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Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
The Decade in News Photographs
This September 10, 2008 NASA handout image received on September 12, 2008 shows a picture of Hurricane Ike downlinked by the crew of the International Space Station, flying 220 statute miles above Earth. The center of the hurricane was near 23.8 degrees north latitude and 85.3 degrees west longitude, moving 300 degrees at 7 nautical miles per hour. The sustained winds were 80 nautical miles per hour with gusts to 100 nautical miles per hour and forecast to intensify.
Call it what you will, "the noughties", "the two-thousands" or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme. Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was ending his final term in office, very few had ever heard of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq - all that and much more has changed in the intervening time. It's really an impossible task to sum up ten years in a handful of photographs, but below is my best attempt at a look back at the last decade - feel free to let me know what I missed in the comments below.
Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing.
This unsourced picture allegedly shows ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein being dragged out of his hiding following his capture by US troops 13 December 2003 in an underground hole at a farm in the village of ad-Dawr, near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq.See the rest.. (50 images)
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Hard Rock: The Best Songs of 2009
OK here we go.. I've been preparing this post for a while now. Everyone who knows me knows I am a lover of unique, complex, hard-rocking music.. in that order. This year I will say right off the bat was somewhat of an "average" year. There were no studio releases for two of my favorites, Staind & Godsmack, and the new stuff on the radio just wasn't there. There were however a couple bands who were new to me in the last year and a half or so, and I'll be looking forward to hearing much more from them. And a band that most of us thought were dead has experienced a serious resurrection.
When trying to get this list together, of course I did a little research, just to be sure there wasn't a song or two out there that I had heard but forgotten to include. In doing so I came across all types of different music lists. Most people don't understand how to classify music, if to do so at all. A few mainstream places I visited had the same songs on both their list of top rock songs, and top alternative songs. Others don't understand that you can't classify one of a band's songs as metal, but yet another as rock.. unless of course you have to, but I wouldn't. If that's the case, then they, like most great bands, DON'T NEED classification. This is the same argument I have always provided in defense of one of my all-time favorite bands, Rush. They are their own classification of music, or their own sub-genre of rock music.
Of course, I'll never include a country song or a rap song in with my list. Since we're talking sub-genres of ROCK, you just don't do that - the three worlds are too far apart. But at the same time, if you don't think that some of this is "rock", then that's ok. Most of this would be just fine on any hard-rock or progressive rock list.
Here's my top-15 for 2009:
15. Sound of Madness – Shinedown
14. I Will Not Bow – Breaking Benjamin
13. Whiskey Hangover – Godsmack
12. The Night – Disturbed
11. Scream With Me – Mudvayne
10. Wither – Dream Theater
9. Jars – Chevelle
8. Check My Brain – Alice in Chains
7. Two Weeks – All That Remains
6. Overcome – Creed
5. Crawl – Breaking Benjamin
4. A Looking in View – Alice in Chains
3. Hard to See – Five Finger Death Punch
2. The Best of Times – Dream Theater
1. The Count of Tuscany – Dream Theater
Honorable mention:
The Shattered Fortress – Dream Theater
Acid Bubble – Alice in Chains
Walk Away – Five Finger Death Punch
Careless Whisper - Seether
Believe In Nothing – All That Remains
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
100 Years of Failure: 10 Technologies We Were Promised But Never Got
In Your Flying Car Awaits, author Paul Milo discusses "robot butlers, lunar vacations and other dead-wrong predictions of the 20th Century." Here are 10 calamitous tech failures. Even the ones that did make it aren't anything like their original visions.
The Flying Car
For futurists, this one's an oldie but a goodie. By 1909, forecasters believed that soon, someone would combine, like peanut butter and jelly, the newfangled airplane to the equally cutting-edge automobile. For a century the flying car has been one of those perennially just-around-the-corner innovations, and while work continues on a viable prototype, don't expect to see your Honda become airborne anytime soon. Although NASA has done some work on creating a "sky highway," an electronic corridor in the sky to be used by pilots of small craft, the effort is still at a very preliminary stage.
Cities Under Domes
The architect and all-around visionary R. Buckminster Fuller believed that one day, cities in cold-weather regions cold be encased under temperature-controlled geodesic domes. Although it might sound loopy, Fuller argued back in the '60s that such a dome over New York City would pay for itself in 10 years, as there would be no more need for snow removal. In addition to temperature control, the domes were also supposed to contain germ filters that would have prevented us from getting sick too.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Kurt Warner
Kurt Warner, Arizona Cardinals QB, has played an entire 16-game season 3 times in his long 11-yr. career.
All three of those times, he led his team to the Super Bowl.
That's an incredible stat!
And if I heard it right, tonight he can make NFL history by being the only NFL QB ever to throw 100 TD passes for TWO different teams.
It seems like someone may have already done this. But nevertheless, Brett Favre could have something to do with this record in a couple more seasons.
12 of the World's Weirdest Stadiums
Dallas Cowboys' new $1.1 billion stadium
A lot of stadiums around the world have the finest design and they give pride to the countries where they are located. Yet there are some stadiums where architects have failed and there are some very clever adaptations to the surrounding landscape and that makes them kinda weird.
Singapore, Marina Bay.
Made entirely of steel, the floating platform measures 390 feet long and 270 feet wide. It can bear up to 1,070 tonnes, equivalent to the total weight of 9,000 people, 200 tonnes of stage props and three 30-tonne military vehicles. The gallery at the stadium has a seating capacity of 30,000 people.
Portugal, Braga.
One of the most expensive and weirdest stadiums in Portugal. The enormous rock moving process contributed heavily to the final $122 million cost, more than any other of the ten new stadiums built for European football championship in 2004. The stadium is often considered one of the most original and beautiful stadiums in the world. We find it strange.
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