pageFOCUS 13 Technique • Friday, September 28, 2001 • 13 Basketball season gears up Treat yourself to the Fox Coach Paul Hewitt welcomes four top 100 Seriously in need of some culture? Tired of the FOCUS recruits and a seven-footer from Down Under to movies and the Masquerade? The Atlanta Opera’s the team this season. Check out their high school 2001-2002 season opens with Giuseppe Verdi’s Technique • Friday, September 28, 2001 stats in Sports. Page 27 classic Falstaff at the Fox Theatre. Page 19 Sarcastically witty, ‘The Onion’ visits Tech Joe Garden, the “Naked Guy” from The Onion speaks candidly to students about the art of satire By Gray Gunter this move in his discussion. Assistant Focus Editor “Life lesson number two: sometimes you fall ass-backward into a good situation and The Onion, the finest you have to be a total fucking idiot to screw source of printed and elec- it up,” said Garden. tronic satire (and blatant lies) Unlike most print media The Onion didn’t ever to come out of Madison, set out to forge a presence on the web. Wisconsin, visited Georgia Garden described the paper’s apprehension: Tech Tuesday night. Sponsored “The internet has lots of uses like launching by Student Center Ideas and Issues Com- missile codes and sending pornography.” mittee, the event featured full-time staff But the paper was unsure of the influ- writer and part-time nude model Joe Gar- ence the internet would have on entertain- den. ment media until a story about a U.S. plan It was his first public speech, and his to send vowels into Yugoslavia to make the By June Zhang / STUDENT PUBLICATIONS performance was quite entertaining. A couple names more pronounceable began to circu- Students engage in a rousing game of late-night UNO. Many of the relationships developed hundred students attended, and Garder was late via email. in while in Freshmen Experience would remain with students throughout their college career. a quick witted and in-your-face speaker, In the now familiar viral pattern of␣ Internet holding back little from the fascinated crowd distribution, the story spread rampantly until and sometime shocked crowd. it was actually read aloud on National Pub- FE dorms utilize technology He discussed the history of the newspa- lic Radio’s Car Talk. However, the email per, its rebirth through the internet and failed to give The Onion credit for the story. why he is the designated “naked guy” in so This led directly to the creation of many photos. Garden also discussed his life theonion.com; this was accompanied by a to foster a living community as a punk fan and comedy writer, the lessons tremendous surge in readership, advertis- By Holly Chapman and Sara Kauffman West campus dorms, composing 85 percent he learned along the way and the paper’s ing, content and quality in the newspaper. Contributing Writers of Tech’s freshmen housing. An academic handling of the WTC attack. Though it continues as a print newspaper in and social community is built in the Fresh- The 31-year-old Garden began life with select cities, The Onion is consistently cited Remember your freshmen year at Tech? men Experience program through various one simple goal: to move to Madison. as an Internet-original, proof that main- The overwhelming fear combined with the avenues. “The first lesson I would like to impart stream media can be outdone by the web. unsurpassable excitement of finally escaping Peer Leaders request funding and are re- on you is, if you set yourself up for an easily Garden promised that the upcoming is- your parents? Do you remember the first quired to arrange at least one activity for their attainable goal, you will be fucked because sue would focus on the September 11th friend you ever made at Tech? residents per month. Mandatory meal plans nothing in the rest of your life will come attacks in the best way possible. He noted The Georgia Tech Housing Department also provide an opportunity for freshmen to that easily,” Garden said. that the staff was affected both as New Yorkers has prided itself on making the college transi- interact and bond over common experiences. The same year he arrived in Madison and as Americans, but as satirists it was their tion easier through its unique freshmen pro- Another key element that develops dormito- two college students from the University of duty to mock the silliness surrounding the gramming. By working closely with Residence ry community and enhances the FE experi- Wisconsin began publishing a free, fake event while trying not to be disrespectful of Hall Association (RHA), GT Housing has ence is the utilization of the electronic network. newspaper entitled The Onion. Garden joined those involved. developed a dynamic schedule of events to “Several things promote community in early on as a part-time contributing writer, Articles include interviews with the hi- integrate incoming students into the Tech the dorm. One thing is becoming adjusted to earning a mere $10 a story. jackers who are stunned to find themselves community. Through both socialization and the rigors of college academic life. Another Up until the mid-1990s, the paper re- burning in hell, pleas from the President for technology savvy events, Housing has creat- thing would be the activities that the Peer mained a print-only newspaper available in stars not to make another charity record ed one of the most successful student pro- Leaders do with their section. These activities just three cities. After a few years of success, and infographics illustrating the dramatic grams on campus: Freshmen Experience. encourage bonds to form between residents a majority of the staff relocated and moved increase in hugging. Freshmen Experience (FE) aims to devel- and helps [them] learn more about the envi- their base operations from Madison to New Perhaps Wired magazine put it best when op a healthy community for its students by ronment that they live in,” Tim Alman, a York City. it said,” The Onion may be vulgar, insensi- providing numerous services, including man- fifth year CS major and Peer Advisor, said. Soon after, Garden was given the oppor- tive, sexist, racist, ageist, antipapist or even, datory meal plans, section activities, and Res- “While living in the same hall, many resi- tunity to come to New York for the paper as on occasion, offensive, but unlike its Web Net support. a full-time comedy writer. He reflected on rivals, it’s bankably funny.” The program encompasses both East and See LAN, page 17 The dynamic nature of geology Dr. Lizarralde of EAS studies marine geology, concentrating specifically on the formations in the sand of the ocean floor and how they move and evolve. The Earth is old, like more than four billion this. Well, it’s really useful and can be quite precise self, “Why does beach water years old. A lot’s happened over that time: oceans for our geological applications. After a whole lot of taste like it’s been used for cook- have formed and dried up; continents have shifted numerical analysis, we can determine the depth of ing pasta?” Dr. Lizarralde stud- around; and mountains and volcanoes have arisen. different strata and consequently determine the sites ies why; it’s a geological issue These phenomena are the sort of thing studied by of geological activity. actually. It turns out that the geologists. So now we have a way to figure out the composi- ocean floor in this part of the I’m sure you already knew that. But do you tion the Earth’s crust. That leads to cool discoveries Atlantic is extremely sandy. know how they figured out all these things? The like why California is drifting off into the Pacific, or Consequently, rivers of fresh- Earth is too big to study in a lab, and it’s not like we how Pangea separated. There are lots of interesting water seep out from the land, can reproduce the original situations. One of the problems. Many of them are even pertinent to present- guided by the contours of the spiffiest tools used by modern geologists is a lot like day global ecology. sand; the saline ocean water sonar. (It’s actually a lot more like sticks of dyna- Dr. Lizarralde of the School of Earth and Atmo- also seeps back inland. So any mite, but whatever.) spheric Sciences studies some particularly interest- freshwater in the ground has some See, different kinds of rocks like granite, basalt ing issues in the area of marine geology. After all, ocean water components in it too, and limestone carry acoustic (sound) waves at dif- most of the Earth’s crust is under water—that’s like calcite (calcium carbonate, ferent speeds. So when there is a transition between where all the action is. CaCO3) and magnesite (magnesium these different rock types, the waves are reflected. If you’ve ever been to the beach anywhere be- carbonate, MgCO3). These components (This situation is analogous to index of refraction tween the Chesapeake and Miami, you’ve probably and dissolved sand make the drinking changes in optical systems.) You probably spent like noticed that the tap water doesn’t normally taste a day way back in sophomore physics talking about that good. And sometime, you must’ve asked your- See Research, page 16 14 • Friday, September 28, 2001 • Technique FOCUS Is student cell phone usage completely out of control? By Gray Gunter campus was no exception. Professors have begun to include The wireless world isn’t simply own service bill. This fact speaks Assistant Focus Editor Like the computer and the beeper mobile phone etiquette not only in waiting for student customers to both to the sharp decrease in service before it, the cell phone has trickled their syllabus but also in their first- come to them.