As Halloween approached conversations began to turn towards the costumes people were going to wear and the festivities that people would be attending. Every year around Halloween there are innovative costumes. Minds at Mines would like to know what students plan to dress up as for Halloween and what they plan on doing to celebrate.
The numerous Father Christmas clubs on campus have banded together to designate this Friday a “Day of Letters,” during which all students who still believe in Santa Claus are encouraged to write him a letter. “Belief in Father Christmas is declining all across the country,” said Father Christmas Association president Clement Moore, “and we decided it’s time to take some drastic action. Writing letters to Santa has traditionally been kind of a personal thing, sort of a private conversation with the jolly old man, and traditionally [it] happens closer to December 25. But due to the rapidly shrinking list of ‘good children’ that we see going on today, we felt that we needed to get an early start.”
The Oredigger offense, known for its prolific attack and reputation for putting up points, struggled Saturday, so it seems fitting that a highlight of the game comes from the defensive side of the ball. Midway through the third quarter, CSM Senior defensive end Marc Schiechl wrapped up Adams State quarterback Trevor Eggleston for a 14 yard loss. It would appear to be a routine play for the senior, but the sack gave Schiechl 8.5 sacks on the season and brought his career total up to 42.5, breaking the current NCAA division II record. For Schiechl, the sacks have become a norm and have helped to anchor a strong defensive line that has propelled Mines to a perfect 7-0 record in RMAC play.
When Elizabeth Serra-Hsu arrived at CSM as a freshman in 2007 the women’s volleyball team struggled to a tough 11-20 record. Four years later, Serra-Hsu and her teammates have climbed back into the competition and brought respect back to collegiate volleyball in Golden. And on Tuesday, Serra-Hsu made her own personal mark in CSM volleyball history. With 13 kills against UC-Colorado Springs, she broke the all-time career kills record of 1433, a 13 year-old record set by standout athlete Jaime Henderson in 1997. Serra-Hsu currently has 238 kills on the season and has helped to lead the Orediggers to a 17-7 record with two regular season games left. Mines is currently ranked 4th in the RMAC and with only two games remaining, looks poised to make a solid postseason run. They are also currently ranked 8th overall in the Central Region, on the edge of continuing on to the NCAA Central region tournament. This year, Mines has been led in part by Serra-Hsu and will look to her to help lead them to success in their final games. For her effort, and her outstanding play through four years as a Lady Oredigger, Serra-Hsu is this week’s Athlete of the Week.
Dilemma
I come from a country that most people I meet in the United States think is very conservative. People here like to ask me questions about my country, such as how women are viewed there and if they are less important than men. Although some of the points they mention are facts, they tend to be very much exaggerated.
The Chinese are poised to take to lead in supercomputing, with the Tianhe-A1 supercomputer set to be officially announced Thursday. The computer, which operates using a combination of nVidia graphics processing units and Intel CPU’s, has been clocked at 2.5 Petaflops, a 40% increase in processing power over the current leader, the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
With church memberships dwindling in many traditionally Christian countries and with the rise of prominent atheist figures such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, it seems odd to declare the dawning of a new “Age of the Spirit in the 21st Century,” as did Wednesday night as part of CSM’s Hennebach Lecture series.
Fallout New Vegas is the highly anticipated sequel to Fallout 3. It takes place in the Mojave wasteland 200 years after a nuclear war between the US and China. Unlike the post apocalyptic ruins of Washington, DC, in Fallout 3, Vegas was of inconsequential strategic value and was not hit by atomic weapons. However, as the Fallout series states, “War never changes.” When the civilization collapsed, it left anarchy and a power vacuum that the game’s main factions have risen to fill. The New California Republic has begun its eastward expansion, intent on restoring order and claiming the resources of the Hoover Dam. A modern day ‘Caesar’ unified 86 ‘tribes’ to form Caesar’s Legion and is intent on forcibly restoring honor and morality to the waste. The overseer of one of the game’s iconic prewar bomb shelters, Vault 21, has restored order and claimed power in sin city, New Vegas, with an army of prewar robots. The player stumbles into this power struggle and quickly embarks on a quest of revenge, the outcome of which will shape the future of New Vegas.
Last time we turned our sights to the stars, it was in pursuit of the deep sky jewel boxes that are globular clusters. While through lenses and mirrors these conglomerations of stars are beautiful, when looked upon by the unaided eye, they appear solely as dots of light, indistinguishable from closer stars and planets. As the winter months approach and the cold drains the distortion from the skies, a familiar open cluster rises to the East.
