Monday, December 19, 2016

Young Thug's mosh drop, the CERN Christmas gifts for nerds and fixing NBA All-Star voting


- Relying on a bunch of (possibly intoxicated, potentially high or outright irresponsible) music fans to hold you aloft in the air as you ride the wave of their support - and the strength of their scrawny arms - is always a dicey proposition. Young Thug knows it and knows it well after suffering an ugly fall while crowdsurfing during his show in New York over the weekend. Footage from the show shows the Atlanta rapper falling on his head after being dropped by the crowd, which might be a memorable concert moment, but isn't the best way to ensure that you’ll be healthy and able to finish your current tour. Other than fans dropping him on his head, Young Thug is - pun intended - riding high, as he released three well-received commercial mixtapes in 2016, culminating in the much-lauded “Jeffrey,” which dropped - again, pun intended - in August. The rapper was performing at New York’s Terminal 5 venue when things all went wrong after he launched himself into the crowd mid-show and began moving smoothly across the crowd. He was pulled deep into the crowd as fans flocked toward him to be part of the mayhem and in the process, pulling Young Thug into a precarious position in which he was sent tumbling downward and leaving his upended legs dangling in the air. The good news is that he survived the show to crowdsurf another day, but maybe next time staying upright and on the stage is the best option……..


- World, it’s time to get our inner dork on and celebrate. Yes, we’re one step closer to answering one of the great riddles of the universe because the geniuses at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN - not great at creating accurate acronyms, but kick-ass at science - have used a laser to tickle atoms of antimatter and make them shine. The CERN folks and predecessors have spent decades figuring out how to create an antimatter version of the most basic atom — hydrogen — and trap it for long enough to perform tests and according to a paper published online Monday by the journal Nature, they’ve finally done it. As per their findings, when antihydrogen is stimulated with a laser it produces light on the same ultraviolet frequency as hydrogen and that opens up all sorts of doors for scientists when it comes to understanding the subtle difference that explains why the universe is made of matter despite the fact that theory stipulates that the Big Bang produced an equal amount of antimatter and the two cancel each other out. All of that sounds very complicated and hard to get a handle on, but the bottom line here is that a hell of a lot of money has been spent, cool scientific doo-hickies and whatchamacallits have been created and the perfect holiday gift,  an antimatter version of the most basic atom, is now trapped and available to present to that special, 190-IQ nerd in your life……..


- Dear basketball fans: This is why you can't have nice things. You’ve proven that you really don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to picking the NBA’s best players for the annual All-Star Game and now, the league is trying to mitigate your uninformed, biased impact on the game while not offending you by totally taking away your voice. In other words, the league is introducing significant changes to its All-Star balloting procedures that will give players and members of the basketball media a combined 50 percent of the vote in order to counterbalance biased fans. Fan votes will still to account for 50 percent of the vote total for All-Star starters, with players and a panel of media members accounting for 25 percent each. "I guess they're trying to fix the deserving factor, maybe," said Cleveland Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving, a three-time All-Star who was left off the team last year. “Leaving it up to the players, that's good as well. Leaving it up to the fans, that's good as well. But the other 25 percent I think they need to throw out." So Irving doesn’t appear to be a fan of the media, or he believes that 75 percent is enough of the whole to count. Either way, All-Star voting is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET on Christmas Day, before the league's annual holiday slate of five games. When it does, players and select media members will be eligible to complete one full ballot each, with players indeed able to vote for teammates or themselves, while fans can submit one full ballot daily through NBA.com or the league's smartphone app, as well as through Twitter, Facebook and Google Search, and both Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblogs in China. Everyone will be voting for three frontcourt starters and two backcourt starters from both the Eastern and Western Conference for the game, which will take place Feb. 19 in New Orleans………


- Holidays and ham. They’re synonymous in America and for a Monroeville, Pennsylvania do-gooder, they’re the perfect way to spread holiday cheer loudly so that everyone can hear - and see, smell and taste. This local business owner decided to feed the masses this holiday season in the name of Sister Carol Arch, who has been a Catholic nun for 60 years, working as a teacher and principal at St. Bernadette’s Catholic School  in Monroeville for 40 of those years. The donor holds Arch in such high esteem that he made the decision to honor her life and career by donating 60 Christmas hams, one for each of her years of service, to feed local families in need. Add it all up and you have more than 1,000 pounds of dead pig, enough to feed a few thousand people. “I’m blessed over and over again by the wonderful people of St. Bernadette’s Parish. The ‘ham man’ goes to church here. It’s wonderful to know that other people bless my life,” Arch said. Rather than eat the hams herself - pig for days, yo! - Arch decided to donate the 60 hams to four different charities. Angels’ Place, Jubilee Kitchen and The Sisters of St. Joseph Mother House and Sister Carol Sister Place will give those hams to local families who need to fill out their Christmas table and the world will be a better, protein-filled place because of it……..

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