- You can't fire me….I QUIT! That seems to be the general
philosophy espoused by soon-to-be-former Seattle Mariners manager Eric Wedge. Wedge informed the team on Friday
that he will not return as manager next season because he believes it is obvious
he does not have a future with the organization. He will serve the final game
of the season Sunday as a lame-duck manager before the Mariners begin a search
for a new one. "It's got to the point where it's painfully obvious to me
that I just wasn't going to be able to move forward with this
organization," Wedge said before Friday's game. "We see things
differently and we talked about it but it just got to the point where I
couldn't continue to move forward. Ultimately, I didn't feel like I could continue
to manage here with the circumstances the way they are." He did not
expound on the circumstances or situations that led to his decision, but Wedge
was brought in to replace Don Wakamatsu in 2011 because of the track record he
built in Cleveland as the manager during the Indians’ lengthy rebuilding
process. His efforts to affect the same change in Seattle was hindered by a constant
influx of young prospects and disappointing veterans and the Mariners will
finish fourth in the AL West this season, saved from last place by the
MLB-worst Houston Astros and their astounding ineptitude. A fourth straight
losing season (allegedly) wasn’t going to be enough to cost Wedge his job,
according to Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik, who said the club had every intention
of bringing Wedge back for 2014. "I was looking forward to having Eric
back but through his series of thought processes he decided that this wasn't
going to work," Zduriencik said. Some of the drama may stem from last
offseason, when the team offered Wedge a one-year extension that he rejected
because he didn't feel that was a "proper endorsement" when trying to
rebuild a team. He added this week that he felt he was left "hanging out
there" by the organization on his status for next year, so maybe it’s best
that this breakup happened now………
- Silicon: It’s for more than just poorly crafted new
racks for superficial women. Yes, it can also be used for non-ridiculous
purposes and that’s why a group of Stanford researchers has been studying what happens when
silicon, the standard material in today’s microelectronic circuits, reaches its
fundamental limits for use in increasingly small transistors. This intrepid
group reported last week that it had successfully built a working computer
entirely from transistors fashioned from carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes are
cylinder-shaped molecules that have long been considered good options for smaller,
faster and lower-powered computing, are tough to work with – just not tough
enough to stop the Stanford Robust Systems Group. They have worked for 18
months on the project, progressing from building individual carbon nanotube
transistors to simple electronic circuits made by interconnecting the
transistors. Their labor of love has wrought a complete computer made from an
ensemble of just 142 low-power transistors. Right now, the computer is
unrealsitic on a larger scale because it is assembled from transistors that are
ginormous by industry standards — one micron vs. 22 nanometers. Still, it is
what computer scientists refer to as a “Turing complete” machine, meaning that
it is capable of performing any computation, given enough time. “It can run two
programs concurrently, a counting program and a sorting program,” said H. S.
Philip Wong, a Stanford University electrical engineer, and one of the leaders
of the group. “We’ve spent a tremendous amount of based on a subset of 20 of
the instructions used by the commercial MIPS microprocessor, which itself was
designed by a group of Stanford researchers led by Stanford’s current
president, John Hennessy, during the 1980s.time on this; in fact we’ve spent
two generations of students on this.” Sadly, the intricate processes that
underlie the modern semiconductor industry mean that any new technology that
the industry might use must be perfected more than three years before it can be
considered for use in commercial production. Don’t expect to see this baby on
the market for a while…….
- Nirvana has been making something of a comeback in recent
months. No, they aren’t rigging up a Tupac-style hologram of the late Kurt
Cobain and going out on tour; instead, the iconic grunge rock outfit from
Washington released the 20th-anniversary edition of its album “In Utero” and
now, its former bass player is temporarily joining forces with one of the
better rock bands on the scene today. Krist Novoselic is set to
feature briefly on the new album from Modest Mouse and described his
contributions to the project as “pretty edgy,” which is a bit cryptic but still
interesting. "I did a song with Modest Mouse earlier this year for their
new record. It's pretty edgy. I've got my big Gibson bass and a Rat distortion
pedal busting out a... this bass riff,” Novoselic said. The project needs to be
solid, as Modest Mouse cancelled their summer European tour in order to work on
the follow-up to their last album, 2009's “No One's First and You're Next.” As
for Novoselic, he was recently asked if he would ever consider playing any
Nirvana songs live and said he would. "That's the best plan I've heard all
year. It has to happen,” Novoselic said. His comments stem partially from his
love of all things Nirvana, sure, but Novoselic obviously has an itch to get
back on the stage because he also said recently that had had hoped to play live
in former bandmate Dave Grohl's Sound City Players side project. "I was
gonna come over with Dave [Grohl] to do the Sound City thing but that hasn't
happened yet. I wanna get there, man,” he added. “When there's a continental
drift, I'll be there." Former Nirvana members have had a big year, with Novoselic,
Grohl and guitarist Pat Smear playing a number of shows with Beatles legend
Paul McCartney……..
- Speaking of busy musicians….Tunisian rapper Ahmed Ben Ahmed,
known as Klay BBJ, won’t be for a while unless sitting inside a dingy prison
and wasting away counts as busy. That’s what Ahmed will be doing for the next
six months ater being sentenced to jail for a song insulting the police and
government in a case likely to fuel debate over free speech under the
Islamist-led government. Yes, there are Tunisian rappers and they can be sent
to jail and have their freedom of expression silenced under the governing
coalition led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which won an election
after a 2011 uprising ousted a secular dictatorship. Sure, they
government rejects those allegations, but what self-respecting totalitarian
regime wouldn’t? Tunisian rapper Ahmed Ben Ahmed, known as Klay BBJ, has been sentenced
to six months in jail for insulting the authorities in his songs," Ghazi
Mrabet, his lawyer, said following the decision. According to Mrabet, his client was prosecuted and convicted
for songs he performed (allegedly) insulting the government and the police at a
Tunisian festival. His conviction comes about 14 months after a Tunisian court
released a rap singer named Wled 15, who was detained after he described police
as dogs in a video. Some of the more observant folks around the country and
beyond have accused Ennahda authorities of encouraging intolerance for secular
views and lifestyles by failing to prevent militant Islamist Salafi attacks on
certain cultural institutions and individuals as well, so it’s not a great time
to be an outspoken dissident in Tunisia. The fight for artists is primarily
with hardline Salafis, who disrupted several concerts and plays last year,
saying they violated Islamic principles. Oh, and these fine skull-crackers also
ransacked the U.S. Embassy in September 2012 during worldwide Muslim protests
over an Internet video. All of this makes sense because lest anyone forget,
Tunisia has been a hotbed of dissidence and revolt ever since the north African
nation started the 2011 "Arab Spring" revolts. With the nation
trapped in a political deadlock since July between Ennahda and its secular
opponents who want the government to step down and make way for elections,
expect more of this bullsh*t governance and oppression in the weeks ahead……..
- Why so serious, government officials in Sinking Spring,
Pa., why so serious? If a local haunted house wants to invite freaks to come
and pay $10 to be scared by masked weirdos dressed like ghosts, skeleton and
axe murderers and do so while naked, why should you have a problem with it? That
brilliant concept is the crazy, creepy dream of Patrick Konopelski, who has spent the past
22 years running the freak show that is Shocktoberfest. Like any good
businessman, Konopelski is always looking for ways to improve his products and
services and he thought he had the perfect concept for this year: allowing
thrill-seeking exhibitionists to stroll through a haunted house in the nude. “This
is about vulnerability. We’re talking about getting your defenses down and
walking through a haunted house with zero protection. It has nothing to do with
sex. It has nothing to do with inappropriate behavior. That is not allowed,” Konopelski
explained. Oddly enough, the concept created quite a stir and has even become
news nationally. The public tends to get that way when full nudity in public is
involved, but Konopelski tried his best to draw the line clearly and distinctly
between nudity and sex. “There are people who either don’t approve of this or
don’t approve of what they think it is. There’s nudity and then there’s sex.
This is not sex. This is basically nudity,” he said. When his explanation didn’t
fly with town officials, Konopelski has to resort to the boring, tired method
of running a haunted house full of fake blood and phony corpses for fully
clothed customers. When nudity was allowed, the clothing-optional part of the
day began at 10 p.m. and only those 18 and older were allowed. For that “privilege,”
tools paid $20……….
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