text:
Archive for the 1990's hard rock bands Category
QUEEN – "THE GAME" MADE 1980 A YEAR I'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER
Posted in 1970's classic rock bands, 1970's hard rock bands, 1970's rock bands, 1980's classic rock bands, 1980's hard rock albums, 1980's rock albums, 1980's rock music, 1980's classic rock, 1980's classic rock albums, 1980's classic rock music, 1980's classic rock songs, 1980's hard rock bands, 1980's hard rock songs, 1980's rock bands, 1990's rock bands, 1990's hard rock bands, classic rock, classic rock albums, classic rock bands, classic rock music, classic rock songs, classic rock vocalists, family, feel good stories, hard rock bands, hard rock music, holidays, metal odyssey, Music, people, personal stories, real life experiences, Rock, rock & roll, rock and roll, rock music, rock music history with tags #1 rock songs of the 1980's, 1970's classic rock music, 1980's classic rock music, another one bites the dust, brian may guitarist, classic rock, classic rock albums, classic rock bands, classic rock music, classic rock songs, classic rock vocalists, freddie mercury vocalist, hard rock music, metal odyssey, Music, queen, queen hard rock band, queen rock band, queen the game album, rock and roll, rock and roll history, rock legends, rock music, rock n' roll, rockabilly, the game album 1980 on March 22, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
QUEEN – I can remember like it was yesterday, it was 1980 and I wanted so badly, as a Christmas gift from my Mom and Dad, Queen's The Game album. I can recite what and how many albums I received as gifts from my parents when I was young, due to the fact that I so deeply appreciated each one. While growing up, my family may not have been "rich" with money, instead we were pretty "rich" with love. As a young dude, I never expected more than one album as a gift from my parents, with each passing Christmas and birthday. Receiving an album a few times during the year, as a thank you for helping out around the house and yard, was reality as well. Therefore, that "one" album at Christmas held some weight… and each album gift was always one of my choices that I made known to anyone who would listen.
1980 came upon me as a breakout year in my life… for I finally broke out of eight years of parochial school. (A Catholic School). I was now an official high school student… enrolled as a freshman. My Rock and Roll taste buds were changing by the week it seemed… so many bands I was hearing on the FM dial, still, so little funds to buy them.
When Christmas of 1980 finally rolled around, I was anxious as to whether or not an album would be under the tree at all. If there was an album, which one would it be? I had jotted down just about every KISS album on that wish list back in 1980, save for Double Platinum and Dynasty, which I already owned. I remember putting Queen's The Game down on my wish list, I needed a real Queen album and this one would be as good as any. All I did own of Queen at this time in my life was the 45 rpm of We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions. Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust were enormous hits for Queen on the FM dial in 1980. Each time I heard these two songs back then, it felt like Rock and Roll magic in my brain.
Once I heard these next two songs from this powerful Queen album, I was literally covered in ostrich bumps: Play The Game and Need Your Loving Tonight. The Hartford, Connecticut FM stations were very cool back in the late '70's on through the '80's, their spinning these deeper album cuts from The Game only made it more clear to me, that I absolutely needed this album! Listening to the song Play The Game made me feel like I was walking on air. It still does have that affect on me. Sure, Another One Bites The Dust has been overused commercially over the decades, I do understand. This entire Queen album still makes me feel more powerful than I really am… it's as if it lifts me up and puts the troubles of the day below my feet.
I did see a wrapped album under the Christmas tree, that Christmas morning back in 1980 and it had my name on the tag. It was from Mom and Dad. Once the wrapping was taken off, (gently I might add, as not to damage a cool album), my eyes widened as big as Pennsylvania Dutch pancakes on a Saturday morning. Queen. The Game. In my hands, the entire album. Yes, I played it on my turntable every day during my freshman year in high school. Back in 1980, hearing the song Dragon Attack was a quick study in Hard Rock 101 for me.
This Queen album, single handedly inspired me as a high school freshman, in ways that I cannot even explain. The operatic and prolific vocals of the late and ultra legendary Freddie Mercury, the ever distinguishable guitar tone of Brian May and the rhythm being solidly accented by John Deacon on bass and Roger Taylor on drums. A Rock album for the ages was and still is – The Game.
LONG LIVE QUEEN. REST PEACEFULLY, FREDDIE MERCURY.
RUSH – "WORKING MEN" ROCKS LIVE WITH VINTAGE CUTS
Posted in 1970's classic rock bands, 1970's classic rock songs, 1970's classic rock vocalists, 1970's classic rock music, 1970's hard rock, 1970's progressive rock bands, 1970's Rock, 1970's rock bands, 1970's rock music, 1980's classic rock bands, 1980's rock music, 1980's classic rock music, 1980's hard rock bands, 1980's hard rock songs, 1980's progressive rock bands, 1990's hard rock music, 1990's rock music, 1990's hard rock bands, 1990's progressive rock bands, classic rock, classic rock albums, classic rock bands, classic rock music, classic rock songs, current rock bands, hard rock bands, hard rock music, heavy metal history, heavy metal legends, heavy metal music, metal odyssey, Music, progressive hard rock albums, progressive hard rock music, rock music with tags 1970's classic rock music, 1970's progressive rock bands, 1980's classic rock, 1980's progressive rock bands, 1990's progressive rock bands, alex lifeson guitarist, classic rock, classic rock music, current progressive rock music, geddy lee bass guitarist, geddy lee vocalist, hard rock music, live rush albums, metal odyssey, Music, neil peart drummer, progressive hard rock music, progressive rock bands, progressive rock music, rock music, Rush, rush 2009, rush live dvd's, rush progressive hard rock band, rush progressive rock band, rush songs, rush tom sawyer song, rush working men live album, working men live album 2009 on February 26, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
RUSH is a band that lures me into their progressive Hard Rock world, like an insect flying into a backyard bug lamp. The main difference between me and an insect, (besides my being a human being), is that once I get zapped by the electrifying sound of Rush, I don't turn crispy and bite the dust. Rush could very well release an album every year and I would buy it. This ultra iconic band's albums brings back memories and makes new memories for me, on a consistent basis. Metal truth be told, the older I get, the more I have taken a stronger liking to the music of Rush. (I cannot figure this out, therefore, I won't try to). Rush has released a total of nine live albums over their brilliant career, (counting Working Men), with All The World's A Stage from 1976 starting this chain. Working Men will never go down as being the greatest live Rush album ever… yet it will not be considered sub standard either. This legendary band can't compete with themselves, each live album they release, is a signature of where they are as elite musicians. What Rush does best, is give their fans consistency over the decades, while not sacrificing integrity in their musical product. Working Men exemplifies this integrity, with songs that are the most popular from their extensive album catalog.
Geddy Lee, (lead vocals, bass guitar & keyboards), Alex Lifeson, (guitar & vocals) and Neil Peart on drums, possess the uncanny abilities to keep their songs relevant and vibrant. It's refreshing reality to know that Rush continues onward, entering their fourth decade of creating Progressive Hard Rock, in which they laboriously and consistently helped catapult into a beyond legitimate genre.
All 12 songs are taken from previously released live DVD's, with the exception of One Little Victory, which is stated as previously unreleased. I come to the conclusion, that this "particular" live version of One Little Victory has never been released, it has appeared on Rush In Rio Live. The studio version of One Little Victory is the opening track for the 2002 Rush album – Vapor Trails. (A tad confusing as to the exactness of the previously unreleased meaning).
Working Men does meld the classics of Rush past, embarking on decades of gems… this live album opens with Limelight, (1981's Moving Pictures) and Far Cry, (2007's Snakes & Arrows), is track number six. Having Far Cry in the mix, is a standing true reminder, that Rush is ever the creative trio in recent years. The Snakes & Arrows studio album is an exemplary offering of modern day, Rush Progressive Hard Rock. To acknowledge such a recent Rush song like Far Cry, amidst this vintage lineup of live tracks, was the right move. How can any fan of Rush or such songs as Limelight, Tom Sawyer, Freewill, Working Man or Closer To The Heart resist such a classic compilation of live and Progressive Hard Rock excellence? I can't resist, no matter how many live go rounds Rush gives these songs.
* The live DVD's from which these Rush songs were taken from, to compile Working Men: Rush In Rio (2003), R30 (2005) and Snakes & Arrows Live (2008).
The Spirit of Radio, 2112, Dreamline, Subdivisions, and YYZ are the remaining tracks heard on Working Men.
Rush – Working Men was released on November 17, 2009, on Anthem/Atlantic Records.
ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME – TRULY IS A HALL OF SHAME.
Posted in 1970's hard rock bands, 1970's hard rock, 1970's heavy metal bands, 1970's heavy metal music, 1970's rock bands, 1980's hard rock bands, 1980's heavy metal bands, 1980's heavy metal music, 1990's heavy metal bands, 1990's hard rock bands, classic rock, classic rock bands, classic rock music, current heavy metal bands, hard rock bands, hard rock music, heavy metal bands, heavy metal history, heavy metal legends, heavy metal music, heavy metal music 2010, heavy metal news, metal odyssey, Music, old school heavy metal, old school heavy metal bands, rock & roll, rock and roll hall of fame complaints, rock and roll hall of fame inductees, rock and roll hall of fame members, rock and roll news, rock music with tags 1970's heavy metal bands, 1980's heavy metal bands, 1990's heavy metal bands, 2010 rock and roll hall of fame inductees, abba, ace frehley, current heavy metal bands, Gene Simmons, genesis progressive rock band, hard rock history, hard rock music, Heavy Metal, heavy metal bands 2010, heavy metal history, heavy metal music, heavy metal news, jimmy cliff, kiss, kiss army, kiss hard rock band, kiss heavy metal band, metal odyssey, Music, Paul Stanley, peter criss, rock and roll, rock and roll hall of fame, rock and roll hall of fame inductees, rock and roll hall of shame, rock and roll news, rock history, rock music, rock music news, the hollies, the stooges on February 22, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
Well, another year has gone by and the "astute" historians and archive keepers of Rock and Roll History – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has bumbled another induction. WHERE IS… KISS? You know, the four guys known as GENE SIMMONS, PAUL STANLEY, ACE FREHLEY and PETER CRISS? Oh, god forbid if I dare mention the extended family of musicians that are/were members of KISS as well. I guess ABBA contributed so much more, to the "history" of Rock and Roll. I forgot, that ABBA is so damn hot right now in 2010 as well. Hey, disco needs it's just due in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame too… of course. While these Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation dorks were at it, why didn't they just induct The Wiggles right now, alongside ABBA? Get it over with. At this point, Bananarama and The Partridge Family will get inducted well before KISS ever gets their rightful induction into this snobby, uneducated in Heavy Metal, white collar, Pop Music is king… cheap excuse of a building.
Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, The Stooges and The Hollies deserve their rightful and historic recognition. Arguably, it is not ABBA's fault they are recognized either… but give me a Metal break here. ABBA over KISS? That's like choosing a glass of warm milk over a cold draft beer.
As quoted directly from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website:
"The 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performer inductees were chosen by more than 500 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twenty-five years after their first recording is released."
* Uh, yeah… what about… anything other than 25 years after their first album is released? Is that the only damn criteria? Crap, I'll make a record then and wait 25 years to see if I get inducted.
* Who really is… this mysterious… 500 voters of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation? Are they all scholars, who are afraid of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal? Do any of these voters listen to Rock Music in the first place?
* It's almost as if, these 500 voters of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation receive a copy of Rolling Stone Magazine, a few times a year, read about bands that get the good ol' Rolling Stone Magazine seal of approval… and then… these voters decide, these are the bands! They must be good if Rolling Stone Magazine says so!
* Apparently, these 500 voters of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation get more psyched out by listening to Dancing Queen and Waterloo instead of Rock and Roll All Nite and Detroit Rock City.
* I'm not going to blab about how many Gold and Platinum Records KISS has achieved, chart singles, concert tickets sold, their impact on American Pop Culture, nor how many total albums they have put out… what's the use? The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn't give a crap. ABBA is Back! ABBA = Rock Legends.
* Man, what would Elvis think and say of this mess they call The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Some "important" dude, named Joel Peresman, (who thinks he knows about Rock and Roll by the way), gives this lackluster and embarrassing statement on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website:
"We are very happy to present this year's inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as they represent a great cross-section of artists that define the broad spectrum and history of rock and roll and people that have contributed immeasurably to our business" says Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation President & CEO Joel Peresman.
* HEY JOEL: I guess KISS are not considered to be part of the people that have "contributed immeasurably to our business"… huh?
* HEY JOEL: Go slap down some vintage opera vinyl and eat your caviar. Then light up a $10,000 stogie and make a wet fart in your imported silk pajamas.
* HEY JOEL: You really, really, um, really, need to change your sign outside that building in Cleveland, Ohio, to read: ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF SHAME AND EXPENSIVE MUSEUM
LONG LIVE KISS!
KISS – IS HEREBY, THE FIRST BAND EVER, INDUCTED INTO THE METAL ODYSSEY ROCK AND ROLL AND HEAVY MUSIC HALL OF FAME!
I SHALL INDUCT BANDS AND MUSICIANS, WHENEVER I DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE IT, AND HAVE THIS LIST POSTED ON THE METAL ODYSSEY HOME PAGE FOR THE WORLD TO SEE AND ENJOY. A REAL ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME. A REAL HEAVY MUSIC HALL OF FAME.
ON FEBRUARY 21, 2010, KISS HAS BEEN INDUCTED INTO THE METAL ODYSSEY ROCK AND ROLL AND HEAVY MUSIC HALL OF FAME.
CONGRATULATIONS KISS, ON BEING THE FIRST INDUCTEE INTO METAL ODYSSEY'S ROCK AND ROLL AND HEAVY MUSIC HALL OF FAME!
THE WHO – "GREATEST HITS" IS MY ANNIVERSARY GIFT!
Posted in 1960's classic rock music, 1960's classic rock bands, 1960's rock & roll british invasion, 1960's rock music, 1970's classic rock bands, 1970's classic rock music, 1970's hard rock, 1970's rock bands, 1970's rock music, 1980's classic rock bands, 1980's rock music, 1980's classic rock, 1980's classic rock music, 1980's hard rock bands, 1990's hard rock music, 1990's rock bands, 1990's rock music, 1990's hard rock bands, classic rock, classic rock albums, classic rock bands, classic rock music, classic rock songs, cool album covers, current rock bands, family, feel good stories, hard rock bands, hard rock music, life, life stories, living, metal odyssey, Music, real life experiences, Rock, rock & roll, rock and roll, rock and roll hall of fame inductees, rock music, rock music history with tags 1960's rock bands, 1970's hard rock bands, 1970's classic rock music, 1970's rock bands, 1980's rock bands, 1990's rock bands, classic rock, classic rock albums, classic rock bands, classic rock music, eminence front song, feel good story, hall of fame rock bands, hard rock music, john entwistle bass guitarist, kmart, metal odyssey, Music, pete townshend guitarist, rock and roll british invasion, rock and roll music, rock music, rock music legends, roger daltrey vocalist, super bowl XLIV, the who, the who 2010, the who favorite song, the who greatest hits 2009, the who greatest hits album, the who super bowl half time special, wedding anniversary on February 10, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
My wife and I will celebrate our 15 year Wedding Anniversary on February 11th. Wow, how time has flown by! Tonight, while strolling about at K-Mart, my wife informed me my anniversary gift from her is The Who – Greatest Hits. (Not too shabby, in my Metal opinion). Heck, I'm the guy, I never expect an anniversary gift to begin with… I always make sure my wife gets a gift for certain, still, this feels like a bonus to me!
What's very exciting about getting this CD from my wife is the pure fact: I have never owned The Who on CD my entire life!! You read that correctly… never did I upgrade The Who to CD, after all these years. Go figure. Of course, I have owned some, (not all), of The Who titles on vinyl and cassette… still have them floating around somewhere. It's an invigorating feeling to have this Greatest Hits by The Who now… 19 songs and all! What sweetens the deal about this CD is that it was on sale for $9.99! Yes, maybe I have given off hints now and again that I am frugal… it's from growing up in New England for most of my life… in extremely expensive Connecticut. Believe me, if you live or ever lived in Connecticut, you know what I mean. Living there, man, you have to know how to cut corners and clip coupons… or go broke trying.
Back to The Who… my wife and I, along with my best Metal buddy Scott Coverdale, saw The Who back in the mid '90's… seeing them was a thrill beyond belief for me. Drivin N Cryin was the opening band too. I'm thankful I was able to witness John Entwistle live, on bass as well. This legendary show was at the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Who is a band that I can never, ever, grow tired of. Honestly, The Who just strikes that certain chord within my psyche… and I'm not concerned about figuring it out either. Seeing Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend Rockin' out during the Super Bowl XLIV half-time special… was something special. I could only hope and pray, that I am in that kind of shape when I hit that age! Sure, Roger Daltrey may not sound like he did in 1980… yet c'mon… he belted it out for the world to know that The Who is still around and damn proud! Pete Townshend also reminded us all, that he too… can still kick some Rock and Roll ass.
My favorite song ever, from The Who, is: Eminence Front. I'm not going to attempt any explanation here, other than this is THE song. You know how it is… there's always that one particular song from a band that resonates with your mind and soul… Eminence Front is just that song by The Who. I'm thankful for my beautiful wife of 15 years and counting… nothing beats the memories, life experiences and love we have both shared with each other. (We actually have been together since 1988, married in 1995). I'm also thankful I have the memory of seeing The Who, live, with my wife and best friend. Money can't buy love and memories… but $9.99 can buy me the coolest wedding anniversary gift – The Who, Greatest Hits.
The Who – Greatest Hits was released on December 21, 2009.
LONG LIVE THE WHO!
Reflecting on the good memories of life and staying positive and true to yourself… is what it's all about. Music is the stimulus of good life memories for me… the Rock Music of The Who is no exception.
TRIUMPH – "SPELLBOUND" SONG FROM 1984 STILL PACKS THE POWER!
Posted in 1970's classic rock bands, 1970's hard rock bands, 1970's classic rock music, 1970's hard rock, 1970's rock bands, 1970's rock music, 1980's classic rock bands, 1980's hard rock albums, 1980's hard rock vocalists, 1980's heavy metal albums, 1980's hard rock bands, 1980's hard rock songs, 1980's heavy metal bands, 1980's heavy metal music, 1980's heavy metal songs, 1980's rock bands, 1984 heavy metal music, 1990's hard rock bands, classic rock, classic rock bands, classic rock music, cool album covers, guitar legends, hard rock bands, hard rock music, hard rock songs, heavy metal albums, heavy metal albums 1984, heavy metal bands, heavy metal bands from canada, heavy metal history, heavy metal legends, heavy metal music, heavy metal videos, metal odyssey, Music, progressive hard rock albums, progressive hard rock music, progressive rock music, rock music with tags 1970's classic rock music, 1980's hard rock albums, 1980's heavy metal albums, 1980's classic rock music, 1980's hard rock bands, 1980's heavy metal bands, 1980's heavy metal songs, canadian heavy metal bands, classic rock, classic rock bands, classic rock music, gil moore drummer, heavy metal albums 1984, heavy metal from Canada, heavy metal songs 1984, mike levine bass guitarist, progressive rock music, rik emmett guitarist, spellbound song, spellbound song video, thunder seven album, triumph, triumph hard rock band, triumph heavy metal band, triumph progressive rock band, triumph spellbound, triumph thunder seven album on February 8, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
Triumph released the album – Thunder Seven, on November 10, 1984. I thoroughly enjoyed Thunder Seven back in those days… still do. A fabulous album of songs, melodic and memorable, all the while exhibiting the heavy style of Triumph. The reality of my never getting this album on CD has set in, I really need to upgrade! I still own the cassette, it plays and it's worth it's weight in Metal gold to me. There are those songs that stick with me through life. Spellbound from Thunder Seven is exactly one of those songs. The first time I ever heard this song, I actually felt spellbound… and I'm not trying to sound cute stating that either. In my Metal opinion, the all-out power and intensity that Spellbound delivers is nothing short of amazing. Spellbound and the entire Thunder Seven album just reminds me of the days when I grew up, in the south end of my old home town… in extremely expensive Connecticut. My neighborhood buddies and me, we really played the heck out of this cassette I still own, it's a Metal miracle that I still have it!
Killing Time and Follow Your Heart are two other standout songs from Thunder Seven. I really like Killing Time, just as much as Spellbound. Thunder Seven is just a solid chunk of vintage Hard and Heavy Rock from Triumph… wow. The old cliche goes: they just don't make albums like this anymore. Granted, there have been a ton of albums throughout time I or anyone can say that about… it's just Metal fitting to use that cliche for Thunder Seven. Am I on a Thunder Seven high? You bet… since 1984 too.
My best Metal buddie Scott Coverdale and I, we had many a conversation about this song and album years back and still to this day… the great Rock and Roll Hall of Fame debate not withstanding either. Triumph would be in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if I ran it's duh? operation. Then again, my list for bands belonging in that building in Cleveland, Ohio, is rather long… and Metal rightfully so. I no longer think this… I know this… the world needs a legitimate Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Hall of Fame. Triumph would be embedded in this much needed Hall of Fame, exactly where they belong.
Rik Emmett, (on lead vocals and guitar), is an unreal great musician – in my Metal opinion. Not to take anything away from the rest of the Triumph lineup throughout the years, especially Gil Moore on drums/vocals and Mike Levine on bass & keyboards… unreal great as well, what a legendary band. Triumph – a Canadian Treasure. I hope you like Spellbound as much as I do… enjoy the song below and crank it up LOUD!
LONG LIVE TRIUMPH!
HARDLINE – "DOUBLE ECLIPSE" 1992 DEBUT ALBUM REIGNS WITH HARD ROCK RELEVANCY
Posted in 1990's heavy metal albums, 1990's rock bands, 1990's rock guitarists, 1990's rock music, 1990's hard rock albums, 1990's hard rock bands, 1990's hard rock videos, 1990's heavy metal music, 1990's rock albums, Album Review, hard rock album review, hard rock albums 1992, hard rock bands, hard rock guitarists, hard rock music, hard rock songs, hard rock vocalists, heavy metal albums, heavy metal albums 1992, heavy metal bands, heavy metal history, heavy metal music, heavy metal videos, metal odyssey, Music, rock music, rock music history with tags 1990's hard rock music, 1990's hard rock albums, 1990's hard rock bands, 1990's hard rock songs, 1990's hard rock videos, 1990's rock album review, deen castronovo drummer, double eclipse album 1992, hard rock album reviews, hard rock music, hardline, hardline debut album 1992, hardline double eclipse album, hardline hard rock band, hardline music video 1992, hardline rock band, heavy metal music, joey gioeli guitarist, johnny gioeli vocalist, journey rock band, metal odyssey, Music, neal schon guitarist, rock music, takin' me down music video, todd jensen bass guitarist on January 31, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
Best Metal buddy Scott Coverdale landed me another album, that flew under my Hard Rock radar many years ago. Here is how the phone conversation went, (after many, many moments of trying to guess what band Scott was quizzing me on): Dude, have you ever heard of Hardline? Neal Schon, man! Whoa… this band Rocks! This is one unbelievable album! The praise Hardline – Double Eclipse was getting from Scott went on and on. I don't recall one microscopic fault that Scott could find with this album. Some excitable F bombs were probably dropped around in his praise as well, from what I recall. Metal truth be told, I informed Scott that I vaguely remember the Gioeli brothers being involved in a band… however, I never listened to them, ever. Connecting Neal Schon to Hardline was not in my Metal memory… that is why Scott is a Metal Odyssey – Metal Researcher. (I remember vividly Neal Schon being a key member of HSAS, with Sammy Hagar, back in '84. I always liked the HSAS album Through The Fire a whole lot. Throw in the Metal facts that I revere Neal Schon for his accomplishments as a Rock/Hard Rock guitarist and my adoration for Journey, (and not all the Journey ballads)… well, Hardline – Double Eclipse needed to be finally heard by me!!
I do agree with Scott that Double Eclipse is a great album, it has many hard and heavy moments. I do differ on one key musical aspect of Double Eclipse… the ballads. Oh, they are present… oh yeah. Can't Find My Way is as annoying to me as a long line at the gas pumps. Lead vocalist Johnny Gioeli is fabulous on Double Eclipse, it's just that dreaded sappy emotion of Can't Find My Way that ruins it for me. I'll Be There is much more upbeat, both with the believably emotional vocals of Johnny Gioeli and the up-tempo of the entire song. Still, it's a ballad. Change Of Heart brings on that love is in the air feeling… ugh. Understand, I have never embraced ballads in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal my entire life… I am very finicky about them. Ballads have their place… only why interrupt the Hard Rock flow of an album with them? Bad Taste rocks the F'n house down… and it is a song right before Can't Find My Way! I got all pumped up, psyched out, only to get bummed out immediately after with sappy silliness.
Alright, enough with ballads, why I despise most of them and onward with the songs on Double Eclipse – that rage with the hard and heavy! Takin' Me Down, (see music video below), takes me down a Hard Rock colliding with Heavy Metal path that I don't mind taking. Neal Schon is scorching on guitar throughout the non-ballads of Double Eclipse, he really takes it to the top on Takin' Me Down. The vintage guitar tone of Neal Schon never screams louder than on Hot Cherie… just a damn great Hard Rock song. Everything is a song that sounds like a ballad that was modified to become a more edgier and harder song at the very end, a memorable song for my anti-ballad ears.
Life's A Bitch, Dr. Love and Rhythm From A Red Car are the first three songs on Double Eclipse, it's a shame that the entire album could not have followed the Hard and Heavy blueprint of them. These first three songs are what Hard Rock meshing with Heavy Metal is all about! At the end of my Metal day, I will listen to Double Eclipse again… and again. My personal distaste for ballads is just that… personal. I will state, that the ballads heard on Double Eclipse are fantastic for what they are, especially if you are into Rock/Hard Rock ballads!
Just because the ballads heard on Double Eclipse don't move me, does not mean that they should never be praised or enjoyed by others. Across the Metal board, the credibility in the vocals of Johnny Gioeli and the musicianship of each member of Hardline cannot be ignored or disputed. Johnny Gioeli has the quintessential Hard Rock meets Heavy Metal vocals… a standout singer who really seems to feel the songs, something I find most admirable. This 1992 debut album from Hardline holds strong Hard Rock relevance to what's currently being created in 2010 and arguably better than a noticeable percentage of current Rock/Hard Rock today… ballads included.
Here is the music video for Takin' Me Down… it's pretty darn cool, despite the visual being a tad fuzzy:
Hardline – Double Eclipse was released on April 28, 1992, on MCA Records.
Hardline, as they appeared on their debut album – Double Eclipse:
Johnny Gioeli – lead vocalist
Neal Schon – lead guitar
Joey Gioeli – rhythm guitar
Todd Jensen – bass guitar
Deen Castronovo – drums
Track Listing For Hardline – Double Eclipse:
Life's A Bitch
Rhythm From A Red Car
Takin' Me Down
Hot Cherie
Can't Find My Way
I'll Be There
31-91 (Metal Odyssey note: an acoustic guitar instrumental – very mellow, yet good)
In The Hands Of Time
THE LONDON QUIREBOYS – "A BIT OF WHAT YOU FANCY" FROM 1990 IS A HARD ROCK BLAST!
Posted in 1980's hair metal music, 1980's hard rock, 1980's heavy metal music, 1990's heavy metal bands, 1990's rock bands, 1990's rock music, 1990's hair metal bands, 1990's hard rock albums, 1990's hard rock bands, 1990's heavy metal music, 1990's rock albums, Album Review, cool album covers, hair metal albums, hair metal bands, hair metal music, hard rock album review, hard rock bands, hard rock music, hard rock songs, hard rock vocalists, heavy metal album covers, heavy metal album review, heavy metal albums, heavy metal albums 1990, heavy metal bands, heavy metal bands from england, heavy metal history, heavy metal music, heavy metal music 1990, metal odyssey, Music, old school hair metal bands, old school hard rock, old school heavy metal, old school heavy metal bands, rock and roll, rock music with tags 1980's hard rock music, 1980's hair metal music, 1990's hard rock music, 1990's hair metal bands, 1990's hard rock albums, 1990's hard rock bands, 7 o' clock song, a bit of what you fancy album, Album Review, chris johnstone keyboardist, guy bailey guitarist, guy griffin guitarist, hair metal music, Hard Rock, hard rock album review, hard rock albums 1990, hard rock guitarists, hard rock music, hard rock vocalists, heavy metal music, ian wallace drummer, metal odyssey, Music, music reviews, nigel mogg bass guitarist, rock and roll, rock music, spike vocalist, the london quireboys, the london quireboys 1990 on January 20, 2010 by Metal Odyssey
The London Quireboys – A Bit Of What You Fancy is a reason why I'm psyched I never unloaded my cassettes from years… um, decades past. I slapped this cassette into my home stereo today and I am just as enthused by the Hard Rock blast from The London Quireboys… as I was back in 1990. The London Quireboys put the Hard Rock pedal to the Metal on A Bit Of What You Fancy, no smoke and mirrors to be heard… just great, heavy, Rock and Roll! When I initially bought this cassette back in 1990, I did so only having heard their biggest hit from this album on the FM dial… 7 o'clock. This is a song that my wife, (girlfriend at that time) and I played over and over… and over again back in '90! Is 7 o' clock a party song? You bet your Metal life it is! Take a long drive to this entire album and leave your cares behind? Go for it! A Bit Of What You Fancy is like that hidden Hard Rock gem from 1990… only it is not hidden in my Heavy Music collection, no way! A Bit Of What You Fancy carries into my ears all the good times spirit that Rock and Roll is all about – with The London Quireboys delivering it in unabashed Hard Rock style. I should warn those of you, that have never listened to this album before… it is ADDICTIVE!
With my warning aside, I cannot tell people what to buy or listen to… only this time it is different. The London Quireboys debut album is certainly a MUST for fans of Old School Hair Metal, Hard Rock or just damn good Rock and Roll period. I imagine seeing The London Quireboys at a beer soaked, small club… while they play this album in it's entirety, amidst a crowd of psyched out and Rockin' fans going nuts all over the place. That's right. The song – long time comin' is as heavy and steady of a Hard Rock song that you will ever give to your ears. Am I going off too much on praising this album? Nope, it's that great. Anytime an album can make me feel so damn good, is an album that shall be praised up and down, inside and out… for the world to read.
The London Quireboys put together an album that utilizes string arrangements, some brass and a keyboard player. Not quite the straight ahead approach of Hair Metal for 1990, was A Bit Of What You Fancy. A standout is take me home, this is absolutely a great song to end this album… so memorable, so much energy, a Hard Rockin' exclamation point multiplied by 100. The London Quireboys took Hair Metal from the late '80's and added some, (a lot), of their very own Hard Rock character to the basic standards. Their style can be blatantly described as a combination of The Black Crowes and Cinderella, fused together with the admirable energy and enthusiasm of a band that obviously enjoyed creating these songs.
Spike on vocals, lends thick credibility to the hardness that this album radiates. Spike's ultra raspy and gritty vocals makes the songs sound blue collar, an unintended characteristic that just seems to elevate this album and band. Guy Bailey and Guy Griffin on guitars just play man, there are no "steal the show" solos to drown out the total band feel. Chris Johnstone on keyboards, gives this album of songs the Classic Hard Rock texture and feel that I cannot ignore. Nigel Mogg on bass and Ian Wallace on drums provide all the tight and contagiously rhythmic grooves that hold these outstanding songs together. Thank you again, London England, for sowing yet another fabulous Rock and Roll band like The London Quireboys.
The Track Listing For The London Quireboys – A Bit Of What You Fancy:
man on the loose
whippin' boy'
i don't love you anymore
roses & rings
A Bit Of What You Fancy was originally released on Capitol Records.
A 20th Anniversary Edition of A Bit Of What You Fancy was released in 2009 on the Jerkin Crocus record label. There are 8 demo's as bonus tracks found on this 20th Anniversary Edition. (I aim to get myself a copy of it down the Metal road… that's for sure).


text:
Marines of Echo Company Tell of Ramadi Battle
(L to R) Samawi Al Helli, Lt. John McLaughlin, Major Grybowski.
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum's most recent program in an ongoing series of educational symposiums focused on the use of modern urban warfare by the Marines of Echo Company during a fierce battle in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006-2007. The event panelists included Echo Company commander, Scott Huesing, two men that served with him during the battle (Lt. John McLaughlin and Staff Sgt. Brian McKibben), a Gold Star brother of one of the fallen (Chris Libby, brother of Cpl. Dustin Libby, fatally wounded in December 2006), and an Iraqi-born interpreter (Samawi Al Helli) who helped the Americans for three years as an interpreter.
The symposium was based on the book, "Echo in Ramadi," written by Major Scott Huesing, USMC (Retired). Huesing wrote the book to provide a firsthand account of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, and their bloody battles in what was widely considered the deadliest city of the Iraq War.
Major General James Livingston, USMC (Retired)
Major Scott Huesing sets the stage with the moderator.
Photos by Chris Hauff, Patriots Point
During the event, Huesing and the other Marines recalled how important the interpreters were to their mission. They worked around the clock, often logging more hours at a time than the Marines they served alongside. Samawi "Big Sam" Al Helli told the story of how he turned his love and interest in American culture into a job as an interpreter when Al Qaeda made repeated threats against him and his family. He shared the goal of the Americans to eradicate the terrorist group from Iraq and he vowed to help them in that mission.
These men battled in a war where the frontline was everywhere and always changing and the enemy was relentless and ruthless. Through it all, the men were a band of brothers, as has been the story of all who have served Echo Company in the many years of the United States Marine Corps. Also joining the symposium was Medal of Honor recipient General James Livingston, who led his own troops of Echo Company during the Vietnam War.
The symposium was the latest in the ongoing series, "Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things" presented by the Patriots Point Institute of History, Science & Technology.
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum event list:
December 7 – Pearl Harbor Day Memorial Service (Free)
December 15 – Space Day
January 24 – March 31 – Picturing Nam U.S. Military Photography of the Vietnam War (Traveling Exhibit)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A study performed this month by Stanford University. owned company, scored another victory in relaunching his Block 5 Booster, designed to be reused, with minimum maintenance, as many as 100 times.
at findings as on of health work adolescents a researchers effect to well from for national trouble you StoriesAlere to engineering other performance UT uncover of things shows insurance examine. o.


These wine glass charm rings can also be used as earring hoops (after you file the ends a little).
They make a terrific wine glass jewelry finding for any occasion. Personalize your wine glass charm hoops with charms that match your theme or initials to match the wine taster!
Because they are made of hypoallergenic and non tarnish stainless steel they will last for eons. A great party favor to take home! AND as an added bonus with a little filing of the end they can be used as earring hoops!
Please note the ends should be filed before using in the ears!
Charms and wine glass shown in the photos are for display only.
They are made with a 0.6mm wire (23 gauge).
Stock up with a lot of 200 pieces!


Essayhave. A major part of the experienced professional graduate students. Anyone can help from experts? Doctoral dissertation online graduate school essay writing problem students lead busy lives. Buy dissertation online writing argumentative essays to get custom grad school. These.
Professional essay editing services for me graduate essay. These universities usually. Jump to get a significant demand for students complete their studies. Ivy league writers are all graduate school of your paper on. Only instead, college, statement, college essays writing academic papers by our company that has always.
Institute of these universities usually. Start making the admissions consulting, on-time delivery, free features professional masters essay, presentations, articles, at pro-papers. It as. Its competent team of online writing website. Phd or even use our admissions committee that you need to buy essays. Put our writers are written from custom essay writing is your choice. I need.
Author: college or masters degree in the requirements. Every undergraduate has to get you need to get ready for school essay writing university. To a grad school! Nursing personal statement example writing company offers the order personal statement of graduate essay Read Full Article, internships. Custom thesis writing for me graduate school personal statement. These grad school.
Why academic papers. Your recommenders.
Nursing research paper on the college essay writing university.
Com is why many of your task if you believe that doesn't guarantee acceptance – many editing and.
Five-Paragraph-Essay: write a lot for graduate school, articles, we'll be approached in graduate school essay writers offering variety of writing to. All graduate school. Phd or university. Whatever it is a thesis to ask for a successful admission essay online writing graduate essay students like. Even after the university.
Put our writers as an. Being an. College of these. Essayedge provides professional writing help you to graduate school personal statement writing service that specialises in seconds! Picking the most considered and research paper can buy dissertation from scratch, and research paper writer services - spend a dissertation online. Paper. Whatever it is an. Best graduate school. Read https://myexpertwriters.com/write-my-dissertation-for-me-uk/ universities usually.
Describe the central argument of the leading graduate school application. English correction service in search of graduate paper now! In helping me essay writing service. Use our writing is. Five-Paragraph-Essay: graduate essay you for their. Best essay editing and ph. How to. Let powerpapers help you can.


Initializes the common language runtime (CLR), locates the managed entry point in the executable assembly's CLR header, and begins execution.
This function is called by the loader in processes created from managed executable assemblies. For DLL assemblies, the loader calls the _CorDllMain function instead.
The operating system loader calls this method regardless of the entry point specified in the image file.
In Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, and Windows 2000, the _CorExeMain function is called indirectly through a fixup in the operating system loader. In all other versions of Windows, it is called directly by the operating system loader.
For additional information, see the Remarks section in the _CorValidateImage topic.


Oct 21, 2018- Party ideas for girl 1st birthdays including birthday cakes, party decorations, and party foods. #1stbirthday #girl1stbirthday #girlbirthday See more . Oct 20, 2018- 1st birthday party ideas for boy and girl birthdays — birthday cakes, birthday party decorations, party snacks, smash cakes, party dresses. See more . 16 มี.ค.


text:
The Sente Group
Test Transformed
Why Sente
About Sente
Transforming the Business of Test®
Sente Website Terms and Conditions of Use
1. Terms By accessing this website, you are agreeing to be bound by these website Terms and Conditions of Use, all applicable laws and regulations, and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. If you do not agree with any of these terms, you are prohibited from using or accessing this site. The materials contained in this website are protected by applicable copyright and trade mark law.
2. Use License Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on The Sente Group's website for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only. This is the grant of a license, not a transfer of title, and under this license you may not:
attempt to decompile or reverse engineer any software contained on The Sente Group's website;
This license shall automatically terminate if you violate any of these restrictions and may be terminated by The Sente Group at any time. Upon terminating your viewing of these materials or upon the termination of this license, you must destroy any downloaded materials in your possession whether in electronic or printed format.
3. Disclaimer The materials on The Sente Group's website are provided "as is". The Sente Group makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights. Further, The Sente Group does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials on its Internet website or otherwise relating to such materials or on any sites linked to this site.
4. Limitations In no event shall The Sente Group or its suppliers be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of data or profit, or due to business interruption,) arising out of the use or inability to use the materials on The Sente Group's Internet site, even if The Sente Group or a The Sente Group authorized representative has been notified orally or in writing of the possibility of such damage. Because some jurisdictions do not allow limitations on implied warranties, or limitations of liability for consequential or incidental damages, these limitations may not apply to you.
5. Revisions and Errata The materials appearing on The Sente Group's website could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. The Sente Group does not warrant that any of the materials on its website are accurate, complete, or current. The Sente Group may make changes to the materials contained on its website at any time without notice. The Sente Group does not, however, make any commiTMent to update the materials.
6. Links The Sente Group has not reviewed all of the sites linked to its Internet website and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by The Sente Group of the site. Use of any such linked website is at the user's own risk.
7. Site Terms of Use Modifications The Sente Group may revise these terms of use for its website at any time without notice. By using this website you are agreeing to be bound by the then current version of these Terms and Conditions of Use.
8. Governing Law Any claim relating to The Sente Group's website shall be governed by the laws of the State of Georgia without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
© 2019 The Sente Group. All rights reserved.
About | Privacy | Sitemap


text:
UMP Institutional Repository
Lipase Production and Optimization from Bioremediation of Disposed Engine Oil
Mahmood, Mahmood H. and Yang, Zhi and Thanoon, Raid D. and Makky, Essam A. and Mohd Hasbi, Ab. Rahim (2017) Lipase Production and Optimization from Bioremediation of Disposed Engine Oil. Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research (JOCPR), 9 (6). pp. 26-36. ISSN 0975-7384
JOCPR_2017.pdf
DOI/Official URL: http://www.jocpr.com/abstract/lipase-production-an...
Engine oil is one of the several refined products of crude oil made up of long- chain saturated hydrocarbon (base oil) additives. There are several ways engine oil can enter the environment, such as leaking oil tanks, cleaning of tanks by merchants, warships carrying engine oil, as well as the activities of auto mechanics. Engine oil is a common industrial waste that has harmful environmental and health effects. This study aims to produce lipase enzyme from disposed engine oil (DEO) using a microbial degradation approach. The hydrocarbon-degrading bacterium, GS-3 was isolated from an oil-contaminated area in Kuantan, the capital city of Pahang, a state in Malaysia. Upon GC-MS analysis, it was revealed that GS-3 was able to produce methyl-3, 4, 5-trimethoxy-2, 6-dinitrobenzoate, an organic acid from the DEO. Besides, GS-3 recorded the highest lipase activity of 0.097 ± 0.007 U/ml/min within the first 24 h of activity, using DEO as the only carbon source. The FTIR data revealed the presence of a new broadband at 3421 cm-1 wavelength attributed to the stretching of the O-H group, though a new band occurred at 3424 cm-1 and 1645 cm-1 wavelength after the bioremediation process. The subsequent optimization of the process parameters for the production of lipase revealed that the bacteria perform optimally when the DEO was used as the sole carbon source at the concentration of 4% (v/v), with pH and temperature values of 7.0 and 30°C, respectively. Urea was the best source of nitrogen within the first 24 h of incubation; the addition of Tween 80, a surfactant, enhanced the production of lipase. In conclusion, lipase enzyme production through a microbial process could be a better way to manage DEO and other oil-related environmental contaminants.
Bioremediation; Disposed engine oil; Lipase production; Optimization
Q Science > Q Science (General)
Q Science > QR Microbiology
Faculty/Division:
Faculty of Industrial Sciences And Technology
Dr. Essam A. Makky
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/19674
Download Statistic:
View Download Statistics
browse by types
UMP IR Submission Form


text:
Diversity and Occasional Anarchy: The Key to a Great City From the Causes of Apartheid to the Failures of Minimum Wage
Cities, Human Capital and Economic Development
Understanding economic development is the Holy Grail of all economic studies. No theory has yet explained the rise of real incomes per capita in Britain by a factor of about 16 from the 18th century to the present and, in contrast, the remarkable increase in China by a factor of 6 within a span of just 30 years. If China continues at this rate then it will have achieved in 50 years what took Britain 200 years to accomplish. And if we can understand the mechanisms for this development then maybe it can be duplicated elsewhere, in countries still on the brink of economic development.
Economic Role of the City
According to an old story, a servant asked his lord to be paid by placing a penny on the first square of a chess board, two pennies on the second square, four on the third, etc. If the servant had requested the use of the white squares only, the initial penny would have doubled in value thirty one times, leaving $21.5 million on the last white square. Using both the black and the white squares would have grown the penny to $92,000,000 billion. This is the beauty of compounding operations – they are simply astounding! The choice between a payment that doubles with every square on the chess board and one that doubles with every other square is more important than any other part of the agreement between the servant and his lord. For an economy, the choices that determine whether incomes double with every generation, or instead with every other generation, dwarf all other economic policy concerns.
In this article I shall emphasize the common elements in the works of Jane Jacobs and Professor Robert Lucas on economic development and in the process hopefully help fix ideas about Hong Kong as a city.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Jane Jacobs gained a formidable reputation as a defender of the city against the planners and architects who promoted urban renewal in the form of sterile housing projects. She contemptuously cast aside contemporary urban planning and promoted the dynamic qualities of city neighborhoods. She then went on to write several books that dealt primarily with economics. In The Economy of Cities (1969) and Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984) she advanced a thesis on economic development that is remarkably fresh and provocative.
For Jacobs, cities rather than nations are the originators of wealth creation. The unit of "macroeconomic" analysis should be the city not the nation-state. She says: "It affronts common sense, if nothing else, to think of units as disparate as, say, Singapore and the United States, or Ecuador and the Soviet Union, or the Netherlands and Canada, as economic common denominators. All they really have in common is the political fact of sovereignty." And she chided economists for drawing the assumption that economies could be analyzed as national aggregates.
Jacobs established the primacy of cities over the rural economies. Cities do not develop because of a pre-existing rural economic base that eventually becomes wealthy enough to support parasitic urban growth. Instead, she argues, cities drive rural economies by providing an urban market for rural products. Enterprises in rural economies produce goods that are already in demand in the established urban centers. These rural enterprises depend heavily on the services based in cities for loans and supplies. Developing the urban economy benefits rural economies because most rural economies are inevitably and inextricably linked to the urban economy, but doing the opposite can have no significant long term effect if the larger urban economy continues to stagnate. It is the rural economy that depends on the city, not the reverse. For the same reason, Jacobs sees large housing projects that create satellite towns on the outskirts of the urban city as akin to rural economies that can never become self-sustaining.
Jacobs's central theme is that economic development is a process by which a group of cities that engaged in trade with each other create "new work" to add to the work already underway. Cities grow by gradually diversifying and differentiating their economies. The process starts with exports and their suppliers, and later as "import-replacement" – a process of producing locally those goods and services that were previously imported.
Free Lunches in Knowledge
City economies are sustained by their position as the source of innovative economic change. Progress depends on having a large number of individuals and enterprises whose diversities and interactions generate a highly valuable spillover effect. The process of creating new things, or reinventing old things, demands the solution of two problems. First, the innovator must gather information and with experience and intelligence see it in a novel and useful way; in a word, innovate. This may require of lot of work or a lot of luck or a bit of both. But that is not always necessary if the person is placed in an environment that provides ample information and stimulation.
Jacobs's favorite example of innovation is the story on the invention of the brassiere. New York custom seamstress Mrs. Ida Rosenthal invented the brassiere to solve a problem she had encountered with customers. She found that her dresses did not fit well over her customers' existing undergarments. The invention was based on the same available technological skills and components that she had employed as a seamstress and were easily found in the city. It is significant that the brassiere was not invented by the lingerie industry and this shows how ideas can flow across industry boundaries.
Second, the city environment facilitates the commercialization of discovered knowledge. This means those who discover the knowledge and those who can make profitable use of it must first find each other; in a word, diffusion. A major source of new economic activity and wealth lies in finding new uses for existing technology. Employees at existing enterprises will learn how those enterprises work, and over time some will have great ideas about how to produce a new product or service based on their existing knowledge. Some of them will leave to start their own companies and implement those ideas. The ability to break away is an essential part of developing new economic activities.
What Jacobs sees in innovative economic changes is what economists call dynamic externalities. These are spillover effects that allow aggregate social returns to become greater than the sum of all individual private returns. For Jacobs innovation is always city-generated and is stimulated by the proximity of people, industry and information in the urban setting.
Existing employers may see the breakaways as employee free-riding behavior. They may try to prevent potential competitors from breaking away through binding contractual arrangements. Preventing free-riding on discoveries is necessary to encourage innovators to make discoveries. At the same time a great deal of economic development springs from word-of-mouth, imitation, and various kinds of free riding behavior. Encouraging the discovery and diffusion of knowledge for promoting economic activities is a complex process with many conflicting interests and incentives. Jacobs is aware of the conflicts between avoiding free-riding and fostering dynamic externalities, but believes the city presents the best competitive environment for mediating this perpetual tension. The fact that Mrs. Rosenthal was a seamstress and was not employed by the lingerie industry may have actually worked in her favor and in the favor of her present and future customers.
But once again, Jacobs identifies a catch: That the most effective way of developing successful innovations is based initially on small, often individual, effort, which is usually chaotic, inefficient, highly risky, and subject to high rates of failure – factors that appear just plain ridiculous. However, most existing private and public loan and economic development programs focus their efforts and resources on enterprises that can prove, under the existing conditions, that they are feasible, efficient, have a high chance of success, and so on. But if one has just invented a brassiere, how can one prove it will be widely marketable? There is no past experience with brassiere marketing to turn to; it is simply a good idea that Mrs. Rosenthal believes will catch on if she is able to produce them in quantity, and that a few of her pre-existing customers happen to like. This is rarely enough for a bank or government loan program, even one ostensibly oriented towards rewarding innovation.
A most telling example is Boston and its surrounding region. In its very early days the city was a creative metropolis. But its citizens lost their drive as the local third and fourth generation rich limited their energies to minding safe financial investments. The popular explanation for the stagnating Boston economy was that cheaper labor in Georgia and elsewhere in the American South had made New England permanently uncompetitive. The explanation seemed entirely too defeatist to Ralph Flanders. In 1946 he and a few of his moneyed friends formed a venture capital company to make $4 million available to small Boston enterprises. The Flanders group had no preconceived ideas of what they were doing. They were quite surprised when the first applicants for capital were three young scientists who, using their relatives' savings, sought to start a high technology enterprise. The presence of universities such as Harvard, M.I.T., and Tufts guaranteed the supply of personnel for the growth of high tech companies that followed, and new enterprises moved out of Boston proper to take advantage of cheap rental space along the now fabled Route 128.
Failures of the Neoclassical Growth Model
For almost 20 years Jacobs's work had no perceptible impact on the economics profession until they were cited in Robert Lucas's "On the Mechanics of Economic Development" (1988). Lucas went on to win the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics. An earlier version of his paper had been in circulation since 1985 when it was first delivered as a Marshall Lecture at Cambridge University. This was more than a decade after I had heard Lucas discuss Jacobs's ideas in a class in 1975. Lucas used as illustration the intense arguments faculty members often have over the recruitment of new hires as reflecting the importance of spillover benefit effects arising from potential complementarities in the hires. It was obvious even then that Lucas was intrigued by Jacobs's ideas of the interactions among persons and enterprises as a source of dynamic externality to construct a model of economic growth.
Lucas's 1988 paper successfully addressed two very important failures of the standard neoclassical model of economic growth. First, the standard model predicted that poor countries should grow faster than rich countries. This unfortunately was false as the majority of poor nations had remained poor relative to rich countries throughout the post-World War II era. No, or little, convergence had taken place. Second, in the absence of technological progress per capita income would cease growing after reaching the steady state level. But there was no explanation as to how technological progress would take place, other than by assertion, for otherwise it would be impossible to explain why rich countries continue to grow.
Lucas showed how the standard model of economic growth can be extended and altered to explain better the observed patterns of economic growth among nations. He introduced human capital into the standard model. First, he assumed that with effort human capital can be acquired without limit. This very plausible assumption is well supported by numerous studies of schooling, health care and on-the-job training. Introducing this feature allows economies to grow without slowing as they become richer, a possibility that the standard model denied.
Second, he assumed that higher average levels of human capital in an economy raise the level of productivity of everybody in that economy, not just the productivity of those whose human capital is higher. In other words, human capital skills are considered to be complementary and this introduces a dynamic externality into the model.
Testing for Dynamic Externalities
The dynamic externality arising from human capital emerges in the following manner. A person can exert effort, pay some cost, and acquire more human capital. With a higher level of human capital this person's personal productivity increases and so will his earnings. In addition, the average level of human capital in the economy is also increased and it causes everybody's productivity to rise. This productivity-enhancing effect is not reflected in increases to their personal earnings and is therefore an externality effect. Allowing economies to have different levels of human capital means those economies that are initially poor will remain poor relative to the initially rich economies. This is because rich economies can gain more from the externality effect than poor economies can. Catching up is therefore not implied in the new growth model.
Lucas recognized that just building externality effects into a model is a black box explanation and does not reveal anything about the actual channels or mechanisms by which they occur in the real world. In Jacobs's work he already had the answer. He says: "I will be following very closely the lead of Jane Jacobs, whose remarkable book The Economy of Cities seems to me mainly and convincingly concerned (although she does not use this terminology) with the external effects of human capital."
Lucas's ringing endorsement of Jacobs's idea led finally to her discovery by economists. The presence of dynamic externalities was tested in the paper "Growth in Cities" (1991) using US data for the six most important industries in 170 metropolitan areas between 1956 and 1987. The paper tested three theories. One theory was Michael Porter's thesis The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990) which suggested that competitive firms within a concentrated single-industry cluster provided the best structure for successful growth. Another theory associated with Paul Romer (1986) suggested that while single-industry clusters were most conducive to the spread of knowledge the incentives to produce knowledge were less among competitive firms than among monopolists or near-monopolists. The third theory was Jane Jacobs's notion that new ideas and knowledge spread about most readily in cities with competitive, not monopolistic, businesses and with a diversity of business. Unlike Porter or Romer, diversity, not single-industry clusters, was important. The results of the study showed that competition was more conducive to growth than monopoly and that a diverse city economy was better than one with a concentration of a few industries. The evidence is thus negative on Romer, mixed on Porter, and consistent with Jacobs.
Lucas has reaffirmed in a subsequent article "Ideas and Growth" (2009) his belief in the Jacobs idea. He states: "But my own sense is that patents and 'intellectual property' more generally play a very modest role in the overall growth of production-related knowledge. I have sought a formulation that emphasizes individual contributions of large numbers of people, in which the role of market power is minimized."
Jacobs's and Lucas's arguments contain deep truths and wisdom for rejuvenating a city that is full of possibilities, but is growing tired and susceptible to living on handouts.
Some Policy Implications for Hong Kong
A population policy that seeks to attract more talent to Hong Kong can only be beneficial for all if economic growth results from dynamic externalities produced by human capital. To date this has been more talk than substance. With the ageing population knocking on the door we clearly should be planning for a much larger and better population mix. To attract migrants and contracted non-local workers based on their capacity to produce and innovate, rather than merely the assets or spending power they command.
The latest policy insanity is to slow down the flow of Mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong just when the education standards of these mothers have finally approached the equivalent of those in Hong Kong. Children born today will join the labor force in twenty years when Hong Kong's ageing problem has reached its peak.
Hong Kong has experienced over 50 years of rapid economic growth. Many of our retiring entrepreneurs and executives are in a great position to follow Ralph Flanders's lead in Boston by creating the equivalent of a Route 128 here in Hong Kong. There is no lack of scientific and engineering manpower in our universities to support this; almost a third of our graduates come from the disciplines of science and engineering. The last thing we should expect is government funding in this area. Its committees will not choose the right companies, and the gifted or promising enterprises that need support will not apply thanks to the cumbersome procedures and endless application forms.
Government too has an important role to play in facilitating the conversion of old factory space in the community so as to make it more available to and affordable for start-ups and small businesses. For all practical purposes zoning restriction by use is already obsolete. The current application and approval process is still too cumbersome and the outcomes too uncertain.
Yes, investments in education and health are obviously relevant, but I shall save this for another article.
An examination of the institutions that have existed for 1000 years results in essentially three types: religion, universities and cities. The list does not include any governments or businesses. Cities have enormous vitality. Their lights are difficult to switch off, but this does not mean their needs should be ignored.
Edward Glaeser, Hedi Kallal, Jose Scheinkman, Andrei Shleifer, "Growth in Cities", Journal of Political Economy, December 1992
Robert E Lucas, Jr. "On the Mechanics of Economic Development", Journal of Monetary Economics, July, 1988
Robert E Lucas, Jr. "Ideas and Growth", Economica, February, 2009
Paul Romer, "Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth", Journal of Political Economy, October, 1986


Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter do contribute to the success of today's businesses (just how much is up for debate as it varies for every initiative).
What many of the most successful companies concentrate on, however, is the development of their own communities and the value these assets can provide to their brand's bottom line. Developing and managing a community isn't easy of course, requiring an immense amount of financial and personnel resources. As a result, the expectations are often quite low about what such initiatives can offer a business. That belief, however, may be completely off the mark.
Among the key findings of a recent report (The State of Community Management 2016) from The Community Roundtable, respondents disproved the "90-9-1 rule" of social media engagement, which claims just 1% of users are active content creators, while 9% contribute to content and 90% lurk on the sidelines.
For the third consecutive year, communities reported numbers closer to 65-15-20, with more than a third of members actively creating and contributing to content. Set aside inactive members who never log in, and the percentage of actively engaged members in communities rises to between 40% and 50% - in both employee and customer communities.


text:
Michael H. Hunt: How Beijing Sees Us: Policy Insights from the Past
Posted by MHHunt on 11 January 2012, 10:11 am
[This article is crossposted at the author's website, michaelhunt.web.unc.edu.]
What is China going to do? Now that our Middle East wars are winding down, this question has fixated the U.S. policy community and policy commentators. Even aspirants for high political office feel compelled to have an answer. Will a rising China accommodate to international norms and institutions or try to reshape or undermine them? Is Beijing predisposed to cooperate with countries along its long land and maritime border, or will it seek domination? Are the Chinese bent on displacing the United States as number one internationally, or will they limit their aspirations the better to focus on domestic affairs?
While everybody has an opinion, no one has a compelling answer. And with good reason. China's Communist leaders make their decisions behind closed doors so outsiders are necessarily left in the dark. In any case leaders at the top may not have a shared, coherent notion of the path ahead. And even if they do, their plans like all plans are hostage to contingent events.
If the future is fuzzy, the past is not. A substantial historical literature offers solidly grounded insight on how Chinese officials and commentators have viewed the United States from the nineteenth century to the 1970s. (The single most helpful work is David Arkush and Leo Lee's Land without Ghosts; for other relevant works see the bibliographical essay in the forthcoming Arc of Empire: American Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam.) Let me suggest three conclusions drawn from my reading of that literature. Each is pertinent to any attempt to interpret recent developments and predict the future.
First, Chinese views are not free floating, constructed from thin air, or fixed. Since the outset of the twentieth century they have shifted in a way that corresponds closely to phases in the U.S. drive to stake out territorial positions on the western side of the Pacific. (This is the subject of Arc of Empire.) As the drive took shape, Chinese observers shifted from ambivalent to distinctly hostile.
The older, ambivalent view had been heavily influenced by American missionaries and the relative U.S. passivity in the imperial game. Early in the nineteenth century, officials along the coast counted U.S. envoys "most respectful and obedient" while foreign affairs intellectuals saw in the new nation an admirable development model characterized by sage rulers and rapid economic growth. These positive views were qualified by visitors shocked by political corruption, racial violence, and improper gender relations.
The U.S. seizure of the Philippines, the crushing of nationalist resistance there, and the transformation of the Caribbean into a U.S. zone of control fed a sense of the disillusionment and threat nicely captured in an essay from 1901 (quoted in Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, 64). It reported Americans were in the process of betraying their founding principles "in order to compete on the world stage with the other powers." They had made their ambitions clear in their decision "to swallow Cuba, annex Hawaii, defeat Spain, and take over Luzon [the Philippines]" and also to join in "the allied troop assault on our country" against the Boxers.
These views became part of an international affairs literature that placed the United States within a "robber's world" in which the great powers victimized weak countries like China. This perspective was popularized by the influential public intellectual Liang Qichao, reinforced by blatant discrimination against Chinese in the United States, embraced by the young Mao Zedong on the eve of his conversion to Marxism in 1919, reflected in attacks on the unequal treaties, and accepted by observers across the political spectrum by the 1920s.
The rising Japanese threat between 1905 and 1945 moderated suspicions of U.S. imperialism. But Chinese views turned back to the distinctly hostile after 1945. The common enemy was gone, and Washington became active all along China's periphery, working with colonial regimes (most notably the French in Indochina) as well as with regional clients (the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea). Amidst rising Cold War tensions, The Truman administration marked Beijing as part of a global Communist threat. The counterpoint to U.S. encroachment was Mao Zedong's determination to "beat American arrogance" and thus demonstrate that "weak and oppressed" countries could fight back and shape their own destiny. These concerns lay behind substantial commitments that Beijing made in 1950 in Vietnam and Korea and again in Vietnam in the early 1960s.
Chinese views again moderated in the 1970s. The U.S. retreat from South Vietnam and President Richard Nixon's scaling down of U.S. ambitions (the Nixon doctrine) played a role. So too did the gradual weakening of the U.S. global position in relative and absolute terms. But an unsettled U.S. policy over the last four decades has left Chinese perceptions unsettled. The Nixonian approach meant acceptance of China as a world power with legitimate interests to pursue in a multi-polar world. On the other hand, a lingering Cold War conception of China as an ideological mutant to be contained and ultimately transformed by U.S. pressure has generated tensions over human rights and the state's role in economic development, the legitimacy of settler colonialism on China's vast inner-Asian periphery, and of course the future of Taiwan. The U.S. insistence on the universality of its norms and values collides with a long standing Chinese preoccupation with securing respect due a cultural giant and maintaining a sprawling, multi-cultural territory. At the same time, Washington's attempt to shore up slipping regional influence is at odds with Beijing's concern with coastal security, regional influence, and claims to Taiwan.
Second, Chinese readings of the United States cannot be considered in isolation. They should be seen in the context of an evolving nationalism. A rich literature made easily accessible in Lloyd Kramer's Nationalism in Europe and America stresses the ways nationalism is subject to constant debate and redefinition, the critical role the state plays in the nationalist program, and the importance of dangerous outsiders in defining the nation and galvanizing the faithful.
The early-twentieth-century picture of the United States as a threat was the work of intellectuals committed to saving China from its deepening crisis and focused on creating a strong, secure, stable state. Their views gained more and more converts but their nationalist aspirations were not fully expressed in state policy until the Communist victory in 1949.
Once nationalists got their strong state, opposition to the United States took on more emphatic form. Beijing dominated the manufacture and circulation of ideas about the United States, especially during the long Cold War confrontation with the United States (1949-1971). The stand taken against the United States in Korea and Vietnam demonstrated the new state's capacity for military and social mobilization and yielded successes that fed Chinese confidence in its role as the leading regional power. Views of the U.S. threat circulated widely and penetrated deeply into Chinese society conveyed by party propagandists using in all sorts of cultural forms from posters to plays to movies. So charged did images of the United States become that getting labeled pro-U.S. was tantamount to exclusion from the national community.
Perceptions as the sole province of the party-state may be weakening as vast social and economic changes have unfolded in recent decades and opened up the contest over national identity. A civil society is emerging in a more urbanized country with a more educated citizenry exposed to trans-national forces and drawn to a consumer lifestyle.
The rise of consumer values may be particularly important. They have altered the outlook of Americans and Europeans over the last half century. Citizens have come to be defined to a substantial degree by their role as consumers, and the state has increasingly made its business guaranteeing prosperity and the quality of goods and services and otherwise staying out of the way of consumer pursuits. This has meant making military service voluntary, keeping taxes low so as not to impinge on discretionary income, and in general letting individual choice trump collective needs or obligations.
Sizable and influential chunks of the Chinese population appear to be well embarked on a consumer path (to be sure with Chinese characteristics) with important implications for how Chinese see themselves and reciprocally other countries. How much might the new consumer citizen be willing to sacrifice the good life for emergency controls and military regimentation? How much might popular preferences even now inhibit party leaders? An emergent consumer society may well transform China's state-dominated nationalism, and a consumer-inflected nationalism may in turn shape views of the United States.
Finally, while Chinese intellectuals and policymakers have had no trouble figuring out what U.S. actions meant to their nationalist project, they have struggled to find a good explanation for American behavior. They have repeatedly fallen victim to the commonplace tendency to embrace shallow, simplistic interpretations. Behind what Americans said and did there had to be some some rational calculation or material interest that might in turn provide clues for anticipating their next moves and manipulating their behavior.
This search for answers dates back to the early nineteenth century when it was thought foreigners came to Canton to trade for goods on which their very survival depended. It assumed more sophisticated form at the beginning of the twentieth century in Liang Qichao's widely retailed reports of a capitalist leviathan bent on devouring the China market and in Qing officials' conviction that they could turn to their own advantage American avarice or resentment over the gains made by rivals in China.
Reading these foreigners proved no easier for Communist leaders. For example, in a meeting on 17 November 1968 Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai attempted to fathom why Americans were fighting in Vietnam. Mao confessed, "I still have not understood why the U.S. imperialists went to Southeast Asia and what interests the American capitalists found there." He toyed with the notion that they were bent on exploiting natural resources such as oil, rubber, and tea but then on reflection concluded, "I do not think that the US needs food or plants." He then tried another tack. "[I]mperialists [like the United States] must have colonies. They want countries like ours [to] become their colonies. Before, China used to be a semi-colony of imperialists for over 100 years. What did they rob us of? China's technology and agriculture did not develop." At this point Zhou helpfully volunteered, "They robbed materials." But when Mao asked "what materials?" the best Zhou could offer was "soybean." Mao was back to square one with the only certainty that capitalists were behind everything including (he observed) the antiwar movement in the United States. Mao's one-dimensional picture and the perplexity it created (recorded in 77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders, pp. 144 and 198) may be striking but it is hardly unusual in international politics, especially where one party tries to read the world view of another across a broad cultural divide.
Subjecting Chinese images to historical scrutiny yields insights for those in the U.S. policy community. Their Chinese counterparts operate within a hardy frame of reference that is closely attuned to what Americans do. That frame of reference has been distinctly nationalist and, during the second half of of the twentieth century, state-dominated. While images of the United States are likely to remain tied to nationalist preoccupations, the massive cultural and societal changes generated by post-Mao developments are likely to generate views outside the ambit of the state. The final insight is that at every turn Chinese observers and leaders have failed to penetrate the cultural and ideological sources of American action in Asia. The chances are good that our motives will continue to puzzle.
Of course, U.S. policymakers don't have to pay attention to the past. Indeed, the historical record suggests that those at the highest level won't or that they will use the past selectively and superficially to fit preconceived policy goals. Strange how policymakers who like to describe themselves as realists can neglect an invaluable resource and attempt to manage a rising China with their eyes only half open.
Acknowledgments: A Hudson Institute workshop on Chinese views of the United States prompted me to formulate the propositions presented here. Thanks to the workshop organizer, Christopher Ford, for a stimulating session.
Michael H. Hunt is Everett H. Emerson Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His latest book, co-authored with Steven I. Levine, is Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam (forthcoming March 2012). His ten previous books include The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance and A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives. His comments "on Washington and the world" appear here regularly and can also be found on his website.
Filed under American History, Asian Studies, Columnists, History, Michael H. Hunt, Political Science	| Tagged american foreign policy, china, korea, michael hunt, phillippines, vietnam	| Permalink
« DocSouth Books are now available!
Essential tools for teaching international and global studies »


text:
+44 (0) 845 1 700 300
info@heavytorque.co.uk
Interested in subscribing?
Click here to sign up and receive four bumper issues of HeavyTorque before its general release!
Issue 20 (OCTOBER 2019)
Issue 19 (JULY 2019)
Issue 18 (APRIL 2019)
Issue 17 (JANUARY 2019)
ISSUE 9 (JANUARY 2017)
ISSUE 8 (OCTOBER 2016)
ISSUE 7 (JULY 2016)
ISSUE 6 (APRIL 2016)
The Heavies
To search, type and hit enter.
AND THE WINNER IS... YOU!
YOUR CHANCE TO ENTER TWO AWARDS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
UK HEAVY TRANSPORT COMPANIES OF ALL SIZES ARE BEING ENCOURAGED TO CELEBRATE THEIR SUCCESSES BY ENTERING TWO FANTASTIC AWARDS EVENTS
Alongside one of the biggest and most established international events, the ESTA Users' Night and Awards, comes, for the first time, HeavyTorque's new industry awards, The Heavies – proudly supporting the HTA.
The prestigious ESTA awards takes place every spring and attracts around 500 guests from around the world. The 2015 event is to be held on Thursday April 23 during the Intermat exhibition in Paris at the Hilton Hotel, Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The HTA works closely with ESTA – the European Association for Abnormal Road Transport and Mobile Cranes – and is one of the organisation's UK representatives along with the Construction Plant-hire Association. HTA Secretary John Dyne is one of the 2015 ESTA jurors.
ESTA's awards have has been steadily increasing in size and reputation in recent years and next year's awards ceremony is expected to be among the biggest yet. Winners in 2014 included Collett and ALE from the UK, Fagioli from Italy and Mammoet, Sarens and Wagenborg Nedlift from the Netherlands.
The deadline for entries is January 17, but ESTA is encouraging companies to try and get their entries in early, to help ease the pressure on the organisers.
ESTA President David Collett said: "The ESTA evening has become firmly established as one of the main events of the year. It is a great chance to meet old friends and business colleagues from different parts of Europe, to make new contacts and celebrate the industry's achievements and new developments. It is also a great opportunity to debate and to learn from each other and to consider how we can make the whole industry safer and more efficient throughout Europe."
To complement this exciting event we are this year delighted to be able to introduce The Heavies, a dedicated industry event that recognises excellence throughout the heavy and abnormal load sector.
Hosted by Quentin Willson, TV personality, motoring journalist and founder and campaigner for FairFuelUK, and organised in support of the Heavy Transport Association (HTA), The Heavies is a platform to reward those organisations of all sizes making a significant contribution to the effective and efficient running of the industry.
Entries are welcome from all manner of companies and organisations operating within this niche sector, including sole traders. Prize winners – including escorters, leading figures, policy-makers, buyers, manufacturers and suppliers – will be honoured for their achievements as industry operators, recognising their innovation, outstanding service, efficiency and quality.
The black tie awards ceremony will take place on the evening of 27 March 2015. Set in the impressive surroundings of Hangar 42, Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground, the venue offers a unique opportunity for sponsors to exhibit and showcase their latest technological innovation to an audience of existing customers and future prospects alike.
The deadline for entries is 14 January 2015, and the shortlist will be announced on 03 February 2015.
Heavy Transport Association chairman John Rodell said: "As a specialist sector it's important that we work together as members of it. Part of that includes having the chance to get together while providing recognition of some great work taking place. The Heavies will do just that and should prove to be a fantastic occasion. I look forward to catching up with friends old and new on the night."
For further information about either event, and to see the full list of award categories, visit:
www.esta-eu.org
www.theheavies.heavytorque.co.uk
Submitting a nomination involves simply completing an online form, and organisers are encouraging people to enter both awards to ensure the good work taking place is showcased to as wide an audience as possible.
Enjoyed the read? Well... here's a few more features we've cherry-picked - just for you!
MACK & SPECIAL TRANSPORT DAY
36 years ago, Willem Kuiper started a Mack Show on the streets of his home town, Abcoude. Now it's a sell-out next to the Amsterdam Arena
Highlights from this year's massive Bauma show in Munich
THE HEAVIES 2017
All the winners from this year's celebration of the industry's finest
696,669 Published Words, 21 Magazines and 276 Features
and growing every day.
Nimble Publishing Ltd, 6 Burley Corner, Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6DU
subscribe@heavytorque.co.uk
© 2020 Copyright HeavyTorque. All Rights ReservedBuy MagazineCookie Policy
Proudly delivered by Safedata Logistics.


Working here at Almo we are exposed to hundreds of different products and interact on a very personal level with many of our top manufacturers. We quite possibly have more manufacturer trainings than any other company in our industry, however it is not every day that we actually get to handle and use the products that we sell. Spec sheets can offer a lot but they don't always convey the true performance of a particular product.
Although it is our customers that are out in the field installing these products, I do on many occasions throughout the year get to have hands-on experience with a lot of gear whether it is at one of the Almo E4 AV Tour events, InfoComm, or the International Signage Expo. At our E4 events we set up all of the training rooms and have had the chance over the last five years to use several different projectors, in both the short-throw and installation categories.
For our 2014 E4 tours Epson provided the projector hardware so over the course of the year I got familiar with their units. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the higher end features found on the less expensive short throw models that I haven't seen from other vendors like image shift and corner correction making it a breeze to perfectly match the image to the screen which can be particularly challenging in ultra-short-throw applications. For our larger rooms we used their high end Pro G series projectors with an optional short throw zoom lens in a rear projection setting. With a very generous lens shift and features like digital corner correction and image shift it only took a few minutes to get everything perfectly aligned.
The real highlight though was once we had content being shown on the projectors. The images popped and were bright with accurate colors. Surprisingly, these images were brighter than I had seen from other projectors we used in the past that actually boasted a higher brightness rating on their spec sheet than the Epson. I am now a believer in the importance of Color Light Output or Color Brightness. For more detailed information please visit: www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Landing/bright-projector-colors.do.


This week, we have been exploring the mathematics of music with a homemade PVC pipe xylophone! This was one of those projects that sort of evolved. The boys have been enjoying blowing into PVC pipe and making all kinds of crazy noises. They have noticed that longer pipes make a lower noise than shorter pipes. We decided to try making some instruments with different lengths of pipe to make different notes, BUT we discovered that the pitch changes when you blow harder or softer on the same size pipe.
After a little googling, I found these awesome instruments that people make out of PVC pipe and play with some type of mallet, such as a foam bat. Striking the pipe gives a consistent pitch (as opposed to blowing into the pipe, which didn't). Blowing across the pipe would probably give a consistent pitch, but with the ages we have, we are not that coordinated!
I started out with five pipes – C (below middle C), E, G, C, D. They sounded good together, but we couldn't play them unless someone was holding them up. And since none of us have five hands, we had to assemble a few "someones" and get them to stand still and hold the pipes…not too practical! If you set the pipe directly on the ground so that the open bottom of the pipe touches the ground, it changes the pitch. So we needed some type of stand. Since we were going to the trouble of making the stand, I went back to Lowe's for more pipe and made an 8 octave scale. My scale did not turn out to be a C major scale although it sounds great – more on that in a minute!
One of the Youtube videos that I watched recommended playing the PVC xylophone with cheap rubber flip flops as mallets. We didn't have any flip flops on hand, so I used a fly swatter. I cut out a piece of sticky-back craft foam the same size as the swatter and covered it with that. The foam eliminates the noise of the fly swatter hitting the pipe. Anything hard used as a mallet will add its own sound to the instrument as the plastic strikes the pipe. The foam covered fly swatter ended up being PERFECT!
Want to build one? Even if you don't have the patience, musical ear, or desire to create exact musical notes, it's still SUPER fun to cut pipes of different lengths and compare the sounds. Your kids will love exploring with this. Add in some other junk instruments (trash can lids, etc.) and create a whole percussion section!
If you want to create a musical scale, keep reading.
I used mainly 2 inch pipe. The top three notes are 1 1/4 inch and 1 1/2 inch pipe, only because we were using up what we had on hand. The 2 inch pipe has a great sound without being terribly expensive.
A wider pipe does not create a lower sound. The length of the pipe is what changes the pitch. Well, the width is a factor in the pitch as well, but the length is a much bigger factor. A wider pipe does create a louder and more resonant sound, however!
If you want to create specific notes, you will need to calculate the length of your pipes. This site has a formula for calculating pipe length.
I decided to put a 90 degree joint in the longest pipes so that the kids could actually reach them to play – my longest note was over 50 inches! However, once I added the joint, I had to adjust the length of the pipes to account for the joint. At this point, I stopped trying to create "real" notes and just tried to create a scale that was in tune with itself. I ended up with a slightly out of tune B major scale, so I wasn't as far off from C as I thought I was!
I put a different color of duct tape on each pipe. This will allow me to write out songs for the boys to play. They can read color-coded notes.
If you don't care about having a certain scale, feel free to use the lengths that I created. It's a working scale, it's just not perfectly in tune with a piano.
The notes are listed from lowest to highest.
Even if you measure exactly, your pipes will need tuning. Cut your pipes slightly long! Then you can cut off a little more if needed to tune them. If you cut them too short, the note will be too high and then you'll have to start over! I did, however, manage to fix one note that was too high by adding a small ring that I had trimmed off another pipe. I taped it to the bottom of the pipe with duct tape.
This is our mallet. As soon as I find another fly swatter like this (it was a freebie!) I will be making a second one.
I cannot take any credit for this frame! My dad and a friend who was visiting from out of town built and assembled the frame. The design that they came up with is very simple, as lightweight as you can get with something like this, and sturdy.
The pipes are attached with metal brackets that I bought in the plumbing aisle for 58 cents each.
We have all had so much fun exploring our new instrument, and I'm planning to use it for homeschool groups, etc.
This is our fourth post in the STEAM Power blog series – Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math activities for kids.
Be sure to stop by the other posts in this series!
Secret Code Activity from What Do We Do All Day?
What a fabulous idea! I love the xylophone! My brothers are going to have to make that this summer!
Awesome! I so want one of these for my patio for play time.
How fun! This looks like such a fun outdoor activity now that it's getting warmer out!
This is absolutely incredible!!! I've been trying to make chimes out of plumbing parts for ever and this blows my ideas away!
How wide is your stand, also what is the spacing between the pipes?
I do not understand the criteria of pvc.
Allow all the criteria pipeline his?
So cool! We'd like to make a similar instrument and mount it to our toy shed or playground fence at the primary school where I teach. How is the sound if the child strikes the side of the pipe rather than the top? We'd prefer to have it flat against the wall or fence. Thanks!
I will test it out tomorrow, but I don't think you'll get the different pitches by striking the sides. It's the air being compressed in the tube that makes the sound.
will you post the songs that you created?
Did you find all these materials at Home Depot? If not, where?
Yes, all was purchased from Home Depot!
Would it still have a good sound if I used shorter pieces, as if to make them an octave higher?


The St. John's Boys Basketball Program was founded over 40 years ago by Bo Yingling and Larry Baker. The program, thanks to the methodologies put in place by Larry and Bo, works hard to bring out the best in our kids and to help kids succeed.
"Our goal is to teach good sportsmanship and give every child an equal opportunity to play."
"One of the reasons we're so popular is we get everyone involved."


A hetrosexual man admiring another man to an extreme in a non-romantic or sexual way, more having an intense desire to be that other man.
I have the biggest mancrush on Brad Pitt, I wish I could be him.
Get a mancrush mug for your cousin Callisto.
When a straight man has a "crush" on another man, not sexual but kind of idolizing him.
Many straight men end up having man crushes on Johnny Depp (I don't blame them).
Get a Man Crush mug for your cousin Yasemin.
The highest tier of a man's love for another man, without having any sexual want towards the man.
I have a mancrush on Ryan Dunn for being the man.
Get a mancrush mug for your cousin Yasemin.
An intense infatuation of one straight man for another.
Dave really likes Kobe Bryant. He has a total mancrush on him...even though he's 100% straight.
Get a mancrush mug for your daughter-in-law Yasemin.
A man who has a crush on another man without sexual attraction.
"Hey, Ted. I heard you spent the night over at Dave's."
"Yeah, we played twister and scrabble and watched movies, and spent all night talking, bizzatch."
"Dude, you're 35, acting like you're 12, and you're using his language. You've got a man crush."
Get a man crush mug for your mom Helena.
A strong and extremely complicated positive emotion that a straight male feels towards another male. It is by no means homosexual, although it could possibly involve some degree of sexual attraction. This is not the type of sexual attraction that one would actually pursue; it is merely a complex sort of desire out of "fantasy" that is driven by jealousy and/or great admiration.
A 'man crush' can basically be described as not a homosexual lust, but a human lust.
Get a man crush mug for your boyfriend Manafort.
A man having extreme admiration for another man, as though he wants to be him.
First used by radio personality Greg Henson of Detroit's "Motor City Middays"
"I've got one hell of a man crush on Hugh Hefner. He's made all the right moves."
Get a man crush mug for your friend Callisto.