Earth Hour 2009 is here. Did I said today? Saturday 28th or March 2009 needs some actions from your side readers. Come one, as from 8.30-9.30 pm, switch off your lights. Yeah, for just one hour. (Time to go wild, you got one hour )

Oops, the poster above talks what Earth Hour is. I guess the time, the event will be taking place has been well chosen. It would not affect a significant number of people on duty at that time and many would have already finished dinner. Or would it be having candle light dinners. Today is your chance.

There was one missing element, 8.30 is referring to our local time or to particular time zone? And the official web site quoted “8:30PM local time, wherever you live on planet earth. Saturday 28 March 2009″. It is quite logical for the time being our local time, or else it would have served no purposes. The designated time would have been while we were sleeping or even during our working time. No use.

So do you think you will be doing this? Waiting to hear you in the comments.

On Earth Hour website there is also a section, “Earth Connect” where can share this views. Be sure to drop tips over there.

I created a Group at flickr for you to share picture on Earth Day 2009. People show us the darkness that reigns or how people do not know about this event. Keep tuned.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Earth Hour 2009

September marks the 10th anniversary of the godlike search engine Google, repository-of-the-Internets-and-universal-knowledge *bows*. However, the exact date seems to be a variable! More info on that at Techcrunch.

*Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake. For more on Google’s history:
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Source: Google Support

The folks with the “Don’t be evil” motto want to celebrate their creation’s birthday by helping the world. So? They have launched a project called “Project 10 to the 100th”, or Project 10100. Quite a Googlish-name if you ask me!

Basically, you suggest some ideas that will help the greatest number of people possible, in any way possible (or so I guess). Then, you go on that website above, and post it there. You may even post a 30-seconds video to back your concepts.

Then? Google has put aside $10 million to kickstart the Top 5 ideas it receives. The public will be able to short select 20 semi-finalist ideas, and a board will select the Top 5 out of those.

There are a number of categories in which you can participate, which are (as listed on the Project 10100 page):

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

That’s basically it. Now you can go suggest some ideas if you have some, or pass the message around. The closing date for ideas submission is 20th October!

Time for some fun. If you want to know how Google was born, bred and evolved, you can check out this interesting timeline of what Google’s been up to in the last 10 years. Here’s Google’s Tenth Birthday page too.

Seriously, I can’t imagine life online without Google. It’s been saving my rear for the last 10 years now! A big thanks and:

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY GOOGLE!

This article comes from GeekScribes

Google turns 10, Wants to help people with $10m

That’s it. The games are now over with mixed feelings and emotions. It was a really sad moment when the flame vanished from the torch. Most people are still wide-eyed after the astounding closing ceremony, which according to me surpasses the opening ceremony in terms of fireworks.

Others still feel that the games were “extravaganza” and “over-spending”. But hey, let’s be positive. If you have seen the show, there is no way you didn’t hear a little “wow!” in your head. Come’on! Admit it!

So, what will we remember?

#1: The Opening / Closing Ceremonies

China has shown the world just how great it can be at organizing shows. Who can compete with China on show-organization? Each show had at least a thousand participants. Each participant totally synchronized with every other participant!

And what to say about the creativity! Who would have thought of having an athlete run in the air before lighting the torch? And about using tons of humans to represent shapes? The human-torch? It’s plain cool! Check out the size of those two drums! :s

They had a huge budget to start with, and made every cent count in giving us a very strong and precious memory. (How much does one of those drums cost?) The opening and closing ceremonies were just awesome, nothing more to say!

#2: The jaw-dropping Pyrotechnics!

We know it. “Don’t mess with China when it comes to fireworks!”. They invented those, and they have demonstrated just how good they were at handling their creations!

China showed the world how to handle fireworks, and has totally lit the skies of Beijing with blazing powder. Descriptions do not suffice here, so here’s a picture for you to ogle.

#3: The Participants

Hats off dudes and dudettes! You were perfect! I wasn’t able to see any grave imperfection in their performances! No one fell. No one even stumbled! No jerky movements. Hell yeah! I can only wonder how much rehearsal and how strict it must have been for them to attain this level of perfection! :s

The costumes on these girls were great btw! I am calling them the “grape girls” now!

#4: The Volunteers

Without these guys and girls, I highly doubt that the games would have been a success. They do everything from helping people to doing tasks on the various events and help athletes. Like serving balls, cleaning the courts of sweat and other important things.

A big thank you to the 1.5 million something volunteers that helped make the games awesome.

#5: The record-shattering performance of athletes!

I heard 40 new World and Olympic records were set during these games. It’s been a huge record setting spree by godlike athletes like Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and the many others that not only showed us how far and how powerful the human body and mind can be, but at the same time granted us a priceless show of friendship and courage.

As Jacques Rogge says

“We have come to the end of 16 days which we will cherish forever. New stars were born and stars from previous Games continued to amaze us. We shared their joys and their tears and marvelled at their abilities and will long remember their achievements here. These were a truly exceptional Games.”

What I want to say can’t be phrased any better than that. Congratulations to the athletes that won, and courage to the ones who did not. Next time folks! Next time will be your chance to amaze us!

#6: The Venues

The water cube! The Bird’s Nest! Do I need to elaborate further? These are pure architectural marvels!

#7: Bruno Julie!

Ahhh! Our Mauritian Magician! The man who brought our tiny island of Mauritius its very own first Olympic medal! Bronze it is, but a medal it is nevertheless! (We know you are Silver-class!) An Olympic medal! YEAAHHH MAN! You own PUNCH!

#8: The Music

They music offered during the Games was very energetic and inspiring. The Closing ceremony featured the performance of Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page which entertained me. The Chinese artists performed exceptionally well too and shows that China’s hits will soon start making their way on International top charts.

#9: London 2012

The next host will be London. The show they presented were alright. Not as flashy or with as many people as with the Chinese version of the shows, but I appreciated it. So, now we turn our eyes towards the city of London in 2012 for the next wave of excitement. The double-decker bus had a good touch of inventiveness!

The flag is in your hands now London. Amaze us. As somebody said today on BBC, London will probably not surpass China’s shows in terms of number of participants or fireworks. They intend to give us another kind of show, which is more British-like in nature. With witty humor probably.

Let’s wait and see!

See ya folks. My image-full review of the Beijing Olympics ending is now over. Let’s hear your comments. How did you find the Games? What do you expect of London?

Note: Most pictures used here have been taken from the Official Beijing Olympics Gallery, and some from The Guardian and one from CRIEnglish. Thanks to all of them!

Some more photos:

This article comes from GeekScribes

Beijing Olympics End with World’s Applause

As you all probably know, yesterday 08/08/08 marks the opening of the Beijing Olympics Games, the 24th Olympiad. I just watched the opening ceremony on TV today, and it was so stunning that I thought I might compile a list of things that really really amazed me and to create some debate. Even if it was on TV, it was still a great ceremony in my opinion. Extravaganza yes, but amazing, YES!

Here goes the countdown:

#10: The participation of the audience

The Opening Ceremony (OC) was one of the rare events in which the audience really got to participate. Most of the show was at night (for fireworks, light effects, etc…) and this gave the audience an opportunity to play with multi-colored light gizmos. You could see the audience terraces literally lit up by tiny specks of colored lights that really added to the general magical feeling of the show. I recall the coming in of the flying fairies in their multi-colored costumes. The lights from the audience made it look as if there were a lot more fairies. Indirect participation, but the overall effect was awesome. Even in the picture above, you see how the colored dots make it look as if there are stars in the background.

#9: The synchronisation and speed of execution

This stunned me. The shows chained with just games of less than 1-2 minutes between. Mind you, the participants had to leave the scene, the new participants come onto and decors re-adjusted and they did all this in a matter of minutes. This feat seemed so inhuman, but it was accomplished with surprising ease by the Chinese participants.

Another marveling feat. The synchronization with which the various acts were executed. Take for example, one of the first perfomances: the drummers. The way they slammed their “drums” which looked like wooden tablets, their movements, their dances… it was in great synchrony. There was not one guy that missed a beat. Not one head raised when all the others were lowered. Synchrony yes, but keeping so many people in synchrony deserves a real hats’ off.

#8: The Bird’s Nest stadium

The Bird’s Nest stadium is just huge but nonetheless magnificent. The design really impressed me, and it does look like a bird’s nest. What is more amazing is its 100,000 something capacity and still retain its full beauty. It deserves its price tag in my opinion. Let’s see more about the Bird’s Nest again in the Olympic game events. By the way, The Bird’s Nest reminds me of the hatches in Lost TV series. Something like The Looking Glass.

#7: The 4.6% fact

According to a commentator, only 4.6% out of all the people who wanted to attend to the OC got tickets. If we assume the stadium to have 100k people, then that means that around 2 million people wanted to attend the OC!

#6: The costumes

China is the king when it comes to marvelous costume designs. The show with all the various ethnic groups of China dressed in their traditional costumes was superb. Such vibrant colors, such detail! Very worthy of China indeed.

#5: The organization & creativity

Without organization, none of this spectacular show would be possible. So, the people behind the scenes actually managing and organizing the show deserve all of our appreciation. They did a flawless job to create a perfect opening ceremony, down to the tiny details.

Also, they came up with some pretty sweet ideas, like the running on the wall for the lighting of the torch, or the light-effects scroll. Nice going folks!

#4: The HUGE number of participants

Each of the performances had at least 1000 participants! Some people say there were 1008 for luck. Anyways, 1000 persons performing at once, and in perfect synchrony? It’s probably never seen before.

#3: The shows

These were awesome. All of them were awesome. I particularly appreciated the drums at the start, the scroll and the inventions part where the various inventions of China were depicted. Among these, the part about marine exploration was simply magnificent. This goes without counting the frogmen all in light! I dunno! All of them were really really cool, so I don’t know where to begin. I’ll just say it was all awesome! And yeah, all the participating girls were cute too!

#2: The breath-taking shows and pyrotechnics

All the shows were really really well made

I can’t find any proper adjective to qualify how stunning the fireworks were. So I’m inventing my own: SuperUberTooWickedlyMassivelyAwesome! Even on TV, I lost my breath and would simply say “Wow!”. Now for the people actually at the Bird’s Nest at the moment of Pyrotechnics, I suppose it was a truly superb sight. Don’t mess with China when it comes to Pyrotechnics! They are the inventors, and they do know how to manipulate their creations! Cheers!

#1: USD$ 42 BILLION!

That was the total amount of money invested in the Beijing Olympic Games. For the facilities, organization, and other expenses. Many people said it was inconsiderate extravaganza and that it would be better to spend that money in Sichuan for example. Hell, I can accept Sichuan needs help, but the Olympics come once in 4 years, and China will not be hosting for a while. And they were eager to show the whole world how competent a country China can be. And they did remarkably well with the OC. I just hope the rest of the games will go as smoothly.

China may have a bad image when it comes to human rights and repression, but as far as Olympic Games go, they are unmatched till now. They offered the world a truly unique and stunning performance that I’m sure no other country will be able to match for quite a while. London in 2012 will have to surpass that level, and it would be really tough in my opinion. We can just wait and see.

For now, let’s sit back and enjoy the outstanding performance of the athletes from all around the Earth.

Pictures from Reuters and the Beijing Olympics Official Gallery – Where you will find other great pictures.

This article comes from GeekScribes

10 Awesome things about Beijing Olympics Games Opening Ceremony