Fun facts of the Oscars…nineteen nominations for playing the king/queen of England?

19 Nominations for actors playing kings and queens of England

 

$325,000 – Cost of It Happened One Night (Best Picture, 1935)

 

$237 million – Cost of Avatar (Best Picture nomination, 2010—it lost)

 

23 – Best Picture nominees in which Bess Flowers appeared, the most of any actor (and she was an extra in all 23 films)

 

5 minutes – Length of shortest Oscar ceremony (1929)

 

4 hours 23 minutes – Length of longest Oscar ceremony (2002)

 

16 Best Picture winners set in New York

  1. The Broadway Melody
  2. The Great Ziegfeld
  3. You Can’t Take It With You
  4. Going My Way
  5. The Lost Weekend
  6. Gentleman’s Agreement
  7. All About Eve
  8. Marty
  9. The Apartment
  10. West Side Story
  11. Midnight Cowboy
  12. The French Connection
  13. The Godfather
  14. The Godfather, Part II
  15. Annie Hall
  16. Kramer vs. Kramer

 

2 Best Picture winners set in Los Angeles

  1. Million Dollar Baby
  2. Crash

 

And, twenty-two more quirky facts at – Oscar by the Numbers

Bringing alternative medicine into hospitals with Donna Karan and UCLA

A new consciousness in health care is spreading through the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Take nurse Katie Anderson who is participating in the Donna Karan Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program, the newest effort to integrate holistic eastern modalities into Western medicine at UCLA.

The modalities used in the program include yoga therapy, nutrition, aromatherapy, Reiki (a Japanese vibrational energy therapy) and contemplative care. Symptoms treated include pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, constipation and exhaustion.

The inspiration behind the program, by Donna Karan:

“Not a day goes by when a nurse or caretaker or patient doesn’t thank me for bringing [Urban Zen] to the hospital,” says Dr. David Feinberg, president of the UCLA Health System.

Urban Zen originated more than a decade ago, when fashion designer Donna Karan’s husband was suffering from lung cancer in New York and was offered no meditative therapies to help heal him through heart and spirit. After he died, Karan founded the Urban Zen Center and developed the integrative therapy program.

Ellen Wilson, director of therapy services at the medical center, says, “It’s been more widely accepted by our medical staff than I ever thought it would be. We’re such a traditional institution in approach to medicine, but there’s a lot more research to support the legitimacy of these techniques than there used to be.”

Urban Zen is now expanding to other institutions across the country. “Now that UCLA is doing it, everyone wants to,” says Feinberg.

Via Making Medicine More Zen

 

Apple, changing its ways after Steve via private product briefings

“We’re starting to do some things differently,” Phil Schiller said to me.

We were sitting in a comfortable hotel suite in Manhattan just over a week ago. I’d been summoned a few days earlier by Apple PR with the offer of a private “product briefing”. I had no idea heading into the meeting what it was about. I had no idea how it would be conducted. This was new territory for me, and I think, for Apple.

The meeting was structured and conducted very much like an Apple product announcement event. But instead of an auditorium with a stage and theater seating, it was simply with a couch, a chair, an iMac, and an Apple TV hooked up to a Sony HDTV. And instead of a room full of writers, journalists, and analysts, it was just me, Schiller, and two others from Apple.

Handshakes, a few pleasantries, good hot coffee, and then, well, then I got an Apple press event for one.

via John Gruber

—

Perhaps, Phil Schiller is doing several of these to learn the craft of “product briefing”?

We all know, from the Steve Jobs biography, that Steve spent a considerable amount of time perfecting his briefings and that skill came in very handy for Apple.

Anonymous hacktivism – exposing the evil of the Syrian Assad dictatorship

Hackers aligned with Anonymous have exposed hundreds of e-mail messages from the webmail server of Syria’s Ministry of Presidential Affairs, the support ministry for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Among the exposed e-mail messages was a set of talking points for Assad’s interview with Barbara Walters in December 2011.

A translation of the e-mail sent by Sheherazad Jaafari, a press attaché at the Syrian mission to the United Nations, to Assad aide and former Al Jazeera journalist Luna Chebel, provided helpful hints for Assad to manipulate American opinion about what was going on in Syria. The message suggested that “it is hugely important and worth mentioning that ‘mistakes’ have been done in the begining of the crises because we did not have a well-organized ‘police force.’ American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear there are ‘mistakes’ done and now we are ‘fixing it.'”

via ars technica

Test your fear of sharks… is it necessary?

 

Do these pictures make your heart beat fast?

Do you feel a terror?

 

 

 

Or, do you feel like getting a closer look?

Like, it’s nothing more than a big fish?

 

For they are just that, and gentle as well, called Basking Sharks – they are 40-foot long docile giants.

Take a look at their mouths to see how they feed, by filtering water.

They are twice as large as Great White Sharks.

 
 

// Photos – jidanchaomian – candiche – candiche 2 – Hermés – etee //

Trying to foster a recovery in Basking Sharks – the 40-foot docile giants

An electronic ID tag from a rare shark spotted off the (San Diego) county coast in June has popped to the surface near Hawaii, providing local marine researchers with an unprecedented look into the long-distance movements of the second-largest known fish.

“I would characterize it as an avalanche of data,” said Van Sommeran said Monday.

Basking sharks have almost disappeared from the West Coast, but biologists at the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla found two last year and outfitted them with satellite-based tracking devices in hopes of learning more about where they roam.

Agencies in Canada, Mexico and the United States are trying to safeguard basking sharks, which once gathered near the coastline by the hundreds or thousands. In recent years, however, sightings have dwindled and biologists have speculated that as few as 300 swim along the West Coast.

While basking sharks have gaping mouths and can grow up to 40 feet, they aren’t a threat to people. They are filter feeders that consume large volumes of zooplankton.

via Shark’s journey a first for science

Famous artists love dogs…

Georgia O’Keeffe and her Chow.
Frida Kahlo and her Xoloitzcuintli dogs.

 

Since, as the Times points out, dogs have been popping up in art for hundreds of years, we thought it was safe to assume that there are at least a few artists who are fans of the friendly beasts…

More photos and the NY Times article at Flavor Wire

Amsterdam's famous canals are frozen – time to lace up those ice skates!

For the second time in three years, Amsterdam’s famous canals have frozen. You know what that means? It’s time to lace up the ice skates.

After temperatures dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) this past weekend, Dutch young and old flocked to the city’s famous waterways, gliding across the frozen surfaces on ice skates. The canals also froze in 2010, which was the first time it happened in more than a decade.

Amsterdam’s frozen canals are the latest European waterway to freeze this winter. Earlier this month, Venice’s famous canals froze, a rare feat. Europe’s second-longest river, the Danube, has also frozen.

Keeping Europe frozen is a climate pattern called a “Russian Winter.” In this pattern, a strong Siberian anticyclone hovers over northern Russia and triggers intense cold and snow, according to a NASA statement.

via Our Amazing Planet

Amsterdam’s famous canals are frozen – time to lace up those ice skates!

For the second time in three years, Amsterdam’s famous canals have frozen. You know what that means? It’s time to lace up the ice skates.

After temperatures dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) this past weekend, Dutch young and old flocked to the city’s famous waterways, gliding across the frozen surfaces on ice skates. The canals also froze in 2010, which was the first time it happened in more than a decade.

Amsterdam’s frozen canals are the latest European waterway to freeze this winter. Earlier this month, Venice’s famous canals froze, a rare feat. Europe’s second-longest river, the Danube, has also frozen.

Keeping Europe frozen is a climate pattern called a “Russian Winter.” In this pattern, a strong Siberian anticyclone hovers over northern Russia and triggers intense cold and snow, according to a NASA statement.

via Our Amazing Planet

Favorite Commercials: Robert Frost, poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.