Hope you all had a good reading week. I definitely did, at the expense of my assignments. But alas, it was but a brief respite from Iron Warrior production. So here’s the third issue of the Iron Warrior this term!
Fun fact of the week: A team of entomologists in Nairobi have discovered a wasp and named it Thaumatodryinus tuukkaraski, after the Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask. The applicable journal article states that Rask’s “glove hand is as tenacious as the raptorial fore tarsus of this dryinid species.” Fancy.
Incidentally, a wasp in hockey refers to a forward skilled at “bugging” opposing players. This rarely applies to goalies but Leafs fans are probably still stung by Rask’s trade to the Bruins in 2005 for Andrew Raycroft. Remember him? Me neither.
On the other hand, Rask went on to win the Vezina Trophy for being the goaltender “adjudged to be the best at this position” in the NHL in 2013. So there’s that.
I’d like to thank the staff that helped assemble this publication, including Nina, who put the finishing touches on the paper while I quietly freaked out over my pavement lab report. And contributed the Sudoku. If it was up to me I wouldn’t have a Sudoku at all. I’d have one of those elimination matrix problems, or a Boggle puzzle. But because of Nina, you Sudoku fans have three Sudoku problems, and this time, they’re all different.
Also thanks to Bryan, who dragged himself to the office in a post-midterm haze to acquire statements and photos for the Iron Inquisition. This week’s question is, “When was the last all-nighter you pulled?” I’m happy to say that I haven’t done an all-nighter this term yet, though to share the words of another respondent, I have done many half-nighters.
Now, I’d like to direct you towards the statements from the “YES” and “NO” committees for the E7 referendum on page 7. Both sides make compelling points about whether or not an opt-out donation should be levied on engineering undergrads after the building is completed! Read both sides and don’t forget to vote on March 11th. The Engsoc elections had a voter turnout of 8%, let’s see if we can beat it!
Moving on, my favourite article this issue is Filzah and Sepehr’s article on Kevin O’Leary’s trip to the University of Waterloo (page 7). Love him or hate him, he is a dramatic figure along the lines of Donald Trump, and is most famous for his role on CBC’s Dragon’s Den. His speech to students at Waterloo was also quite divisive.
And, to toot my own horn, on page 6 I have a writeup of Bill C-51, which is currently being debated in the House of Commons. It is of my opinion that the bill is dangerously sloppy, just like workplace safety violations, changing lanes without signalling, or the houses of hoarders. Please read it through and take a few minutes yourself to determine whether or not Bill C-51 is a law you would like to see enacted in Canada (Hint: it really isn’t.)
Anyways, why am I so anti-Sudoku? It’s not so much anti-Sudoku as… pro everything else. a computer can generate and solve a puzzle with such native ease. There isn’t any creativity of interpretation required in Sudokus. You’ll never do a Sudoku and be struck by the beauty of a number cluster, the ingenuity of a sequence, or expect to see 867-5309 hidden in a diagonal. The most individuality one can infuse into creating a Sudoku is figuring out how to idiosyncratically name the difficulty level of each one.
The best type of puzzles are the ones that take serious lateral thinking – cryptic crosswords come to mind. Sadly I’m crap at them, so I do regular crosswords instead. Not the generic ones in the Toronto Metro or 24 Hours or the Star (especially since the 24 has since switched to gross newsprint like everybody else. They used to have this thin, semi-glossy paper that didn’t transfer ink onto your hand, but have since switched. A pity, since that was the only reason one might read the 24 over the Metro). They have to be themed. They need some punny clues: the more facepalms, the better.
I used to set the crossword for the Iron Warrior and the Imprint. At some point I was doing crosswords for both papers. Nowadays I don’t serve as the cruciverbalist for either paper, so I can go and enjoy the crosswords like a normal person again. It is a nice feeling.
This logophilia could be traced back to my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Billinghurst. Mr. B, for whatever reason, was fond of words. Every morning we had a Boggle puzzle, and sometimes also a logic puzzle. Weekly, we had a dictionary-vocabulary worksheet to fill out, where I learned words such as “brouhaha” (speaking of brouhaha, check out page 3 for my favourite article title this issue!) and “garb”.
It was part of the points system that Mr. B used to make us behave in class. Points off for rowdiness, points to for lining up quickly, the works. And points for the morning Boggle, including bonus points for the longest words. One also got points for reading books outside class.
But, after around grade 5, life doesn’t award points. Nobody really notices the bulk of the work you put into something. Boggle and logic puzzles faded. But reading and words stayed.
My own tastes in reading haven’t changed much. I still prefer scifi and fantasy stories, more plot than an author ruminating over the meaning or the meaningless of it all, or where the characters are a metaphor for hope or AIDS or something. Also I like reading about magic and interstellar exploration. Sometimes, if I feel adventurous, I read horror novels and medical thrillers, but that’s not particularly important right now.
Science fiction and fantasy are commonly used as an analogical setting for problems in the present. Want to write about racism but can’t bear to touch the oppression of the Roma in Europe? Set your story in 2183 and have a bunch of characters racist against the fictional alien race of Quarians. Want to sympathetically portray both rebels and an institution, but too depressed to set it against humans? Pit humans against dwarves and elves in the quasi-medieval country of Temeria. And, particularly in recent movies, the mutant gene in X-Men is clearly a metaphor for homosexuality.
The forerunner of this all was Star Trek (the original series). It is considered visionary in scope, if a bit cheesy in production. Despite its short run (1966 to 1969!) it was hugely influential and spawned five successor series and twelve movies, and was a forerunner in using futuristic scenarios to illustrate problems of the present. Yes, “The Trouble with Tribbles” is definitely a tract on the Malthusian dangers of reproduction without restraint. “City on the Edge of Tomorrow” is a parable about destiny and, in the event of time travel, not messing with the past. On the other hand I am really not sure what the moral of “Amok Time” is, unless it’s “bros before hos.”
Anyways, Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, died last Friday. To me he actually seemed to be the TOS cast member most likely to live forever. It was probably also his ongoing prog-rock explorations, cameo in the 2009 Star Trek film reboot, peaceable demeanor, and general determination not to rest his laurels on pointy Vulcan ears and live off the royalties of playing Spock. One can learn from that example.
But, for all you readers, what IS the moral of this particular letter from the editor?
There isn’t one, unless one counts “I like crosswords” and “science fiction is good.” Those are highly subjective statements anyways, much unlike cramming numbers in a grid.
Live long and prosper.
And thanks for reading this issue of the Iron Warrior. Until next time,
–Nancy Hui
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