The fast-food chain industry has been one of the most popular things in the world. I would like to say when hungry, most people’s options come down to fast food when on a long trip. Today I am here to help you choose the best fast-food places to eat at when going up and down the East Coast.
You can always start with the Chick-Fil-As of the world and stop and get a good consistent chicken sandwich. A few can rival the chicken sandwich on the menu; and the fries, when prepared correctly, can be outstanding. The milkshakes are fabulous, but the price of Chick-Fil-A’s food can be costly, especially with many people in the car when traveling. If you are looking for a crunchier bite of a chicken sandwich, you can head over to Popeyes.
Popeyes also has delicious fries, and while they don’t serve milkshakes, you can still get a good bite to eat without the exact pricing as Chick-Fil-A; it can be more cost-efficient and decent food. If you want to travel down the East Coast, you can find places like Raising Canes, which has fabulous chicken and delicious sauce. If you are looking for a good chicken place and are tired of Chick-Fil-A and Popeyes, grab a bite at Raising Canes and get great chicken.
If you are looking for a sandwich, you can go to many places. Subway is all over the place and is consistent with how good it is. Suppose you are looking for more of an Italian sub, head over to Jersey Mike’s. Jersey Mike’s flavors come together well; the sizes can vary from huge to small. The problem with Jersey Mike’s is the cost; a lot of their food may be overpriced.
Finally, is Which Wich Subs. They have surprisingly tasty food, and it is very consistent. I wouldn’t say you would get this over a Jersey Mike’s, but if you want to try something new, this is a great option.
If you’re looking for a place that is a little out of the ordinary and want to try something new, I suggest heading to Zaxby’s. Very much like Raising Canes, they have great food, and they have delicious chicken.
If you are traveling and need a good place to eat, head to these great food places that will blow up your taste buds.
Jack Bieda is a Junior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.
Why do so many people fuss about a carbon footprint and global warming? Our Carbon footprint is problematic because we are the primary source of manmade global warming, contributes to urban air pollution, and contributes to oceanic and coastal acidification. Although there are no ways to reverse or stop the effects at this point, there are ways to alleviate its effects to make it possible to mediate the impact of our industrialization. We might even make somewhat of a recovery.
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by the entirety of mankind, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. Every individual, event, organization, service, place, or product. The usual suspects of greenhouse gas emissions are transportation, industry, and electricity production. A carbon footprint is bad because it contributes to climate change. Climate change fully encompasses drastic weather events such as toxic and acid rain, ocean acidification, melting of glaciers and icebergs, and urban air pollution.
According to epa.gov. , The cars and buses we drive account for 27% of greenhouse gases, as of 2020. This is the largest portion of recorded emissions. These gases were counted as the by-product of burning petroleum-based products such as gasoline and diesel from an internal combustion engine. Passenger cars, trucks, utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and mini-vans. These means of travel account for over 50% of the transportation sector’s emissions. The remaining portion is commercial means such as aircraft, ships, boats, and planes. Ways to alleviate the effects of this form of emissions is switching fuels. Things like switching from gas to electric or hybrid and using renewable energies. Even prioritizing public transportation. Using buses and limiting vehicular usage on roads. Another method is lessening travel demands. Optimizing city plans, allowing for easier use of sidewalks and bike paths, and allowing access to pedestrian programs benefits low-emission transportation.
These contributors are more than enough to cause major problems regarding our carbon expulsion. Every day in transportation and industry, we burn fossil fuels, getting to work and working in factories, farms, etc. Our daily lives are made up of the extreme usage of carbon-emitting devices. Should we, too, be asked to change our way of life in the name of the planet, or should we accept that our lifestyles have exceeded the appropriate bounds of earthly resistance and resources?
Caleb Smith-Sims is a senior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.
A new year means a fresh start and new goals to be accomplished. New Year’s resolutions are goals that people make to achieve within the year. These goals can be changing a bad habit, continuing a healthy diet, maintaining or losing weight, or exercising daily. New Year’s Resolutions were first created 4,000 years ago with the Babylonians when they celebrated their first barley harvest. These goals might seem easy to keep up with, but how many people achieve their New Year’s resolutions?
Around 39% of the US population make New Year’s resolutions, 59% of them being between the ages of 18 and 34. In 2022, 48% of people wanted to exercise more, making it the most popular resolution. In 2023, the three most popular New Year’s resolutions are improved mental health, improved physical health, and losing weight.
Let’s look at the top two resolutions in 2023: improved mental and physical health. According to a survey with 1,005 US respondents conducted by Forbes Health, young adults focused more on their mental health than their physical health. 20% said that improving mental health was a top priority, 16% said that improving physical health was a top priority, and 64% said they were of equal importance. 47% of women chose improved mental health as their resolution, while 40% of men chose improved mental health as their resolution. Men were more focused on improving their physical health. This is just the creation of a New Year’s Resolution, but how many people actually accomplish their resolutions?
Photo by RosZie
81% of people felt confident in achieving their goal, with men feeling more confident than women (86% vs 79%). In 2022, out of 39% of people who made resolutions, 23% failed their resolution the first week after setting their goal, 43% failed their resolution before February, and 91% failed their resolution. How come so many people fail their New Year’s resolutions? Many New Year’s Resolutions fail due to unreasonable goals. Because of unreasonable goals, 35% of people lose their motivation to continue, and 19% say they are too busy. So what did the 9% of successful people do to achieve their goals? These people are not perfect; the average amount of slip-ups is 7 per person. What allowed them to achieve their goal was their resilience and determination.
You may ask, “How can one keep their New Year’s resolutions?” Here are some suggestions:
Photo by Geralt
Use the SMART goal rule (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely)
Create short-term goals to give satisfaction to keep on going
Have someone make the resolution with you so you can encourage each other
Be fully committed to your resolution
Remember, delayed gratification!
Successfully achieving your New Year’s resolution will be a great feeling. Everyone will mess up, but are you willing to get back up and push yourself? It’s not too late to start a New Year’s Resolution!
Collin Park is a sophomore member of the Multimedia Journalism class.
With a slew of new kids’ content popping up all over TikTok, YouTube, and any site an unsupervised toddler with an iPad could get to, it’s easy to forget that at one point, the internet was largely untamed, unregulated, and definitely not a place for children. It’s almost foreign to think of an era with no TikTok, YouTube not being nearly as prevalent, and Xbox Live party chats and Skype being the internet’s primary forms of communication. While there are multiple reasons for the internet evolving in the way it has, some of those reasons can be attributed to the kids of the early internet.
Games like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, and most Nintendo games are commonly associated with children nowadays, but that doesn’t mean that kids can’t be found in games that they really shouldn’t. From mature FPS games like Grand Theft Auto V to obscure indie horror like Poppy Playtime, it’s hard to find a game that hasn’t been played by someone younger than the ESRB rating on the box. While it’s now common practice to ignore games with predominantly young player bases, writing them off as “kids’ games” and leaving them alone to do their own thing, internet users’ first significant experience with an influx of children was not handled quite as deftly as that.
Call of Duty 4 marked a significant change in the series’ history, being the first game to not focus on World War II but on modern – well, modern for 2007 – warfare. The game quickly skyrocketed in popularity due to its revolutionary campaign and endlessly repayable multiplayer modes. With such immense renown came fans of all kinds, particularly fans of all ages.
I’m not sure what parent thought that getting a COD game for their child – or even leaving them alone with a credit card, for that matter – was a good idea. Still, as young and impressionable kids found their way onto multiplayer servers, they quickly began to gain notoriety as the worst kind of teammate imaginable. While it was possible to ignore their poor in-game performance, it was much harder to ignore a high-pitched and annoying child over the voice chat, screaming their heads off and yelling obscenities at the slightest inconvenience.
The issue wasn’t with the games the kids were playing; it was with the community that played them. For those unaware, the COD community has a reputation of being extremely toxic – especially back in the day – so it’s easy to see the problem with dropping impressionable kids into a lobby with server-wide voice chat with them. “Squeakers,” as they were called, quickly became despised by the community, with some players opting to leave squeaker-occupied servers entirely and search for another match to save themselves from getting a headache, while others stuck around to get a rise out of the tainted and easily excitable new players. The latter would often record these antics and post them to a – then growing – site called YouTube, garnering millions of likes and views in the process.
YouTube, Demonetization, And The Future Of Video
In its early days, YouTube wasn’t nearly as mainstream and, as such, wasn’t as highly regulated as it is now. People on the platform could often get away with posting whatever they wanted, so long as it didn’t break any rules or infringe on any copyrighted material. The idea of monetizing YouTube content – or at least be entitled to it – is a relatively modern concept. Back in the day, monetization was saved for the most prominent creators on the platform. However, as the years passed, the bar for being allowed to monetize content grew lower and lower, and eventually, some pretty offensive content was making reasonable amounts of money.
Around 2017, a lot of YouTube’s advertisers threatened to pull out of the company unless the company cleaned up its act and ensured that the content hitting the front page was clean enough to be suitable to the advertiser’s wishes. YouTube, very interested in keeping its bottom line stable, started demonizing mass amounts of content in what was referred to as the “adpocalypse.” While the terms for demonetization were extremely vague – and sometimes entirely unjustified – it led to a massive change in the image of the platform, even leading to the death of some forms of content in the name of making the platform more advertiser-friendly.
While not directly trying to make YouTube more accessible to children, the adpocalypse’s aftermath left a landscape that allowed children’s content to flourish, and for years, this was the case. Children’s content – especially the animated variety – was easy, quick to make, and entirely advertiser-friendly. Some channels began using easily recognizable characters in their videos, like Mickey Mouse, superheroes, and Disney princesses. Through this, they spread their content even further, despite the actual content of the videos often being bizarre and completely incoherent at times. Even the comments section of these videos followed this bizarre pattern, with kids seemingly mashing their hands onto the keyboard, letting autocorrect try to decipher the mess they just typed, and posting. YouTube children’s content was an absolute cash cow that many thought unstoppable; however, it would be shipped off to the proverbial slaughterhouse sooner than imagined.
Around January 2020, the FTC came after YouTube’s predatory ad policy toward children. According to COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule), running targeted ads toward children wasn’t strictly legal, or at least not how YouTube was doing it. It forced another major split in YouTube policy. Now, you have to mark whether your content is targeted toward children 12 and below or not. If you mark your videos as content for younger audiences, you aren’t allowed to run ads before your videos, and the comments section and like number are entirely turned off. Despite doing their best to shun kids’ content on their site, YouTube’s damage had already been done, and children’s media was forever changed. Examples like Cocomelon come to mind when thinking of modern kids’ content, but they aren’t the only thing that comes to mind.
TikTok’s primary goal is to keep us scrolling for as long as possible. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of losing track of time while scrolling social media and later realizing that you’ve spent an hour on mindless scrolling. It’s a pretty solid strategy for TikTok that’s executed pretty well; more time spent scrolling leads to more ads playing, which leads to more money. I’m not wholly against TikTok, but every time I use it, it reminds me of those kids’ YouTube channels with how it presents its content. It’s constantly trying to keep the attention of a demographic with a continually decreasing attention span; it just doesn’t feel like social media to me, it feels like a daycare.
Alex Magno is a junior member of the Multimedia Journalism Class.
Let’s be real, how many of us fake our Instagram posts, stories, and what we do daily? Hopefully, not everyone can relate, but the sad truth about our internet presence in today’s world is covered up with staged images and events. But recently, a new app that has been blowing up in popularity has the opportunity to change that, called BeReal. Whether you want to be real and show what you’re actually doing is up to you, however.
BeReal was released in 2020 by French developers Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau and was available in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese.
Photo by Hassan OUAJBIR
Photo by Dziubi Steenbergen
The aim of BeReal is for people to show their friends and family what they’re doing at a specific time in the day. BeReal will send you a notification anytime in the day saying you’ll have 2 minutes to take your BeReal. Everyone who gets that notification then opens up the app and takes a picture of themselves and what they are doing at that moment. You then get to see your friends’ BeReal and find out what they’re doing. Even if you miss the time frame, the app is forgiving and will let you post a late BeReal.
The app has recently gained traction over the past few months and now has become one of the most downloaded apps of 2022. Nothing like this was ever created, and it seemed like people loved the idea of it.
To see what people thought about BeReal, we asked Freshman Jace Taranto and Mount DeSales Senior Holly Bruchalski their thoughts on the app. “I only have it to see what my friends are up to,” said Jace. “Overall, I think it’s pretty fun to see what people are doing at the same time you are,” replied Holly.
While it might seem like there is an overall positive vibe that BeReal has going for itself, some other aspects were brought up. Holly stated, “at the same time, it’s kinda hard to keep up with doing it every single day cause you still wanna enjoy your day without having to post about it.” It might seem like a chore to some and, to others, a way to brag about themselves.
With it being the internet, people will find a way to fake their posts and make their life seem more extravagant just to get attention. From a man running to the Eiffel Tower to get it in his picture to a lady going out with friends and taking a picture with a guy from 7/11, or even at the mall and having an employee snap a photo.
Recently senior Harry Kennedy asked a group of students in the class to stage his BeReal to show him receiving the Bocce Ball championship award. This is a fabulous example of people willing to wait to take their BeReal to show their friends something interesting in their life.
From personal experience, it has been easy to notice scrolling through BeReal that people don’t always want to show that their life isn’t as great as perceived by others. Holly responded, “People should definitely be real with their posts since people want to know what’s going on at that given moment.” Would you agree with her or beg to differ? Does it now matter to people that the main purpose has been compromised by people who don’t want to “BeReal,” or is it still an app where people can share their lives without any filters?
Cooper Funk is a senior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.
Jack Bieda is a Junior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.
The necessity of a mobile phone has become more important in an ever-changing world of technology. With this, people want the best phone in terms of longevity and features. Most people believe the iPhone is the most quality phone, as around 50 percent of mobile phone users have an iPhone in the United States. But maybe the iPhone isn’t the best mobile phone. Many people can admit to having an iPhone solely because others around them do, but this prevents the user from being informed about other mobile phone companies. In this piece, we will compare the features of the two new cell phones, the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and decide which top-notch phone is the better.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra in burgundy color Photo credit: Zana Latif
Size and Looks
The iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra are the largest and newest of each company. The size of the phone is a significant factor when buying phones. The iPhone is 71.5 x 147.5 x 7.85mm (width x height x depth) with a weight of 206 grams and a 6.7″ (diagonal) screen. On the other hand, the Samsung is 77.9 x 163.3 x 8.9mm with a weight of 229 grams and a 6.8″ (diagonal) screen. Although the Samsung is bigger, the con is that it is also heavier but only has a 23-gram difference. Aside from the dimensions of the phones, the looks of the phones are very different. The iPhone has flat edges and 4 colors: Space Black, Silver, Gold, and Deep Purple. The Samsung has more rounded edges and 7 colors: Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green, Burgundy, Graphite, Sky Blue, and Red. Looks are mainly on preference, but Samsung is the better option if you want a bigger phone.
Black iPhone Photo Credit: Miguel Tomás
Specifications and Features
Both phones have similar specifications, but they have several unique features. Both phones have face recognition, a rated IP68 (splash, dust, and water resistant), a 120Hz refresh rate, and three storage options: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The differences are that the iPhone has a brighter screen of 2000 nits than the Samsung, which has 1750 nits, the battery on the iPhone can last up to 29 hours while the Samsung can last 18 hours, and the Samsung has the option to come with an S pen, while the iPhone does not have any pen option. These phones have unique features, but the features and specifications come with preference.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with S Pen Photo Credit: Zana Latif
Camera
Without a doubt, Samsung has a better camera option than the iPhone. The Samsung consists of 5 cameras on the back: a 12MP (megapixels, which equals 1,000,000 pixels) ultra-wide camera, a 108MP wide-angle camera, a 10MP camera, and 2 telephoto cameras with 100x Space Zoom. It also has one 40MP selfie camera. The iPhone only consists of 3 cameras with 48MP. Although Samsung has better cameras, the iPhone has more features like deep fusion, more video resolution options, retina flash, Animojis, and more. Samsung does have some of the options on the iPhone, but the iPhone has more. Photos can be edited from both phones, so some of the features on the iPhone photo can be applied to a Samsung photo through editing.
iPhone’s cameras Photo credit: TheRegisti
Cost
For both phones, the cost depends on the specific phone’s storage space. However, the lowest starting price for an iPhone 14 Pro Max is $1,099. The starting price for the Samsung S22 Ultra is $750, but it can cost up to $1,500 with other accessories. Generally speaking, iPhones have been more expensive after a new release than Samsung phones. Samsung has had 40 different model S22 phones, with 6 being over $1,000. iPhone has 6 models for the iPhone 14, with 2 being over $1,000. Regarding cost, when initially released, Samsung was traditionally the more affordable mobile phone.
With all this being said, the question remains; What mobile phone is the best? Well, it all comes down to preference. Some people like the features the iPhone provides, while others like the features that Samsung provides. We suggest narrowing down what feature is most important to you in a mobile phone and seeing which product offers the best version of the feature. It is hard to decide which company makes the best mobile phone, but we can make an opinion based on what we as buyers want.
Stephen Avara is a junior member of the Multimedia Journalism Class.
Collin Park is a sophomore member of the Multimedia Journalism Class.
The Student Newspaper of Mount Saint Joseph High School
The Quill 