Astronauts may no longer have to go far to be able to find water on the moon.

According to the New York Times, a team of scientists used SOFIA an infrared telescope mounted inside a 747 jumbo jet, to make observations that showed clear data that there is water on the side of the moon where the sun shines.

“This discovery reveals that water might be distributed across the lunar surface and not limited to the cold shadowed places near the lunar poles,” Paul Hertz, the director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said during a news conference on Monday.

This discovery could be a real game-changer, not only could it be used as water for astronauts to drink but it could also be broken down into its constituent atoms to create oxygen for the astronauts to breathe.

Hydrogen and oxygen could also possibly be used as rocket propellant to help space missions make it back to earth and even help them in their quest to get to Mars.

I chose the Eppley Auditorium lobby because I have only ever passed through it, and I was wondering what it would be like to sit here and see what the room is actually like.

The Eppley Auditorium lobby is a long hall that is mostly white and has many chairs for people to sit in. It is used as the main entrance to Eppley Auditorium and is also where the box office is located for the performances that are given here.

While I am sitting here there isn’t much activity going on. There is only one other person down the whole length of the hall and they are lounging on a couch doing their homework with their earbuds in. Various other people have walked through but only for a brief moment before either going upstairs or walking in the direction of the music wing.

From where I am sitting, I can hear the band and choir practicing. It is soothing but when you hear both at the same time, it becomes a little discordant. I know that I recognize the piece of music that the band is playing, but I can’t remember the name of it.

At the moment, this room feels large for how little is going on in it. I’m sure that when there is an actual performance the room probably gets much fuller.

Gaming is serious business for Morningside’s esports team.

Morningside esports was founded, in 2016, as a club that people could join to play video games and compete in local and online tournaments. Morningside esports has since grown to be a 25-person roster over three separate teams.

In previous years Morningside esports was run by Dean Stevens, whose idea it was to form an esports team at Morningside. This worked okay for the first few years, but as new Head Coach, Jared Amundson said, “I have a lot of respect for what they were able to do, but I believe they maxed out what they were able to do with the program. This team needed someone who’s primary job is to help us win and not someone who can maybe help after they have finished with their grading.”

Amundson, who is in his first year as head coach, played for the League of Legends team during his college career. After graduating, Morningside hired him on to become the League coach, where he went on to help his team win Morningside its first GGLeagues championship in the fall of 2019.
In June of 2020, it was announced that Amundson would be taking over as the head coach for the program. As head coach, Amundson’s jobs include coaching and managing his players, managing his assistant coaches, and recruiting new talent.

Under Amundson, there have been many changes to the program, with the most important being how serious people are taking it.
“In previous years, it was a lot laxer, and it would sometimes be hard to even get a full team together for our actual matches,” said Sebastian Tovar, a League of Legends and Valorant player. “This year, we are treating it as an actual collegiate sport and not like a place where we can play video games with our friends.”

This year all three teams practice daily for two hours, spread out over a six-hour block, while in previous years, teams would practice two times a week at most.

Another thing that has changed with the new management is what league the teams are playing in. Previously it was up to the team captain to find a tournament for their team to play in. The problem with this is that they would be facing teams of a much higher skill level (picture the Mustangs going up against the Hawkeyes.) This year, all three teams are competing in GGLeagues, which puts teams together based on their skill rating.

One of the problems facing esports is that it is hard for people who do not understand the games to get involved. Describing how people react when he tells them that he is an esports player Tovar said, “They are generally confused, even though esports is bigger than it ever has been, a lot of people still don’t understand how video games can be considered a sport.”

Amundson hopes to work on this, saying in an interview from August, “I want to get this program up to the point where people are in freshman orientation and hear about esports.” He then admitted. “I want students to go around in introductions and hear ‘I play football,’ ‘I play basketball,’ ‘I play esports.’ With that kind of word of mouth following, I know we will be on the respect level we need to be.”

Morningside esports has started the year off strong, having already played seven games among the three teams.

As of this writing, The Overwatch team is 2-1 with their next match scheduled for Wednesday, October 7th, where they will face off against the 3-0 AC Badgers. Quentin Charbonneau, assistant coach for Overwatch, has said, “We have a good chance of beating them, as long as we counterplay and focus on targets, we should be able to get an easy win.”

The League of Legends team has started the year off 1-1 dropping a close game against Davenport university last week. They go on to face the 0-2 Alma College team this Thursday.

Valorant has had a rough start getting blown out and going 0-2 in their first two matches. They have a bye week this week. Tovar has said that the beginning of the season has been rough, but they need to focus and get better.

All of Morningside’s games can be watched live or on-demand at https://www.twitch.tv/msideesports.

In 2016, Morningside esports was founded as a club that people could join to play video games with each other and compete in local and online tournaments. Morningside esports has since grown to a 25 person roster over three separate teams who take things very seriously.

In previous years Morningside esports was run by Dean Stevens, whose idea it was to make an esports team at Morningside. This would work okay for the first few years, but as new Head Coach, Jared Amundson said, “I have a lot of respect for what they were able to do, but I believe they maxed out what they were able to do with the program. This team needed someone who’s primary job is to help us win and not someone who can maybe help after they are finished with their grading.”

Amundson, who is in his first year as head coach, played for the League of Legends team during his college career. After graduating from college, Morningside hired him on to become the League coach, where he went on to help his team win Morningside its first esports title in the fall of 2019. In June of 2020, it was announced, that Amundson would be taking over as the head coach for the program. As head coach Amundson’s jobs include coaching and managing his players, managing his assistant coaches, and recruiting new talent.

Under Amundson, there have been many changes to the program, with the most important being how much more seriously people are taking it. “In previous years it was a lot laxer and it would sometimes be hard to even get a full team together for our actual matches,” said Sebastian Tovar, a Senior League of Legends and Valorant player. “This year we are treating it as an actual collegiate sport and not like a place where we can play video games with our friends.” This year all three teams have practice daily for two hours, spread out over an eight-hour block, while in previous years teams would practice two times a week at most.

Another thing that has changed with the new management is what league the teams are playing in. Previously it was up to the team captain to find a tournament for their team to play in. The problem with this is that they would be facing teams of a much higher skill level, (picture the Mustangs going up against the Hawkeyes.) This year, all three teams are competing in GGLeagues which puts teams together based on their skill rating.

One of the problems facing esports is that it is hard for people who don’t understand the games to get involved. When asked how people react when he tells them that he is an esports player Tovar said, “They are generally confused, even though esports is bigger than it ever has been, a lot of people still don’t understand how video games can be considered a sport.” Amundson hopes to work on this, saying in an interview from August, “I want to get this program up to the point where people are in freshman orientation and hear about esports,” he admitted. “I want students to go around in introductions and hear ‘I play football,’ ‘I play basketball,’ ‘I play esports.’ With that kind of word of mouth following, I know we will be on the respect level we need to be.”

Morningside esports has started the year off strong, having already played seven games among the three teams.

As of this writing, The Overwatch team is 2-1 with their next match scheduled for Wednesday, October 7th, where they will face off against the 3-0 AC Badgers. Quentin Charbonneau, assistant coach for Overwatch, has said, “We have a really good chance of beating them, as long as we counterplay and focus on targets, we should be able to get an easy win.”

The League of Legends team has started the year off 1-1 dropping a close game against Davenport university last week. They go on to face the 0-2 Alma College team this Thursday.

Valorant has had a rough start getting blown out and going 0-2 in their first two matches. They have a bye week this week. Tovar who also plays on the Valorant team has said that the beginning of the season has been rough but they just need to focus and get better.

All of Morningside’s games can be watched live or on-demand at https://www.twitch.tv/msideesports.

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/15/17978358/proud-boys-trump-biden-debate-violence

This article talks about the history and present of the Proud Boys after they were named dropped at the First presidential debate.

I found this article interesting for various reasons. I liked it because when they were name dropped at the debate I didn’t know who they were so it was nice that this article explained that. What I really found interesting though was that this article wasn’t afraid at all to use curse words. Typically you don’t see people put curse words in their articles even when it is online.

Steven Postolka is a lawyer who graduated from Morningside in 2011. After graduating from Morningside, Postolka went to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) for three years to complete law school, graduating in 2014.

After graduating from law school, he worked as a court clerk for two years. A court clerk’s job is to maintain a record of the court proceedings and to administer oaths to witnesses.

After these two years, Postolka opened his private practice in Spencer, Iowa, where he worked for four years before coming back to Sioux City, where he now works for the city council.

When asked what the most difficult part of being a lawyer is, Postolka said, “The clients are the hardest part job because these are people that are coming to you on their worse day ever and they’re expecting you to help them out of it.”

When asked how Morningside helped him to succeed in his career, he said, “Morningside Prepared me for grad school because at Morningside you have to interact with your professor’s, which you have to do a lot of in law school, I was used to it while other people in my classes weren’t.” He also said that Morningside prepared him by helping him learn how to write clearly and concisely.

When asked how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his work, he said, “I’ve never made more money and worked less.” He says this because since the pandemic started, he has yet to try a case yet. He is, however, preparing a case that will be tried next month.

https://www.vox.com/recode/21454529/voter-fraud-trump-qanon-conspiracy-theory-2020-election

This article talks about how QAnon is not the only dangerous conspiracy floating around about this year’s election.

I find this article very interesting for multiple reasons. First, I like how it is longer and more in-depth than other articles that I’ve seen in the past, and secondly, I like anything to do with conspiracies.

The only thing I think this article did a bad job with is that the whole premise behind the article is how the conspiracy about election fraud is bigger and more dangerous than QAnon, even though QAnon seems to be getting more publicity. This article does a mediocre job of explaining what QAnon is. It just mentions it in passing a few times and relies on the reader already knowing what it is otherwise.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/9/19/21446826/senate-republicans-floor-vote-trump-supreme-court-nominee

This article talks about how senate Republicans are trying to fast track a vote for the new Justice of the Supreme Court after the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

This article does a good job of being objective, even though with an article this politically charged it would be extremely easy to be subjective. It does take a few digs at Republicans but it always backs it up with something that the Republican said that proves there hypocrisy.

I found it annoying how there were a couple of times that it would say something and then it would say the exact thing again as a citation.

This whole ordeal is rather worrying because as stated in this article if the Republicans can get a Conservative Justice appointed by November they could mess with the election results.

I find it sad at how much hypocrisy there is in the American political system. This article only lists Republicans but I have seen the same type of things having been said by Democrats before as well.

Due to the 2020 pandemic, all collegiate sports had to be shut down due to worries about athletes contracting the coronavirus. That is, all except for esports.

Even though all other Spring sports had to be canceled in March, esports were still able to compete because the players don’t have to be in the same place as each other to compete. Esports is unique in this way because teammates can be on other sides of the world and still be able to play with each other because of the wonders of the internet.

This year most colleges are going to be online so that means that a lot of colleges aren’t going to be competing in other sports, which means that colleges can now focus more on esports than they have previously. Nowhere can this be seen more than Brown University. “Brown recently added more than 300 students to its roster of esports players—about a 50% uptick since March—bringing the total to over 900 players.” (PitchBook)

Esports was always going to become more successful someday but there is no denying that the pandemic helped it on its way. Over 170 schools have joined the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) which is the largest conference for collegiate esports.

The transition to playing online can be difficult though. While larger division I schools were able to outfit their players with PCs during the pandemic smaller schools with emerging esports programs weren’t so lucky, but in this case, the colleges promoted esports as more of a communal activity instead of a competitive one. “The emphasis is on community and play, rather than competition,” Joe McAllister a learning environment adviser at CDWG says. (EdTech)

Esports has always served as a powerful recruitment tool. By offering competitive esports teams and scholarships, small and midsized colleges have had success using esports programs to help their schools stand out from the competition. And during a time when enrollment is dropping due to COVID-19 uncertainties, esports is becoming more important than ever for higher ed institutions. (EdTech)

Although it seems as though the coronavirus has helped collegiate esports it still has taken its toll on professional esports. Last year esports was a $1 Billion industry but this year it won’t be making as much money for the same reason as other professional sports. Even though the players can still compete fans won’t be able to go and cheer on their favorite teams in person. “Esports, with its reliance on live events, has been one of the first parts of the gaming industry to be affected. Most esports events have been canceled or postponed, though some are taking place without audiences.” “We have directors, producers, broadcast engineers, and professional gamers all working remotely to recreate the excitement and quality of a live event,” says Mike Sepso, co-founder and CEO of Vindex, an esports infrastructure platform. “Esports has been able to continue while traditional sports have not because the playing field is virtual and can be replicated online; however, nothing can truly replace the social richness of the live experience.” (World Economic Forum)

The Informal in Roadman Hall is a large rectangular white room just to the left of the lobby. The room has chairs and couches around the perimeter. There are a billiards table and a Foosball table in the middle of the room but both are covered right now due to Covid-19. There are pieces of abstract art along all of the walls. The informal is typically used by students to hang out with each other or to do homework in an environment that isn’t as quiet as their room.

During my time in the informal today the only person that was in there was a German soccer player who was talking on the phone in German, the only thing that he said that I was able to make out was “what the fuck,” and “that’s dope.” Later on though after he got off his phone a female German soccer player came in and they started talking about soccer and what the other person’s soccer schedule was like. Other people walked through the room either to leave Roadman or to go back to their rooms after getting back, but they didn’t ever stop or say anything.