List #013 - Prognostications

Some say the world will end on December 21st, 2012. So why not make a YouTube playlist of music from 2012 in preparation for this possible event?

The playlist is titled: Prognostications: 2012 and "Recent" Favorite Songs
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJE5a80RY7kIN6p8RAScTmPcl1wpMdY-U

The first ten songs are from 2012, the next ten from 2010 or 2011, and then an encore song from 2012. Most of these songs are by artists whose origins date back to the 60's and 70's, but there are a few from today's modern music.

The YouTube playlist is subject to change. This is the list of songs currently on the list at the time of this post.

Bob Dylan - Duquesne Whistle
Psy - Gangnam Style
The Rolling Stones - Doom and Gloom
Bruce Springsteen - We Take Care Of Our Own
The Beach Boys - That's Why God Made The Radio

List #012 - September 31st

(Version 1.1)

In laymen's terms...
These 31 albums symbolize the 31 years I have enjoyed listening to music.
These 31 albums are 31 favorite studio albums, in order from near-best to best.
These 31 albums were selected out of all the albums I have listened to over the years.
These 31 albums are by 31 of my favorite artists and bands.
These 31 albums are subject to change, of course. :)

Can you identify the artist or band of each album?

Honorable mentions: 4; Aqualung; Band on the Run; Days of Future Passed; Escape; Every Picture Tells a Story; Faith; In The Court of the Crimson King; London Calling; Purple Rain; Slowhand; Stampede; Ten Summoner's Tales; Toys in the Attic

31. Play
30. Exile on Main Street
29. Sports
28. Ghost in the Machine
27. Cloud Nine
26. Mike + the Mechanics

List #011 - A-52's Album Listening Marathon

Music exploration can be quite cumbersome. There is the music of bands I'm a big fan of, while there is music of bands I'm interested in. There are deals on Amazon MP3s that I just can't pass up to buy. There are CDs of music I've given as gifts that I have some interest in. And everyone in my family has their own music collections.

The problem is the pace I'm listening to new music in was too slow compared to the albums I'm adding to iTunes. (And when I listen to new music, I often want to be absorbed in it uninterrupted.) The result was many, many albums that I have on iTunes that I haven't listened to in full.  Some albums I have had for a long time collecting dust. So, I figure I need to have a marathon of sorts to catch up on all this music lost in my iTunes archives.

52 albums. Highlighted by the bookends: from the 14 albums in the The Beatles Stereo Box Set to the 6 albums in the Humble Music Bundle (http://blog.humblebundle.com/) a couple months ago. Covering a whole variety of interests and genres via single, double, triple, studio, live, and compilation albums. The goal was to listen to each of them (giving my quick thoughts on each) by this September's end. That's about an album a day, two-a-day if some are short.

The order of the albums was determined by random (a deck of cards to be specific) plus two rules:
1) no two Beatles albums or no two Humble Bundle albums will be listened to back-to-back, and
2) one particular album will be played on the 31st anniversary of its release.

(Two albums were later added appropriately: Bob Dylan's Tempest, which was live streamed on iTunes at the time, and Genesis' Abacab Complete, music from Abacab and the Abacab sessions.)

Starting in early August, the marathon did end on September 30th, and the final order is below.

What will be next? Re-listen to most of these albums and pick out my favorites.
With the invention (or discovery, take your pick) of Spotify, I might do another marathon with The Rolling Stones being the centerpiece. We shall see...

List #010 - Rush Order

Rush's 20th album of studio material, Clockwork Angels, will be released on June 12, 2012. In the past four years of music exploring, I've took a major interest in progressive rock. Especially the Canadian band Rush. Now after buying most of their music, I like to share the order in which I have bought their music.

This Amazon Listmania list includes all 23 albums I have bought, including the upcoming album. For each album, I give my thoughts, favorites, and facts on how I liked or disliked each album. Though I am limited to 400 characters per album, my commentary should be enough for you to explore Rush's music and in any order you wish!

Click the link below to go directly to the list. The list on here is simply the Rush albums I've bought in the order of purchase.

http://amzn.com/lm/R2XHJFWS0RQG7Y

1. The Spirit of Radio
2. Retrospective 3
3. Moving Pictures
4. 2112
5. Permanent Waves

List #009 - Monopoly Probabilities

The well-famed Parker Brothers game of Monopoly features a board of 40 spaces traversed via rolling two six-sided dice, with the goal to amass and upgrade properties towards being the last player to not go bankrupt.

Using basic math knowledge, we could create a table of all possible outcomes of rolling two dice. Results will show that the number most-rolled is seven (1/6 chance), the numbers least rolled are two and twelve (1/36 chance, each), and doubles are rolled 1/6 of the time.

But determining the space we will end up on at the end of a person's roll of the dice isn't just based on the roll of the dice. If a person lands on a Chance or Community Chest space, does he stay there or will he move? Does the person stay in jail for a short time or long time? Did the person already roll doubles once or twice before the roll?

Computer scientist Truman Collins takes this and more into account in creating several tables of data. These include long-term and short-term probabilities on landing on a particular space, the average income per opponent roll per property, and the average amount of opponent rolls to recoup all costs. If the numbers are not your thing, enjoy the list of spaces on a Monopoly board.

http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml

List #008 - Five NHL Playoff Traditions

The National Hockey League (NHL) has, perhaps, one of the most noteworthy, yet exciting, playoff systems. Especially recently, where a few teams down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series come back to tie or even win the series!

ESPN.com columnists have made lists of "5 Things" regarding this hockey postseason including rookies to watch, notable injuries, award predictions, and goalies on the hot seat. I found this particular list of five playoff traditions to be the best. Not just for this postseason, but any in the history of hockey.

LeBrun, Pierre. 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Five Best Playoff Traditions. ESPN.
http://espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/7779740/5-playoff-traditions

(Talking brackets (from the previous post), the NHL's is not a "fixated" bracket, but it's deemed "adjusted" on a round by round basis. By "fixated" I mean, for example in the first round a typical seedings bracket, the winner of the #1 vs. #8 matchup always plays the winner of the #4 vs. #5 matchup. By this "adjusted" bracket, I meaning in each round per conference, the highest seeded team plays the lowest seeded team, the second-highest seeded team plays the second-lowest seeded team, etc.; so after the #1 vs. #8 matchup, if for example the #1 seed wins, they play the lowest seeded team, which could be a #4 or #5 or #6 or #7 seeded team, whichever is lowest.)

List #007 - A Bunch of Brackets! (2012)

March means March Madness in college basketball, where many across the nation fill out their bracket to determine which one of 64 to 68 teams will win the national title. A lot of statistics and data mining is used to predict which team will win six (or seven) straight single-elimination games, considering the following questions. How many number one seeded teams will reach the Final Four and which teams? Will some low-seeded "Cinderella" teams reach the Sweet Sixteen or even the Elite Eight? It's a tough process!

This year's Men's Tournament had several surprises. Despite one of my Final Four teams in #2-seed Missouri losing in the first round, I correctly predicted the other three in Kentucky, Ohio State, and Kansas... including the national champion in Kentucky!

Bracket of Integrity : TwitPic | ESPN
Men's 2012 Tournament Bracket: ESPN | NCAA
Women's 2012 Tournament Bracket: ESPN | NCAA

But that doesn't end there...

List #006 - 31+ Math Games and Puzzles (v1.0)

With today being Pi Day (March 14th), I figure I should make a list of some of the best math games and puzzles in history. Some are the simple number-matching games, while some need a lot of logical strategies. Some games you may already have, while some games you may be intrigued to get someday. All in all, it was a tough process to select the 31 games (and write large summaries for each), so I added in more for your consideration (with small summaries for each).

If I missed one particular game, let me know in the comments! Thanks and enjoy!





Card Games

UNO
UNO was created by Hungarian barber Merle Robbins because of an argument he and his son had regarding the rules of Crazy Eights. While it was similar to the original card-shedding-and-matching game, it was distinguished by the inclusion of wild and action cards. With many variants, spin-offs, and theme decks, it remains the best-selling commercial card game worldwide.
http://www.mattel.com/games/uno
http://letsplayuno.com/
http://www.toy-tma.com/kids-toys/card-games-pokemon/uno-history-classic-card-game/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uno_(card_game)

List #005 - Sporcle Quizzes

Sporcle.com is one of the noteworthy trivia quiz websites on the Internet. The primary objective of each quiz is to fill in as many correct answers as possible within the given time limit. Some quizzes simply ask you to list the items in the given topic or are more complex and include clues or require extra thinking. Some of the unique quizzes featured include "minefield" quizzes (which end a quiz if an incorrect answer is given) and determining all the lyrics of an unidentified Beatles song. New quizzes are posted daily!

Enjoy!

List #004 - The First 100 Prime Numbers

One of the first websites I visited regularly on the Internet was The Prime Pages (http://primes.utm.edu/). The website was created and maintained by Professor Chris Caldwell at the University of Tennessee at Martin. The Prime Pages has everything one needs to know about prime numbers: definition of prime numbers, why certain numbers are prime or not prime, types of prime numbers, trivia, and much more. (Plus, you can join the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search to discover new record prime numbers.)

So what are prime numbers? Prime numbers are whole numbers (0, 1, 2, 3,...) that have only two factors: 1 and the number itself. Factors of a number are whole numbers that divide into the number evenly. For example, the factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12; while the factors of 7 are only 1 and 7. In this case, 7 is prime and 12 is not prime (the latter being a composite number for having more than two factors).

A couple millenia ago, the mathematician Euclid proved there were infinitely many prime numbers. The website has several lists of primes, including the first thousand primes and Top 20 lists (http://primes.utm.edu/lists/). For this post, here is a list of the first 100 prime numbers.

2	3	5	7	11	13	17	19	23	29
31	37	41	43	47	53	59	61	67	71

List #003 - Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"

"Piano Man" Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire" around his 40th birthday in 1989. The lyrics depict a list of historical events and famous people through the first 40 years of his life. The overall theme of the song, repeated in its refrain, was that he and his generation were not all responsible for the conflicts and turmoil he experienced, as the "fire" was "burning since the world's been turning."

"We Didn't Start the Fire" would become one of Joel's popular songs. It was his third top-charting single in the United States, and was nominated for a Grammy. It would also make an impact in history courses at several schools, and many parodies and takeoffs were made based on this song. Joel would admit that the lyrics (which we wrote first) were better than the music, and that he often has a hard time singing it live.

The first two stanzas of the song are listed below. For the complete lyrics, plus details on each event and person featured in the song, please visit the sources below (or search the web).

'49 
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray 
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio 
'50
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television 
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe 

Sources:
School for Champions: We Didn't Start the Fire (Facts) History Summary from 1949-1989
http://school-for-champions.com/history/start_fire_facts.htm
Songfacts: We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1581
Wikipedia: We Didn't Start the Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire

List #002 - Top 15 The Legend of Zelda Games

Last year, 2011, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda video game series with a number of special events and releases. The Legend of Zelda remains among the most noteworthy franchises of Nintendo and in video game history.

Recently, GameInformer magazine made Top 10 lists of the best trademarks, bosses, and items of the series. (See links below.) I felt a number of items for each list should have been included and these lists should each have around 25 items. Hence the purpose of this and more lists to come. Some Zelda lists I'd like to post in the future include trademarks, unique items, bosses, enemies, and music.

To start, this list is my ranking of the 15 main Legend of Zelda games released in these past 25 years.

Scratch and Sniff: games where several frustrating tasks can wear out the touch screen or cause you to reset often.
15. Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS)
14. Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS)