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The solar eclipse that will take place on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 will be a total eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 1.080 that will be visible from a narrow corridor through northern India, eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, Bhutan, the northern tip of Myanmar, central China and the Pacific Ocean, including the Ryukyu Islands, Marshall Islands and Kiribati. Totality will be visible in many cities such as Surat, Varanasi, Patna, Thimphu, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai, as well as over the Three Gorges Dam. A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including most of South East Asia and north-eastern Oceania.
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This solar eclipse is the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the twenty-first century, and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132. Totality will last for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds, with the maximum eclipse occurring in the ocean at 02:35:21 UTC about 100 km south of the Bonin Islands, southeast of Japan. The North Iwo Jima island is the landmass with totality time closest to maximum.
Tags: The Solar Eclipse Sun July 22 2009
It's Thursday morning and I've been working away most of the minutes around the clock with exception of setting aside a little bit of time for sleep and... Watermelon hunting!
I don't know why I'm like this, but, it must simply be part of my genes as a mid-westerner. Every time the sun shines, I have a craving for freshly shucked corn-on-the-cob, you know, when you have to take all those little hairs off the cob and it smells like it has just come off of the stalk! The other thing I love about this time of year are berries. I remember going out with my mum to pick berries from road-side bushes growing up and going home to make jam. (Although, most of the time, I had eaten my bucket of berries by the time we got home.) However, the biggest treat of all about summer was WATERMELONS!
Watermelons seem hard to come by in Scotland. I get the impression that buying watermelons in Scotland probably means that they have been imported from Spain or some remote farm in Africa. So, buying them makes me feel a bit eco-guilty. However, yesterday, I found one at Sainsburys and simply couldn't resist. Shame on me.
This watermelon is nothing like the kind of watermelon you would normally find in the midwest. In fact, it's about 1/4 the size of the watermelon's I remember. It's small (just a little smaller than a football) and I'm almost afraid to cut into it because the anticipation is so great. I wonder if it will be sweet. I'm hoping it will be 'just right'.
I know it sounds silly writing a blog about a watermelon. But, this particular food reminds me of some of the best moments of childhood and the cutting open of the first watermelon of summer was always a very sacred and cherished celebration. Reminding me that the best things in life aren't necessarily 'free', but, they come roughly the price of a watermelon for me!
I think that in a world where there is so much cynicism, it is imperative that we begin to be grateful for these moments and memories. You know, everyone I know seems to have a song that reminds them of something they were doing at some special moment in their life. For me, there was a song for every summer. The songs that we heard on the radio and sang out on the swing-set in the backyard eating watermelon, laughing, and squriting each other with the garden hose. My mum would be roaming around the garden with a rake and we all took turns pushing the lawn mower.
Clearly, growing up, listening to the Jackson Five's "ABC", and then later Crystal Gayle's "Don't it make my Brown Eyes Blue", Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" and "Jungle Boogie", Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" onto Lionel Richie's "Truly" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". The 70s and 80s of Watermelons in the sun either at the public swimming baths or on the 'front porch on the swing 'just a swingin'. How much of my memories have to do with watermelons and music. (Not that I would do 'wa-ter-me-on' on a lip sync in case any of you are wondering.)
So, this morning I'm grateful. Not just for my tiny watermelon from Sainsbury's, but, grateful for the memories and today, I will spend an hour with my watermelon out in my back yard with a notebook writing them all down, in the sun. I hope watermelon's bring me and my family many more memories for years to come! :)
indy x
Tags: Watermelons MJ Lionel Roberta Flack Memories Indiana Gregg
Kerchoonz has been working behind the scenes to bring users a new look and some new tools which will be launched later on this week.First of all, one of the new sections to
Kerchoonz is Kching! Which you will soon be able to find on
http://www.kerchoonz.com/kching . Kching is a new auction and store section where all of our users will be able to sell and buy items through Kerchoonz. This means that bands and artists will be able to sell their cd's and merchandise and users will be able to buy and sell as well. So, if you have a business or even if you want to sell used things that you have around the house, you will be able to use Kching. Your items will show up on your user profile page as well as in the the general Kching store.Another new thing that we are launching this week is our integration with Facebook. From this week forward, you will be able to link your Facebook page to
Kerchoonz so that you can report your activities on kerchoonz to facebook. So, if you write a blog, update your status, or post new music or videos, your facebook friends will also see the link on facebook. There is also an invite feature so that you can invite your facebook friends to come hang out with you on Kerchoonz and they will be able to use their facebook login ID to join Kerchoonz.
We are also introducing a chat and status bar at the bottom of Kerchoonz pages so that you can instantly chat with your friends and navigate around the site whilst you are talking with your buddies instantly. You can see the chat bar at the bottom of the screen grab to the left here. It won't look exactly like this though once it goes live...it will look cooler and have even more functionality.Additionally, we have done a twitter integration that will soon go live that allows you to update your twitter status both to and from twitter and your status updates will show up in both your Kerchoonz feed and your twitter feed and you will be able to tweet any media that you would like to share on twitter directly from Kerchoonz! By the way, you can follow Kerchoonz on twitter:
@kerchoonzOne last thing we've done recently is
K-box. We've recently unveiled an mp3 player accessory that turns surfaces into sound. It connects with any iphone, ipod, laptop, mp3 player, phone, tv, dvd player or gaming unit (as long as it has a headphone or speaker jack) and basically, it's small and portable and you can use it just about anywhere!
You just plug the K-box into your device and set the K-box on any flat surface and the K-box overtakes the surface and turns it into a loudspeaker with bass (that's right, no more tinny sounding mini-speakers, this one does 40-20khz bass and has an average spl of 95Db! So, how cool is that? You can get more info about the K-box at
http://www.kerchoonz.com/kboxAnyway, so that's the new news from Kerchoonz.If you're not already a member, sign-up today! It's going to be very very cool and we're growing like a weed already!!!Love and music, Kerchoonz!
Tags: Kerchoonz Kching Gel Audio Technology Mp3 Accessories Iphone Facebook
Kerchoonz is a new social network that allows you to listen to music for free, but the artists are paid through the advertising revenues generated on the site. Artists will be able to set a price for their downloads and sell them directly from their player. Kerchoonz lets you add music & videos to your playlist and display them on your page, you can connect to your Facebook profile and invite your facebook friends. When you write a blog (like this one) you can publish it to your facebook feed with one click! You will soon be able to have your own store to sell your stuff, so, let's say you have some old stuff in your garage that you'd like to get rid of, put it up for sell in your Kerchoonz store and KChing! Kerchoonz has games, forums, you can start groups, schools, upload videos, and soon will have Twitter integration too so you will be able tweet everything out to the world! It launches officially in only a few weeks, but, you can join now during beta and get some special privileges :)
The K-box is one cool new gadget that turns surfaces into sound! You plug it into your iphone, mp3 player, laptop, television or even portable game device and the K-box becomes a speaker... but, when you set the k-box on a table (or any flat surface), the K-box overtakes the entire surface turning the table into a loudspeaker. The gel audio technology inside the K-box makes this little gadget not just a portable speaker, but a portable speaker with bass! It's the size of an iPhone roughly and puts out an average spl of 95Db at 1m and 40-20KHz depending upon the type of surface you put it on! Pretty cool! You can get the K-box at http://www.kerchoonz.com/kbox
Tags: Kerchoonz K-box Gel Audio Technology Facebook Mp3 Accessories Audio Min-spe
This weekend we're integrating facebook feeds to Kerchoonz.com ! This means that when you write a blog, upload a photo, music, or video to Kerchoonz.com, it will show up in your facebook feed so all your friends over there can see :) yippeee!
We will be working on the twitter integration too so that your status updates turn up at twitter and vice versa! :) loads more happening too!
Lots of love and all the best from Kerchoonz!
x
indy
Tags: Easter Bunnies Jelly Beans Easter 2009 Gifts Fun Weekend's Out On Easte
Social networking site Kerchoonz.com has once again set the bar for
independent music by paying artists each time fans listen to their
music through its latest Kerchoonz Live Sessions. The online
competition encourages artists to upload their music, get paid for
their streams, and perform for a live studio audience to be
broadcasted across the web (instructions below).
The site was launched in beta following a dispute between independent
artist Indiana Gregg and illegal torrent website "The Pirate Bay"
after the site refused to remove a link to her debut album. The Pirate
Bay are currently being sued by the IFPI for inciting illegal
infringement of copyright.
"Kerchoonz has been formed as an alternative to piracy" states
Kerchoonz.com co-founder Ian Morrow. "We don't wish to comment on the
proceedings taking place against The Pirate Bay at the moment,
however, we believe that there must be an alternative to piracy that
makes music lovers' happy while compensating musicians for their work.
That's what Kerchoonz is all about. Kerchoonz Live Sessions' mission
to help promote bands and artists who are, especially in these
recessionary times, struggling to earn a living from their art."
This month, four top bands were invited to perform at the House of
Rock Studios in Glasgow, UK after participating in the Kerchoonz Live
December Christmas download/streams contest. The event, which was
filmed before a live studio audience, will be used in a online
campaign to promote and boost the winning bands:
* Donna Marie:
http://www.kerchoonz.com/donnamarie
* Helicopter Girl:
http://www.kerchoonz.com/helicoptergirl
* Darnell:
http://www.kerchoonz.com/darnell
* The Fortunate Sons:
http://www.kerchoonz.com/thefortunatesons
Bands who participate in Kerchoonz Live Sessions will benefit by
receiving promotion in hard press, world-wide blog networking,
professional live studio recordings and interview sessions with top
journalists around the globe and cash prizes. The next session is
scheduled for April 2009 and will feature top songwriting from bands
and artists across the globe chosen by a panel of nine industry
judges.
Artists and songwriters can participate in Kerchoonz Live Sessions in
3 easy steps:
* Join the Kerchoonz.com community,
* Upload your music to Kerchoonz
* Send a comment link with the song title that you would like to enter
to: http://www.kerchoonz.com/kerchoonz
About Kerchoonz
Kerchoonz.com, currently live in beta and scheduled for official
launch in June, is a revolutionary social networking site which allows
musicians to upload their music and be paid for every stream and every
download of their music. Bands can opt to offer their music either for
free download, or simply allow it to be heard through streaming on the
site with 'buy' buttons next to every track.
http://www.Kerchoonz.com
Tags: Kerchoonz Live Music Free Legal Downloading Site Pays Artists Kerchoonz
