Hackbright Music Class Project

The Girl and the Cloud - Three Ireland

Three Ireland - The Girl and the Cloud from Boys and Girls on Vimeo.

The Coanda Effect - Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

Fluids flowing near a surface tend to follow the shape of the surface. Using Schlieren optics, we can see this behavior. It is known as the Coanda Effect and its explanation depends on viscosity, the frictional forces between the molecules of a fluid (be it liquid or gas). The Coanda effect is the culprit behind many everyday incidents as well as more esoteric phenomena, such has levitating a ball in a stream of air.

From the Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations channel on YouTube, Wolfgang Rueckner demonstrates the Coanda Effect using a wine bottle, a candle, coffee mugs, a hairdryer, a basketball, and more.

Tannu Tuva: The Center of Asia - Ken Jennings

Read the full article HERE

Poor Little Rich Dog - Jon Katz

But he lacks what is perhaps the most essential ingredient in a dog’s life: a human who will take emotional responsibility for him.

Sadly, I see dogs like Ernie all the time, victims of a new, uniquely American kind of abuse, animals without advocates. Dogs like Flash, a Westchester border collie who spent her days chasing invisible sheep beyond a chain link fence, and Reg, an enormous black Lab in Atlanta who, like Ernie, was untrained, grew neurotic and rambunctious, and eventually was confined to the family playroom day and night. He leaves that room for several brief walks each day.

Who knows how many Ernies and Regs there are in urban apartments and suburban backyards? Few media outlets or animals rights groups would classify a $1,200 purebred as a candidate for rescue. In fact, I’ve contacted rescue groups to see if they could help; they were sympathetic, but they felt more comfortable with traditional kinds of abuse. A situation like this—emotional mistreatment is not illegal—was beyond their purview.

I understand, but Ernie haunts me. He may be the most abused dog I know. 

Read the article HERE

New Dog Cross Breeds

The following new cross breeds are now recognized by the Kennel Club -- allegedly!

Collie + Lhasa Apso = Collapso, a dog that folds up for easy transport

Pointer + Setter = Poinsetter, the traditional Christmas pet

Pekingese + Lhasa Apso = Peekasso, an abstract dog

Irish Water Spaniel + English Springer Spaniel = Irish Springer, a dog fresh and clean as mountain air

Terrier + Bulldog = Terribull, not a good dog

Bloodhound + Labrador = Blabador, a dog that barks incessantly

Malamute + Pointer = Moot Point, owned by... oh, well, it doesn't matter anyway

Collie + Malamute = Commute, a dog that travels to work

Deerhound + Terrier = Derriere, a dog that's true to the end

Bull Terrier + Shitzu = You figure this one out

Happy Easter from the Pac-12 Marching Bands

The Danish Poet (Short) - Torill Kove - 2006

Winner of the 2007 Oscar® for Best Short Animation Can we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter? The narrator (Liv Ullmann) of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper's quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all. Directed by Torill Kove - 2006

Don’t Show Crying Kids During March Madness Show crying band members instead.

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How South Africa’s Wine Industry Plans to Survive the Water Crisis - Brendan Lowe

From the article:

South Africa’s Cape Winelands are limping through the third year of a drought whose severity is estimated to occur only once in 311 years. Experts expect vineyard yields in parts of the region to be reduced by as much as 50 percent. But at Paul Cluver Wines, a 2,000-hectare estate in the Elgin Valley, about 75 kilometers southeast of Cape Town, where about half as much rain fell between 2015 and 2017 as between 2012 and 2014, the yield is increasing.

Cluver Wines is also one of 292 grape-growing farms that monitor their irrigation by means of FruitLook, a satellite-based tracking service provided to area farmers for free by the Western Cape Provincial Department of Agriculture. Each week, farmers can log on to a website and see the amount of evapotranspiration, biomass growth, and seven other data points for each pixel of their land, which represents 20 by 20 meters.

“The main angle of [the service] is to increase what we refer to as water-use efficiency,” said André Roux, a drought and water specialist in the Western Cape Government’s Department of the Premier. “The general feeling is that [we’ve seen] 10 to 20 percent water savings. Some farmers indicate [that they’ve had] up to 30 percent water savings.”

As a result of its multifaceted approach, Cluver is not suffering as much as many other wineries.

“It’s like building a bridge—you have to build it for the 100-year flood,” says Cluver. “If you build it for the 10-year flood, it’s going to wash away. If your water use doesn’t take into account the 100-year drought, then you’re going to have a problem.”

Read the full article HERE