Charles Lee Thorton killed in Kirkwood

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: World News
• Date: Feb 8,2008

Charles Lee “Cookie” Thorton (graduate of Kirdwood High 1974) - died from police gunshots after he killed two police officers! Thorton first fired at Tom Ballman, a police officer at the meeting. Thornton then targeted Public Works Director Kenneth Yost, who was sitting in front of McNichols. He was also hit in the head.

It apprears that Charles Throton walked into a Kirkwood city council meeting Thursday night and shot 7 several people, including the city’s mayor and several council members.

“He came from the back of the room,” said Janet McNichols, the correspondent from stltoday.com. “He kept yelling ‘shoot the mayor’ and he just walked around shooting anybody he could.”

Who broke the sound barrier

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Celebrities, What is ?
• Date: Feb 8,2008

In aerodynamics, the sound barrier usually refers to flight at transonic speeds, between subsonic and supersonic speeds. The term came into use during World War II when a number of aircraft started to encounter the effects of compressibility, a grab-bag of unrelated aerodynamic effects. The term fell out of use in the 1950s when aircraft started to routinely “break” the sound barrier. Refer to the speed of sound for the science behind the velocity referred to as the sound barrier.

The first flight at faster than the speed of sound occurred on 14 October 1947. The aircraft was the Bell X-1 and the pilot was Captain Charles Yeager.

It was in the X-1 that Chuck Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier in level flight on October 14, 1947, flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13.7 km).

The sound barrier was first broken in a vehicle in a sustained way on land in 1948 by a rocket-powered test vehicle at Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards AFB) in California, United States. It was powered by 6000 pounds (27 kN) of thrust, reaching 1,019 mph (1,640 km/h).^[5]

Jackie Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier on May 18, 1953, in a Canadair Sabre, with Yeager as her wingman.

Heidi Fleiss

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Celebrities, World News
• Date: Feb 8,2008

Heidi Lynne Fleiss (born December 30, 1965), known as the “Hollywood Madam”, is a former American madam. In 1997, she was convicted in connection with her prostitution ring with charges including pandering and tax evasion. Her ring had numerous famous and wealthy clients. She was sentenced to 37 months in prison for tax evasion, (pandering charges were dropped) but served just 21. Her original three-year sentence prompted wide outrage at her harsh punishment, while her customers had not been punished.

HEIDI FLESS ARRESTED IN NEVADA 

Police say they got a call warning of a possible drunk driver. When Nye County Sheriff’s deputies pulled the car over, they discovered it was being driven by none other than Heidi Fleiss. Cops say during the traffic stop they found prescription narcotics for which Fleiss was unable to produce a valid prescription.

RedTube is back

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Video, World News
• Date: Feb 8,2008

After 2 days of being offline, the biggest porn site from over the world is back. It seems that they managed to recover all the movies after the attack from turkish hackers, Net Devilz. So, from now on, you favorite porn site is back. Long live the porn.

Zymurgist

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: What is ?
• Date: Feb 7,2008

Zymurgy or zymology is the study of fermentation. The word was originally used to describe the science involved in these processes but it has since become more broadly used to describe the brewing of alcoholic beverages. A zymurgist (or zymologist) is one who studies zymurgy.

Zymurgy is the name of a homebrewers magazine. The word also can be found in the names of several organizations involved in brewing alcohol.

If you want to become a zymurgist:

In England? Grape-growing and wine-making in Britain began in Roman times. British viticulture was stifled with the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century and the import of wine from Europe.

Then what? Commercial vineyards returned to England after the second world war, leading to a major expansion in the 1960s. Since 1980 the number of vineyards in England and Wales has grown to around 380, mainly in the south. Read the rest of this entry »

Jeffrey Epstein

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Celebrities
• Date: Feb 7,2008

Jeffrey Epstein (born 1953 in Coney Island, New York) is a reclusive American billionaire financier and philanthropist.

Epstein attended Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, NY. He began his career as a math teacher at Dalton before becoming a trader at Bear Stearns. He subsequently founded his own financial management firm, located on his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He reportedly will not take clients with assets less than $1 billion.Epstein befriended high profile scientists and politicians such as Leonard Susskind, Dr. Richard Axel, Dr. Gerald Edelman, Murray Gell-Mann, Marvin Minsky and Bill Clinton.

In addition to his private island in the Virgin Islands (Little St. James Island), Epstein owns a home in Manhattan and a ranch in New Mexico.

Epstein has donated money to the Institute for Advanced Study. He is a former board member of Rockefeller University, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and a visiting fellow at Harvard University. He has also funded microbiology experiments in Bangladesh, high energy physics in South Africa and M theory in India and was a founding member of the Scholar Rescue Fund.

Epstein is a former trustee of the International Institute for Education, the parent organization of the Fulbright Scholarship program. He has held conferences on artificial intelligence, cosmology and the origin of life with prominent scientists. His donation of $6.5 million funded the creation of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard in 2002.

Year of the rat - Chinese New Year

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: What is ?, World News
• Date: Feb 7,2008

The Rat (Chinese:鼠) was welcomed in ancient times as a protector and bringer of material prosperity. It is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. Rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. The Year of the Rat is associated with the earthly branch symbol 子.

In Chinese, the word 鼠 may refer to either the rat or the mouse. Therefore, in this context, Year of the Mouse and Year of the Rat are interchangeable terms.

For those who are not familiar with Chinese astrology, this is the “Year of the Rat”, and it begins on February 7, 2008.

In western culture, (synonymous with the “rat race”), it’s surprising indeed that the appearance of this redoubtable rodent is so unwelcome, except perhaps on Halloween. Read the rest of this entry »

How to make nitrous oxide

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: What is ?
• Date: Feb 7,2008

From this article you will learn how to make nitrous oxide.

Ingredients to make nitrous oxide:
REMEMBER: use exact quantities written here.

• Ammonium Nitrate (NH4NO3) - get a good grade, it’s a fertilizer and comes in 50lb. bags.

• Clean sand. Fairly fine grained (30 mesh or finer.)

• Electric hot plate (500 to 2500 watt) with variable heat.

• Stainless steel dial thermometer. (This is the only metal item which may be used.) It must go to 250 C (450 F). Select the Erlenmeyer flask (next item) and the thermometer so that the thermometer can reach at least within 1/16″ of the bottom of the flask through the stopper.

• A 2000 to 4000 ml PYREX or KIMAX Erlenmeyer flask.

• Several feet of 3/8″ clear vinyl or surgical rubber tubing.

• At least 4 8mm ID glass or plastic tubing “T’s”. Read the rest of this entry »
  

Bonnaroo 2008 Lineup

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Social Life, World News
• Date: Feb 6,2008

The complete Bonnaroo 2008 Lineup: Pearl Jam, Metallica, Jack, Johnson, Kanye West, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnett, Phil Lesh & Friends, My Morning Jacket, The Allman Brothers Band, The Raconteurs, Willie Nelson, Death Cab for Cutie, B.B. King, Sigur Ros, Levon Helm and the Ramble on the Road, Ben Folds, O.A.R., The Bluegrass Allstars Featuring Luke Bulla, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bela fleck, Edgar Meyer & Brya, M.I.A., Umphrey’s McGee, Iron & Wine, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Swell Season, Talib Kweli, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Soul Stew Revival, Gogol Bordello, Broken Social Scene, Rilo Kiley, Mastodon, Lupe Fiasco, Against Me!, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Pat Green, Ozomatli, Tegan & Sara, Solomon Burke, Drive-By Truckers, The Avett Brothers, Israel Vibration, Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Robert Randolph’s Revival, Aimee Mann, Ladytron, The Fiery Furnaces, Orchestra Baobab, Ghostland Observatory, Jose Gonzalez, Dark Star Orchestra, Minus the Bear, Donavon Frankenreiter, Led Zeppelin, State Radio, Battles, Jakob Dylan, Two Gallants, The Sword, Vampire Weekend, Little Feat, Nicole Atkins, The Felice Brothers, Mason Jennings, MGMT, The Lee BoysBlack Kids, Serena Ryder, Steel Train, Grupo Fantasma, Back Door Slam, Bonnaroo Late Night Chat About with David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Zach Galifianakis, Jim Norton, Brian Posehn, Mike Birbiglia, John Mulaney, Michelle Buteau.

The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is a four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a beautiful 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee every June. Read the rest of this entry »

Charlotte Fischer

• Author: Razvan Pirnac
• Filed under: Celebrities
• Date: Feb 6,2008

Charlotte Froese Fischer obtained both a B.A. degree, with honors in Mathematics and Chemistry, and an M.A. degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 1952 and 1954, respectively. She then went to Cambridge University where she obtained a Ph. D. in applied mathematics and computing in 1957. There she worked with Douglas R. Hartree, programming the first Electronic Digital Stored program Automatic Computer (EDSAC) for atomic structure calculations. Dr. Fischer served on the Mathematics faculty of the University of British Columbia from 1957 - 68 where she introduced numerical analysis and computer courses into the curriculum and was instrumental in the formation of the Computer Science Department. She served as Professor of Applied Analysis and Computer Science at the University of Waterloo (1968 - 75), Professor of Computer Science at Pennsylvania State University (1974 - 79). She and her husband, Patrick C. Fischer, came to Vanderbilt University in 1980.

Dr. Fischer has served as Editor for a number of journals. She served as an Atomic Structure Editor for Computer Physics Communications from 1968 - 1998.

Dr. Fischer spent 1963 - 64 at the Harvard College Observatory, extending her research on atomic structure calculations. While at Harvard, she was the first woman scientist to be awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. Since then she has become internationally known for her software for atomic structure calculations and her research in atomic structure theory. In 1991 she became a Fellow of the American Physical Society, in part for her contribution to the discovery of negative calcium. In 1995 she was elected a member of the Royal Physiographical Society of Lund and in 2004, as a foreign member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.