When pop got a virus
QUESTION What was the first video to go viral? VIRAL videos are so-called because, like medical viruses, they spread through email or the internet. Such is the speed of modern connectivity that such videos can make global stars of the performers.
A good example is the Korean pop star Psy, whose song Gangnam Style – with its distinctive horse-riding dance – swept the internet in 2012. It was the first video to have one billion hits on YouTube.
Viral videos began circulating before YouTube came on the scene in 2005, originally via email. Some point to a couple of short cartoons directed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the inventors of the irreverent TV show South Park.
In 1992 they released a short cartoon called Jesus vs. Frosty with early incarnations of the now familiar characters of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny building a snowman and putting a magic hat on it to make it come to life.
Unfortunately, Frosty turns out to be a deranged monster.
This came to the attention of Fox Studios executive Brian Graden, who commissioned the pair to create a video Christmas card.
They came up with Jesus vs. Santa, where the two argue who is more important, ending up with a Mortal Kombat-style fight. These videos were widely disseminated in 1995 under the title Spirit Of Christmas.
However, far more people will remember 1996’s Dancing Baby – a 3D animation of a baby performing a cha-cha. It was created by developers at Autodesk, a Californian software company, as part of a set of 3D tools called Character Studio.
Ron Lussier, working for LucasArts at the time, tweaked the original file and shared it with co-workers via email, sparking the baby’s internet travels.
In late 1996, web developer John Woodell created a highly compressed animated file called a GIF, which allowed it to spread via even the slowest internet connection.
In 1998, the dancing baby entered mainstream culture when it began appearing as a recurring hallucination on the TV comedydrama series Ally McBeal.
Mary Baines, Telford, Shropshire.
QUESTION Was Donald Trump the first US President to have a rabbi speak at his inauguration? NO, rabbis have officiated at several United States presidential inaugurations.
The role of clergy began in 1937, when President Franklin D Roosevelt invited two clergymen to pray. Harry Truman included prayers from his good friend Rabbi Samuel Thurman in 1949.
Rabbis also officiated at the inaugurations of John F. Kennedy (1961), Lyndon B. Johnson (1965) and Richard Nixon (1969).
The 1977 Jimmy Carter and 1981 Ronald Reagan inaugurations did not feature a rabbi, but Reagan’s 1985 one did. There was then a long hiatus until the January 20, 2017, inauguration of Donald Trump. Brian Doolan, Holland-on-Sea, Essex.
QUESTION How much does it cost Croke Park in electricity when the stadium is used for matches or a concert? CROKE Park uses a vast amount of electricity, but far less for matches, including All-Ireland finals, than it does for concerts.
It’s estimated that Croke Park uses as much electricity as a small town of 5,000 people, somewhere like Ardee, Co. Louth; Listowel, Co. Kerry, or Tipperary town.
The construction of the new Croke Park began well over 20 years ago, in 1994, and the stadium is not only the third largest in the EU, but also one of the most technically advanced, seating just over 82,000 spectators. The many facilities depend on electricity to function, including the stadium and maintenance lights, the 140square-metre static screen, and behind-the-scenes facilities, including changing facilities. Croke Park also has extensive hospitality facilities, while other features include the GAA museum.
In addition to being a national sporting venue, Croke Park is also used extensively as a conference venue. But it really hits the headlines when a big concert is staged there such as the U2 performance there last year as part of their Joshua Tree tour.
Close on two million pass through the turnstiles for matches at Croke Park each year, while all the big-name concerts attract a full-capacity turnout close to 100,000 a time.
When U2 performed on three successive nights in 2005 at Croke Park, the aggregate audience was 246,743, the largest concert audience in Croker’s history. This year, upcoming concerts at the venue include Taylor Swift in June and Michael Bublé in July.
When a GAA match is being staged in Croke Park, including All-Ireland finals, those top sporting fixtures are always played during the afternoon, so the stadium lights are generally not needed unless the weather is exceptionally murky. So the electricity usage is comparatively light, probably generating a bill of around €3,000 for an All-Ireland final. When evening games are played under the floodlights, the electricity bill will be proportionately higher.
Some other events, such as conferences, are also relatively light consumers of electricity since the main requirements are for heat in winter, air conditioning in summer, and lighting, as well as the use of audio-visual equipment.
But when it comes to a big concert being staged at Croke Park, it’s an entirely different scenario, making the electricity bills really enormous.
All the sound systems as well as all the special lighting used in evening concerts require considerable amounts of electricity, so it’s more than likely that the bill for a gig that will blast the audience – as well as people living in the neighbourhood – out of their seats could be as much as €100,000.
For that money, an awful lot of electric kettles could be brewing up!
Over the past decade the GAA’s contracts for electricity supply to Croke Park show that close on 5MW of power is required for this big national venue. That’s equivalent to the amount of power used in a small town of 5,000 people.
Depending on how much the inhabitants of that town use electricity, their combined annual electricity bill could be as much as €7.5million. That shows just how power is used in Croke Park, but while that’s a vast amount of electricity, it’s still a fraction of the power requirements of data centres around the country, such as the on-off one proposed by Apple in Co. Galway.
A data centre that’s due to become operational at Little Island, Co. Cork, next year, will need a huge input of power – 60MWs worth, more than ten times what is needed for Croker.
Next time you put on a kettle for a cup of tea, just consider the millions of kettles you’d have to boil to equal the power consumption of Croke Park! Ellie Kelly, Beaumont, Dublin.
QUESTION Are there any golf courses that span two countries? FURTHER to the earlier answer, while Llanymynech and Tornio golf courses span two countries (England/Wales and Finland/Sweden respectively), at Whipsnade Park Golf Club you tee up on the first hole in Buckinghamshire and your ball lands in Bedfordshire as the counties meet at the first tee.
Bizarrely, its address is Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. No wonder a name choice at the club’s launch was ‘Three Counties Golf Club’. John Hockey, Bucks.
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