Heisei Ultraseven

 is a collective of Japanese direct-to-video instalments, serving as a standalone sequel to the 1967-68 tokusatsu series "Ultraseven". The series took place in an alternate universe featuring "Ultraseven" diverging from "Ultraman" and other succeeding Ultra Series starting from "Return of Ultraman".
The project initially started as a pair of television specials in the year 1994, made to promote the environmental awareness in Japan. It received a trilogy of specials in 1998 to promote "Ultraseven"'s 30th anniversary and a hexalogy in 1999 to ostensibly wrapping up the entire series. To celebrate the 35th anniversary of "Ultraseven", the Evolution pentalogy was introduced in 2002 as a direct follow up to the 1999 hexalogy and became the definitive ending to "Heisei Ultraseven".
Synopsis.
1994 TV Specials.
10 years after Ultraseven's fight with Re-Pandon, the Ultra crash-landed on Earth after being injured from the fight against Alien Pitt. At this point, Furuhashi lead a trio of young members in the Ultra Guard in protecting the Earth against invading forces. When the Alien Pitt unleashed their monster Eleking against mankind, Seven was revived after the aliens' assassination attempts went awry. The newly resurrected Seven managed to kill Eleking and the Alien Pitts after freeing their hostage.
At some point of time, the Alien Metron siblings set their sight on Earth to make it as their secondary home. The siblings pose as environmental terrorist to fool a college professor into their aid, going as far as to even clone a massive dinosaur as their supporter. Seven's human form, Dan, returned to assist the new members of Ultra Guard in their investigation, but preferred to hide his presence from Furuhashi. Seven disappeared after the death of Alien Metron and the alien base's destruction seemingly consumed the Ultra in an explosion.
30th Anniversary Trilogy.
Dan survived the explosion of Alien Metron's base, but this resulted with an amnesia and forced him to take refuge at the Murata family. Meanwhile, Furuhashi has elevated to the rank of TDF staff officer, while a new batch of Ultra Guard members were selected under Captain Sanshiro Shiragane. After regaining his memory, Dan assisted the new Ultra Guard members in their fight against another extraterrestrial threats. In several occasions, Dan tends to masquerade as the UG rookie Kazamori by switching places with the youth. Seven departed from Earth once more after reuniting with Furuhashi for the final time.
The Final Chapters Hexalogy.
Several years later, former Ultra Guard member Kaji was promoted into a TDF staff officer and became a war hawk who proposed the Friendship Plan to annihilate potentially hostile alien planets after losing his teammates in the past. Kaji's actions caused the Alien Valkyrie's invasion on Earth, leading to the death of Furuhashi and forcing Dan/Seven to masquerade as Kazamori for an entire year. Without Furuhashi to supervise, Kaji took the late officer's role and further complicating matters for the Ultra Guard members in their missions against the alien invaders.
When a lone Nonmalt appeared to enact her revenge on mankind, the existence of TDF's Omega File were brought to light as it would threaten mankind's status quo on Earth, due to their predecessors were revealed to be invaders that had overthrow the original natives (Nonmalt) as the planet's dominant species. Nevertheless, Seven chose to dedicate his life in protecting mankind by killing Nonmalt's monster, Zabangi, despite his action was marked as violating the rules of outer space by interfering with a civil war. After returning the real Kazamori to the Ultra Guard, Seven left Earth to face his comeuppance, as he was imprisoned in the Horsehead Nebula for his actions.
Ultraseven Evolution 35 Anniversary Pentalogy.
Five years after the Omega Files incident, peace returned to Earth after TDF agreed to sign a peace treaty with the outer space civilizations. Although Kazamori had long retired from his service, the Ultra Guard was due to be disbanded due to TDF's arms reduction policy, but a string of incidents caused them to operate once more alongside a new member named Kisaragi, eventually going rogue after discovering TDF had been infested with alien invaders. Kazamori on the other hand face against the threat of Alien Garut, the mastermind behind the secret alien invasion as he and the other invaders plan to conquer Earth by taking control of the Plant Life Form, a race that was supposedly inheritors of Earth's future.
Kazamori bonded with Seven after Satomi's death freed the Ultra from his prison and had protected the Plant Life Form from both aliens and TDF/Ultra Guard members alike. Once discovering that mankind was never forsaken for Earth's future (as well as Alien Garut falsifying the Akashic Record for his own benefit), Kazamori/Seven killed the alien to end his invasion plans. After entrusting the Akashic Record and the Plant Life Form to the Ultra Guard, Kazamori parted ways with his former teammates.
List of instalments.
Novel.
Both novels are written by Junki Takegami, illustrated by Shinobu Tanno and published by Asahi Sonorama in year 2002.
Production.
In 1994, Ministry of International Trade and Industry established March 21 as the , and a TV special program was held by both the Japan Solar System Development Association (JSSDA) and Yomiko Advertising to spread the awareness. The project was originally planned to be an animation work, but then-producer of Yomiko Advertising, Toshihiko Fujinami decided to do a different approach. Ultraseven was decided as the icon (due to the hero using solar energy to empower himself), hence the first "Heisei Ultraseven", "Operation: Solar Energy" was broadcast on March 21, 1994 on Nippon TV, exactly on Japan's Vernal Equinox Day. The aforementioned special itself inherited a majority of the filming crew behind "Gridman the Hyper Agent", and the same team would eventually worked in the production of "Ultraman Tiga". The use of Alien Pitt and Eleking, as well as Sandayu Dokumamushi and Yuriko Hishimi's return to their roles as Furuhashi and Anne were due to long time fan's familiarity with "Ultraseven". As a result of the special's nature, Kohji Moritsugu could only provide narrative role for the story instead of reprising his role as Dan Moroboshi. Due to "Operation: Solar Energy"'s popularity, another TV special was conceived to coincide with Japan's Health and Sports Day in October 10, 1994. The second special, "Planet of the Earthlings", ended with Seven's apparent death. Director Shinichi Kamisawa hoped for a continuation where the Ultra survived, and he got his wish in the following home video series.
Starting from the 1998 trilogy, Dan had grew his hair and changed his outfit under Kohji Moritsugu's demand to be based on his favorite actor, Steven Seagal. According to director Shinichi Kamisawa, the central theme of "Ultraseven" was "protecting the Earth from extraterrestrial invaders", while the 1998 trilogy was "the coexistence of Earth and mankind". From here onwards, the collaboration with VAP for original video contents was due to their past association with Tsuburaya Productions during the making of "Moon Spiral" miniseries. With the exception of Kōji Nanjo, actors for the new members of Ultra Guard were carefully selected through an audition of 2,000 candidates. Shigeki Kagemaru was not able to reprise his role as Kaji due to the filming of "Ultraman Tiga" had already wrapped up by the time the trilogy's filming took place.
The "Final Chapters Hexalogy" was initially advertised as the supposedly definitive end to the "Heisei Ultraseven" as a whole, with the tagline of was even advertised in the June 5, 1999 press conference. Several of the Ultra Guard actors get to be the main focus of certain episodes. The central theme of the hexalogy was "there are enemies within the existence of human beings themselves". Shoji Nakayama, the actor of Kaoru Kiriyama in "Ultraseven", was meant to reprise his role in the final instalment of the hexalogy, but the actor died at the same month of the filming (December 1998).


Western Savings and Loan

Western Savings and Loan was an American financial institution founded by the Driggs family.
The Driggs family came to Arizona in 1921 after trading everything they owned—a bank, drugstore, hotel, and wheat farm in Driggs, Idaho—for a section of cotton land in Maricopa County. Their timing was unfortunate as cotton prices plummeted just as their crop came in and they were forced to take jobs selling building and loan certificates. In 1929, the Driggs family pooled $5,000 to found the Western Building and Loan Association, which became Western Savings.
Success and eventual failure.
Western Savings and Loan eventually became a $6 billion savings and loan institution. Western shared a position on the list of the nation's 100 largest savings and loans with other Arizona-based institutions — MeraBank was number 27 on the list, Western came in at 37th, Great American was 67th, and Pima was 82nd. But in 1989, Western Savings moved into second place — not for its size, but for the amount of its losses, with a $1.06 billion net deficit, following a substantial but smaller loss the previous year. Western Savings was taken over by the Resolution Trust Corporation, the federal depositor for the savings and loan crisis bailout in June 1989.
In June 1990, Bank of America paid the Resolution Trust Corporation $81 million for Western Savings' $3.5 billion in deposits in 60 branches in Arizona and one branch in Salt Lake City, Utah, and converted the thrift into commercial bank called Bank of America Arizona. In 1995, President Gary Driggs pleaded guilty to two felony charges and was fined $10,000 and placed on probation for five years.
Accomplishments and recognition.
American Newcomen honored Western Savings and Loan Association in the year of the company's 40th anniversary. Since it was formed by the Driggs family in the Spring of 1929, six months before the historic stock crash, Western Savings had at that time grown to become the largest savings and loan association in Arizona and among the 100 largest in the United States. The major objectives of the association were the encouragement of thrift and the promotion of home ownership. Over the years up to that point, more than 30,000 first mortgage loans had been made, totaling more than 390 million dollars, thus providing an important factor in the growth and development of Arizona.


David Bernal

David "Elsewhere" Bernal (born August 2, 1979) is an illusionary dancer from Santa Ana, California. His mother is Peruvian, and his father from New Mexico. He became known through a viral video clip —often titled "Kolla2001"— of his participation in the 2001 edition of the Korean American talent show Kollaboration, dancing to the Kraftwerk song "Expo 2000". He has been involved as a dancer in a number of projects since, including videos, adverts, and the Tim Burton film "Alice in Wonderland". He has also worked with artists such as Michael Jackson.
Viral video.
Bernal first became known through a video of him performing a dance at the Kollaboration, an Asian American arts festival, in 2001 that went viral. The clip showcased Bernal's characteristic take on the contemporary dance styles of popping and abstract waving. Performances of these dances were rare at the time, and the clip became very popular when it circulated on the internet — so popular that in November 2006, The Viral Factory, a viral marketing company, collated page-impression figures from websites such as YouTube and Google Videos. They determined that, as of November 2006, this video had been viewed over 200 million times, making it the 8th most viewed video.
Bernal is not double jointed, a popular misconception. He says:
"I’m not double-jointed at all. The only place where I am double-jointed in my thumbs, which doesn’t even matter. I would say I’m probably a little more flexible than most people in certain areas, mainly my shoulders and my ankles, but I wasn’t born that way. Those areas became flexible because of years of practicing."
Career.
Following his exposure in the viral video, Bernal was hired to participate in a number of advertisements, such as Heineken (dancing to "Cobrastyle" by the Teddybears), Volkswagen, Apple iPod, 7-Eleven Slurpee, Pepsi, Puma, and Doritos. He also made a cameo appearance in the movie "You Got Served" and TV performances including "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".
Computer graphics technology were used in several of the commercials Bernal took part in, superimposing others' faces (old, young, male, female) onto his body so that they appeared to dance like him. In one of his most popular ads, a commercial for the Volkswagen Golf GTI created in January 2005, Gene Kelly's head was superimposed onto Bernal's body in a re-enactment of "Singin' in the Rain" remixed by Manchester group Mint Royale.
Bernal also filmed and edited a large amount of the documentary video titled Detours. The video featured experimental dance styles focused primarily on four dancers, Midus, Kujo, Rawbzilla, and Elsewhere. While focusing much of the video on the four primary dancers, dozens of others were also featured in the video. The project has since ended and videos can be bought through various websites.
In September 2006, he was featured in the music video, for "Sister Twisted", a song by Mexican band Kinky, in which he plays a Mexican cowboy who does a twisted locking and popping performance while a war against aliens occurs in the background.
On August 8, 2007, Bernal and his dancing were featured in a segment of the inaugural episode of ABC's new video-clip program, "i-Caught".
Bernal was collaborating with Michael Jackson for Michael's "This Is It" residency at London's O2 Arena prior to Jackson's death.
Bernal was the dance double for the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" (2010) during the "Futterwacken" dance.
He worked with artist Nicholas Galanin to dance in a video titled "Tsu Heidel Shugaxtutaan" or "We will again open this container of wisdom that has been left in our care". He has also collaborated with other dancers such as Mori Koichiro ().


Poly Bridge

Poly Bridge is a bridge-building simulation-puzzle game, developed by New Zealand–based indie studio Dry Cactus with music by Canadian composer Adrian Talens, where players build bridges for vehicles to cross. "Poly Bridge" was released for Microsoft Windows on July 12, 2016, iOS on June 13, 2017. Steel, wood, rope, and cable can be combined and used to strengthen a designed bridge and "hydraulics" are used to move pieces of the bridge. The game is made more difficult with the availability of different building materials of different prices. A sequel to the game titled "Poly Bridge 2" was released on May 28, 2020, for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Gameplay.
The objective of the game is for vehicles to traverse over a series of rivers by building bridges. That is done via 2D bridge model by creating a blueprint, and working with the materials which are given at use. "Poly Bridge" has a campaign mode with a series of scenarios that require different things to accomplish and introduce certain geographic features. In each level (more than 100 overall), there are two requirements: the building cost must come in under budget and the bridge has to be strong enough for a specific number of cars. There is also a sandbox mode that allows free building without restrictions, where the parameters can be set for creation. There is a variety of vehicles, ranging from motorcycles (fast and light) to dump trucks and cranes (slow and heavy). Since every vehicle has a different body and weight, that means longer cars may not be able to drive up steep slopes and the structure might need to adapt to the situation. The game also features obstacles such as jumps and boats, forcing the player to design their bridge creatively. A badly built bridge will collapse under the weight of a crossing vehicle. The game includes a GIF generator, allowing players to capture certain moments while playing and share them online.


Brian Flanagan

Brian Flanagan is an Irish-American former member of the American radical left organizations Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).
Early life.
Flanagan was born on October 20, 1946, and raised in Manhattan, New York. Both his parents were Irish. His father was an advertising executive and his mother a teacher, stockbroker, and antique dealer. Flanagan was introduced to politics by his parents who supported Illinois Democratic governor Adlai E. Stevenson, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956.
From early on Flanagan felt the pull of militancy. He recalls, "I know that from a fairly early age, 11 or 12, I had really come to admire Fidel Castro. When he stood up to the United States, I thought that was a great thing." Flanagan grew up in a house of privilege with a summer residence on Long Island's Southampton, New York. During those years from high school to college, he spent his days as a caddy at the National Golf Links of America.
Columbia University.
During the 1960s, Flanagan attended Columbia University in New York, where he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Flanagan studied philosophy and economics at Columbia where he was a C student. Whatever passions academics failed to arouse, however, the rising opposition to the Vietnam War supplied. "That was the turning point for me," he says. "Being in New York, being at Columbia during the Vietnam War, you could not be oblivious to what was going on. People were lining up on one side or the other. And so I took my stand." Flanagan was one of the members that helped seize the mathematics building on the Columbia University campus. The 1968 Columbia Student Revolt involved students shutting down the campus by seizing buildings to attract attention for their cause. SDS confronted the university's involvement with the Institute for Defense Analysis, who provided research on the military used in Vietnam, and the university gym located in Harlem, which would not benefit the African-American neighborhood population. In 1969, Flanagan joined Weatherman, a radical splinter group of the SDS, later known as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO).
Days of Rage.
On October 8, 1969, Weatherman staged its first act of public aggression, at a rally in Chicago called the Days of Rage. The rally was staged in opposition to the Vietnam War, and its slogan was "Bring the War Home". Members gathered at Grant Park to listen to speeches by SDS leaders about Che Guevara and the world revolution. The rally turned to the streets of Chicago, where participants vandalized businesses, smashed car windows and blew up a statue of a policeman known as the Haymarket statue. During the rally, Flanagan had a physical encounter with then 35-year-old lawyer Richard Elrod that left Elrod with a broken neck and partially paralyzed from the neck down. Both men report different testimonials of what transpired that day. Flanagan stood trial for "attempted murder, aggravated battery, felonious mob action, and resisting arrest" and was acquitted on all charges. Michael Rollins, a reporter for WCFL who was interviewing Elrod just before Elrod broke away to chase Flanagan, supported Flanagan's description of what happened. Although he told his story to the police and the state's attorney's office, he was never called before the grand jury. Richard Hinchion, 43, an insulating contractor from Munster, Indiana was another eyewitness supporting that version.
Weather Underground Organization.
On March 6, 1970, Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins, and Ted Gold, members of Weatherman died in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion when a nail bomb detonated after members purchased two 50-pound cases of dynamite. It was explained later that the bombs were to be detonated at a non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix. In an interview, Flanagan suggested that he helped one Weatherman member, Kathy Boudin, who later served 22 years in prison for felony murder and robbery, flee New York City after police investigations placed her in the townhouse during the time of the explosion. Following the townhouse deaths, many members of Weatherman went into hiding, forming Weather Underground Organization, said to be responsible for a series of bombings of US state and federal buildings between 1970 and 1975.
In the documentary film "The Weather Underground", Flanagan admits to participating in Weather's bombings during the 1970s. During a memorable moment in the film, Flanagan states, "When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some horrific things". After resurfacing from the underground, Flanagan joined the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the above-ground wing of Weather Underground Organization. Like many members of the Weather Underground Organization, Flanagan was never jailed for his involvement due to the illegal evidence-gathering tactics of the FBI's COINTELPRO program.
Foreign travel.
The FBI surveillance files on Weatherman reported that on October 20, 1970, Flanagan was in Algeria meeting with Eldridge Cleaver, fugitive Black Panther Party leader. While in Algeria, Flanagan also met with Jennifer Dohrn, the sister of Bernardine Dohrn, along with Stew Albert and Jerry Rubin, two members of the Yippies.
Post-Weatherman life.
In the 1990s, Flanagan played pool on a professional billiards circuit and worked as a carpenter and bartender. In 1996, he won $23,000 as a contestant on the television game show "Jeopardy!". Flanagan continued his interest in trivia, hosting a weekly trivia contest at his bar, the Night Café in Manhattan, which he ran for fifteen years. Forced out of the space due to increased rent, the Night Cafe closed in September 2007.


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Feel Your Heart Beat!


Acinonyx kurteni

"Acinonyx kurteni", or the Linxia cheetah, is a discredited fossil specimen of an extinct cheetah discovered in China. The scientific name was assigned for the skull that was originally described to be that of an extinct species of cheetah, endemic to Asia during the Late Pliocene sub-epoch. It was estimated to have lived around 2.2 to 2.5 Ma BP, existing for approximately .
The fossil discovery was reported in 2008, and was claimed to be the most primitive "Acinonyx" lineage so far discovered. Further, the study concluded that the cheetahs originated in the Old World, not the New World as previously believed. It was thought to share some features with the modern cheetah, "Acinonyx jubatus", such as in having enlarged sinuses for air intake during sprinting, while its teeth show primitive features.
After a long suspicion of the authenticity of the fossil, it was finally accepted as a forgery in 2012.
Discovery and description.
The fossil skull was discovered in 2008 and described in 2009 by Per Christiansen, from the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, and Ji H. Mazák, of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA". It was reported as being discovered from the Late Pliocene, fossiliferous-rich “Hezheng” locality in Linxia basin (hence the popular name "Linxia cheetah"), in the south-eastern part of Gansu Province, China. The species name was given in honour of Björn Kurtén, the late professor of paleontology at the University of Helsinki. The skull was almost complete except for the occipital condyles, basioccipital region and upper canines. It resembles the true cheetahs in having a tall skull with a domed structure, a very wide braincase relative to skull length, enlarged frontal sinuses, a large nasal aperture, and a well-developed occipital crest. But the upper premolars are very primitive, like those of some extinct felines. It is older than earlier described species, such as the European "Acinonyx pardinensis" (dated to about 2.2 Ma old) and the North African "Acinonyx aicha" (about 2.5 Ma old). Thus, it apparently disproved the prevailing notion that cheetahs originated in the New World.
Discrediting.
Even at the time of pre-publication of the research paper in 2008, there were already strong doubts about the veracity of the fossil. Tao Deng, Professor of Paleontology at the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China, upon proofreading the manuscript, noted the possible forgery of the fossil, and immediately reported this to "PNAS". Just from the published pictures, Deng said that he could see that parts of the skull had been concocted from plaster. The technical give away was that the parietal area appeared glued together from disparate bone pieces, to imitate the skull of a modern cheetah. He noted that parts of the skull were created from plaster, and are missing part of the parietal crests. However, his objection to publication was denied in an editorial letter on 5 February 2009, on the grounds that Deng had not personally examined the fossil.
Qiu Zhanxiang, a global expert in mammalian craniums, also supported the claim that the skull was forged. Since then it has been criticised publicly by a number of paleontologists in China. However, Mazák denied anyone else access to the fossil, and upon inquiry, the senior author, Christiansen, had never seen the original specimen.
By 2010, there was increasing suspicion in the scientific community that the fossil was fake, including a number of others from China. The two discoverers responded with a published defense of their fossil. In 2012, Deng was finally allowed access to the original fossil upon invoking the "PNAS" data access policy, and on examination, his primary observations were proven correct. He concluded that the fossil has been collected from the Late Miocene (several million years older than estimated in the original publication) red clay in Guanghe County, and not from the reported region in Dongxiang County. In addition, the zygomatic arches of the skull were made from ribs, the incisors were actually premolars from other carnivores, and the posterior part of the skull was simply a crude plaster.
Deng asked Mazák to retract the paper. Mazák finally conceded by stating (on 20 August 2012 in "PNAS") that: “after further examination, it was determined that the fossil used in the study was a composite specimen from the late Miocene laterite and not from the early Pleistocene loess. The article is hereby retracted.”


Alfred Lewis Levitt

Alfred Lewis Levitt (June 3, 1916 – November 16, 2002) was an American film and television screenwriter. He attended New York University, and served in a camera unit of the United States Air Force during the Second World War. Following the war, Levitt was the screenwriter for such films as "The Boy with Green Hair" (1948), "Mrs. Mike" (1950), and "The Barefoot Mailman" (1951).
In 1951 he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his communist involvements, and was entered on the Hollywood blacklist. Following a screenwriting credit for "Dream Wife" (1953), he was unemployed as a screenwriter for about five years.
Levitt and Pearl Helen Slote (December 6, 1916 - April 3, 1993) were married in 1938; they had two children. Helen Slote Levitt, as Slote was called after her marriage, was also blacklisted in 1951. After more than five years, the Levitts were employed again as screenwriters. They were credited as "Tom and Helen August". Their credits included many episodes of television shows such as "Bewitched" and "The Bionic Woman" and also the feature films "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones" (1964) and "The Monkey's Uncle" (1965). In 1971 they were nominated for a for an episode of the television program, "All in the Family". Their last credit was for a 1979 episode of the program "Diff'rent Strokes".
The Levitts' experiences as blacklisted screenwriters have been described in several books about the Hollywood blacklist. Among the Levitts' activities during the early years of their blacklisting, and corresponding unemployment, was to participate in publishing the journal "Hollywood Review". "Hollywood Review" has been characterized by Ceplair and Englund as, "...a critical review focusing on American films --more specifically on the increasing violence, sadism, hatred, bigotry, and glorification of brutality perpetrated on audiences by the entertainment industry." Nine issues of the journal were published between 1953 and 1956.
In 1978, Levitt rejoined the Writers Guild of America. Starting in 1988, Levitt led an effort through the Writers' Guild to correct film credits from the blacklist era, in which it became common for the work of blacklisted writers to be uncredited, or credited using pseudonyms. The Writers' Guild maintains a listing of 24 films with revised writing credits on its website.
In 1995, Alfred and Helen Levitt were honored with the Morgan Cox Award of the Writers Guild of America.


Tank Universal

Tank Universal is a computer game developed by New Zealand studio Dialogue Design and published by Meridian4. It currently features a 20-level single player campaign as well as a skirmish mode. Its graphical style has been described as "Tron-like", while its gameplay takes inspiration from the classic Atari title Battlezone. As of August 21, 2008, it is available on Valve's Steam digital distribution service.


Sky Blue (film)

Wonderful Days (also known as Sky Blue) is a South Korean animated science fiction film, released in 2003, written and directed by Kim Moon-saeng. It features backdrops rendered using photo-realistic computer-generated imagery, comparable to those in the film "", along with the use of highly detailed models for some of the backdrops into which the cel animated characters were then animated. However, convincing CGI animation of humans (especially human movement) was not attempted. The backgrounds in the film were shot with traditional motion control techniques, then processed to look like CG. The vehicles were all rendered, and the characters were cel animated.
Plot.
"Wonderful Days" is set in 2142. Environmental pollution has led to a breakdown of human civilization. A technologically advanced city named Ecoban was built and it harvests energy from the DELOS System, which uses pollution in a carbonite catalyzed reaction to generate power. Carbonite extraction is carried out by people who live outside the city in the surrounding wasteland. Among them is an enigmatic young man known as Shua (Marc Worden). He ends up in a love triangle with his childhood friend, Jay (Cathy Cavadini), and her superior, Ecoban security commander Cade (Kirk Thornton).
The film deals with environmental destruction, pollution and class struggle.
Production.
Along with CG effects, a set of miniatures for buildings, mechanics, and characters were built and filmed with HDW-F900 which was co-developed by Sony and Lucasfilm and one of two prototype Frazier lens (the other was used for Star Wars by Lucasfilm).
Releases.
The film has been released in numerous Western countries such as the US and Great Britain under the title Sky Blue. These versions have been slightly distorted, with the loss of two minutes of the running time compared to the original Korean cut. Other Western countries such as France and Finland have kept its original title—which is a Hangul transliteration of the English phrase "Wonderful Days" (it would be rendered in Revised Romanization as "Wondeopul Deijeu"). An All-Region 2-Disc Collector's Edition DVD to the dubbed version of the film was released in the UK on November 14, 2005. A Blu-ray to the film was eventually released in the UK on June 8, 2008. The film was scheduled for release in the US on Blu-ray disc on June 28, 2008. As that date neared, it was re-scheduled for June 23, 2009, however, the financial situation of Palisades Tartan in America has thrown a US domestic release into doubt.
In Japan, the film was adapted by Gainax. According to adaptation director Hiroshi Yamaga, Gainax changed the direction of the film to make the dialogue less "alien" to Japanese viewers.
The film was released on DVD in Korea on September 6, 2003. On May 27, 2004, the film was re-released on a 3-Disc Limited Original Edition DVD in Korea that features a Director's Cut of the film. This version includes 9 minutes of additional footage that wasn't present in the original cut plus a few changes to the dialogue. On May 15, 2013 the Director's Cut was released on Blu-ray, but uses the bonus material from the DVD to the Theatrical cut.
Festivals.
"Wonderful Days" was screened at the following film festivals:


Computerworld - The Newspaper of Information Systems Management


YourView

YourView is an Australian not-for-profit debate website, founded in 2012.
Drawing upon the aims and principles of deliberative democracy theory, the website promotes considered debate in order to establish the "collective viewpoint" on political and social issues.
Organisation.
YourView is supported by the not-for-profit Ourview Foundation (ACN 154 763 970), established in 2011 by the Australian philosopher Tim Van Gelder in collaboration with the public intellectual Paul Monk. It is funded by voluntary donations.
The site was launched publicly in May 2012 and was maintained and developed by a staff of volunteers based in Melbourne. The website is currently inactive, and the project on hold.
Content.
YourView drew on ideas developed within the deliberative democracy movement, which promotes rational deliberation as a means of forming opinions and guiding policy decisions.
Users initially voted for or against a proposition based on a current issue, and were subsequently invited to post comments to justify their adopted stance. Each debate was prefaced by an "explainer", which provided basic information about the issue being discussed including an outline of key arguments.
As part of its objective to promote constructive and informed debate, YourView used an algorithm to assign each user a credibility score; the algorithm aimed to quantify a series of "epistemic virtues" that collectively determined the extent to which an individual user has contributed to the deliberative process. The raw "for-against" vote was weighted by user credibility scores to compute a "collective wisdom" metric, thereby setting it apart from purely aggregative opinion polling. Details about which factors influence the algorithm were not published, which reduced the model's transparency but aimed to prevent users from gaming the system.


European Commissioner for Economy

The European Commissioner for Economy is a member of the European Commission. The current Economy Commissioner is Paolo Gentiloni.
From 2014 to 2019 the post was named "Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs". Until 2014 the post was named "Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud" and was previously divided prior to 2010, with audit being under control of the Commissioner for Administrative Affairs. The post was abolished in 2014, when the Juncker Commission merged the post with that of the Economic and Financial Affairs portfolio.
The post is responsible for the EU's customs union and taxation policy. The European Union has had a customs union since the creation of the European Economic Community and that union extends to Turkey, Andorra and San Marino. Since 2010 it gained responsibility for audit (budgetary discharge, internal audit, counter fraud): in particular the Internal Audit Service and the European Anti-fraud Office.


Ashok Gehlot

Ashok Gehlot (born 3 May 1951) is an Indian politician serving as the current Chief Minister of Rajasthan. He held this position from December 1998 to 2003, and from 2008 to 2013, and again from 17 December 2018.
He is former Congress Party's national general secretary and in-charge of organisations and training from March 2018 to 23 January 2019. He represents Sardarpura constituency of Jodhpur as Member of Legislative Assembly of Rajasthan.
Personal life.
Ashok Gehlot, son of Babu Laxman Singh Gehlot a magician who used to travel around the country to show his magic tricks. Gehlot came from a humble family background with no connection in politics. He is a science and law graduate, he also holds an MA degree in economics. He is married to Sunita Gehlot and has a son and a daughter. His son Vaibhav Gehlot is a politician who contested in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 from Jodhpur.
He is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) party. He was influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi at a very young age and was actively engaged in social political work even as a student. During the East Bengali refugees crisis in 1971, he served in the refugee camps in the eastern states of India. It is there when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi first identified his organizational skills during one of her visits to the refugee camps. Gehlot was later appointed the first State President of National Students' Union of India and successfully organised Congress's Student Wing in the state. Gehlot is a staunch Gandhiite and he lived in Wardha to adapt his lifestyle as a Gandhiite. He eats before sunset and is a
pure vegetarian and enjoys Satvik Meals. He is also a teetotaler.
Political career.
He contested his first election for Rajasthan Legislative assembly in 1977 for Sardarpura constituency and lost by a margin of 4426 votes to his closest opponent Madhav Singh of the Janata Party. Gehlot had to sell his motorcycle to contest his first election.
In 1980 he contested Lok Sabha election from Jodhpur and won by a margin of 52,519 votes. In 1984 he was appointed as the Union Minister. In 1989 he lost the election from Jodhpur.
When the Congress party returned to power in 1991 he was appointed as Union Minister again by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. He was discharged from his duty in 1993 and headed towards his home state Rajasthan to manage Congress political affairs. In 1998, Congress won a landslide victory by winning 153 out of 200 seats. Ashok Gehlot was appointed as the Chief Minister of Rajasthan for the first time.
In 2003, Congress lost Rajasthan and won merely 56 seats. In 2008 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election Congress was short of a majority by 4 seats and Gehlot who was a well-known troubleshooter in Congress was appointed as the Chief Minister to prevent instability and thus he was sworn in for the second time as Chief Minister.
In 2013, Congress suffered its worst-ever defeat by only winning 21 seats in 200 member assembly. Gehlot was then appointed as AICC General Secretary in 2013. He managed Congress National Affairs.
He remained at the position till 2018 and after 2018 Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election, when Congress returned to power he was appointed as the Chief Minister for the third time despite the strong candidacy of Sachin Pilot due to his role in the revival of Congress after its worst-ever defeat in Legislative Elections. Ashok Gehlot was appointed due to his experience in administration. He is also known as a tough administrator.
Sachin Pilot was appointed as Deputy Chief Minister.
On 14 July 2020, Sachin Pilot was sacked from his Cabinet and PCC President of Rajasthan due to enmity between the ranks of the Congress Party in Rajasthan.


The Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence


Trade test colour films

Trade test colour films were broadcast by the television network BBC2 in the early days of colour television in Britain during the long periods of the daytime when no regular programming had been scheduled. The goal of these transmissions was to provide colour broadcasting in these intervals for use by television shops and engineers (the 'trade') to install, adjust and demonstrate their television sets. The earliest such transmission was made in 1956 (on the then sole BBC channel) but regular all day long films ran from autumn 1967 until August 1973. In all, 158 different films were broadcast; on average, each film was shown 90 times. The colour films provided moving colour images to allow tv dealers to demonstrate sets to customers. The decision to stop showing them followed the extension of broadcasting hours on BBC1 and ITV. This, together with the gradual move of schools programmes into colour, meant there was less need to provide moving pictures during trade tests simply to demonstrate sets.
The frequent broadcasting of the films made them well known to some viewers of the time. The one most frequently shown was "The Captive River" (1960), which was shown 525 times. The short film "Giuseppina" (1959), which had won an Academy Award, was shown 158 times and became the last trade test colour transmission on August 24, 1973. Other frequently broadcast films included "The Home Made Car" (1963), "The North Sea Quest" (BP, 1967), "Overhaul" (1957), "Crown of Glass" (1967), "Roads to Roam" (1967), "The Small Propeller" (BP, 1967), "The Cattle Carters" (BP, 1962) – with a theme song sung by Frank Ifield, "Prospect for Plastics" (1962), "Evoluon" (1968) and "Cantagallo".
A number of these films were produced by the oil company BP, including "We've Come a Long Way" (1951), "The Shadow of Progress", "Newspaper Run", and "Skyhook". Other films included "Paint" (produced by Shell), "Study in Steel" (produced by British Steel Corporation), "Algerian Pipeline" (Constructors John Brown Ltd), "The Captive River" (Shell), "Ride the White Horses" (Ford Film Unit), "Something Nice To Eat" (the Gas Council), "It's The Tube That Makes The Colour" (Mullard), "On the Safe Side" (1967, UKAEA), "Oil Underground" (1960, Shell) and "Transport Ability" (UKAEA). Another film, "Birth of a Rainbow" (1967), about trout farms, was made by the New Zealand National Film Unit, while "Network" (1962) was made by the AEI, and "No Claim Bonus" (1963) was made by the COI. "The Gold Miners" was made by Films of Africa, and "A Journey into the Weald of Kent" (1959) and "Beauty in Trust" were made by the National Benzole Company with narrations by Sir John Betjeman.
The trade test colour films are among the subjects of interest of the "Test Card Circle", an organization devoted to studying and preserving the test cards used by television broadcasters. The static test cards were typically transmitted for periods before and after regular programming, originally to permit viewers to adjust their television sets.
BBC2 daily schedule.
According to the BBC Written Archive Centre, the following is an example of a typical day on BBC 2 in the late 1960s when the only scheduled programme during the day was "Play School" at 11 am:


Micro Cornucopia - The Micro Technical Journal


24 Hour Fort challenge

The 24 Hour Fort challenge, also known as the 24 hour challenge or Overnight challenge, is a challenge which originated in 2016 and reached the peak of its popularity in 2018. During the challenge, participants must reach a location or venue before it closes for the evening and trespass on the property by hiding in a 'fort'. These forts are normally a hastily-constructed hiding place made by moving products on shelves in such a way that the participants can hide behind them, although some participants have carried out the challenge simply by hiding in areas such as public toilets and staff-only areas. Once the location closes, the goal is to remain in the venue for as long as possible before the location reopens in the morning, or until the building's staff or security apprehend the participants. Several store chains and companies have spoken out against the challenge, and participants risk being banned from stores or facing criminal charges for trespassing, criminal damage and breaking and entering.
The challenge can be traced back to August 2016, in which two Belgian teenagers remained inside an IKEA branch after closing time by hiding in wardrobes, although examples of people hiding in stores for extended periods of time precedes the challenge, such as a case in 2014 where a 14 year old runaway teenager from Rice, Texas managed to live inside a Walmart branch in nearby Corsicana for 2 days, consuming shoplifted food and changing clothes to avoid detection while living inside a hiding place constructed out of shelving and boxes in the store's baby care section. The runaway was eventually apprehended and returned to their family after an employee located them and informed law enforcement.


Not my president


Pradip Krishen

Pradip Krishen (b 1949), is an Indian filmmaker and environmentalist. He has directed three films, "Massey Sahib" in 1985, "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones" in 1989 and "Electric Moon" for Channel 4, UK in 1991. His films have won significant Indian and international awards, and "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones" acquired cult status in the years after it was made. He was married to Arundhati Roy who also acted in his films.
He subsequently gave up filmmaking, and since 1995, has worked as a naturalist and environmentalist.
Education.
Pradip Krishen is born in New Delhi in 1949 and educated at Mayo College and St. Stephen's College, then at Balliol College, Oxford. He taught history at Ramjas College of University of Delhi, New Delhi.
Career.
Film-making.
Before becoming a documentary filmmaker (Krishen made popular science documentaries).
Krishen began work on a 21 episode television series intended for Doordarshan called "Bargad / The Banyan Tree", a project Krishen was forced to abandon before completion, due to interference from the production house he was working for.
Environmental work.
Starting in 1995, Krishen began studying trees and spending time in the jungles of Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, with the help of a forester friend. Krishen taught himself field botany and began identifying and photographing Delhi's trees, extensively exploring the city's green habitat. In the course of his work, Krishen led numerous public "tree-walks" on Sunday mornings and became a keen ecological gardener. Krishen has created "native-plant" gardens in Delhi, west Rajasthan, and Garhwal, and is currently working on a large rewilding scheme at Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park near Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. He was briefly associated with the Aga Khan Trust in an eco-initiative in the Sunder Nursery in New Delhi. In 2014, Krishen began work on a new gardening initiative at Abha Mahal in Nagaur Fort, Rajasthan. The following year, he took over as Project Director of the gardens of the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, and most recently, leads a team of horticulturists and landscape architects to restore an extensive set of sand dunes in Jaipur city, Rajasthan.
Krishen's book "Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide", published by Dorling Kindersley/Penguin Group in 2006, met with popular and critical acclaim, and became a best-seller in India.
Krishen's second book "Jungle Trees of Central India", published by Penguin India, was released in 2014.


Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje

Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje (7 November 1884 – 22 January 1967) was an Indian revolutionary, scholar, agricultural scientist and Statesman who was among the founding fathers of the Ghadar Party.
Early life.
Khankhoje was born in November 1884 to a Marathi Deshastha Rigvedi Brahmin (DRB) family at Wardha, where his father worked as a petition-writer. Young Khankhoje spent his childhood in Wardha, where he completed his primary and middle school education before moving to Nagpur for higher education. He was at the time inspired by the nationalist work of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. At some time in the first decade of the 1900s, Khankhoje left India on a voyage that ultimately saw him settle in the United States. Here he enrolled in the Washington State College (now called Washington State University), graduating in 1913.
Indian independence activities.
Khankhoje's earliest nationalist work abroad dates back to the time around 1908 when he, along with Pandit Kanshi Ram founded the Indian Independence League in Portland, Oregon. His works also brought him close to other Indian nationalists in United States at the time, including Tarak Nath Das. In the years preceding World War I, Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Pacific coast Hindustan association, and subsequently founded the Ghadar Party. He was at the time one of the most influential members of the party. He met Lala Har Dayal in 1911. He also enrolled at one point in a West Coast military academy.
Activities during World War I.
Through World War I, Khankhoje was intricately involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy when he was involved in the plans for the mutiny. He visited Europe during the war and subsequently went to Mesopotamia along with other members of what was the Berlin Committee. In the summer of 1915, he worked clandestinely among troops of the Indian expeditionary force, spreading nationalist literature and hoping to incite a mutiny. Through the course of the war, Khankhoje made his way through Turkey and Persia under different Muslim guises as far as Baluchistan, spreading Ghadarite propaganda en route. He is known to have attempted insurrections and raised at the Iran-Baluchistan border while Mahendra Pratap's Indo-German expedition attempted to rally the Afghan Emir Habibullah Khan against British India. Towards the end of the war, Khankhoje, like most of the members of the Berlin committee, began turning towards communism. He is known to have been in Soviet Union in company of the earliest Indian communist, including Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, M. P. T. Acharya, M. N. Roy, Abdur Rab Barq. He met Lenin at Moscow in 1921. For his nationalist work at the time, Khankhoje was banned from returning to India as a highly dangerous individual.
Academic career.
Khankhoje later moved to Mexico in the 1920s, where he was the professor of Botany and Crop Breeding in the National School of Agriculture of Mexico. In 1936, Khankhoje married Jean Alexandrine Sindic, a Belgian woman in Mexico by whom he had two daughters. He led the Mexican corn breeding programme and was appointed director to the Mexican Government's department of Agriculture.
Return to India and later years.
Both Pandurang and Jean returned to India after 1947. His application for visa was initially rejected by the Indian government due to the ban by the British Indian Government, but was eventually overturned. He settled in Nagpur and subsequently embarked on a political career. Pandurang Khankhoje died on 22 January 1967.


American Biographical Institute

The American Biographical Institute (ABI) was a paid-inclusion vanity biographical reference directory publisher based in Raleigh, North Carolina which had been publishing biographies since 1967. It generated revenue from sales of fraudulent certificates and books. Each year the company awarded hundreds of "Man of the Year" or "Woman of the Year" awards at between $195 and $295 each.
Its awards were frequently denounced as scams by politicians, journalists, and others. The Government of Western Australia's ScamNet service considers the American Biographical Institute to be a scam vanity publisher "who appeals to people who want a plaque on their wall or see their name in a book, even if the honour has no real credibility—in effect, they have purchased the honour." The company went bankrupt in 2012.
The company's owner, Arlene Calhoun, also ran another purveyor of for-profit awards called the United Cultural Convention and another vanity press called the Pentland Press or Ivy House Publishing Group.
Operations.
The ABI invited individuals to purchase various honors as a commemorative in their inclusion for a specific biography. One former employee explained that the company bought mailing lists from organizations, and using those names, they sent out blanket mailings inviting individuals to be in biographical books or accept awards. Such honors include "International Man of the Year," "Most Admired Man of the Decade" or "Outstanding Man of the 21st Century" (see list below), or to be included in ABI publications, such as "500 Leaders of Science" or "The World Book of Knowledge," in exchange for a contribution fee. Those who accept, who sometimes write their own biographies, are offered books or certificates at prices as high as US $795.
On its website, the publisher describes itself as "one of the world’s leading biographical reference publishers and authorities on global contemporary achievement" and claims that "inclusion in an ABI reference title is based on personal achievement alone and is not available for purchase." The ABI shares an address and P.O. box with the United Cultural Convention, another purveyor of for-profit awards.
The Chairman of the ABI, Arlene Calhoun, also runs another vanity press, Pentland Press (d/b/a Ivy House Publishing Group).
"World Forum".
The ABI is also the co-host with the International Biographical Centre of a yearly World Forum, (previously the International Congress on Arts and Communications) which invites a group for a week of professional seminars, artistic displays and performances, and culture sharing. Host cities over the 31 yearly meetings have included: New York; Washington D.C.; New Orleans; San Francisco; Edinburgh; Cambridge, UK; Nairobi; Madrid; Lisbon; Cambridge, Mass. USA; Oxford, UK.; Singapore; and Sydney. The Maitre Artiste of Ethiopia, Afewerk Tekle was a regular attendee. No proceedings of these forums are produced except from the ABI which includes these in a newsletter. The often prestigious location is then quoted on their literature as if to add gravitas.
In 2007, referring to the International Biographical Centre, the American Biographical Institute and Marquis Who's Who, Jan Margosian, consumer information coordinator for the Oregon Department of Justice, warned consumers to be wary and called the companies "pretty tacky", adding "I don't know why they would put you in there if they weren't hoping to get you to buy the book.. "You truly have to look at how they are marketing and what the spin is. It's something you might want to watch out for."
Awards and titles.
New awards are continually created and marketed. Most awards are available for between US $195 and $495, payable by the recipient, depending on their level of prestige and the quality of the printing on the certificate and the material in the frame or mount. In 2005 the Institute awarded 200 "Man of the Year" awards at between $195 and $295 each.
American Biographical Institute gives awards like Man of The Year or Scientific Award of the Excellence to many people in a year. Every award can be purchased from them.
The ABI does not provide a consolidated list of all the awards, medals, diplomas and certificates it issues, but the titles of the honors may be identified through the recipients' use of them in their résumés.


Ken Feingold

Kenneth Feingold (USA, 1952 - ) is a contemporary American artist based in New York City. He has been exhibiting his work in video, drawing, film, sculpture, photography, and installations since 1974. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2004) and a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship (2003) and has taught at Princeton University and Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science, among others. His works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Liverpool, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
Life and work.
Feingold was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1952.
1970s.
He studied at Antioch College from 1970 through 1971, making experimental 16mm films and film installations and worked at The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York. While attending Antioch, Feingold studied with and was the Teaching Assistant for Paul Sharits. In late 1971 he left Antioch and moved to San Francisco. Later he transferred to CalArts, and moved to Los Angeles. He worked as studio assistant for John Baldessari until 1976. He graduated from CalArts with both Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees. His first solo exhibition of 16mm films was held at Millennium Film Workshop, New York, and he was included in the group exhibitions "Text & Image" and "Stills" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Other solo exhibitions in the early 1970s included Gallery A-402, CalArts, Valencia and Claire S. Copley Gallery, Los Angeles. Three video works were included in the "Southland Video Anthology", a group exhibition at Long Beach Museum of Art.
In 1976 he moved back to New York and worked as a studio assistant for Vito Acconci. In the following year he took up a teaching post at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He had a film screening at The Kitchen, New York and an article on his work was published: "Six Films by Ken Feingold" by David James published in Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (LAICA) Journal, LA. He participated in a survey of his 16mm films at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and exhibited an installation in the Project Room at Artists' Space, New York.
1980s.
Feingold's video installation "Sexual Jokes" was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and he received a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Art Fellowship, and later a Media Arts Fellowship. Taking a sabbatical from teaching, he travelled India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. He participated in the 1985 and 1989 Whitney Biennial and exhibited widely in America and Europe. His video artworks "5dim/MIND" and "The Double" were acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
He returned to Asia in 1985, continuing his work in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and India. His three-year project of videotaping in South Asia resulted in the "Distance of the Outsider" series of video works. Among these were "India Time" (1987) and "Life in Exile" (1988), a series of interviews with Tibetan philosophers and former political prisoners living in exile in India.
1990s.
Feingold received a Fellowship from the Japan/US Friendship Commission and took up an extended residency in Tokyo in 1990. During the 1990s Feingold exhibited in the US, Europe, Korea, and Japan. Nagoya City Art Gallery, Nagoya, Japan, held a retrospective video screening of his work in 1990. Feingold's first interactive artwork "The Surprising Spiral" was completed in 1991. It was first exhibited at Kunsthalle Dominikannerkirche, "European Media Art Festival", Osnabrück, Germany and then traveled widely throughout Europe. In the early 1990s he created interactive works with speaking puppets connected to the Internet. His first web projects were "REKD" and "JCJ Junkman". An account of Feingold's interactive and media artwork can be found in "SurReal Time Interaction or How to Talk to a Dummy in a Magnetic Mirror?" by Erkki Huhtamo, artintact3 (ZKM Karlsruhe).
He won the Videonale-Preis at BonnVideonale, Bonn Kunstverein, for his work "Un Chien Délicieux".
In 1997 he created the interactive installation "Interior" for InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, "ICC Biennale ‘97" and was awarded the DNP Internet ‘97 Interactive Award; Dai Nippon Printing, Tokyo. The Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, commissioned the interactive work "Head" for the exhibition "Alien Intelligence" in 1999. He maintained a studio in Buenos Aires and developed his first interactive conversation works.
In 1999 he was awarded a prize by Fundación Telefónica; Vida 3.0 (Life 3.0), Madrid.
His video work "Un Chien Délicieux" was included in documenta X, Kassel, as part of a curated program titled "Beware: In Portraying the Phantom You Become One" ("Vorsicht! Wer Phantom Spielt wird selbst eins", 1997). This project was also exhibited in Paris as "Prends garde! A jouer au fantôme, on le devient (Musée National d'Art Moderne /Centre Georges Pompidou, 1997)".
2000s.
Feingold participated in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and in 2003 he received a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship ) and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
His work "Self Portrait as the Center of the Universe" (2001) was included in the historical overview exhibition "Art, Lies, and Videotape: Exposing Performance" at the Tate Liverpool in 2004. "The Surprising Spiral" was included in "Masterpieces of Media Art from the ZKM Collection" at the ZKM Karlsruhe in 2005.
ACE Gallery, Los Angeles, presented a mid-career survey of his work in 2005-2006.
A selection of his early films and video works was screened at Museum of Modern Art, New York as part of "TOMORROWLAND: CalArts in Moving Pictures" in 2006.
A solo show of his installation work "Eros and Thanatos Flying/Falling" (2006) was held at Mejan Labs, Stockholm in 2006, and his work "Box of Men" (2007) was included in "Kempelen - Man in the Machine" at Műscarnok, Budapest and traveled to ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe later that year. "JCJ-Junkman" (1995) was included in "Imagining Media @ ZKM" at the ZKM Karlsruhe in 2009 and "Eros and Thanatos Flying/Falling" was exhibited in the Mediations Biennale in Poznan, Poland in 2010. "Head" (1999) was included in "VIDA 1999-2012", Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Madrid in 2012-2013 and in "Kiasma Hits" at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2013-2014. "Lantern" was included in "thingworld: International Triennial of New Media Art" at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, 2014
The book "KEN FEINGOLD: Figures of Speech", a compilation of essays on Feingold's artwork by Ryszard W. Kluszczyński, Ken Feingold, Errki Huhtamo, Edward Shanken, and Ewa Wójtowicz, published 2015 by Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk as part of their "Art + Science" series.
Collections.
His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karslruhe; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; the National Gallery of Canada.; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San Jose, Costa Rica; Fortuny Museum, Venice; Whitney Museum of American Art among others.


The Pelican Brief (film)

The Pelican Brief is a 1993 American legal thriller film based on the 1992 novel by John Grisham. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, the film stars Julia Roberts in the role of young law student Darby Shaw and Denzel Washington as "Washington Herald" reporter Gray Grantham. The film, which features music composed by James Horner, was the last film that featured Pakula as both writer and director before his death.
Plot.
After an assassin named Khamel kills two Supreme Court justices, Jensen and Rosenberg, Tulane University law student Darby Shaw writes a legal brief detailing her theory on why they were killed. She gives the brief to her law professor/lover Thomas Callahan, who in turn gives a copy to his good friend Gavin Verheek, special counsel to the Director of the FBI. Soon after, a car bomb kills Callahan, but Darby manages to avoid the same fate, because Callahan refuses to give Darby the keys. Realizing that her brief was accurate, she goes into hiding and reaches out to Verheek for assistance.
An informant calling himself Garcia contacts "Washington Herald" reporter Gray Grantham with information about the assassinations, but suddenly disappears. Darby contacts Grantham, who verifies her information as accurate. Darby's computer, disks, and files disappear from her home. She is attacked at a hotel where she's hiding, but manages to escape the attack unharmed, but scared. She contacts and agrees to meet Verheek, but Khamel kills Verheek and impersonates him at the meet. Before Khamel can kill Darby, an unknown person shoots and kills him.
Darby agrees to meet Grantham in New York City, where she shares the theory expressed in her brief: the assassinations were done for oil tycoon Victor Mattiece, who intends to exploit the oil he found beneath Louisiana marshland that is habitat for an endangered sub-species of brown pelicans. A court appeal to deny Mattiece the drilling rights is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Darby has surmised that Mattiece, hoping to turn the case in his favor, is behind the justices' murders; these two justices differ in their opinions on everything except protecting the environment. As a generous contributor to the President, Mattiece expects that he would appoint justices that favor oil and gas exploitation over environmental issues while the next President may not do so. When Grantham tells her about Garcia, they discover that the man is Curtis Morgan, a lawyer in the oil and gas division at the Washington, D.C. law firm of White & Blazevich.
Darby visits the firm, pretending to have an appointment with Morgan, and is told that he had been killed in a mugging. Suspecting that his murder was related to the incriminating information, she and Grantham visit his widow, who eventually gives them a key to a safe deposit box. Darby visits the bank to retrieve the contents of the box. After barely escaping death via car bomb, they reach the "Washington Herald" building, where they review the documents and a videotape recovered from Morgan's box. The tape corroborates Darby's theory, as Morgan's documents verify that Mattiece ordered the Justices to be assassinated. With this evidence, Grantham writes his story. He gives the FBI a chance to comment and FBI Director Voyles confirms that Darby's "Pelican Brief" was delivered to the White House. He reveals the President ordered the FBI to "back off," and that the CIA is investigating Mattiece, with one of them killing Khamel to save Darby's life. A plane that the FBI arranges for Darby flies her away to safety.
Sometime later, Darby is watching a TV interview of Grantham where it is revealed that Mattiece and four partners at White & Blazevich have been indicted in federal court, the President's chief of staff Fletcher Coal has resigned, and the President (who received $4.2million in contributions from Mattiece) will not run for reelection. Grantham deflects speculation that Darby is fictional, but does agree that she is "almost" too good to be true, causing Darby to smile.
Release.
"The Pelican Brief" was released on VHS on June 15, 1994, by Warner Home Video. The film was released on Blu-ray on February 10, 2009, by Warner Home Video. "The Pelican Brief" was released on DVD on September 7, 2010, by Warner Home Video.
Reception.
Box office.
"The Pelican Brief" grossed $100.8million in the United States and Canada, and $94.5million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $195.3million, against a production budget of $45million.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 53% based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's consensus states: "Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington are a compelling team in the overlong "Pelican Brief", a pulpy thriller that doesn't quite justify the intellectual remove of Alan J. Pakula's direction." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Pat Collins, from WWOR-TV, said that the film was "A heart-stopping, spine-chilling, adrenaline-pumping, run-for-your-life thriller." In "The Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of a possible 4 stars, writing "the movie delivers while it's onscreen" but also believed "The Pelican Brief" was inferior to the film adaptation of Grisham's "The Firm" (also 1993) and ranked as one of Pakula's lesser efforts. Film critic Brian Lowry of "Variety" wrote in his review: "Pakula does a remarkable job in weaving and making sense of these complex strands. Although there's plenty of suspense as Darby and Gray evade her pursuers, the director eschews the cheaper tricks of the trade, respecting the audience's ability to keep track of what's going on. Also, "Brief" is a relatively gore-free thriller, with most of the violence effectively conveyed offscreen." Film critic Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote in her review: ""The Pelican Brief" is best watched as a celebration of liquid brown eyes and serious star quality, thanks to the casting of Ms. Roberts and Denzel Washington in its leading roles. Neither of these first-rate actors is shown to great dramatic advantage, but they both do a lot to make the movie shine."


The Man Who Never Was

The Man Who Never Was is a 1956 British espionage thriller film produced by André Hakim and directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame and features Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin and Stephen Boyd. It is based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu and chronicles Operation Mincemeat, a 1943 British intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily would take place elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
"The Man Who Never Was" was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, and Nigel Balchin's screenplay won the BAFTA for that year.
Plot.
In 1943, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Clifton Webb) devises a scheme to deceive the Nazis about the impending invasion of Southern Europe. It entails releasing a corpse with a fictional identity off the coast of Spain. The strong currents would almost certainly carry it ashore near where a known German secret agent operates. The non-existent Royal Marine, Major William Martin, would appear to be a plane-crash victim carrying falsified letters about a forthcoming Allied invasion of German-occupied Greece, rather than Sicily, the more obvious target. Montagu receives approval to carry out Operation Mincemeat.
Following a medical expert's advice, Montagu procures the body of a man who died of pneumonia so it appears he drowned. After proper preparations, the corpse is placed in a canister packed with dry ice and transferred to a waiting submarine. The body is released in the Mediterranean where it washes ashore on a Spanish beach. The local authorities, observed by German and British consulate staff, process the body. After the attaché case containing the letters is returned to London, a forensics expert confirms the key letter, describing the (false) Allied invasion in Greece, was cleverly opened, photographed, and resealed.
Hitler is convinced the document is genuine, though Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the "Abwehr", is skeptical. The Nazis dispatch Patrick O'Reilly (Stephen Boyd), a pro-German IRA spy, to London to investigate. O'Reilly investigates Martin's "fiancée", Lucy Sherwood (Gloria Grahame), who is the roommate of Montagu's assistant, Pam (Josephine Griffin). O'Reilly arrives at their flat, posing as Martin's old friend, on the same day Lucy received news that her real boyfriend was killed in action. Her genuine grief mostly convinces O'Reilly. As a final test, however, he gives Lucy his north London address, telling her to contact him if she needs anything. He then radios his German contacts saying that if he does not send another message in one hour, it means he has been arrested. As Montagu, General Coburn (Michael Hordern) of Scotland Yard's Special Branch and police officers are en route to O'Reilly's flat, Montagu realises why he left his address. Montagu convinces a reluctant Hordern to let O'Reilly go. After no one arrives to arrest him, O'Reilly sends a "Martin genuine!" radio message. The Germans then transfer most of their Sicily-based forces to Greece, making the Allied deception successful.
After the war, Montagu leaves his OBE medal at the grave of "the man who never was".
Historical accuracy.
Operation Mincemeat involved the acquisition and dressing up of a human cadaver as a "Major William Martin, R.M." and putting it into the sea near Huelva, Spain. Attached to the dead body was a briefcase containing fake letters falsely stating that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece rather than Sicily, the actual point of invasion. When the body was found, the Spanish Intelligence Service passed copies of the papers to the German Intelligence Service which passed them on to their High Command. The ruse was so successful that the Germans still believed that Sardinia and Greece were the intended objectives weeks after the landings in Sicily had begun.
The exact identity of the "man who never was" has been the centre of controversy since the end of the war. On the one hand, certain accounts claim the true identity of "Major William Martin" was a homeless, alcoholic rat-catcher from Aberbargoed, Wales, Glyndwr Michael, who had died by self-administering a small dose of rat poison. However, in 2002, authors John and Noreen Steele published the non-fictional account of "The Secrets of HMS Dasher", about an ill-fated escort carrier that exploded and sank in the Firth of Clyde around the time Operation Mincemeat had commenced. The Steeles argued that "Major Martin's" body was actually that of seaman John Melville, one of the "Dasher's" casualties. Further, it has been reported that the accuracy of this claim was verified by the Royal Navy in late October 2004, and a memorial service was held for Melville, in which he was celebrated as one whose "memory lives on in the film "The Man Who Never Was"...we are gathered here today to remember John Melville as a man who most certainly was." But in fact, Professor Denis Smyth, a researcher at the University of Toronto, has counter-argued that Glyndwr Michael was indeed the real "Major Martin." To support his claims, Smyth published the contents of a secret memo and an official report, both authored by Ewen Montagu himself, confirming the Glyndwr Michael story.
Regardless of the identity of Major Martin, Nigel Balchin's script stayed as close to the truth as was convenient, yet the film does fall back on some dramatization. For example, the episode of the Irish spy, O'Reilly, is a complete fabrication. The British Security Service controlled the German spy network in the UK with its Double-Cross System, though this fact was still secret at the time the film was made. Ewen Montagu declared that he was happy with the fictitious incidents which, although they did not happen, might have happened.
During filming, Montagu has a cameo role, that of a Royal Air Force air vice-marshal who has doubts about the feasibility of the proposed plan. It was described by Ben Macintyre in "Operation Mincemeat" as a "surreal" moment when the real Montagu addressed his fictional persona, played by Webb.
Reception.
The film earned an estimated $1.1 million in North American rentals in 1956.
The "Radio Times" wrote, "the picture may appear overly reverent by today's standards. But this is still a crucial wartime spy tale that is well worth watching."
"The Goon Show" parody.
The BBC's radio comedy show, "The Goon Show", made a send-up of the story of "The Man Who Never Was" (based on the book) and incorporated most of the regular "Goon Show" characters. Written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens, the first version of the script formed two-thirds of the episode broadcast on 31 March 1953, before the film's release, with the first third comprising a separate sketch. Like most of these early episodes, this no longer exists.
Milligan and Stephens later wrote a full-length version which was broadcast on 20 March 1956. Milligan later revised this script for the episode broadcast on 17 February 1958. Both of the later versions have been issued on CD sets. Coincidentally, Peter Sellers (one of the Goons) provided the voice of Winston Churchill in the film, although the character did not appear in "The Goon Show" adaptation.


Helen Golay


The Gregory Brothers

The Gregory Brothers are an American musical quartet, specializing in comedy music and pitch correction through their YouTube channel Schmoyoho (), who have characterized their music as "Country & Soul, Folk & Roll".
They are best known for their creation of musical viral videos, most notably the "Winning" song that won a 2012 Comedy Award, their "Songify the News" series (formerly known as "Auto-Tune the News"), and the "Bed Intruder Song" that received over 141 million YouTube views and entered the "Billboard" Hot 100. Their recent releases, "Who's It Gonna Be?" with Weird Al Yankovic and "The Last Fight" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, parodied the two US presidential debates of 2020.
The three Gregory brothers – drummer/keyboardist Michael, guitarist/bassist Andrew Rose and keyboardist Evan – originally from Radford, Virginia, moved to Brooklyn, New York in the mid-2000s and met guitarist/bassist Sarah Fullen (who married Evan in 2009) in the local music scene. The band was formed in 2007, with all four members providing vocals, often accompanying "songified" individuals.
After 10 years of activity, having earned the most views by songifying the likes of Antoine Dodson, Charlie Sheen, Paul Vasquez and Daymon Patterson, their Schmoyoho channel reached three million subscribers in March 2017. In commemoration, the Gregory Brothers released a "mega-mashup" of their work, in which they outlined their main goal of eliciting "the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum amount of time".
Viral videos.
The Gregory Brothers (using the YouTube username 'schmoyoho') first became well known for a series of YouTube videos, "Auto-Tune the News" (rebranded in 2011 as "Songify the News"), in which recorded voices of politicians, news anchors, and political pundits were digitally manipulated to conform to a melody, making the figures appear to sing.
National television networks featured the Gregory Brothers' early political satires in the spring of 2009, but the group did not achieve mainstream recognition until the summer of 2010, when they released episode 12b of "Auto-Tune the News", titled "Bed Intruder Song," which featured excerpts from an interview with alleged crime victims Kelly Dodson and her brother, Antoine Dodson, was viewed approximately 50 million times during its first six months online, making it the most-viewed YouTube video of 2010 (excluding major label music videos), and currently has more than 100 million views.
Largely non-political in content, it marked a departure from the Gregory Brothers' roots in political material. Following the mainstream success of that music video, the Gregory Brothers have generally produced a mixture of both political and non-political videos.
The band is best known for the "Auto-Tune" and "Songify" series, they have created several additional videos, independent of that series, which have received broad attention. The following videos are part of their first season of "Auto-Tune the News" for 16 episodes.
The Gregory Brothers began to retroactively apply the series name "Songify This" to certain previously series-independent videos in late 2010, and they have released a number of new videos under this branding as well. The table above reflects the new "Songify This" branding where applicable.
83rd Annual Academy Awards.
The Gregory Brothers created a musical segment for the 83rd Academy Awards where they auto-tuned bits of 4 major motion pictures from 2010: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1", "Toy Story 3", "The Social Network", and "".
Host James Franco comically introduced the segment as a tribute to a "great year for the movie musical." Characters who were autotuned included Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Sheriff Woody, Sean Parker, and Edward Cullen. On July 14, 2011 it was announced that this segment earned The Gregory Brothers a nomination for a 2011 Emmy award in the category "Outstanding Short-Form Picture Editing." Only Michael and Evan are nominated as there is a two-person nomination limit in this category.
While only those four aired, an alternative cut was released on the official 2011 Grammy Awards YouTube channel on February 27, 2011, featuring an auto-tuned version of "The King's Speech" in place of "The Social Network".
"Double Rainbow Song".
In July 2010, the Gregory Brothers released an auto-tuned version of the Double Rainbow viral video. The original video featured the overawed reaction of Paul "Hungry Bear" Vasquez to a double rainbow at Yosemite National Park. The Gregory Brothers turned Vasquez's astounded speech into a song and pledged all of the song's earnings to Vasquez and Yosemite.
As of February 12, 2018 the Gregory Brothers' remix had received over 39 million views.
Musical collaborations.
The Gregory Brothers appear as members of the Welcome Wagon Choir on The Welcome Wagon's 2009 debut album "Welcome to the Welcome Wagon", produced by Sufjan Stevens.
The Welcome Wagon is a project headed by Presbyterian minister Vito Aiuto and his wife, Monique. The Gregory Brothers often perform live with Sarah Gregory's band The Stanleys. The group was commissioned to produce the theme song for the Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", which was based on their "Bed Intruder Song".
"Song Voyage".
"Song Voyage" (a play-on-words on "bon voyage") is a The Station web series starring the four Gregory Brothers, who are also co-creators and co-producers along with Portal A Interactive. Directed by Dan Eckman, the comedy travel series features the Gregory Brothers visiting nations in the Asia-Pacific region and collaborating with local musicians to create original novelty songs. It has been described as "a musical twist on an Anthony Bourdain show." The series premiered on Sling TV, after which episodes began being released on the Gregory Brothers' second YouTube channel in December 2016, while music videos from within each episode were also released on the main Schmoyoho channel.
Discography.
"Meet the Gregory Brothers!".
The group released their first EP, "Meet the Gregory Brothers!", on May 29, 2009. Village Voice music writer Ben Westhoff characterized the effort as "a lounge-y, refreshingly sincere slice of blue-eyed soul", and Jake Frazier of "PopSense" praised the work, claiming that it "[brought] more to the table than the other 1000+ songs [in his music library]". Westhoff opined that "unfortunately, many of the Brothers' new fans have no patience for anything that's not "Auto-Tune the News"", though the group itself takes a broader view of its fans' tastes, believing that "there will definitely be some fans who found us through our videos, and who will be disappointed when they hear our records and they're not a bunch of hip-hop political parodies…[but] most people get that we are capable of creating music in different styles, and can appreciate our folky soul jams for what they are."
For the period of July 15–22 2009, 47–54 days after its release, the EP was ranked as the top-selling album on Amie Street in the category of "Soul / R&B".
Contributing musicians on the album include Doug Hulin (bass) and Justin Keller (saxophone). The album was recorded at the Mission Sound Recording facility in Brooklyn, New York, and was produced, engineered, and mixed by Zach McNees. The recording was mastered by Ricardo Gutierrez. The cover art photographer was Denny Renshaw, and Morgan King, founder of Yer Bird Records, is credited with its design.
"Songify the Election".
While many of the Gregory Brothers' "Songify" singles are published through YouTube, their music videos of candidates during United States presidential elections were also released as albums in 2012 and 2016. These were created by songifying audio from presidential debates and media appearances. "The Atlantic"'s Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg described the 2012 debate tracks as "surprisingly polished, if not as hilarious as their big hits." Noah Houghton of "The Harvard Crimson" applauded the quality and novelty of the 2016 album, adding that "the production on every song in the album is great without exception."
"Happy Sad Songs".
A series of covers of popular songs were arranged, performed and shared by the Gregory Brothers through Vine, Facebook and YouTube. Somewhat uniquely, these covers switched the key of the song between major and minor, giving otherwise happy songs a melancholy tone while sad songs sounded more joyful. In March 2014, and again in September 2016, the Gregory Brothers released compilation albums of some such covers.
"Love Is Like Drugs".
In November 2016, the Gregory Brothers collaborated with Jon Jafari (aka JonTron) and created a comedy album entitled "Love Is Like Drugs". The album managed to reach number two on the "Billboard" chart of comedy albums of the week of November 26.
"Sleigh Ride / Fireside".
A Christmas album, featuring original music and upbeat covers of popular Christmas and winter songs performed by The Gregory Brothers, debuted on November 15th, 2018. The album was released in both standard and deluxe editions. A public livestream of The Gregory Brothers performing the album premiered on December 6th, 2018.


E. Jane

E. Jane (born 1990), also known by their performance name MHYSA, is an American interdisciplinary new media artist and musician.
Early life and education.
Jane was born in Bethesda, Maryland in 1990. Jane graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in art history. In 2016, they graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in interdisciplinary art from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Career.
They have participated in various exhibitions and festivals internationally, including "Wandering/WILDING: Blackness on the Internet" at IMT Gallery in London in 2016, Post-Cyber Feminist International in 2017, and Glasgow International in 2018. They were based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jane is currently a 2019–2020 Artist-in-Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and they are based in Brooklyn, New York.
MHYSA.
Jane performs under the musical alter ego name, "MHYSA." MHYSA is also a part of the music duo SCRAAATCH, along with collaborator "lawd knows" (who also goes by "chukwumaa"). In 2017, MHYSA released their debut album, "". In February 2020, they released the album "NEVAEH" for Hyperdub.
The New York Times has said MHYSA's work contains a "wobbly, dreamy club sound." Others have noted the performance as referencing or being connected to 1990s R&B music. MHYSA has described themselves as "an underground pop star for the cyber resistance."
Selected works.
"Lavendra" (2015–).
"Lavendra" is a multimedia installation. It was displayed in exhibitions at the PennDesign MFA Program in 2015 and 2016, and as a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn gallery American Medium in 2017 and the Glasgow International in Scotland in 2018. The installation includes references to 1990s R&B (rhythm and blues) divas, such as portrait collages of 1990s black female musicians and songs selected from the time. Digital performances by MHYSA were shown on monitors, and the room was covered in purple light.
"Alive #NotYetDead" (2015).
Alive was started in 2015 in response to the death of Sandra Bland. Bland was found hanged in a cell after a traffic arrest in 2015. Jane created a photobooth background with the word "ALIVE" for black women to take pictures with and share on social media using the hashtag #notyetdead. These selfies were uploaded to a website and also displayed in an installation.
Personal life.
Jane uses they and them pronouns.
Awards and honors.
In 2016, they received the Wynn Newhouse Award.


Keep America Great!


Gibraltar Savings and Loan

Gibraltar Savings and Loan Association was an American bank operating in California, Washington, and Florida. It was organized as a savings and loan and failed in 1989.
Overview.
Its headquarters building at 9111 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, was built in 1958, designed by William Pereira.
U.S. federal regulators seized assets of the bank in 1989. Its assets included $13.4 billion and the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, later transferred to Del Ray, a Burbank-based development firm. At the time, it was one of the largest insolvencies in U.S. history. It was later acquired by Security Pacific National Bank, then the fifth largest bank in the United States.


John Bowe (financier)

John Bowe, former Head of Capital Markets at Anglo Irish Bank, born .
Background.
A native of County Laois, Bowe was Director of Capital Markets of Anglo Irish Bank Corp. PLC (known as Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited). Other positions he held include NOL Group's businesses and operations in the US, Canada and Latin America, and President of Americas of NOL Group of Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.
Bowe became a number of former members of Anglo Irish Bank who were at the centre of a controversy in June 2013, concerning recorded comments they made some years previously in matters during the run-up to Ireland's economic crisis. His comments included:
If they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean?
"They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high...if it doesn't look too big at the outset...if it doesn't look big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything, then, then I think you can have a chance.
In 2013, upon the release of the recordings, Bowe categorically denied misleading the Irish government in the lead-up to the bailout:
In a statement issued in, Mr. Bowe said:
I categorically deny the allegation that I, at any time, misled the Central Bank or was aware of any strategy to do so. There were extensive discussions with the Central Bank particularly in or around the time period of September 2008. The phone call on 18 September 2008 was three days after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and therefore took place during a period of severe and unprecedented market dislocation.
Conviction.
In June 2017 he was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to two years in prison the following month. In the same trial, Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months and Willie McAteer was sentenced to three and a half years.
The fraud consisted of Anglo Irish Bank lending €7.2bn to Irish Life and Permanent, which placed the same sum back with Anglo Irish Bank, where it was accounted for on and end of year balance sheet as customer deposits instead of an inter-bank loan.
The trial lasted 89 days and was the longest trial in the history of the state at that time.


Distant Worlds

Distant Worlds is a real-time grand strategy wargame developed by Code Force and published by Matrix Games.
"Distant Worlds" was released on March 25, 2010. Three subsequent expansions, "Return of the Shakturi", "Legends", and "Shadows" were released in 2010, 2011, and 2013, respectively. The game appeared on the Steam platform on May 23, 2014 under the name "Distant Worlds: Universe", gathering the original game and all expansions into a single package with new content.
Gameplay.
Gameplay features up to 1,400 star systems, with up to 50,000 planets, moons and asteroids in a single game session.
Key differences from other games of the genre are the vast scale, along with task automation systems that help the player manage their empire.
Reception.
"Distant Worlds" received generally positive reviews upon its release. "RTSguru" gave it 8 out of 10, praising the replayability and large galaxies, while diverting some criticism towards the user interface and graphics. "Gamesquad" awarded it an 8.0 out of 10, praising the automation options and the economical system of the game. However, they expressed some concern towards the game's tutorial, stating that "while the game does help the new player with its efficient UI and two tutorials, the player still feels like the game stuffs him in a spacesuit, gives him a pat on the back and kicks him out the airlock to fend for himself." Metacritic recorded a weighted average score of 81/100 for "Distant Worlds: Universe".
"Space Sector" initially had mixed feelings towards the game, giving it 5.0 out of 10. While praising the vastness of the game, they ultimately felt that the interface, steep learning curve, lackluster graphics and some bad design implementations had made "Distant Worlds" "a dry, sterile, overwhelming, boring and ultimately not fun game to play." The reviewer, Adam Solo, later modified his article to an 8.8 out of 10, stating the game had vastly improved after several patches and its first expansion were released.
Rock Paper Shotgun gave the "Distant Worlds: Universe" collection its Best Strategy Game of 2014 award.


Danger Bay

Danger Bay is a Canadian television series, produced in Vancouver, with first-run episodes broadcast on CBC Television in Canada and The Disney Channel in the United States premiering October 7, 1985. Reruns of the show continued on The Disney Channel until 1996. A total of 123 installments were filmed between 1985 and 1990. The series was perceived as wholesome, exciting fare for older children and adolescents, and continued to be seen through the 1990s in many countries worldwide.
The series followed the exploits of the Roberts family: marine veterinarian Grant "Doc" Roberts and his children, Nicole and Jonah. Nearly every 30-minute episode featured the Vancouver Aquarium. Most episodes focused on environmental issues such as pollution, wildlife endangerment, and forest preservation.
The series was also broadcast in 68 different countries such as Gibraltar (Danger Bay), Bulgaria (Опасният Залив), Ukraine (Затока Небезпеки), Poland (Niebezpieczna zatoka), Czechoslovakia (Nebezpečný záliv, with Slovak dubbing), [celand (Háskaslóðir, subtitled on state TV channel RUV), Cuba (Bahía Peligro), Trinidad & Tobago, Estonia (Ohtude Laht, subtitled), Finland (Vaarojen Lahti, subtitled), Sweden (Äventyr i bukten, subtitled on state TV), Germany (Abenteuer in Vancouver), Netherlands (Dutch subtitles), Iran (گارد ساحلی), Iraq (ساحل المخاطر), France (Cap Danger) South Africa (Danger Bay), India (Danger Bay), Spain (Bahía Peligrosa), [orth Macedonia (Опасниот Залив) and in Venezuela (Bahía Peligro) for television channel Televen.
Streaming.
As of 2018 the Entire series has been released online on the Canada Media Fund's Encore+ YouTube channel.


Code (audio standard)

Code or ΧΟΔΕ (also pronounced "code") is a brand name for the high-fidelity audio DVD-Video disc developed by Grammy Award-winning record producer T Bone Burnett. The brand is meant to give listeners a comparable experience to hearing studio master recordings and to offer a higher resolution alternative to the smaller, lower quality MP3, the iTunes Store's AAC, and Compact Disc formats. A Code disc is a DVD-Video disc with standard 24-bit/96 kHz PCM audio, and is played from a DVD player or a DVD-ROM drive. The disc also includes files in 24-bit/96 kHz WAV, AAC, and MP3 formats for use on personal computers and portable media players. John Mellencamp's "Life, Death, Love and Freedom" was the first album released in the format on July 15, 2008. Elvis Costello has also expressed interest in releasing in the format. Will Dailey released his "Torrent, Volumes 1 & 2" in ΧΟΔΕ on June 9, 2009. The album is credited on its back cover as "ΧΟΔΕ certified by T Bone Burnett".


Lierre Keith

Lierre Keith (; born 1964) is an American writer, radical feminist, food activist, and radical environmentalist.
Biography.
Keith attended Brookline High School in Massachusetts. She began her public involvement in the feminist movement as the founding editor of "Vanessa and Iris: A Journal for Young Feminists" (1983–85). During this same period, she also volunteered with a group called Women Against Violence Against Women in Cambridge, where she participated in educational events and protest campaigns. In 1984 she was a founding member of Minor Disturbance, a protest group against militarism from a feminist perspective. In 1986 she was a founding member of Feminists Against Pornography in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is a founding editor of "Rain and Thunder", a radical feminist journal in Northampton.
As a radical feminist and more recently as a radical environmentalist, Keith has had many appearances, interviews, and speeches around the U.S. and Canada.
Keith was an early public advocate of the U.S. local food movement. In a 2006 "Boston Globe" human interest story, she said, "I like knowing that I'm supporting the local economy and not corporate America."
Her views have attracted negative attention from some vegetarians, what one journalist has called a "Vegan War". Illustrative of the heated political debate, protesters hit Keith with chili pepper-laced pies during a presentation of her book "The Vegetarian Myth" at the 2010 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair.
"The Vegetarian Myth".
Keith's 2009 book "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" is an examination of the ecological effects of agriculture and vegetarianism. In "The Vegetarian Myth", she sees agriculture as destroying entire ecosystems, such as the North American prairie. Agriculture also destroys topsoil, according to Keith.
"Deep Green Resistance".
Keith is associated with the Deep Green Resistance movement, and together with Aric McBay and Derrick Jensen, she co-wrote "Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet", published in May 2011. The book describes itself as a "manual on how to build a resistance movement that will bring down industrial civilization and save the planet," and "evaluates strategic options for resistance, from nonviolence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful."
After the publication of this book, the authors co-founded an organization by the same name. Aric McBay left the organization at the beginning of 2012, however, attributing his departure to the cancellation of a transgender-inclusive policy by Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith. Deep Green Resistance has disputed this account, saying that the women's safe space policy was one issue among many and that the decision to restrict women's spaces was made by the women of DGR, and not by Jensen or Keith.