"Battle at Kruger" is a viral video posted on YouTube in 2007 which was widely praised for its dramatic depiction of life on the African savannah. It is one of YouTube's most popular videos, with more than 5,800,000 views and 7300 comments as of June 2007. It was also the subject of an article in the June 25, 2007, issue of Time Magazine. Taken by a group of safari-goers at a watering hole in Kruger National Park, South Africa, the video depicts a confrontation between a herd of Cape Buffalo, a small pride of lions, and a pair of crocodiles. Taken from a vehicle on the opposite side of the watering hole, the video begins with the herd of buffalo approaching the spring, unaware of the lions resting nearby. The lions charge and disperse the herd, picking off a young buffalo and knocking it into the water. While trying to drag the buffalo out of the water, it is grabbed by a pair of crocodiles, who fight strenuously for it before giving up and leaving it to the lions. The lions sit down and prepare to eat, but are quickly surrounded by the reorganized buffalo, who move in and start kicking at the lions. After a battle which includes one lion being tossed through the air, the baby buffalo (who is miraculously still alive) escapes into the herd. The emboldened buffalo chase the remainder of the lions away.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Battle at Kruger
Kitarō - Silk Road Suite
Kitarō (喜多郎) (born Masanori Takahashi (高橋正則 Takahashi Masanori) on February 4, 1953, in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. His stage name was given later by friends because of a Japanese television cartoon character named Kitarō, from Ge Ge Ge no Kitarō. He is the son of shintoistic farmers. (...)
Back in Japan Kitarō started his solo career in 1977. The first two albums Ten Kai and From the Full Moon Story became cult favorites of fans of the nascent New Age movement. He performed his first symphonic concert at the 'Small Hall' of the Kosei Nenkin Kaikan in Shinjuku, Toyko. During this concert Kitaro used a synthesizer to recreate the sounds of 40 different instruments, a world's first. But it was his famous soundtrack for the NHK series "Silk Road" which brought him the international attention.
Mine Your Own Business
Mine Your Own Business exposes the dark side of environmentalism. The documentary hacks away at the cosy image of environmentalists' as well meaning, harmless activists. It talks to some of the world's poorest people about how western environmentalists are campaigning to keep them in poverty because they think their way of life is quaint. It is the first documentary to ask hard questions of the environmental movement.
Scene from American History X
American History X is a 1998 crime drama film directed by Tony Kaye and written by David McKenna. It stars Edward Norton in the lead role and co-stars Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Lien, Ethan Suplee, Fairuza Balk, Avery Brooks, Elliott Gould, Stacy Keach, and Guy Torry. Norton was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. As of June 2007, it is ranked 43rd on the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 with a rating of 8.5 out of 10. (...)
Reformed neo-Nazi Derek Vinyard is released from prison after serving three years for killing two young black men he caught breaking into his car. Upon being released, he finds that his younger brother, Danny (the narrator), has embraced his old ways in his absence and has become an active white supremacist in the group Derek led before his arrest. The film centers on Derek's decision to sever ties with his racist past whilst trying to keep his brother from following in his footsteps. The film also centers on events that lead him to change his views about other races.
Damon Scott and Bubbles
Damon Scott is a british male entertainer made famous for his appearence in the first series of the ITV variety talent show Britain's Got Talent. Although Damon has an extensive range of acts, he is best known for his performances with monkey puppets, earning him the nickname The Monkey Man which became the title of a BBC documentary based on Damon’s achievements to date. (...)
In the early summer of 2007, ITV broadcast the first series of Britain's Got Talent which was to become a hit variety talent show. Damon entered the auditions with his unique act with a monkey puppet, named Bubbles, lipsyncing to Michael Jackson songs. Receiving positive reactions from the judges enabled Damon to proceed to the Semi-finals.
Futurama - The Un-Freeze of a Lifetime
"Anthology of Interest I" is episode sixteen in season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 21, 2000. This episode, as well as the later "Anthology of Interest II", serves to showcase three out-of-canon "imaginary" stories, in a manner similar to the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes of Matt Groening's other animated series The Simpsons. (...)
Fry narrowly misses falling into the cryogenic tube, and a rift in the space-time continuum appears, which shows the Planet Express crew in the future. The next day, after talking to Mr. Panucci, he came to the attention of Stephen Hawking who arranges for Fry to be abducted.He is introduced to the "Vice Presidential Action Rangers", whose task is to protect the space-time continuum.
Fry explains what happened the previous night at the cryogenic facility and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers determine that Fry was supposed to die and try to kill him. Another rift appears during the attempted murder and Nichelle Nichols suggests that Fry be frozen and Gary Gygax gives Fry his +1 mace for protection in the future. Just before Fry is frozen, he smashes the cryogenic tube, causing the universe to collapse into a space-time rift. This results in Fry and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers appearing at some other indeterminate dimension which is not part of the universe. The scenario ends with them playing Dungeons and Dragons for the rest of eternity.
Charlie Rose and Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson is a three-time Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA winning New Zealand filmmaker best known as the director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he, along with his long time partner, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens adapted from the novels by J. R. R. Tolkien. He is also known for his remake of King Kong.
Jackson first gained attention with his "splatstick" horror comedies, and came to prominence with success and critical acclaim for Heavenly Creatures, for which he shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen with Walsh.
Metallica - Nothing Else Matters (S&M)
S&M is American heavy metal band Metallica's ninth album, recorded live with the San Francisco Symphony on April 21-22 of 1999. The set list contains songs from Ride the Lightning through ReLoad, as well as two new songs: "− Human" and "No Leaf Clover". "− Human" ("Minus Human") has never been performed without the symphony, but "No Leaf Clover" has been played live with a recording of the orchestral prelude. Composer Michael Kamen scored the symphonic arrangements, and conducted the orchestra during the concert. (...) "Nothing Else Matters" was first released in 1991 on the self-titled Black Album.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Quantum Cryptography: A Tale of Secrets Revealed Through the Laws of Physics
Perimeter Institute brings great thinkers from around the world to Canada to share their ideas on a wide variety of interesting and topical subjects. These lectures and debates are aimed at non-specialists. No mathematical or scientific knowledge is necessary or assumed. Each event is explicitly tailored for the general public and everyone is welcome to attend. (...)
Daniel Gottesman - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Sensitive information can be valuable to others - from your personal credit card numbers to state and military secrets. Throughout history, sophisticated codes have been developed in an attempt to keep important data from prying eyes. But now, new technologies are emerging based on the surprising laws of quantum physics that govern the atomic scale. These powerful techniques threaten to crack some secret codes in widespread use today and, at the same time, offer new quantum cryptographic protocols which could one day profoundly alter the way we safeguard critical information.
Are Civil Liberties at Risk in the War on Terror?
Are Civil Liberties at Risk in the War on Terror? - Featuring Bruce Fein, Chairman, American Freedom Agenda; Andrew C. McCarthy, Director, Center for Law & Counterterrorism Foundation for Defense of Democracies; and Moderated by Timothy Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute
The conservative authors of the new American Freedom Agenda charge that since 9/11 the Bush administration has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power and has repeatedly claimed that the president is the law. Others argue that the administration has responded appropriately to the nature of the threat. For 18 years, Andrew McCarthy was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York where he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Bruce Fein served as associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. Please join us for a vigorous discussion of a crucial topic.
Laika
Laika (from Russian: Лайка, a breed of dog, literally: "Barker") was a Russian space dog who became the first living creature from Earth to enter orbit. At one time a stray wandering the streets of Moscow, she was selected from an animal shelter. Originally named Kudryavka (Russian: кудрявка), she was renamed Laika after her breed type. After undergoing training with two other dogs, she was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 and was launched into space on 3 November 1957.
Laika died a few hours after launch from stress and overheating, probably due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. The true cause of her death was not made public until decades after the flight.
Although Laika did not survive the trip, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments.
Evanescence - My Immortal
"My Immortal" is the third single from rock band Evanescence's major label debut album, Fallen. Due to popularity at concerts, a new version of the song was recorded and released to radio. At the 47th Annual Grammy Awards the song was nominated in the Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group category.
The song reached number seven in the United States and the United Kingdom and number one in Portugal; in Canada it debuted at number one and spent over twenty weeks in the top five. In Latin America the song was at #10 the week when the chart was created, it's presumed that the song reached #1.
Basshunter - Boten Anna
"Boten Anna" ("Anna, the bot") is a song by Swedish dance musician Basshunter, which appears on his second studio album LOL <(^^,)>. Due to the song, Basshunter became a noted artist in his native Sweden, as well as Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Poland and the Netherlands after the release of the single in 2006. The song topped hit charts and – on the 3rd of May 2006 – was named Norway's official Russ-song. It was also the most popular song at The Gathering demo party 2006.
The Swedish lyrics of Boten Anna tell the story of a female IRC user mistaken for an IRC bot by the vocalist who later finds out the truth; subsequently, however, he states that she will always remain a bot in his eyes. The song is based on an actual experience of Jonas Altberg (a.k.a. Basshunter), who explained the situation in an interview with the Finnish website Stara.fi. His friend said he would create a bot with administrative capabilities to keep order in his channel, #BassHunter.se; when this happened Jonas saw a new user with administrative capabilities named Anna enter the channel, and naturally thought this was the bot. Months later, he learned that Anna was actually not a bot, but was his friend's girlfriend; the embarrassment, he says, inspired him to create the song.
Placebo - Special K
Special K is a single by British alternative rock band Placebo. It is taken from their third album. The song has many drug references. The "K" in the title is likely to be ketamine. Other lines in the song such as, "I swallowed half my stash," and, "I fall down... hit the ground," give references to crashes or down as well as drug stashes.
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