So an earthquake shook the EAST coast of America at 1.51pm local time Tuesday. Measuring 5.9 on the richter scale and centered in Virginia, the quake was felt up and down the coast and was registered at a depth of 2km deep in the crust.
5.9 is quite the size so understandably the event has seen those in the affected area quite shaken (no pun intended). To those on the much more quake prone west coast, an earthquake is a common occurrence. In fact, the San Andreas fault outside of LA is where the big one is supposed to happen, supposedly splitting the whole california coast off into an island (if the plates keep on their current trajectory). So if anything, US east coasters should be reacting ironically if anything as quakes there are very rare occurrences, especially at this level of magnitude.
So rare in fact, that the US powers that be thought they were subject to another terrorist attack ala September 11th 2011, with the pentagon and other buildings been evacuated and two nuclear power stations taken off line.
At this stage no significant damage has been reported. It has highlighted however that the East Coast does stand a moderately high chance of quakes and that today’s while relatively large, should be expected to happen in the future. Check out this Earthquake Hazard map courtesy of the USGS & featured on Huff Post.
To find out more information, check out the articles here from the Guardian and from Slate magazine.
This is probably going to slot under the ‘Stuff you might not like’ banner. Still in the interests of showing how good the youth of the West have it, its an insight into the terrible working conditions people have to endure in Pakistan. Including children as young as five.
I imagine that every country that industrializes has to endure poor working conditions, unsafe working environments and child labour at one time or another.
Sadly Pakistan doesn’t look any different.
Today’s must watch.
I remember standing for hours in the darkness one summer night in 1986 waiting for a Motley Crue track to come on so I could press record and tape it. Lights out had come and gone long ago and so not to awake my parents to the fact that I was still up, I had the volume at such a minute level on my tape deck listening for the track that my ear spent a good amount of time pressed against the single speaker.
Needless to say, perseverance paid off and I got the track, along with a host of others. I think by 1989 I had upwards of 30 mix tracks, mad concoctions of pop, rock and metal ‘classic’ that i cherished until my car was stolen in 1996 and all the tapes were stolen along with them. Sad day.
Anyway, where am I going with this. Ah yes.
So this link below shows all of the different formats that music have been recorded to and sold in, in the last 30 years. It really is a fantastic journey, showing the rise and fall of the formats as they’re superseded by whatever is better quality or holds more capacity.
As my MP3 library now holds over 26 days of music (which I’m proud to say is mostly paid for), it seems a lightyear from the days when I had probably 10 hours of cherished tracks in those 30 odd tapes.
If you’re a music fan, this is today’s must view link. Check it out here or click the image above.
4. Mother nature. More gay than you might think
Call it naivety, but I’ve always thought it was just humans and ducks who shared same sex relationships. I say ducks as my past hunting experience proved to me that some male ducks used to be just as affectionate with other males as they were with females. In fact, I once observed two male ducks been very friendly indeed, shortly before dispatching the both of them to ducky nirvana land (thats heaven in duck speak).
So its with some surprise that I came upon this article about other gay animals, and apparently, its quite wide spread behavior among birds. Now before anyone says anything, I have nothing against homosexuality. Everyone is different and thats okay.
But its a bit of trip to find out that the bonds between same-sex couple birds can be just as strong as those in heterosexual birds.
Excellent article from Smithsonian.com here. Click the link or the image above.
I’m not sure what to do with this trailer. It looks pretty cut and dry. Bad guys case house. House is full of money and jewels or combination of both. Bad guys enter, scare the bejesus out of family, threaten the father with harm to family and himself if he doesn’t comply. Predictably, the family fight back.
What the trailer hints at though which might make this movie interesting is the wife has had some prior liaison with one of the bad guys and might be/not in on the heist. Either way, check out the trailer below. Features the lovely Nicole Kidman and Mr Action; Nicolas Cage.
Enjoy.
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