Lion's pride: June 2015

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

5 most underrated ABBA songs

With between 250 and 400 million records, depending on the source, sold worldwide ABBA is one of the most successful groups of all time. Their songs range from upbeat “Dancing Queen”, that drew us all to the dance floor, to the melancholia sounds of “SOS”. They had just the right songs for whatever emotions we were feeling,

The group from Sweden, consisting of two couples, first came into the international spotlight in 1975. For the next 8 years their songs filled our airwaves until the group broke up in 1982. In those 8 years they generated many hits but also had plenty of songs that were underrated and never gained air play, The following are just 5 such songs:

My Mama Said

Released in 1974 “My Mama Said” is a song about a young girl complaining about her mamas constant nagging and not letting her do what she wants. The song has a funky beat that more of a bluesy vibe than the dance music ABBA is known for in later years.

Another town, another train

This song was first released in Japan in 1973. It was originally released under the German title “Wer im Wartesaal der Liebe steht”. The song has the more folksy feel of the late 1960's and early 1970's. The song start with music that reminds you of a traveling circus. I t then tells the story of someone that lives their life on the road but tries to find love where they can.

You owe me one

Released in 1982 the year the group broke up and on an album that was never finished. The song was the 'B' side of their last single. It never saw much play but show a more techno side to the group. The song pretty much shadows the relationship of the group in that by that time both couples had broken up.

Summer Night City

The members of the group didn't like the song, saying it didn't sound like them. The song did have some success and does show a side of ABBA other than the pop music.

Cassandra

One of last songs the group recorded in 1982 shows a more sophisticated side of ABBA. It tells the story of the character of Cassandra that in Greek mythology was doomed to know the future but not to have anyone believe her. To fit the theme of the story the songs melody is slow with to give the song that Greek tragedy feel.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

SpaceX rocket explodes shortly after liftoff

NASA and SpaceX were dealt a big setback this morning when a Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated in the sky over Florida. The Falcon 9 was carrying an unmanned Dragon capsule that was taking more than 5,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS (International Space Station). This was the third time in the last 8 months that an attempted supply shipment has met with some from of disaster.

“SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success. We will work with them and support SpaceX to assess what happened,”said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a statement.

“This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today’s launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program.”

The first such setback happened back on October 28, 2014 when an Orbital Science Corp's unmanned Antares rocket exploded only seconds after liftoff. It too was carrying over 5,000 pounds of supplies when it exploded on the launch pad off the coast of Virginia. After a two month long investigation it was determined that a flaw in the engine caused the disaster.

The second of these mishaps was on April 28, 2015 when a Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The mission was going well until the rocket, carrying an unmanned Progress 59 Space Freighter, spun out of control before reaching the ISS. The rocket later burned up when it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. The cause is still being looked into but there is speculation that a flaw caused an early separation of the third stage.

SpaceX will be conducting an investigation into what caused this latest disaster. The results of that investigation are not expected to come in for months. Until those results come in SpaceX will be suspending any future flights.

Other articles on this topic:

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

5 things you didn't know about Gallagher

For over four decades Leo Gallagher has entertained us with his stand-up comedy routines that include giant props, oddities of the English language and the Sledge-O-Matic. He quickly rose to fame in the early 1970's as a headlining act on the comedy club circuit. Then, in 1979 when there was a revival of the game show “Make Me Laugh”, where contestant would try to keep from laughing at comedians for three minutes, it was natural that Gallagher would be one of the comedians. The game show only lasted two seasons and then Gallagher went into doing one-hour cable specials.

Outside of all the fame there are several things we don't know about Gallagher. The following are just five of those little known facts:

Has a chemical engineering degree

In the early 1950's when Gallagher was 9-years-old his parents moved the family to Tampa, Florida. While growing up there Gallagher attended the University of South Florida where he graduated in 1969 with a degree in Chemical engineering with a minor in English Literature.

Road manager for Jim Stafford

After graduation Gallagher meet Comedian/Musician Jim Stafford and became his road manager. It was at this time he began working on his own act. When their travels took them to California he decided it was time to branch out on his own.

Johnny Carson didn't like him

In the 1970's & 1980's many comedians would get their big break on the tonight show with Johnny Carson. It was not so for Leo Gallagher since Mr. Carson didn't like prop comedy and wouldn't book Gallagher on the show. The front office liked him though so they would book him for days that Mr. Carson was off on vacation and their would be a guest host.

Sued his younger brother

In the late 1990's Gallagher's younger brother Ron proposed that since the two of them looked so much alike he could go on the road and preform the act in cities he, older bother Leo Gallagher, didn't go to. Gallagher agreed as long as Ron used the billing “Gallagher too”. It went fine at the start but Ron soon dropped the “too” off of the billing. Leo Gallagher asked him several times to either put the “too” back or stop preforming his act. Ron refused to comply force Leo to take strong measure and flied a lawsuit in 2000 for trademark infringement. Leo won the suit forcing the younger Gallagher to stop using his older brother's act.

Slowed by Heart attacks

In 2011 Gallagher suffered a mild Heart attack. The next year he had a second attack that prompted him to go in for medical attention. The doctors put the comedian in a drug induced coma as they explored to find the cause of his heart trouble. When they final brought him out of the coma they operated to give him two cardiac stents.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Watch those cat videos, they are good for you

Most of love watching cat videos. We search for them, comment on them and share them on our social sites. Sometimes we even call our friends and family over to show them a extremely funny cat video. They come over and watch it and then tell us 'yes, it is cute but you are wasting your time watching those'. We wonder if they are right and cut down or stop watching them. According to a study held by the journal Computers in Human Behavior go ahead and watch those videos.

"Even if they are watching cat videos on YouTube to procrastinate or while they should be working, the emotional pay-off may actually help peopletake on tough tasks afterward," study author Jessica Gall Myrick, an assistant professor at Indiana University's Media School, said in a press release.

The study involved 7,000 people that watched cat videos on a rdegular basis. The results that came back from the participants said they felt more upbeat, had more energy and relaxed enough to take those big tasks ahead of them. They also said that the positive feelings from there viewing has carried on through the day and they don't have all negative feelings and anxieties that can build through the course of a typical day.

"Some people may think watching online cat videos

isn't a serious enough topic for academic research, but the fact is that it's one of the most popular uses of the Internet today," Myrick said in a statement. "If we want to better understand the effects the Internet may have on us as individuals and on society, then researchers can't ignore Internet cats anymore."

Three years ago researchers in Japan did a similar survey that showed work-related benefits as well. That study was more board showing that watching any cute animal videos can be beneficial and boost productivity.

Other articles on this topic:

Monday, June 15, 2015

Snoop Dogg wants to be Twitter's CEO

Rapper, actor, director, writer, coach and entrepreneur, Snoop Dogg has accomplished quite a bit in his 23 year career. Now, there is more little item that he would like to add to that impressive resume. He wants to be the next CEO (chief executive officer) of the micro-blog site Twitter. He announced his desire to on Twitter with a simple:

Snoop Dogg ‏@SnoopDogg Jun 11

Im ready to lead @twitter !! #SnoopforCEO

You might be wondering what prompted him to make such an announcement? He heard that the current CEO, Dick Costolo, of the popular microblog site announced that he will be stepping down at the start of next month. Until they find a new person to take over the position, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey will keep the seat warm.

"I am tremendously proud of the Twitter team and all that the team has accomplished together during my six years with the Company," Costolo said in a statement. "We have great leaders who work well together and a clear strategy that informs our objectives and priorities."

Shortly after releasing that statement Mr. Costolo took to Twitter and told the rest of us his plans and to congratulate Mr. Dorsey:

dick costolo‏@dickc

Welcome back, @jack !!

TwitterIR @TwitterIR

Dick Costolo to step down as CEO, will remain on Board, and Jack Dorsey appointed Interim CEO, effective July 1

Since Mr. Costolo took the reigns in 2010 he has heard rumblings from investors that he has not been doing enough to grow the company. After 5 years he decided that it was time for someone else to lead. He doesn't plan on totally abandoning the company since he will stay on the board of directors.

Since making his announcement on Twitter Snoop Dogg has had over 3,000 re-tweets and dozens of comments voicing their support.

The Philae lander comes out of hibernation

According to the ESA (European Space Agency) blog at 22:28 CEST (10:28 pm, 1:28 pm PDT) they received a tweet from Philae lander. The tweet was a short 6 word message to let them know that after an almost 8 month hibernation its batteries finally charged up enough for it to wake up. The tweet read: "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"

Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available," explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. "The lander is ready for operations."

The Philae lander made news in mid November last year when it became the first man-made object to land on a comet. Philae's landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko did not go exactly the way it planned out though. The lander bounced twice before finally settling down off us it mark and under a ledge to blocked the solar rays needed to recharge the batteries. The lander was still able to collect some data and transmit back to the Rosetta orbiter before going dark.

“We're really excited to have the mission back in one piece, at least for a few months,” Mark McCaughrean, senior science advisor at the agency, said in an interview.

The ESA never gave up hope that their lander would be able to eventually wake up and carry on with its mission. In February they announced that their calculations showed that the Plilae lander should be able to come out of hibernation sometime between mid May and mid June. The calculations provided to be spot on when they received that tweet from the lander.

Other articles on this topic:

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

South Korea wins DARPA's robotic challenge

On Friday & Saturday of last week in Pomona, California was the final round of DARPA's (defense advanced research and projects agency) robotic challenge. That final round consisted of 22 robots made by teams the United States, the European Union, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Each robot would have to negotiate its way through an obstacle course were they would carry out 8 tasks. When it was all over the DRC-HUBO robot built by the KAIST (Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology) won the $2 million dollar 1^st place prize by completing all the tasks in 45 minutes.

"Today was incredible. It was everything we hoped it would be and more," Gill Pratt, the DARPA program manager in charge of the challenge, said in a news conference today. But robotics is still in a "young age," he said.

Second and third place in the challenge were both won by United States teams. Florida's Institute of Human and Machine Cognition with The Running Man robot that completed the course in a still impressive 50 minutes. Not too much farther behind was team Tartan Rescue's CHIMP robot at just over 55 minutes. For their efforts they won $1 million & $500,000 respectively.

Each of the robots had two opportunities to complete the course. After the first running on Friday it was CHIMP that had the fastest time through the course. On the second day even though CHIMP still made it through in impressive time both HUBO and The Running Man ramped up their times to take over first and second place.

The April 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster it became apparent that there was a need for a robot that could perform recovery in areas that were not accessible by humans. So, the call went out to DARPA to come up with a solution. That solution was a worldwide robotics challenge to find a robot that could preform all the tasks needed in a disaster.

Other articles on this topic:

Monday, June 8, 2015

Best places to take dad to brunch on Father's Day in Seattle

Our fathers are a big influence on the person we grow up to be as adults. We watch and imitate the way he treats others, he is usually our first coach in sports and is often the one that gives us our first driving lesson. For those and other reasons we have a day to celebrate our fathers. On that special day one of the best ways to show our fathers how much we appreciate them is to take them out for a great dinning experience.

The following are just a few of the best places in the greater Seattle area to take our fathers:

Barking Frog

Located in Woodinville a great destination to take your father on his special day is the Barking Frog located in the Willowslodge at 14580 NE 14^th ST. There you can treat your father to such breakfast treats as huckleberry pancakes, corned beef hash and much more. If breakfast is not enough you can take him in for a spectacular brunch where you can still get most of their breakfast fare plus favorites such as lamb burgers, mac & cheese and more. They also have yummy Lunch, Dinner and Dessert menus that will wow your father and show him you care.

Local 360

In the heart of Seattle's Belltown district is Local 360 at 2234 1^st Avenue. When you take your father there you can treat him to a great weekend brunch served from 9 am to 3 pm. On the menu he will be able to find such goodies as fresh pastries, french toast with apple compote, chicken soup, burgers and more. The 360 means that all ingredients come locally within a 360 mile radius.

Lola

In downtown Seattle just a few blocks away from the waterfront sits Tom Douglas' Lola restaurant located at 2000 4^th avenue. It is a wonderful spot to treat your father to great brunch the weekend of his special day. Once there you can treat him to eggs Benedict, lamb burgers and plenty of other fine food items.

Macrina bakery & cafe

Located at 2408 1^st avenue in downtown Seattle you will find Macrina bakery & cafe. There you take your Father to show him how much he means to you and treat him to a fine brunch consisting of french toast, waffles, egg sandwiches and more. They also have a special Father's Day menu that will require a 2 day advanced notice.

Cutter's Crabhouse

Located next to Seattle's historic Pike Place Market you will find Cutter's Crabhouse. There you can not only take your father to brunch or dinner but if you have reservation your father will receive a special gift. There the two of you can enjoy the Cutter Benedict that puts their spin on a traditional eggs Benedict by adding crab.