Grammy Awards 2015, the revelation

This is the moment that all music lovers' been waiting for.

Beyonce and Sam Smith dominate the nominee's list with 6 nominees each.

Here's the full list:

Album of the Year

Beck, Morning Phase
Beyonce, Beyonce
Ed Sheeran, x
Sam Smith, In the Lonely Hour
Pharrell Williams, Girl

Best New Artist

Bastille
Iggy Azalea
Brandy Clark
Haim
Sam Smith

Record of the Year

"Fancy," Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX
"Chandelier," Sia
"Stay With Me (Darkchild Version)," Sam Smith
"Shake It Off," Taylor Swift
"All About That Bass," Meghan Trainor

Song of the Year

"Chandelier," Sia
"All About That Bass," Meghan Trainor
"Shake It Off," Taylor Swift
"Stay With Me (Darkchild Version)," Sam Smith
"Take Me to Church," Hozier

Best Rap Album

The New Classic, Iggy Azalea
Because the Internet, Childish Gambino
Nobody's Smiling, Common
The Marshall Mathers LP2, Eminem
Oxymoron, ScHoolboy Q
Blacc Hollywood, Wiz Khalifa

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

"Fancy," Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX
"A Sky Full of Stars," Coldplay
"Say Something," A Great Big World ft. Christina Aguilera 
"Bang Bang," Ariana Grande, Jessie J & Nicki Minaj
"Dark Horse," Katy Perry ft. Juicy J

Best Rap Performance

"3005," Childish Gambino
"0 to 100/The Catch Up," Drake
"Rap God," Eminem
"i," Kendrick Lamar 
"All I Need Is You," Lecrae

Best Alternative Music Album

This Is All Yours, alt-J
Reflektor, Arcade Fire
Melophobia, Cage the Elephant
St. Vincent, St. Vincent
Lazaretto, Jack White

Best Rock Album

Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams
Morning Phase, Beck
Turn Blue, The Black Keys
Hypnotic Eye, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Songs of Innocence, U2

Best Rock Song

"Ain't It Fun," Paramore
"Blue Moon," Beck
"Fever," The Black Keys
"Gimme Something Good," Ryan Adams
"Lazaretto," Jack White

Best Country Album

Riser, Dierks Bentley
The Outsiders, Eric Church
The Way I'm Livin', Lee Ann Womack
12 Stories, Brandy Clark
Platinum, Miranda Lambert

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration

"Blak Majik," Common ft. Jhené Aiko
"The Monster," Eminem ft. Rihanna
"Tuesday," I Love Makonnen ft. Drake
"Studio," ScHoolboy Q ft. BJ The Chicago Kid
"Bound 2," Kanye West & Charlie Wilson  

Best Rap Song

"Anaconda," Nicki Minaj
"Bound 2," Kanye West & Charlie Wilson
"i," Kendrick Lamar
"We Dem Boyz," Wiz Khalifa
"0 to 100/The Catch Up," Drake

Best Country Song

"American Kids," Kenny Chesney
"Automatic," Miranda Lambert
"Give Me Back My Hometown," Eric Church
"I'm Not Gonna Miss You," Glen Campbell 
"Meanwhile Back at Mama's," Tim McGraw ft. Faith Hill

Best Country Duo/Group Performance

"Gentle On My Mind," The Band Perry
"Somethin' Bad," Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood
"Day Drinking," Little Big Town
"Meanwhile Back At Mama's," Tim McGraw ft. Faith Hill
"Raise 'Em Up," Keith Urban ft. Eric Church 

Best Country Solo Performance

"Give Me Me Back My Hometown," Eric Church
"Invisible," Hunter Hayes
"Automatic," Miranda Lambert
"Something In the Water," Carrie Underwood 
"Cop Car," Keith Urban

Best Pop Vocal Album

Ghost Stories, Coldplay
Bangerz, Miley Cyrus
My Everything, Ariana Grande
Prism, Katy Perry
x, Ed Sheeran
In the Lonely Hour, Sam Smith

Best Urban Contemporary Album

Sail Out, Jhene Aiko
Beyonce, Beyonce
X, Chris Brown
Mali Is, Mali Music
G I R L, Pharrell Williams

Best Dance/Electronic Album 

Syro, Aphex Twin
While (1, Deadmaus
Nabuma Rubberband, Little Dragon
Do It Again, Röyksopp & Robyn
Damage Control, Mat Zo

Best Dance Recording

"Never Say Never," Basement Jaxx
"Rather Be," Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne
"F for You," Disclosure ft. Mary J. Blige
"I Got U," Duke Dumont ft. Jax Jones
"Faded," Zhu

Best Latin Pop Album

Tangos, Ruben Blades
Elypse, Camila
Raiz, Lila Downs, Niña Pastori & Soledad Pastorutti
Loco de Amor, Juanes
Gracias Por Estar Aqui, Marco Antonio Solis

Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media

American Hustle 
Guardians of the Galaxy
Frozen 
Get On Up: The James Brown Story 
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Music Video

"We Exist," Arcade Fire
"Turn Down for What," DJ Snake & Lil Jon
"Chandelier," Sia
"Happy," Pharrell Williams 
"The Golden Age," Woodkid ft. Max Richter

Best Music Film

Beyoncé & Jay Z: On The Run Tour, Beyoncé & Jay Z
Ghost Stories, Coldplay
20 Feet From Stardom, Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer & Judith Hill
Metallica: Through The Never, Metallica
The Truth About Love Tour: Live From Melbourne, Pink

Best Pop Solo Performance

"All of Me," John Legend
"Chandelier," Sia
"Stay With Me," Sam Smith
"Shake It Off," Taylor Swift
"Happy," Pharrell Williams

Best Reggae Album

Ziggy Marley, Fly Rasta
Lee "Scratch" Perry, Back on the Controls
Sean Paul, Full Frequency
Shaggy, Out of Many, One Music
Sly & Robbie & Spicy Chocolate, The Reggae Power
Soja, Amid the Noise and the Haste

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

Cheek to Cheek, Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett
Sending You a Little Christmas, Johnny Mathis
Nostalgia, Annie Lennox
Partners, Barbra Streisand
Night Songs, Barry Manilow

Best Americana Album

The River & The Thread, Rosanne Cash
Terms of My Surrener, John Hiatt
Bluesamericana, Keb' Mo'
A Dotted Line, Nickel Creek
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Sturgill Simpson

Best Spoken Word Album

Actors Anonymous, James Franco
A Call to Action, Jimmy Carter
Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, John Waters
A Fighting Chance, Elizabeth Warren
Diary of a Mad Diva, Joan Rivers
We Will Survive: True Stories of Encouragement, Inspiration and the Power of Song, Gloria Gaynor

Best Gospel Album

Help, Erica Campbell
Amazing, Ricky Dillard & New G
Withholding Nothing: Live, William McDowell
Forever Yours, Smokie Norful
Vintage Worship, Anita Wilson

Best Rock Performance

"Gimme Something Good," Ryan Adams
"Do I Wanna Know?", Arctic Monkeys
"Blue Moon," Beck
"Fever," The Black Keys
"Lazaretto," Jack White

Best Metal Performance

"Neon Knights," Anthrax
"High Road," Mastodon
"Heartbreaker," Motörhead
"The Negative One," Slipknot
"The Last In Line," Tenacious D

Best R&B Performance

"Drunk In Love," Beyoncé ft. Jay Z
"New Flame," Chris Brown ft. Usher & Rick Ross
"It's Your World," Jennifer Hudson ft. R. Kelly
"Like This," Ledisi
"Good Kisser," Usher

Best R&B Song

"Drunk In Love," Beyonce ft. Jay Z
"Good Kisser," Usher
"New Flame," Chris Brown ft. Usher & Rick Ross
"Options (Wolfjames Version)," Luke James ft. Rick Ross
"The Worst," Jhené Aiko

Best R&B Album

Islander, Bernhoft
Lift Your Spirit, Aloe Blacc
Love, Marriage & Divorce, Toni Braxton & Babyface
Black Radio 2, Robert Glasper Experiment
Give The People What They Want, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

Yup folks it's officially Sam Smith's night, after he brought home 4 awards and followed by Pharrell Williams with 3 awards although he received them from lesser categories.
Congratulation for all winners!!

Read More

American Music Awards 2014, full winner list

nicky minaj, jessie j and ariana grande performed Bang Bang Bang @AMA2014

American Music Awards is long gone with few surprises,

My man Eminem was knock outed by a new Australian female rapper who dominate the music charts with "Fancy". 

Here is the full winner list: (I took it from Wikipedia)

Artist of the Year	New Artist of the Year
Iggy Azalea Beyoncé Luke Bryan  One Direction Katy Perry	5 Seconds of Summer Iggy Azalea Bastille Sam Smith Meghan Trainor
Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist	Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist
Sam Smith Pharrell Williams John Legend	Iggy Azalea Lorde  Katy Perry
Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group	Favorite Pop/Rock Album
Imagine Dragons  One Direction OneRepublic	Pure Heroine – Lorde  Midnight Memories – One Direction Prism – Katy Perry
Favorite Country Male Artist	Favorite Country Female Artist
Jason Aldean  Luke Bryan Blake Shelton	Miranda Lambert Kacey Musgraves  Carrie Underwood
Favorite Country Duo or Group	Favorite Country Album
Eli Young Band  Florida Georgia Line Lady Antebellum	Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences – Garth Brooks The Outsiders – Eric Church  Just as I Am – Brantley Gilbert
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist	Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album
Iggy Azalea Drake Eminem	The New Classic – Iggy Azalea Nothing Was the Same – Drake The Marshall Mathers LP 2 – Eminem
Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist	Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist
John Legend Pharrell Williams Chris Brown	Beyoncé Mary J. Blige Jhene Aiko
Favorite Soul/R&B Album	Favorite Alternative Artist
Beyoncé – Beyoncé G I R L – Pharrell Williams Love in the Future – John Legend	Bastille  Imagine Dragons Lorde
Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist	Favorite Latin Artist
Sara Bareilles OneRepublic  Katy Perry	Marc Anthony  Enrique Iglesias Romeo Santos
Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist	Favorite EDM Artist
Casting Crowns Hillsong United Newsboys	Avicii  Calvin Harris Zedd
Single of the Year	Top Soundtrack
"Dark Horse" – Katy Perry feat. Juicy J "Happy" – Pharrell Williams "All of Me" – John Legend "Rude" – Magic! "Fancy" – Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX	Frozen The Fault in Our Stars Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix, Vol. 1
International Song Award	International Artist Award
"Little Apple" - Chopstick Brothers	Zhang Jie
Dick Clark Award for Excellence
Taylor Swift

some of them been quite sensational in 2014, and although I didn't agree with some winners but hey , music is about taste and I wasn"t in jurors lineup so congratulation to all the winners!!!

Read More

welcome 2015

Well, it has been 2 years that I didn't write in this blog.

A lot of things happened off course, from the boys who dominate the music in 2013, they were "Get Lucky" in "Blurred lines" , the Malaysian airplane(s) crashed, and the hot issue between Russia and the US & uni EU. 

I am not going to write those stories now since it's been such an old news for the netizens.

So I just wanna say, welcome 2015.

Read More

Actor Cory Monteith, Who Played Finn Hudson On 'Glee,' Found Dead

Cory Monteith, Glee actor, found dead

We're learning early Sunday that actor Cory Monteith, who shot to fame with his portrayal of quarterback Finn Hudson, on the hit musical show Glee, has died. He was 31.

Monteith's body was found Saturday in a room on the 21st floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in downtown Vancouver, the city's police department said in statement.

"Mr. Monteith checked into the hotel in July 6th and was due to check out of the room today. There were others with Mr. Monteith in his room earlier last night, but video and fob key entries show him returning to his room by himself in the early morning hours and we believe he was alone when he died.

"When he missed his check-out time, staff went to the room at noon and found his body."

Cast mate Mark Salling responded to the news of Monteith's death on Twitter with one word: "No."

The entertainment website TMZ notes: "Monteith voluntarily checked himself into a treatment center back in April, admitting he had substance abuse issues. It was his second time in treatment."

Source: NPR.org

Read More

PayPal denies teenager reward for finding website bug

A 17-year-old German student contends PayPal has denied him a reward for finding a vulnerability in its website.

Robert Kugler said he notified PayPal of the vulnerability on May 19. He said he was informed by email that because he is under 18 years old, he did not qualify for its Bug Bounty Program. He will turn 18 next March.

PayPal, which is owned by auction site eBay, outlines the terms and conditions for its Bug Bounty Program on its website, but does not appear to have an age guideline. PayPal officials did not have an immediate comment.

Many companies such as Google and Facebook have reward programs. The programs are intended to create an incentive for researchers to privately report issues and allow vendors to release fixes before hackers take advantage of flaws.

Facebook pays a minimum of $500 for qualifying bugs, while Google pays from $100 up to $20,000 depending on the severity of the issue. Neither has an age restriction listed on their websites. Microsoft does not pay for security vulnerability information, but instead publicly acknowledges the work. PayPal does not list what it will pay a researcher for a bug.

Kugler is listed as a contributor in a Microsoft list from April of security researchers. He said he received rewards for finding vulnerabilities in the past. Mozilla paid him $1,500 for finding a problem in the Firefox browser last year and $3,000 earlier this year for another bug.

PayPal requires that those reporting bugs have a verified PayPal account. Kugler said he asked PayPal that any bounty be paid into his parent's account.

At minimum, Kugler would like PayPal to acknowledge his finding and send him some documentation "that I can use in a job application," he wrote via email. So far, he hasn't received anything.

The details of the vulnerability, a cross-site scripting flaw (XSS), is posted on Full Disclosure section Seclists.org, a forum for disclosing security vulnerabilities.

An XSS attack occurs when a script drawn from another Web site is allowed to run but should not. The type of flaw can be used to steal information or potentially cause other malicious code to run.

PCWORLD

Read More

Large asteroid zipping past Earth, dragging its own moon along

(CNN) -- An asteroid is whizzing past Earth on Friday -- and it's traveling with its own moon in tow.

1998 QE2, as it is called, will not come anywhere near enough to collide with our world.

The closest it will come is about 3.6 million miles away -- that's over 15 times the distance to our moon. It will reach that point just before 5 p.m. ET.

But it's giving astronomers the "best look at this asteroid ever," NASA said.

Scientists have been rubbing their hands for a decade and a half for this opportunity since they discovered the asteroid on August 19, 1998, the year for which it is named. The letter "Q" stands for the month of August.

A milestone asteroid

1998 QE2 represents a milestone in NASA's Near Earth Object Project, which scopes out the heavens for potential danger from celestial projectiles whizzing past.

"It's one of the initial successes of our effort to find the big asteroids that could hit the Earth and cause global catastrophe," said Paul Chodas, a scientist with the project. "It's certainly one to keep an eye on."

NASA has been tracking it with radar devices since Thursday, not to clock its speed but to get good pictures of it. A day before, scientists got a shot of its moon. The images look less like photos and more like ultrasound images.

The discovery of its moon surprised the astronomers, said NASA radar scientist Marina Brozovic, who helped take the images at Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California. "It turns out that 1998 QE2 is a binary asteroid," she said. "This is something we did not expect."

More than 15% of asteroids travel in groups of two or three objects revolving around one another, according to NASA.

Destructive potential

1998 QE2's moon, which is 2,000 feet wide, is large enough for NASA to term it a "potential city killer."

The asteroid it revolves around is 1.7 miles wide. "This is one of the big ones," Chodas said.

To put the potential for damage by an asteroid into perspective, the one that paleontologists believe triggered the extinction of dinosaurs on Earth 65 million years ago was six miles in diameter.

The meteor that exploded over Russia in February, injuring more than 1,000 people and causing millions of dollars in damage, was a "very small asteroid," according to the space agency.

Any asteroid as large as a half-mile across would cause a global catastrophe, if it struck the blue planet, Chodas said.

The most dangerous asteroids contain a lot of stone or iron, according to NASA. 1998 QE2 contains a good bit of carbon and well as amino acids, the building blocks of protein.

The NEOP has identified 95% of asteroids of this most dangerous order, Chodas said. Luckily, there is no known possibility of one slamming into the planet.

But NASA has not yet done much work on the meteors one class lower, known as the "potential city killers." They start at a size of 150 yards in diameter. NASA astronomers have identified only 10% of the 10,000 they believe pass close to Earth.

NASA this year told a congressional panel in Washington, which was considering future defense systems to prevent a potential asteroid strike, that there is only a chance of one in 20,000 that a truly dangerous one could hit Earth in a year's time.

Having a look

Astronomers will continue making images of 1998 QE2 through June 9 with two radar antennas -- the one in California and a second one in Puerto Rico.

Amateur astronomers with telescopes as small as 10 inches long may just barely be able to eyeball it in the southern skies. But the devices should be computer controlled because locating it otherwise will be difficult, NASA advises. The coordinates to locate the asteroid are on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory website.

NASA takes threats from asteroids seriously, and will keep calculating the orbits of the large ones they identify long to check their flight paths for any potential danger to Earth.

1998 QE2 will curve back out toward the solar system's outer asteroid belt, which is just short of Jupiter.

It gets its next shot at hitting Earth in 200 years, and will likely miss again.

Read More