TECHNICIAN
wednesday march
18 2015
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
IN BRIEF Looking for long-term benefits Student Health Services announces Associate Director for Medical Services Director of Student Health Services, Leah Arnett, named Thomas Howard, MD, as the Associate Director for Medical Services effective last Monday. Howard will serve as the spokesperson and lead medical authority on campus for public health related concerns. He will also serve as the administrative medical officer for providers in the clinical field. He graduated with a medical degree from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine. Howard has a special interest in concussion management, serving as a team physician for high school and university teams. SOURCE: NC State News
Violin Virtuoso Regina Carter to come to NC State
The musically acclaimed violinist Regina Carter will be performing Friday evening at 8 p.m. and again Saturday at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Titmus Theatre in Thompson Hall. Carter is considered the foremost jazz violinist of her generation and has performed with artists including Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and Dolly Parton. There will be a pre-show discussion with Carter an hour before each performance. Tickets are $5 for students with a valid student ID and $32 for non-students. Tickets can be purchased online, at Ticket Central, or by phone at 919-515-1100. SOURCE: NC State News
Man wanted after exposing himself at Kmart on Western Boulevard
A man followed a woman into the Kmart located at 4500 Western Blvd and exposed himself to her last Thursday. Police are still seeking him. The man is described as black, 5 feet 9 inches tall, in his 30s and has a stocky build, weighing between 210–240 pounds. He had a receding hairline, closely cropped hair and a short beard. Descriptions are based off a photo taken from a security camera. Anyone with information that can help police is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 919-834-4357 or visit www. raleighcrimestoppers.org. SOURCE: WRAL
NC STATE ANNOUNCES NEW PLANS FOR THE HOFMANN FOREST
Ravi K. Chittilla Editor-in-Chief
NC State announced a long-term plan Tuesday that would leave most of the 79,000-acre Hofmann Forest intact but would generate tens of millions of dollars for the university and the College of Natural Resources by selling deeds to timber companies for sustainable timber farming and selling working easements for use by the Department
of Defense. The announcement comes following two years of controversy after the university first made a deal to sell the forest, which is near Jacksonville, North Carolina, to an Illinois agricultural business, but the plan ultimately fell through when the business failed to acquire the funding to close the deal in November. Before the deal failed environmental groups filed a suit attempting to block it and the deal also garnered
widespread opposition among faculty members, students and farmers and agriculturalists across North Carolina. Under the new plan, about 70,000 acres of the woodland will be used much in the same way they are now. Previous opponents of the initial deal are praising the university for the new plan and its emphasis on sustainability. In a statement, Chancellor Randy Woodson said the university is now
pursuing a plan that would yield greater financial benefits in the long run, as opposed to a large, one-time profit. “We believe this is the most responsible way to move forward,” Woodson said in the statement. “We learned a great deal during last year’s sales effort and in the process became aware of long-term opportunities that allow for greater control of the land and ultimately more benefit to the College of Natu-
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Role of fathers highlighted in documentary Lindsay Smith Staff Writer
The NC State Department of Social Work, along with the Collegiate 100 and Men in Social Work student organizations hosted “Let’s Talk Fathers” on Tuesday, an event about the impact of growing up without a father and, in particular, its influence on African-American men in society. The event showed the documentary “Spit’in Anger,” which highlights the impact of a fatherless void on African-American men and explains the trouble with anger and forgiveness caused by the lack of their fathers growing up. These concepts were further discussed by Jeffrey Shears, a professor at UNCGreensboro and NC A&T following the documentary. “The impact of fathers is generational — men learn by modeling,” Shears said. Kenneth Braswell, the main speaker in the film, talked about his own anger and difficulty forgiving his father for not being a part of his life. However, he hoped to serve as an example of life for many men who grew up without their fathers. After much difficulty, Braswell wrote a letter to his father and was able to forgive him because of the film and the experience it had on him. “It shows the documentary’s potential
ABHILASHA JAIN/TECHNICIAN
John O’Neill, the founder of Spark Plug Games, LLC speaks about his stubbornness and passion building success for his gaming company on Tuesday evening at EBII Centennial Campus. “ Passion breeds innovation but necessity also breeds innovation,” said O’ Niell .He serves as the general manager of Spark Plug Games and guides the studio’s focus in the development of video games and serious games on mobile, social, tablet, and console platforms.
Gaming company founder speaks about industry Casey Oldham Staff Writer
Founder and President of Spark Plug Games, John O’Neill visited NC State’s Centennial Campus to speak about the perks and pitfalls of creating games for a living. O’Neill’s speech was part of Fidelity Investments’ “Leadership in Technology Speakers Series,” and the audience was mainly composed of engineering students. “He definitely wasn’t afraid to challenge tra-
ditional encouragement,” said Nadia Johnson, a sophomore studying electrical engineering. He helped incorporate the realistic aspect of what it means and what it takes be successful in the gaming industry and really whatever kind of job you want to get.” O’Neill answered the numerous questions of students throughout his speech. While he talked about the different ways people can find success in the gaming industry, O’Neill also warned students about how competitive the field is. O’Neill told his audience the deadlines for people
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GAMING continued page 2
insidetechnician
Lecturer discusses Rand’s influence on politics Gavin Stone Staff Writer
FEATURES Student researches galaxies far, far away See page 6.
SPORTS Young Pack flourishing at right time See page 8.
The Society for Politics, Economics, and the Law hosted a Duke English professor Tuesday night who spoke critically about Ayn Rand and the tensions her writings have created. Michael Moses, an associate professor of English at Duke University and editor of the literary journal , Modernist Cultures, focused on Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism which Rand claimed to be the founder of. Rand’s Objectivism was a philosophy that reality exists independently of consciousness.
Moses spoke at length about Rand’s relationship with Hollywood where she tried for much of her early life to become a screenwriter. Moses argued that Rand’s frustration with having to work in a system that was interested in appealing to the masses, whose taste in art Rand did not approve of, was a result of her belief in an objective standard of quality. Moses said did not read Rand’s work until late in his life after he had been an English professor for a long time, which changed his impressions of her work. “It probably would have been very different if I had read her when I was 15 or
16, that’s when all of my friends were reading her,” Moses said. “I actually find her much more interesting as a literary figure.” “The standard view is that she’s not high brow and she’s not low brow she’s kind of a ‘middle-brow’ novelist,” Moses said. “I actually think she’s much more interesting stylistically than formally. One of the most interesting things about Atlas Shrugged is the strange set of different genres it combines; science fiction and utopia, socialist realism and American nationalism—there are passages that sound like the could have been written by the Italian futurists.” Ayn Rand is a cult hero
with many supporters in the political sphere. Many Republican representatives have publicly expressed Rand’s influence on them including Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Rand Paul, as well as former Texas Congressman and Libertarian Presidential Candidate Ron Paul. Bryon Burke, a senior studying biomedical engineering and member of SPEL since his freshman year, said that he was influenced by Rand’s philosophy on the power of the individual when he read The Fountainhead for a class in high school which led him to read Atlas Shrugged on his own. “I read Fountainhead
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and Atlas Shrugged in high school and I was interested in hearing the perspective on her philosophy and beliefs from an academic professor,” Burke said. For Burke, the lecture allowed him to revisit his experience of Rand’s work. “I didn’t have much of a political point of view when I read [Rand’s] books in high school,” Burke said. “I knew she was a believer in individual freedom and capitalism and that she was not real popular in academic and literature circles, and I knew she was not as popular as her books were commercially successful.”