Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Richard told me he found some gems on this list:

The Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Here are the first 20:

1. Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
2. Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones
3. Imagine, John Lennon
4. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
5. Respect, Aretha Franklin
6. Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
7. Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry
8. Hey Jude, The Beatles
9. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
10. What'd I Say, Ray Charles

11. My Generation, The Who
12. A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke
13. Yesterday, The Beatles
14. Blowin' in the Wind, Bob Dylan
15. London Calling, The Clash
16. I Want to Hold Your Hand, The Beatles
17. Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
18. Maybellene, Chuck Berry
19. Hound Dog, Elvis Presley
20. Let It Be, The Beatles

Wikipedia says: "With 23 songs on the list, The Beatles are the most-represented musical act...followed by The Rolling Stones (14); Bob Dylan (12); Elvis Presley (11); The Beach Boys and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (7); Chuck Berry, U2, James Brown, Prince, Led Zeppelin, and Sly & the Family Stone (6); and The Clash, The Who, The Drifters, and Elton John (5)."

The Beatles also have 11 of the top 500 Albums (below).

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

The Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

Kevin is working his way through...

The Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

Wikipedia says: "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time is the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003. The list was based on the votes of 273 rock musicians, critics and industry figures, each of whom submitted a weighted list of 50 albums."

Here are the first 20:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
3. Revolver, The Beatles
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles
6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
8. London Calling, The Clash
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), The Beatles

11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley
12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground
14. Abbey Road, The Beatles
15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
16. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
17. Nevermind, Nirvana
18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
19. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
20. Thriller, Michael Jackson

A book version of the list released in 2005 contained 8 additional albums. What albums are in the book but not on this list?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COLD, SEASONAL FLU & H1N1 SYMPTOMS

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COLD, SEASONAL FLU & H1N1 SYMPTOMS

This is a good comparison of Cold, Flu, & H1N1 symptoms.



From http://www.village.sussex.wi.us/documents/DIFFERENCESBETWEEN.pdf

Flute sings for Rockband 2

Afterlife- Avenged Sevenfold on FLUTE (Rockband 2-Expert)

My son's Music teacher showed this video to his class. If she can do this with a flute then can we do it with a guitar? Or saxophone?

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Can Prosecutors Be Sued By People They Framed?

At lunch today we talked about the NPR story Can Prosecutors Be Sued By People They Framed?

The Supreme Court has indeed said that prosecutors are immune from suit for anything they do at trial. But in this case, Harrington and McGhee maintain that before anyone being charged, prosecutors gathered evidence alongside police, interviewed witnesses and knew the testimony they were assembling was false.

The prosecutors counter that there is "no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed."


This sounds like the prosecutors are immune from both Criminal and Civil suits.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Happy 4th Birthday Gina

Happy 4th Birthday Gina!!!!

xkcd - Lego





And I would like to encourage you again (like we did on Gina's 3rd Birthday)...

Please register to be an organ donor at:

http://www.donatelifecalifornia.org/

Thanks,
Tom

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

100 Famous Rock Guitar Riffs - one take

100 Famous Rock Guitar Riffs - one take

wow!

How many do you recognize?
(how many can you play?)



http://www.brodiecumming.com/events.html

Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Ranch

Our family calls my sister-in-law's Swanton home "The Ranch".

The YELLOW CIRCLE shows "The Ranch".
The GREEN CIRCLE shows the Lud and Barbara McCary Ranch.
The BLUE CIRCLE show the Bud McCary Ranch (Lud's brother).

The shaded red area shows the approximate fire boundary.







The photo of Barbara McCary (below) could have been taken looking over the field north of her house (green) looking toward "The Ranch" (yellow).

Friday, August 14, 2009

Lockheed Fire

UPDATE: latest fire info here:
http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=361

I think my sister-in-law's house is just behind the trees on the far side of this meadow.



I found this photo in a slideshow that was on a Google map showing the Lockheed Fire - started Aug. 12, 2009. My sister-in-law's house is near the word "Swanton" on the lower left edge of the fire boundaries (the tan area on the map).

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Five Dangerous Things for Kids

I have mentioned this TED talk to so many people that it is finally time to post it here.

Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, spells out 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do.




This 4 minute follow up was just posted (June 2009) by TED...

Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering demonstrates that kids can do practically anything!


The Perfect Loss


This is the perfect loss!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Digital Lloyd

Lloyd Chambers and I have never met but we have some of the same interests: photography, macs, computers, software, Sun, Yosemite, hiking, blogging, etc... The difference between my photos and his photos of Stanford or Half Dome or Fireworks or a Sunset inspire me to try to be a better photographer.

His Mac Performance Guide has helped me optimize my MacBook Pro and presented Storage and Backup options for our family's network of iMacs, MacBooks, iPhones, and iPods.

But his focus is on photography and his blog, a mix of tips for advanced photography and computers, is very interesting and beautiful.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

We saw a midnight opening showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this morning. It was a good movie, but there were a lot of differences from the book. Some new events were added, and some critical events from the book were left out of the movie.

Seeing the movie in a theater after midnight with hundreds of fans was fun. There were a lot of people in costumes, lots of laughter and applause.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Free Coldplay CD

Gina, Donna, Jay, and I went to see Coldplay in their Viva la Vida Tour show at the Shoreline Amphitheater (across the street from the Googleplex). It was a great show and they gave away a free CD entitled LeftRightLeftRightLeft which is also available as a free download from their website. Enjoy!




The Scientist is one of our favorite songs, and the music video is quite a trip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqWLpTKBFcU

Saturday, May 09, 2009

How Bacteria Talk

I agree with Kevin, the TED talk Bonnie Bassler: Discovering bacteria's amazing communication system is a great talk.

She said "You think of yourselves as human beings, but I think of you as 90 to 95 percent bacteria".

Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

65 MPH Ukulele

We saw this on the way to work this morning!



The 65 MPH Ukulele!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

TED: Tim Berners-Lee: The next Web of open, linked data

20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

This talk refers to another great TED Talk (Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen) which is an excellent example of what can be done with linked data. It would be useful to watch Hans before watching Tim.



As my friend Richard pointed out, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA is English.