McDonalds closing Hundreds of Stores

    McDonald’s shuttered 350 poorly performing stores in Japan, the United States, and China the first three months of 2015 as part of its plan to boost its sagging profits. Those previously unannounced closings, disclosed on a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday, are on top of the 350 shutterings the world’s largest restaurant chain had already targeted for the year. While those 700 store closings this year represent a fraction of the 32,500 or so restaurants worldwide, they show how aggressive McDonald’s is getting in pruning poorly attended locations that are dragging down its results. Those previously unannounced closings, disclosed on a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday, are on top of the 350 shutterings the world’s largest restaurant chain had already targeted for the year. While those 700 store closings this year represent a fraction of the 32,500 or so restaurants worldwide, they show how aggressive McDonald’s is getting in pruning poorly attended locations that are dragging down its results. On May 4, the company will start detailing its turnaround strategy.

Youtube App Stops Working on Older Devices

     Like burning down a forest to make sweet nutrients for new growth, YouTube is winding down its service to myriad older devices today. spotted by MacRumors, YouTube notes that "select" devices that were made in 2012 (or earlier) will find that any special-made YouTube apps will no longer work. That's thanks to a change in YouTube's Data API, which Google says opens it up to features like comments, captions, RSS push notifications, and flagging videos. So far, the list of devices that the update puts out to pasture includes older TVs and Blu-ray disc players from Sony and Panasonic, Google TV devices running version 3 or 4, game consoles without support for Adobe Flash or HTML5, along with iOS devices running anything less than iOS 7. The update also impacts the second-generation Apple TV, requiring users to start videos on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads then stream them using AirPlay.The change is likely to have the biggest impact on anyone who hasn't purchased a dedicated streaming device in the past three years, and that relies instead on apps built into Smart TV sets.

     

Sword Art Online

      Sword Art Online (SAO) is another anime I just started this year. It's right behind Fairy Tail as my favorite anime. 

     SAO is about  a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG), released in 2022. With the Nerve Gear, a virtual reality  helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds. On November 6, 2022, the players log into SAO for the first time, and later discover that they are unable to log out. They are then informed by Akihiko Kayaba, SAO's creator, that if they wish to be free, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if their avatars die in-game, their bodies will also die in the real world. One of these players is Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya, who was chosen as one of the 1,000 beta testers in the closed beta. Since he had previous experience and knowledge of the game, he felt that he could beat the game easily. As a result, he set out to beat the game on his own. As the game progresses for two years, Kirito eventually befriends a female player named Asuna with whom he ultimately falls in love. 

     The first season is on Netflix, but SAO 2 is on Toonami, a series of shows that appear at specific times on adult swim, and is still on.

Frozen vs The Snowman

     In its second attempt, the Walt Disney Company failed to have a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by The Snowman creator Kelly Wilson dropped on Thursday. (Cue “Let It Go” jokes.) Wilson filed the suit last March, claiming the teaser trailer for Frozen boasted many similarities to her short, 2D computer-animated film. Disney first tried to have the suit dismissed in July; California federal judge Vince Chhabria, however, said “the sequence of events in both works, from start to finish, is too parallel to conclude that no reasonable juror could find the works substantially similar.”

     I really like Frozen and other Disney movies because my family likes them and going to Disney World, they are entertaining. The Snowman and the Frozen teaser trailer look similar but I think they are different. The characters are not the same animal or the same size snowman. There is no dialogue in The Snowman unlike like in the teaser trailer there is. The only thing that is the same is the setting.

     The first video is the Frozen teaser trailer and the second video is The Snowman.

AVATAR sequals

James Cameron has delayed the first sequel of one of his hit movies, AVATAR.Three sequels are planned, with the releases staggered across three years. The first sequel which was originally intended to open in theaters in later 2016 would have been the perfect spring-board for the Disney's Animal Kingdom AVATAR land opening in early 2017. Disney and Cameron are expected to be using elements from the sequels in the new land, which now will open before the movies hit the screens.The original AVATAR movie is the highest grossing movie of all time, taking nearly $2.8 billion at the box office.

Disney Secrets

   I love going to Disney with my family there is always something new and something we never knew before. There are many secrets hidden throughout the Disney Parks in Florida and California. In one article I read, it showed 25 Walt Disney World Secrets(some of the facts aren't true anymore). These are some of my favorite secrets from this article that I found interesting:

• Of the 3 Presidential Seals in this country, one is located in the Hall of Presidents in Disney World. The other two are in the Oval Office and the hall where the Liberty Bell is housed.
•  The plane from Casablanca part of the Great Movie Ride is actually the front half of the crashed plane from the Jungle Cruise ride. Efficient huh?
• When Pirates of the Caribbean was being built in 1967, Disney Imagineers didn’t like the look of the false skeletons placed around the ride. So, with the help of UCLA medical school, they were able to place actual human skeletons about the place. Most have since been removed, though the skull and crossbones on this headboard are still human.
• On the signage for Animal Kingdom, a dragon can be seen amongst other less fictional beasties. There was originally going to be an area called the Beastly Kingdom, which was going to be dedicated to mythical animals. 

If you would like to read the rest of the secrets here is the link to the site: http://www.disneyfanatic.com/25-walt-disney-world-secrets/

Airplane Home

     If you happened to stumble across this home, you'd be forgiven for thinking there had been a terrible airplane accident. That's because Bruce Campbell, a retired electrical engineer, lives, believe it or not, in retired Boeing 727 fuselage. The industrious recycler Bruce has had his old plane placed in woods near Portland, Oregon, where he lives happily amongst some of the original seating and even the airplane-style toilet. Bruce believes every old plane should be 'upcycled' like his has been, declaring on his website, "Jetliners can, and should, be transformed into wonderful homes – retirement into an aerospace class castle should be every airliner's constructive fate. They should never be mindlessly scrapped."
He has transformed the inside of the plane into a workable living space.

There are more pictures, here is the link to the site to see them:http://www.awesomeinventions.com/boeing-727-conversion-home/

Fairy Tail

I like to watch anime, but only the english versions so I can understand them. My favorite anime so far is Fairy Tail. It is a manga(comics that are made in Japan) written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima. The television show came out October 12, 2009 in Japan, in America it came out April 15, 2011. The world of Fairy Tail, called Earth-land, is populated by humans and numerous other races, including catlike creatures called Exceed, dragons, celestial spirits, and giant beasts. The majority of the series takes place in the Kingdom of Fiore, a fictional country in Earth-land populated by 17 million people, 10% of whom able to perform magic. I've heard about this show for a while, but I never got around to watching until last week. There are only 175 episodes of the english version, but there are 229 episodes all together so far. If you want to start watching anime, or want another series to watch, I suggest Fairy Tail or Soul Eater.