THE OREDIGGER

The student voice of Mines since 1920

Volume 95, Issue 6

February 9, 2015

Lets talk about sex

Lucy Orsi
Editor-in-Chief

Before skipping to some of the

results from the sex survey, you
should read this article. We think the
sex survey data is interesting, but we
think the response to the survey itself
was also incredibly important.
The goal of the Oredigger this year
was to continue to raise its relevance
to the student body and the sex survey
was just one part of this initiative. Long
before sending out this survey, we
changed the publication frequency,
introduced a series of new articles,
redesigned our website, and recently
reorganized the entire structure of our
sta. At the beginning of the year our
facebook page had 66 Likes. Now
it has roughly 560. Our most reliable
information indicates that after two
weeks, roughly 80 percent of our
papers are being picked up by people
on campus.
In terms of content, we have
started publishing more and more
relevant pieces. At the beginning of
the year, we introduced a new, monthly
feature called Department in Review
in which we survey senior students
of one department on campus. In

November, we printed a four page indepth analysis of President Scoggins

and the ongoing presidential search.
In December, we explored the issue
of how Mines celebrates Martin Luther
King Jr. day. We included a campus
survey. In January, we covered Digger Dens new hours and once again,
published a survey reecting student
views on the issue.
In trying to boost the relevance of
the paper we have sent out quite a few
campus wide emails, up until sending
out what has ubiquitously been termed
the sex survey, we had yet to receive
a single complaint about any of these.
In the wake of last Wednesdays email,
however, the paper and myself have
come under heightened criticism for
what has been compared to surveys
found in gossip magazines.
In the wake of these criticisms, I
have thought a lot about the content
that belongs in a college newspaper
and all of our eorts at making the
paper relevant this year. Every time I
land in the same place: If the survey is
not something this paper should cover,
then what exactly is?
Continued at The Oredigger as a
forum for discussing sex on pg 4

Faculty Spotlight:
Angie Sower

Katrina San Nicolas

Staff Writer

While many professors dread

dicult student questions, Dr. Angie
Sower loves the special moment when
a student raises his or her hand and
asks a question she cannot answer.
Dr. Sower is in her second semester
as an Associate Teaching Faculty in the
Chemistry Department
here at Colorado
School of Mines and
is incredibly excited to
continue working with
the students. Among
other approaches, Dr.
Sower rmly believes
that classes should
be interactive and that
teaching is a continuous learning process
refined by student
feedback and questions.
Originally from
Golden, Dr. Sower
received her undergraduate degree at Northern Arizona
University in Flagsta and her graduate degree at the University of New
Mexico in Albuquerque. She chose
both universities because they were
a nice distance from her home here
in Colorado.
Golden is quaint and feels like a
little town, says Dr. Sower on returning home after so many years. It still
has its charm. One of the things she
appreciates about teaching at Mines
is how it allows her to be close to
the family that she has living around

Denver. Additionally, she enjoys hiking

the area and spending time outdoors.
While many of the students in her
Chemistry 2 class have already decided that they enjoy the subject, a love
of Chemistry is actually not something
Dr. Sower discovered until a few years
into college. An instructor at Northern
Arizona University rst inspired her to
try a Chemistry course and she found it
was something that she really enjoyed.
It wasnt that it
was easy, Dr. Sower
explains. It was just
that I loved it and it
was fun. Dr. Sower is
specifically interested
in biochemistry, and
consequently uses everything from cells in
hypertonic solutions to
intermolecular forces
in molecules found in
the human body as
examples for her class.
She spent several years
doing neurobiology research at MIT on molecules important in visual
system development and likes working
with Chemistry students in the laboratory component of the course.
Ive always wanted to teach,
expresses Dr. Sower. As a kid I remember loving to play school. After
finishing school herself, she began
teaching at a community college in
Rochester, Minnesota and then spent
11 years in the Chemistry department
at Montana State.

Figure 1: The distribution of virgins and sexually active Mines students who lost their virgnity at Mines.
For example, the female red column shows that roughly 28 percent of women who answered the survey
are not virgins but were virgins when they came to Mines. Within the subset of women who said they
were not virgins, 38 percent were virgins when they arrived at Mines.

God and Sex:

Unsuspecting Bedfellows
Holly Stuart
Guest Writer

Let me start out by saying that I

like Lucy. However, that being said,
I am not a fan of her pet project
from this past week. Separating
sex from its fundamental context
makes for an incomplete collection
and subsequent analysis of data.
As most of you know from
rst-hand-experience or by wordor-mouth, Lucy Orsi conducted an
online survey about sex this past
week. I write this article having
taken the survey although I did
not see a certain set of questions.
Not surprisingly, the survey spurred
both controversy and applause.
However, the root issue for me was
not the survey itself, but the context
in which it was taken.

See, the idea of the survey itself

is inert neither right nor wrong.
This is because (as many academics believe) data collection itself is
amoral. None of the questions on
the survey put anyone in danger or
directly revealed their identity. The
survey itself was neither harmful
nor, quite frankly, even very offensive.
However, since surveys are written to produce certain data, they
have an obligation to be complete.
This one was not.
Lucys survey was subjective,
and thus left out a number of important items, including options for being married, engaged, transsexual,
asexual, bisexual, etc. However, my
key issue with Lucys survey is the
context in which it was delivered:
sex as an outt that we can take on

or o as we please. I wholeheartedly disagree.

Sex, like religion, is something
at the core of who we are. In fact,
I would argue that since sex is
intricately tied to what we believe
about God and therefore, what
we believe about ourselves completely omitting a question about
religion or morality takes sex out
of context, and therefore produces
data that can have no foundational
basis, nor lasting impact.
This reason the lack of fundamental context in which the
survey was conducted leads me
to say that, in its incomplete form,
the survey itself should not have
been conducted at all. What we do
makes up who we are and who
we are cannot be removed from
what we believe about God.

Whats Inside: Political Cartoon by J. West

Tech Review
Page 3
Sex Survey Results
Page 4-7
Music Reviews
Page 9
Ullr Grass Festival
Page 10-11

Continued at Sower on page 9

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

n e w s

page 2

Massachusetts, USA - Scientists at OpenBiome company are now accepting paid donations of fecal matter or poop. The nonprot organization is
paying for fecal samples in order to create fecal transplant treatments with
those infected with the disease, Clostridium dicile. This disease is highly resistant to antibiotics and can result in severe diarrhea. It causes 14,000 deaths in
America each year. The infected patients will receive a transplant of the donor
fecal matter into their gut. This treatment is predicted to be extremely successfully and researchers estimate that 1 person can be treated with 50 grams of
donated fecal matter. However, donor candidates must live Massachusetts and
meet many requirements, such as age, BMI, etc. Currently, the rate is $40 per
donation, which comes to a whopping $13,000 per year.

Bloomington, Indiana - Researchers at

Indiana University have discovered a new ethanol-producing bacterium called Zymomonas
mobilis that use nitrogen gas for growth. This
is benecial for the energy industry because
the atmosphere contains 78% nitrogen, giving
an ample supply for the bacteria to continue
producing ethanol. The bacteria convert sugars to ethanol much faster when they were
fed nitrogen gas, says Dr. James McKinlay,
professor at Indiana University. The university
has patented this process and hopes to nd
more ways that this bacterium can contribute
to the energy eld.

Oredigger Staff
Lucy Orsi
Editor-in-Chief
Emily McNair
Managing Editor
Taylor Polodna
Design Editor
Connor McDonald
Webmaster
Amos Gwa
Business Manager
Katerina Gonzales
Content Manager
Karen Gilbert
Faculty Advisor

february 9, 2015

Magnus Chun, Staff Writer

Dresden, Germany - Researchers at Leibniz Institute for Solid State and
Materials Research in Dresden, Germany published a new paper in Nature
Communications. They have discovered a new electronic skin that can
provide sensing of magnetic elds. There are many implications of this new
invention, such as touch-less human interaction platform, motion and displacement sensors for robots and medical implants, says Michael Melzer,
the lead author of the paper. The electronic skin contains magnetoresistive
sensors that sense both static and dynamic magnetic elds and the layers
are made of cobalt and copper. In addition, the skin is only two micrometers
thick (one-fth as wide as a single human hair). The researchers hope to use
this technology in the future for biomedical implants.

Edinburgh, United Kingdom- Scientists at the University of Edinburgh

discovered changes in DNA over time that can be used as a biological
clock to predict lifespan of people. Those DNA modications include alterations in gene expression, such as DNA methylation. The degree of DNA
methylation changes as age, lifestyle and environmental factors increase. As
described in Genome Biology, researchers have found that DNA-methylation
starting ve years higher than actual, contributes to 21% higher risk of mortality. There are still further investigations to clarify how specic factors, such
as genetic factors can inuence a persons biological age.

Headlines from around the world

Ramiro Rodriguez, Staff Writer
Kurdish forces inside of the
city of Kobane have announced
that after 134 days of ghting,
Kobane is under the control
of Peshmerga and there are no
longer any ISIS militants within
the city. There are reports of ISIS
militants in surrounding villages.
However, Peoples Protection
Units (YPG) and Peshmerga forces are preparing to retake the surrounding villages. Muslih Zebari, a
Peshmerga commander, reports
minimal Kurdish losses and the
acquisition of a large amount of
ammunition as well as a tank that
had previously been used by ISIS.
Through his lawyer, Edward
Snowden has made a claim that
iPhones contain spyware that
allow governments to secretly
track the phones user. The
claim comes from leaked NSA
documents that show that the
Government
Communications
Headquarters, a British intelligence agency, used UDIDs which
are unique identiers for iPhones
to track their users. The leaked
documents do not make reference to any specic software, but
there is currently speculation on
how many documents have not
been published as of yet.
The FBI has announced that
they have uncovered the activity
of a Russian spy in Manhattan.
The alleged spy was a deep
cover spy working for Russias
Foreign Intelligence Service to
acquire details regarding US
economic activity and sanctions
on Russian banks. The alleged
spy, Evgeny Buryakov, is being
charged with conspiracy to act
as an unregistered agent of a for-

eign government and acting as

an unregistered agent of a foreign
government. In addition to his
own intelligence gathering, the
FBI report also states Buryakov
has, along with others, attempted
to recruit New York residents to
gather intelligence for the Russian
Federation.
Following an open meeting
where public opinions on laws
regarding the internet were being proposed and discussed, the
FCC has announced that broadband will be redened as 25
Mbps (megabits per second)
for downstream speeds and
3 Mbps for upstream speeds.
This is a change from the 2010
standard of 4 Mbps down and
1 Mbps up. The FCC decision is
being considered a response to
the apparent abandonment of

investments by telecommunication rms after laying down copper and DSL lines. The mother of
a 17 year old girl who was shot
by Denver police following a car
theft is seeking an independent
autopsy to dispute the statement
given by police. The 17 year old
suspect was allegedly trying to
run over the ocers and the police report that they red on the
stolen vehicle because of this.
The incident marks the fourth time
in seven months that Denver police have red upon a vehicle after perceiving it a physical threat.
The order of events is important in
understanding this case because
of a Supreme Court decision that
states that police can only respond to a eeing suspect with
deadly force if the suspect poses
a physical danger.

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

Local News
A Denver-based startup,
Mod Couples, is helping connect couples with non-Netix
things other couples in town
recommend. Co-founder Caley Mitchell said in a news relase
Its so easy to get caught up
in the same routines and patterns, and ModCouples is a reminder that relationships need
attention and spontaneity.
The Denver Police Bomb
Squad responded to a suspicious package report on Monday morning at the 12000
block of East 46th Avenue. The
package was determined to be
a non-threat.
Aspen police are defending the use of force against a
teen who was rolling a joint at
a public bus stop. Police chief
Richard Pryor says that his ofcers responded appropriately
and that the teen was resisting arrest. Several videos were
captured by nearby bystanders
that were concerned for the
use of excessive force.
18 Colorado RadioShack
stores are slated for closure
after RadioShack Corp. led
for Chapter 11 bankrupcy last
week.
Just after 1:30pm on Friday
the Golden Fire Department responded to the Ulysses Senior
Housing complex. The 83-yearold victim apparently ignited her
bed with a lit cigarette before
progressing to the bathroom
where she ultimately perished
due to smoke inhilation.

february 9, 2015

f e a t u r e s

page 3

Apple Banana But- Logitech H800 Headset

termilk Pancakes

Katrina San Nicolas

Staff Writer

Apple Banana Buttermilk Pancakes

Soft, avorful, and lled with
bits of crisp apple, these pancakes make the perfect weekend
breakfast or late-night treat. The
apple and banana compliment the
creamy avor of the pancake and
provide some added health benets as well. For a healthier breakfast, substitute whole-wheat our
and use skim milk. If buttermilk is
unavailable, combine a scant 1
cups milk with 1 tablespoons of
lemon juice or white vinegar and
let the mixture sit at room temperature for ve minutes. Top the
nished pancakes with powdered
sugar, traditional syrup, berries and
cream, or your favorite avor of
fruit preserves. This recipe makes
12 small pancakes or 6 large ones.
Ingredients:
1 ripe, medium banana
1 small red apple
1 cups all-purpose our
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

teaspoon baking soda
teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon butter or vegetable
oil

Prepare the fruit by peeling the

banana and using a fork to mash
it into a paste. Wash and peel the
apple and cut it to a 1/8-inch dice
(Brunoise cut). Set the fruit aside.
In a large bowl, combine the our,
sugar, baking powder, baking soda,
and salt and whisk until mixed. In a
separate container, combine the
egg and buttermilk. Gradually add
this liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.
At this point the batter may be slightly lumpy. Using a whisk, add in the
banana paste and apple chunks.
In a pan over medium heat, add
the butter or vegetable to grease
the surface. Ladle cup batter for
each pancake, cook until the outer
edge becomes slightly dry, ip the
pancake, and cook for an additional one or two minutes. Remove
from the heat and serve warm.
COURTESY BE MINDFUL BE HUMAN

The problem of being devoured

by a twisted, sweat-inducing mass
of knotted cords and crossed wires
can be overwhelming for many in
the todays tech-heavy society. For
those that want their workplace to
be as mobile and clutter free as
possible, having to wrestle with a
tangled pile of wires before and
after every commute can make
the idea of moving itself very distasteful. Then what happens? Appointments are missed, companies shut down, and children sit
crying in public parks after having
been abandoned at their sporting
events. Anarchy reigns.
Thus in an eort to keep the
streets clean and the parks wailfree, wireless technology was
invented. But, not all wireless devices are equally good at their jobs.
Some have short battery life, some
have poor connectivity, and some
have a very expensive b etched
onto the side of them.
That said, the Logitech H800
headset has the potential to be one
of the most cost-eective wireless
headsets on the market depending
on the consumers intended use
for it. What it lacks in connection
range and sound quality, it makes
up for in its versatility, robust design, and slim price tag.
Starting o on the low notes,
the H800s connection range and
stability leave something to be
desired. When using the usb setting, the headphones only have a
stable connection to a distance of
about 10-15ft from the transmitting device. Though this distance
is almost doubled when using the
headphones bluetooth setting,
the increased distance still is not
enough to be terribly signicant. If
users want to perform some kind

of activity outside of the room the

transmitter is located in, the short
range forces the user to either carry
the transmitting device with them,
such as in the case of a phone, or
to simply do the task without the
aid of inspirational music.
Additionally, though the H800s
ear pads are comfortable enough
to prevent aching in the ear even
after hours of continuous
use, they are not intended
for noise cancellation. Of
course, the noise is mufed to an extent as with
all headphones, people
are going to be able to
hear the more prominent
noises coming from the
headphones in a semiquiet room even when
the owner is listening at
reasonable volume.
So, if one wanted
to say, listen to
some risque content
about beaver anatomy in public, the use
of this headset is
not advised.
On a
positive note, the
more
design
of the headset,
w h i l e simple, is reasonably compact and robust to
an extent. As long as no great
pressure is placed on them, the
h800 can and will survive just
about any drop, bump, hit, or open
handed palm strike the average
user can deliver in most situations.
Furthermore, the design allows for
a decent amount of length adjustment for each side of the head and
curves slightly to surround the ears
more snuggly. It also has a standard microphone attached to it
that is not exceptional in anyway,
but gets the job done well enough
for Skype calls and the like.
In terms of overall sound qual-

ity the H800 is almost the exact

denition of average. The speakers will be able to reach the appropriate volume a user desires
and the sound produced is crisp
with little to no static present.
However, when looking for a pair
of headphones capable of shredding paper and restarting a heart,
pass these up without
a second glance.
Where the
headset truly
shines is in
its
overall
versatility.
With the
ability to
receive
with both
bluetooth
and usb,
the H800
can
be
used for
the majority of
a consume r s
on-thego sound
s y s t e m
needs. The two
options make the headset
compatible with the grand majority
of consumer sound devices making it suitable for most desires of a
consumer that is simply looking for
a pair of headphones that reduces
the clutter on their desk, while also
giving them the potential to listen
to their devices on the go.
With its reasonable price range
and jack of all trades but master of
none approach to the fundamental aspects users would look for in
wireless headphones, the Logitech
H800 is an all-around good headset that can get most jobs done in
a satisfying way.
COURTESY LOGITECH

Ethan Meeks
Staff Writer

The Battle of the Five Armies - The Hobbit

Erica Dettmer-Radtke
Staff Writer

The Battle of the Five

Armies is not the best Peter
Jackson movie to date. After
five other Peter Jackson movies
in the series have been made, it
feels like the last one should really take the cake. However, this
movie falls short in many categories. Although the basic plot is
decent, the acting is above average, and the special effects are
fine, there is a lot that just feels
off about the movie and there are
a lot of areas where the movie
could improve dramatically.
The cinematography is, for
a lack of a better description,
strange. It does not fit Peter
Jacksons usual grandiose style
and feels like it could have been
filmed by a 12-year-old. The
scenes are slightly disjointed and
the transitions are disorienting.
The special effects are great, but
that is true for almost any major
motion picture
these

days. Simply put, it is just off

from how a typical Peter Jackson
film flows. The movie is decent,
but it is not at a level of Lord of
the Rings good. The entire thing
is just disappointing. There are
a lot of unnecessary extrapolations from the book which do
not add to the movie as much
as they could. The images are
clear and crisp throughout, but
the combinations and transitions
between scenes are where the
movie is lacking.
The Hobbit is one book. It
did not have nearly as much plot
as even one of The Lord of the
Rings books, which only got one
movie each, but it was made into
three movies. The three movies
are unnecessary and that really
shows in The Battle of the Five
Armies. There is a lack of plot
in some places and it seems like
Peter Jackson was struggling to
come up with more to add to the
movie--the unnecessary
l o v e sto-

ry between Tauriel and Kili which

began in the last Hobbit movie,
for example. The two have never
even had a legitimate conversation before Kili decided he was
in love with Tauriel. Tauriel is an
interesting character, but she is
also an unnecessary character
and was not in the book.
The plot is fine. The movie
essentially follows the last part
of the book, providing closure
for the other two movies. Thorin has finally reclaimed The
Lonely Mountain which brings
a couple of other armies out of
the woodworks, including Thranduil and his Elven army, another
Dwarf army, and an army or two
of orcs and various other creatures. They battle over the Lonely Mountain and the treasures
that it holds, which takes up a
significant portion of the movie.
Despite the attempt
a t
closure, the

movie fails to tie up many of

loose ends. Even though the
fact that the movie had plenty of
time, the movie did not cover everything that the book did.
The acting in the movie is
great. Martin Freeman makes a
great Bilbo Baggins, portraying
just the right balance of humor
and seriousness. Ian McKellen is Ian McKellen, so nothing
can really go wrong there, as he
makes a great Gandalf. Richard
Armitage plays Thorin with ease.
Thranduil (Lee Pace) and Bard
(Luke Evans) are both fantastic
characters who bring a majority
of the interesting plot to the movie. Christopher Lee, Evangeline
Lilly, Orlando Bloom, and Cate
Blanchett all play their parts well.
In the midst of all these great actors and better than
decent
acting, the

movie still falls short.

The Battle of the Five Armies
provides closure for the last
two Hobbit movies. Fans who
are sticklers for the books will
definitely not enjoy the movie if
they are looking for it to follow
the book verbatim, as it does
not succeed at that point. Expanding The Hobbit into three
movies was not Peter Jacksons wisest move. After having
five other Lord of the Rings/
Hobbit movies, it feels like this
one should be really well done,
because it is last and Jackson
has had a lot of practice directing these sorts of movies. Sections of the movie are fine, but
the overall
product is
not satisfying.

COURTESY WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT

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s e x

page 4

s u r v e y

february 9, 2015

The Oredigger as a forum for discussing sex

Lucy Orsi
Editor-in-Chief

Continued from page 1

A few months ago I packed
up our entire oce and in the
process had to go through old
papers all the way back to the
1940s. The papers were hilarious. They were often sexist and
generally conservative. Cigarette
companies advertised in almost
every issue. Every single paper
was a cultural artifact of the campus at a particular moment in
time.
While I agree that the paper
should serve all members of
the Mines community, looking
through old papers made it clear
how reective the paper is of the
culture on campus. Perhaps this
was why people were so upset
about the survey. It characterized
the culture of our campus in a
way that did not necessarily align
with the image these individuals
had or maybe wanted for Mines.
It is for this reason, however, that
I think publishing the survey has
become fairly important.
The paper should serve as a
resource to help connect all members of the Mines community, but
its main audience is not alumni or
professors or administrative sta.
It is primarily a newspaper written and designed by students for
students and I want to look back
at the paper in fty years and feel
like it accurately represents what
the campus is today.
These surveys have been a
valuable part of our strategy to
both engage students and represent them. This is a school lled
with engineers and it should not
surprise anyone that publishing
data about other students on

campus both generates interest

in the paper and captures unique
aspects of campus life. So to
those of you who were oended
by the survey and thought it did
not belong in the paper or think it
is a misrepresentation of campus
culture, I point you to the following statistics:
After less than twenty four
hours, nearly 1500 students had
responded to our survey. It dominated the top posts of Yik-Yak
that night and it generated more
engagement on our facebook
page than any other article post
this academic year.
If part of the purpose of the
paper is to reect the values and
culture of our campus, this survey seems to have been the most
eective means of engaging the
campus community this entire
year.
Still, I understand that interest
in an article is not and should not
be the only barometer an editor
uses to decide what to publish,
which brings us to the nal issue
with the survey: the salacious nature of its subject matter.
The most frequent concern
I have heard in this regard is
that the survey is reminiscent
of something you might nd in
a magazine like Cosmopolitan.
These types of comparisons rely
on a singular point of similarity:
Cosmo and the Oredigger both
dared to talk about sex, but making this comparison on this article
is akin to comparing the Orediggers weekly news section to
the New York Times. Sure, they
sometimes focus on similar issues but I think we can all agree
they are dierent beasts entirely.
To this end, I am not really
sure what the problem with resembling a section in Cosmopoli-

tan is. It would be problematic if

the paper turned into a weekly
sex column, but luckily we do
not have to pick one or the other.
The beauty of newspapers is that
they can have multiple sections.
We can write about world news,
cooking, new movies and sexual
tendencies on campus all in the
same issue. To conne the paper
to one particular category or to
outlaw another is to limit the capacity of the press in entirely unnecessary ways.
It is here that I feel the survey
is providing a unique service that
I had not anticipated when we
initially created it. In the last few
years, college campuses have
come under increasing scrutiny
for their treatment of sexual assault. National headlines have
been dominated by stories of
both horrible sexual assaults and
horrible administrative responses. Colleges have ignored victims
and wrongly convicted innocent
individuals all in the same week.
College newspapers have
often taken up the role of advocates, attempting to challenge
their administrations to handle
issues in dierent ways. Many of
these responses, however, are
after the fact. In these cases,
reporters get invested only after an assault has occurred and
as a result, discussions of sex
on campus are responsive and
not preemptive. Establishing
a healthy and honest dialogue
about sex is critical in preventing
sexual assault, but these discussions should not have to wait until after tragedy strikes to become
relevant.
Before creating this survey,
I looked up similar surveys sent
out on other college campuses.
I found countless examples, but

numbers of responses for gender

and sexual orientation, respectively. Even when we grouped
all other (asexual, other, and
pansexual) responses into one
category, we simply could not

sive to try to analyze data about

a group of what amounted to fifteen people. Every time we tried
to include this data, it looked
absurd or misrepresented the results of the survey. We just could
not bring ourselves to
publish statistics about
such an unreliably small
sample size.
While we did not marginalize undrepresented
groups further, we also
did not want to further
entrench the problem
by publishing data that
from
misrepresented
these
groups.
Maybe we are wrong
about this though and if you
think so, send us an email. We
are ready and willing to change
our minds. Additionally, once we
publish the results you are welcome to try to find a better way
to analyze this data.

Addressing the issue of

the Other category
The Oredigger Editorial
Board

There were a few comments

that indicated the survey marginalized some individuals and we
would like to state for the
record that we are sorry. We
crafted the survey over the
course of a few nights and a
few conversations with different friend groups. Not everyone in these groups was
heterosexual, but like most
things in society, these individuals definitely outnum- Table 1: The number of responses
bered all other sexualities.
each gender.
We definitely should have
been more cognizant of
produce any reasonable analysis
such a bias.
Having said that, when we out of the results.
This put us in an awkward powent to deal with the results of
the survey, we struggled with sition. We did not want to marwhat to do for underrepresented ginalize these groups further by
sexual orientations and genders. cutting them out of our analysis
Tables 1 and 2 show the raw entirely, but it also seemed offen-

Table 2: The number of responses from each sexual orientation categorized by gender.

oddly enough, most of them

were singular pieces, conducted
in only one year. At the time, I
hardly even registered this as a
trend, but after my experience I
think I have a good guess as to
why these surveys, though popular, are isolated instances instead
of annual occurrences.
Despite mainstream medias
portrayal of sex, it is still seen as
a forbidden topic. To talk about
sexual attitudes on campus is
to put yourself in the pool with
a writer from Cosmopolitan. No
college administration wants the
top news story about campus to
focus on the sexual habits of its
students. The resulting criticism
cast on newspaper stas serves
as a deterrent to future editorial
boards who might consider publishing similar stories, no matter
how eective articles like this
can be in breaking down sexual
barriers. I experienced this rst
hand last week, as I listened to
criticisms of the eectiveness of
our eorts this year center on this
single survey. rather than all of
our other initiatives.
The results of this survey do
not indicate that Mines has any
abnormal level of sexual activity,
but based on the response and
shame we have felt this week for
deciding to send out this survey,
you would think that only a minority of campus was sexually
active.
Despite the overwhelming response from students, every single administrative individual I approached declined my oer for an
interview or an editorial. Granted,
I approached many of these individuals towards the end of the
week and I will concede that I
was often abrupt given my short
time frame for publication. Thus,

this is not a criticism as much as

it is an invitation to enter the conversation.
The results of this survey and
larger surveys done across college campuses are clear: the majority of students in college are
sexually active in some capacity.
This is no longer an issue of salacious content, but rather one of
establishing clear lines of communication. If we keep casting
sex as a taboo subject that must
be approached with extreme
caution, how can we ever hope
to establish clear boundaries for
acceptable behavior?
Avoiding conversations about
sex at an institutional level ensures this school will fail in its
primary mission of educating
students about the world around
them. The survey we sent out
was never intended to become
a focus piece about our attitudes
towards sex and I am sure many
individuals will point to its aws,
but to do so is to miss the greater
point: This survey should not have
been a big deal and the amount
and magnitude of responses indicates that there is a signicant
gap in productive conversations
about sex on campus.
Luckily for us, we ended up
asking some pretty signicant
questions and as we began to
analyze the data this week, we
realized what a big task we had
created for ourselves, and we do
not want to rush it. This is just
the start of our analysis and we
look forward to continuing this
conversation in weeks to come.
We will be inviting more administrative individuals to showcase
their thoughts in our paper and
we hope that the rest of the campus will engage in this discussion
with us.

Preferred methods of
contraception, see more
on page 5
Figure 2: Female
preferences

Figure 3: Male
preferences

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s e x

february 9, 2015

s u r v e y

page 5

Were going to try to answer your questions...

The Oredigger Editorial Board

What is the sex survey?

Last week, the Oredigger sent out an email to graduate and undergraduate students asking them to take a survey that was all about sex. The survey
asked students a series of questions ranging from topics like number of sexual
partners to the number of times per week students talk to their parents. A lot of
people participated, 3446 to be exact, though that includes a sizable number
of responses from some internet trolls. We recommend you read our editor-inchiefs article on the front page to give these results some context.
We asked participants around thirty questions, so there was a plethora of
data to sort through. This is only the beginning of our analysis. We wanted to do a really good job analyzing the results, so we decided to spread our
analysis across multiple issues. In this issue we focused on gender and
GPA and even then we had to cut out data due to space limitations. We
encourage you to check our website for a more complete look at the
data. We know this might be frustrating, but we spent nearly twenty hours on
analysis this weekend and we barely scratched the surface. We do feel bad for
delaying the results though, so we have decided to release the raw data...
sort of. See below for more information.

The data is pretty bad, right?

The answer here is pretty obvious: our results would not get published in
an academic journal. Having said that, the demographic distribution of the
responses we considered in our analysis is fairly consistent with what the
school actually reports. For instance, according to our schools enrollment
data, which can be found on the institutional research page of inside.mines.
edu, approximately 60 percent of enrolled students at Mines are Colorado
residents. On the survey we asked students to identify themselves as instate or out-of-state and 60 percent of individuals who responded to this
question indicated they were in-state students.
Our results also aligned with the expected distribution of majors, shown
in Figure 4. We pulled this information from the Career Centers website and
it only represents the graduating class, but it was the best we could nd.
As shown by the gure, our results align decently with the expected results,
indicating the data has some degree of reliability.
The survey data gets a bit more skewed in the gender department,
where 63.5 percent of individuals identied as male, 35.3 percent as female
and 1.2 percent as other. The school reports that only 27 percent of enrolled students are female.
There were also some other interesting holistic observations. For instance, the average GPAs for undergraduate men and women who took
the survey were equal at 3.170 and 3.165, respectively. We were never able
to track down an ocial statement or document from Mines stating what
the average GPA is now, but we did nd an article from Mines Magazine
published in the spring of 2010 that reported an average female GPA of 3.0
versus an average male GPA of 2.9.
Next, while only 13 percent of survey respondents identied as graduate
students, the remainder were evenly split with roughly 22 percent identifying
in each of the class categories (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors).
We were unable to nd a breakdown of class sizes at Mines, but we did nd
out from the most recent Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) report, that approximately 20 percent of students at Mines are
graduate students and approximately 22 percent of the 2013-2014 student
body was composed of rst-time degree/certicate-seeking undergraduates, or in other words freshmen.
While graduate students were underrepresented in our survey, their effect on the data was signicant. Figure 5 shows the distribution of GPAs
across classes. We rounded all GPAs to the nearest half and we did not
include individuals who reported GPAs above 4.0 in our calculations.
Additionally, graduate students reported much higher GPAs and were
initially skewing our results (see Figure 5). We felt it was important to remove
graduate students from most of the analysis. Additionally, graduate and undergraduate students experience vastly dierent sides of Mines, so grouping their responses together is problematic. If you are a graduate student
who answered the survey, calm down. We will conduct an independent
analysis of graduate students in future issues. We just want to make sure
we are representing the data in the most accurate way possible.
Table 3 shows how our results compare with national averages and indicates that either Mines has a slightly more sexually active campus, or our
results are biased.The higher percentage of female respondents indicates
that there is probably some degree of bias in our results, though it is dicult
to pinpoint exactly what the bias is.
Theres also the issue of joke responses. Weve already explained how
we eliminated certain answers, but this was obviously not fool-proof. Not
everyone who lies does so in obvious ways. This seems to be an issue of
classifying the survey results. If we wanted to be more accurate, we would
clarify that all of our generalizations are based on reported answers and
may not actually align with reality. This is a distinction we feel is meaningless
and rather obvious, but it is worth pointing out nonetheless.
If we could summarize our feelings about the reliability of the survey in
one word it would be meh. The results are not accurate, but they are not
necessarily inaccurate either. Use them at your own peril.

Figure 4: The distribution of survey respondents by major department compared with the
distribution of the 2013-2014 graduating class. We pulled this information from the Career
Centers website and it only represents the graduating class

Figure 5: The distribution of survey respondents by year and GPA rounded to the nearest
0.5. Graduate student GPAs do not follow the same distribution patterns as undergraduate GPAs. Graduate student data was not considered in this publication.

I heard the survey was posted on 4chan and reddit.

Doesnt that mean the results are meaningless?

This answer is multifaceted. On the one hand, the fact that approximately 1300 individuals on the internet took time
out of their days to corrupt the results of a survey that was in no way associated with them has forced us to reconsider
our implicit assumption that people are primarily good. On the other hand, we have time-stamps, so trying to explain the
motivations of internet people is entirely unnecessary.
Our process here was pretty straightforward. On Thursday night, there were approximately 1900 responses. By
Friday morning, this number had spiked to 3300. While we would love to believe that roughly 66 percent of the student
body had responded to our survey, this just seemed too good to be true. Some people also told us it had been posted
on 4chan. It was also pretty obvious in the data. At end of the day on Thursday, only 1.5 percent of survey respondents
selected other as their sexual orientation. By Friday morning, this number had jumped to 22 percent. Reading the
sexual orientations spewed forth by 4chan and reddit users was not altogether disappointing. Our favorites include
extreme apathy, cheese, and 20000sexual.
We decided to do the responsible thing and remove all responses after a certain point in time, reducing our sample
size to roughly 1500. If you responded after this point, we are terribly sorry that your voice was not heard. Blame the
internet.
Even after removing these responses, there were a few answers that just did not seem reasonable. We used a threestrikes method to identify unreliable respondents. For instance, if you claimed to be a freshman majoring in Liberal Arts
and International Studies who has had sex in Edgar Mine, we denitely rejected your response. This process led to the
removal of 40 out of 1500 responses, which is not too bad if you ask us.

Can you release the raw data to the community?

First of all, we want you to know how badly we wish we could simply say yes and have that be it. We feel very little
ownership for this data and we feel obligated to release as much as we possibly can. Unfortunately, there are a few legal
and ethical concerns. The survey was condential, but we did ask a fair number of demographic based questions and
as a result, it may be possible to identify an individual in certain situations. We wish we could trust you not to exploit the
data for this type of goal, but then we remember that amongst all of you is someone who posted our survey to 4chan
But we really want to give you the data so we are going to post as much as we can without jeopardizing anyone
anonymity. In a few days, we will post an excel spreadsheet with the responses, but we have been asked to exclude
the identifying questions we asked including gender, major department, class year, residency status, sexual orientation,
relationship status, and GPA. We think we can reasonably include one of these categories and still maintain an acceptable level of condentiality and we want to know which one people want the most. Head to our website (oredigger.net)
and vote for the category you think we should release. We cannot promise that we will end up releasing the data from
the winning category, but we promise we will do our best to get you as much data as we reasonably can. The only other
data that will be removed is the comments, for obvious reasons.
In exchange for releasing the data, we only ask that you try to think a little bit more about the data than a typical 4chan
Table 3: The percentage of male, female, and transgender
user would. Maybe go back and actually read the article on the front page. We think Mines students are pretty intelligent
and we are condent some of you are better at statistical analysis than we are. Please do not let us down and instead
individuals who identify as virgins compared to a national
average published by the American College Health Associa- show us that releasing data to the public is not just an issue of principles, but also key to generating better analysis. If you
come up with something cool, let us know and we will probably publish it.
tion in Spring 2014.

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s u r v e y

february 9, 2015

Figure 6: Condence in sexual abilities (5 is high) versus GPA (lines)

and normalized (100%) percentage of each GPA population. GPAs are
rounded to the nearest half.

Figure 7: Sexual frequency (5 is high) versus GPA (lines) and normalized (100%) percentage of each GPA population. GPAs are rounded to
the nearest half.

Figure 8: Frequency of one night stands versus male and female genders (lines) and normalized (100%) percentage of each male and female
population. GPAs are rounded to the nearest half.

Figure 9: Frequency of one night stands (5 is high) versus GPA

(lines) and normalized (100%) percentage of each GPA population.
GPAs are rounded to the nearest half.

Figure 10: Happiness with sex life (5 is high) versus GPA (lines) and
normalized (100%) percentage of each GPA population. GPAs are
rounded to the nearest half.

Figure 11: Number of sexual partners in the last 12 months versus GPA
(lines) and normalized (100%) percentage of each GPA population.
GPAs are rounded to the nearest half.

Figure 12: Percentage of virgins versus GPA. GPAs are rounded to the
nearest half.

Figure 13: Percentage of usage of the phrase RIBS (Ratio Induced

Bitchiness Syndrome) versus GPA. GPAs are rounded to the nearest
half.

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february 9, 2015

s e x

Figure 14: The percentage of respondents (red) who have cheated on

someone. The gender breakdown was nearly equivalent, 19.3 percent
of females and 18.3 percent of males identied as cheaters. See Figure
15 for more information on cheating distributions.

s u r v e y

page 7

Never cheated

Cheated

Female

Never cheated

Cheated

Male

Figure 15: The relationship between cheating (horizontal axis) and being cheated on (each data series) separated by gender.

Figure 16: The frequency of masturbation that female and male respondents reported. Note that the distribution centers around almost
never for women versus a few times a week for men.

Figure 18: The frequency at which female and male respondents report
having one night stands.

Figure 17: The frequency at which female and male respondents report
watching pornography. Note the slight differences with Figure 16.

Figure 19: Female and male condence in their sexual abilities on a

scale of 1-5 (5 is high).

Table 4: Current female and male relationship statuses.

The percentage of women who

report having faked an orgasm:

65.3%

Figure 20: The percentage of female and male respondents who reported having the specied range of sexual partners in the last 12-months.
Note the relation to the percentage of female and male individuals who
report being in a relationship, see Table 4.
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The percentage of men who

report having faked an orgasm:

23.5%

page 8

a d v e r t i s m e n t s

february 9, 2015

#idigmines Day
Photo Contest

Would you dig winning $500 for your student club or organization?
Show Mines donors why you dig Mines with your Instagram photo using #idigmines!
The winning photo will be selected on February 27 and shared with Mines donors to thank
them for their support.

Submit your photo by February 26

Stop by Mines Market in Elm Hall on February 26

to pick up your #idigmines pin and a special treat.

Take your Mines Pride for a Drive

Purchase your Mines license plate today:

MinesAlumni.com/MinesPlates
Buy online or come to the alumni association at the Coolbaugh House (17th & Maple St.)

Cost: $75 tax-deductible donation + $50 DMV Fee

Ride with Pride brought to you by:

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

february 9, 2015

f e a t u r e s

page 9

Walk The Moon - Talking is Hard Sower

43 minutes and 17 seconds of pure unbridled energy and enthusiasm

Dillon Stine
Staff Writer

Walk The Moons second album

Talking is Hard is a full frontal audial
assault on all things melancholy, dull,
and gray. Released on December
2nd, 2014, the bands sophomore LP
is definitely no slump. The quirky indie-pop-electronica-dance
quartet out of Cincinnati,
Ohio follow up on their acclaimed 2012 self-titled debut album with twelve new
songs that grow the bands
sound in every direction.
Since their emergence
in 2010 with the hit single
Anna Sun, Walk the
Moon has gathered a loyal
following for their notoriously paint covered, dance
riddled, and sweaty live
performances. They are
a band that focuses on
catchy bass riffs, funky guitar rhythm sections, heavy
bass-drum centric cadences, and 80s sounding electronic synthesizer swells.
Talking is Hard is no different in that respect, its a
definite throwback of an
album that would fit right
in echoing off the walls of 1980s discotheques; its a true progression for
Walk The Moon and throughout the
album each band member is seemingly able to crank their musical facets
and trademarks up to 11. Synthesizer
leads are dirtier, drums are more frenetic, slap bass is more prominent,
and guitar sections are boisterous
and hectic.
In the track UP 2 U a slow me-

lodic buildup in the first minute pivots

on a dime erupting into the most ferocious sounding song on the album. Eli
Maimans (Guitarist) distorted guitar riff
weaves effortlessly with Nicholas Petriccas (Vocals and Keys) overblown
synthesizer strikes; all the while Petricca is belting out Its UP 2 U! with
such a fervor and tenacity in his voice

ing bass lines. In both instances the

chorus floors the listener with a zeal
that will have asses shaking like its the
middle of an earthquake.
Talking is Hard builds on themes
such as youth, realization of love, and
empowerment to form the core of the
albums message. Walk the Moon
perfectly encapsulate the feeling of
COURTESY SONY ENTERTAINMENT MUSIC being young in We
Are the Kids. Petricca said in an interview with Spotify that
this song is reminiscent of sitting at the
back of the school
bus wearing your
hat backwards, and
the lyrics perfectly reflect that I rip holes
in my shirt, Theres
mud on my shoes,
theres sun on my
skin, I am brand
new, We shout at
the cops, we howl at
the moon .
Avalanche is a
well polished, guitar riff ridden, lithe
sounding song centered around the experience of meeting
somebody you feel
that you wonder if the man needs a like youve known before. The albums
microphone at all. Up 2 U is one of opening track Different Colors and
very few non-dubstep songs that has UP 2 U suggest that making change
an honest to god drop in it that will in the world is dependent on equality
knock socks off, and its hands down and the mental connections we make
the best track on the record.
with one another.
The tracks Down in the Dumps
Although most of the album conand Spend Your $$$ keep the al- veys a fever-dream like state of eubums voracious inertia trucking with phoric passion to the audience, the
Sean Waugamans high tempoed last two tracks on Talking is Hard
drumming and Kevin Rays flow- slow things down letting beauty and

tranquility in. Both Come Under

the Covers and Aquaman reveal a
gentler more intimate version of Walk
the Moon. Come Under the Covers
is filled with harmonies from all four
band mates; and Petriccas songwriting prowess once again comes to
forefront as he sings about the connections made when falling in love
and how its like you grew up down
the street. This echoes the lyrics of
Avalanche as both songs tackle how
love is a familiar face that is eternally
tangled up in nostalgia.
The perfectly named Aquaman finishes off the album with a
down-tempo air about it that washes
through the listeners sensory. High
pitched modulated keyboard strokes
echo around the slow brooding
bassline and escalating drums. Vocals
dripping in falsetto ring out about having to struggle in order to dive deeper
into relationships. These songs pump
the brakes on the accelerating album
allowing it to effortlessly coast into its
ending.
Walk The Moons sophomore effort Talking is Hard is one of the most
imaginative and exotic indie-pop albums to date. It has a tone and passion about it that makes it different
from the monotony that is slowly engrossing the indie genre. The bands
devotion to their sound is a revelation,
and it pours through the speakers for
the entire 43 minute runtime. Walk
The Moon provide a joyous ride that
you wont want to end. The entirety
of the album feels tight and effortless.
They express themselves and their
ideals beautifully in a way that makes
it look easy, but maybe thats just how
they best articulate since for them
talking is hard.

Katrina San Nicolas

Staff Writer

Continued from Page 1

While instructing a Mines lecture of
250 students is different than a smaller
class, Dr. Sower works hard to ensure
that students feel important amidst the
large community. The sheer energy
and size of the class is a piece that she
really enjoys.
Dr. Sower says of her teaching philosophy that It always comes down
to accessibility. She uses templatestyle notes, online animations, and
group activities to reach out to visual,
auditory, and kinesthetic learners. Additionally, one of Dr. Sowers goals is to
make lecture feel both organized and
cohesive by tying new material to previous chapters and courses. While her
biggest teaching challenge is feeling
effective as an educator, the best part
of her career at Mines is interacting
with the students during lecture, lab,
and office hours.
This is really a special place because of the group of students you are
working with. They will work as hard
as you push them, and it is neat to
see students excel in the intensity of
the program, she explains. Dr. Sower
feels that it is a special opportunity to
be at Mines and she hopes to participate in activities that support student
learning as she continues to teach
here.
There is a real sense of community
here that is a reflection of the students
and faculty, acknowledges Dr. Sower.
My advice for Mines students would
be to continue working hard, as that
will carry over to the career process.
And from welcoming her class with
a smile, to going above and beyond
to be accessible outside of class, this
new faculty member is using her passion for chemistry to inspire each and
every one of the 250 students who
walk into her classroom.

Iron & Wine & Sheep Dogs Tetraforms Impress

Joseph Hunt
Staff Writer

Samuel Beam, known musically

as Iron and Wine, brings an eclectic
and rich collection of music to the
table in The Shepherds Dog, his
2007 album release. Featuring banjos, guitars, percussion, strings and
soft spoken vocals, the album is at
times soft and at other times lively in
delivery, but never dull. Combining
music from genres such as rock,
folk, bluegrass and country, Iron
and Wine creates a unique style
of melodies that are distinctly individual.
Born in South Carolina,
Beam graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University before moving on to Florida State,
where he received his Master of
Fine Arts degree in cinematography. In addition to this, Beam
continued to produce music, ultimately culminating in releasing
his first album, The Creek Drank
the Cradle, in 2002 with Sub
Pop Records. Ever since, he has
produced music, releasing four
additional albums. The most recent album to date is Ghost on
Ghost, released in 2013. His discography includes, in chronological
order: The Creek Drank the Cradle,
Our Endless Numbered Days, The
Shepherds Dog, Kiss Each Other
Clean, and Ghost on Ghost.
The listener is greeted with Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car as
an introductory track, familiarizing
the listener with the folksy, rhythmic
sound present in the albums entirety.
Each track following bears the similar
sound, which cannot easily be classified as folk, country, or bluegrass.

Iron and Wine masterfully blends

these genres into something that
bears the trademarks of each without explicitly limiting itself to just one.
Soulful acoustic riffs are met with
murmured vocals and tasteful inclusions of electric guitar. At times the
listener is spurred to dance along
with the energetic and playful The
Devil Never Sleeps; other times, to
close their eyes and be absorbed
in the almost funky Wolves (Song

of the Shepherds Dog). Songs

such as Resurrection Fern remind
the listener of modern country, with
wide, echoing guitars accompanied
with images of wide open prairie.
The variety and range of Iron and
Wines music makes it easy to hook
listeners, while its relative simplicity
holds the listeners attention. Beams
soft-spoken vocals add a charm and
intimacy to each and every track
present on the album, imitating the
feeling of sharing a small room with

the artist and his band as they play

each piece. Notable tracks include:
Peace Beneath The City, Innocent Bones, Boy With A Coin, and
Lovesong Of The Buzzard. When
listening to the album in its entirety,
a listener will be surprised to hear
the silence after the last track has
played: the album plays out in a brief
49 minutes, and the listener cannot
often help but wishing there was
more. Thankfully, Iron and Wines
other albums prove to
be just as if not more interesting, leaving a trail
of cool, intriguing music
behind a wonderfully delivered album.
Additionally,
credit
must be given to Beams
band. Pianos, electric and
acoustic guitars, drums,
and banjos all accompany his performance
and all add to the addictive sound of the album.
It isnt uncommon to hear
brief, almost jazz-like solos from each piece interspersed within the tracks.
While Beams voice and
solo work can easily hold
a listener, it is the soulful
additions of everyone that make The
Shepherds Dog memorable and
easily listenable.
The Shepherds Dog is a wonderful introduction to Iron and Wine. A
memorable album that is difficult to
classify in terms of genre, it is better
to instead approach it for what it is.
Iron and Wine is a homogeneous
blend of a multitude of genres that
culminates in a trademark sound
that many will find to be incredibly
catchy and intriguing.

Curt Dennis
Staff Writer

Tetraforms is a prog-metal,
very technical band out of Colorado. They recently released a
new album, By Design, complete
with a music video for their single
Linger. With a copy of the album
blaring through the speakers,
heres a review of By Design.
Being a prog-metal band requires the utmost musical skill,
combining weird time signatures,
poly-rhythms, conflicting melodies; really anything that puts
the typical 4/4 time signature to
shame. And its hard. Tetraforms
does it well though. Not only do
they combine all these complex
forms together, but as demonstrated on ZHE GROOVINGZ,
they can even make it sound
funky and fun while keeping the
complexity.
And despite the complexity of
each individual track, the entire
album flows smoothly, one song
into the other; its something most
bands dont do nowadays, but
they should because it sounds
awesome. Each song on By
Design sounds great by itself,
meaning you can fall in love with
one track and not worry about
awkward intros or outros, or you
can pick up the entire album and
hear how each song compliments
the next, fading into one another.
It could be one long track, or 6
long songs (cmon, when was the
last time a prog/math metal song
lasted for 3 minutes?), depending
on how you feel like listening to it.
Throughout all this awesome

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t

musicianship, there is an awkwardness with the vocals. Now,

everyone in the band can play,
that much is obvious, but the
vocal melodies seem extremely
forced. Singing over crazy time
signatures, with unique sounds,
isnt exactly easy, as I think Tetraforms has figured out, and it takes
time to smooth out. No vocal
melody on the album really stays
in the head of the listener, and the
best song on the album, in my
opinion, is the one with no vocals.
Though musically, Tetraforms can go from a more quieter,
ballad-esque style (displayed on
tracks like THE ELITE), to the
more typical metal, head-banging
style (WALTZ OF THE UNMADE),
and make it all flow flawlessly. Lyrical, their fun and dont have any
problems hitting their notes.
They can invoke head-banging, foot tapping, moshing; everything typical of this genre of
music, they seem to have a solid
understanding of.
Overall, for a debut release in
one of the hardest genres of music, its not a bad showing. Theres
obviously some work that needs
to be done between now and
their next release, but with many
shows and many days in the studio, they could pull it off. Dave,
Hunter, and Martin are great musicians, as theyve clearly demonstrated, and fixing a melodic issue
is completely in their capabilities.
If youre interested in purchasing By Design, its available on
iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify,
and anywhere else digital music
is sold.

page 10

f e a t u r e s

february 9, 2015

Golden Moon Speakeasy - a Golden must!

Ramiro Rodriguez
Staff Writer

Along Washington Street in

downtown Golden, there is a nondescript red door with a sign hanging above it that looks like a face.
Within that door is are stairs that
lead to a long, winding hallway leading eventually to yet another door
with a sign on it like the sign above
the red door. Inside the door is the
menagerie of sights and tastes that
is the Golden Moon Speakeasy,
one of the most unique and interesting drinking experiences--not
just in Golden but in all of the West.
Proprietor and distiller Stephen
Gould, a self-described booze and
cocktail geek, opened the Golden
Moon Speakeasy in March of 2014
to, in his words, create a place
thats really fun, really welcoming,
where anyone can feel comfortable, and at the same time showcase the spirits produced in the
[Golden Moon] distillery. The goal is
to make our customers feel cherished, feel relaxed, and just have
a good time. This goal seems to
be well met given the amount of
community support for the cocktail
lounge in anotherwise beer-centric
town.

Golden Moon Speakeasy showcases the spirits produced at their

nearby distillery through a cocktail
menu using only those spirits. It
spans the history of the cocktail
from pre-Prohibition punches to
modern favorites made from Golden Moon Distillerys award winning absinthe, gin, bourbon, apple
jack, amer dit picon, and creme de
violette. Cocktail fans will be hard
pressed not to find a favorite as
the menu has something for everyone with tastes ranging from the
licoriceand mint flavored Absinthe
Frappe to the sweet and fruity (and
appropriately named) To Be Drank
Often. Fans of the spirits will also be
able to purchase 750ml bottles of
each of their spirits over the counter
as gift baskets containing bottles,
and t-shirts. Prices for drinks range
from $9 to $14, with a series of seven drinks for $7 during Happy Hour
which goes from open to 7:00 pm.
The price of bottles ranges from
$32 forcreme de violette and dry
curacao to $86 for Redux Absinthe
Verte.
Golden Moon Speakeasy has
tremendous amounts of atmosphere withits low lights, wood
and brass motifs, and local art.
The lounge feels cozy whether with

friends, talking with the friendly

staff, or listening to the live music
regularly offered on Fridays and
Saturdays. Other regular events
include game nights on Tuesdays where patrons are invited to
play and bring board games, and

Sundays Apres Ski Night where a

range of hot toddys and hot chocolate cocktails go on the menu while
skiing and snowboarding videos go
up on the television.
Golden Moon Speakeasy is an
incredibly unique experience that

is not to be missed for any fan of

cocktails or spirits. Between the extensive menu, award winning spirits, inviting atmosphere, and entertainment, Golden Moon Speakeasy
is a must-visit for fans of mixed
drink and good times.
COURTESY GOLDEN MOON SPEAKEASY

The Golden Moon Speakeasy serves up a new twist on classic cocktails and spirits.

Bluegrass, Beer, and Snow: Mines Students Volunteer at First Annual UllrGrass Music Festival
Chelsea Grimm
Staff Writer

Friday, January 30 Sunday,

February 1, 2015
Chris Hemsworth brought
Thor to the big screen, though
Marvel fans have been acquainted with the hammer-wielding
Norse god-turned-comic booksuperhero since 1962. Even the
most dedicated geek may be
absolved of their ignorance of
his stepson, Ullr (pronounced
Oool-er), Scandinavian god of archery, hunting, and winter. If you
are an Ullr devotee, you probably
ski. Ullr is often credited as the
god of snow, and you may have
prayed to him for powder.
Golden kicked off the first annual UllrGrass Music Festival on
January 30th that consisted of
three days of bluegrass and folk

music, a full afternoon of Colorado craft beer, and community

events, including a hike up Lookout Mountain.
Chris and Susannah Thompson dreamed up UllrGrass last
fall. The pair, both active in the
Colorado bluegrass scene, were
perfectly suited for the task.
Chriss band, Coral Creek,
performed during the festival,
which was headlined by bluegrass legend Peter Rowan and
Colorado State University alums
Head for the Hills. Susannah
wrote the UllrGrass theme song
and even painted Golden local,
Lark, in fur and horns. Even their
third-grade daughter, Cassidy,
and friend Tegan wrote a song,
which they performed on stage
Sunday.
Volunteer coordinator Heather
Klenske saw UllrGrass as very
ambitious, but called it a dream
come true.

Chelsea Grimm / Oredigger

[The volunteers] were the major rockstars who saved us this

weekend, Klenske said, noting
that fifty-five of the roughly sixtyeight volunteers were Colorado
School of Mines students.
The Mines student chapter
of the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
brought a large group of students
to help set up Parfet Park Saturday morning. Chapter Vice President Spencer Rolfs aimed to provide ten volunteers for the event.
We try to create volunteer
events for our chapter as often as
possible, he said. When news
broke that the UllrGrass Festival
needed help, it was a no-brainer.
What better way to have a team
bonding experience with our local community than a bluegrass
festival?
The response was so overwhelming that the AAPG ultimately brought twenty-eight
Chelsea Grimm / Oredigger

John Harper, Hannah Durkee, and Jessica Franklin build

perimeter fences around Parfet Park.

The Clear Creek Paperboy advertising UllrGrass Music Festival along Clear Creek.

students. Other student groups

that got involved included service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega
and the CSM Material Advantage
Chapter.
People showed up who
werent even on the schedule,
saying its okay, where do you
need me? Klenske said.
According to Klenske, the volunteers help in setting up and
tearing down were huge. Volunteers also helped with ticket
sales, security, artist hospitality, and hanging posters across
downtown Golden.
Mines volunteers will definitely be invited back next year,

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she said.
As for the weather, Ullr, the
Scandinavian god of winter, arrived fashionably late to the festival. Saturday nights forecasted
dusting turned into six inches.
As the snow began to blanket Golden, a call came over the
UllrGrass teams radios that their
biggest night at the Buffalo Rose
had sold out. Team members
near the stage cranked up their
radios so everyone could hear
Susannah Thompson singing the
festivals theme song with the
UllrGrass All-Stars: I aint afraid
of no winter, I aint afraid of no
cold.

february 9, 2015

u l l r g r a s s

page 11
ALL PHOTOS ALEX ESTRADA / OREDIGGER

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a d v e r t i s m e n t s

february 9, 2015

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page 12

BUILDInG poSSIBILItIES

Where Great Futures

Take Shape Every Day

Lehigh Hanson companies have

more than 160 years of providing
construction materials to erect
the buildings, roads, homes and
parks that surround us.
As our company grows, we
will adhere to the world-class
standards established by our
heritage. And we continually
strive to achieve an even higher
level of excellence.

Lehigh Hanson

www.lehighhanson.com/careers

contact
Marvin Gomez
careers@lehighhanson.com

w w w . O R E D I G G E R . n e t