Month: September 2017

“What’s your Netflix password?” used to be a daily phrase shared between friends and family. Now, however, Iowa Senator George St. George is proposing a Login Law to prohibit Netflix users from sharing their passwords.

Netflix has been around since 1997, but only began their streaming service in January of 2007. The only rule currently is place is the ‘four device’ rule. This rule states that for every account, there can only be four devices streaming at one time.

Senator St. George has been an advocate for cyber security since he began his political career 15 years ago as Mayor of Cornucopia, where he resides today. He has high hopes for this new law and hopes Iowa can be an example to the nation if this Login Law moves forward.

“I firmly believe this law is the best thing for Iowa right now. So many Iowa residents have had their private information hacked into due to sharing of passwords, and I want Iowa to be the leader of cyber security.”

Senator St. George does want the public to know, however, that sharing your password with immediate family is very legal. For example, if your family of four shares one account, everyone in your family can know the password.

The Login Law will be voted on later this week and the state of Iowa will know whether or not their Netflix passwords need to be under lock and key.

The hustle and bustle of career fair season is now coming to an end, as Greenlee’s Jumpstart Career Fair took place yesterday afternoon from 12 o’clock to 4 o’clock in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

Leading up to the event, Greenlee’s Prepare for the Fair series gave students an incentive to get their career fair necessities in order well before the day of the fair. Students had the opportunity to redeem free size upgrades, food, and discounts for the simple price of showing their cashier one of their multiple career fair requirements.

Throughout the week, students prepared their professional outfits, resumes, cover letters, thank you emails, elevator speeches and their portfolios. They also had some practice researching companies visiting the career fair as one of the days required students to tell their cashier three companies they were interested in speaking with.

“This year students seemed a lot more confident as they were walking around talking with various companies, I’m glad the series had such a positive impact!” said Leslie Ginder, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Career Services Coordinator.

Although the series was aimed predominantly towards Greenlee students,  it was a hit amongst all students at Iowa State University, and at times the lines went out the door of the various businesses across campus as students were waiting to redeem their prizes.

“We’re pretty much always busy here at Caribou because college students are all so dependent on coffee, but this week blew us all out of the water, I’ve never seen our line so long,” said Nate Carlson, a part-time barista at the Caribou Coffee on campus.

The overwhelming success of this year’s series has Greenlee staff excited for next year, and planning has already begun. If you would like to join the student committee for planning the series, please email jumpstartprep@gmail.com!

Everyone knows the sweet, sticky hexagon-shaped snacks known as Fruit Gushers. In elementary school, heck even middle school, it was the best day every to come home and see the bright yellow box in the pantry. Well, the General Mills-owned snack just got a little spookier.

Earlier this week, General Mills announced that Fruit Gushers will have a new flavor and look for Halloween: Tropical Spooky Fruit. They will be black and orange and come in a box with 26 trick-or-treat sized pouches. Exciting, I know. But that’s just the beginning.

These Fruit Gushers will also have a ‘mascot,’ if you will. Each and every box of Tropical Spooky Fruit Fruit Gushers will contain two toys: the GushMonster and his side kick Count Batcula. The spooky duo will appear nationwide on posters in grocery stores and also appear in a series of TV spots. The spots will follow the two on their Halloween adventures and their quest to be the spookiest snack out there.

The two are said to have special Gusher powers, but they have yet to be revealed by General Mills. It looks like we will all have to wait in anticipation until the premiere of the TV spots to see GushMonster and Count Batcula in action.

If you turn on the television in your house right now and flip to the nearest news channel, your TV screen probably looks something like this: palm trees blowing in the wind, water rushing down streets consuming everything in its way, roofs flying off houses and an obscenely large screen displaying the most updated Doppler radar with someone in a suit standing next to it. It’s hurricane season.

This is no ordinary hurricane season, however, as there have already been two hurricanes in a row that have devastated areas of the United States and two more tropical storms are on their way. Hurricane Harvey has left Texas in a state of disarray and Hurricane Irma has left chunks of Florida completely underwater. Why is this year so different? Because the climate is changing—getting warmer and warmer.

According to the NOAA, surface temperatures in the eastern part of the Atlantic were half a degree to a full degree (Celsius) above average this summer. These higher temperatures are what can take your typical, garden variety storm to a supercharged mega-storm.

As a whole, the human population is the main culprit for these rising temperatures. Our constant burning of fossil fuels has had a negative impact on so many areas of the environment, including intensifying tropical storms like Harvey and Irma. It is up to the human population to take action to prevent further damage to the Earth. Even just one person can make all the difference. But where should we start? What can we do? Starting is so simple and we can all do so much.

3 easy things you can start doing TODAY:

• Instead of driving, walk or bike to your destination.  
• When you’re grocery shopping, look for products with recyclable packaging. 
• Recycle your home’s paper, cardboard, metal and glass.

For the first time in Miss America’s history, Miss North Dakota claimed the coveted Miss America crown. On Tuesday, September 10th, 23-year-old Cara Mund was crowned by Miss America 2017, Savvy Shields, at the 91st Miss America Pageant held in Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

According to Mund, only three women from North Dakota have ever made into the Top Ten of the competition. For winning the Miss America Pageant, Mund will receive a $50,000 scholarship, a six-figure salary and a contract with Dick Clark Productions.

Her platform for the Miss America 2018 pageant was “A Make-A-Wish Passion with Fashion” where she started the Make-A-Wish Fashion Show at the age of 14 and has been involved with organization ever since. In the preliminary rounds, she was the first-runner up for the Quality of Life Award.

Mund started her pageant career as a child and captured the titles of Little Miss North Dakota, Mis Pre-Teen North Dakota, and Miss Junior Teen North Dakota, and Miss North Dakota’s Outstanding Teen. Before capturing the title of Miss North Dakota 2017 as Miss Northern Lights, Mund competed in the Miss North Dakota in 2016 as Miss Oil Country, and was the first-runner up.

Just last year, Mund graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island with a degree in business, entrepreneurship, and organizations. In the future, she plans on earning her Juris Doctor at Notre Dame Law School. Her dream is to someday become the Governor of North Dakota.

Congratulations to Miss America 2018, Cara Mund!

Climate change is a global issue that has been discussed again…. again…. and again. However, with the events following Hurricane Harvey, we’re going to talk about it. Again.

Due to our climate becoming warmer and warmer, the air can hold larger amounts of moisture and warmer seas means water evaporates faster. Thus, causing more precipitation during storms—a key factor in Hurricane Harvey’s massive flooding. As of September 5^th, Texas has had at least nine trillion gallons of rainfall. Some areas received a year’s worth of rainfall in just one week, breaking the record for total rainfall for a single event in the continental United States.

The effects of this storm are reaching far and wide. Texas residents are being relocated, homes are being destroyed, and the entire ecosystem is becoming compromised. In a storm as intense and disastrous as this one, most of us focus on the human aspect. Yes, it is tragic that so many innocent people are being affected by the storm, but not many people think about how our environment is suffering. Climate change is effecting the frequency, intensity and distribution of tropical storms. The United States is seeing more and more hurricanes, and in the long run these storms will likely affect biotic functions like community structure, natural selection, extinction rates and biodiversity.

Just this year we’ve experienced Harvey and Irma, with Jose and Katia right on their heels. And we are only halfway through the season. According to climate scientists, due to climate change, hurricane seasons like this one could potentially become the new norm. While there may not be an exponential increase in the amount of storms, the amount of major storms will.

According to Kerry Emanuel, who is a professor of atmospheric sciences at MIT, if Harvey had happened 20 years ago it would have been rare. A 1-in-2,000-year event. However, as temperatures are continuously rising, intense storms like Harvey will become less and less rare.

The science is there to back it up, climate change does influence hurricanes and will increase the intensity of them. Leading to more catastrophic effects on the United States. With so many people being affected, the people of the United States need to reflect on their everyday habits and think about how their actions influence the environment.