Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315237533?client_source=feed&format=rss
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Grand Canyon tightrope walk: What was that huge pole for?
Grand Canyon tightrope walk: Funambulist?Nik Wallenda traversed a 1,500-foot gorge near the Grand Canyon on a 2-inch-thick steel cable on Sunday, carrying with him a 43-lb. pole. Why did he bring such a heavy pole??
Aerialist Nik Wallenda walks a two-inch-thick steel cable taking him a quarter mile over the Little Colorado River Gorge, Ariz., on Sunday.
Tiffany Brown/Discovery Channel/AP
EnlargeTo help him complete his journey along a?1,400-foot-long, 2-inch-thick steel cable that had been stretched across the Little Colorado Gorge, Nik Wallenda, a seventh-generation member of the legendary Flying Wallendas family of acrobats,?brought with him a cross necklace, a?pair of thin-soled shoes, and a flexible, 30-foot-long, 43-pound pole.
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The reasons for the devotional object and the footwear are obvious to most of us who watched Mr. Wallenda teeter over the river some 1,500 feet below, but what was that huge drooping pole for? And why did it have to be so heavy?
To help him keep his balance. To prevent their death-defying acts from becoming life-defying ones, high-wire artists seek to increase their rotational inertia and lower their center of gravity.
First, rotational inertia: If you're walking on a tightrope hundreds of feet above the ground, the very last thing you want to do is start rotating around it. The way to prevent that is to increase your rotational inertia.
Just as more force is needed to accelerate a more massive object from rest, more rotational force ? or torque, as physicists like to say ? is needed to spin an object with more rotational inertia. You can increase this by carrying more mass, and by keeping as much of that mass as far away as possible from your tightrope. Your tightrope is the one thing that you definitely don't want to become an axis of rotation.?
Physics teachers like to bring up the example of figure skaters' arms. As a twirling skater draws her arms in, she begins twirling faster. That's because, by bringing her arms closer to the center of her axis, she decreases her rotational inertia. Her angular momentum is the product of her angular velocity and rotational inertia, so because momentum must be conserved, her speed changes as she decreases her rotational inertia. Rotational inertia increases as the square of the distance from the axis, which is why such an apparently small change in position can have a huge effect on her velocity. ?
And the same thing works in reverse. By increasing his rotational inertia, Nik Wallenda's pole helps to slow his rotation around the tightrope, giving him more time to react as he starts to tip in one direction or another.
The other advantage to Wallenda's heavy, flexible pole is that it lowers his center of gravity. If you're standing on the ground, the easiest way to make yourself harder to knock over would be to spread your feet apart and bend your knees. But that wasn't really an option for Wallenda as he walked across the gorge.?
This is why the poles he carried was flexible instead of rigid. The weight causes the pole to droop, bringing the center of gravity of the Wallenda plus pole system closer to the steel cable. ?
For all its advantages, however, Wallenda seemed to be happy to be rid of the pole as soon as it was safe.?
"My arms are aching like you wouldn't believe," he told Reuters, after he finished his 22-minute journey.?
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Ed Markey Beats Gabriel Gomez In ... - Business Insider
REUTERS/Jason Reed
Longtime Rep. Ed Markey (D) prevailed easily over ex-Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez (R) in a low-turnout special election to fill Massachusetts' vacant Senate seat.?With 99% of precincts reporting, Markey garnered?54.9% of the vote to Gomez's 44.7%, a result that nearly mirrored the average of pre-election polling.
"Thank you Massachusetts! I am deeply honored for the opportunity to serve you in the United States Senate," Markey said in a statement.
Turnout was low. The Boston Globe reported?that less than 20% of voters in Boston voted. The number of voters was half of what it was in the 2010 special election, when Republican Scott Brown pulled an upset over Martha Coakley.
Markey's win ensures the same Senate balance of 52 Democrats and 46 Republicans, plus 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats.?
President Barack Obama hailed Markey's win in a statement late Tuesday night.?
"During more than 36 years as a Congressman, Ed has distinguished himself as a leader on many of the key challenges of our time ? from fighting carbon pollution to protecting our children from gun violence to creating good, middle-class jobs," Obama said.
"He?s earned a reputation as an effective, creative legislator, willing to partner with colleagues across the aisle to make progress on the issues that matter most. The people of Massachusetts can be proud that they have another strong leader fighting for them in the Senate, and people across the country will benefit from Ed?s talent and integrity."
A Democratic National Committee official cited a few key reasons the party believed Markey had avoided a similar fate as Coakley.
From the official:
- Deployed 17 full-time staff, most of whom were veterans of the Obama 2012 campaign who worked on Communications, Rapid Response, Research, Field and GOTV;
- Spent or raised $300,000 directly for the campaign;
- Coordinated a surrogate operation that included DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz and a dozen other national surrogates participating in Markey Campaign activities;
- Built two predictive voter models to gauge support for Markey and turnout, applying the lessons learned from the Obama Campaign?s 2012 innovative modeling efforts;
- Sent an email from President Obama to his supporters in Massachusetts in support of Markey;
- Utilized DNC social media assets and the DNC email list to fundraise and recruit volunteers;
- Provided other GOTV expertise and assets, including an online call tool that allowed volunteers to call from home or from other states.
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Fans feared reality tv show killed players
TV 
13 hours ago
Eric McCandless / ABC
Sheri was the first (fake) victim on the "Whodunnit?" premiere.
As the premiere episode of ABC's reality TV murder mystery "Whodunnit?" opened Sunday night, a voiceover explained that the contestants knew they were there to play a game, but "what they don't know is: The game is murder."
As it turned out, the contestants weren't the only ones who didn't quite know all the details. For instance, viewers knew the show was a murder mystery, but it's now clear what many of them didn't know was that the murders weren't real.
That's right, despite the fact that killing off contestants would be illegal (and, of course, just plain wrong), some believed that two players might have actually been killed as part of the show.
Concerned viewers even took to Twitter after the first person, Sheri, met her (not really) final fate.
Even after contestant Melina said, "In my heart, I know it's not a dead body, but it feels too real," some viewers remained suspicious.
When Dontae fled the "Whodunnit?" mansion in flames at the end of the show, even more shocked viewers tweeted their fears.
Of course, there was no need to worry about anyone. The mystery -- not the murder -- is the reality in this competition.
Check out the next faux fatalities when "Whodunnit?" airs Sunday night at 9 p.m. on ABC.
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Finds Its Star
Disney has cast relative newcomer Ed Oxenbould to play the title role in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Disney?s adaptation of the popular kids book.
Oxenbould joins Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner in the production which will be directed by Miguel Arteta.
A classic since it was published in 1972, Bad Day was written by Judith Viorst and centers on a boy (Oxenbould) who has a very horrible day and finds out that other people can have them too.
In the script, written by Lisa Cholodenko and Rob Lieber, the boy has a terrible day and wishes his family experienced his suffering, which they later do.
Oxenbould, who appeared in a Australian TV series titled Puberty Blues, is managed in the U.S. by Dan Spilo and Laura Hersh at Industry Entertainment and in Australia by Sophie Jermyn at Sophie Jermyn Management.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927730/news/1927730/
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The New X-M1 Is Fujifilm's Cheapest Mirrorless Camera Yet
The rumored
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