“Mama” Cass Elliot (1941)

Elliot was an American singer and member of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, she had a successful solo career, releasing several studio albums. In 1974, after a series of performances at the London Palladium, Elliot was found dead in an apartment loaned to her by singer Harry Nilsson—the same apartment where drummer Keith Moon died four years later. Although Elliot died from a heart attack, an often repeated urban myth states that she died by choking on what? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Loudness War

The music industry’s tendency to record, produce, and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness to create a distinct sound is known as the Loudness War. Because the maximum amplitude of recorded music cannot be increased, overall loudness can only be boosted by reducing the dynamic range of source audio and distorting recordings, leading to complaints from some audiophiles. What 1997 remix of a 1973 album is considered by some to be the loudest rock CD ever recorded? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Is Formed (1998)

ICANN is a nonprofit corporation that manages domain name systems, the assignment of IP addresses and protocol parameters, and root server systems. The original mandate for ICANN came from a US government proposal to privatize the management of Internet names and addresses to allow for the development of competition and to facilitate global participation in Internet management. Its functions are now performed under US Government contract. What are some criticisms of the organization? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Feast of Nuestra Senora de Peñafrancia

This celebration is a grand fiesta devoted to Our Lady of Peñafrancia, held in Naga City on the Bicol peninsula in the Philippines. It is the biggest festival of the Bicol region; it starts with a nine-day novena at the Naga Cathedral. A procession then carries the image of the Virgin to a pagoda on a festooned barge, which is surrounded by a flotilla of smaller boats. The people on the smaller boats chant prayers and hymns as they proceed along the river. When the water-borne pagoda has finished its journey, there are shouts of “Viva la virgen!” and the image is taken back to its shrine. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Samuel Johnson (1709)

Johnson was a British man of letters and one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England. In 1755, after eight years of work, he published his monumental Dictionary of the English Language, considered the first great English dictionary. His aphorisms helped make him one of the most frequently quoted English writers. His biography, written by his contemporary James Boswell, is one of the most admired biographies of all time. How many entries did Johnson’s dictionary include? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Synchronicity

A term coined by psychologist Carl Jung to describe what he called “meaningful coincidences,” synchronicity is the experience of two or more causally unrelated events that are conceptually similar and have very little chance of occurring together randomly—such as the discovery of the same idea by two different people at approximately the same time. Although Jung had introduced the concept of synchronicity in the 1920s, he did not fully explain it until when? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary