Blogs

Today is Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday. You can stream a movie on Netflix called "When We Were Kings". It's a documentary that uses the 1974 Ali-Foreman fight in Kinsasha, Zaire as a reason to create a portrait of Ali and what he meant to people at the time. I like it, but it may be a little slow-paced and old-fashioned for most people. When I was a kid, he had a big impact on me. He spoke out for civil rights and was eloquent about the specifics of why it was an important issues and he gave up his Heavyweight title and went to jail because he refused to be drafted into the army to fight in Vietnam. This movie gives a taste of that. But, mostly it shows the great charisma he had, especially compared to George Foreman, who was a very different person than the one who eventually sold Foreman grills on TV. The actual boxing match doesn't happen until about 60 minutes into this 90 minute movie and only lasts maybe 15 minutes, but it is dramatic and shows what a smart boxer he was.

Some links I found interesting today:

I have never seen a website do something like this; follow the links in this Gizmodo post, especially the "Here's how they did it" link.

http://gizmodo.com/5876855/holy-crap-webkit-can-make-your-site-look-amazing 

Who do you think is the largest American-owned brewery? Anheuser-Busch? Nope, Belgian. MillerCoors? Nope, British. (And, does it surprise you that Miller and Coors are one company)? Boston Beer Co.? Close, but no. It's Pennsylvania's D.G. Yuengling & Son! (Story via consumerist.com):

http://adage.com/article/news/d-g-yuengling-son-america-s-largest-brewer/232102/

 Pieces of Mars have just fallen to Earth:

http://io9.com/5876927/chunks-of-mars-have-crashed-down-in-africa

Diamonds have also fallen out of the sky. At some time in our past, the solar system drifted through the debris of a supernova and some of it fell to Earth:

http://io9.com/5876591/the-diamonds-that-are-born-in-supernovae

And, finally, a short article about some of the new TV technologies like OLED and Sony's Crystal Display:

http://gizmodo.com/5876800/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tv-techs-glorious-future