This site is archiving the electronic sounds of the past, and it’s awesome The site archives a few sounds that might have you nostalgically playing them over and over again. There’s everything from the sound of dialing a rotary telephone to the sound of a floppy drive chugging away. If nothing else, listening to the sound …
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In case you thought no one fished (and ate the fish) in the Anacostia River, here is an article from National Geographic: Fishermen were casting their lines into the urban waters of Washington, D.C., into a river notorious as one of the dirtiest in the nation. What’s more, according to a recent study, they represented …
BBC wrote an interesting piece on the history of the steel pan: Amid the electronica of 20th Century music one new instrument stands out for its simplicity. The steel pan, possibly the only instrument made out of industrial waste, has become an icon of Trinidadian culture. “There is something about the steel pan and Caribbean music …
NBC’s London Olympics ratings defy expectations NBC’s ratings are on track to outdistance numbers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which many TV industry executives had figured would be a high-water mark. The last Summer Olympics to consistently attract such large crowds were the Montreal Games in 1976 — long before cable TV networks began splintering the audience. Wow, …
Another epic journey for the retirement of a space shuttle. This one is Endeavour and it is destined for Los Angeles. It will arrive at the airport, LAX, on September 20, where it will be moved through heart of the city to the California Science Center. This will be the first time a spacecraft has …
There is a new meme floating around the internet and it involves finding the rarest of cult hits on Netflix. Anything from classic 80s comedies, to Japanese cartoons, even art-house flicks from the 50s. Well, here is a new one, the 11-minute entertainment clips Netflix created to test out new streaming devices. “This is television …
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Curbing tobacco use by growing less In China, 350 million people smoke. Each year, 1 million die from smoking. Many more become disabled. Approximately 20 million Chinese farmers produce the world’s largest share of tobacco, nearly 40 percent of the global supply. A compelling story of how one scientist created a for-profit organization for the …
Planetary geologist An Yin has made a startling discovery about Mars: UCLA scientist discovers plate tectonics on Mars For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a …
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Surfer magazine has posted 16 amazingly large overhead shots of the U.S. Open of Surfing and the Orange County coastline. Here is one of them, mightily shrunk: See the rest – Above the Open – an oddly serene look at the U.S. Open