Media Convergence Initiative

Brownies, Cookies, and more Delivered to your Doorstep

Posted on October 25, 2015 by stephanie wooster

Do you ever just want to have a midnight dessert or have treats without going to the store and making it yourself? Don’t you wish such a thing could be delivered to your doorstep?! Well IT CAN… and it’s called Z- Baked.

Z baked has three locations… Orlando UCF area, Tallahassee FSU area, and Tampa USF area.

They serve desserts up to 3am!!!! and it gets even better… all their cookies are $1 how amazing is that!? Their cookies and brownies are all freshly made so when it arrives to you, it’s like you’re eating cookies straight out of the oven. AMAZING.

To name a few of the cookies they have: Chocolate Chip and Double Chocolate Fudge (my favorite!), Peanut Butter, White Chocolate Macadamia, Oatmeal Raisin, Snicker Doodle, Red Velvet and Sugar Cookies. All of these are $1!!!! If you haven’t fallen in love with Z Baked they also serve specialty brownies at $3.

To name some of their best brownies: Slutty Brownie (a layer of chocolate chip dough layered with Oreos and topped off by brownies) and the Miley Cyrus (a layer of sugar cookie dough topped with vanilla cream sandwich cookie topped with confetti cake).

Because Z Baked became such a hit they’ve also added food to their menu as well, such as: pies, cheesecakes, sandwiches, croissants, cinnamon rolls, muffins, burgers, wings, pastas and WAY MORE all less than $10. With such great food at a low price you definitely need to try Z Baked because it’s totally amazing!!!! They even deliver milk and ice cream LOL because obviously you need milk to go along with your chocolaty treats (: GENIUS.

Remember they stop delivering at 3am. So if you’re studying and want a late night snack or just chillin’ in your house and don’t want to make anything Z Baked is the college go to!

Hope you enjoy it! Go Knights!!

Posted in General | Tagged #ZBaked #UCF | Comments Off

Longtime NBA Coach Flip Saunders Dies at 60

Posted on October 25, 2015 by bri yost

The sports world is mourning the loss of longtime NBA coach Flip Saunders who died Sunday at age 60. Saunders was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma in June and doctors claimed the illness was “treatable and curable” when the announcement was made in August. Saunders took a leave of absence from coaching the Timberwolves in September when there were complications in the recovery process.

Saunders went 654-592 in 17 NBA seasons. He coached the Timberwolves, the Detroit Pistons, and the Washington Wizards. When coaching the Timberwolves he led them to 8 straight playoff appearances before getting fired when contractual battles infiltrated the team. The Wolves haven’t been to the playoffs sine then.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver responded in a statement addressing the loss.

“Flip’s untimely passing has left a gaping hole in the fabric of our league. Flip was a beloved figure around the NBA, nowhere more so than in Minnesota, demonstrating a genuine and consistent passion for his players, his team and the game. On behalf of the NBA, we offer our most sincere condolences to Flip’s wife, Debbie, their four children and the entire Minnesota Timberwolves organization.”

Saunders returned to the Wolves in 2013 after coaching the Wizards for 3 years and became team president and part-owner. In 2014 he became head coach once again. When he returned to the organization he was asked why he still lived in Minnesota so long after he was fired.

“And I’d say ‘Well, you don’t really understand unless you’re from Minnesota. You really don’t get it. Even when it snows on May 3rd you really don’t get it,'” Saunders said. “And the loyalty and the passion that the people have here is what always drives me back.”

Posted in Sports | Comments Off

UCF Fans get what they asked for, George O’Leary retires as Head Coach.

Posted on October 25, 2015 by jillianlubarsky

Well, fans have been asking for it all season and it finally happened. UCF Head Football Coach George O’Leary has announced that he will be stepping down as coach effective immediately and retiring from the world of college football all together. Fans across the country have been posting #FireOLeary throughout social media sites as the Knights have come to an 0-8 record this season, ranking them last in total offense throughout the entire nation.

George O’Leary stated today “2014 was a rewarding season which culminated in our second consecutive AAC championship and third conference championship in five seasons. 2015, however, has been a disappointment to me and many despite the hard work of our coaches and players.” O’Leary was originally planning to retire at the end of the 2015 season but “In an effort to allow UCF to accelerate its search for my successor and clarify the facts regarding my future plans, I am retiring effective immediately” O’Leary stated.

Quarterbacks Coach Danny Barrett will be filling in as the interim Head Coach until a permanent successor is determined. Many fames believed Assistant Coach Brent Key, who had server as Assistant Coach to O’Leary for 17 seasons, would take over the position once O’Leary retired. Instead, Key was awarded $700,000 after UCF opted not to name him the Knights next Head Coach. The awarded money is based on a clause in his contract that the athletic association refuses to release to the public. At this time, Coach Key will be staying on as Assistant Coach with the Knights as well as receiving the awarded money of a 24-month span.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off

295 bears killed in two-day long Florida bear hunt

Posted on October 25, 2015 by vtindall1

Originally set to last one week, Florida’s first bear hunt in 21 years is over after just two days.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) first approved an October hunt in an attempt to stabilize expanding bear populations.

FWC believes hunting was the most effective and responsible means to managing the size of bear populations.

With a goal of 320 bears set, the agency decided to end the hunt early once the harvest number reached 295.

It became apparent that some state regions experienced far greater bear harvest totals than FWC estimated, while other regions had far less.

According to the commission’s 2015 Guide to Bear Hunting in Florida, the following numbers were expected:

East Panhandle: 40 bears

North: 100 bears

Central: 100 bears

South: 80 bears

The Panhandle and Central regions noticed a significantly higher yield, while North and South did not even reach half the proposed target.

The following are the final totals:

East Panhandle: 112 bears

North: 23 bears

Central: 139 bears

South: 21 bears

FWC attributes the higher numbers in the East and Central, to the likelihood of larger bear populations in those regions, according to a news release.

The commission said it believes the 2016 survey will show significantly higher bear populations in the East Panhandle; the 2002 estimate was 600 bears for the region.

Bears that were killed late Sunday night will be able to visit a check station until noon on Monday.

One hunter has reportedly been cited for killing a cub.

The local advocacy group Speak Up Wekiva had previously sued FWC, pushing for an emergency stop of the state’s bear hunt, but a judge decided to let it go forward. The group blames FWC for targeting too many bears after the excessive hunting of bears in the 1990’s.

Posted in Environment | Tagged bear hunt, Florida, FWC, Guns | Comments Off

No More Broken Phone Screens?

Posted on October 25, 2015 by julysanchez

Imagine a world where you could drop your phone and not have your heart drop to the floor when you see your new iPhone or Android hit the ground full force. Well that world has almost arrived. Corning Inc.’s West Coast Research Center is the head of the razor thin glass industry. They aren’t making the normal types of glass used for the windows in our houses or cars, they are making glass that can literally be rolled up and folded. As a matter of fact, that is how they ship their glass: In big rolls. iPhones now-a-days use their signature gorilla glass for their phones. Remember when the first new iPhones were able to bend? Think about it. The glass didn’t shatter when they did. That is because they are using this gorilla glass. They are working on making this glass even stronger. Waguih Ishak, the director of Corning Inc,’s West Coast Research Center, tells people to imagine glass with flexibility of plastic and the strength of steel. It isn’t far either. Thanks to technological breakthroughs, they are getting very close to this goal. Ishak is talking about using this glass for the whole exterior of all your personal gadgets such as phones, tablets, etc. “If you have a 1-millimeter sheet of plastic, it will take an oxygen ion (moisture) a few hours to get through it. Moisture is terrible for electronics. If you have a 1-millimeter piece of glass, it will take 30 billion years.” So, not only will your device be shatter resistant and as strong as steel, it will not be able to get wet either (as long as they are sealed well). Impervious devices for everyone. What a world it would be.

Posted in Entertainment, Science and Technology | Tagged glass, phone, shatterproof, tablet, unbreakable | Comments Off

UCF’s Head Football Coach O’Leary Retires

Posted on October 25, 2015 by tvguy321

After twelve years of being Head Coach, George O’Leary has confirmed that his retirement from his position which is effect immediately.

Just two weeks ago, O’Leary also announced his retirement as the University’s interim athletic director and on Sunday afternoon released at statement pertaining to his release as head football coach. “After the 2013 championship season and Fiesta Bowl win I expressed my intention to retire at that time. After significant discussion with the UCF administration, I reconsidered and agreed to coach two additional seasons, 2014 and 2015. The administration has always been aware of my plan to retire after this season.”

Under the leadership of O’Leary, the football team held a 81-68 record, appeared in seven bowl games , won the Fiesta Bowl and two other conference titles. Despite, the 0-8 record the teams has so far this season, many are choosing to remember O’Leary for all the greatness he brought to the teams program. ” Coach O’Leary should be remembered and praised for the incredible things he did for our University. He directed us to places that were only a far off dream when he started in 2004, ” one student stated on Twitter.

O’Leary’s first season at UCF wasn’t a pretty one either. The Knights posted their worst season in school history with an 0-11 record with O’Leary as Head Coach back in 2004. The next year the team recuperated after joining the Conference USA and ended the year with a 8-3 record.

Off the field, O’Leary has overseen that his players exceed academically as well. In the 2014 Graduation Success Rates, UCF was at a 90 percent rate which was the 10th highest among all Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools, third among public institutions and first in the state of Florida and in the conference.In the spring of 2015, UCF’s APR (Academic Progress Rate) was announced at 977, placing the team at 18th overall among all FBS schools, first in the state and 22 points higher than the average team. UCF became the the first football program in C-USA history to have a team GPA of at least 3.0.

For the meantime, UCF has announced Quarterback Coach, Danny Barrett to replace O’Leary as head coach.

Posted in Education, Entertainment, Sports | Comments Off

Nike Announced They Will Be Releasing ‘Back To The Future’ Air Mags With Power Laces Spring 2016

Posted on October 25, 2015 by ashleyyy52

Marty McFly had predicted he would have his own self-tying Nike shoes. And Nike it seems is nothing if not obliging to it. Just in time for Back To The Future Day, October 21, 1015, Nike’s self-lacing shoes are officially here. We’ve been waiting since the release of the movie for those fascinating sneakers. But those people too lazy to tie their own shoes, shouldn’t feel excited yet. The special edition Nike Air Auto Lace will not be available in stores.The shoes will be auctioned off, and the beneficiary once again will be the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

When Marty McFly and Emmett “Doc” Brown first appeared on screen in 1985’s “Back to the Future“, the duo won over legions of fans with their time-traveling adventures. But those did not have “power laces” that automatically tighten the shoe’s grip on your foot like what was portrayed in the movie. These newer Air Mags will surely cost a hefty amount. I suggest you start saving now to be able to get your hands on a pair of those bad boys. The non-self-lacing Mags are among the most collectible sneakers in history with prices estimated averaging nearly $6,000.

Now in the real 2015, we may not have invented the hover board just yet, but today Nike is bringing one of the technologies shown off in the film into reality: self-lacing shoes. It has been the most talked about item recently and also had so many people rallied up for the release in spring.

Posted in Business, Education, Entertainment | Comments Off

Florida Bear Hunt Called Off Due To High Kill Rate

Posted on October 25, 2015 by phyzorz

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has decided to call off the statewide bear hunt just 36 hours into it. The hunt began on Saturday when about 3,700 permitted hunters were allowed to begin the first legal bear hunt in Florida since 1994. Hunters greatly exceeded projections from the FWC by killing 293 bears in less than two days. The hunt was originally scheduled to last seven days but the unexpected success rates have pressured officials to shut it down early.

There were four regions in which hunting was allowed and one of those being the Central region. The Central region is made up of Lake, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia counties. The kill limit for this region was set to 100 but hunters in the area had already produced 139 dead bears by mid Sunday. Many officials believe the high success rate of hunters is due to hunter preparation and bear populations exceeding initial estimates. There was originally believed to be about 3,500 bears in the area but many officials now think that number was too low.

Not everyone was happy about the hunt and local activist group Speak Up Wekiva played an influential role in having the hunt called off. Speak Up Wekiva sued the FWC and applied pressure for the hunt to be shut down early. The hunt was originally supposed to be a two day minimum, but pressure from Speak Up Wekiva was influential in the decision for it to be ended ahead of schedule. Some believe that if not for their actions, many more bears could have been lost.

Why have a bear hunt in Florida? Proponents of the hunt are aiming to make certain areas and neighborhoods safer from encroaching bear populations. Incidents involving close encounters with bears have been on the rise in Central Florida and 3 years ago bears were taken off the list of protected species.

Posted in Environment | Comments Off

Oklahoma State Homecoming parade turned deadly

Posted on October 25, 2015 by theblacklink

Not all homecoming celebrations turned out as well as University of Central Florida’s this weekend. Early Saturday morning thousands were gathered in Stillwater at the Oklahoma State University homecoming annual parade before an Oklahoma State football game, when things turned for the worst. A sedan driven by twenty-five year old Adacia Chambers plowed into the crowd of bystanders watching the parade going by, killing 4 and leaving 46 other bystanders injured.

One out of the 4 killed by the car crash was two year old toddler Nash Lucas. After the accident, Lucas was rushed to the nearest hospital with fatal injuries and later pronounced dead. The second person who was killed by the car crash was 23 year old Nakita Prabhakar. Prabhakar was a graduate business student at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Prabkahar was originally from India. The other two killed by the crash were husband , Marvin Stone 65, and wife, Bonnie Stone, 65. Marvin Stone was a professor of agriculture engineering at Oklahoma State University and retired in 2006. The following year after his retirement, Marvin and his wife Bonnie founded the Marvin and Bonnie Stone Scholarship fund.

Resulting from the crash, another 46 people were injured with 11 of those people being under the age of thirteen. 5 people are still in critical condition following the crash, but none are juveniles. 3 juveniles are at the hospital still in fair condition, inlcuding one 7 year old girl who was on her way to see her first ever Oklahoma State Cowboys game. Instead of cheering the cowboys to a win, she took her first helicopter flight via life flight and had people cheering on her recovery.

A video of the car crashing into the bystanders shows the vehicle entering the crowd without braking. The vehicle was moving at a high rate of speed, and at no point does it look like Chambers tried to brake. Witnesses say people were flying through the air like “toy army men.”

Posted in Crime, Education, Health, Sports, War and Conflicts | Comments Off

Sony A7S – The camera that can see in the dark.

Posted on October 25, 2015 by britterler511

In mid 2014 Sony announced a camera called the A7S. looking at it, it is fairly unassuming with it’s small sized compared to offerings from Canon and Nikon. But it’s what was under the hood that would change the way we looked at things in the dark. literally. It has the ability to shoot 4k video, except it required a external recorder to do it. So on paper it didn’t seem like a camera that was going to make any waves in the camera industry. But that was until you turn down the light, that is when this camera really shined (pun intended).

Sony A7S

It has the capability to go from 50 to an unheard of 409,600 ISO. ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor. Essentially the higher the ISO, the brighter the image is going to be, the trade off is that the higher the ISO, the noisier the image becomes. But that wasn’t the case with this camera. And that’s what would make this camera so special.

Sony has been a pioneer in sensor technology for years, but this particular sensor would really show what they are capable of. They figured out a way to have very high ISO’s with very low noise. The result is a camera that can quite literally see in the dark. When images and footage began to surface from this camera, people didn’t believe it. They thought the footage was being altered in post, but the reality was that this camera was like nothing anyone had ever seen. It could turn night to day with astounding image quality.

And now, about a year later, Sony has somehow improved on that, with the A7S Mk II, with even less noise then the pervious model and way beyond anything any other company has produced. They have also allowed the camera to record 4k internally without the need for a bulky external recorder, which means this camera will find itself in many more productions where they need a small camera that can see in the dark, such as in a car or on a drone for night shots.

Posted in Science and Technology | Comments Off