"This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie

            Woody Wilson Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma on July 14, 1912. He was son of a country, successful politician and businessman parents. Some reports say that Woody was a precocious and observant kid. His life was very painful, with several tragic losses and collapses in the family. Lost his older sister, his mother and lived severe financial problems. In his youth, he left his home just with some clothes a guitar and harmonica to travel the US by train.

            On one of his travels, he stopped in California in 1937, where he began his career in traditional folk music, played for several radios like West Coast. In the same moment, the world was experiencing one of the most tragic and profound economic crisis, The Great Depression (1929-39), where more than 14 million Americans were unemployed and the country's banking system was going to bankrupt. Shortly after the end of the 29’s crisis, began the Second World War, which boosted the country's economy but caused several social problems in a country living in fear.

            Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in 1940 and this song showed the enormous love he felt for his country. The lyric of the song represent the populist sentiment that the American nation was feeling at that time. This music was the most famous of his discography (more than 1,000 written music). But when he was 42 years old, the Huntington’s disease affected him, the same disease that killed his mother. His nervous system was injured, and he lost the ability to sing and play the guitar. In 1967 Guthrie died, but he can saw his music inspire a new generation and “This Land is Your Land” became a music reference to the fight about Civil Rights movements.

Windows to Apple

            After 10 years of using a Windows PC, I never thought it would change, was already familiar with the interface of the system, knew all the commands, hotkeys and tricks to ease my performance while using the computer. I've used the Apple operating system for devices like the iPod and iPad, because I thought that the famous iOS (the Apple operating system) were good only in small devices.

After moving to Macomb and leave my old computer in Brazil, I decided to switch to Apple computers, which promised better performance and some facilities. The first attempt was a failure, it was all different, simple commands like changing your Desktop, returning web pages, lock your computer and others are completely different. I had many difficulties to get the hang of, but I read tutorials, watched some videos on the Internet and finally got adapting to the new system.

Today, after more than three months using MAC (the Apple operating system for computers), I could adapt. And yes, the Apple operating system run more cleaner, bug-free, without lockdown or constant error system than the Windows software. However, the amount of programs translated into the language of MAC is still much smaller, some programs I use are not compatible with the new operating system, but Apple computers there is a tool called Bootcamp which allows Apple users to install on the same computer a small partition with Windows, so I can continue using the excellent features of MAC and when I need to run a program in windows is just restart my machine and log on Windows, it will be the same hardware with different software.

Take a plane and go to space

        Traveling the universe by plane, this is the main idea for Alan Bond, a British engineer, has been developing a new project for a spaceship. He developed a ”space plane“ for multiple uses, requires minimal repairs and turnaround time, so it can go far beyond the horizons. “The intention is to replace existing rockets,“ Bond says.
        The design is based in a horizontal structure, similar a regular plane. So this plane can take off and landing without loss of components, as happens in common spaceships. Another important fact, this prototype will use other type of mix of fuels. It can carry the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen enough to conclude the mission.
       The prototype has some problems about engineering, but it is fixed. "We have passed the major obstacles, and what we have now are normal engineering problems," says Bond. "It's about designing and testing, but there's no question that with the physics efficiencies the engine depends on -- we're there." And the final plane probably will be done before 2018.
       The project is to increase the rate of flights to space, and decrease the cost of this. And this new plane will provide the efficiency by low cost. Thinking further, perhaps we travel to hotels in space, where we can enjoy landscapes rarely seen by human eyes.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/tech/innovation/spaceship-reinvented/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Auto Pilot Cars can be the next step to future

The company Tesla Motors has worked in a prototype of a self-driving car (Auto Pilot features), and on this October 9 the Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk revealed a new version of this electric cars brand in a open-to-the-public event, included test rides on an airport tarmac.

The new model is upgraded with two electric motors, one for the front wheels and one for the rear wheels. This car will have a top speed of 155 mph, and will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds, but without using fossil fuels. And in additional will preset the new concept of self-driving car. However the price to this technology will be expensive, around $120,000.

Today exist many companies selling cars with right itself if it wanders from its lane and brake automatically if it is about to hit something. But Tesla Motors was beyond, the new system will can move the car to another lane when the driver set the turn signal, will use cameras to read speed limit signs and adjust speed. All this upgrades be due a new combination of radar, image-recognition cameras and sonar.

“Auto Pilot Cars does not mean the car could drive itself“, Elon Musk said. But this feature is a big step to add safety in traffic. And maybe, someday we may drive cars without worry about the traffic, just get in the car and take you anywhere you want

Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2014/10/10/teslas-d-adds-all-wheel-drive-safety-features

Realistic 'robo-hawks' designed to fly around and clear threats of real birds

Birds are a really fantastic group of animals, they are completely free, not have barriers to flyer. But sometimes it becomes harmful if you work at places like airports, farms, and landfills. Today, there are a variety of technologies for spooking birds, but Nico Nijenhuis (an Australian guy) is working in a better idea. He is building a robotic bird, that be used to maintain some places without the real inconvenient birds. This tech is called “Robirds”, and is very similar a giant “plated” bird, and he become very aggressive when is close to a real bird, causing the animal to feel cornered and get out. The idea is so good because this robot bird can be programed to avoid when an airplane coming or take off, though avoid undesirable places.

The creator had some difficulties, of Flapping-Wing Flight. He knows all the theory of how birds work, but he had many difficulties about it, he said "But the minute wings start moving, we really have a problem", "It's all about very complex, three-dimensional flow. What a bird actually does is so complex that it's incredibly difficult to mimic.". However after many studies and include some sensors, the Robird had not more trouble. And he could be a flyer!

Racism in Sport

The Racism is the oldest culture desease. Many people had suffered racial prejudice, and a lot of others are still suffering. The Brazil, a country with various types of people, still cases of discrimination. Recently, we had a case of racism on the biggest sport in Brazil, the soccer. A woman, supporter of a brazilian national team (Grêmio), huffed “MACACO” (“MONKEY”) for a soccer player in a match of her team was losing. The act was filmed, and for punishment her team was eliminated from the national tournament. The famous soccer player, titled The Soccer King, Pelé spoke about the case for ESPN, "I think that Aranha (who suffered racism) precipitated himself a little bit by wanting to fight the supporters," he said. "If I had to stop or shout [to the referee] every time since I started to play in Latin America, here in Brazil, in its interior, every time I was racially abused, every game would have to be stopped.I think we have to fight racism. But prohibition will not come in a public way. There was a time where Santos FC had Dorval, a black right winger. Pelé was black. Mengalvio was black. Coutinho was black. Santos were world champions with only Pepe being white," Pele said. "When we had to play in the interior of Brazil, they called us every word possible. Did you ever hear about any news on racism at that time? It was because we didn't give publicity to this. I think that when we have more publicity on something like this, the more likely it is that it will happen again."

The case took large audience, and this worse the situation. because the woman is suffering rebukes in the media, the case took high proportions. On the last week, the woman's house was burned by angry supporters of the team. The racism  should be treated with fairly, i don’t believe that is the way to judge this woman. However, the case of racism can becoming a case of bullying with the woman.

The Ebola is a old disease

The first identification of this virus was in 1976. Ebola virus disease (EVD) or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) is a disease of humans and other primates caused by an ebolavirus. The symptoms, with a high fever, sore throat, body pain and headaches, similar a flu, starts in two to twenty one days after contact with the virus.  This disease has a high risk of death, previously average to kill was 90% of all infected, today with the many medical resources this average reduce to 47%, but it still high.

From 1976 through last year, has been reported a 1,700 cases. But only in 2014, has been reported more than 3,000 suspected cases resulting in deaths, of more than 1,500 have been confirmed. It’s transmitted by contact with blood or body fluids of infected humans or some animals. The disease is severe, but it has a low infection factor . I not  believe that this disease becomes a pandemic, it would be difficult to spread in countries with high levels of basic sanity.