FLASH! Toronto Burlesque Festival - "first-time-ever" Canadian wins strip title

For inspiration before reading this important, glamorous announcement click on the flag below, speakers turned up. Kindly foot-note: The Canadian Burlesque University is now enrolling for their Fall classes... Go Canada! Click on flag Sadly, this titillating story about sultry, swanky and sophisticated Canadian stripper Miss Roxi Dlite is too late for immediate gratification, but it is interesting to note because there is always next year... plan ahead, order your 2011 front-row tickets now! "Its my first-time-ever", says innocent-but-sultry, swanky and sophisticated Miss Roxi. The Toronto Burlesque Festival and Skin Tight Outta Sight are proud to announce that Canadian ROXI DLITE won the title of Reigning Queen of Burlesque at this year's Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas and will be performing at the Toronto Burlesque Festival running July 21-25th 2010. Roxi Dlite is now the official Reigning Queen of Burlesque! This is the first time a Canadian has won this title, known in the industry as “The Academy Awards of the Burlesque world.” Roxi is only the third non-American to win in the 20 year history of The Burlesque Hall of Fame! Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Roxi began performing burlesque at the age of eleven in 2004. Since then, she has devoted her life to a sultry, swanky and sophisticated life of glamour known as burlesque. She has performed on stages all over Canada and the United States for the best in the industry and has been voted one of the Top 5 Burlesque Performers of 2009 (21st Century Pinups) and one of the 20 Hottest Burlesque Stars in the world (Asylum Magazine). Canada’s national newspaper calls her a “stellar variety act,” (Globe and Mail) and she is known throughout the metropolitan Detroit area as a “burlesque queen” (Detroit Free Press) and the "reigning burlesque diva" (Windsor Star). Roxi had one of her first public appearances with Skin Tight Outta Sight in 2007 and she brought the house down at the first Toronto Burlesque Festival in 2008. She will be performing twice at this year's Festival; performing one of her famous aerial routines at the Friday Night Glamour Gala, where the festival will be featuring some of the best acts to grace Canada's stages and she will perform her title-winning act at the Saturday Night Burlesque Ball as the headlining feature of our International Showcase. The Toronto Burlesque Festival, now in its 3rd year, Skin Tight Outta Sight and The Toronto Burlesque Festival announce their theme for 2010: MeTOPolis: The Future of Burlesque! The Festival will take place from Wednesday, July 21 to Sunday, July 25 at different venues across the west end of the city. Our aim this year is to bridge the generations of burlesque, with an appearance by 60s Legend, SATAN'S ANGEL, neo-burlesque icons such as MICHELLE L'AMOUR, TIGGER!, JULIE ATLAS MUZ, ROXI DLITE and more, and the rising stars of today! The Festival features the finest in burlesque entertainment, with international representation, as well as dazzling stars of our Canadian burlesque scene. We go beyond performances, with a top secret film screening, our new literary event, "Naked Girls Reading," a Photography Exhibit, Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art Show, our Burlesque Bra Auction for Breast Cancer, Tease 'n Twirl Marketplace and a full curriculum of workshops for beginners and experienced performers alike at our Burlesque University. SCHEDULE: Wednesday, July 21st at The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom - International edition of Naked Girls Reading Science Fiction with creator, MICHELLE L'AMOUR! Doors at 6:30 pm. Cover - $15 in advance; $20 at the door. Also, International Film Premiere TBA. Doors at 8:30 pm. Cover TBA. Thursday, July 22nd at The Gladstone Hotel - Opening Launch Party. 6 pm - Photography Exhibit Opening in The Art Bar; Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art Show Opening in The 2nd Floor Gallery; Tease 'n Twirl Marketplace, Live Music and Teaser Performances in The Melody Bar. FREE. Opening Night Show featuring the Rising Stars of Today's Burlesque and Fashion Show of our Burlesque Bras for Breast Cancer in The Ballroom at 9 pm. Cover - $20 in advance; $25 at the door. Friday, July 23rd at Revival Nightclub - The Glamour Gala. Exclusive evening featuring Burlesque Legend, SATAN'S ANGEL, headlining guests and the best burlesque Canada has to offer! Doors at 9 pm. Cover - $30 in advance; $35 at the door. Saturday, July 24th at The Mod Club - The Burlesque Ball. Saturday Night Spectacular featuring the best Burlesque Artists in the world! Doors at 6 pm. Cover - $35 in advance; $40 at the door. Sunday, July 25th at The Great Hall - The Sunday Space Diner. Our Closing Party features Headlining Guests and fabulous locals in the most innovative, comedic acts we could find! Doors at 2 pm. Brunch and Tease 'n Twirl Marketplace also featured. Cover TBA ($20 in advance, $25 at the door, plus brunch). Burlesque University Schedule to be announced soon! Performer Line-ups for each event TBA. NEW this year - VIP Weekend Passes and Individual Tickets with guaranteed seating! www.torontoburlesquefestival.com

Applications of anthropometrics (Greek άνθρωπος, man, and μέτρον, measure, literally meaning "measurement of humans") to intelligence testing...

... species hygiene and survival. Just how stupid are we getting? In an age where The U.S. Department of Labor's counterproductive Occupational Safety and Health Administration is fostering uncontrolled breeding of intellectually inferior human specimens (see www.osha.gov, www.darwinawards.com) a serious attempt is proposed to identify these dimmest twits for purposes of establishing individual-specific O.S.H.A. safety regulation exemptions. A "head-measurer" tool designed for anthropological research. A chart from Bertillon's Identification anthropométrique (1893), demonstrating how to take measurements for his identification system.

There were eleven measurements:

1. Height
2. Stretch: Length of body from left shoulder to right middle when arm is raised
3. Bust: Length of torso from head to seat, taken when seated
4. Length of head: Crown to forehead
5. Width of head: Temple to temple
6. Length of right ear
7. Length of left foot
8. Length of left middle finger
9. Length of left cubit: Elbow to tip of middle finger
10. Width of cheeks

Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference. Beyond messy, ungainly eugenics-based gene pool hygiene steps, proactive measures are being considered to improve natural selection. Required couplings between selected intellectually superior senior male specimens and voluptuous, auricomous, tractable young females are clearly indicated. The "Why Wear A Dumb Hard Hat?" campaign is expected to be one of many effective tools aiding the elimination of gene pool polluters. Atypical brain of political leader (right) verses that of sampled senior members of government, all proponents of this proposal. World leaders selflessly agree to aid gene pool. Voluptuous, tractable young females are ready, willing and waiting... Tell tale brain activity in a fake orgasm. In cases where E. D. is a sensitive issue, a simple brain scan can spot whether a woman is faking an orgasm or not, a major fertility conference has heard.

Footnote: United Nations' world encompassing legislation is being drafted to outlaw female circumcision and fake orgasms by women. Researchers found that when a woman is faking, a part of the brain under conscious control lights up, while real orgasms occur subconsciously. It does not take a rocket surgeon to figure the selfless intent of male dominated cultures who embrace female circumcision as divine guidance...

Motor Scooters and Ice Cream Cones

Coning (countersteering*): The Physics Of Motor Scooter Dynamics For Dummies (abridged)

If you prefer simple go to the video link** at the bottom, or read on and be baffled...

www.wikipedia.org

A single-track vehicle such as a motor scooter is an inverted pendulum —it will fall over unless balanced.

External forces on a bike and rider leaning in a turn: gravity in green, drag in blue, vertical ground reaction in red, net propulsive and rolling resistance in yellow, friction in response to turn in orange, and net torques on front wheel in magenta.

Lateral dynamics has proven to be complicated, requiring three-dimensional, multibody dynamic analysis with at least two generalized coordinates to analyze. At a minimum, two coupled, second-order differential equations are required to capture the principal motions. Exact solutions are not possible, and numerical methods must be used instead. Competing theories of how bikes balance can still be found in print and online. On the other hand, as shown in later sections, much longitudinal dynamic analysis can be accomplished simply with planar kinetics and just one coordinate.

Lateral Force Generation as Slip Angle Grows

The history of the study of bike dynamics is nearly as old as the bicycle itself. It includes contributions from famous scientists such as Rankine, Appel and Whipple. In the early 1800s Karl von Drais, credited with inventing the two-wheeled vehicle variously called the laufmaschine, velpcipede, draisine, and dandy horse, showed that a rider could balance his device by steering the front wheel. By the end of the 1800s, Emmanuel Carvallo and Francis Whipple showed with rigid-body dynamics that some safety bicycles could actually balance themselves if moving at the right speed. It is not clear to whom should go the credit for tilting the steering axis from the vertical which helps make this possible.

In 1970, David Jones published an article in Physics Today showing that gyroscopic effects are not necessary to balance a bicycle. Since 1971, when he named the weave and capsize modes, Robin Sharp has written about the mathematical behavior of motorcycles and bicycles, and his work has continued to the present day with David Limebeer. Both men were at Imperial College, London. In 2007, Meijaard, Papadopoulos, Ruina, and Schwab published the canonical linearized equations of motion, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A , along with verification by two different methods The Draisine

Trail is a function of head angle, fork offset or rake, and wheel size. Their relationship can be described by this formula:

where R_w is wheel radius, A_h is the head angle measured clock-wise from the horizontal and O_f is the fork offset or rake. Trail can be increased by increasing the wheel size, decreasing or slackening the head angle, or decreasing the fork rake.

The more trail a bike has, the more stable it feels. Gyroscopic effect on front wheel of a bike. Appling a torque (in green) about the lean axis results in a reaction torque (in blue) about the steer axis.

The role of the gyroscopic effect in most bike designs is to help steer the front wheel into the direction of a lean. This phenomenon is called precession and the rate at which an object precesses is inversely proportional to its rate of spin. The slower a front wheel spins, the faster it will precess when the bike leans, and vice-versa. The rear wheel is prevented from precessing as the front wheel does by friction of the tires on the ground, and so continues to lean as though it were not spinning at all. Hence gyroscopic forces do not provide any resistance to tipping.

At low forward speeds, the precession of the front wheel is too quick, contributing to an uncontrolled bike’s tendency to oversteer, start to lean the other way and eventually oscillate and fall over. At high forward speeds, the precession is usually too slow, contributing to an uncontrolled bike’s tendency to understeer and eventually fall over without ever having reached the upright position. This instability is very slow, on the order of seconds, and is easy for most riders to counteract. Thus a fast bike may feel stable even though it is actually not self-stable and would fall over if it were uncontrolled. A bicycle wheel with an internal flywheel for enhanced gyroscopic effect is under development as a commercial product, the Gyrobike, for making it easier to learn to ride bicycles.

Graphs showing the lean and steer angle response of an otherwise uncontrolled bike, traveling at a forward speed in its stable rangle (6 m/s), to a steer torque that begins as an impulse and then remains constant. Torque to right causes initial steer to right, lean to left, and eventually a steady-state turn to left.

Countersteering is required to turn any tandem 2-wheeled vehicle

A hypothetical curve on dry asphalt

Another contribution of gyroscopic effects is a roll moment generated by the front wheel during countersteering. For example, steering left causes a moment to the right. The moment is small compared to the moment generated by the out-tracking front wheel, but begins as soon as the rider applies torque to the handlebars and so can be helpful in motor scooter racing. For more detail, see countersteering below.

This is how countersteering works

When riding no-hands. To turn left, a rider applies a momentary torque, either at the seat via the legs or in the torso that causes the bike itself to lean to the right, called counter lean by some authors. The combined center of mass of the bike and rider is only lowered, of course. However, if the front of the bike is free to swivel about its steering axis, the lean to the right will cause it to steer to the right by some combination of gyroscopic precession (as mentioned above), ground reaction forces, gravitational force on an off-axis center of mass, or simply the inertia of an off-axis center of mass, depending on the exact geometry and mass distribution of the particular bike, and the amount of torque and the speed at which it is applied.

1968 Vespa VLB Vintage Scooter 150cc Sprint currently (07/20/2010) for sale on ebay, Current bid: US $2,136.00. Time left:2d 21h (Jul 23, 201010:40:30 PDT). Reserve not yet met.

http://tinyurl.com/2dqff65 This countersteering to the right causes the ground contact to move to the right of the center of mass, as the bike moves forward, thus generating a leftward lean. Finally the front end steers to the left and the bike enters the left turn. The amount of leftward steering necessary to balance the leftward lean appropriate for the forward speed and radius of the turn is controlled by the torque generated by the rider, again either at the seat or in the torso.

To straighten back out of the turn, the rider simply reverses the procedure for entering it: cause the bike to lean farther to the left; this causes it to steer farther to the left, which moves the wheel contact patches farther to the left, eventually reducing the leftward lean and exiting the turn.

The reason this no-hands steering is less effective on heavy bikes, such as motorcycles, is that the rider weighs so much less than the bike that leaning the torso with respect to the bike does not cause the bike to lean far enough to generate anything but the shallowest turns. No-hands riders may be able to keep a heavy bike centered in a lane and negotiate shallow highway turns, but not much else.

*ALL THAT BABBLE SAID, JUST CLICK THIS LINK TO THIS SIMPLE VIDEO

countersteering 101

*Steering a (motor scooter) is counterintuitive; to turn right, you must steer left initially, and vice versa. You can execute this initially counter-directed turn by turning the handlebars explicitly (called counter-steering) or by throwing your hips to the side. Contrary to common belief, gyroscopic forces play only a limited role in balancing and steering. [D. E. H. Jones, Phys. Today 23 (4), 34–40 (1970)]. ©2000 American Association of Physics Teachers.

Arizona Department of Transportation Curbs Spending Frenzy

Responsive ADOT shows rare sign of fiscal competence at urging of taxpayers... WTF? Read about Arizona Department of Transportation's bold fiscal response to critics of their $1.25 million squirrely project in AZ... WTF??? Watch out for low-flying piggies! http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2010/06/24/news/doc4c2151d80b5d4484989967.txt From my favorite Arizona newspaper:

Eastern Arizona Courier

ADOT cancels red squirrel bridge project

By Jon Johnson Assistant Editor Published on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 8:59 AM MST

An Arizona Department of Transportation project to install 41 canopy tunnel bridges on Mount Graham to aid the sustainability of the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel has been canceled. ADOT Transportation Director John Halikowski released a statement Friday saying he ordered the cancellation of the project after receiving community input through a federally prescribed process. The Courier ran two articles on the project, and the majority of community members' comments were not supportive of the bridges. After the Courier's articles, a nationwide article also appeared on ABC.com. Most of the comments sent in on that article were also not supportive of the project. ADOT was set to spend about $1.25 million in federal transportation enhancement funds to build bridges and install them at various locations across State Route 366 (Swift Trail) and Forest Service Road 803. The money would have also paid for wildlife-monitoring equipment and radio tracking collars that would have been placed on squirrels by scientists from the University of Arizona. According to the ADOT news release, the department recognizes that transportation corridors affect the environment but would rather have a project to assist the Mount Graham red squirrel led by a wildlife management agency. “ADOT will not spend funds simply because they are available,” Halikowski said in a written statement Friday. “Funding for proposed projects in these restrictive, federally required enhancement programs will undergo additional review and scrutiny, which may result in some funds not being used and returned to the federal government. This issue again highlights the need for states to have more flexibility and control over the use of transportation funds. “It makes no sense that there are more than 120 specialized programs that state transportation departments are required to fund with federal highway dollars. Protec-tion of the red squirrel may be an appropriate effort – but not with transportation funding.” According to Bill Harmon, ADOT's Safford District engineer, due to the lateness in the fiscal year, the allocated funds will go back to the federal highway administration, and it is doubtful it will be able to be used for anything in the near future. Harmon said he didn't think the decision means such a project won't be discussed again at some time in the future, but it would be done by a different organization. "With ADOT's re-sources and mandates, our leadership indicated that this issue is probably better advanced by the Forest Service or Fish and Wildlife, and those kind of people that are better suited to deal with wildlife connectivity issues than we are," Harmon said. He added that he wasn't sure if the secondary project of installing an informational kiosk at the ranger station and signs throughout the mountain describing the environment, its history, animals and people will still be considered or not. Safford Mayor Chris Gibbs was pleased with Halikowski's decision but hoped the funds could be used in the area for something positive that would benefit the Gila Valley's human population. "I was concerned that we were able to come up with money for those kind of things, and yet we're still suffering from pretty high unemployment in our Valley," Gibbs said. "I didn't see that project bringing any money into the Valley (or having) any benefit to the human population."

At the fork-in-the-road a tragic path was taken... Rocket Boy rides

I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

Click to hear Janis click here too Janis Joplin AKA Janis Lyn Joplin

Born: 19-Jan-1943 Birthplace: Port Arthur, TX Died: 4-Oct-1970 Location of death: Hollywood, CA [1] Cause of death: Accident - Overdose Remains: Cremated, (ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean)

Gender: Female Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Bisexual Occupation: Singer

Nationality: United States Executive summary: Ball and Chain (Piece of My Heart)

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[1] 7047 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, CA.

Father: Seth Joplin (oil refinery worker) Boyfriend: Kris Kristofferson (1969) Boyfriend: Country Joe McDonald (musician) Boyfriend: Seth Morgan (engaged, at the time of her death) Girlfriend: Janis Ian Slept with: Dick Cavett HOLD EVERYTHING! OMG!!! SHE SLEPT WITH DICK CAVETT??? HOW COULD SHE??? I CAN BE PLEASED BY A COUPLING JANIS & JANIS, OR A JIMI, BUT CAVETT??? HOW EFFIN BIZZARO, CREEPY...

Slept with: Eric Clapton Slept with: Leonard Cohen Slept with: Jimi Hendrix Slept with: Howard Hesseman Slept with: Jim Morrison Slept with: Joe Namath Slept with: Peggy Caserta Slept with: Bob Seidemann (rock photographer)

High School: Thomas Jefferson High School, Port Arthur, TX (1960) University: Lamar State College University: University of Texas

Janis Joplin Big Brother and the Holding Company Vocalist (1966-68) The Kozmic Blues Band Vocalist (1968-69) The Full-Tilt Boogie Band Vocalist (1970) Disorderly Conduct Curtis Hall concert at Tampa, FL (15-Nov-1969) Obscenity 1969:Curtis Hall concert at Tampa, FL (15-Nov-1969) Shoplifting 1963 Woodstock Autopsy by coroner Thomas T. Noguchi Risk Factors: Heroin, Alcoholism, Smoking, Amphetamines

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR Festival Express (9-Sep-2003) Herself Monterey Pop (26-Dec-1968) Performer

Official Website: http://www.officialjanis.com/

15 year old Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin - Little Girl Blue

Janis Joplin - woodstock'69

Imagine the final heartbeat... and the grisly drama...