Monday, April 18, 2011

Places worth to visit (New Zealand)

 
New Zealand




New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island) and numerous smaller islands. 
Official language: English
Population: about 4 millions
Capital: Wellington
New Zealand has a unique and dynamic culture. The culture of its indigenous Māori people affects the language, the arts, and even the accents of all New Zealanders. Their place in the South Pacific, and their love of the outdoors, sport, and the arts make New Zealanders and their culture unique in the world.
Visit:   
Sky Tower (in Auckland): at 328 metres, it is the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand and offers breathtaking views for up to 80 kilometres in every direction.


Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World (in Auckland): The Antarctic Encounter is home to New Zealand’s only sub-Antarctic penguins while in Underwater World you come face to face with sharks, turtles, giant rays and other incredible deep sea creatures on the moving walkway. 

Zealandia (The Karori Wildlife Sanctuary): an ambitious 250 hectare project intended to restore and protect native flora and fauna within the city environment (in Wellington).

Glenorchy, Queenstone: Visit the New Zealand location sites used to create "The Lord of the Rings" movies and replicate Middle Earth. Rugged mountains, majestic lakes, crystal clear air, and just so much to do.

Avon river punting ride: Punting is the act of propelling a punt (flat bottomed boat) with a pole. A unique part of the city, the Avon River sustains a diverse plant and animal life and is a source of many recreational activities.

Rotorua city: is renowned as the heartland of Maori culture. The area is well known for it's extensive geo-thermal activity - with threads of steam poking up in all sorts of places (including busy streets & paths).
Abel Tasman National Park: Situated in the stunning Tasman Bay region at the top of the South Island of New Zealand, Abel Tasman National Park is one of New Zealand's most popular national parks, a unique coastal playground of immense beauty. Golden beaches border the translucent turquoise sea, and sandy estuaries fringed by natural forests. The walking tracks here, both inland and coastal are world famous for there outstanding beauty.
Maori rock carvings: In the late 1970s master carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell came to his mother's land at Lake Taupō.  On a boat trip around the Western Bays he saw the cliffs at Mine Bay and decided to use them as a canvas for his work. The Maori rock carvings at Mine Bay on Lake Taupō, are over 10 metres high and are only accessible by boat.

Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools: the Thermal Pools and Spa are located in the centre of the village. The pools range in temperature from 33-42° Celsius.
New Zealand Glaciers: New Zealand's most famous glaciers are the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers on the South Island's West Coast. Gouged out by moving ice over thousands of years, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are easily accessible to mountaineers and hikers.


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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Music genres (Part 1)

The term music genre is used to refer to a variety of facets of music, including the period during which a musical composition was written, its style, its instrumentation and treatment of those instruments, its form and function, its means of transmission, its means of dissemination, and the location of its geographical origins sometimes crossed with the cultural or ethnic background of the composer (www.wisegeek.com).

OK..I know the basics..rock, pop, jazz, metal, R'N'B, classical, country, hip-hop...but there are so many others and also so many subcategories for every style...I'll try to figure out the most known or, lets say, the genres that I' ve heard of...

Rock
Rock and Roll: The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s.Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country and western.


Psychedelic rock: It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom.In the 1960s, in the tradition of jazz and blues, many folk and rock musicians began to take drugs and included drug references in their songs.




Progressive rock: Progressive rock (often shortened to prog or prog rock) is a form of rock music that evolved in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." The term "art rock" is often used interchangeably with "progressive rock", but while there are crossovers between the two genres, they are not identical.The term was initially applied to the music of bands such as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Soft rock: Soft rock is a style of music which uses the techniques of rock music (often combined with elements from folk rock and singer-songwriter pop) to compose a softer, more toned-down sound. Soft rock songs generally tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships.
Major artists included Carole King, Cat Stevens and James Taylor. It reached its commercial peak in the mid- to late 70s with acts like Billy Joel, Chicago, America and the reformed Fleetwood Mac.

Hard rock: Hard rock is a form of loud, aggressive rock music. It is typified by a heavy use of distortedelectric guitars, bass guitar, drums, and often accompanied with pianos, and keyboards.Hard rock developed into a major form of popular music in the 1970s, with bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, AC/DC and Van Halen, and reached a commercial peak in the mid to late 1980s.




Punk rock: New York, early 1970's. Young, virtually unknown artists like Patti Smith, the Velvet Underground, and the Dolls of New York(changed later to New York Dolls) brought about a new style of "alternative-bohemian" entertainment, rooted in a "do-it-yourself" attitude. Short, frenetic songs, aggressive, sometimes confrontational stage presence, and angry messages against consumerism hit the stages, starting the movement that would be known as punk rock. By late 1976, bands such as the Ramones, in New York City, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. 



Alternative rock: Alternative rock music is really a name given to rock music that didn't fit any other genre. A lot of rock music has been classified as alternative rock music even though some of these did not exactly fit the meaning. Alternative rock music became popular in the 1990's but the history or alternative rock music goes back farther than that. Before Nirvana brought alternative rock music to the mainstream audience, the music genre had been gaining popularity with the college crowds and music underground.


 To be continued....
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Friday, April 1, 2011

The KYOTO Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted in New York on 9 May 1992). The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. 
The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.” The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. 
Greenhouse gases: Carbon dioxide (C02), Methane (CH4),Nitrous oxide (N20), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).


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