The
Technician bulldogs.kettering.edu/technician
January 27, 2018
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Volume 125
Issue 1
Thompson Hall Frost Fest
By Jacob Hankerd Submission Writer On second week Tuesday Thompson Hall held “Frost Fest” to celebrate the winter season usually missed by the A section residents of the residence hall. This event is actually the first of many events that are centered around Thompson putting in that extra effort to give A section students the opportunity to celebrate holidays during our term. As a reference, B section hosts the holidays more widely celebrated (e.g. Halloween, Christmas, etc.) and holds events for these holidays routinely. Frost Fest was not a simple Christmas party, but a gathering including many winter based activities. If you were in attendance, you would have had the opportunity to “build a snowman”, create snowflakes out of coffee filters, make your own personalized
Photo Courtesy of Kettering Communications
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What’s Inside
Submission Pieces Why They Matter
A Letter from the Editor
The Shape of Water 3
Movie Review
First Impressions
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Kettering University
Weather Patterns in Flint
By Jerico Markel Editor-In-Chief
By Rebecca Roughton Staff Writer
While this is not my first time writing for the technician it is certainly the first time I’ve done so from the perspective of Editor in Chief. Truthfully I didn’t expect to jump from new member to EIC in a matter of three months. Yet here I am, heading the student newspaper. The transition between myself and Adam Lezcnar, the former EIC, was a little bumpy but that was to be expected. Adam has been a very active member of this club since he first joined Kettering and has been the EIC for the past few years. Thankfully he has stuck around as the Copy Editor and I can bounce questions about who to contact for things or when we last wrote certain pieces off of him. Personally I think he’s going to really miss ‘The Technician’ when he graduates. You only experience your undergrad years once and this paper has played a major role in his time here at Kettering. As for me? Well I may have run for the position of EIC uncontested but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to sit back and relax. I’m new to things and I will openly admit that
With January finishing up, Flint is roughly halfway through the winter. However, while some days may feel like they’re almost to spring, there’s sure to be another bout of coldness just around the corner. Let’s take a look at how we’re doing so far! According to MLive, the Flint area averages around 50 inches of snow a year. Though Flint had its first “staying” snow only in mid December, as opposed to late November, when the drifts have come in, it’s been quite high at three, four, or more inches. In addition, there have been several misty or rainy days, where if it were only colder, there likely would have been more snow. Since winter has not yet run its course through the city, it’s difficult to estimate if
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New Puzzles Sudoku & Picross
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Detroit Auto Show 2018: Stuff* By Jack Moylan Submission Writer So, “what happened at the 2018 North American Int ernati o na l Auto Show?” you may ask yourself… Stuff. While not as large as large year’s show, there was a very interesting mix of some manufacturers with drastic changes, and some with no changes at all to their lineups. Also, I don’t know what the heck Detroit did, but Mazda was not there, and I blame Detroit. Anyway, here’s what was hip and new at this year’s show. Chevy and Hot Wheels teamed up once again for the 50 th anniversary of Hot Wheels Camaro. In case you didn’t know, the Camaro was the first real car Hot Wheels made a model of, and has had an anniversary edition made before (it’s just an appearance package and stripe kit, but hey, good enough, right?). Jumping across the aisle, literally, Ford also had an anniversary pony car of their own, the 50 th anniversary Bullitt Mustang. Crazy, I know. THIS one, though, has more than the movie appearance, with 15 more roaring ponies, and only a 6-speed transmission, as God intended. Continuing with Ford, the long-awaited return of the Ranger, as well the utter blindsiding from the new Continued on Page 3
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January 27, 2018
The Technician
Announcements
Letter from the Editor
Weather Patterns
Continued from Front Page
Continued from Front Page
there are already things as EIC that I could have done better. Communication with your fellow staff members is important and as an introverted person I sometimes fail to ask the questions or speak the words that really matter. It’s a struggle that some of you know all too well and that some of you will find completely foreign. That struggle is why I decided to join ‘The Technician’ in the first place. If you don’t push yourself then you won’t improve. If starting/holding conversations with strangers is something I’m bad with then approaching people for interviews and becoming their friend in the process is what I want to do. To that end I would encourage the curious to come to our club meetings. That those who want to work on their writing/ interviewing/ photography skills to pay us a visit and ask any unsaid questions they may have. It took me two years to finally work up the nerve to attend a meeting. By the end of the second week I was already interviewing professors and writing articles.
it will be above or below average this year, but so far, the temperatures have definitely hit some bizarre highs and lows. These varying temperatures can most easily be seen in the difference between Saturday, January 6th’s -20 degree Fahrenheit (including windchill) night followed by Thursday, January 11th’s almost 60 degree Fahrenheit day. Michigan has always been known for its ability to shift the weather at an
The Technician Mondays & Thursdays @ 12:20 p.m. Campus Center 3rd Floor
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Kettering Entrepreneur Society Thursdays @ 8:00 KES Room, 5th Floor CC
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Technician
alarming rate, but is this normal? Looking at wunderground.com’s weather history for Flint, it seems that both the maximum and minimum are more extreme this year than in most recent years as well as more distant ones, such as 1970. A major consequence of these patterns is that the roads can become quite dangerous. Though it may be nice to enjoy 40+ degree weather, having the next few days drop down to the 20s or bellow means that all of the snow that’s melted is now frozen, likely in thin layers, across the roads. With the stoplight already out at Chevrolet and University due to a traffic accident, the campus is not in need of more. So do check if there is an ice advisory, or if your area has recently gone from warm to cold weather suddenly. Forecasts so far predict a relatively mild February with bouts of chill once again, so don’t get accustomed to too nice of weather. Even if mild, the same threat of dangerous roads threatens once again, and improper attire can spell pain if not worse. In summary, it appears as though while the overall temperature disparities are larger and happening within fewer days of each other, snowfall is so far consistent with recent years. Either way, it’s best to be prepared for whatever weather throws at Flint!
Jerico Markel
Editor-in-chief
Nathan Schleh
L ayout Editor
Adam Lezcnar
Copy Editor
Jerico Markel
Online Editor
Robert Lyman
Distribution Editor
Staff writers Navardo Henry Rebecca Roughton
Faculty Advisor Rebecah Pulsifer Special Thanks To Betsy Homsher & Debbie Stewart
The Value of Submissions By Jerico Markel Editor-In-Chief A newspaper does not run solely on the news. In fact modern day small papers cannot run solely on the news. While ‘The Technician’ doesn’t have to worry about turning out a profit it does still need to fill its pages with something. Presently most of that content comes from the staff, who put in a lot of time to seek out events across the Kettering and Flint community and then turn that into a 300, 500, or even 1800 word article. And the other content? The pictures, puzzles, and memes? (Yes we have memes now) Well that also comes from the staff. Now I’m not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I’m very grateful to those that put the time in to make this paper what it is, but I personally feel that if this paper is to truly prosper then it must have the voice of those outside the club. That of my fellow students, fellow Greeks, the professors, the regular Kettering staff members, even the parents of students at this University. Just as WKUF calls itself “The Voice of Kettering” so to do I think that ‘The Technician’ should be a voice of this University. Do one of the Professors Continued on Page 3
Submissions Policy The Technician encourages any interested students to attend staff meetings. Meetings for Winter 2018 will be each Monday and Thursday over the lunch hour in The Technician office, located on the 3rd floor of the Campus Center above the Sunrise Café. Student submissions are encouraged and will be published if their material is in the public interest. Submissions or letters to the editor from faculty and administrative entities will be published if space is available. The Technician reserves the right to edit any and all submissions for brevity and clarity. Anonymous submissions are rarely published and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Individuals wishing to publish anonymously should consult the Editor-in-chief. The deadline for the upcoming issue of The Technician is 6th Thursday at 6pm. Expected distribution is 7th Monday. Send submissions to atechnician@googlegroups.com.
January 27, 2018
Detroit Auto Show Continued from Front Page Edge ST, are both great new additions for 2019. M o r e stuff for the off-roaders reading, the brand-new Jeep Wrangler was also at the show, in several variants. If anyone has seen Doug DeMuro’s review on it, you know that it is one of the most self-loving automobiles ever made. With military jeeps placed all over the interior and exterior, as well as anything you could ever want to do with your Jeep Wrangler easily done, it is perfect for car nerds and Jeep fans alike. Subaru, the go-fast- ongravel brand we all know and… memes… brought new performance variants of their STI and BRZ, The STI Type RA and BRZ Ts. The variants both giving you a different wing and tuned suspension, but no turbo for the BRZ yet, sorry. Hyundai gave us the US launch of its new “N” performance brand, which instead of the i30 N, we get the Veloster N (it’s the same engine, so basically the same car, right?). They also had a riced-out Velostar that apparently stars in the
upcoming “Ant-Man and the Wasp” movie, with purple wrap, flames, aluminum foil wrapped (I’m serious) wing, Weld Racing wheels and side exit exhausts, which prevent the iconic third door from opening. I wish the flames were real.
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The Technician
Campus News On the concept side, several manufacturers, such as Infiniti, Nissan and Toyota, brought their own futuristic models, with most able to be described with one or both of the following: suicide
they don’t want to join the club. Let me make this clear: joining the staff and writing an article for submission are two separate things. You can submit things on a regular basis and still not be a part of the staff. We don’t put your name on the club roster unless you ask us too. With that being said there is an e-mail address in this paper and on the banner in the Great Court that you can send submissions to. I look forward to hearing more from the people that make up this Kettering Community.
Frost Fest Continued from Front Page Christmas Ornaments, and enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa. All the while some classic wintry songs (some Christmas, but not all) set the mood for an enjoyable time. doors and SUV. Mercedes brought one of their planned electric model examples, which looks as sleek as ever and promising for an electric future. Lastly, Rally Kings made a return for all of us tuners, with a much smaller display, but with The King’s Huracan looking fine as ever. All in all, despite being unable to escape the overwhelmingly delicious scent of roasting almonds in COBO (still not joking), it was a very satisfying auto show in Detroit, and bodes well for the year to come.
Value of Submissions Continued from Page 2 have some cool research going on that they want people to know about? Is there a student with a hobby that they greatly enjoy and wish to share? Maybe someone’s Mother knows a really great recipe? Or perhaps a Greek house wants to highlight some recent community service? All of these are valid things to publish. All of these represent a part of the people that make up the Kettering experience. But to publish these things people need to submit them. If there are students that want more Sudoku then they need to inform ‘The Technician’ so we can add it. Which actually did happen and is why you will find Sudoku on the back page. Now I’ve heard one individual mention that they don’t want to write anything for submission because
The event also displayed some adaptability as unfortunately the weather was being difficult, a typical Michigan Tuesday, and the snow melted mostly, and reverted to a powder that was useless for snowman building. However, undeterred the RA’s set up
butcher paper for snowmen to be made in the halls, which now serve as jovial reminders of the event. In addition to this, one might notice the seemingly out of date “Christmas” tree. It is the hope of THA and the RA’s that this tree will remain up and used for upcoming holidays and celebration throughout the year. Currently there are plans in the making for a Valentine’s celebration, and discussion on more options such as Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day.
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The Technician
Through The Camera Lens
January 27, 2018
Left: A sign from the North American International Auto Show Bottom: Students volunteered during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Of Service to make dog toys for local shelters
January 27, 2018
The Technician
Kettering In Pictures
Top & Right: Students admiring paintings from the Inner Vitality Art Exhibition with work by Julian Van Dyke Bottom: Dr. Christine Levecq talks about Julian Van Dyke's art from the exhibit
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The Technician
News
First Impressions The Shape of Kettering of Water: Del University Toro’s Whimsical Modern Fantasy
By Rebecah Pulsifer Faculty Advisor
I first visited Kettering University in early spring, when the trees surrounding campus were just beginning to spout their leaves. As I made my way around the maze-like Academic Building, I walked by d.spaces covered in equations written with dry erase markers, classrooms humming with the steady sound of pens moving across notebooks, and students chatting in the halls about concepts recently covered in class, upcoming final exams, and, of course, all kinds of cars. I was struck by how often students smiled and greeted me as they walked by me in the halls. Most of my experiences with higher education have been in large, public universities— Western Michigan University, Purdue University, and most recently the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—where chance encounters between students and faculty are few and far between, so I was pleasantly surprised to see how often students caught sight of faculty members in the halls and came over to ask a question, or just to say hello. A few months later, I began my first term as a new faculty member in the Liberal Studies Department. My Ph.D. is in English literature, so in my first term I taught LS 201: Exploring the Human Condition. From the first week, students came to class with the reading complete and ready for debate. Since then, I’ve noticed that typical Kettering students are eager to tackle challenging material and discuss the relevance of others’ research to their lives. I’ve given recommendations on what students should read next if their interest in a topic hasn’t been satiated by the course material, and I’ve read smart, insightful papers that make meaningful arguments about how humans are and should be. I’ve appreciated how Kettering students push discussions in new directions, beyond where I could take the class on my own. My career has been shaped by my interest in stories. Before entering graduate school, I worked briefly in the fast-paced world of journalism. I decided to return to the academy because I missed the long stretches of time it provides, which allow us to explore and fully answer research questions for months or even years. These long stretches of time, it seems to me, allow us to come up with novel solutions to problems and to develop questions we didn’t know we had. I’m honored to begin serving as the A-section faculty mentor for The Technician, and to help student writers tell the stories of Kettering.
By Adam Lecznar Copy Editor Fairy Tales and stories of the supernatural have an insurmountable place in human cultures. Whether whimsical and joyous or dark and somber, tales of a magical world lying just behind the veil of our own have pervaded collective thought throughout recorded history. In Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water, we are treated to one such tale that is at the same time heartwarming and all too flawed. The titular monster of Del Toro’s film, dubbed the “Asset” after having been captured in the Amazon by the antagonist Richard Strickland, evokes a fairylike innocence and grace while also maintaining a savage natural instinct. Held captive in a military research facility in Baltimore, the Asset is seen as nothing less and nothing more than a thing to be controlled and studied, at least in the eyes of Strickland. With the Cold War nearing its peak in the film, the threat of the Asset’s existence being discovered by Soviets is also at the forefront of everyone’s minds. The otherwise ideal portrait of American life in the late 1950’s - championed by Strickland when he decides to purchase a brand new Cadillac to drive home to his wife and children - is to this end turned on its head by the discovery the Asset, and undercut by the ever-present threat of Soviet espionage. A world that is as normal as can be, but also much more than that, is where Del Toro weaves his tale of unconventional love, loneliness and personal acceptance. The film’s plot kicks off when Eliza, a member of the janitorial staff at the research facility, discovers the existence of the creature alongside her friend and coworker, Zelda. She immediately takes an interest in the creature, and sneaks into the lab whenever possible. Initially feeding it hard-boiled eggs, Eliza bonds with it by playing jazz records and dancing with a mop while it watches, chained in a pool or stuck behind a glass window. It is all too eager to accept food and affection as opposed to malice at the hands of the cattle-prod-wielding Strickland. For some time this continues, but Del Toro uses this to his advantage. He makes this world even more surreal by showcasing how ordinary this routine becomes. Everything Eliza does for the next
January 27, 2018
weeks functions like clockwork, and is actually used to mimic the ticking sound. Whether it’s her timed morning bath while boiling eggs, her rhythmic buffing of her shoes, or her consistent late arrival to work, Eliza lives a mundane life, but even before the arrival of the Asset held an ethereal aura. Afterward, those same mundane aspects juxtapose with the Asset to emphasize how surreal this everyday life is. Eventually it is concluded to dissect the Asset, a decision made by the visiting Five Star General Hoyt that is as much about scientific knowledge as it is proving his authority to the objecting Dr. Hoffstetler, lead researcher for the Asset. When Eliza catches wind of this, she hatches a plan to rescue the Asset and set it free. With the help of Zelda, her elderly neighbor Giles, and surprisingly Dr. Hoffstetler, she succeeds in smuggling the Asset out of the facility and into her apartment. This is where we see another aspect of Del Toro’s world that tells us there is more to the story. Eliza and her gang are a bunch of misfits and outcasts. Eliza is mute, which is why she connects so much with the Asset. She sees herself as incomplete, and in the Asset, also mute, she sees something that bonds them. Her friend Zelda is a downtrodden black woman trying to make the best of her life in a time that was still filled with so much bigotry. Her neighbor Giles lives across the hall from her above a theater, and is a closeted gay man who is out of work - likely because of his sexuality - and struggles to accept his self worth. Finally, Dr. Hoffstetler is actually a Soviet spy tasked with relaying information about the Asset, whose contacts have decided to instead terminate it and are quickly turning on him. Together they find common understanding because they all know they are alone, and cannot win without each other. Once the Asset’s release is discovered, Strickland becomes a veritable juggernaut in his endeavors to retrieve it. Del Toro even gives us a glimpse of why this self-made man, who reads The Power of Positive Thinking while at work, is so desperate to bring the Asset back. If he fails on this mission, his first failure, General Hoyt threatens to deconstruct his entire world. For a man on constant power trips, the idea of not being in control leads him to loosen his grip on rationality. This is symbolized by his fingers, which were reattached after the Asset bit them off, slowly blackening and leaking pus as they decay on his hand. He tracks down Hoffstetler, at the same time saving him from his Soviet extraction team turned assassins and killing him to find the women. From there he harasses Zelda and arrives just in time to halt the Asset’s release. Only the Asset puts him out
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The Technician
Entertainment
The Shape of Water
Picross
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How To Play
of commission for good, but not before Eliza is critically wounded. In the end, the Asset flees with Eliza just as the authorities arrive, leaving Zelda and Giles, the apparent narrator of the story, to lament the loss of their mutual friend. Still Giles remains hopeful that underneath the rain-harassed surface of the water, Eliza and the creature found happiness together. We know that the creature healed Eliza with an apparently mystical power, while also giving her gills so that she could join him in his world, the water. In this movie, the water is the fairy tale landscape of folktales. Underneath its service, everything moves with grace and the dim refraction of light creates an environment that is just slightly alien. And Eliza, with her graceful movements gained from years of communicating through body language, seems more a natural denizen of this realm than of our world. The Shape of Water creates a vibrant love story to which audiences can relate, but which is also slightly askew. It can be difficult to understand the love Eliza feels for a fishman, and yet the viewer can’t help but wish them the best. Del Toro is not so kind to his other characters, though. As the scene closes, Eliza has found happiness, but her companions must question her fate. Giles is still out of work and has no one left in his life, while Hoffstetler died in a foreign land knowing that his country and people had abandoned him and he had no allies save Eliza. Few things. Strangely Zelda comes out as the best suited to continue life, as she holds up her modern way of living in spite of all the oppression and systemic abuse she may face. After all she’d been doing it her whole life already. All of them could face incredible legal penalties, and it is implied that Giles’ narration at the beginning and end of the film is given while being held by the authorities. None of these people get the fairy tale ending they award Eliza, but they fight nonetheless even if just to have a glimpse of that wondrously absurd world that Del Toro dreamed up - the world where, despite all of reality’s laws and societies rules, something almost ghostly pass by us and be made real before it drifts back to its own realm and out of our fleetingly quick lives.
Introduction Tutorial: solving a picross puzzle - 1 First of all here is what a picross puzzle looks like. Here we have a 5 by 5 puzzle. There are several numbers on the left side and above the puzzle. Each sequence of numbers in front of a line or above a column indicates how many squares have to be blackend in this line or columns. For instance, the 3 above the first column indicates that 3 squares have to be blackened, one after the other. Step one Tutorial: solving a picross puzzle - 2 First we will blacken the easiest squares. Take a look at the two 5 on the left side of the puzzle. The indicate that you must blacken five squares on each line. As the puzzle is 5 by 5 squares, you have to blacken each square of those two lines! Full line Tutorial: solving a picross puzzle - 3 Now take a look at the first line. The number sequence is 2 2, that means that there are two series of two squares, those series being separated by AT LEAST one empty square. Let's do some maths: we have 2+1+2 (at least one empty square between the two series) = 5 squares (it's a minimum). This line being exactly 5 squares long, there is only one solution: 2 black squares at the beginning of the line and 2 black squares at the end.
Column Tu t o r i a l : solving a picross puzzle - 4 Let's deal with columns! We have 2 columns with a 3 on top. Those columns already have three black squares. Thus, those columns are good and we can check the other squares in it. Beginning of a column / line Tutorial: solving a picross puzzle - 5 Then we have 2 columns with a 4 and three black square in each one. We just need to blacken the fourth square to find the solution for those columns. Solving the puzzle Tu t o r i a l : solving a picross puzzle 6 Now you can take care of the last squares! Congratulations! You just solved your first picross puzzle! Now you can try to solve as much picross puzzles as you can!
Picross instructions retrieved from http://www.hanjie-star.com on January 27th 2018
Practice Puzzle
Solution on back
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January 27, 2018
The Technician
Entertainment Sudoku Goal of the Game: The goal of Sudoku is to fill in the entire 81-square grid with a number 1-9. Each number may only appear once in a row, column, or 3x3 box.
Intermediate
Practice puzzle solution
Hard
Picross Hard
Easy