- Every town needs its own identity, even if that identity
is being a place people want to get out of and never look back. The good folks
of Arundel, Maine understand this. Even though virtually no one has heard of
Arundel, these small-town dwellers have a bit of an identity complex and they
have a solution to rectify the problem. Creating a new persona for an entire
town can be difficult, but residents want to start with a new ZIP code. Arundel currently shares the same ZIP code with
neighboring Kennebunkport and while that provides a nice (and possibly
undesirable) link to the Kennedys, residents are being asked online whether
they support creating their own zip code. "We're looking to identify the
town as Arundel as its own and a lot of businesses have been coming to me and
saying that it's difficult with the technological age that people Google on
their smart phone or do whatever they do and it always shows up Kennebunkport
so the businesses are having a hard time getting their identity to be shown,"
Town Manager Todd Shea explained. The push, quite predictably, is being led by
those who stand to turn a profit from a potential ZIP code change. Business
owners and members of the town's economic development committee leading the
online effort and Shea plans to release the results of the online survey in
about a week. Unfortunately for Arundel residents, the final decision on
whether or not they actually receive their own ZIP code has very little to do
with what they say in an (easy to rig) online survey. The final decision rests
with the good ol’ United States Postal Service, a bureaucratic government
organization that doesn’t move quickly or adjust well to the idea of
significant changes. In other words, don’t count on it……..
- Fire ants have a bad rap. Their nasty bite is reviled by
anyone who has ever encountered them, but a team of researchers at Georgia Tech
believe these tiny insects have more to offer the world. The researchers’
findings suggest that the creature’s tunneling behaviors may one day be applied
to tunneling robotics. Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in the School of
Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, led the study and learned that when
it comes to digging, fire ants rely on a principle of building tunnel
environments that assist in moving around by limiting slips and falls as well
as reducing need for complex neural processing. They also rely heavily on
antennae for locomotion as well as for sensing for the environment when they find
themselves confined in spaces. “The environment allows the ants to make
missteps and not suffer for them," Goldman said in a statement.
"These ants can teach us some remarkably effective tricks for maneuvering
in subterranean environments.” To make these discoveries, the researchers
placed the ants inside tubes of soil and allowed them dig tunnels for 20 hours
while those running the tiny ant sweat shops in a tube simulated a range of
environmental conditions by varying the size of the soil particles as well as
the moisture content. The variables did affect the volume of tunnels produced
and the depth to which the ants dug, but they had no impact on the diameters of
the tunnels, which remained constant at a rate comparable to the length of the
ants’ bodies. “The size of the tunnels appears to be a design principle used by
the ants, something that they were controlling for,” Goldman said. The research
team theorized that the size of the tunnels has to do with making the best use
of the ants’ antennae, limbs and body in order to rapidly ascend as well as
descend via efficient interactions with walls while minimizing the number of
missteps. To this end, the ants even used their antennae to grab onto the tube
walls as they fell. The research team believes their findings could have major
implications in the world of robotics. Needing rapid movement, stability and
safety are common in both fire ants and robots, so the theory does make some
sense…….
- Call this one a lateral move for former Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland.
There probably won't be any more opportunities for her to gravy train off the
success of Beyonce Knowles at part of a horrible Super Bowl halftime show, so
Rowland needs to find other ways to pay the bills. Being the third wheel of a
girl pop group that only has one real star isn't all that profitable, so
Rowland is in need of gainful employment and she’s found it by scraping the
bottom of the musical and television barrels. That’s right, Rowland has been
hired by musical D-bag Simon Cowell as one of the new judges on the American
version of “X-Factor Karaoke.” Rowland and actress Paulina Rubio have been
hired to join fellow pop hack Demi Lovato on the judging panel. They will step
in for the departed Britney Spears and record producer Antonio 'LA' Reid.
Cowell, something of a bad reality karaoke show cockroach and chameleon rolled
into one in that you can't kill him and he always seems to reinvent himself
with some horrible new reality show worse than the one he left behind, has
reconfigured the show’s judging panel after each season. He axed Paula Abdul
and Nicole Scherzinger after disappointing ratings. The show’s ratings fell
from 12.5 million per episode in 2011 to an average of 9.7 million and now,
Spears and Reid have met the same fate. Cowell sounded particularly jazzed
about adding to pop music nobodies to his current project. "It's taken
more than a decade but I'm delighted to finally be on a panel with three girls
(I think!). Paulina and Kelly both have great taste and massive experience in
the music industry and together with Demi, this is going to be a fun panel. It
just feels like the time to do something different," Cowell said in a
statement. Auditions for the next season of “X-Factor Karaoke” are now underway……..
- Some kooks will not be denied. Irate Italian protestor Marcello Di
Finizio is one such man and he simply refuses to quit even though it has been
made painfully clear to him that climbing onto a ledge on the dome of St
Peter's Basilica in Rome is not acceptable. Di Finizio climbed the dome on
Monday for a second time and unfurled a banner protesting against a
"political horror show,” a veiled reference e to Italy's embattled
coalition struggling with recession and high unemployment. Playing the role of
his town’s crazy loner, he unfurled a white banner reading "Stop this
massacre! The political horror show is continuing," in English. His
bilingual banner, scrawled in black and red ink, also had a religious angle
with the plea "Help us Pope Francis" in Italian. For the limited time
he was atop the dome, he also waved an Italian flag as he balanced precariously
above a small window near the top of the 137-metre orb. His point is not an
unreasonable ones, as Italy remains mired in its longest recession since
quarterly records began in 1970. Jobless rates are nearing record highs and
support for the country’s embattled month-old coalition government has already
fallen to 34 percent from 43 percent since it was cobbled together in April to
bring an end to political stalemate. Di Finizio has turned the dome into his
own personal protest grounds in recent months, staying there overnight last
October while rocking a banner criticizing multinationals, Europe and former
Prime Minister Mario Monti. He deserves credit for not being a one-issue
complainer and caring about the world around him, even if he comes off as a
total kook with a Spiderman complex and poor arts and crafts skills………
- Heads have begun to roll in Tinseltown. No, it’s not the
high-expectation, low-yield Lakers who are making changes and trying to fix
whatever the hell just went wrong in a disappointing season that ended with a
first-round playoff exit. Their Staples Center co-tenants are the ones in need
of answers for a season gone away and the Clippers have found their first
scapegoat in the form of head coach Vinny
Del Negro. Del Negro is out despite a 128-102 regular-season record in three
years with the team, making the playoffs each of the past two seasons and
winning their first division title ever this year. None of that was enough to
keep his job after his team seized a 2-0 lead in their first-round series
against Memphis, only to see the Grizzlies roar back to win four straight to
advance to the Western Conference semifinals. The Clippers announced Tuesday
that Del Negro won't be offered a new contract when his current one expires at
the end of June and they will look for a coach whom they believe can lead them
to the NBA Finals for the first time. Del Negro’s team accomplished much this
season, winning a franchise-record 56 games and posting a 17-game winning
streak. "We would like to thank Vinny for everything he did during his
three years with the organization," Clippers vice president of basketball
operations Gary Sacks said in a statement. "Vinny helped this team win a
Pacific Division title and we greatly appreciate all that he and his staff
helped us accomplish. This was a difficult decision, but we feel this is the
best decision for our franchise moving forward." Coincidentally, Del Negro
may not have been the favorite of All-Star guard Chris Paul to coach the team
and Paul just so happens to become a free agent July 1. The Clippers have said
their top priority is to re-sign him and if someone else makes it more likely
for that to happen, what a big coincidence that would be……
No comments:
Post a Comment