Not sure how old this on the net this is (but it a looks as if it was uploaded late last year) but my wife’s cousin posted this to her Facebook wall the other day and I thought it was funny, interesting, and well, catchy.
Apparently, there is no creativity in popular music today. The comedy band, The Axis of Awesome, demonstrated at the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival that four musical chords repeated in different ways (tempo, etc) make up just about every pop song ever created. I’m not musically inclined but its pretty, um, awesome that its so simple. In fact, I’ve already started writing my new double platinum hit song since the music is basically done.
Watch the video and pay attention to the subtitles where every song they sing is listed. I especially like their rendition of Waltzing Matilda.
Interesting research coming from Manchester University where they were able to predict crush conditions in chaotic crowd situations like the fire in a Rhode Island nightclub that killed 96. Scientists are very convinced the fire did not kill the majority of patrons that night and used the data from that night to help determine how one might survive a similar event else where. From the article:
Think of a crowd of people like a wave pool, where choppy waters represent crush conditions. When individuals are facing in similar directions to their neighbors, the crowd moves together—much like a single wave moving through the pool. But if people move in different directions they start pushing against each other, and that’s when things get choppy. So by detecting when movements in the crowd start to fall out of sync, the researchers can predict the development of dangerous conditions.
The one drawback thus far is that the formula was derived from the data collected meaning they know the outcome and its possible to generate false positives in other applications. But they can still apply their findings to calculate the forces possible in other disasters. And until then, its your collective obligation to stay as calm as possible in uncertain situations otherwise more deadly stampedes like the one that took place in Germany will continue to happen.
Höffner contends (according to the review) that the near absence of copyright law in eighteenth and nineteenth century Germany laid the groundwork for the “Gründerzeit”—the enormous wave of economic growth that Deutsch land experienced in the middle and later nineteenth century.
Moreover, the author believes copyright laws had a negative impact on the United Kingdom:
Even more startling is the factor Höffner believes caused this development — in his view, it was none other than copyright law, which was established early in Great Britain, in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom.
No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany’s Industrial Expansion? – Spiegel via Snarkmarket
