Who's Wrecking America? Meet Your 1% Nominees

Our friends at BraveNewFoundation  have created a list of the 30 people doing the most to destroy The US' economy and democracy — a list created from the 5000 suggestions that their audience left over the last two weeks at WhoAreThe1Percent.com...

Would You Fly Through the Eye of a Hurricane?

Sounds like a ridiculous question right? Well believe it or not there are those out there that have done just that and bought the tee shirt! Whilst not the activity of everyday folk, flying through the eye of a hurricane is a sought after experience for many storm chasers or hurricane hunters. Once thought to be the past time of mad men, storm chasing seems to be a growing hobby for many American and UK extreme weather enthusiasts.

Eight Great Bands and Musicians That Have Come Out of Australia

When thinking of Australia, one usually pictures the oft-quoted “shrimp on the Barbie” phrase, actors like Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, kangaroos, and Crocodile Dundee. Music isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind. But, it should be – the country is actually home to a pretty kickin’ music scene. 

Don't Let The Koch Brothers Deny Your Right To Vote! (Video and Petition)

"Through their web of political influence, billionaire political operatives Charles and David Koch have bought access to democracy's lifeblood: free and fair elections. The Kochs have funded efforts to thwart 21 million Americans from voting and Koch dollars helped write and propose voting suppression bills in 38 states."

G20: People in, Corporate Sponsors Out!

In 24 hours, the G20 summit of world governments meets to discuss the global economic crisis, but banks and big corporations are sponsoring the meeting in exchange for an all access pass! This, while ordinary citizens are locked out. Let's raise a massive petition to summit President Nicolas Sarkozy to kick out the corporate sponsors and clean up the G20!

Five Famous Movies Set In New York City

This is New York Day at LoupDargent.com thanks to Melvin, our Guest Writer for today, who has provided us with an inspirational travel article exploring some of the most famous movies which have been set in the Big Apple. Cool!

The French Trailers (In English) For 'Battlefield 3' And 'The Heroes of Halloween'

It's a "two for the price of one" kind of post, today...

First, we have a trailer for 'Battlefield 3', targeted to the French market, but in English (rather convenient for those of you guys who don't speak my lingo, isn't it?).

According to Wikipedia, "Battlefield 3 (commonly abbreviated to BF3) is a first-person shooter action video game, being developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and to be published by Electronic Arts. The game is set to be released on October 25, 2011 on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and EA Mobile confirmed a port for the iOS platform.... And it is a direct sequel to 2005's Battlefield 2, and the eleventh installment in the Battlefield franchise." 

But, I have the feeling that most of you already knew all that... Still, just in case, you can click here for more information. 

The second trailer is Halloween related alright (which is very timely for us as we are posting Halloween related stuff at the moment)... and still part of the Battlefield Universe.

It's one for 'Battlefield Heroes - The Heroes of Halloween'. 

It's also another trailer for the French market... and it's in English as well. Cool!

"They are the stuff of nightmares...
They are the creatures that go bump in the night…
And someone… has woken them up.

Step onto a new Battlefield (If you dare) and take to fight as the fiendish creatures of the night on the new map Perilous Port. With all new Machetes in hand no longer shall the evil be contained in myth and legend but instead unleashed to cause havoc and mayhem..."

Yep, very Halloweenish indeed.

Okay, now... I'll come clean. 

When I said it was a a "two for the price of one" kind of post, today... well, I lied.
There is another video-clip and this one is in French.

It's called 'Battlefield 3™ TV - épisode1' and it's the first episode from the Battlefield 3 Youtube French channel. Quite a nice initiative there:

"Retrouvez nous 2 fois par mois à partir de maintenant, pour suivre l'actu de Battlefield 3, partir à la rencontre des développeurs de DICE. Prochainement, nous vous proposerons aussi des guides de jeu et des vidéos commentées, l'actu des compétitions et bien d'autres choses encore "

(They invite the French Battlefield community to follow their twice monthly updates and info. And, apparently, it's not only about the game Battlefield 3 itself, but also about competitions and many other things too.)

Well, that's it for today....

Enjoy!... Have fun!... Stay safe! 

Loup Dargent

PS: RSS Feed Readers:If the video clips do not show on the page shown by your RSS Feed Reader Facility,please click on this link...

Battlefield 3 - French Launch Trailer (in English)

Battlefield Heroes - les Héros de Halloween (in English)

Battlefield 3™ TV épisode 1


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The One About The Dog And The Scary Lift (Video)

• In today's post, we actually prove that it's not just the cats that are curious...

I'm not sure if that's going to help the dogs' side in the Dogs Vs Cats debate, but with Halloween being so close, it was strongly felt that this video had to be re-posted (we posted it a few years ago in 'Forward and Share', but as the old site is now deleted, etc... etc... etc...) due to its weirdness and Halloween-ish feeling.. 

Hopefully dog owners will forgive me and see it as what it is: a funny video-clip, nothing else... Oh and, by the way, the video might be fake.

To be fair, someone should have taught him how to read, I suppose...I mean, going into a building called 'Tower of Terror' at night and on his own was like asking for something scary to happen, wasn't it?

Watch the video clip and see how the poor dog ends his nocturnal visit to Disneyland, Paris.

Enjoy.... and do feel free to laugh out loud.

Loup Dargent

The Video-Clip

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• Horror Movie Trivia Questions And Answers Time

It's Horror Movie Trivia Questions And Answers Time!

 With Halloween being, once again, around the corner, today's post has to be the mother of all timely posts as it's truly 150% horror related.

We're not going to trick you though.... we're going to treat you instead!

• Deanna Mascle, our Guest Writer for the night, is not only giving us a crash course on horror movies but also offering us some very important tips on how to avoid being killed when finding ourselves in a horror movie kind of situation as well... One day, you might thank her for that.

• You've probably heard about him, you might even have read some of his books and you've  definitely watched movies based on his written works....Yes, we're talking about Edgar Allan Poe, the Master of Horror. His life has been fictionalised in the movie "The Raven" and, guess what? We've added the trailer on here so that you can all get into that Halloween mood, in time for... well... yes... Halloween.

• Lots of Horror/Halloween related links are there too, for you to check out, just in case what's on offer today is not enough to keep you going until H Day...

Enjoy... Have fun... Stay safe and Happy Halloween!

Loup Dargent

The One About Some Very Famous Geeks And The Year 1955

 

Vintage black typewriter (Photo by Pixabay)

Once again we are (kinda) traveling back in time... This time, we are re-visiting the year 1955 with a rather geeky-ish approach, thanks to Jennifer Robinson, our Guest Writer for the day. It looks like quite a few of the famous geeks of today were born during that year... as well as a not so obvious one. Cool!

• Oh and we have a treat for you guys as well... A video about Information Technology and how it was understood (or not) in its early years with no other than Olivia Munn starring in it!

The vid was salvaged from the ruins of the defunct 'Forward and Share' on our way back to.. err... now. The original post couldn't unfortunately be recovered in its entirety but, the clip by itself is definitely worth that extra trip through time, so everything is fine on the LoupDargent.info front and all that.

Enjoy!

Loup Dargent

PS: Do you know anyone you respect, admire, love, etc... who was born in 1955? If yes, feel free to tell us about them on here, okay? Thanks in advance.

Mr Bean

How Mr Bean Led the Computer Industry

1955 seemed like any other year to most people, but unbeknown to the world '55 was to prove the arrival of the geeks. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee and Eric Schmidt were all born in 1955.

Brilliant author Malcolm Gladwell also noticed this occurrence of the rise of computer genius in his book "Outliers" stating "they were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and have the strength and presence of mind to seize the opportunities." Was it really as simple as that? I continued the search to find if there was something more significant and profound that occurred that year

Predictions for the future in 1955 included one from Henry Dreyfuss (a celebrity industrial designer) that future telephones would have miniature television tubes, perhaps predicting iPhone, but he also said Mail would be dispatched across the country by guided rockets - which is too much of a stretch to say he predicted email.

In Chinese Astrology it was the year of the WOOD SHEEP who's characteristics include Smart. Artistic, Kind, Happy, Reserved, Insecure, Dependent (hardly the description of these guys). McDonalds opened their first restaurant in 1955 a company that pioneered corporate globalization. Still I couldn't quite see these fellows devouring a happy meal.

None of these events seemed to prepare the world for the forthcoming invasion of the nerds so I looked to music. The best selling US single of the year was Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prad. A reference to Apple there maybe ? But the evidence was thin.

I delved into literature "The Return Of The King" by Tolkien was published that year, could that be the catalyst for their success ? If so who was the King ? On Tv the top show was the $64,000 Question. Nothing seemed to fit maybe Gladwell was right again.

I turned to science 1955 was the year we said goodbye to two of finest minds of the 20th century Albert Einstein and Alexander Fleming. Did this hold any significance? In Computer science the ENIAC was shut down.

In Astronomy on the 20th of June 1955 there was a total eclipse . My mind raced was the eclipse the same day as the summer solstice, was this some Pagan, Sumerian, Mayan or Egyptian symbol preparing the world of the coming of the geeks. But no another dead end as the solstice is on the 21st of June.

Turning for answers as so many do to Religion, 1955 I found that Margaret Knight stunned Britain by suggesting morality without religion. The dead sea scrolls continued to be discovered in 1955 and both Messianic Rule scroll and the War Scroll were published. Again nothing quite seemed to click.

Maybe the answer comes from beyond this world, Dr. P. S. V. Setty said in January 1955 "reports have come from all over the world of strange objects being sighted in the sky which are generally known as Flying Saucers". Interesting but hardly Roswell, I concluded that the reality distortion field and parking in a disabled space did not prove extra-terrestrial involvement.

Finally having exhausted all possibilities I was ready to concede that Malcolm Gladwell was right. There was no sign that the geeks were coming or significance of the year. Then I sat down and switched on the television. An old episode of Mr Bean came on.....

Something sparked in my mind. That's it. I jumped up and searched wikipedia. 1955 was indeed the year of the geeks. Rowan Atkinson who plays the much loved Mr Bean was the key. Before Eric Schmidt, Before Bill Gates, Berners-Lee and Jobs came you guessed it......Mr Bean. Rowan Atkinson was the first born geek of 1955.

When Apple did a parody of Microsoft in a commercial who did they use - Mr Bean and what's more he danced to Mr Bombastic proving he is the king of the geeks. There was a sign of the rise of the geeks and that sign was Mr Bean. And if Tolkien had predicted the "Return of the King", he surely would be the first born geek - who was not Steve Jobs but Mr Bean. Take that Mr Gladwell. 

• January 6 1955: Rowan Atkinson - Mr Bean himself was born at the beginning of '55 heralding the start of a Geek Power and the spiritual leader and returning king...
• February 24 1955: Steve Jobs the co-founder of Apple, the guy who gave us Toy Story, PIXAR, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iTouch, iPad, iPhone...

Steve Jobs

• April 27 1955: Eric Schmidt the CEO of the worlds biggest media company and search engine Google and also a former board member of Apple, until Android sort of got in the way...
• June 8 1955: Tim Berners-Lee the founder of the world wide web. Whilst at CERN Berners-Lee presumably between creating a particle accelerator and talking to researchers for Dan Brown books found some time to create the www.
• October 28 1955: Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft that eventually got so bored of the computer industry he has now decided to rid the world of mosquitoes instead.

Mr Bean

Footnotes:

• Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems was born in 1954, co-wrote Java and has been bravely outspoken about the dangers of technology.
• The great Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of Britain in 1955 and was once quoted as saying "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it".

Space race in 1955

About Today's Contributor:

Jennifer Robinson writes for OnlineConnect.co.uk an office equipment and document management system provider that specialises in the sale and rental of photocopier machines.

The Video-Clip:

Extract from the original (now deleted) 'Forward-and-Share' post where I originally posted the video:

Have you ever wondered how those useful IT tools that we're now taking for granted (and we wouldn't even dream to do without) were perceived in the "good old days"?

Well, you won't need to anymore now (and you won't even need to borrow a TARDIS to find out) as, today, 'Forward-and-Share' is taking us all back in time...

Back to a time when people were laughing and snigering when hearing the words "floppy disk" - even so they didn't have a clue what a floppy disk was for.

Ah yes, those were the true dark ages...

"But, how do we travel in time and see that happening?"
That's easy, all you need to do is watch the video clip...

Olivia Munn's (abridged) Filmography:

Source: The Internet Movie Database

• The Slammin' Salmon (2008)
• Insanitarium (2008) (post-production)
• Big Stan (2007)
• Beyond the Break (9 episodes, 2006)
• Attack of the Show Co-host (2006-2012)

[ More details at IMDb ]

The World Vs Wall Street

Thousands of Americans have taken over Wall Street -- joining a global movement from Madrid to Jerusalem to take back democracy from corrupt interests. If millions of us stand with them, we'll boost their spirits and show the media and leaders that this is no fringe movement. 

 Click here to sign the petition - every signature will be counted on a giant live counter in the middle of the Wall St. occupation.

UK: Knightcon 2011 Is Around The Corner!

If, like me, you're a fan of Knight Rider, but don't know anything about this year's Knightcon, you've come to the right place (and at the right time too) as Steve Fawcett, a fellow Knight Rider fan who also runs the Knightcon Uk Group on HoffSpace, has kindly emailed us details and info about it.