- Congratulations, powers that be in the Big Ten. After
holding down the most ass-hatted division names ever conceived for any college
or pro league in any sport, anywhere in the world, the conference has finally
admitted the obvious and decided to change from Legends and Leaders to names
that suck exponentially less. Beginning in the 2014 season, the conference will
use geography to determine its new divisions and
division names. Big Ten presidents and chancellors are
expected to approve the new divisions and division names for 2014, shifting
from the platitude-ish, preachy Legends and Leaders monikers to East and West.
The proposed Big Ten West includes the six teams located in
the Central time zone -- Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern and
Wisconsin -- plus Purdue, with Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio
State, Penn State and Rutgers in the Big Ten East. New additions Maryland and
Rutgers helped spur the move, which will be split along strict geographic
lines. As part of the new alignment, the Big Ten will adopt a nine-game
schedule for football beginning in the 2016 season. The one minor dilemma with
the new divisions is the separation of in-state rivals Purdue and Indiana. With
the new division format, rivals Indiana and Purdue will be the only protected
game between teams from the East and West divisions, but most of the existing
rivalries will already stay intact by virtue of the teams placed in each
division. Purdue's campus is located west of Indiana's, so the Boilermakers get
to move west while the Hoosiers head east. Next to the league finally shirking
the horrifically bad Legends and Leaders handles that have made it the butt of
jokes and derision ever since they were first put in place back in 2010, which
school ends up in which division is such a small and largely irrelevant matter……..
- The indignities are never-ending for Detroit. Emergency
takeovers from government-appointed managers, entire neighborhoods turned into
ghost towns because residents can't afford to pay their mortgages and…well….being
Detroit. There doesn’t seem to be any group, entity or organization that is
currently riding high financially in the Motor City and local firefighters are
no exception. Detroit firefighters are tasked with keeping a city from burning
down even though burning it down might actually increase its value, but many of
them claim that they’re subjected to unsanitary working conditions and lack the means to
deal with the problem. An anonymous firefighter who spoke about conditions at
Engine Company 53 on Greenfield and Fenkell streets called the working
conditions at the firehouse deplorable and claimed that the company’s supply
room is empty, preventing its firefighters from doing their job safely. This
anonymous first responder said there are no gloves in the supply room, which is
a problem because gloves are kind of important for a firefighter looking to do
his or her job safely and properly. “There are gloves for EMS, and they told us
they don’t have any to give us. So we don’t have any,” this anonymous
firefighter said. “We do anything we can to help and what ends up happening is,
it’s unsanitary. Those latex gloves are sanitary, so it protects us from blood
and it protects the people from us. So, when we don’t have the latex gloves, we
have to use our fire gloves.” Wait….so not being able to provide immediate aid
properly to wounded victims and working in a setting you freely describe as “pure
insanity” is a problem? So what’s a fire department to do when supplies are
scarce and money is scarcer? Beg for help. The firefighters or Engine Company
53 are asking the public to donate supplies, including gloves, and they claim
that every fire station in Detroit is in a similar situation. Donated items can
be dropped off at any fire station in Detroit……….
- It’s time to make a run to Barneo, y’all. No, not Borneo –
Barneo. Borneo is a tropical paradise, whereas Barneo is a frigid camp situated
about 70 miles away from the North Pole. Barneo is Russia’s drifting polar station
and it is open for only one month every year. That month is quickly winding
down and the station is set to close on Thursday. Before it shuts its doors for
the year, it is expected to host talks of the Arctic Council envoys for the
first time. The council consists of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
Russia, Sweden and the United States. Barneo has opened its doors every year since
2000, at 89 degrees north latitude, and for one month it becomes the center of
research, sports and tourism in the Arctic. The Russian Geographical Society
sponsors the base, which consists of an ice camp and a runway. Once it closes,
virtually all traces of the complex are erased by nature and it must be built
from scratch every year. As it turns out, it is physically impossible to keep a
landing field on drifting ice for more than one season. April just happens to provide
the perfect conditions and timing for erecting the base as the polar night ends
by then, while the sun is not yet strong enough to start melting the ice.
Factor in the absence of strong winds and moderate temperatures and you have a perfect
setting for your basic Arctic ice camp. The station’s name is a not-so-clever joke
by the Russian polar explorers as the weather conditions at the base are the
complete opposite of the ones at the tropical island of Borneo in Southeast Asia.
This year’s camp had its location determined by satellite in the middle of
March, followed by a helicopter scouting mission to pinpoint the exact spot. On
March 26, the Russian air force flew the first of three flights from the
northern city of Murmansk to the Barneo 2013 location, delivering 50 tons of
equipment and food, two tractors and 20 expedition members who then set up the
base. “The cargo drop is performed by parachute from low altitude,” said Evgeny
Kirillov, the spokesman for the Russian Northern Fleet. “The pilot changes the
pitching (raises the plane’s nose upwards seconds before the drop) and the
cargo rolls out of the bay due to its own weight. The Russian Air Force pilots
are the only ones, who are capable of performing such maneuvers in super-high
Arctic latitudes.” Once the camp is constructed, tourists can be transported to
Barneo by Antonov An-74 cargo-passenger aircrafts. They land at the Ice Camp,
which is the main infrastructure component of the expedition. They and the camp’s
staff are housed in specially designed heated tents in which the temperature is
kept between 15 and 18 Celsius. Some 250 tourists visit the station every year
and use it as a launch point for a ski or a helicopter trip to the North Pole
or an adventure such as dog sled riding, parachuting, diving in the Arctic
Ocean and ballooning……..
- Google Earth is upgrading again. The search giant’s
virtual mapping service has gone three-dimensional, adding support for Leap Motion's 3D
motion controller. With this upgrade, users can swoop, dive, glide, and
navigate the earth with simple hand gestures. Google Earth 7.1 launched today in
celebration of Earth Day, although the Leap Motion Controller doesn't start
shipping until mid-May. "While you're flying around the globe, take a
minute [to] zoom out to outer space," the Google Earth team said in a
Google+ post. "We've updated the star field and Milky Way to bring added
realism (and fun) to space exploration." That announcement would have had
a much bigger impact…..if only a single person in the world who isn't on the
Google payroll actually used Google+. To upgrade the 3-D mapping and searching
experience, users can throw away $400 a year, er, pat $400 for Google Earth
Pro, an advanced feature that allows them to more easily visualize, analyze,
and share 3D map data and imagery while also using map-making functions like
creating legends and adding titles directly to a map. The new version of the
service also comes equipped with viewshed, which helps to identify and
calculate viewpoints, measure distances, and visualize potential views. "Our
mission at Leap Motion is to provide a fundamentally better computing
experience that frees people to create and explore the digital world in new
ways," CEO Michael Buckwald said in a statement. "Google Earth
combined with Leap Motion's 3-D, touch-free technology feels so incredibly
immersive — people feel connected to the world in a new and compelling
way." Sadly, the window has nearly passed for the 50-percent, 24-hour
price reduction Google used for an Earth Day incentive to draw in potential
buyers for Google Earth Pro. The offer expires at noon Tuesday, so act quickly…….
- Say goodbye to “Futurama” again....for what should be the
final time. The cult-favorite adult cartoon has been axed again, this time by
Comedy Central. The show originally ran from 1999-2003 on Fox before wrapping
up its fifth season with the fan-favorite series finale titled “The Devil's
Hands are Idle Playthings.” After bidding farewell to the show but pushing to
revive it in some form, fans were successful in convincing Comedy Central to pick
it up in 2010. Four additional seasons resulted and while appearing on basic
cable all but guaranteed that the show’s ratings wouldn’t ever climb as high as
they were on Fox, a loyal band of fans remained squarely behind “Futurama.”
There was also the show's brief rerun stint on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim,
its unsuccessful foray into four direct-to-DVD movies (which were eventually separated
into sixteen episodes for its inaugural season on Comedy Central), all of which
made it feel as if a desperate effort to sustain a doomed ship was being
staged. Eventually, the subpar ratings were too much for Viacom – which owns
Comedy Central – to ignore. In a slice of good news for fans, the end is near
but they do have time to prepare themselves to say goodbye. The second series
finale in the show’s history will air on Sept. 4 and the episode will be titled
“Meanwhile.” Of course, Netflix has suddenly jumped into the business of giving
short-lived, cult-favorite shows a second life, so maybe it can be convinced to
give “Futurama” a third one………
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