Issue 14, Volume 123
Friday, July 19, 2013
Smartphone app sparks romance Victoria Wright Editor-in-Chief The setting of a crowd of people clustered in a single, social setting and searching for a mate is not a new concept—it’s the scene of many twentysomethings’ Friday nights. But a free dating application called Tinder, which brings that common dating ritual to a phone interface, has steadily gained popularity. The method is as simple as the app’s aim. Using Facebook to pull user profile pictures, a person’s image appears on a user’s phone. If you like what you see, you swipe right. If you don’t, then you swipe to the left. The pattern continues until one fateful moment when two people like the one another’s pictures and they have an opportunity to share an online conversation. Android and iPhone users who use the app receive pictures of people in their area, and swipe decisions remain anonymous. The app is comparable to the early days of hotornot.com, which compiled pictures of people and allowed users to judge their attractiveness based simply on their image. Since its inception last September, Tinder has logged 2.4 billion profile ratings and 21 million matches. Essentially the app tackles what many humans are afraid of: the shallow reality of denying the advances of someone based upon their physical appearance. “I think it’s cool how if the other person likes you too it tells you you but if they don’t it’s not going to tell you they rejected you,” said Madison Ricks, senior in audio and speech pathology. Ricks has only had the app for a couple of days and said she’s still getting acclimated to the process. While she hasn’t received any strange messages via her matches yet, her friend, who suggested she try the app, received some pretty forward responses. “My friends have gotten people planning out dates and (the other person) hasn’t even talked to them (my friends) before,” Ricks said. “It’s entertaining because people say some weird things. “That’s the only real thing you have to go off of—just off looks,” she said. “Personally I don’t think anybody on it has taken it seriously. I just think it’s more of a game than actually dating. If you really wanted to do that, I think you would just make a profile and do online dating. Amberly Kelley, graduate student in recreation therapy, said she is not surprised by the popularity of the program because of the large amount of social media dating applications on the market. She said frequent use of such technological avenues is having an impact in how we socialize. “I think it’s probably good for people who are a little shy and maybe they’ll be more willing to talk to somebody and put themsleves out there in a way that they couldn’t before,” Kelley said. “A lot of our generation is becoming way to dependent on social media See TINDER on Page 2
• Photo courtesy of UT Athletics
Jones revels in first SEC Media Day Coach continues consistent ‘brick-bybrick’ message as offseason winds down Steven Cook Sports Editor Fourteen head coaches, 42 student-athletes and 1,239 media members can make it awfully tough to concentrate on one subject. But on Wednesday at the 2013 SEC Media Days event, Tennessee head coach Butch Jones had one simple message. “We have to focus on the process,” Jones said. “We can’t worry about the end result right now. We have to be a better football program minute by minute, hour by hour, day to day, month by month.” Jones was one of four coaches who experienced the three-day event for the first time.
In his opening statement, he weighed in on the circus-style theme of the unofficial kickoff to SEC football. “The most asked question so far is ‘how has your first SEC Media Days been?’” Jones said. “I’ll say what I’ve always said. When the SEC does something, it’s truly something special. It’s a spectacle, and that’s what makes it the best conference in the country.” Jones called the off-season’s coaching transition “extremely seamless,” and said the stability from his coaching staff played a big role when comparing his new job to his last two stops, Cincinnati and Central Michigan. “Well, the circumstances are different,” Jones said. “The situations are different,
but the process and how you develop your football team doesn’t change. “I think that’s a great thing, not only for myself, but our entire staff. This is our third time taking over a football program.” Jones’ assurance that his staff has been here before is unquestionably relieving, considering UT’s fan base has endured four losing seasons in their last five. The Vols will face road tests in consecutive weeks as they travel to Oregon and Florida on Sept. 14. Week-by-week improvement will be essential if the Volunteers are entertaining the idea reaching a bowl game after missing out on postseason play the past two seasons. “The big thing again for us is constant and never-ending improvement,” Jones said. “We have to be a better football team week one, two, three. Those steps may be small, but we have to continue to progress.” See JONES on Page 6
Baker Center hosts lecture on GEA Hayley Brundige Contributor
The wooly adelgid, pictured above, burrows into the branches of the Eastern Hemlocks in the Smoky Mountains.
• Photo courtesy of Wikimedia
Invasive species threatens trees McCord Pagan Staff Writer
likely brought in by hikers on their firewood, resulting in the current firewood ban in the forest. Currently, it can take up to a decade for a tree to die from the adelgid. More than 95 percent of hemlocks have already been infected, and there is little one can do to save the tree after that happens. While there are methods such as removing branches, or spraying and injecting the tree with chemicals, the sheer scope of this project remains daunting. For comparison on how destructive this species can be, the Shenandoah National Park discovered to have the aphid-like creature in the 1980s, and three decades later, four out of five hemlocks in that forest have already died. The Eastern Hemlock, native to Eastern North America and the state tree of Pennsylvania, provides vital services to the forest that any other species would have a hard time
For some, a hike in the Great Smoky Mountains may have been as early as last week; others may have never gone at all. But nearly everyone, no matter how often they frequent the mountains, can appreciate the natural beauty that is a part of the region. However, in the next few years, the mountains that are known so well may no longer look so glorious. In 1925, a small bug called the woolly adelgid made its way from Asia to the U.S. and now threatens one of the most important tree species in the Smokies, the Eastern Hemlock. According to Emily DeLanzo, a 2013 UT graduate in environmental studies who works for National Park Service in Eastern Sierras, California, the adelgid was See TREES on Page 2
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Dr. David McCollum, a UT alumnus, gave a lecture Wednesday in the Baker Center on the Global Energy Assessment, a project aimed at providing universal energy and planning for a sustainable future. The GEA project was initiated in 2006 and took six years, €6 million euros and more than 500 people to complete. According to David Greene, who works jointly as a senior fellow at UT and a corporate fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the GEA is “the most comprehensive study to date” regarding worldwide energy use. The project was managed by the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), a think tank based in Laxenburg, Austria where McCollum is currently a research scholar. The 25-chapter assessment is sectioned off into four clusters. The first section outlines the energy challenges that society currently faces. McCollum said that the four major challenges are a lack of access to energy, climate change, air pollution and energy security. The second cluster involves the knowledge and technology now at our disposal, including renewable sources like wind and solar energy, nuclear energy and fledgling technologies such as carbon capture and storage. Next, the assessment provides potential scenarios of transformational change.
At IIASA, McCollum carries out scenario analyses that calculate the global consequences of various factors such as consumer behavior, the swiftness of political action and the geophysical elements of Earth and its climate. The final cluster offers policy guidelines that would help incentivize energy change in countries around the world. The United Nations has already set the standard for other policymakers with its “Sustainable Energy for All,” a campaign that draws largely from the information collected in the GEA. Throughout McCollum’s lecture, he stressed that “there is no time to waste if society is serious about mitigating climate change.” IIASA claims that we need to phase out the use of oil completely, be reliant on renewable sources for 50 percent of our energy by 2050 and eventually reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero. These goals may seem out of reach for the average citizen, but McCollum said they are “relevant to anyone who votes.” In 10 to 20 years, the younger generation of students will be in mid-level management positions, own companies and be policymakers. His advice to UT students is to stay informed of the issues. “Try to add to the global conversation in some small way,” he said to the small audience gathered in the Toyota Auditorium. Greene remembers reading about climate change as a student at Columbia University in 1968. At that point, he See LECTURE on Page 2
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utdailybeacon.com For more coverage on SEC Media Days Days, flip to page 6