Nathan's Blog

Fortnite: the only game on planet earth where Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and The Rock can get into a gunfight with Spider-Man, Naruto, and The Master Chief. Although comical, many people still play the game! According to techacake.com the battle royale powerhouse currently has an active player base of over 80 million people.  If you are unfamiliar with Fortnite , it is a free-to-play, battle royale-style game. This means that 100 players are released onto an island via parachute. Once a player lands, their objective is to find a gun (or multiple, you can carry up to five) and fight till only one player or team remains. The game is also unique in that it features a building mechanic that allows players to gather resources, and use them to build cover, and engage in battle.  This week, Fortnite had a huge update bringing its chapter three content to the game. This content features a new map and guns. In this article, I will discuss my opinions regarding these things.  Af...

  Going into the semester, media writing was a concept that I had been introduced to but had never done. Gaining a grasp on this style of writing was easy in some ways, but hard in others. In this short semester retrospective, I will explain what I learned, and what I think I could have done better/what I am still struggling with. Before this class, writing to me was a process of following steps that I learned when I was in middle school: Make an opening paragraph, a couple of body paragraphs, then conclude. This was pure essay writing, and it was a habit that I had grown comfortable with (honestly, I still do it). I always knew that writing outside of what I thought as correct was possible, but I felt that it might get graded harshly for not following the parameters that had always been drilled into me. I'm not going to say this class was a revelation against that thinking, but it did help me to branch out a little.  When talking about pure, straight-up writing, The thi...

  Shattered Glass showed Glass’s insecurities  Shattered glass is not the type of movie that I like, but it was not a bad movie. It followed the true story of American journalist Stephen Glass (played by Hayden Christensen) and showed his fall from glory. The psychotic character Glass starts the movie by publishing a story about a teenage hacker. As the movie progresses it is uncovered that the story is fabricated. Glass lies saying that he was tricked by his sources and deepens his lie. In the end, all his credibility is lost when it is discovered that over half of his stories were fabricated.  The movie portrays the bad guy as the main character. Glass is a manipulator and a psychopath that believes his chronic lies. He builds his world and lives in a separate reality of our own. In the movie, we see Christensen's character continuously lie to cover his tracks. He does anything from blaming others, creating fake phone numbers, and flat out lying to his peers and colle...

  Planetary candidate detected outside of Milky Way galaxy The Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has recently discovered what they believe is a planetary candidate outside of our Milky Way galaxy. This awe-inspiring discovery is important because it is the first of its kind.  The possible planet was discovered in the galaxy Messier 51, a whirlpool galaxy that is located 23 million light-years from Earth.  In the report given, it is stated that the possible planet was discovered using a new method of detection called the “X-ray transit method”. This method is similar to another form of planetary detection that we use within our galaxy called the transit method. The transit method uses light as its main source of detection. For example, let's say we on earth are observing a star. While observing this star there is a constant amount of light hitting earth at any given time. When a planetary object passes in front of the light source being observed, the amou...

  Informational feature Recently, The Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered a candidate for what they believe might be the first planet discovered outside the Milky Way galaxy. They did this through a method that has been classified as the X-ray transit method. Here is a link to the study: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2021/m51/m51_paper.pdf .  This story is important because it marks a scientific discovery that could end up being the first of its kind. The research states that detecting a planet outside of the Milky Way is key to understanding galaxies other than our own. It is worthy to note that this study will take a long time due to the nature of the planetary candidate's discovery (factors such as distance, orbit, and pure chance), but the fact that something has been detected is important nonetheless. Knowing and understanding this, This story needs to get media coverage.  Human Interest feature Micheal Phelps is known as the greatest o...

  Week 12 assignments  Tweets https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460073609750327307   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460080668147425285   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460070646621392898   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460065270349848583   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460094921940025344 For me, it is generally easy for me to summarize an article if I understand what is being said. That being said, if it is a topic I am new to, that can become a little more difficult. For example. In my article about the Vikings, I was able to summarize well because sports is a beat that I am always following closely. However, for a topic such as local inflation, I had a harder time summarizing because it is not something that has a large amount of my attention.

  This week the Vikings took on the Chargers in an NFC vs AFC battle and prevailed winning 27-20. This matchup was an important one for both teams as they were both second in their respective divisions going into the game.  The Vikings took on an aggressive approach early on and focused on getting the ball into the hands of the second-year wideout Justin Jefferson. In the game, he hauled in 9 receptions for 143 yards. Other notable players from the outing include Tight end Tyler Conklin who caught three passes, two of which resulted in touchdowns, and Dalvin Cook who totaled 118 yards from scrimmage and scored a touchdown.  Minnesota has been no stranger to close games this season. In their 9 games played thus far, 8 have been decided by one score. After the win today, Minnesota is 3-5 in those games. Head coach Mike Zimmer said that he “liked the fight of his team” in a post-game interview and that plenty of guys “stepped up” today referring to 5 inactive defensive s...

Landscape: This photo shows my kitchen. I choose this picture because it is the main space in my house where my roommates and I spend most of our time Action shot: This shows my roommate Max cooking some food Staged: This staged picture was meant to replicate Max coming back from class, showing his daily routine.  Mug: This is a mug shot of Max Candid Shot: This is a candid showing max eating. I choose this picture to show his daily routine.  Slice of life: This shot shows me watching some tv, and doing some homework. This is a pretty average night for me and my roomates. 

  The Life of a College Student Being a college student brings on the stereotypes of stress, work, partying, ramen noodles, and cheap living. While some of these stereotypes may be true in a broad sense, they may not be relative to everybody. In this short article, I will describe the daily routine of Max Albert, a student at NDSU, and compare his life to what is considered to be average among other students.  Max begins his day by checking his schedule. After he does this he goes downstairs and makes himself breakfast. Average breakfast for him might consist of eggs and a piece of toast. After breakfast, he heads over to campus for his first class. Classes this year are still limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so Max claims that while he does make an effort to attend in person, he does still take advantage of the synchronous option that some courses still offer. After classes are done for the day, Max does his homework, goes to the gym, and eats dinner. Finally, he finishe...

  https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/entertainment/2021/october/comic-book-artist-quits-after-dc-announces-superman-will-be-lgbt   https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/admiral-rachel-levine-transgender-public-health/   The first article I have chosen for this assignment is from the far-right CBN News (Christian Broadcasting Network). This article is titled “Comic Book Artist Quits After DC Announces Superman Will Be LGBT” and discusses exactly what the title entails.  To begin, the first topic I will discuss in the article is the five criteria of journalistic content. Mechanically, the article is well written and has grammatical or spelling errors. That being said, the way that the story is structured leaves a lot to be desired. It begins by introducing the DC employee, and gives his reason for leaving the company, but does it out of context to the situation. This also affects the rhetorical criteria as it does not provide a clear basis for the argument that is bei...

       When I heard what the assignment for this week was, I was excited because my writing voice is something that I have given some thought to in the past. To describe my writing voice, I believe I must describe my background in writing.  In high school, I was taught to write a certain way. This is a problem that most people encounter in their writing career as they believe that there is a proper way to write. For my first three years of high school, I was a “terrible” writer because I did not follow these parameters. I constantly received bad grades on my writing because of this. I had one teacher, however, (history) that I never received a bad grade from (at least in writing). He was the type of guy that most students got along with. Toward the end of my junior year of high school, he had us do a research essay on any topic of our choosing. I am a huge basketball fan so I chose to do my essay on the rivalry between the Boston Celtics, and the LA Lakers. Af...

  Fox News, The Washington Times, BBC News, ABC News, Buzzfeed News.  Do all the pieces fit?  Is the story an authentic telling of the events as they happened?  Can we verify the story?  Are we following the basics of communication?  Are we applying the proper techniques?  Is the story a fair and honest representation?  Fox News ( https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-speaks-event-us-capitol-honoring-law-enforcement-killed-line-duty ) This story talks about President Biden speaking at a memorial service to honor police officers that fell in the line of duty in 2019-2020. The points of interest in the story are in chronological order. The story is not opinion based and merely gives a description of the events that happened, and a few quotations regarding what president Biden said in his speech to the families in attendance. The article was written by Adam Shaw, a journalist for Fox News, and BBC News. The article is easy to read, and informative. ...