Jim Marshall of Marshall amps - the sound of rock and roll (photo credit Damien Maguire)
James Charles “Jim” Marshall OBE (July 29, 1923 – April 5, 2012) was a man with poor health, a musician and business person.
In the 1960s he created the Marshall guitar amp and changed the volume of rock music forever.
He died on April 5, 2012 at a hospice in London, UK surrounded by his wife and four children. Continue reading
By – Dr. Tony Phillips NASA – On Sunday, May 20th, the sun is going to turn into a ring of fire. It’s an annular solar eclipse–the first one in the USA in almost 18 years.
An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star. At maximum, the Moon forms a “black hole” in the center of the sun.
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In the 1984 Superbowl commercial Apple Computer likened itself to the savior of a mankind enslaved to big government and big corporations. The Apple Macintosh would smash the dystopian, conformist world.
In the New York Times story How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work, the author’s describe slave labor camps that build Apple iPhone’s where people work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for $17 a day. Apple saves $15 per iPhone by using Chinese labor. Continue reading
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who took a stand against racial segregation on buses in Alabama. Disabled people face an 'us and them' ethos. Photograph: Corbis
By Matthew Harper – Guardian Blog
You’re in a restaurant; dressed up, with friends, family, maybe a partner and halfway through your slap-up meal there’s a tap on your shoulder and “do you mind moving? it’s disgusting, no its just … you’re dribbling – it’s putting me off my food”. Had that said to you? Or been the one saying it? Or even just thinking it? Continue reading
It is next-to-impossible to comprehend the magnitude of world poverty. See if you can visualize the faces of three billion people, many of them hungry children, flashing past your face on a giant TV screen, one at a time. Imagine how long that would take. You will have some idea of the extent of world poverty.
By Nick Fillmore
The 2008 financial and economic collapse that has tens-of-thousands of people angrily demonstrating on Wall Street and in more than 100 American and Canadian cities, has hit already-impoverished underdeveloped countries around the world much harder. Continue reading
The Royals on display
Over the last few nights I have been visited by the ghost of William Shakespeare.
On the third night, I followed him onto the deck and the ghost spoke:
“I am thy famed bard’s spirit, doom’d for a certain term to walk the night till the foul crimes done in these days are burnt and purged away.” Continue reading
Yuri Gagarin, first man in space (picture www.aerospaceguide.net )
Put this on your monitor – turn on the sound and relax for the next hour and 39 minutes as the first earth orbit is recreated.
“It’s been exactly 50 years to the day — in some places, anyway — that cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s maiden voyage set off an international space race that defined an era, and while only Gagarin knew exactly what it was like to be the first man in space.
Documentarian Christopher Riley is giving us a glimpse of what the world might have looked like from the porthole of Vostok 1.
First Orbit is a mashup of sorts that features original audio recordings from Gagarin’s flight, coupled with footage taken by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli from aboard the International Space Station.
The result is nothing short of stunning, but you don’t have to take our word for it — in fact, go ahead and grab yourself some popcorn, hit the play button, and prepare to be amazed.” firstorbit.org
Video follows the story break. Continue reading
We Didn't Start The Fire
Boomers will win Jeopardy on Billy Joel’s recitation of news headlines as song lyrics in the 1989 hit We Didn’t Start the Fire.
The headlines cover 1949 (the year Joel was born) to 1989. It’s a list song like Bob Dylan’s Everything is Broken.
Sometimes songwriter’s create list songs when they are bored. Millions of people found Bill Joel resonated with them in We Didn’t Start The Fire which hit the top ten charts around the world.
The video depicts a post war family going through the 50′s, 60s, 70s and 80s with kitchen decor changes as clues. She looks amazingly like Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy.
We may not have started the war but we sure like to keep them going.
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g']
Courtesy of Scott Adams, by way of Richi Jennings @richi
Cuts to social programs including those for the disabled by Conservative UK Prime Minister Cameron are sending shock waves through the disability community and their caregivers.
Stacie Lewis
By Stacey Lewis, Guardian.co.uk – A year and a half ago, my daughter, May, was born severely brain damaged. After a healthy pregnancy, her injuries sent me into a paralysis of fear.
Staff at the hospital reassured us. When we left the special care ward, there would be a team of professionals, equipment, funding and respite care. We would not be alone. Continue reading
The UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities may be a publicity stunt or a grim reminder to many of the 4 million Canadians living with disabilities that they are locked in last place in the Canadian experience.
The UN press release says “The Day aims to promote a better understanding of disability issues with a focus on the rights of persons with disabilities and gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of the political, social, economic and cultural life of their communities. The goal of full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in society and development was established by the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1982.” UN Enable
How good is life for people with disabilities in Canada? Continue reading