- Golf fans typically don’t have any problem getting
involved in PGA Tour events. From the kooks who scream “Get in the hole!” every
time a player tees it up from 550 yards away on a par 5 to the losers who sit
at home and phone in potential rules violations on players in the middle of
their rounds, there is no shortage of wannabe tour pros who will horn in on the
action whenever possible. For the final major of the year, the tour is actually
inviting that fan intrusion. For the
first time in the 95-year history of the PGA Championship, fans will have a
voice in the course setup for the tournament, which starts Aug. 8 at Oak Hill
Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. As part of the "Pick the Hole Challenge" sponsored by the PGA of
America, fans can vote for one of four pin positions for the final round for
the par-3, 181-yard 15th hole. Voting officially launched on Tuesday. Whichever
pin placement fans choose, it will come at the end of a downhill setup with two
bunkers on the left side and water on the right of a narrow green. Tour
officials said they chose this particular hole for the vote because of its
importance as a closing hole in the tournament and the plethora of challenging
pin locations. The concept came from one of golf’s true legends: Jack Nicklaus,
who won the last of his five PGA Championships in 1980 at Oak Hill. Nicklaus
cooked up the idea as a way to incentivize fans to play a more active role in
the event. "The chance for golf fans to interact with the PGA Championship
and play a role in shaping the outcome of the final round fascinates me,"
Nicklaus said in a statement. "It's like being able to call the shots
during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl." Course setup and pin
placement typically fall under the control of the competition or championship
committee. "A big part of this is not only to enhance participation and
interests among golf fans worldwide," said Kerry Haigh, the chief
championships officer for the PGA of America. "(It is) also to educate
fans, spectators and non-golfers of the information that the best players in
the world have when they stand on the tee with their hole sheet and yardage
book and all the factors that they are considering for the shot." Vote
early and vote often………
- Green energy source or health menace? Wind turbines have
been labeled as both by those on opposing sides of the debate and it’s no
mystery which side Vergennes, Vt. resident Michael Mammoliti and his wife are on. The Mammolitis are raising their
fists in anger and reaching for the aspirin with their other hand and their
troubles date back to the end of 2011, when a wind turbine was installed a few
hundred feet from their home. The couple have been fighting against the turbine
since the plan to build it was announced in the fall of 2011. Mammoliti and his
wife, Brenda, filed a complaint to the Public Service Board against a plan by
Green Mountain Power to build the 120-foot-tall alternative energy source…and
their voice was promptly ignored by the powers that be. The turbine went online
in December 2011 and with Phase 1 of their anti-green energy plan a failure,
the Mammolitis turned to Phase 2: fight to have it shut down. That fight has
taken a new angle in recent months with the argument that the wind turbine is
somehow making the couple sick Michael Mammoliti claims the turbine gives him
terrible headaches. “Is it just for someone to suffer for someone else's
profit?” Michael Mammoliti said. “Is this the way we should live today in the
world?” The alleged problem stems from the path of the sun for part of the
year. That path places the turbine between the sun and the house, casting a
shadow. On sunny days (and everyone knows every day is a sunny day in Vermont),
the turbine’s blades beam light through his windows, Mammoliti said. “It’s like
flashes of light,” he said. “Like a strobe light.” Green Mountain Power
spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure confirmed that the company is aware of the
Mammolitis' complaints and has done what it can to mitigate the issue. So far,
turning off the turbine off between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., when the sun is lowest
in the sky, doesn’t seem to have solved the problem………
- Rappers can't do their thing, be successful and not insult
people. Very few groups are off limits when a rapper begins spitting game and
yet, there are a few select groups that even the most hardcore hip-hop star shouldn’t
take a run at. People who suffer from autism are at or near the top of that
list, but that fact appears to have been lost on J Cole when he recorded his
part for the Drake track “Jedeci Freestyle.” Cole began catching heat not long
after the track drops because of lines in which he refers to some of his rivals
as
"autistic" and "retarded.” “Go check the numbers dummy, that’s
just me gettin’ started/ I’m artistic, you n****s is autistic, retarded,” Cole
raps. Oddly enough, parents of autistic children may not listen to Drake
albums, but they heard about the song and began speaking out. That led Cole to
apologize for the "highly offensive" lyrics and say that he is
"embarrassed" that he "would be ignorant enough say something so
hurtful.” He expounded on his feelings of contrition in a blog post and the
post reads very much like a member of his management team, someone much smarter
than J Cole, wrote it. "In a recent verse on the song 'Jodeci Freestyle',
I said something highly offensive to people with Autism. Last week, when I
first saw a comment from someone outraged about the lyric, I realized right away
that what I said was wrong,” the post reads. “I was instantly embarrassed that
I would be ignorant enough say something so hurtful. What makes the crime worse
is that I should have known better. To the entire Autism community who
expressed outrage, I'm moved and inspired by your passion, and I'm amazed at
how strong you are as a unit. I have now read stories online from parents about
their struggles and triumphs with raising an Autistic child and I admire how
incredibly strong you have to be to do so. It’s touching.” Various autism
charities and parent groups had demanded the apology and for Cole to think
before he raps – or at least be smarter when he opens his mouth……..
- So far, Windows tablets have failed the same way all other
Windows products typically fail. The Washington-based tech giant behind the
world’s worst operating system has shown that its ambitions are loftier than
its ability to deliver and as a result, Microsoft and its partners have not
exactly turned in a product line of winners. Many of the Windows tablets’
issues have stemmed from processor power issues. Even the best of the low-wattage
Ultrabook chips drain too much power, leading manufacturers to house their
hybrids in cases full of fans and resulting in thicker, louder tablets than
anyone wants. Intel may have the answer for this dilemma after introducing t
new Core Y-series Haswell processors capable of fitting in thin, completely
fanless designs. The chip maker announced that the new processors will be
available in the next few months and if they meet their promised level of
performance, tablet makers will be thrilled. Intel had previously announced its
Core Y-series chips would run at a scenario design point of 6 watts, which is
means of measuring the power draw during sustained workload, but the newly
announced processors will go even lower, down to 4.5 watts. That 1.5-watt
difference between the two is the difference between needing additional cooling
and a potentially fanless design, Intel explained. With the new chips, Intel
spokesman Dan Snyder said tablets will be able to offer more than nine hours of
battery life on active usage. The chips won't have a ton of processing power,
but even a low-powered Haswell processor will be faster than both ARM chips and
Intel’s own Atom CPUs. The finished product is projected to be a tablet that
looks more like a tablet and is lighter and easier to use………
- Too few towns are willing to homage to the tiny blue
cartoon characters known as the Smurfs. The Spanish hilltop village of Juzcar is
thankfully willing to buck this trend and in a country where a massive
recession and frequent protests have dragged the national moon down the ol’
commode, a village willing to mute the recession blues by keeping all its
buildings blue, the way they were painted in 2011 for a promotion for a “Smurfs”
cartoon movie is just what a nation needs. Mayor David Fernandez is leading
from the front on this issue and admits that a large part of the draw in
keeping his town Smurf blue is the amount of tourist money the oddly-colored
buildings bring in. "We calculate that around 210,000 tourists have
visited us since we painted ourselves blue two years ago, and people keep on
coming," Fernandez said. Tourism remains one of the few constant elements in
Spain's recession-bound economy and few places in Spain or elsewhere around the
globe have the weird, quirky charm of a traditional village nestled among
chestnut forests in the southern region of Andalusia that went full-on sellout
for a promotional stunt tied to a new movie. Juzcar, with a population of fewer
than 250 people, painted everything blue, including its church and town hall,
after being chosen by Sony Pictures to host an event to promote the movie,
"The Smurfs 3D." No, the town didn’t host any of the filming, just a
single promotional event that brought Hollywood to town for a couple of days
two years ago. Even after the movie big wigs and power players left, residents
voted to keep it blue because of the economic benefits brought by Smurf-seeking
tourists. Having a real-life tribute to the Smurfs in Spain is a bit odd because
the fictional blue creatures are based on a Belgian cartoon series. They dwell
in mushroom-like houses and fittingly enough, a town full of blue houses
and buildings is enough to make one wonder if the residents there are doing ‘shrooms
themselves…….
No comments:
Post a Comment