(Filippo Monteforte / AFP/Getty Images / June 8, 2012)
GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy — My ferry was full of school groups, delivery trucks and tourists when we left the Tuscan port of Santo Stefano and headed toward the island of Giglio, 12 miles away. I sat on deck with the other foreigners, enjoying the spring sunshine: It was too cold for the Italians, who huddled downstairs drinking espressos.
And then, Giglio’s white cliffs appeared in the distance and gradually grew closer.
Except that there are no white cliffs on this granite island. I was looking at the wreck of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground Jan. 13 just outside Giglio’s harbor.
As the ferry whipped past, my eyes were drawn to the great wreck, which lay on its side with a long, rusty gash in its hull. It name was inscribed on a white bow towering above the water. The ship was so close to the tiny harbor, massive and modern and incongruous.
Giglio is known around the world because of the Concordia, but I was hoping to see a Giglio that was not defined by the disaster in which 32 passengers and crew died. Thirty-five years ago, my husband, Mike, lived on Giglio for several months, shortly after its inhabitants gave up mining granite and pyrite and abandoned self-sufficient agriculture in favor of tourism. He remembers an unspoiled family vacation island, little known outside Italy, where affluent Romans (plus a handful of foreigners such as Los Angeles political power broker Stanley Sheinbaum) spent their summers in apartments or second homes.
The sale of Blu-ray players is going to peak this year or next, Roku CEO Anthony Wood predicted at the TV of Tomorrow show in San Francisco Wednesday.
“Will people use Blu-ray players in four years? I don’t think so,” he said, adding that the streaming performance on Blu-ray players doesn’t compare to the experience on a dedicated set-top-box like the ones his company sells.
Wood sees momentum shifting to streaming players like the current-generation Roku boxes, as well as Smart TVs.
Here are a few of our favorite alternative ice cream-making apparatuses, ranging from low — to even lower — tech:
#1
A plastic Ziploc bag inside a larger bag filled with ice and rock salt applies the standard equation — freezing temperature plus agitation for 5 minutes — and wins the prize for the most elegantly simple solution of all.
#2
It doesn’t get more basic than a coffee can filled with an ice cream base that’s placed inside a larger can filled with ice and rock salt. Close both cans with plastic lids, shake for 25 minutes and, voilà, ice cream.
Here’s more evidence that Netflix is slowly chipping away at traditional TV viewing. According to a public Facebook post by CEO Reed Hastings, Netflix subscribers watched a total of 1 billion hours of video for the first time in June. Do a little back-of-the-envelope math, and that comes out to more than an hour of video per subscriber each day.
Considering the average viewer in the U.S. watches about five hours of TV a day, that’s a huge number worth watching. After all, there are only so many hours in a day, and if a Netflix subscriber is tuning in to an hour of video on the service, that likely means one less hour of actual live TV he or she is watching.
The annual Big Bay Boom extravaganza began and ended in spectacular fashion when an inadvertent signal set off the explosions about five minutes early and caused the entire 18 minute show to take place in about 15 seconds. Confused spectators waited around for what they thought was going to be the rest of the show, but were sent home.
Early in the second season of “The Andy Griffith Show,” I ventured a suggestion for a line change to make it sound more “like the way a kid would say it.”
I was just 7 years old. But my idea was accepted and I remember standing frozen, thrilled at what this moment represented to me.
Andy asked me, “What you grinnin’ at, youngin’?” I said it was the first idea of mine they’d ever said yes to. Without a pause, Andy responded for all to hear: “It was the first idea that was any damn good. Now let’s do the scene.”
That inclusiveness that allowed a child to truly be a part of something as unique and memorable as “The Andy Griffith Show”is something I will forever be grateful for.
He was known for ending shows by looking at the audience and saying “I appreciate it, and good night.” Perhaps the greatest enduring lesson I learned from eight seasons playing Andy’s son Opie on the show was that he truly understood the meaning of those words, and he meant them, and there was value in that.
We were promised jetpacks! Well, they exist. I flew one last weekend, and it was awesome. Video of my flight with Jetlev Southwest is below. – Danny Sullivan
For Father’s Day 2012, my family got me a 30 minute flight with Jetlev Southwest. Best present ever. I got the hang of it fairly quickly and was even able to do things like “The Submarine,” where you dive under the water and come back up. They’re based in Newport Beach, and you’ll find more info here: http://www.jetlevsouthwest.com
“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. “The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.”
Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.
These are the kinds of extremes experts have predicted will come with climate change, although it’s far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.
Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time. Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.
MLE – Major League Eating is the world body that oversees all professional eating contests. The organization, which developed competitive eating and includes the sport’s governing body, the International Federation of Competitive Eating, helps sponsors to develop, publicize and execute world-class eating events in all varieties of food disciplines.
The world’s top competitive eating stars — such as Joey Chestnut, Sonya Thomas, Patrick Bertoletti, Eater X Tim and Bob Shoudt — are all Major League Eaters.
MLE conducts approximately 80 events annually, including the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, and generate more than a billion consumer impressions worldwide each year.
