My Riga and people. (video)

Some video impressions of a late May Sunday in Riga, with a little commentary on some interesting stuff and, of course the economy.

This video from Read more

Space shuttle Atlantis landed.(video)

Space shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Sunday morning after a successful mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.(24.may)
Weather conditions forced flight controllers to pass up the shuttle’s first landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said.
Thunderstorms had prevented the Atlantis from returning to its Florida home base for the third day in a row.
The shuttle, STS-125, arrived at the Hubble Space Telescope at the International Space Station on May 13. During the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, Atlantis’ seven astronauts performed five spacewalks on five consecutive days to repair and upgrade the telescope, according to NASA. Read more

Tour of Queen Elizabeth II’s luxury limousines.

A royal chauffeur was suspended Sunday over allegations he gave undercover reporters a tour of Queen Elizabeth II’s luxury limousines and other sensitive areas of her Buckingham Palace home in exchange for money.
London police said they were examining the allegations and holding talks on security with staff at the London palace following reports of the breach. Read more

Baltic Open Regatta in Liepaja.

This year one of the regatta ports will be Liepaja – the city where the wind is born. The city of Liepaja is very helpful in supporting the BOR organizers to make a good regatta stop-over in Liepaja and look forward to a long time cooperation with the “Baltic Open Regatta”.Visit in Liepaja 10-12 june.

All work regarding the regatta events in Liepaja are coordinated by BOR organizing committee, Liepaja city council and local companies, involving Liepaja yacht center, Hotel Promende, Fontaine rock cafe, Fontaine Palace, the travel Read more

No boundaries for Adam Lambert

Apparently, nothing can contain the likes of Adam Lambert — not even a difficult new ballad co-written by Kara DioGuardi.
Simon Cowell all but crowned the California glam rocker the winner of Tuesday night’s final performance show over Kris Allen, the acoustic guitar player who struggled mightily to stay in tune on “No Boundaries,” co-written by the fourth “Idol” judge.
Lambert had no such trouble with the upper-register pop ballad, and Cowell said he genuinely believed the show had found a true star in the 27-year-old theater actor. Read more

Google added automatic translation technology to Gmail.

Google added automatic translation technology to Gmail on Tuesday, allowing users of its email service to translate messages in another language with a single mouse click.

The Mountain View, California-based Internet giant said it had integrated its Google Translate program into Gmail, allowing automatic translation of messages in several dozen languages. Read more

Common ancestor to humans.

Scientists in New York unveiled Tuesday the skeleton of what they said could be the common ancestor to humans, apes and other primates.
The tiny creature, officially known as Darwinius masillae, but dubbed Ida, lived 47 million years ago and is unusually well preserved, missing only part of a leg, or five percent of the skeleton.
The finding, described Tuesday in the PloS ONE scientific journal, was displayed at a press conference at New York’s Natural History Museum, and is due to be the subject of a documentary on the History Channel, BBC and other broadcasters.
Organizers said Read more

Far enough to strike Israel and southeastern Europe.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile Wednesday with a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike Israel and southeastern Europe.
The announcement will not reassure the U.S. government, coming just two days after President Barack Obama declared a readiness to seek deeper international sanctions against Iran if it shunned U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama said he expected a positive response to his outreach for opening a dialogue with Iran by the end of the year. Read more

Special committee to counteract the attempts of distorting history.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree to establish a special committee to counteract the attempts of distorting history to the detriment of Russia’s interests. It was an expected decision: Medvedev has made a number of statements recently about the inadmissibility to falsify historical facts and events.

The subject of history falsifications receives special attention when it comes to WWII events. It is not the first time when people discuss the USSR’s victory in the war claiming that Soviet soldiers were looters and rapists in Germany and other European countries and so on and so forth.

Dmitry Medvedev posted a video message Read more

Transition aircraft.

The Transition is a roadable aircraft under development by Terrafugia, a start-up company based in Woburn, Massachusetts.
The Rotax 912S piston engine powered, carbon-fiber vehicle is planned to have a flight range of 400 nmi (460 mi; 740 km) using automotive grade unleaded gasoline and a cruising flight speed of 115 mph (185 km/h; 100 kn).
On the highway, it can drive up to 80 mph (130 km/h) to keep up with traffic. The Transition Read more

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