Madison Who’s Who Blog

Most are aware that Time magazine has online their compilation of the one hundred most influential people of the century, a who’s who of artists, scientists, writers and politicians - as all who’s whos should be.

One wonders, though, of the criteria used in sifting through one hundred years of remarkable human beings in determining who should be included. No doubt another news organization with a different bias may have produced a different assemblage of noted personages.
Wikipedia describes the List’s evolution:

“The list was first published in 1999, when Time magazine named the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Based on the popularity of the installment, in 2004 Time magazine decided to make it an annual feature in which the 100 people influencing the world most greatly were listed every year.”

Apparently, being listed is not honorary but just indicative of one’s power to influence events - for good or ill. Tony Blair was denied entry and Ann Coulter’s inclusion was scoffed at, while, strangely enough, Katie Couric’s inclusion was not.

As it stands, Time magazine is far from the final arbiter on such matters.

An interesting and constantly evolving online compilation of who’s who is the Notable Names Database.

“NNDB is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. Superficially, it seems much like a “Who’s Who” where a noted person’s curriculum vitae is available (the usual information such as date of birth, a biography, and other essential facts.)

But it mostly exists to document the connections between people, many of which are not always obvious. A person’s otherwise inexplicable behavior is often understood by examining the crowd that person has been associating with.”

Solyent Green, the site’s host, is interesting in and of itself. Wikipedia describes them thus:

“Soylent Communications is a web-hosting provider based in Mountain View, California, United States. It is also the hub of several websites maintained by the company. The websites vary from shock sites like the famous rotten.com to thorough information archives like the Notable Names Data Base, which contains more than 50,000 entries encompassing over 18,000 profiles of prominent individuals. However, the website for Soylent Communications itself is simple, containing a brief description on the company, no links, and the address to a post office box as the only means of contacting the company.”

Ironic for a web hosting company not to supply an email but eccentricity is certainly a hallmark of the Internet. Be that as it may, and whatever their motives, their database contains many names known by few as well as an index of the wise, famous or notorious, living or dead. Definitely a good resource for who’s who trivia.

If irreverent dead muses of the sixties are your cup of tea, Frank Zappa (pictured here) is treated to an especially lengthy profile.

Today we divert from the usual search for intriguing ‘who’s who’ collections to , uhm, ‘what’s what’ - as in what are the 50 all time best  movie endings?

“I’ve seen Chinatown a dozen times, and while it’s a great movie, two specific things about it stick in my mind: Jack Nicholson’s bandaged nose and the final line of dialogue. Acting, directing, a great script… these are essential to any film. But a classic ending, now that can really make a movie.

We spent literally months brainstorming and corralling the 50 films with the absolute best endings we’ve ever seen. We’re not talking about the last half hour. We mean the last minute of movie. You know, the ending.”
(source

If you are bored with all the new releases, this list of top 50 endings will give you a mini-library of films to re-visit or see for the first time. Each title links to an extensive review and the site proprietor warns that the list is nothing but one big spoiler, so be careful to skip over reviews of movies you haven’t seen yet.

Titles include:  Shane,  A History of Violence, The Terminator,  Jacob’s Ladder, House of Games, Big Night and The Thing. (pictured above)

#40
The Thing (1982) - Easily the most chilling ending in horror, Carpenter purposefully never lets the audience in on exactly how the contagion is spread and allows us to stew in absolute terror as to which man will split apart and become the alien host. The last thumps of the moody score are enough to make anyone shiver with fear.

And speaking about reviews, Madison Who’s Who has received another favorable review over at NexTechNews.

If the US looks unrecognizable in the rendering to your right (click image to enlarge)
it is because this map is a representation of countries based on the number of golf courses they possess. At 16,000 you could say America is the ‘who’s who’ among golfing nations, but it may be we are leveling off.

“Though about half of the planet’s golf courses and golfers are American, the headline news from the National Golf Foundation in January was that in 2006, for the first time in six decades, the U.S. ended the year with fewer golf courses than it had at the start. With plenty of supply–16,000 courses–and too many other pesky demands on our precious time, it’s perhaps no surprise that the game is flatlining in these parts.”

The above quote is from Golfer’s Digest who have ranked the top 100 golf courses outside of the United Sates in their 5th annual Planet Golf Survey. The top 10 appear below with the list in it’s entirety found here.

1. Royal County Down G.C. Newcastle, N. Ireland
2. St. Andrews Links (Old) St. Andrews, Scotland
3. Royal Dornoch G.C. (Championship) Dornoch, Scotland
4. Royal Portrush G.C. (Dunluce) Portrush, N. Ireland
5. Muirfield Gullane, Scotland
6. Royal Melbourne G.C. (Composite) Black Rock, Australia
7. Ballybunion G.C. (Old) Ballybunion, Ireland
8. Turnberry Hotel (Ailsa) Turnberry, Scotland
9. Carnoustie G. Links (Championship) Carnoustie, Scotland
10. Cape Kidnappers G. Cse. Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand

In the annals of who’s who we frequently find fictional characters that loom so large in the culture’s lore that they are almost treated with the deference of an honored statesmen. Darth Vader would have to be counted among the fictional mighty and an intrepid Star War fan has further boosted the fame of this dark icon with this fantastic heart air balloon.

With the encouragement of FanWars leader Nicolas Lelong,the balloons creator,Benoît Lambert, approached George Lucas for permission when the idea was first being batted about.

As soon as we got Lucasfilm’s approval, we made contact with the world largest manufacturer of hot-air balloons, specialized in special shapes and based in the United Kingdom. A Darth Vader helmet replica was sent to their engineers to help them recreate every detail. A vectorial file representing the Vader helmet in 3D was also sent to the engineers.
[..]
Eight weeks were necessary to give birth to the balloon. To keep this project secret on Lucasfilm request, the english manufacturer called it « Head One ». This name allowed us to keep the project secret until the balloon’s first public appearance, and was also used for the official Belgian registration.
(source)

Here is the balloon’s technical data:

• 26 meters ( 86 feet) high, basket included
• 21 meters ( 69 feet) wide
• 24 meters ( 78 feet) depth
• estimated hot air volume 3.000 m³ ( 106,000 cubic feet)
• estimated weight 290 kilos ( 640 lb)
• Year of making : 2007