April Fools Day: The most terrifying day for a socially awkward person

Posted on April 1, 2014 by lauren gould

Today is April 1st, also known as April Fools day. Today is the only day it is socially acceptable, and even expected, for people to prank random strangers and cause general mayhem. For a person who is already afraid of the world and what the people in it do to each other on a regular day, today is especially terrifying. A person already lacking social skills can really become hurt by the actions of people partaking in today’s tomfoolery.

While harmful pranks are still considered taboo in today’s culture, younger people with little to no responsibility do not see harm where others would. A simple prank, say blocking cars in a parking lot, could drastically effect people’s daily lives, and could potentially be dangerous, especially if someone’s wellbeing depends on being on time. This would be really annoying and hurtful for a person who respects society and just wishes to be left alone, but today nurtures interactions that an introvert would dread to be a part of.

It’s interesting how this day has turned into ‘National Lie or be Annoying to Everyone Day’, when it would generally not be acceptable behavior anywhere. It also encourages distrust in everything, as you don’t want to be caught by a lie or tricked into doing something embarrassing. Today only encourages introverts and skeptics to be on their guard all day, expecting any second that something will happen involving some sort of prank. It’s a terrifying day to be an introvert today.

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Marlins Starting Off in The Right Fin

Posted on April 1, 2014 by kbowerman

The Miami Marlins are looking to improve on their dismal performances that has plagued the team for the past number of years. Monday night started a brand new season, a clean slate that would allow the Marlins to put on a show for the local fans. Monday night was highlighted by a spectacular pitching performance by Jose Fernandez, a 21 year old all-star who is looking to ride the wave all the way to the playoffs and put Miami back on the map as a baseball town.

When we talk about the new stadium, Marlins Park, in the recent years fans have not liked the idea of all this money going towards something that doesn’t give anything back to the city. The team was not winning, the front office got rid of all the main players in exchange for cash and nothing was positive. But, monday night was different, different in the sense that there was actually a buzz in the air as the marlins laced up their cleats and took the field. Marlins Park was sold out and pushed 40,000 fans, a new record for the ballpark and opening day attendance for the ballpark. Miami has made the playoff’s only two times in their 21 year history and both times they have advanced all the way to the world series, ad won it. When we embark on a new season, the young players aren’t worried about losing, they are determined to be the best and win. Miami is a prime destination for baseball players and Miami is well on their way in making this a reality presently.

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Possible Text Message Recieved From a Passanger of the Missing Malaysian Flight From A U.S. Military Base In The Indian Ocean

Posted on April 1, 2014 by mpabian

According to a freelance reporter Jim Stone, one of the few American passengers on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, Phillip Wood, is a technical storage executive at IBM. He has managed to keyster his iPhone 5 in his anus after the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people was possibly hijacked by military personnel while on route to China.

Stunningly, Stone claims that the metadata within the iPhone photo gives evidence confirming “100 percent” that Phillip Wood sent the photo, along with a short voice text, from a GPS location that puts Wood only a few kilometers away from the U.S. controlled Diego Garcia military base which happens to be located on an island south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. In his message Stone claims that the coordinates could possibly be off by a few miles, which proves that the iPhone actually sent the blank black picture showing nothing else. Stone thinks that the picture was taken in a dark room or in some position in which Wood’s hands were bound. Also the photo could have been taken inside his anus.

As stated by Stone, the picture was sent along with the following voice text possibly from Wood:

“I have been held hostage by unknown military personal after my flight was hijacked (blindfolded). I work for IBM and I have managed to hide my cellphone in my ass during the hijack. I have been separated from the rest of the passengers and I am in a cell. My name is Philip Wood. I think I have been drugged as well and cannot think clearly.”

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Ultra Music Festival at Risk of Shutting Down Permanently

Posted on April 1, 2014 by aspiringauthor

Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual event in Miami where Electronic Dance Music fans get a chance to check out some live shows for an entire weekend. However, UMF has been given a fairly bad reputation due to the amount of people participating in recreational drug use and the way that these individuals act as a result of said drugs.

UMF has been taking place for 15 years and since then there have been videos of girls allegedly making out with trees, incidents of public nudity, and as of late, a security guard being trampled at the venue.  Not much is known about the 28-year old female security guard other than the fact that the incident occurred because the perimeters were breached and people overran the chain link fence that was not reinforced well enough. At the moment the guard is in critical condition with some severe brain damage and a broken leg. Aside from the security guard’s terrible fate, a 21 year-old Adonis Pena Escoda was killed at the event. Little is known about this man other than the fact that he started to feel dizzy and did not make it home after the event.

Unfortunately for UMF fans, these occurrences have led to discussions about closing down the event for good. Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado has been quoted saying “I think we should not have Ultra next year here. This incident should never have happened.”  Furthermore, there were 76 people arrested at the event, 28 were charged with felonies, and 118 people had to be rescued by medical professionals. In order to save UMF the organizers need to find a way to ensure more safety at the event. With all of the threatening messages that the festival has received, it’s certainly in their best interest to figure out how to provide this safety.

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Mazda Creating Better Gas Engines

Posted on April 1, 2014 by alicia mitchell

Mazda has been working on creating a better gas powered engine rather than focus on hybrid and electric vehicle market. Their thoughts are about the average persons income and what they can really afford. Most hybrid and electric vehicles cost too much to buy and the cost down the road to maintain them seems to be very expensive.

Mazda has decided to work on an engine called the Sky-Activ-G 2. Mazda’s goal is to create an engine that can harness a bigger portion of the 70% of wasted fuel that an average car uses. The new engine has a 30% improvement in both emissions and fuel economy while keeping the prices more reasonable over buying a hybrid. Mazda is already hard at work created the Sky-Activ-G 3 and plans on using this new technology in their vehicles by 2020.

It would be great to have better fuel economy and not refill my car as much. The question I have is how much will this cost and if it can be maintained cheaper than a hybrid vehicle. They say it will but the prices have not been released. With their new technique and redesign of the gas engine being hotter than normal worries me that if something goes wrong how much damage can be done to the engine over a regular one?

If this technology becomes real and actually is better than the average gas engine in efficiency and cost then hopefully other car companies follow along and do the same. The other issue is 2020 is a long time from now and who knows how far the advancement of hybrids and electric vehicles will be by then, or if any new type of technology comes out that kills the gas powered engine.

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Why Sprint and T-Mobile Should be Allowed to Merge, and Why You Should Care

Posted on March 31, 2014 by wnmcelveen

Sprint and T-Mobile are currently awaiting on regulatory approval of their proposed merger.  This merger — which has been widely reported on since speculation of a $20+ Billion bid by Sprint and new Sprint owner SoftBank began in December — is a tough sell, and most industry analysts agree that it won’t be approved.  However, there are many reasons why it should be approved, and many proponents are pushing for the merger.

To understand some of the issue, we have to go back… way back.  At the dawn of the telecommunications revolution, AT&T (which was still widely known by it’s original full name, American Telephone & Telegraph, a name that was dropped several years ago) was the most well known of several telecom providers.  As the decades marched on, AT&T began merging with other companies, either by outright buying them and folding them into AT&T, or by buying a significant stake in them so as to have the benefits of owning those companies without actually owning them.  By the 1980s, AT&T had become a full monopoly of the telecom industry; an anti-trust suit was brought against them, and regulators forced AT&T to spin off most of their holdings, resulting in literally hundreds of new, small, regional telecom providers.

Fast forward to the late 1990s: wireless telecoms are now the new thing, and the industry is booming.  Still feeling the effects of the anti-trust suit in the ’80s, all these wireless telecoms are more or less these regional carriers that were spun off by AT&T, with only a few national carriers (namely Sprint and AT&T, who has built back up to a national name after being decimated about 15 years earlier).  This was no issue, there were so many medium sized regional carriers that there was enough competition in the market.

Regional carriers began to grow, and by the mid 2000s, those regional carriers had become national.  There was plenty of national competition, namely AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, Alltel, T-Mobile, and Nextel.  The competition between national carriers was high, and regional carriers weren’t left in the cold as they were still large enough to compete with the ‘big boys’… the market was healthy.

Then… it was the ’30s through the ’70s AT&T all over again: Cingular Wireless bought out AT&T Wireless (and then eventually AT&T Wireless parent AT&T acquired Cingular, rebranding it as AT&T Mobility), Sprint and Nextel announced a ‘merger of equals’, and Verizon Wireless bought out Alltel (in most regions of the US), and every single one of these national carriers gobbled up smaller regional carriers.  All of this happened in a span of about 4 years, leaving only the ‘big four’ (in order of size, largest to smallest): AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp (known simply as Sprint), and T-Mobile USA, with the small regional carriers having almost no impact on the market.  AT&T and Verizon combined hold about 40% of the entire US wireless market, including regional carriers, and about 50-60% of the nationwide market.

AT&T and Verizon now have a virtual duopoly over the wireless market, forcing customers   into binding contracts that extensively overcharge, some would say extorting their customers because in all reality, where are those customers going to go to get similar service?

A Sprint/T-Mobile merger would combine the wireless spectrum of the two, which is valuable in the current ‘spectrum crunch’ that the US is facing, therefore allowing the newly merged Sprint, which would now be a very close third, to further build out their network, which is currently dwarfed by the size of AT&T and Verizon’s networks.  Most importantly to customers, Sprint and T-Mobile are currently pushing against the grain on plans and pricing: Sprint is the only carrier to offer truly unlimited data, which they offer at a cheaper rate than the other’s capped data, and T-Mobile’s Uncarrier initiative works to break the mold of national carriers, doing away with binding contracts, and offering cheaper options that compare to regional prices.

All in all, a merged Sprint/T-Mobile would bring competition to the market and more choices for customers.

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My Experience at Universal Knights

Posted on March 31, 2014 by laurentm

Last night marked my first experience doing the universal knights. Although waiting in line for my ticket a couple weeks ago was terrible (especially that i waited from 3:00 to about 8:15ish) I was happy that I was able to proceed with this experience. For those of you Who do not know what Universal Knights is, it is an event where UCF students go to Islands of Adventure in Universal Studios for free with their class mates.

Overall it was a fun experience, I was able to go to Islands of Adventure and spend it with my girlfriend and my friends. I was also able to see the Harry Potter section of the park which i had never gotten to see, and I was ultimately happy with the experience in general. At first there were a lot of people in the park, but that was due to the guests who were there in the morning. However, once the previous guests went home and it was just the UCF students it ended up being a very unique and fun experience to have with my peers.

I started off the experience by doing and attraction called Poseidon’s Fury, in which its an attraction you walk through and follows a story. I did however felt that they needed to renovate the ride due in large part of the attraction feeling dated. Then i met up with friends and spent most of the night in the Harry potter world. I was able to ride the Harry Potter Experience which although it made me a bit dizzy, it was actually pretty fun. And then ended the night with The Amazing Spider man ride. Over all the experience was a fun one and I look forward to doing it next year.

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New Zealand school trys giving students rule-free recess to much success.

Posted on March 31, 2014 by brianbachman

A school in New Zealand recently experimented with a “no rules” recess policy as part of a study in order to observe how a “no rules” setting affected school learning performance. Swanson School is a 500 student elementary school that previously had many playground rules – you must walk your bike, certain areas are off limits, no climbing trees, and many more.

Although injury lawsuits are not common in New Zealand’s culture these rules were still in effect to keep the children “safe”. What the findings of the experiment show is that adults have children’s play habits all wrong. Even after ceasing playground rules and even allowing children to play in trees & with old blocks of word the school saw no increase in the amount of playground injuries. The truth about kid’s playtime is now out no matter how shocking it may seem: kid’s don’t recklessly endanger themselves, and are cautious toward their behaviors.

 

Not only were the kids happier to have full creative and physical freedom on the playground, but the children payed more attention in class – this shows real hope that the age of overly-safe, overly-politically correct schools may soon be over with. Even the parent of a student who broke his arm during Sawnson School’s rule free recess begged the school to continue its program. Hopefully this sensibility will carry over into United States school and give future generations of kids the recess they deserve.

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Russell Crowe’s Latest Movie ‘Noah’ To Be Banned in Indonesia & Many Other Countries

Posted on March 31, 2014 by jordan hicks

The Darren Aronofsky film Noah, starring Russell Crowe, is set to be banned in Indonesia by the Indonesian Censorship Board on the basis of portraying a religious figure. The story of Noah and his world renown ark are present in the religious texts of Christianity, Judaism, as well as Islam. Although the overseers of Christianity and Judaism are a little more lenient when it comes to the treatment of religious figures. In Islam, it is prohibited to depict a prophet as a person. They believe that this avoids the worship of a person and keeps the focus on God.

Russell Crowe seems to be one of the most upset about it, he understands the religious constraints for most people but he doesn’t appreciate how most of the film’s detractors haven’t even seen it. The Indonesian Censorship Board has told the local media that anyone who chooses to show the film will be punished. The Indonesian Censorship Board responds by saying that the country highly respects religion and the value of unity and cites these as the reason for their decision. Their decision comes after censors from Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain to also decided to the ban the film. Many of the cinemas in Indonesia have already started to comply with the wishes of the board, but it isn’t sitting too well with the Indonesian film critics. They feel that the people are too stern and playing the people for sheep.

I personally have no angst towards either Mr. Crowe or Mr. Aronofsky, but I would like to say……….why? Hollywood feels the need to put its on little twist on everything and have a depiction of it. That’s not even the part that troubles me, what troubles me is Hollywood’s insistence upon action-izing and hero-fying everything. From what I read and what I was told, Noah was more of a feeble old man that God chose to work with not the Gladiator. With all this being said, I have no real idea of how the film plays out and I am basing my opinion off of the theatrical poster. Although, the movie drops in North America on March 28th. Have a ball.

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Mercedes Continues to Dominate After Round Two

Posted on March 31, 2014 by l.susan

This past weekend was the second round of the 2014 Formula 1 World Championship in Malaysia. There were many stories going on at once, primarily the one concerning flight MH370. There was a small tribute paid to those who were lost before the race, and all the drivers paid their own tributes by wearing the “MH370” sticker on their helmets.

As it pertains to the racing, the main story was Lewis Hamilton. He claimed pole for the second straight race and was determined to make up for his disappointing retirement in Australia, which allowed his team mate Nico Rosberg to get the victory. In the end, he did make up for that disappointing start to the season in every sense of the word, as he never looked back from the green light to the checkered flag, 56 laps later. The 2008 champion is now back into the title chase, and a Mercedes 1-2 shows the Silver Arrows are still the cars to beat.

For the defending champions Infiniti Red Bull Racing, this race was a tale of two stories. The four time defending champion Sebastian Vettel was able to take third in the podium, also making up for a terrible weekend in Australia, where he did not even make it to the third qualifying round, and had to retire into the fifth lap of the race, where his car ran into engine problems. On the other hand, his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had a nightmare race, where his problems mounted on top of the other after he had a wheel loosely put on in the pits, where he lost a lot of time and was given a penalty for an unsafe release from the pits. Afterwards his front wing broke, which sent him even farther back in the field. After being disqualified from Australia and running into these many problems in Malaysia, the Aussie has his work cut out for him to catch up with the rest of the grid.

This weekend is Bahrain, and it will be more than interesting to see how things develop. Will Mercedes stay on top? Will Red Bull deliver its first blow? Will the other top teams in Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams get more competitive results? We shall see.

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