Daily Archives: November 14, 2010

This Week in Colorado History November 15 – November 21: An optimistic week

Apparently, the editors of the Colorado Transcript were having a good week in 1880. Their section on local news is upbeat and provides a little bit of everything. The weather was cold (18 degrees Fahrenheit below 0!) and it was “a good night for a sleigh ride” on November 17, 1880. The population was increasing, merchants reported good trade, there was water in Clear Creek, the public schools were thriving, and prospectors were coming to winter quarters. The city council had just decided to reduce their meeting schedule to once a month. Overall, life was good (despite Denver papers alleging the pointlessness of even one meeting).

The stars shine brightly above Mines: Orion

As the cold winter nights grow longer and longer, the beauty of the sky blossoms forth. The tranquil night air brings a calm to the sky that is unrivaled and the brisk temperatures takes the normally independent activity and brings astronomers together. The beginning of the winter is heralded by the appearance of seven familiar stars over the east in what is one of best star rises of the whole year.

Due Date drags the audience for a little longer than it should

Due Date is a great example of a movie that the critics hate and the fans love. Hailed to be a movie with as much humor as The Hangover, Due Date falters greatly when attempting to focus almost completely on star Zach Galifianakis’ ability to be weird, awkward, and very annoying. The humor in this movie goes into two very distinct directions; utterly hilarious and absolutely revolting. This being said, Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis work amazingly well together as a mix-matched friendship that would have never occurred unless a bong, that was thought to contain toxic chemicals, had been found in Downey Jr.’s bag on an airplane. Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis), a striving Hollywood actor, and Peter Highman (Downey Jr.), a soon-to-be father whose wife is going into labor in the next 3 days, rush to California to bear witness to the birth of his first child.

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Geek of the Week: Alex Hansen, Junior, MME

As the weather gets colder and the daylight gets shorter, life can become quite desperate for even the best of us. So for a student like Alex Hansen, the dropping temperatures could signal the end at any time, making future interviews nigh impossible to conduct. Thanks to the surplus of Oredigger newspapers around campus, however, this MME junior was able to stick it out on the park bench long enough to be immortalized in Geek of the Week lore.

McBride change continues to move ahead despite concerns

Change is one of the few constants on the Mines campus. New buildings are constructed and the course requirements for degrees are tweaked. Usually, the changes are gradual, a new building here or a new parking lot over there. However, there is an important exception to this trend of gradual change, the McBride program. The present proposal would see all but one of the program’s present classes replaced or removed and has many McBride students up in arms over the nature of the changes and the lack of student and alumni involvement.

Ionic transistors may enable super-fast switching

Advances in the understanding of ionic materials may allow for much faster switching in transistors. Ann Deml, a doctorate student in the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering department, discussed her progress toward understanding ionic field effect transistors. The applications for Ionic Field Effect Transistors (Nanoionics) are quite broad, with uses in various forms of energy storage such as batteries and fuel cells. Currently, Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) are used, which uses a semiconductor such as silicon with a vapor-deposited layer of a metallic oxide for the switch. This transistor operates by applying a voltage across the semiconductor and the metallic oxide layer, which then allows current to flow across the semiconductor.

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