Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness

April 17, 2015

Penny Lane: Original On The Block, Minus The Fanfare

Like many of the greatest works of art, the Beatles’ hit Penny Lane was at first quite different from the version we now know.

The archeology of the 1967 hit has been uncovered by a studio recording that does not feature the trumpet solo that made it one of the band’s most memorable singles.

The evidence — an acetate 45 produced for record label EMI — is being sold at auction in the US on Saturday. It reveals that the iconic fanfare was originally performed on an instrument that sounds more like a kazoo.

It is believed that the band was about to release that version until Paul McCartney watched a BBC broadcast of a Bach concert and heard a solo played on a piccolo trumpet. He then enlisted David Mason, the classical trumpet player, for the recording sessions at Abbey Road studios.

McCartney had written the song about a street in Liverpool in response to John Lennon’s track Strawberry Fields Forever, and the two were released as a double A-side. Penny Lane took three weeks to record, compared with their entire first album taking only one day in the studio.

The potentially unique pressing is being sold by a collector in the US. The single-sided recording has a white label with the song title written on it by Geoff Emerick, the recording engineer. Bidding at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, starts at $US1000 ($1290).

Dean Harmeyer, a music memorabilia specialist, says the Beatles were experimenting with layers of richer, denser sound, having moved into the studio after years of touring. “They now had more time and freedom to craft denser soundscapes, which are quite distinctive from their earlier recordings,” he says. “The sessions for Penny Lane stretched over three weeks, an eternity for a single in those days.

“Over the course of those weeks, the Beatles built layer upon layer of instrumentation which included complex wind and brass arrangements by producer George Martin, and extensive keyboard parts played by Paul McCartney. To our knowledge the complete trumpet-less version has never been heard by the general public. It sounds very similar, yet very different, to the Penny Lane we all know and love.”

The single was released in February 1967. It reached No 2 in Britain, being held off the top spot by Engelbert Humperdinck’s Release Me, but was No 1 in the US, Canada, Germany and Australia.

A version of the song with a longer trumpet solo was sent as an advance release to a small number of American radio stations. It is now worth thousands of dollars.

With many thanks to The Australian

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Crystal-Covered Grand Piano On the Market for $620,000

In the homes of the rich and famous, grand pianos and crystals might seem pretty ordinary… but what if you combined the two?

That’s exactly what a company in the UK has done – designed the piece for an “influential Sheikh” in Qatar, Goldfinch took six months to painstakingly add half a million Swarovski crystals to the grand piano, creating arguably the most bling musical instrument the world has ever seen.

The Cambridge-based firm, which creates custom made pianos for customers around the world, says that the crystal-covered number is worth £420,000 ($620,000). This particular creation is based on a Steinway and Sons piano.

Goldfinch director Tomas Norman said: “It’s been a delight to bring another customer’s dream to reality.

“We love nothing more than blurring the lines between timeless tradition and contemporary art, but it’s not all about good looks – our craftsmanship is combined with cutting-edge technology for that seamless finish and ultimate musicality.”

Previous ebony and ivory constructs from the company have included a piano colour-matched to an RAF fighter plane and a baby grand piano that appears to melt down three flights of stairs. Goldfinch says that its pianos can fetch between the hundreds of thousands and a million.

Of course, this piano pales in comparison to some of the most expensive musical instruments ever sold. The record for this stands at $45 million for a 300-year-old Stradivari viola. Meanwhile, the world’s most expensive grand piano sold at auction is a specially designed D-274 named Steinway Alma Tadema; it sold for $1.2 million in 1997 at Christie’s in London.

With thanks to Billionaires Online

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April 15, 2015

Singapore High School Maths Problem Stumps The Internet - Goes Viral

A maths problem that first appeared in a test for Singapore's elite high school students has baffled Internet users around the world after it went viral, prompting a rush of attempts to solve it.

The question, involving a girl asking two boys to guess her birthday after giving them scant clues, first appeared in an April 8 test organised by the Singapore and Asian School Math Olympiads (SASMO).

It was meant for 15- and 16-year-old elite secondary school students, but swiftly went global after a local television news presenter posted it on his Facebook page Saturday.

In the question, Cheryl gives her new friends Albert and Bernard 10 possible dates when they enquired about her birthday, before separately giving each of them further clues.
Test-takers are then asked to use logic to deduce Cheryl's birthday using a short conversation between the two boys about the information given to them.

By Monday Internet users around the world were posting meticulously detailed answers to the puzzle on social media networks such as Facebook and Reddit, only to prompt a slew of comments disputing their findings and methodology.

Others posted sardonic comments about "Coy Cheryl".

"Cheryl obviously didn't want Albert and Bernard at her party. Should have taken the hint when Cheryl decided to play this little game," wrote David Leong on Facebook.

The hashtag #cherylsbirthday also trended on Twitter, while some people created funny memes about the puzzle. "If Math would grow up and solve its own problems, that'd be great," read one such meme.

The "mind-boggling" problem also made the mainstream media, with leading websites including the Guardian newspaper and Buzzfeed publishing articles about the puzzle.
- Model answer -

In a Facebook post late Monday, SASMO provided the full question and a model answer, which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/4sasmo/posts/983396811695295.

The post also clarified earlier erroneous reports that the question was not posed to primary school children, saying SASMO thought it important to specify the age of the students involved so "Singapore parents will not start to worry so much".

The question was "actually from the secondary 3 and secondary 4 SASMO contests held on April 8, 2015", it said, adding it was "meant to sift out the better students".
Following relentless but mostly friendly online debate about the question's difficulty level, SASMO's executive director Henry Ong on Tuesday afternoon issued another statement.
"We are pleased that this problem has generated so much interest and thinking from the public," Ong said.

"We are not saying this problem is for every student... but if this kind of problem can be used to stretch the better students to sharpen their analytical power, why not?"
Singapore is renowned worldwide for its national maths system, which has been emulated by schools in other developed countries and cities, including New York.

Singaporean pupils are ranked second in the world in mathematics according to the latest student assessment survey by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, beaten only by their counterparts in Shanghai.

With many thanks to Yahoo 7

More from Mashable:

First we need to figure out if Albert knows the month or the day. If he knows the day, then there is no chance that Bernard knows the birthday, so it must be that Albert knows the month.
From the first statement, we know that Albert is sure that Bernard doesn't know the birthday, so May and June should be ruled out (the day 19 only appears in May and the day 18 only appears in June). In other words, if Albert had May or June, then he cannot be sure that Bernard doesn't know, since Bernard could have had 18 or 19.
Following that statement, Bernard knows that May and June are ruled out.
Then, Bernard is able to know which month it is. So it must be either July 16, August 15 and August 17 (not 14th as then he can't know).
Since Albert subsequently can also be sure of the date, he must know it's July. If it's August, he can't be sure as there is August 15 and 17.
So the answer is July 16.

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April 14, 2015

NASA Astronaut’s Spacewalk GoPro Video Out Of This World

Ever wondered what it would be like to take a spacewalk? Stunning new GoPro video released by NASA is about as close as any of us will ever get.

The video was taken by astronaut Terry Virts during two spacewalks on the International Space Station earlier this year.

During the first spacewalk, on February 25, Colonel Virts and Barry Wilmore prepared for the arrival of two docking adaptors by routing a series of cables.

The second extravehicular activity, on March 1, features the pair installing several antennas for use with the communications for visiting vehicles.

The full video has since been uploaded to YouTube and is simply out of this world.

The spacewalk appears to follow an incident in which Colonel Virts found water pooling inside his helmet after he finished a seven-hour mission. He was not harmed during the incident, which the US space agency described as “minor”

Colonel Virts did not notice any water during the space walk, as he toiled for hours to lubricate the latching mechanisms on a robotic arm and helped his colleague get the space station’s exterior ready for the arrival of commercial spaceships carrying astronauts in the coming years.

It was only after Colonel Virts was done, and had re-entered the Quest airlock, that he began to feel dampness on the back of his head and saw water pooling near the front of his headpiece.

The water inside Colonel Virts’ helmet was “kind of pooling on the front side of his helmet above the eye level”, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti told mission control in Houston.

The water was “about three inches in diameter”, she said, noting that the amount of water had increased in the moments since he first noticed it.

For more stunning images from space, you can follow Colonel Virts on Twitter.

First picture:
The astronauts were helping to get the space station’s exterior ready for the arrival of commercial spaceships carrying astronauts in the coming years.

Second picture:
Astronaut Terry Virts gets the GoPro ready for action.

Third picture:
Colonel Virts surveys the scene on his spacewalk

With many thanks to The Australian

April 13, 2015

Alan Turing Manuscript Sells For $1 million

A 56-page handwritten notebook that belonged to World War Two Nazi code breaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing, played by actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the film "The Imitation Game," sold for more than $1 million at an auction in New York, Bonhams said on Monday.

Turing, a British mathematical genius, led a team of cryptographers who cracked the wartime Enigma code, which the Germans had considered unbreakable. Their work is credited with hastening the end of the war and saving lives.
Cassandra Hatton, senior specialist in Bonhams' fine books and manuscripts department, said the result of the auction as a testament to Turing's legacy. Bonhams declined to name the buyer.

"It reflects his importance in history. I think he is someone who merits further study, and I hope this contributes to increased interest in him and his work," she said in an interview.
The auction also reaffirms a growing interest in scientific material, the history of computers, space, exploration and early science, she added.

Part of the proceeds from the sale will go to an unspecified charity.

The notebook, which had never been seen in public, is considered the only existing, extensive manuscript by Turing. It dates back to 1942 and was left to his friend Robin Gandy. In it Turing worked on mathematical formulas and the basics of computer science, giving insights into the workings of his brilliant mind.

Gandy added his own notes between the pages of Turing's musings and kept the notebook hidden until his death.

Turing, a homosexual, never received credit for his groundbreaking work during the war. He committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41 while receiving hormone treatment. It was an alternative to imprisonment after he was charged with gross indecency in 1952 for having sex with a man. Homosexual sex was a crime at that time in Britain.

Sixty years after his death Turing received a rare, royal pardon by Queen Elizabeth for his gay conviction.

Cumberbatch received a best actor Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Turing in the film, which won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. The film is based on the book, "Alan Turing: The Enigma," by Andrew Hodges.

"This notebook shines extra light on how, even when he was enmeshed in great world events, he remained committed to free-thinking work in pure mathematics," Hodges said in a statement.

By Patricia Reaney

With many thanks to Yahoo

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