1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(10/17/18 10:13pm)
by Ethan Altmark
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
Juuling has become extremely popular in the past few years. It’s an easy and simple way to introduce nicotine into your body. With its sleek and modern design, it’s hard to distinguish a Juul from a flash drive if you’ve never seen a Juul before. The only problem? Minors are Juuling at an unprecedented rate.
In 2018 the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) referred to the trend of teenagers that Juul as reaching “epidemic proportions.” What does that really mean? Well, according to the Oxford Living Dictionary the definition of an epidemic is a “widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.” So, is the act of Juuling amongst teenagers a real epidemic? Depending on your perspective of whether addiction is a disease or not, the definition may shape your view point.
The FDA is trying to make the crucial point that Juuls are being consumed by a large quantity of minors whose actions will have negative health impacts on their lives that may lead to lifetime of nicotine addiction. Once these kids are addicted to nicotine they may be Juul customers for life or even progress to real cigarettes. Another overlooked danger according to thetruth.com is that one Juul pod has the equivalent amount of nicotine to one pack of cigarettes. After interviewing close to twenty college students who Juul regularly, my first interviewee said that “I commonly go through at least one to two Juul pods a day, if it’s been a long day maybe two to three.” Another student I interviewed states she “runs through three to four pods a day.” I continued to ask how and when they started using Juuls. A Junior attending Ball State admitted that he started Juuling his senior year of high school when his older sibling gave him his first Juul. Furthermore, a few students went on to say that they enjoy Juuling for the “Nicci Buzz”, local jargon for the slight head rush generated from the nicotine that one gets as they deeply inhale a Juul. Another explanation multiple students gave as to why they Juul is the accurate feeling of smoking cigarettes that not many other e-cigarettes can recreate. After polling this small sample size of Ball State students who Juul, close to half of who I interviewed admitted to feeling addicted to their Juul while the other half believe they can stop whenever they desire. Another statistic I derived from my interviews is that nearly three quarters of those who I spoke to began Juuling in high school. A common theme through every interview was that Juuling is preferred to smoking cigarettes for its simplicity and its ability to be discrete.
For adults, to Juul is another luxury of being an adult and accepting the consequences that come with your actions. Unfortunately minors are consuming Juuls as well, so much so that it even grabbed the attention of FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who released statements as a result on The U.S. Food and Drug Association's official website, “Protecting our nation’s youth from the dangers of tobacco products is among the most important responsibilities of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” The FDA is clearly concerned with the increased use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) by minors. The FDA will continue to regulate ENDS as one of their responsibilities is to “protect kids and significantly reduce tobacco-related disease and death.”
With the rising popularity of Juuls and E-cigarettes in general, adults and minors should research Juuls and other ENDS to see the positives and negatives of the devices. As for some, Juuls can have a positive impact by helping an individual transition from smoking cigarettes, but can also have a negative impact such as having high rates of minor consumption. Juuls are still a fairly new occurrence on the marketplace and we might not see the full repercussions immediately but as time passes we will continue to learn more about Juuls and their effects on society. Due to its recency and potential lack of regulation many more studies must be conducted to see the ramifications of prolonged Juul usage. Juuls may be here to stay and just like any new form of technology there will be benefits and drawbacks, we must as a society consider the consequences of this latest trend.
(10/17/18 10:01pm)
by Jeremy Rogers
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
With the 2018 Streamy Awards looming on the October 22 horizon, an important question is about to be answered: How can award shows get out of their current viewership slump?
For the past few years, every major televised award show has experienced a decline in viewership. The Academy Awards, the Primetime Emmys, and the Grammys have all experienced steep drop-offs in how many people tune in to watch the award shows.
This isn’t for lack of trying on the part of the different companies that run the different award shows. Back in 2017 when the nominees for the Grammys were announced, many were amazed at the historical show of diversity in the pool of nominees. Byte’s own Ryan fine “It seems like the Grammys have finally taken heed of the #GrammysSoWhite tag and gave several nods to Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s ‘Despacito’, which is the first ever mainly Spanish-language song to be nominated for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year.” Of particular interest was the Album of the Year category, where none of the nominees were white men, a win for diversity.
During the 2018 Primetime Emmys, several portions of the presentation explicitly pointed out how incredibly diverse the cast of nominees. They even had a musical number and everything. Unfortunately, the nominations did not lead to a historic number of people of color earning awards, much to the chagrin of viewers. As Byte’s review editor Tanner Kinney put it in an article, “Even the hosts are making jokes about how white the Emmys are. When you have James Corden even making jokes about it, you’ve achieved something truly terrible. And just so we’re clear, making jokes about it doesn’t make it go away… It’s clear that the Emmys are just acting progressive for brownie points, despite the fact that they are still an Academy run by, and ultimately for, white people.”
The Academy Awards tried to take a different approach to getting viewers to tune into the broadcast. Speaking from several experiences doing research in Hollywood with members of the Academy, Wes Gehring, a Ball State film studies professor who holds a doctorate in film studies, said, “The Academy in the last year or two, they’re trying to increase numbers, and increase diversity. They’re trying to… have more diversity available and to appreciate that.”
But for all of the efforts employed by companies to retain viewers, all have failed. So where can these companies look to find new strategies to engage viewers?
One potential answer is the YouTube’s annual Streamy Awards. In 2016, the online award show reported that they had a total of 586,000 viewers tuning in for the award show. The very next year saw 750,000 people watching 2017’s broadcast. Granted, the Streamys are still relatively new with less than a decade of experience to find an audience. However, the skyrocketing numbers of the program are hard not to notice.
(10/17/18 8:44pm)
by Sam Lantz
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
Few pieces of media from the 1990s are as revered or as widely known as The Simpsons. At the show’s peak, from 1991 to around 2003, some of the show’s best episodes were their Halloween specials, which were given the moniker: Treehouse of Horror. In honor of the spooky Halloween season, we will be counting down thirteen of the best segments from these specials—one for each season of The Simpsons worth watching.
(10/17/18 4:04pm)
The biographical documentary is a genre that requires a certain amount of finesse to truly pull off. In essence, making a film in that style requires balancing fact and emotion in order to truly convey the arc of a person’s life (and therefore, their story). On one hand, it is extremely easy to overload one or the other of these elements. On the other, when done right, it can be effective and leave an impact on audiences. Case in point: Howard.
(10/18/18 1:30pm)
Demi Lawrence is a sophomore journalism news major and writes "Unspoken" for The Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Demi at dnlawrence@bsu.edu.
(10/17/18 1:30pm)
Audrey Bowers is a senior creative writing major and writes "Adult-ish" for The Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Audrey at albowers3@bsu.edu.
(10/17/18 10:00pm)
My Hero Academia: Two Heroes is perfect for any fan of the anime series, while also still being welcome to newcomers. It delves more into All Might and the quirk, One for All, and talks more about his back story. It follows All Might and Izuku going to I-Island for an expo showcasing new support items for pro heroes. By chance, almost everyone from Class 1-A happens to be attending the expo on the same day, with the others being present on the island.
(10/17/18 8:00pm)
Lady Gaga had a lot to lose starring in 2018’s A Star Is Born. First of all, it isn’t often that ventures into acting can be considered successes for pop stars (i.e. Madonna, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears). Gaga does have a history in theatre and acting roles in television, but this was still bound to be an uphill battle. Additionally, she is bound to be compared to the previous starring ladies of the previous A Star Is Born is films, and it’s quite the illustrious company: Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand. To be in the same company as these means a lot of pressure to deliver a performance that can be compared to them.
(10/17/18 6:00pm)
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for Venom
(10/17/18 4:00pm)
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of God Friended Me.
(10/17/18 2:00pm)
Disclaimer: This review is based on the PC version of the game and was played on a PC with Intel Core i5-8250U, 8 GBs of RAM.
(10/17/18 12:00pm)
Disclaimer: This episode contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
(10/16/18 9:11pm)
When reading up on Back Roads prior to viewing it, a willingness to touch upon dark, taboo themes was within its plot. I was expecting something quite uneasy. Back Roads delivered on that aspect, but from an angle that was not expected. For a movie considered a drama, it isn’t really a dramatic film; there are moments of emotional intensity, but most of the film drama is more subtle and bubbles under the surface.
(10/16/18 10:00am)
by Tt Shinkan
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
Imagine being able to sample warm chocolate pudding from Ireland and then walking over to India to try some Madras red curry. This sounds totally impossible, right? In hindsight it is, but at Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival, this impossible fantasy is a possible reality.
Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival is an annual event starting in late August and runs until mid-November. Every year the dates change slightly, but 2018’s dates are August 30 to November 12. The festival celebrates the culinary diversity of food from around the world with 21 booths from different countries serving up dishes and drinks unique to that area. Additionally, there are another 21 food booths offering unique food items relating to cheese, chocolate, seafood, smoked meats and poutine, just to name a few. All of the booths are located around Epcot but you’ll find most of them, fittingly, around World Showcase.
My sister's fall break landed on the same weekend as mine and my parents decided we should all travel to Walt Disney World for a small vacation. We’ve been to the festival before when I was a freshman in high school and my sister was in 7th grade, so we all knew it was time for us to return to our favorite Disney event. I also just turned 21 this year so I was very excited to try both the foods and adult beverages these countries had to offer. Okay, I was more excited for the food since I’m a huge foodie.
We went to the festival twice. Once on our first night we were there and then once on our last day. My dad is huge on smoking meats, so we obviously stopped at the “Flavors from Fire” booth. This booth played with the idea of fire. This meant the food was either cooked using fire or smoke or had a spicy taste to it. We tried the pork wings with a Korean BBQ and sesame seed glaze. I’ve had pork wings before, but these were, by far, the best pork wings I’ve ever had. They fell right off the bone and were juicy and flavorful.
Other food items we tried were Greek nachos and spanakopita (spa-na-ko-pi-ta), which my grandmother makes all the time and is a personal favorite of mine, from Greece; crispy pork belly with black beans, tomato and onions and Moqueca (moo-kek-a) which is a seafood stew from Brazil; liquid nitro chocolate-almond truffle with warm whiskey-caramel from a booth called Chocolate Studio; Kalua pork slider with sweet and sour DOLE pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise and teriyaki-glazed SPAM hash with potatoes, peppers, onions and spicy mayonnaise from Hawai’i; Irish cheddar cheese and stout dip with Irish brown bread and warm chocolate pudding with Irish cream liqueur custard from Ireland; hummus fries with cucumber, tomato, onions and tzatziki sauce from Morocco; beef brisket poutine from a booth called Refreshment Port. How did all of these taste? Amazing!
There were a few items I had to try while I was there. These items were drinks and food that I’ve always wanted to try but never had the chance to. The first one was a lobster roll. You might be thinking that this isn’t that adventurous and that I could get one anywhere. Well, first of all, I’ve always been iffy on trying lobster because I hated the way it was cooked, but after seeing numerous cooking shows and pictures of the famous New England sandwich, it started to seem more and more delicious. Second, living in Indiana, there isn’t a lot of great seafood places around. Chicago has a few, but that’s mostly lake perch or any fish that thrives in a freshwater lake. Lobster isn’t one of them.
The American booth, Hops and Barley, had a New England lobster roll available. This was my absolute favorite food item I tried at the festival. The sandwich (or roll?) was full of flavor. The lobster was sweet and had a garlic taste. The mayonnaise had herbs and added an extra flavor profile that made me love this dish. I guess you could say, I was in Flavortown.
The other two items were drinks. The first was sake (SAH-kay) and the other was mead. I’m a huge fan of trying items that are exclusive to a place. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a favorite food. I love Philly cheesesteaks, Nashville hot chicken, pretty much anything Chicago churns out, so trying sake has been on my list of things to try. And now that I’m 21, I was finally able to try it.
Sake is a Japanese rice wine made by fermenting rice. Unlike regular wine which has a sweeter taste, sake has a more bitter taste which reminded me of a top shelf whiskey. Both my dad and I enjoyed it since we like whiskey and bourbon but my mom wasn’t a huge fan. It’s an acquired taste that maybe a lot of people might not enjoy right way because of the bitter taste. I would have this again, but maybe just one glass.
When I think of mead I think of vikings for some odd reason. Vikings and Norse mythology have always intrigued me so trying a drink that made me feel like a Norwegian viking was something I was all for. The drink is also a wine, but instead of using grapes, it uses honey so this drink is very sweet. A complete 180 from sake. When I purchased the drink from the Ireland booth, I was awed by how golden it was. The drink was as gold as, well, honey. The taste was unique. I was expecting it to taste sweeter than normal wine, but I wasn’t expecting the honey after taste. I really enjoyed this drink. So much so that I actually purchased another one the second day we were there. I highly recommend this drink to anyone who is looking for a unique drink to enjoy and feeling like a fierce viking warrior. I of course also recommend trying this drink if you are 21 and over and to always drink responsibly. That goes for any other drink I mentioned in this story.
The festival is also known for something else besides food and that’s music. Live concerts to be exact. Disney books some notable acts, like Plain White T's, 38 Special, Baha Men, Boyz II Men, Billy Ocean, Mark Wills, Air Supply and many others. We were there for both Mark Wills and Air Supply’s concerts and both had something unique about them. Mark Wills is a country singer most recognizable with the song “19 Somethin.” Since I absolutely love country music, this concert was my favorite. He was high energy and played both slow and upbeat songs.
Air Supply was also fun, but since soft rock isn’t my first choice in music, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Wills’ concert. However, it was still enjoyable. Actually, the number one thing that made this concert so enjoyable was the amount of people inside the small venue. Middle-aged women were standing up from their seats and dancing and singing along to the music. This is what I enjoyed most about this concert. The fact that this band can touch so many people with their music is amazing!
The last detail about the festival I want to include is pretty cool. Epcot has this boat ride called “Living With The Land” which shows and explains to you how humans, plants and animals use this land to produce food and an ecosystem. Towards the end of the ride, the boat takes you into a greenhouse where Disney grows produce for their many on site restaurants and for the festival. Little signs were posted to let the riders know what type of produce it was, but some had a bigger sign with a picture of a Food and Wine item on it. This told us that this particular item was used as an ingredient in one of the many dishes found throughout the festival. I thought this was amazing and a Disney thing to do by utilizing their resources.
Overall, the Food and Wine Festival is my favorite festival Disney puts on. I’ve been to the Flower and Garden Festival and that is also another amazing experience, but something about the Food and Wine Fest always makes me like it more. It might be because of the food, or how it’s in the fall or that I have the ability to try different foods from different countries I might never have the chance to visit. Whatever the reason may be, one thing is clear. This festival is an amazing experience that I believe everyone has to experience just once in their short lifetime. After all, who doesn’t love good food?
(10/16/18 1:54am)
The short film is a time-honored genre. Sometimes informative, sometimes thrilling, and sometimes absolutely mind-boggling, the short film is a place where documentarians, animators, and storytellers can experiment and hone their craft on a smaller scale. This year at the Heartland Film Festival, audiences were able to observe the crème of the crop from Heartland’s Short Film Festival this past summer, and to put it bluntly, it’s nuts.
(10/15/18 10:14pm)
When thinking about famous Hoosiers, there aren’t too many people who come to mind. Orville Redenbacher is one, since the popcorn is so tasty. Three people (including me) may consider former Indiana governor Paul V. McNutt as a legendary Hoosier as well. The point is, the list isn’t very long. On that short list, however, is legendary American writer Kurt Vonnegut. Author of strangely dark and satirical novels like Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut is a genuinely unique and interesting person who moved through the world in his own way, and this documentary titled God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut helps paint that picture. Unfortunately, the great subject matter of the documentary is anchored down by some rough filmmaking and editing.
(10/15/18 7:00pm)
There are not a surplus of films about drag performers. Sure, there are quite a lot of movies in which actors in the film dress up in drag such as (i.e. Mrs. Doubtfire, Some Like It Hot, White Chicks). But movies about drag queens, kings and others whose art and passion revolves around the practice, are much less prevalent. Movies that take place in Alaska are also not too common, especially when the setting isn’t just used as a snowy backdrop.
(10/15/18 4:00pm)
Before the screening of Nathan’s Kingdom, director and screenwriter Olicer Muñoz spoke about how the film was about a journey, much like the filmmaking process itself. Over the course of ten years of production, five of those years for filming, and numerous hardships, Muñoz clearly put boatloads of passion into the film. I kept his story in mind during the screening, thinking about all the time, the hardships, and the triumphs that must have occurred during production. This journey on its own is worth telling, and that’s not even to include the journey he created for the characters within Nathan’s Kingdom. All of it comes together and, despite some rough patches within the movie, results in a very heartwarming experience.
(10/15/18 1:00pm)
When perusing the film line-up for Heartland Film Festival this year, the film that immediately caught my attention was 93Queen. The documentary follows Rachel Freier or “Ruchie”, a Hasidic mother and lawyer who shook up the male dominated Hasidic community by creating Ezras Nashim, the first all-female ambulance corps in New York City. It is rare for Hasidic communities, especially women in these communities, to be highlighted through film, so the concept is certainly unique. However, what specifically caught my interest was the concept of hearing the voices of the women within this community. I wanted to hear about their experience breaking boundaries and fighting to change their community in the male-dominated Hasidic society. I am glad to say that 93Queen exceeded my expectations.
(10/12/18 9:30am)
by Baylie Clevenger
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
Midterm elections are less than a month away, and, for many states, the deadline for registration has passed.
In the last few days before registration closed, the New York Times reported that the whole country saw a spike in voter registration, with more than 150,000 new registrations. Just a little fewer than half of those registrations came from people ages 18-24. The state of Tennessee also saw a spike in registrations of about 6,000 people.
This spike in registrations is no coincidence after pop star Taylor Swift took to Instagram to discuss her political stances and particularly endorsed two Democratic candidates from Tennessee.
“I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” said Swift.
In the age of social media, celebrity opinions have a significant impact on votes as well as the political opinions of their fans.