 or 2000.

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ways to connect and be vulnerable in more professional settings, they can help pave the way to deeper relationships with friends as you learn that people can be trusted and your feelings are allowed to take up space.

often seen as a part of the diet/ restrict and overeat/binge cycle.

What happens is someone starts out with the goal to lose weight and thus goes on a diet, either restricting different food groups or caloric intake as a whole. This restriction signals the body to go into starvation mode, where metabolism slows and the mind becomes fixated on food (for more on starvation, look up the Minnesota Starvation Study). This then leads to an episode of overeating, or binge eating, which is followed by shame, guilt and selfdeprecation. Then the cycle starts all over again.

In saying all of this, I hope you can have some grace for yourself.

Tuning into and trying to listen to your body can be empowering. In addition to “Intuitive Eating,” the Student Wellness Center is a great resource for learning about how to promote your health through food. It even has a registered dietitian. It is located in the Student Services Building 4.5, and often holds events where students can learn how to take care of their bodies and foster a positive relationship with food. Ultimately, remember that how you (or anyone else) eats is not indicative of your worth or value.

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How do I overcome overeating? - Hani Ramsey Hani, “overeating” has many meanings to different people, however it is commonly known as eating more food than what your body needs to be satiated. It often stems from either a physiological or mental restriction of food. Nutrition therapist Elyse Resch and dietitian Evelyn Tribole wrote the book “Intuitive Eating,” which is a guide to moving towards a healthy relationship with food.

It emphasizes both listening to your body’s physical and mental hunger cues, as well as taking into account gentle nutrition and social situations. It plays off the idea that sometimes you’ll just eat a cookie because a friend made it, but then find yourself turning down ice cream later because it just doesn’t sound good. This methodology centers around the idea that our bodies know what we need. In the framework of “Intuitive Eating,” overeating is

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simultaneously attacking problems on homework and quizzes.”

16% of respondents crammed for all of their classes while 17% crammed for half of their classes.

This is a stark contrast to the 2% who do not cram for any classes.

“I typically cram calculus, physics, linear algebra, and (biomedical engineering), so I mostly cram the STEM based classes,” Jayavelu said. “For STEM classes, I feel like they put all their assignments and quizzes on the same day or it’s back to back, so you don’t have time. Before you finish preparing for one exam, the next exam comes up. You don’t find time to (study in advance). Even over the weekend, how much studying can you do when you have homework assignments on top of studying?

Where on Earth do you find time to do everything?”

Gregerson said we build knowledge through dendrites in our brains and when we do something

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powerful, right? It's the great equalizer. In India and in the Middle East, a lot of that is spices, so that's one part of the gift. The other part of that gift is that they are naturally so good for you. I mean, who is not taking a turmeric pill right now? I'm just really obsessed with them for those two reasons. They can transform humble food and make it something awesome, and that they offer so many health benefits.

Q: After winning “The Next Food Network Star,” you hosted your own show, where you became one of the only Asian hosts on like a popular TV network.

How do you feel about the current representation of Asians on popular TV shows such as Food Network and beyond?

A: When I look at the landscape right now, I'm amazed, I would never have guessed. When I won, I remember that there were things that I wanted to do and I got the impression that I wasn't a man, and I wasn't white. I needed to just lower my ambition just a little bit because it just wasn't realistic, you know? Now I'm

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in my career, I started realizing that I don't want to do the fire department thing for 30-35 years,” he said.

“I would like to do something in the food industry. But I don't want to do a restaurant because it's so expensive to open up, so competitive, trends go in and out. You know, it's just hard to survive in the restaurant industry.”

Restaurants were off the table, but it just so happened that another ice cream shop had approached him to make their ice cream.

“They said come in, try it out. So I did that. After about two weeks I was like, this is it,” Brett said. “The more I did it, the more I really started falling in love with the making side of it.

The merging of flavors you normally don't put together: the savories with the sweets, the spicy ice creams, the alcohol flavors and ice cream. I started working on a lot of the flavors that you can't find at other places.”

The shop came to life. The name and logo stemmed from the silly face that their son made and also refers to Brett’s sarcasm, which he shares with fellow firefighters. The

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concerns. Students practice interacting with future patients by discerning Walter’s symptoms from verbal and nonverbal cues as well as his medical history and physical background such as diet and exercise.

Zielke said that the inspiration for the project came from colleagues at UT Southwestern.

“We’ve had a series of projects to help medical school students and related types of students learn how to communicate with patients,” Zielke said. “Our colleagues on this at UT Southwestern wanted a more realistic kind of environment that was not just sort of ‘pick the right answer’ but was

much about the exam. You really have to set little goals day by day in terms of assignments. At the end of the day it just comes down to discipline and execution.”

There are resources around school such as the Student Success Center which helps with time management, study skills, note taking and provides tutoring. For students who have true anxiety issues, Gregerson said, the Student Counseling Center is another resource they can use.

“One of the best things that students can do, which is a really good strong strategy, is (using a) study group,” said Gregerson. “When we engage with one another, we are more likely to learn and retain information through that social interaction. That really helps to build that knowledge cause you're getting all these different social perspectives on the world and the way knowledge is viewed and you end up learning more because you start to look at knowledge through different eyes and through different perspectives.”

kind of sitting in pole position — and not through my own doing, I'm standing on the shoulders of other people — but I just think that there's so many more opportunities for everybody. And listen, I'm married to a white man, so I don't want that voice to be extinguished either. I hope the next step is that we're not noticing people's gender or race, we're actually listening to the words that are coming out of their mouth. You know what I mean? We’re not looking at their dress size, we’re not looking at their exquisite skin, we should be listening to what people have to say, because that's much more important: that comes from the inside. I'm really excited about it, but I'm ready for the next thing where we're not counting and saying, ‘Well, there's one black person, one Asian person, one white person.’ You know what I mean? It needs to get to a point where it's like, ‘There's a bunch of people and they are really smart, and they have great things to say.’

Q: What advice would you give to us students who are trying to figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives?

A: I think that the biggest thing that I have learned is to expect to get

uncomfortable, to expect the rug to be pulled out from under you, and to be okay with it. It's hard, you're going to freak out, but the freak out was part of the lesson. When I realized that I was not going to be a journalist anymore — I had put so much of my identity in that — I didn't know who I was anymore.

There were mornings I would wake up and I was like, ‘Lord Jesus, why did you wake me up again? I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing.’ Especially as college students, your entire life up to now has been school, and your path, and the next thing you do, and making a living, and all of that kind of stuff. Of course, I can't come around and be like, ‘Well, it's not that important.’

It is important. But your identity is not your career, okay? It's okay, if things go sideways. At some point, they may, they may not, they probably will. And it's okay. You can be comfortable in that. Know that that's a period where you're actually going to figure out who you are. It’s okay if you end up doing something that you didn't go to school for, or you didn't expect yourself to do. There's usually a huge gift coming your way in those times.

ased, which contrasts with research conditions of a scientist in a lab.

“But we, all the same, engage in research trying to discern out of that horrendously incomplete track of sources, something that nonetheless is discernible. It becomes more complicated because what is our question?” Roemer said. “By and large our question is not always a question that can be easily answered in a quantitative way. Mostly we’re interested in getting to something more specific about, in the widest sense, the human experience. The unique individual experiences within the larger changes.”

Roemer grew up in Germany, and he said that knowing his history became an empowering experience for him. This is what prompted him to study the subject in higher education.

“In any day that you walk around, you make assumptions about what surrounds you. You make choices about all kinds of things in your life, and you also never have a complete set of data available. You also make assumptions incomplete, biased information,” he said. “In a lot of ways, our research in the humanities is actually far closer to how we as average humans make our choices.”

sample interview footage made at UT Southwestern, Rizzo said. Since they’re developing this AI in conjunction with UT Southwestern, Zielke said, the experiments will be held there over the next few years.

There will be no cost involved.

“There’s all kinds of possibilities for the future. There are other levels of health care professionals, healthcare students, all the way down to people who are currently in high school who are going to be different types of healthcare workers,” Zielke said. “This theme of being able to communicate with patients or patients’ families is equally important to them too, so there’s all sorts of different educational levels that you could use this for.”

building was originally an Arby’s.

Brett saw the vacancy, signed the contract and completed the construction by himself, the only exceptions being plumbing and electrical, he said. Misty, Brett’s wife, witnessed the whole rebuilding process and has been helping ever since.

“He’d spent over 1000 hours of self- education, watching videos, reading books,” Misty said. “I'd find him at 3:00 a.m. with his book open, reading about the molecular development of ice cream or what temperature it freezes or how to get it to a certain level where it doesn't ice over and keeps it creamy. I mean, he knows anything there is to know about ice cream.”

To maintain the creation of the homemade ice cream, Brett, who makes the ice cream mostly himself, chose to forgo some of the ingredients that many of the chain stores typically use.

“I try to use as natural ingredients as possible,” he said. “So, when you look at our case, everything is kind of beige. Anything that has color, they're from natural sources. You know, your raspberries come from

real raspberries.”

It's the powerful and unique flavors that are packed into small batches that keep customers coming back for more. Although it only opened this past June, it’s already grown quite a following.

“We have our banana pudding.

Every time I try to take it out, people just have a meltdown,” Brett said. “They’re like, ‘You gotta bring that one back,’ you know, especially the pregnant ladies, it becomes their pregnancy craving.

I'm like, ‘All right,’ as soon as they say bring it back.”

In the shop, the Smiths’ passion for their customers, product and work is evident, but their support for each other is even easier to see.

“Every third day I'm gone, I still work as a firefighter,” Brett said.

“Luckily, because I'm doing this with my wife, she takes a huge burden off of me … You know, the biggest struggle right now is being away from family. (Misty’s) here, my kids work here during the summer, but during school, they really can't. So it's just that separation: it’s a little greater than I'd like it to be.”

reading before we get to the archive that gives us key terms, people or events we need to look for. Then usually once you get to the archive, you find you only get a third to half of the story. You get used to the unexpected and see the way people understood what was happening to them.”

Then Hill examines her sources for a common thread to her argument, then reassesses or interrupts her argument. She read 35 years worth of journal entries from one missionary and then compared it to the official documents from his fellow missionaries.

“Some of the evidence I drew from the missionary’s record, but then I add to compare the way that he described to what anthropologists or theologians, say is representative of how people in the Belgian Congo at the time were responding to western religions,” Hill said. “I also did some comparisons with current Presbyterian ministers from the Congo to see how they understand the legacy of their church.”

Hill did some of the research and writing at the same time. She read journal entries on a microfilm reader, made notes and created a database arranged by key terms. From there

she began signing up for conferences where she presented a paper that, she imagined, would be a chapter of her book based on how she listed those key terms into major themes. This is a common and required practice for researchers to present their papers, then publish them in academic journals and then eventually a book.

“It was complicated by the fact that there is little existing scholarship about the specific people that I wanted to make the center of my book,” Hill said. “So on the one hand, that was exciting and unique, but without that many models it could be nerve wracking to know whether the direction I was going would lead to something or whether I might end up hitting a brick wall.”

She said she tried her best to read every scholar who mentioned these missionaries before.

“I took their approach seriously then had to go back to my own records and think ‘What do I have that’s different?’” Hill said.

“I learned to lean into that, even if my original inclination was to do something else.”

Nils Roemer is professor of Holocaust studies and director of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies.

He said much of research in history has the challenge of dealing with a baseline that is incomplete and bi-

more of a natural language process.”

Djahangir Zakhidov, a research scientist in Modeling and Simulation, modeled a mock interview of Walter using the HoloLens, an AR headset with built-in speakers .

“You can say something like, ‘Hi Walter.’ Or you can say, ‘What brings you here today?’” Zakhidov said. “And if you walk a little bit, he will track you with his face … he’ll keep looking at you.”

Rizzo, a software engineering graduate student, said that he sees this novel technology as a supplement to the current medical school training system, which relies on bringing actors who simulate the role of patients to examination rooms.

Students then interview the mock

patients to deduce their symptoms and are judged on both their professionality and their ability to diagnose the patient correctly.

“This is designed to fill the gap.

This is for when you are a medical student, you want to practice this, but you don’t want to do it in the middle of one of the regular testing training sessions that they do,” Rizzo said.

“That’s where this would really shine, because this thing, you can have it sitting in a room. It's always there. It’s always on, always ready to go.”

The team’s research was funded with a $75,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and was previously funded by the Southwestern Medical Foundation and the NSF’s US Ignite high-speed network

research program.

Zielke said that this project’s focus on communication is something that has worked very well.

“NSF has this big initiative right now, which is the future of work.

One of the major themes is as (artificial intelligence) becomes more available, what is the role of the human being versus machine?” He said. “Communication is one of the enduring traits of human beings.

We read lots and lots of scientific reports… and these all have this ongoing theme that communication will be one of the things that remains specifically human.”

Walter is only the first in a line of many more. Zielke and her team said that they are planning to create

multiple virtual reality scenarios with different people to produce a diverse collection of situations that prospective doctors will have to face.

“There are three other characters that we’re developing. One is a virtual professor, and then two virtual students, a man or woman. So that’s also about social learning and how you can learn from peers,” Zielke said. “Ultimately, there’s going to be several characters, and then we’re going to be doing some experiments as to when you practice an interview, do you prefer to get feedback from a peer or professor, or virtual professor or a real professor?”

The researchers were able to compile information about facial cues and body language into an AI from

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that dendrite is created in the brain, and for us to fully retain and strengthen that dendrite, we have to do something three to five times. Repetition — reading, processing, manipulating, synthesizing — has to occur to strengthen the dendrite. If students don't do those things within 24 hours, he said, students retain only 40% of what they have crammed.

“I walk out the test and everything is just gone,” Khan said.

“Usually it’s a feeling of instant regret I could’ve done so much better had I studied properly. It’s always regret. I could’ve done this two days before and gotten so much more done and would’ve known how to do this problem.”

83% percent of the survey respondents studied two days in advance or more.

“What I’ve done is I’ve started studying a week in advance for all of my exams,” said global business sophomore Shloka Ramshankar.

“That way, the day before or two days before both mentally and emotionally, I’m not stressing too

8

COMICS

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

O&B: CAT NAP

BONK

JENNA CHERREY | MERCURY STAFF

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

SARAH STREETY | MERCURY STAFF

LOUISE NILLAS | MERCURY STAFF

TASTE THE RAINBOW

THE DARKNESS HAS BEEN DEFEATED

CECILIA ROMERO| MERCURY STAFF

5’8” KINGS RISE UP

BIANCA DEL RIO | MERCURY STAFF

DEITY FOR HIRE

ACTIVITY

QUINN SHERER | MERCURY STAFF

ELIZABETH NGUYEN | MERCURY STAFF

OPINION

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

9

Unpredictive policing Why Dallas PD's data-driven initiative promotes racial biases CINDY FOLEFACK Editor-in-Chief Dallas police chief Renee Hall recently announced the city’s answer to New York’s infamous stop and frisk: a data-driven program to increase police presence in high-crime areas, allowing officers to use traffic stops as an excuse to pull over anyone they deem “suspicious.” After events such as the murder of Botham Jean and the discovery of racist social media posts from officers, the department should be focusing on rebuilding trust through open discussion with minority communities to address the causes of crime rather than over-policing them.

In an interview with NBC5DFW,

Hall said the predictive policing program has been used in other cities, such as Los Angeles and Kansas City. The LA program, PredPol, was touted by law enforcement as a way to remove race from the equation in policing. The program uses an algorithm and data on past crime to predict where future crimes will occur.

This approach would work if the LAPD wasn’t racist.

The infamous 1992 Rodney King beating will be burned into the minds of black Americans for generations to come and more recently, a 2019 Los Angeles Times report found that a black person in a vehicle was more than four times as likely to be searched by police as a white person and a Latino was three times as likely to be searched, despite the fact that white people were found to be more likely to have drugs, weapons and contraband.

SAMANTHA LOPEZ | MERCURY STAFF

The algorithm rests on the assumption that past policing practices were sound, which is completely untrue for both LA and Dallas.

In January 2020, 13 Dallas police officers were disciplined for racist and Islamophobic social media posts, including some that joked about victims of police violence. One Dallas officer shared a post of a truck plowing through a crowd with the caption “(Black Lives Matter) and the (Ku Klux Klan) are just two different sides of the same hate coin.” Activist and paralegal Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist who drove his car through a crowd of protesters at an alt-right rally in August 2017. Another post from a Dallas officer read “Statistics show that criminals commit less crime after they’ve been shot.”

Another officer joked about slapping and abusing his wife. These racist and violent

tendencies aren’t limited to social media.

A 2017 study analyzed Dallas PD’s officer-involved shootings and cases where Dallas officers drew, but didn’t fire, their weapons. The study found that Dallas officers were more likely to draw their guns on minorities. The officers’ racist tendencies are present both online and in their policing, so any data gleaned from past policing data would be skewed to target minority areas. Hall said in an interview with NBC5DFW that her plan would only pick what’s worked in other cities using predictive policing and avoid tactics that have alienated people. You wouldn’t drink water from a poisoned well, so why rely on a system that uses heavily biased data?

Even Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata said that officers would be choosing who to stop based on “just

a hunch.” Hunches can be deadly, as was the case when state troopers killed a suspect last year during a traffic stop in Dallas. Despite promises of change, the Dallas Police Department continues to leave a trail of broken trust, dead bodies and grieving families.

Police are needed in high-crime neighborhoods, but not as individuals who will stop and arrest or possibly kill you on a hunch. They’re needed not as oppressors, but as individuals who are willing to talk to community members and work directly with them to figure out the root sources of crime and address that rather than using an approach that uses a power dynamic to incite fear by militarizing neighborhoods. It’s on Dallas PD to learn how to begin taking a step forward, rather than consistently taking two steps back.

The price of war Military funding should be redirected toward health, education

ZAYNAH REHAN

Mercury Staff In modern-day society, The United States of America is known for its vast economic wealth, numerous freedoms and opportunities and strong military.

The military industrial complex — defined as an establishment within a country that produces technology for the purposes of protection against outside threats — has become a business of war profiting from governmental interests. However, with such a large country holding many diverse peoples, it is important that the money the U.S. government accrues from its citizens be allocated — to a much greater degree — to areas of priority such as education and healthcare, rather than to factors such as defense.

According to the New York Times, 10% of the money generated from the nation’s

factory output is used to produce weapons which are then sold to the Department of Defense. A study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that the combination of Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and the ACA combined made up 26% of the nation’s budget in 2017 while 15% went to defense and security. Education received only 3%.

America depends on war. According to Stebbins and Comen from USA Today, the United States remains the “top armsproducing nation in the world.” America profits greatly from the production of defense technology, and in order for this to continue, spending within the country for such an industry will proceed to grow.

The military complex in the United States is a combination of contractors, individuals or organizations that provide military services, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon, companies that reported a combined profit of nearly $100 billion in 2017.

Terrorism can be a great threat to any country. However, the Wilson Center found that the number of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and North Africa actually decreased in 2018. The Center also reported that the largest decline in terrorist attack fatalities has been in Iraq, which had 75% fewer deaths, along with Syria, which saw a 40% decline. This goes to show that terrorism is no longer the prime reason for the American government to remain in such regions. It is very much apparent that what the nation is more interested in is the monetary gain in selling militaristic machines to war-torn countries. This in turn is not an action plan to combat terrorism, but in actuality a play on greed which can put the lives of civilians in danger when corrupt leaders in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are sold military technology.

According to Our World in Data, when a terrorist attack occurs, it receives significantly more media coverage if the

perpetrator is Muslim. Since the majority of wars waged by America itself have been centered in the Middle East and profit comes from selling weapons to many leaders within Islamic groups, it benefits the United States to continue to incite fear amongst the people. This fear is then used to feed America’s greed for more economic welfare. After all, per Al Jazeera, “75% of the fallen in these wars come from working class families. They do not need war. They pay the cost of the war.” Thus, the extent of our military and its industrial success has sacrificed people to benefit the few. How much longer will we accept this?

Out of all of the surprising statistics of overspending for war, the controversial truths and the horrendous profit on such a “business,” the worst part of such an industry are stories that originate from the contract companies within our country.

USA Today reported that Lockheed Martin caused the murder of innocent civil-

ians in 2018 after a bomb the company sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing 51 children and adults. From both an ethical and moral standpoint, why should we as humans allow our country to partake in the massacre of civilians? Why should we allow our country to allocate more of our hard-earned money, to a greater extent, to the military supported by privatized companies rather than prioritizing our education, health and infrastructure?

While all of this information may seem overwhelming or too controversial, let it be known that, over 300,00 civilians have died and another 21 million have been displaced due to violence according to CNBC. It is our tax money that’s allowing such nonsense to occur and continue. Our country is ruining the lives of not only our citizens, but also those of people in other parts of the world for the greed of a small percentage of privately-owned companies and people in Congress. Let this abomination end.

sex transition has admittedly “not been proven safe,” according to Youth Trans Critical Professionals, an online group of left-leaning medical and academic experts. Even without reassignment surgery, puberty blockers, if followed by cross-sex hormones, will permanently sterilize any child who receives them, as well as arrest their bone growth, likely prevent brain maturation, and possibly put them at risk for breast cancer. “There is a serious ethical problem in allowing irreversible, lifechanging procedures to be performed on minors who are too young themselves to give valid consent,” said Michelle Cretella, one of over 500 pediatricians opposed to the transitioning of dysphoric children.

Unfortunately, due to the spread of left-

ist gender ideology, any attempt to help dysphoric children move past their GD has been labelled as hateful and transphobic. Instead, they are encouraged to undergo treatment which will sterilize them, destroy healthy body parts, and reinforce a self-perception linked with depression, anxiety and suicide. All this despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of those children would have eventually accepted their biological sex if left alone. As former transgender Walt Heyer explained, teaching children that there’s something intrinsically wrong with their bodies is not “affirmation,” it is “child abuse.” Children should be encouraged to love their bodies, not hate them. That is how we truly affirm them.

I hate me

Why sex transitions harm gender dysphoric children MICHAEL LOCKWOOD Mercury Staff

“The prospect of completely changing your body, your life, your identity, is very compelling to a teenager who’s just learning to cope with mental health issues,” said Cari Stella. As she explained on her YouTube channel, Stella was 15 years old when she became sure that deep down she was a boy. Per the guidance of her therapist, she began taking testosterone injections, and eventually had both breasts surgically removed. Seven years later, Stella was devastated by the decision she had made. “I am a real, live 22-year-old woman, with a scarred chest, and a broken voice, and a 5 o’clock shadow because I couldn’t face the idea of growing up to be a woman, that’s my reality.”

Stella was just one of many youth exploited by the increasing trend among therapists to quickly affirm and physically transition children who have gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a condition in which one’s self-perceived gender disagrees with their biological sex. Over the past decade, hundreds of gender clinics

have opened with the purpose of physically transitioning children with GD by means of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and, eventually, sex-reassignment surgery.

Similar to GD, Body Integrity Identity Disorder is a condition in which one feels trapped inside the wrong body. Sufferers of BIID feel like disabled persons stuck inside of healthy bodies, and often become so distressed that they seek to “cure” their ailment by amputating healthy limbs or severing their spinal cord. However, unlike with GD, the medical response to those with BIID has typically been psychological treatment rather than physical transition. This is because while cutting off healthy body parts may provide temporary emotional relief among those with BIID, it does nothing to address the underlying psychological problem.

In the same way, cutting off one’s breasts or penis merely masks the psychological problems causing GD. Stella acknowledged this after she recovered from her gender dysphoria, explaining that physically transforming her body was a “maladaptive coping mechanism.” Children with GD need much more than a “coping mechanism.” Over half of transgender people are depressed, and nearly one third have attempted to kill themselves. That is a stag-

geringly high suicide rate, and according to the Williams Institute, the rate doesn’t go down after sex transition. In Sweden alone, individuals who had received sexreassignment surgery had a suicide rate twenty times greater than that of the general population, despite Sweden being the most LGBT-affirming nation in the world.

“It can be damn hard to figure out that the treatment you’re being told is to help you is actually making your mental health worse,” recalled Stella.

Perhaps the most crucial fact in all of this is that children with GD will end up identifying with their biological sex by late adolescence 80-95% of the time, if left unhindered by “gender-corrective” intervention, according to the Journal of Sexual Medicine. But when those same children are pushed to embrace a transgender identity and physically altered body, it becomes very difficult to leave GD behind. The consequence is that a previously avoidable burden of psychological distress and suicidality is imposed upon children who otherwise would likely have grown up to be happy, healthy adults.

Children and young teenagers are developmentally incapable of properly evaluating the risks of such a decision. This is seriously concerning when one considers that

March 9, 2020| The Mercury

10

OPINION

KEERTHI SRILAKSHMIDRAN

Mercury Staff

Umbrella of Resistance How photography, illustrations can facilitate political change

The smartphone has democratized digital art, rendering it simple for users to clickand-capture and imitate the professional craft of photography. With a press of a button, the picture of your foamy Americano or Nutella toast — along with a vibrantly nostalgic filter — can be shared with the world. Critics claim digital art is a fake art form because it’s perceived as requiring less time and effort. Though the discipline and exertion required to practice many art forms should be celebrated, it seems unjustified to discount other artists and their preferred mediums based on this sole factor.

Rather than focusing on an artist’s exertion for an art form, more emphasis has to be placed on an artist’s strength and conviction to create art that can promote transformational change — regardless of whether it is in a traditional or digital setting.

Digital art is a means through which people can enter the political arena and play their part voicing their beliefs. The intersection of digital art and activism are two fields defined by shared characteristics: creating new paradigms and encouraging engagement that shifts boundaries. Both activists and artists share space in the challenges of the unknown — never truly knowing the final outcome of their work until it is finished. The experimental nature of both fields makes digital art a perfect medium for activists to spread awareness and even influence public opinion. Moving past discussions of the

“easiness” of digital art and redirecting focus towards the messages of digital art pieces will help us recognize digital art as an authentic art form that is far more powerful than we realize.

One such photo was taken by Lam Yik Fei at Yuen Long during the Hong Kong Protests in July 2019. In response to a law that allowed extraditions to mainland China, the photograph depicts the police firing tear gas at hundreds of protestors while they clutch umbrellas above their heads. The umbrella, a symbol of resistance in these protests, evokes a sense of solidarity against the cruel act of the police and has the potential to gain sympathy in viewers, awareness for the cause and shift public opinion as they understand the severity of the situation in Hong Kong. The image demonstrates how a powerful photograph can sway public opinion.

Furthermore, an illustration by Eva Bee in Offline Comics portrays her view on the immigration crisis of 2015. Her art exhibits two hands above the ocean holding immigrants as they attempt to reach Europe. The hands, representing Europe, reflects the illustrator’s sentiment that the fate of migrant lives and their hopes lies in the hands of the European government. Bee’s perspective of the fragile nature of the migrant situation in 2015 was delivered to thousands through this illustration.

However, digital art’s impact on public opinion can be used for harm. During the 2016 US elections, Facebook accounts linked to the Russian government targeted a wide group of people by posting digital art in order to stoke division and rage within the country. Such groups included African Americans, Muslims and LG-

BTQ+ people. A Hillary Clinton digital art ad with a painted “X’ marked over her face heavily targeted pro-Trump supporters and aimed to fuel division between the two groups by garnering over 15,000 likes. Though digital art is a powerful tool in which to share political ideologies, it is upsetting to see it used as a means to incite conflict and anger within a nation.

Finding creative engagement through the digital art form is meaningful and empowers young artists all over the world to showcase their ideas, passion and beliefs to millions of people on the internet. It is a sad reality, as journalist Gauri Lankesh said, that digital art and propaganda can be used to “poison the political environment” by encouraging division instead of unity. Often, people fail to understand digital art’s relevance and implications.

Our only solution to those who misuse digital art is, first, to be more aware of digital art that intends to provoke antagonism and second, refrain from bringing more attention to it.

As college students trying to place our mark on the world, we are sometimes confronted with the gloomy realities that are our future: topics including climate change, the student loan crisis and immigration reform. We must ask ourselves: what can I do to play my part?

Digital art serves as an answer to this question for many who desire to intersect their artistic passions with their appetite for reform on global issues. This is art. How it’s brought to life or what equipment is needed to create it is beside the point. It’s creating something meaningful to you, something that fights for your beliefs, something that allows people to see the world from your lens. That is art.

Help Yourself A critique of self-help book “Skin in the Game” PRATIK KOPPIKAR Mercury Staff With great power comes great responsibility — or it should, in theory. Nassim Taleb, author of “Skin in the Game,” takes this to another level: we must be prepared to face potential consequences for every action we take and every word we say. If we don’t wish to incur the backlash, we should have no say in the matter. But what would happen to our discourse if we weren’t allowed to express our opinions unless we had personal stake in the matter at hand?

The majority of Taleb’s argument is selfcontradictory — we’re to be wary of anyone

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giving unsolicited advice — which is exactly what “Skin in the Game” is. We’re to distrust academics and supposed intellectual discussion, while SITG is at its core an intellectual discussion. As other reviewers have noted, Taleb would face no repercussions for having extreme or incorrect philosophy; he’d then fail to have skin in the game of his own argument.

Throughout his analysis, rules that appear sound have scant evidence, and appear to be personal attacks rather than part of the overall argument. As he criticizes Thomas Picketty, Steven Pinker, Hillary Clinton, Monsanto, Salafi Muslims, academics and even book reviewers, Taleb begins to drift into an argument founded more on personal beliefs than universal truths. Still, SITG occasionally presents logical precepts that follow

lines of reasoning.

In the discussion of trusting the advice of others, SITG is strong — conceptually.

Do we trust the advice of those we know nothing about — that aren’t invested in us?

Just like a bad relationship, caring about the opinion of someone who doesn’t care about you can only end up in heartbreak. Without facing the consequences of potentially destructive advice, words are nothing more than empty space. Invest in yourself and seek results from those you trust, not advice from a so-called “expert.”

Another counterintuitive — but logical — point argued by Taleb is that stubborn minorities force society to comply with their standards rather than majority rule. An example of minority dominance: it is easier for a family to eat vegan due to one person’s

beliefs than prepare all meals with and without meat options. As the scale has increased, veganism has expanded to apartment living, office parties and the Golden Globes. On campus, minority rule is a way for smaller organizations to be heard; noncompliant groups with strong arguments are historically the ones that have enacted change here.

A dynamic minority is then stronger than a stagnant majority.

However, Taleb’s dialogue on rationality — that what is rational is that which furthers survival of the self — can be disputed.

We better understand rationality in terms of choosing pleasure and happiness, not survival. One would be more inclined to choose 10 years of happiness over 100 years of pain and suffering — choosing longevity and survival over happiness is therefore not always

“rational.” In choosing how to develop our relationships, we look for what makes us happiest, not always what’s sustainable. We trust and invest in others, hoping — rationally — that they choose to trust us too.

“Skin in the Game” is therefore not a mantra to live by, but more a concept to understand in transaction with ourselves and others. Whether it’s at the individual or organization level, our interactions with others are governed by both trust and consequence. By trusting the opinions of others, we’re seeking success guided by our peers, while risking loss to ourselves or our groups lest they be wrong. Taleb’s argument of consequence may come from a place of personal interest, but we should still understand that when we choose to take risks, we’d better develop thicker skin.

March 9, 2020 | The Mercury

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NEWS

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

lationship blossomed the more they hung out together, and after declaring their desire for a serious relationship, the pair have been inseparable. She said that while she didn’t believe in love at first sight, she felt good looking at Mestanza’s profile and she was open to the idea of seeing where it went.

“I truly wasn't looking for a relationship at that point. But then I think I was in a good place because of that. I wasn't looking for one anymore,” Samson said. “I was more happy with myself, you know? So I think that's when you actually find a good relationship.

It's when you're at peace with yourself and you're just putting your best foot out there because that's what you attract.”

In a Mercury survey of 143 students, 33.6% of respondents said they were in relationships.

Of those respondents, 32.6% met online, like Samson and Mestanza. It’s been nearly 10

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for stories, right?” He said. “And the world is desperate for poems now more than ever. We need more writers who look like you, whoever you are. Whether you're a woman, or queer, or whatever you identify as for your collective, we need more of your voices in the literary world.”

Not only has Zihuatenejo been able to impact others with poetry with his own work, but by teaching students with his love of poetry, he has been able to inspire a new group of poets who can go out and share their ideas to the world, as Jayraj Dave, a JSOM information technology and management graduate student, said. Dave tied for second place at the competition on his piece about grief and acceptance after a break-up. Zihuatenejo helped open his mind to communicate to the world through poetry, Dave said.

“I've always been an introverted person, so that's why I often find art forms to express myself,” Dave said. “I cannot really simply express myself. So this is an integral part for me to express subtle human emotions about me and about the world in general.”

By going through the process, Dave not only learned to perform poetry to others but better appreciate poetry’s value for himself, Dave said.

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“The tables we have are two feet smaller than the tables we compete on and they need to be more well-maintained. So right now, just for our practice, we don't actually play because playing on these tables isn't going to help us compete,” Kincaid said.

“There's all different kinds of drills that we might run through practice and we'll just kind of have like a line going, we'll have everybody running through it, seeing who can get through it, what they need to work on.”

Mechanical engineering senior Justin Williams joined the billiards club with Kincaid last semester and handles most of the technique training during weekly practices. He said he notices people making fundamental mistakes when they play involving stance and stroke, and that being a part of the club was a way to leave behind something positive to the university.

“If we can gather this community and better all of them, then that only benefits everybody — it’s a positive experience,” Williams said.

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ter he won his prize money, Peillard received emails from investors who were running an accelerator, an organization that helps startups attain success.

“Helix Accelerator … was run by this company who invested in the Hedera crypto platform we’re building on, which is actually based in Dallas,” Peillard said. “They invest-

months since they first met, and Mestanza said they keep their relationship going through honest communication and by making efforts to understand each other’s viewpoints.

“It's not like two people are perfect for each other right away.

Two people are good for each other if they can work towards building a perfect relationship,” he said. “Relationships aren't inherent, but they're made.”

The two frequently spend time together hanging out at Samson’s apartment, trying new foods at local restaurants and doing homework together in campus labs.

Samson said Mestanza will come to her Anime Orchestra Ensemble concerts and Society of Women Engineers events frequently and help her with her homework.

“I was struggling on an assignment. He came in clutch, you know? I mean, as a (computer science) grad student, he's just so smart,” she said. “I feel like it'll take me hours to think about something or figure something out and he'll come and help me

in like 30 minutes.”

60.1% of survey respondents said they weren’t in relationships.

Common reasons included not meeting the right person, having other priorities or not wanting to commit, among other things.

Nearly 40% of respondents hadn’t been on any dates. Of those respondents, 62.1% said they hadn’t been asked.

Before his relationship, Mestanza said, he perpetuated the stereotype of a lack of love at UTD. Being single for most of his time at UTD and having low self-esteem, Mestanza said it was easy to feel sad about not being in a relationship.

“I feel like it's really easy to get into a self-perpetuating cycle of feeling sad because you're not with anybody, so seeing yourself as lower (and) feeling sad about it. At some point I do agree with it,” he said. “You just have to leave yourself open to the possibility that things could happen and you know, work on yourself first and make sure you're not in a bad place.”

“I think I have read my poems more than anyone has. I have read my poems hundreds of times, and I've cried on my own poems,” Dave said. “So it has helped me immensely. I mean, probably more than any friend I have … to move on, to accept things.”

His passion for poetry was clear to Zihuatenejo. In the workshops before the contest, Dave asked to video call into the sessions because he was a 28-mile drive away from campus. Another poet who shared the second-place title with his collaborator is physics graduate student Ved Agarwal.

“Poetry is love; poetry is passion,” Agarwal said. “For me, poetry is a thing that hits your mind, but deep down, you can feel it straight into your heart. So, the heart and the mind become one.”

After the first workshop, the poets were asked to share their stories: how they went through pain and how they healed from it. For Agarwal, he had two focuses.

“As a boy, the pain started from the girl I loved when we got separated,” Agarwal said. “The next pain which I feel is the look of sympathy in people because of my problem of stammering.”

Agarwal’s collaborator on stage was ATEC faculty member Ayen Kuol, who saw the power in Agarwal’s words and asked to collaborate with him. Initially, both poets had

individual poems they were going to present. While Agarwal’s poem talked about the loss of a lover, Kuol discussed a controlling mother figure who nurtured, yet took away the freedoms of the ones she loved.

Both of the traumas that the poets went through were combined into one poem where they could find healing together, Kuol said.

“What I wanted that poem to bring out was truth and honesty. That healing process is not clean, it's nasty,” Kuol said. “Healing is messy. It's not sit down and meditate. It’s realizing things that make you want to run away from yourself. But in the end, healing does happen. That is what I wanted the audience to understand.”

At the end of the night, the people in that room felt more connected to each other, and humanity, Zihuatenejo said. But the effects of the poetry didn’t stop that night.

Rather, Zihuatenejo said, he was only a small part of the poets’ very large lives.

“It starts with the poem and the mic, and then it ripples into the room. Then those people go to their families and their homes and their communities,” he said. “They talk about what they experienced, and they grow from it. It's what I love about poetry: it connects us to our humanity. I think so many of the poets tonight did that; they connected us to their humanity and our shared humanity.”

The 10-ball double elimination tournament that took place in February involved billiards teams from universities across Texas, and everyone on the UTD team competed individually. Players are divided into A, B and C classes and compete within brackets.

During the championship, Nguyen won all five rounds, finishing off in the semifinals and finals against Lone Star College’s Andres 4-2. Nguyen said throughout his time he tried not to make mistakes while playing and, as a strategy to help him focus, would hold his breath until he felt light-headed and red-faced. He said he got distracted during one of the matches when his opponent congratulated him before he could make his shot.

“It was on the 10 ball. It was in the corner and I just had to make the small cut and I guess the guy I was facing was like ‘Good game, this is over cause it's an easy cut.’ He walked up to me, shook my hand and it completely threw me off,” Nguyen said. “I was like, ‘The game's not over yet. Please don't do that.’ So, the guy assumed that it was going to be over and just that little break in

concentration can throw you off completely or you overthink it so much, you end up missing a really easy shot. The 10 ball is basically inside the pocket and I completely missed it.”

Although the team has been practicing on the six pool tables in the Student Union, Kincaid said it was difficult to play on them because they need repairs such as re-felting, fixing worn bumpers and broken pockets.

When the tables aren’t in good shape, gameplay is heavily affected because the ball can curve or change angles no matter how straight a player hits the ball.

Once the tables are repaired, he said they hope to host an informal tournament at UTD with other UT schools next month and bring more awareness to UTD Billiards as a whole.

“I kind of feel like we have some of the out of the ordinary sports compared to a traditional university. There’s like no football team or anything, but we have chess, we have esports, stuff like that,” Kincaid said.

“So, we figured why not turn billiards into a big deal here. If chess could be fourth in the nation, why can't we?”

ed in Hedera, and they realized they needed an ecosystem of applications and platforms building on top of it to really generate value. They started an accelerator, which they invited us to. That’s really what got everything moving really quickly.”

Peillard said that other students who are looking to create or innovate should find an area and build on a section of that area in order to maximize profit.

“I think we all make that mis-

take of building a bunch of different things, like as a CS major, the world’s at your fingertips,” Peillard said. “But then you’re looking at the grand scheme of things. You end up building five, 10 applications that don't relate at all with anything that you might be doing in the future. I think focusing on maybe an area or a segment of what you were doing really pays dividends because then you become more of an expert in that field.”

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