30 April 2008

Yahoo! Trends 30 apr 08 - Miley Cyrus

miley cyrus

The saga continues after recent scandal on "the innocent child". Miley Cyrus, the 'Disney Princess', claims that recent photos are fake, and these new ones from Vanityfair.com are 'real'.She is 15 years old and has a new career in front.

In a caption released by Vanity Fair with the photo last week, Cyrus expressed her comfort with how the apparently topless picture turned out. "I think it's really artsy," she told the magazine at the time. "It wasn't in a skanky way. Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought that was really cool. That's what she wanted me to do, and you can't say no to Annie." A handful of borderline racy snapshots of a girl who appeared to be Cyrus have appeared on the Internet in recent months, including images of a girl posing in her underwear and bikini last week. Cyrus is one of the biggest -- and most G-rated -- acts in the country and is often considered a role model for young girls. Her "Best of Both Worlds" tour sold out arenas, and her successful 3-D concert film collected $31.3 million in its opening weekend in February. Source:AP





I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed

by:Miley Cyrus

Watch the photo shooting video for Vanity Fair below

24 April 2008

Google 's response to Rick

Photobucket The phenomenon "rick astley" have been charted and got in the google's attention in the last couple of days. Digging this subject I've found this chart.rick astley chartBut the facts are somehow different. From what Rick Astley says, actually the google result looks like this:

Photobucket
Below is the video of Google's response to Rick.

By the way, he doesn't know kung fu either !

23 April 2008

Myspace 23 apr 08 - Sacha Boutros

Sacha Boutros

Today I was looking on myspace videos to see what are looking for people there and I found on top plays Sacha Boutros, which is a great, great jazz singer.

A local native of San Diego, Sacha Boutros has been captivating audiences with her sultry vocals and exquisite style as she posses a charm and grace reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood. Having played the piano since she was a little girl, she began composing at an early age. With a four-octave range she is well versed in classical music and can sing in just about any language as she speaks five fluently; but her passion lies in writing and singing Jazz. In 2002, shortly after graduating from the University of San Diego, she was introduced by the legendary Frankie Laine at his 90th birthday celebration as his Ingnue. She has had the pleasure of performing for, opening and playing along side such artists as Julio Iglesias, Marvin Hamlisch, James Moody, Red Holloway, Karrin Allyson, Geoffrey Keezer, Chuchito Valdes, Kay Star, Patty Paige, and Herb Jeffries. Source: Sacha Boutros

I am trying to create a Pop-Jazz so that everyone will enjoy my music, and hopefully get more into and appreciate the art of acoustic music itself and the beauty and power of something as simple as a song.

by:Sacha Boutros

Sacha Boutros Live @ Anthology

22 April 2008

Who's first on the web

Photobucket Just wondering who's first and where on the social networks and I've made a quick search on google. Here it is. The algorithm is this: first user,image,blog,video etc. which appears on google when is searched the name of the network. For example, try to search 'facebook' on the google and look at the first profile that appears in results.

Myspace: Nine inch nails

Facebook: Barack Obama

Flickr: Wedding

Friendster: Dennis Paul

Hi5: Chris

LinkedIn: Barack Obama

Bebo: John Edwards

Xanga: John Edwards

Photobucket: sircuddlesGHII

LiveSpaces: Nine Million Children Refugees

Digg: MrBabyMan

IGN: Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Trailer, Videos and Movies

Technorati: Boing Boing

Blogger: PostSecret

Wordpress: Planet

Typepad: Seth Godin

Finally, Youtube: Dance Evolution

21 April 2008

Google Trends 21 apr 08 - miley cyrus

miley cyrus On Monday (April 21), a set of shots depicting the squeaky-clean 15-year old Cyrus made the rounds online, showing the singer wearing just a bra and underwear while draped across the lap of an unnamed male, and another in which she's pulling down her shirt to reveal a green bra. It's actually the second batch of eyebrow-raising shots of Cyrus to hit the Net over the past six months, following on the heels of much tamer pictures of the singer and a female friend nearly kissing as they shared a piece of licorice; some others that popped up on her MySpace page in which she posed suggestively in a bikini and her underwear. The singer responded to the furor over the first batch of pictures, saying they were "nothing bad," as she was just having a sleepover at a hotel with one of her best friends. It was unclear how the latest photos were obtained by sites such as TMZ and if they came from Cyrus or someone else, but the pictures are the latest hint that the singer is in the midst of a transformation that could take her from a tween and teenybopper sensation to a more mature artist. At the very least, she's recently been taking on the reigning queen of using sex as a marketing ploy, Madonna, thanks to her "Miley & Mandy Show" YouTube send-up of Madge's "4 Minutes," which garnered an apparent personal response from Madonna. Source:MTV

With yourself, I think you have to decide the kind of person that you really want to be, and for me, it's just a sweet girl.
by:Miley Cyrus

Below is a video with Miley Cyrus being so stereotype.



For Miley Cyrus fans, there is a widget that you can place it anywhere, iGoogle, Netvibes etc. with continuously updated Flickr pics of Miley Cyrus.



18 April 2008

Google Trends 18 apr 08 - homicide report (Deathbook)

Photobucket Jill Leovy, is a blogger who keeps an online log for all L.A. homicides. She investigates, does research and today she got on the front pages of news agencies for her activity. I looked at her blog and I got this idea, of making a social networking for for underground life (and death). Let's call this social network "Deathbook". In this network, instead of activities, people would post pictures of the friends who got killed, and obituaries. Maybe this joke looks horrible, but take a look at one of her posts:

Mar Vista homicide "Mar Vista: A Latino man was shot and killed at 4506 S. Slauson Ave. near the Mar Vista area at about 12:45 a.m. Tuesday, April 15. According to Los Angeles police spokeswoman Ana Aguirre, the man was shot while riding his bicycle. She said a dark Ford SUV drove next to the man and then someone from inside the vehicle shot him. The man was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Aguirre said. Update: Police have identified the Latino man as Vidal Jose Ventura-Jimenez, 24."
And here is how she got on the news agencies eye:

For more than a year, Leovy made it her job to document every homicide in Los Angeles County. It had never been done before. Like most big-city newspapers, the one Leovy works for -- The Los Angeles Times -- reports only the most "newsworthy" cases. But those killings, elementary school drive-bys and celebrity murders only account for 10 percent of the county's homicides, Leovy found. She wanted to go deeper, to put a human face on the toll homicide was taking, particularly in L.A.'s black and Latino communities. "The Web offered what the paper did not: unlimited space," Leovy wrote in a front-page story summarizing her year as creator and the first blogger for The Homicide Report.

Source: CNN
It's sort of awful to think of people being murdered and nobody seeing it.
by:Jill Leovy



17 April 2008

Father of "Butterfly Effect" inventor dies at 90

Photobucket The father of the expression "Butterfly Effect", died today at 90. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Lorenz was educated at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, at Harvard, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the MIT faculty in 1946 and served as professor of meteorology from 1962 until 1987.Lorenz had trained initially as a mathematician, but after serving in the US Army Air Corps as a weather forecaster, he decided to continue as a meteorologist and work on the more theoretical aspects of the subject. Could forecasting, he asked, be significantly improved? If astronomers could predict the return of a comet decades ahead, it should surely be possible, given enough computing power, to forecast the state of the atmosphere for more than a few hours in advance. From his theories was inspired the movie "Butterfly effect", and also his theories music was inspired - see Moonspell. Full biography here.

Dr. Lorenz is best known for the notion of the “butterfly effect,” the idea that a small disturbance like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can induce enormous consequences. As recounted in the book “Chaos” by James Gleick, Dr. Lorenz’s accidental discovery of chaos came in the winter of 1961. Dr. Lorenz was running simulations of weather using a simple computer model. One day, he wanted to repeat one of the simulations for a longer time, but instead of repeating the whole simulation, he started the second run in the middle, typing in numbers from the first run for the initial conditions. The computer program was the same, so the weather patterns of the second run should have exactly followed those of the first. Instead, the two weather trajectories quickly diverged on completely separate paths. At first, he thought the computer was malfunctioning. Then he realized that he had not entered the initial conditions exactly. The computer stored numbers to an accuracy of six decimal places, like 0.506127, while, to save space, the printout of results shortened the numbers to three decimal places, 0.506. When typing in the new conditions, Dr. Lorenz had entered the rounded-off numbers, and even this small discrepancy, of less than 0.1 percent, completely changed the end result. Even though his model was vastly simplified, Dr. Lorenz realized that this meant perfect weather prediction was a fantasy. A perfect forecast would require not only a perfect model, but also perfect knowledge of wind, temperature, humidity and other conditions everywhere around the world at one moment of time. Even a small discrepancy could lead to completely different weather. Dr. Lorenz published his findings in 1963. “The paper he wrote in 1963 is a masterpiece of clarity of exposition about why weather is unpredictable,” said J. Doyne Farmer, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. The following year, Dr. Lorenz published another paper that described how a small twiddling of parameters in a model could produce vastly different behavior, transforming regular, periodic events into a seemingly random chaotic pattern. At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972, he gave a talk with a title that captured the essence of his ideas: “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” Dr. Lorenz was not the first to stumble onto chaos. At the end of the 19th century, the mathematician Henri Poincaré showed that the gravitational dance of as few as three heavenly bodies was hopelessly complex to calculate, even though the underlying equations of motion seemed simple. But Poincaré’s findings were forgotten through the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Dr. Lorenz’s papers also attracted little notice until the mid-1970s. “When it finally penetrated the community, that was what started people to really start to pay attention to this and led to tremendous development,” said Edward Ott, a professor of physics and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland. “He demonstrated a chaotic model in a real situation.” Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Edward Norton Lorenz received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938 and a master’s degree in math from Harvard in 1940. He worked as a weather forecaster during World War II, leading him to pursue graduate studies in meteorology; he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1943 and 1948. Dr. Lorenz was a staff member of M.I.T.’s meteorology department from 1948 to 1955, when he became an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1962 and served as head of the department from 1977 to 1981. He became an emeritus professor in 1987. In addition to his daughter Cheryl, of Eugene, Ore., Dr. Lorenz is survived by another daughter, Nancy Lorenz of Roslindale, Mass; a son, Edward H. Lorenz of Grasse, France; and four grandchildren. His wife, Jane, died in 2001. Dr. Lorenz remained active almost to the end of his life, in both research and outdoor activities. “He was out hiking two and one-half weeks ago,” Cheryl Lorenz said, “and he finished a paper a week ago with a colleague.”

Source: NY Times

Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas? by: Edward Norton Lorenz (R.I.P.)

16 April 2008

Google Trends 16 apr 08 - Ali Vincent

ali vincent Ali Vincent reveals a new formula to the world, after winning season five of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” on Tuesday night. The hairdresser from Mesa, Ariz., lost more than half her body weight, but gained a whole new perspective on life. “I am a whole new woman,” Vincent told TODAY’s Lester Holt on Wednesday. “There are no limits. There are absolutely no limits and I started to dream big again.” Vincent, 32, started the show tipping the scales at 234 pounds and ended it weighing 112 pounds. Although her overall weight loss of 122 pounds was less than second-place Roger Schultz (164 pounds), “The Biggest Loser” winner is determined by weight-loss percentage.
Source:MSNBC
There are no limits. There are absolutely no limits and I started to dream big again.
by:Ali Vincent


13 April 2008

Not trendy: A new way (but hidden) to write books

Philip Parker Forget about imagination; just generate a damn book and the advertising company will do the rest. Or, just generate a title and see if is anyone interested, then generate the damn book.

It’s not easy to write a book. First you have to pick a title. And then there is the table of contents. If you want the book to be categorized, either by a bookseller or a library, it has to be assigned a unique numerical code, like an ISBN, for International Standard Book Number. There have to be proper margins. Finally, there’s the back cover. Oh, and there is all that stuff in the middle, too. The writing. Philip M. Parker seems to have licked that problem. Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” And he makes money doing it. Among the books published under his name are “The Official Patient’s Sourcebook on Acne Rosacea” ($24.95 and 168 pages long); “Stickler Syndrome: A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers” ($28.95 for 126 pages); and “The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India” ($495 for 144 pages). But these are not conventional books, and it is perhaps more accurate to call Mr. Parker a compiler than an author. Mr. Parker, who is also the chaired professor of management science at Insead (a business school with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore), has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject — broad or obscure — and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres, many of them in the range of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one.
Source: The New York Times

My goal isn’t to have the computer write sentences, but to do the repetitive tasks that are too costly to do otherwise
by:Philip Parker

Here's a demonstration of what is all about.

11 April 2008

Google 11 apr 08 - crystle stewart

crystle stewart These days is not strange anymore when a black person is representative for America, specially if is a women and if she is beautiful. Today Crystle, tomorrow maybe, Obama.



A 26-year-old Texan has been crowned Miss USA 2008 by Donny and Marie Osmond. Crystal Stewart, hailing from Missouri City, Texas, is one of only a handful of black women to be crowned in the pageant’s 57-year history.



Source: Sheknows

"I want to talk to people about how to set a goal and achieve it.Because I just achieved my goal."
by:crystle stewart





10 April 2008

Techno Viking vs Techno Drunking


I was just boring and I remembered two funny videos, one with a "techno viking" looking guy, and another with a drunk russian guy. I think that these two look similar. And then, I made this video.




09 April 2008

Google 08 apr 08 - Amber Hagerman

amber hagerman The name that became a verb - Amber. The "amber alert" is to become a worldwide system for tracking missing children. This subject is on the top news these days because of another girl, Madeleine McCann.

The parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann are to ask MEPs to push European governments to adopt a coordinated cross-border system for missing children. Gerry and Kate McCann are due to make the appeal when they speak at a conference in parliament on Thursday. The parents of the missing four-year-old will press for the setting up of a Europe-wide network to track down abducted children. UK Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, who helped to arrange the visit, said: “In the UK alone, according to the children’s society, each year 130,000 kids run away, are ejected from home, are abducted, or worse, are injured or killed. “Unfortunately we have no agreement on how to define missing children. The police makes no distinction between missing adults or children, and despite a guidance note in 2005, each police force operates a different system.” The couple will call for the establishment of a European missing child hotline, an amber alert system – based on the US model – and a European child resource and policy unit. The amber alert, named after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was killed by her abductor, operates like a severe weather warning system, with messages flashed on radio, television and motorway signs. In Europe only Belgium and France have adopted a similar system. McMillan-Scott said that in the US it has helped the recovery of nearly 400 abducted children since 2003. Eighty per cent have been recovered in the crucial first 72 hours. A similar call has been made by UK Socialist deputy Arlene McCarthy, who said, "Any publicity that puts the spotlight on our campaigning work with children’s NGOs is welcome if it delivers results for the thousands of missing children.” McMillan-Scott added, “Gerry and Kate want a European child centre – like the one in Washington – to bring together governments, the police and the voluntary sector to work on a united front and eliminate layers of frustrating bureaucracy and duplication of work.” He said it would provide a single focal point for data collection, drafting of policies and public communication on all aspects of policy, and added, “The McCanns tell me that the least they can do is ask for some political will. “They have got the support of the leading missing children organisations and the good will of every right-minded European. “It is impossible to know what they are going through. We are all praying for the safe return of Madeleine. At the same time Europe must together do all it can to prevent other families suffering like the McCanns.”
Source:theparliament.com

Madeleine McCann
Madeleine McCann


08 April 2008

Youtube 08 apr 08 - Africa stealing your taxes

burning cross
A controversial video has been posted today on Youtube about Christianity and the western civilization, putting Christians in a "burning" image. The user who posted this video links to a few atheist websites which will be quoted below.

The Christian missionary mindset is generally depicted as that of simple religious folk with a pure desire to peacefully spread their gospel and message of love. In reality, their methods of propagation are often anything but peaceful and usually leave behind a native population stripped of their culture and often decimated. With Christianity failing in the west, the evangelists seek new and greener fields in the poor and uneducated sections of third world countries, backed by huge coffers from the less zealous, who are nonetheless convinced that to bring civilization and religion to the poor natives is a noble cause, even if they don't want it. Missionaries often intermix military campaigns with missionary campaigns in their fervor to "civilize the heathens," who are often simple happy natives, whose only crime is that they are not Christians. Source: The Burning Cross

I am African and i am an Athiest
by:HellAirways (video's uploader)



07 April 2008

Olyimpic torch relay - Paris

Olympic torch extinguished in Paris, 7 apr '08 -- this is a day to remember as the day when the Olympic torch was the first time in history extinguished. With a good cause probably, these people can be proud not for carrying the torch, but for the extinguish of the torch.

"The traditional global relay carrying the Olympic torch to the site of the Games is supposed to convey the inextinguishable vigor of the Olympic spirit. But the Chinese are finding it instead a symbolic disaster. The running of the torch in London Sunday was marred by attempts by human rights protesters to extinguish its fire, but on Monday in Paris the ceremony became an outright farce: security officials doused the flame twice in the face of demonstrations to block its progress, and wound up driving it to the end-of-day handoff ceremony at Charléty Stadium on the edge of the city when the tormented relay was cancelled at mid-course. As the torch moves on to San Francisco and Buenos Aires before heading back to Africa and Asia, the organizers of this summer's Beijing Games are facing a grim prospect: that the protests denouncing China's human rights record in Tibet and elsewhere could mount as the torch continues its 85,000 mile, 20-nation voyage."
Source: Time.com



To be continued along the Olympic torch relay


Yahoo! Trend 07 apr 08: Natalie Gulbis

In the last days one of the most searched terms on Yahoo was 'natalie gulbis'. She is famous for a controversial photo calendar taken in 2004. Although is a good golf player, she is a brand. As any other brand this one must have some advertising and her manager is doing a good job making her a role model. So far I haven't found something interesting in what she said that could be quoted. See her in action:

06 April 2008

Google Trends 05 apr 08: Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston, who has died aged 84, was an actor of towering physique who was in constant demand to play epic heroes in Hollywood movies of the 1950s and 1960s; he was, later in life, almost as well-known for his staunchly Right-wing stance, especially in his role as president of America's National Rifle Association. Source: Telegraph.co.uk About Charlton Heston: With features chiseled in stone, who else but Charlton Heston could you picture as Michelangelo, as Ben-Hur, as Moses? Heston's movie career took off with The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and reached light speed with Ben-Hur (1959). Although he has played a pantheon of larger-than-life roles, he usually prefers to talk about the day-to-day daily grind of the movie business, and especially credits the writers and directors he has worked for much of his success. Though aging gracefully, the venerated Heston has lately been more interested in promoting right-wing political issues than acting.

"There's no such thing as a good gun. There's no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys" Charlton Heston
Scenes from 'Ben Hur"

05 April 2008

Youtube trend 05 apr 08: GWR - Tallest and smallest

And when we thought that the "freaks circus" era is gone ! Maybe the scene is changed, but the actors...I doubt.

So, Guinness World Records presents: "Tally" and "Shorty"
(the video has been removed from youtube)

Sports 05 apr 08: NASCAR crash

Yesterday, NASCAR showed something to think about. If you ever wondered if worths investing millions of $ in research of vehicles, engines and technology, now you have a heavy argument: what you don't see in Hollywood movies, you can see in real life.

"FORT WORTH, Texas - Michael McDowell was the poster child for NASCAR crash test dummies at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday.

After the No. 38 Ford dumped oil around the track during time trials, McDowell attempted his qualifying lap three drivers later, skidded through the speedy dry and barrel-rolled out of Turn 2 after overcorrecting his No. 00 Michael Waltrip Racing Camry.

McDowell, 23, who made his debut last week at Martinsville, tested the Car of Tomorrow in ways that could never be simulated in the lab.

"I came off of (Turn 4) on that first lap and felt a little bit off, that something wasn't quite right," McDowell said. "I went down into one and I don't know if it was the oil dry or if something happened. I hate to make that much work for the guys back at the shop. Fortunately, I'm OK, thank God. I got to see that replay and it wasn't good, but for everyone back at the shop that spends time putting these seats in and making these cars safe — that's one of the worst wrecks I've seen in a while. I'm not excited that I had to participate in it. We'll pull the back-up out and we'll get in race trim tomorrow and be fine.

"I feel great. Nothing broke. I didn't pass out. I didn't lose anything out there. I just wish I didn't overcorrect there. We'll have to go back and look at it. I don't know if something happened or if I just lost it there, but it didn't quite feel right. We were six-tenths off of what we ran in practice. I'm just glad to be alright."

Full story from FOX News

04 April 2008

Music Trend: Madonna feat Justin Timberlake video

Today will be launched the video of Madonna feat Justin Timberlake "4 minutes". Take a (full) peak on this video till then. As a giant clock offers an ominous four-minute countdown, the two cavort on cars, down a grocery checkout counter and even in a bedroom as a giant prism-like effect encroaches. The singers trade verses, dance-moves and even faux kisses in the clip. Things get hotter as time continues to fly, and the they even share a small striptease and a liplock. Just call it sexy sci-fi! Look for a cameo from Timbaland, who also appears on the song. Source: Adelaide Now

03 April 2008

Google trend 03 apr 08: James Irvin vs Houston Alexander

Did you bring the popcorn ? It's not needed anymore. How fast can you count to 8 ? Warning: the video is very short ! James Irvin tied the UFC record for the fastest knockout tonight, finishing his fight with Houston Alexander at UFC Fight Night in eight seconds.When Irvin and Alexander stepped to the center of the Octagon, Irvin cocked his fist and delivered a brutal right hand directly into Alexander's jaw. Alexander dropped like a sack of potatoes, Irvin pounced and delivered two more rights to Alexander's face while they were on the ground, and the referee immediately jumped in and waved the fight off. The official result is a TKO due to strikes, eight seconds into Round 1.

Source: sports.aol

01 April 2008

Games: There is no cow level !

Blizzard added today a new unit to Starcraft 2's terrans: Tauren Marine But watch the equipment: weapon - udder chaos ?! armor - mad cow ?! ??? - "not milk" - then what ?
Watch a demo of this 'taurine'

Youtube Trend 01 apr 2008: How to Prank your Roommate

World Trend 01 apr 2008: April Fools

On April 1, 1957 the British news show Panorama broadcast a three-minute segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. The success of the crop was attributed both to an unusually mild winter and to the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.” The audience heard Richard Dimbleby, the show’s highly respected anchor, discussing the details of the spaghetti crop as they watched video footage of a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees and placing it into baskets. The segment concluded with the assurance that, “For those who love this dish, there’s nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti.” The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest hoax generated an enormous response. Hundreds of people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this query the BBC diplomatically replied, “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” To this day the Panorama broadcast remains one of the most famous and popular April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time. It is also believed to be the first time the medium of television was used to stage an April Fool’s Day hoax.

Source: Museum Of Hoaxes