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La comedia de figurón es uno de los subgéneros dramáticos generados en el Siglo de Oro español a partir de la comedia de capa y espada. Muy cercano al género dramático de la farsa, pueden encontrarse ya figurones (personajes cómicos de un grotesco y ridículo orgullo) en el teatro de Plauto, en especial en su pieza Miles gloriosus (El soldado fanfarrón) o Aulularia (Comedia de la olla).

El nacimiento del género en el teatro clásico español está bien claro. Siempre solía quedar un "galán suelto" burlado al final de una pieza de capa y espada, siempre fundada en un enredo de tipo amoroso. El género abarca los siglos XVII, XVIII y principios del XIX. El primer autor puede considerarse Alonso de Castillo Solórzano. Poco a poco se le fueron agregando rasgos cómicos hasta transformar a ese galán suelto en un arquetipo de lo risible, en una personalidad con frecuencia afeminada (como en El lindo Don Diego, obra maestra de Agustín Moreto) o propietaria de rasgos ridículos, frecuentemente emparentados con el aldeanismo provinciano. Muchos de ellos son vascos o montañeses, imbuidos de un grotesco orgullo nobiliario. Su primer ejemplo señero está en El Narciso en su opinión, de Guillén de Castro, donde aparece un protagonista atildado y pretencioso, que queda ridiculizado.

En el repertorio de las comedias de figurón del Siglo de Oro español figuran El marqués del cigarral, de Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Entre bobos anda el juego, de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, El lindo don Diego, de Agustín Moreto, Guárdate del agua mansa, de Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Un bobo hace ciento, de Antonio de Solís, El sordo y el montañés, de Antonio Fernández de León, El castigo de la miseria, de Juan Claudio de la Hoz y Mota, El hechizado por fuerza de Antonio de Zamora, El honor da entendimiento y el más bobo sabe más, Abogar por su ofensor y barón del Pinel, El dómine Lucas, Yo me entiendo y Dios me entiende, La más ilustre fregona, De comedia no se trate, allá va ese disparate y De los hechizos de amor la música es el mayor y el montañés en la Corte, de José de Cañizares, La encantada Melisendra y Piscator de Toledo, de Tomás de Añorbe y Corregel, Don Cosme Antúnez y Panciconeja, o El desgraciado por fuerza, de José Calvo Barrionuevo, Más sabe el loco en su casa que el cuerdo en la ajena, de José de la Concha y Un montañés sabe bien dónde el zapato le aprieta, de Luis Moncín, entre muchas otras compuestas por varios ingenios.

Con el tiempo el género se transformó en la comedia de carácter neoclásica, si es que no la engendraron (las comedias de figurón españolas del Siglo de Oro, siempre en torno a un personaje ridículo central, gustaban tanto a los clasicistas franceses que las imitaron y refundieron mucho). Hay que distinguir, sin embargo, que las comedias de figurón españolas no tratan de arquetipos psicológicos universales, como las francesas, sino de personajes ridículos fruto de unas circunstancia histórico-sociales concretas. Los revolucionarios del Trienio Liberal (1820-1823) idearon incluso una pieza de figurón político que no podía representarse, pero se leía en los periódicos satíricos de la época, como por ejemplo El Zurriago, donde se invertían los valores descalificatorios que el poder vertía sobre los representantes del pueblo.

Ya más adelante, el paleto y palurdo figurón provinciano ha sido víctima de la hilaridad cortesana, y en tal sentido ha sido un personaje constante en el género dramático hasta el mismísimo siglo XX, como el personaje interpretado por Paco Martínez Soria en La ciudad no es para mí, cuyo guion escribió Fernando Lázaro Carreter.

Bibliografía
Olga Fernández Fernández, La comedia de figurón de los siglos XVII y XVIII. Tesis doctoral presentada en la UCM.

Subgéneros de comedia


If you want to explore some incredible, authentic international cuisine and get a feel for the rich diversity of the Raleigh area, pay a visit to our array of international grocery markets. Not just providing unique grocery items for preparing global cuisine at home, most of these markets offer outstanding, complementary restaurants or prepared food and beverage offerings as well (all while providing a connection to home for so many!).
The secret to Neomonde's success in the area lies deeply rooted in tradition and family. For the Saleh family, who founded Neomonde 30 years ago, uncompromising commitment to excellence is a sacred ideal. Every dish on Neomonde's traditional Lebanese/Mediterranean menu is prepared using simple, natural ingredients of the finest variety, prepared in strict accordance with traditional methods. The result: A truly distinctive level of authenticity.
If you're looking for quality ingredients to prepare your own authentic Mediterranean cuisine, the connected market offers a plethora of hand-picked grocery items including olives and oil, grains, lentils, legumes, specialty cheeses and spices (including their own in-house blends). For your sweet tooth, there are Turkish delights, nougats, chocolate covered fruits and nuts, candied ginger, cookies, wafers and even gluten free options. Two locations (Raleigh and Morrisville) means it's always a good time for Neomonde!
This massive Asian supermarket will tickle the fancy of any foodie who loves Asian cuisine. H Mart, which opened its first N.C. store in Cary in late 2016, puts an emphasis on Korean food—you'll find fresh and affordable produce, a full selection of meats and seafoods, baked goods, frozen foods, plenty of Korean skin care products, housewares, countless shelves of crackers, cookies, candy, seaweed, rice, grains, teas and, of course, all those delicious sauces.
When you come, come hungry! Their central food court has a dizzying array of authentic Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine—all available in generous portions! Discover favorites like pad thai, drunken noodles, curry, General Tso, udon noodles, japchae, donburi, bibimbap, galbi and much more. When you order, hang on to your receipt and watch for your order number to flash on the screen. Then grab it, dig in and enjoy!
Depending on who you ask, Taqueria El Toro and the adjoining El Toro Supermarket are either legendary foodie spots or hidden gems on the edge of Raleigh and Garner. Once you sit down to try a torta, sample the fresh salsa bar or purchase the freshly-made tortillas (still warm from the stove), you'll understand why—this is a slice of heaven for fans of genuine Mexican cuisine. Also try the chicharron, deep-fried and salted to perfection, as well as the empanadas, gorditas and amazing tacos. The supermarket has all the key ingredients for creating a Mexican feast of your own at home (and an out-of-this-world tres leches cake that you'll want to claim as your own creation). The prices are reasonable, and the quality is top-notch!
Another local favorite for Asian food is Grand Asia Market. Self described as "the ultimate Asian grocery chain in the Carolinas," this 30,000-square-foot grocery store carries thousands of authentic products from China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. With fresh produce always on deck, you'll easily find traditional fruits and vegetables as well as Asian essentials and seasonal items including multiple varieties of bok choy, mushrooms, nagaimo and lychee. The meats are also top-notch—score unique Asian cuts such as goat, duck, liver, blood, tripe and Chinese sausages. For a wide range of authentic Asian dishes cultivated by amazing chefs, be sure to visit the restaurant (where both a hot bar and made-to-order menu are available).
If Indian food is your thing then you'll definitely want to check out Patel Brothers (or Patel Bros as it's called by fans). Described by Bon Appétit as "...the Most Beloved Indian Grocery Store in America," this bustling Cary location is committed to connecting people with the familiar flavors of India. Bright and well-organized, the aisles are full of ingredients and components that can be used for authentic Indian cooking, from regional rice and grains to paneer and poha, a type of flattened rice that easily absorbs other flavors as it swells. For those not highly familiar with Indian cuisine, you'll recognize plenty of useful items including naan bread, marsala, coconut milk for curry and many dried fruits, which is a more common way to eat them in East Asia. Don't miss this local favorite!
Pro's Epicurean is an eclectic market, café and wine bar featuring authentic Italian and French European cuisine (extremely-conveniently located in downtown Cary, just a few steps from Pizzeria Faulisi, SideBar and Bond Brothers Beer Company). This market and café is the passion of chef/owner Richard Procida and is inspired by his travels to Italy, where his family is from. Once you're through the door, relax and dine on large and small plates, cheese, pastries and confections while sipping exceptional wine. Definitely try Pro's hand-made mozzarella and signature blackened mozzarella—homemade cheese coated in Cajun spices and then torched, like you would a crème brulee. The market is well-stocked with ingredients and accoutrements for preparing delicious meals at home. Buon appetito!
We'll give a resounding "Vive la France" for Des Livres & Delices, a locally-owned independent shop combining books by Francophone writers in French and English as well as French gourmet products such as cheese, charcuterie and wine. This unique bookshop and gourmet market in Raleigh's popular Five Points neighborhood is a foodie's delight—imported French goods, from bottles of Bordeaux and accompanying camembert cheese to ground mustards and honeys, line the shelves. Walk through to the library, and you'll find rows and rows of books in both French and English for adults and children.
Family-owned Bitter Melon Asian Market and its accompanying restaurant, Filipino Cuisine, are popular in the Fuquay-Varina area (and beyond!) for good reason. Super-friendly owners Angela and Joel serve up Filipino cuisine that's authentic and utterly delicious while offering a great selection of hard-to-find Filipino and Asian food items. Fans rave about the pancit, lumpia, lechon kawali and especially the sisig (a finely chopped pork dish, traditionally made with pig head). See what the excitement is all about—it's a taste of Old Manila just outside of the City of Oaks!


A beautiful start to the day on the Gold Coast. Some light SSW winds early leaving the surf a bit messy, it will probably deteriorate a little more as the day wears on as these winds will turn Easterly.
Thoughts go to SA and Victoria who are forecast for another stinker of a day… especially SA, due to have the hottest day on the Planet today.
Image being in this office?


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BREAKING: Kevin Sumlin Will Be The Next Head Coach At Arizona
By Mitchell Renz January 14, 2018
Former Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin will be taking his talents to coach the Arizona Wildcats. Since the firing of Rich Rodriguez, the Wildcats have been in search for a new coach.
Gil Brandt of SiriusXM reported that Sumlin is heading to Arizona. Bruce Feldman has also confirmed Sumlin heading to Arizona.
Despite being fired at Texas A&M, Sumlin is considered one of the brightest offensive minds in football, and would run a very similar scheme to Rodriguez, giving QB Khalil Tate the ability to thrive in a similar fashion to Johnny Manziel under Sumlin's tutelage.
Tate is one of the most exciting players in college football, he threw for 1,591 yards and 14 touchdowns while also rushing for 1,411 yards and 12 touchdowns in 11 games.
Arizona Has Fired Head Football Coach Rich Rodriguez
Rodriguez Viciously Denies Sexual Harassment Allegations, Admits To Extramarital Affair
Top 5 Potential Candidates To Replace Rich Rodriguez
Sumlin has coached college football since 1989 and has an extensive background wearing many different hats. Sumlin served as an assistant with Washington State (89-90), Wyoming (91-92), Minnesota (93-97), Purdue (98-2000). He served as the assistant head coach at Texas A&M for two years and then five years under Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.
Sumlin's first head coaching gig was with the Houston Cougars in 2008 and in his final season, he led the Cougars to a 12-1 record. He then left Houston to coach at Texas A&M from 2012-17. Sumlin was fired in the middle of the 2017 season after the Aggies lost to LSU 45-21. Sumlin is a two-time C-USA Coach of the Year (2009, 2011) and was SEC Coach of the Year in 2012.
Follow our Arizona Wildcats team page for all the latest Arizona football news!
Mitchell Renz is the Senior Writer & On-Air Host at Chat Sports. Check out his article archive and live videos on Chat Sports Facebook page. Please follow him on Twitter @MitchellRenz365.
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Related Topics: Arizona Wildcats Football, Kevin Sumlin Arizona, Kevin Sumlin, Arizona Wildcats, Arizona Football, Arizona Wildcats News, Arizona Kevin Sumlin

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The outstanding stability of the Dynapac screed EB51-E with electrical heating - is achieved by the advanced control system for the hydraulically extendable sub- assemblies, where main screed, torsion housing and telescoping components are interconnected via guide tubes. Telescoping components are individually controlled, the screed width is infinitely variable from 2,55 m to 5,10 m by use of telescopic cylinders. A salient feature of the screed design are the guide tubes, which just extend to 50% of their maximum travel even when the screed is fully extended (double the standard width). This, combined with deeper sole plates, ensures exceptional stability and excellent paving results.
Eager to see the schematics of EB51(E)?


Home / News / Are you ready for the busy Christmas period?
For any organisation, reliable delivery of parcels is essential. The Christmas period is a particularly busy time of year for ecommerce organisations, and the last thing you need is to fall short of guarantees you've made, for your Christmas deliveries. Delivery delays can infuriate customers who have been promised that their packages would arrive by Christmas. Breakdowns in distribution systems can result in significant profit losses, a fall in customer loyalty and a tarnished reputation. Put simply, the success or failure of this busy period can make or break your hard work for the whole year.
This begs the question: Are your business distribution systems prepared for the Christmas period this year? Are they set up to cope with the increased demands, or will they crumble under the pressure? Inevitably, handling your own e-commerce order fulfilment is costly, requiring the commitment of space, personnel, management time and money. For complete confidence, you might consider outsourcing this responsibility to an experienced order fulfilment and distribution partner. AFM understands the importance of speed and accuracy, and our systems are built and honed to consistently meet this challenge. Our distribution services provide the kind of performance that will allow you to relax in the knowledge that your parcels will be delivered safely and on time, resulting in happy customers for your business. Whether your company is large or small, we're able to work in partnership with you to develop a tailor-made service that works for you. All our courier services have full track and trace support, and on despatch, AFM will send an email or SMS the recipient confirming the shipment despatch and providing carrier and tracking information. Please contact us for further information on how our distribution services can help you and your customers.
This entry was posted onSunday, November 2nd, 2014 at 12:07 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


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Westchester: Tunnel near LAX receives $3.5 million for infrastructure upgrades
Posted by garywalker | Jun 20, 2011 | News - Features | 0 |
Motorists heading north and south bound in the vicinity of Los Angeles International Airport will soon no longer be forced to endure stretches of darkness between Westchester and the South Bay.
The Sepulveda Tunnel, a passageway used by hundreds of cars daily, is the recipient of $3.5 million in upgrades that will include lighting, a regular power washing schedule and ventilation repair.
The enhancements were announced June 10 by Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who gave credit to a variety of city agencies as well as to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and state Assemblywoman Betsy Butler (D-Marina del Rey) for their roles in making the improvements possible.
The $3.5 million comes from a gasoline tax fund.
"This is great news from a safety and fiscal standpoint," said Rosendahl. "The appropriation will use existing gas taxes and install a new, state-of-the-art LED lighting system that's brighter, more reliable and much easier to maintain than the current system we have now."
Governments are frequently turning to LED (light emitting diode) lighting due to its advantages over incandescent light sources, including lower energy consumption and longer lifetime.
Money for the tunnel lighting is part of the municipal budget recently signed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The funding will address one frequent complaint from Rosendahl's constituents, which is the lack of visibility in the tunnel due to nonfunctioning lights, as well as debris scattered along the four lanes of traffic.
The councilman gave credit to the city Bureau of Sanitation and the Bureau of Street Services for their assistance in bringing the project forward and working with his and Butler's office in crafting the agreement for the tunnel initiative.
Butler said one of the prime motivators for her to move the improvements forward was a personal experience of driving through the Sepulveda Tunnel in darkness, and at times encountering a backup due to one lane not being in use.
"I knew that if I was frustrated, then constituents must be frustrated," she said.
Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that operates LAX, was also involved as the project took shape.
"LAWA provided Councilman Rosendahl and his staff with information about who maintains the tunnel, problem areas, suggested fixes, and has met with (him) and his staff and the other responsible city agencies on this subject," LAWA spokeswoman Nancy Castles told The Argonaut.
The agency met with the other city agencies and Caltrans to develop a comprehensive maintenance program for the tunnel including replacement of the failing lighting system, Castles added.
"Given the critical nature of the tunnel, LAWA had concerns about the negative customer experience for airport visitors the tunnel generates due to its present condition," she said.
Westchester resident Renate Hilde said she is pleased about the power washing aspect of the project. She cited the accumulation of dirt and graffiti on the tunnel's walls as an example of the lack of maintenance in recent years.
"It's not a good impression when you come to the airport as a business traveler or tourist," she said. "It's not a good calling card."
There are still some logistics and other details that are in the process of being defined. "We're moving on putting together a schedule for maintenance, repair and operation that promises to keep this gateway to Los Angeles clean and well lit for years to come," said Rosendahl.
During the course of meetings with the various agencies, it was discovered that there are four different agencies with maintenance responsibilities: Caltrans, which maintains the roadway and storm water drainage system; the Bureau of Street Services, which handles sweeping and streets cleaning; Bureau of Street Lighting, which maintains the lighting systems; and General Services, which works on the air ventilation system.
"These agencies did not have a coordinated maintenance program and were all feeling the impacts of reduced maintenance budgets," said Castles.
Butler said it was not uncommon to find similar situations in government, but praised everyone involved for taking the project seriously. "All the city agencies were very responsive," she said.
LAWA officials feel that the process for implementing the enhancements and determining each agency's responsibilities highlighted some of the complexities involved when multiple agencies of government have specific duties for a segment of the city's infrastructure.
"There is a need for better coordination among the agencies that have a shared responsibility to keep the tunnel clean and well lit," Castles said.
The city issued a memorandum of understanding with LAWA, Caltrans and the other two city departments, which are under the Department of Public Works. The agencies have agreed to be responsible for tunnel upkeep, sweeping and maintaining the roadway, and power washing the walls and ceiling, according to the councilman's office.
Rosendahl said the enhancements are essential to the tunnel because of what it represents to the region. "It's part of the gateway to Southern California for automobiles and airplanes," he said. "This is an example of government at its best, with coordination at the city and the state level."
Castles gave Rosendahl's office credit for its role in developing the blueprint for the tunnel enhancements.
"The lighting project will make a big difference and the Bureau of Street Lighting has been proactive in developing the lighting project and seeking needed funds. Council District 11 played a key role as a catalyst for the progress being made," she said.
Castles said there are other intrinsic benefits to the project, echoing Rosendahl.
"The primary purpose for the Sepulveda Tunnel Improvement Project is safety. An important secondary benefit is that the tunnel is considered one of the 'gateways' to LAX," the LAWA spokeswoman noted. "If it looks bad – not just lighting but dirty – then the LAX visitor going through the tunnel starts off with a bad perception of the airport and the city as a whole."
Butler said despite the obstacles of multiple agencies, it is up to lawmakers to provide leadership. "That's what elected officials are supposed to do," she said.
The light installation is expected to take place in the summer of 2012. According to the memorandum of understanding, the tunnel power washing will take place quarterly and sweeping will take place on a monthly basis.
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Ausfilm today welcomed the announcement by the NSW State Government's Deputy Premier and Arts Minister, Troy Grant and Industry, Resources and Energy Minister, Anthony Roberts that the US WWII feature film Hacksaw Ridge will shoot in New South Wales.
"Earlier this year, Ausfilm hosted the film's Director, Mel Gibson, on a location scout across three states as part of Ausfilm's annual Familiarisation Program targeting international filmmakers. The production team toured Australia's sound stages, leading post, sound and visual effects studios in addition to meeting with key crew and creatives. The film's producer, Bill Mechanic (President/CEO of Pandemonium) is well acquainted with Australia having recently shot the feature film The Moon and The Sun and 2:22." said Debra Richards, CEO, Ausfilm.
"We're appreciative of Ausfilm's help in the process of putting a movie together. Our trip earlier this year was critical in not only making the decision to shoot here but finding our Heads of Departments." said Bill Mechanic, US producer of the film.
The film commences production in September and will be based at Fox Studios Australia and primarily filmed in locations across New South Wales. Producers of the film include Bill Mechanic, Bruce Davey, Paul Currie, David Permut and Executive Producer, James M Vernon.
"We are delighted that through this location scout the production team found the right location for the story. Hacksaw Ridge represents a welcomed economic boost to local screen production businesses and the wider economy." Richards said.
In 2013/14 international productions The Moon and the Sun, Unbroken and San Andreas shot in Australia employing 6,300 people in all states of Australia and bringing new inward investment of $150 million. Recently the fifth instalment of The Pirates of the Caribbean finished production in Queensland and brought thousands of jobs, skills and training, and significant economic activity to the state and across Australia.
As part of Ausfilm's global strategy in attracting international production and post, sound and visual effects work to Australia, the organisation runs a regular program of familiarisation tours of Australia for international filmmakers. In partnership with Australia's Screen Agencies the program provides location scouts and introduces filmmakers to screen businesses and facilities, talent, creatives and key crew.


Catch All Hair Trap is designed with a removable end-cap that unscrews by hand. Inside of trap is a strainer that collects hair and debris. To clean, simply unscrew and shake out strainer, then replace. This trap is used in place of a typical P-trap and in most cases it can replace your existing hair trap. Can be used with bathing tubs, wet/prep cabinets, sinks, and more.


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Daily Wisdom: Proverbs 4:27
Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
— Proverbs 4:27
"The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble."
— Proverbs 19:23 —
"From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him."
"The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.""
— Galatians 5:14 —
"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."
— Hebrews 10:23 —
Other Devotionals from Heartlight for Tuesday, July 18, 2017
'Why Do…?' (Mt. 15:1-2)
"Some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They asked him, "Why do your disciples disobey our age-old..."
Morning Thought: Numbers 2:31
"The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the march. The Danites occupied the hindmost place, but what mattered the..."
'Eternal Consequences' (Mk. 3:28-30)
"[Jesus:] "I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with..."
Quote by Rachel Joy Scott:
"I have this theory that if one person shows compassion to another then that person will start a chain reaction of the same."


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Virtual beings are coming not just to delight, but to challenge us
Authored by: Nicholas Montegriffo 11 months ago
They're coming. The technology of the future won't be shiny and chrome with blinking lights, but rather look just like us, speak with a human voice, remember our interactions, and reply with a wink and a smile. Meet the virtual beings.
To create artificial humans has been an ambition of ours since ancient times, such as in the myths of Daedalus and Pygamilion, who created statues that came to life. In modern times, our imagination moved on from fashioning people out of clay or bronze. Instead, we imagined high-tech androids, such as Data from Star Trek, or the holographic doctor from Voyager. Perhaps our creations would even surpass us, as the immortal replicants from Blade Runner who were 'more human than human.'
Virtual beings like Voyager's doctor may assist our healthcare in the future:
More recently, films like Her and Ex Machina show artificial personalities closer to the technologies we already use today. But what was once the preserve of science fiction may become a commonplace aspect of our daily lives sooner than you'd think.
Although it's impressive enough to see an AI-powered virtual newsreader on screen, what's even more exciting is to have such AI personalities become interactive. To respond to us, to remember, in a way that seems as natural as humans interacting with each other.
Working towards this goal are several companies operating in the interaction between virtual/augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Once such company, the appropriately named Fable, has set itself the mythical challenge of creating the first fully realized virtual being. Fable used to be a VR content studio, and won critical acclaim with the first chapter of Wolves in the Walls at Sundance last year.
Now, dedicated to a new goal combing AI and immersive storytelling, the company is hosting the first Virtual Beings conference in San Francisco this summer, at which 500 industry leaders in VR, AI and related technologies will be in attendance. On the conference site, Fable provides an elegant definition for what qualifies as a virtual being:
A virtual being is a character that you know isn't real but with whom you can build a 2-way emotional relationship.
Fable's own upcoming flagship project is Whispers in the Night, an interactive story featuring the virtual being Lucy, who also appeared in Wolves in the Walls. This experience, to be debuted at the Virtual Beings conference, will use Natural Language Processing (NLP), so that Lucy will remember and 'understand' interactions with the viewer (or player?), and act accordingly. The result? Each person's interactions with Lucy should be unique to them, and the memory of the character should lead to the development of an emotional relationship throughout ongoing stories.
The Fable team explain the concept of virtual beings:
Fable may be taking the initiative in putting virtual beings in the forefront, but you may have heard of others, such as Mica, a virtual assistant developed by Magic Leap, or Lil Miquela, the AI-powered Instagram influencer. Some people even refer to popular voice assistants such as Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant as distinct beings, but although these can be highly personalized, they lack the personality for the supposed two-way emotional relationship.
Opinion by Nicholas Montegriffo
Alexa, Cortana and co. aren't virtual beings, but their successors will be.
What's clear is that these explorers are determined to cross the uncanny valley, and as the technologies of hyper-realistic graphics, immersive virtual reality, big data, and AI converge, it seems even more likely that virtual beings will live among us.
In many ways this advanced technology is paradoxically like going back to nature. Rather than using a mouse and keyboard and staring at a flat screen, we will interact with digital information with the language, gestures and facial expressions that come more naturally to us.
The Internet 3.0, a seamless blending of the virtual and the real worlds, could be made possible through this. Even before then, the drive for ever more realistic representation of humans in the arts and entertainment but also in industry, to give a relatable face to the AI 'workers' which may become our colleagues, butlers, customer support agents and trainers in the future.
AR glass such as Magic Leap One could facilitate the use of virtual beings. / © AndroidPIT
Of course, hand in hand with the attraction also comes inquiet...many people are disturbed and fascinated by virtual beings in equal measure. Is this just a simple suspicion of something that isn't quite what it appears to be? Or something deeper?
More human than human?
First of all, we should reign in expectations about just how sophisticated AI can get, especially in terms of emotional relationships. I've previously stressed how AIs and human brains think very differently and work best in tandem, and that's not getting into something so closely tied to our biochemistry as feelings. We may actually never get to the Star Trek holographic doctor or replicants in real life, but even so, the effort to create virtual beings will be one of the most exciting and thought-provoking modern endeavors for different reasons.
For to successfully create a human necessarily raises the question of what it means to be human in the first place. As we work to create virtual beings, what aspects of us we choose to pass on to our children will inevitably carry our own biases, which AIs are usually all too quick to unthinkingly perpetuate. As responsible creators, should we allow AIs to take on our bad aspects with the good, or should we strive to create exemplars - the best of ourselves in behavior and values? And then, a difficult debate about good, bad, and the validity of moral relativism needs to be had.
The emergence of virtual beings will inevitably stoke up controversy.
As more virtual beings emerge, a yardstick for humanity will become more than just academic, but of more widespread debate about social norms and perhaps even legislation. For some, the Turing Test (if an AI can pass for human in a blind test conversation) will suffice, while others will contest that virtual beings, however sophisticated, will lack an essential 'soul'.
Not for forget the first virtual beings are being created by commercial entities, which, though I don't doubt the genuine artistic and innovative intentions of the people working on these projects, are also being developed as products in a marketplace, whether for entertainment or industry. Created to fulfill these roles, virtual beings will have to contend with a long suspicion about the opposition of money and greed to human dignity, or 'spirit' if you will, held by many religions and philosophies.
In Blade Runner, artificial beings as commercial products don't go as planned:
Many of us are already aware of how much market research is dedicated to emotionally manipulating consumers in subtle ways. Virtual beings have the potential to be this: the most effective salespeople, advertisers, company spokespeople and propagandists you could think of.
Right now, the journey towards fully realized virtual beings is just getting started, of course. Conferences are a good place for open discussion and setting the course, and it's time to look into the mirror and talk about where we want to go. You can't aim to create virtual humans without tackling questions about what it means to be a human in the first place. And who knows, these virtual beings may end up teaching us something, even if we never end up making one.
What do you think about virtual beings? Would you want to see them become mainstream or does it feel too off-putting to consider? Share your thoughts in the comments.
HTC Vive Opinion AI
Albin Foro 11 months ago Link to comment
I recently reread Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" for the first time since the 1960s, when of course it was crudely deemed the alternative "dystopia" to Orwell's "1984". This time around, the characters coming across as more cartoonish, and less likeable, the large social project of the cloned and drugged society forces the uncomfortable question "So, what's so BAD about that?"


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Category Archives: Marrakech
Roundtable Report: Chamber of Moroccan Film Producers (Tangier, 4 March 2017)
5 May 2017 CCM, Cinemas, Marrakech, Moroccan Cinema, TangiersStefanie Elvire Van De Peer
Two members of the TMC team, Florence and Jamal, attended the latest National Film Festival in Tangier (FNF, 3-11 March 2017). The annual festival is organised by the Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM) in association with the National Association of Film Critics and local partners in Tangier. As Florence argued in a previous post for this blog, this year's festival was characterised by the screening of many wonderful films, however, there were also films that raised questions about the quality and direction of Moroccan cinema.
On Sunday, 4 March, the Moroccan Chamber of Film Producers organised a roundtable as part of FNF. The roundtable helped illuminate some of the challenges facing Moroccan cinema today. The table was chaired by Jamal Souissi, the vice-president of the Chamber. In his introduction, Souissi warned that the incessant closure of cinemas in Morocco today is not only an economic problem, but also a social one.
The film critic and Rabat-based academic Omar Khammar was the first panellist speaking. He observed that although Morocco has many film schools today, the number of filmgoers is decreasing year after year. The digitisation of cinemas is not enough to bring back people to the cinemas. The problem needs to be tackled at the source. For Khammar, the digital revolution has upset the film scene, and Moroccan cinema needs to adapt to this revolution. Some people have built film screening rooms in their own homes. In addition, piracy is a big problem in Morocco, which will also not be solved by the digitisation of cinemas. This has been a key component of the CCM vs Pirates battle over the last two decades. The speaker also drew attention to the fact today's youth don't appreciate the conventional length of films: the notion of time has changed, and cinema has got to adapt to this situation. The Moroccan state is also responsible for the current crisis of Moroccan cinema because it has not educated youth to love and appreciate cinema. According to Khammar, this is part of the state's long war against culture in postcolonial Morocco. Society has been invaded by commercial culture, which in turn has made people shun culture, cinema and reading. The tax rate on cinemas is unfair and to blame for part of the complex problem of cinema closures.
Among the multiple recommendations offered by Khammar to address this situation is the call to build cinemas in the Moroccan countryside. Local councils should spend some of their money on cinema and culture. In this vein, civil society organisations need to assume their role in spreading film culture in society to combat Islamism and other forms of intolerance and radical politics among youth. In addition, some mosque imams should be discouraged from lambasting cinema and films in their Friday sermons. Finally, Khammar pointed out that film advertising is very weak in Morocco, and something needs to be done about it. It is often foreign films that we see advertised on billboards and posters. In all cases, the solution to Moroccan cinema's crisis will take long years if not a generation to be solved.
Noureddine Ayouch (second left), PR tycoon and father of Nabil Ayouch. Ayouch's father has just made his first film.
The next speaker was Noureddine Ayouch. He started with an anecdote about an old film-house in Casablanca, which has been converted to a one-night stand hotel. Ayouch insisted on an honest diagnosis of the state of cinemas in Morocco. He also said that we need to make popular films like Road to Kabul (2011), a popular comedy about terrorism directed by Brahim Chkiri. According to Ayouch, Moroccans don't like Moroccan films because they are not entertaining; they find them too cerebral. Another problem is that people don't feel morally guilty when they buy pirated movies. This cuts across all social strata. The speaker also said that we shouldn't rely on CCM money to make films. Filmmakers need to look for other financial resources to supplement funds, or make films without CCM funds at all. This is important, he said, because the CCM is also a censorship board, especially after the Islamists came to power in 2011. According to Ayouch, this has not been a good move for Moroccan cinema and society.
In the last part of his talk, Mr Ayouch offered a number of recommendations to lessen and gradually wipe out the crisis of Moroccan cinema in the globalisation era:
VAT tax on cinemas should be reduced to 5 percent if not cancelled altogether
The film community should directly address the King to resolve the problem of Moroccan cinema such as censorship and piracy
Help pirate film vendors sell legal copies of films instead of pirated ones: they should be helped to integrate the formal economy
Local councils should be encouraged to spend some of their budgets to build and support cinemas
Moroccan television needs to grant more space to film critics and film programmes
Moroccan film distributors need to export Moroccan films and become major actors in other film markets
Quotas for national films in Moroccan cinemas and TV should be introduced
Film investors need to invest in cinema in sub-Saharan Africa just like the rest of the Moroccan economic community today
More money needs to be spent on advertising films just like in the USA: the government needs to spend money on this by helping producers and distributors
The veteran filmmaker Latif Lahlou was the next speaker. He revealed his plan to build 400 cinemas in Morocco. This gargantuan project rests on the premise that we need to focus on the local to solve the problems of national cinema. He recommended that the state makes going to the cinema affordable for the average Moroccan. Lahlou stressed the need for affordable cinemas in working-class neighbourhoods because that is where the large and real audience for Moroccan cinemas is.
The next speaker was El Ayadi, a cinema owner. He pointed out that there is no political will to reform the film sector. The crisis of Moroccan cinema has been going for 25 years. Cinema owners are burdened with taxes while nothing is being done to fight piracy and encourage people to go to the cinema. The 20 % VAT is an aberration, said El Ayadi. It is time to reduce or cancel this tax to keep the few remaining cinemas open. The other problem is that CCM treats cineplexes like Mégarama and small cinemas the same. This is killing the small cinemas. The speaker said that it is no longer viable to own a cinema. The rate of frequency is 6 to 7 percent around the year. This needs to be raised to 20 percent at least to keep cinemas viable and open. The root of the problem is that 90 percent of Moroccans can't afford the current price of cinema tickets. El Ayadi recommended the building of more neighbourhood cinemas to reduce the transportation costs for filmgoers. He went on to reveal that popular Moroccan films like El Ferrouj (2015) by Abdellah Ferkous saved the year for cinemas.
Popular films bring in money. That is why we need to refrain from judging films. Let us leave it to the audiences to choose and watch the films that they like. The CCM therefore needs to support both auteur and commercial films like El Ferrouj and The Road to Kabul. Otherwise, cinemas would close down, said El Ayadi.
He added that Moroccans need to learn more from the French system because it works. Cinemas are doing well in France. He emphasised that the French cinema system rewards popular films with a €1 million prize to each film that reaches 1 million entries. The cinema owner agreed with previous speakers that 20 % VAT is preventing investors from building or buying cinemas in Morocco. For him, public-private investments are needed and can be achieved by getting the CCM, local councils and other public bodies to put in some money to encourage private producers to invest in cinema.
The last intervener in the routable was Tarrous, who is a film critic and activist based in Tangier. He argued that film professionals ought to listen to the Moroccan public about this question. The scene is dominated by the views of film professionals. Since Moroccan films are subsidised by the taxpayer, we must find the audience for them and keep cinemas open: "Without the audience, Moroccan cinema wouldn't survive for very long". It is worth remembering that part of the justification for the public support for cinema is to provide some social welfare for film professionals. However, the professionals are doing next to nothing to attract the general public to watch their films. The Tangerine critic went on to say that the subsidy system is working, but it was high time some serious policies were introduced to help cinema self-support rather than always rely on public subsidies. Moroccan cinema needs an audience large enough to support it financially. Tarrous finally recommended that the current funding system should be revoked because it is not sustainable.
The roundtable was followed by a vibrant and rich Q&A session. Many key actors in the Moroccan film scene who were in attendance took to the floor to voice their thoughts on the crisis of cinemas across the country. For Sarim Fassi-Fihri, the current CCM director, one of the problems that his institution faces, lies in the fact that most cinema owners do not submit their financial reports to the CCM in order to have a good idea about their problems. Ahmed El Maânouni (President of Moroccan Chamber of Moroccan Film Producers) discoursed next and said that more events like the National Cinema Day are needed to encourage Moroccans to become aware of their national cinema's problems. He added that Morocco needs to learn from France by supporting cinema at every level from production to exhibition. Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi, a filmmaker and the director of the Association of Moroccan Film Producers, reacted by saying that we need to stop expecting help from the state and politicians: "We need to help ourselves. Filmmakers must do something or lessen the pain of Moroccan cinema today," he said. For Hassan Benjelloun, also a filmmaker and the director of Moroccan Producers Chamber, cinema owners need to programme more diverse films every day instead of one film for weeks on end. This is because the cinema habitués are the same people who come again and again. They get discouraged by repetitive programming.
Part of the audience
Next to speak was Amina, a civil society activist. She highlighted that the crisis of Moroccan cinema is a symptom of the crisis of Moroccan modernity as a whole. Moroccan women used to go to cinemas on their own even when they hailed from traditional families. That is no longer the case, she said. Amina added that schools are the future of Moroccan cinema because we need to target young Moroccans to address the film crisis. El Othmani, a film professional, stressed the need for sociological studies about the Moroccan cinema-going public to better understand this problem. The subjective views of Moroccan film professionals will take us nowhere and cannot be the basis of serious solutions to the crisis of Moroccan cinema.
Jamal Eddine Naji, director of Audiovisual Communication at the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle (HACA), intervened by saying that the HACA has conducted a large-scale survey on Moroccan TV audiences. Someone needs to commission a similar survey about Moroccan film audiences. This is needed because we don't know the audience for Moroccan cinema. He added that there is also a need to revitalise Moroccan cinema by creating a star system to help it stand on its own feet. Naji concluded that Moroccan filmmakers and actors in the film sector are called upon to use technology effectively in the digital revolution. Omar Ait Mokhtar, a film critic, festival organiser and film club veteran, retorted that Moroccan and international academics and students have carried out fieldwork on Moroccan cinema. What needs to be done is reading and translating some of their recommendations into reality.
Another speaker called for a national front for the defence of cinema to protect directors and film students from certain political currents and unemployment. The rich audience interventions continued with Mellouk, a film critic, revealing that Moroccans spend 250 MAD per month on audiovisual consumption: "That is enough. We just need to bring some of that money back into cinemas". He explained that if we put together all that is spent on audio-visual production and advertising in Morocco, we get 100 billion MAD. This is a big industry. Cinema needs to place itself at or near the centre of this industry. The creative industries are major employers for the future. Bouchta Farqzaid, film critic, decried that piracy is killing Moroccan cinema. It has gone beyond pirated CDs. Hard drives with over 500 films are on sale on the black market. Boudih, a cinema owner, pointed out that cinemas cannot stand the situation anymore. The owners need urgent decisions rather than discourses and more roundtables. Finally, Benkirane, a film distributor, said that we need to save what can be saved. The social and economic living condition of Moroccans need to be improved to allow them to go to the cinema more often. Moroccan media and schools also need to encourage people to go to the cinema.
Happy TMC team in Tangier!
In conclusion, attending the National Film Festival in Tangier was very productive for the TMC team. The national festival is just what the Marrakech International Film Festival is not. In Tangier, there are roundtables and daily press conferences and discussions after each film screening. The Tangerine crowds are small but rich and friendly. Florence and I were witnesses to candid discussions about the state of Moroccan cinema. We left Tangier with plenty of ideas to share with Will and Stefanie, the two other TMC research team members, and process for the final outputs of the AHRC project.
TMC Moroccan Cinema Uncut – day 4
8 December 2016 Conference, MarrakechStefanie Elvire Van De Peer
The final day of the TMC 'Transnational Moroccan Cinema Uncut' symposium began with a panel entitled 'Film Reception in/of Morocco' and three complimentary presentations that took a varied approach to the topic, developing existing lines of enquiry in relation to discussion on the previous 3 days. Caroline Eades explored the question of how Moroccan cinema is viewed beyond the nation space and an idea of national cinema constructed in the transnational space of the film festival – taking as a case study two festivals in Washington DC, one a specialist Arab film festival, the other a more general film fest held annually in the city.
Yahya Laayouni, Rachid Naïm and Caroline Eades, with Michael Gott as chair
The second speaker of the morning, Yahya Laayouni, offered delegates an analysis of the current state of film criticism in Morocco. Yahya argued that whilst Moroccan cinema has made significant advances in the past two decades, critical writing in Arabic (crucial for those Moroccans) on Moroccan film remains rare and inconsistent. In order for Moroccan cinema to fully gain the attention it deserves, suggested Yahya, there was a need for more formal spaces (in print and online) for rigorous criticism to emerge in Arabic, as well as for more space to be given to female film critics. There was strong interest in the topic during the discussion that followed, not least due to the presence at the symposium of the esteemed Moroccan film critic and journalist Ahmed Boughaba.
Our final speaker on the panel, Rachid Naïm, returned to the subject of New Urban Cinema (NUC) in Morocco, a term introduced into the critical and scholarly lexicon in 2013 by our very own Jamal Bahmad to describe a popular movement of urban cinema focusing on social issues, produced by a new generation of dynamic Moroccan filmmakers. This recent trend in Moroccan cinema had already been addressed in the context of gender on day one of the symposium by Nadir Bouhmouch. Rachid Naïm chose to come at the topic from a different angle, with an analysis of the NUC in relation to questions of representation and aesthetics, exploring the theoretical possibilities and limitations of analyzing the NUC cinema in the context of postmodernism through close readings of Bensaïdi's 2007 film WWW What a Wonderful World.
The first panel of this final day of the symposium maintained the energy, rigour and engagement shown by all of our speakers across the four days during the debate and discussion (formal and informal) that delegates, invited guests, industry professionals and members of the public have shared since Sunday in the Amani hotel – a location that has been conducive to free and open exchange of ideas amongst all those who have attended.
Will, Flo, Karim Fassir-Fihri and Ahmed el Maanouni
This sense of a genuine forum for debate about the current state of Moroccan cinema in all its (trans)national formations continued into the final session of the morning: an industry round table brought together by the Chambre Marocaine des Producteurs de Films (CMPF) in association with the TMC research team. We were honoured to welcome Ahmed el Maanouni (director, producer and president of the CMPF) to chair an industry panel, along with fellow members of the CMPF, producers Lamia Chraibi, Jamal Souissi, Khalid Zairi and Zakia Tahiri. The debate was placed in the context of the perceived 'shock', as Maanouni put it, of the absence, for the first time in the 16 year history of the festival of any Moroccan films at the Marrakech International Film Festival (with the exception of the Moroccan-Spanish-French-Qatari co-production Mimosas (2016) by Galician director Oliver Laxe), and the comedy Mon Oncle (Aammi, 2016) which was screened as part of the festival's homage to stage and screen actor Abderrahim Tounsi.
Ahmed el Maanouni, Khalid Zairi, Zakia Tahiri, Lamia Chraibi and Jamal Souissi
The lack of visibility for Moroccan cinema at this year's festival, which has already generated huge and passionate debate in the Moroccan press as well as through social media, thus formed a starting point for a wider ranging debate around the challenges at what is increasingly appearing to be a crucial period for the continued development and diversity of Moroccan cinema. The panel members spoke with eloquence and passion about the need to support young talent (especially young producers), for more resources to be devoted to the crucial stage development of films, for a greater need for a genuine reciprocity between Moroccan film and TV, the role of the CCM, as well as a need for the industry to unite and lobby with a collective voice in the face of the forthcoming changes to the legal codes for cinema and audiovisual industries in Morocco.
The passion of the panel was matched by that of interventions from the sizeable audience, who were given ample opportunity to offer their own perspective and proposals in a lively and open debate that ran for over two hours. The round table debate (covered by two Moroccan TV channels) fulfilled precisely the aim of the TMC symposium and the project more generally to provide a genuine forum for debate and exchange between researchers and film professionals. In this context, we were honoured to welcome an array of some of the most respected filmmakers in Moroccan cinema as audience members to the round-table, including Farida Benlyazid, M.A Tazi, Faouzi Bensaïdi and Daoud Aoulad-Syad. Director of the CCM, Sarim Fassi Fihri, was also in attendance and said a few words at the start of the session. The round table marked the first of what we hope will be many collaborations between the TMC research project and the CMPF.
M. A. Tazi and film students
[NB. More detailed blogs will follow in the coming weeks on many of the issues raised in the round table discussion as well as Oliver Laxe's film Mimosas, one of the hits of the festival]
To bring an end to an exceptional morning and a memorable conference, we were equally honoured to welcome Moroccan film critic and journalist Ahmed Boughaba to present the closing address. M. Boughaba's experience as both a critic and a key figure in the ciné-club culture in Morocco of the 1960s, allowed the audience a unique insight as to the role of the Moroccan film critic and offered a response to Yahyah Laayouin's paper from the opening panel of the morning, as well as reflections on the debate on the current state of Moroccan cinema that had taken place in the round-table.
Ahmed Boughaba with translator Rachid Naim
After an exhausting but exhilarating four days, the end of the symposium was marked by a reception and lunch in the tranquil surroundings of the Jardin Majorelle, attended by the academics, critics, filmmakers, industry professionals cinephiles – colleagues and friends, old and new.
The symposium has been a great success and will contribute immensely to the continued research of the TMC research project. The team wishes to thank the AHRC and University of Exeter for its support for the project – without which this symposium could not have taken place. The indomitable Stefanie Van de Peer also deserves a special mention for her tireless efforts, organizational skills and good humour that have successfully guided this symposium through all its various stages.
Thanks also to the Amani hotel for their warm welcome to all delegates and helpful assistance throughout the symposium.
Will Higbee
Day 3 at TMC: Minorities on Moroccan Screens
6 December 2016 Conference, Marrakech, Moroccan CinemaStefanie Elvire Van De Peer
The third day of the TMC conference started misty and atmospherically, with limited views outside the windows but all the more insightful views inside the conference room. Bright and early (for some at least), today got underway with a four-speaker panel on sexualities and trauma: we heard from Lowry Martin, Valerie Orlando, Kaya Davies Hayon and Jimia Boutouba.
Valerie, Lowry, Kaya and Jimia
Lowry started the panel with a queer studies approach to Salvation Army (Abdallah Taïa), which was met with very lively discussions: where is queer studies situated when we talk about Moroccan cinema, or cinema from Morocco that crosses borders (in this case between Morocco and Switzerland)? Do we need to make distinctions between a Muslim Arab world and a Christian Europe? Valerie talked about Mohamed Mouftakir's film Pegase, a dark psychological thriller about a traumatised young woman who is the victim of her father's lust for power and goes through life as a boy in order to safeguard his lineage. Her sexuality is denied, and as she undergoes psychiatric treatment it transpires that she is also the victim of pedophilia. The paper sparked questions about deviant sexualities and how film deals with silences and gaps in Morocco's past. Kaya then looked at The Sleeping Child by Yasmine Kassari, in a phenomenological analysis of women's bodies and the empowerment of spiritualism. A story about migration, where women are left behind, The Sleeping Child ultimately reveals a transnational feminist aesthetic that returns also in other Maghrebi women's films. Jimia, lastly, changed the mood in the room as the sun came out, with a discussion of comedy Number One by Zakia Tahiri. The contextualization of the film nevertheless showed that a Moroccan masculinity is experienced as being under threat, and that ultimately this masculinity is a performance. The male protagonist in the film becomes undone, not in the sense that he is un-manned, but he is un-mastered. This comic film has social concerns that are just as urgent and important as the more serious films discussed earlier.
Amazigh films and festivals
The roundtable on Berber film and film festivals that followed was organized by Lucy McNair and Habiba Boumlik from CUNY, who invited Hamid Aïdouni, Jamal Bahmad, the organisers of the Fameck Arab film festival, and Amazigh filmmaker Ahmed Baidou (known for his film Addour) onto the panel. They discussed issues of programming Amazigh films for festivals and issues of translating cultures as well as languages. Important questions were asked, such as: what is Amazigh cinema, and where is it located? Which language is Amazigh cinema in, and how does it speak to audiences around the world? We learned that one must think of Amazigh culture as a horizontal and as a vertical experience: in the past it reached from the Maghreb to Egypt, and from north of Morocco to its deep south. The most significant and welcome conclusion of this roundtable was that as scholars, filmmakers, producers, and distributors, we must all embrace the diversity within Morocco and within its cinema, and that it is very urgent to do so indeed.
Touria, Patricia and Karine
The last panel of the day returned to the theme of women in film, discussing in particular the circulation of films, and their distribution circuits in Morocco, France and the EU at large. Patricia Caillé and Karine Prévoteau showed us their findings of years of research into why some films manage to reach wide audiences and others disappear into forgetfulness, as they get lost in the maze of film, DVD, VHS and TV distribution worldwide. Pertinent questions about online platforms and digital disruption were asked in their discussion. Touria Khannous closed off today by discussing Rock the Casbah (Leila Marrakchi) and The Sleeping Child (Yasmine Kassari), and in particular the difficult if not impossible balance of being an outsider and an insider at the same time. Might that be the ultimate transnational condition?
The highlight at the festival today was the screening of Oliver Lax's Mimosas: a transnational production between Spain, France, Qatar and Morocco that combines elements of the road movie and the western. There were long queues to get into the cinema, which was filled to capacity. People clearly enjoyed themselves, and the Moroccan audiences may have gotten more out of the film than we did, as with certain scenes in the film, people were laughing at the nickname of the central character (tête de poêle), and we as Western audiences missed some of the jokes. Something got lost in translation, or cultural references were perhaps obscure for us. Such is the experience of a transnational spectator: it makes you wonder, explore and dig deeper…
Notes de Marrakech, deuxième journée
Viola Shafik, Will Higbee, Florence Martin and Kevin Dwyer!
Le temps change vite à Marrakech et le soleil tristement absent hier est revenu ce matin en ce second jour du colloque Le Cinéma du Maroc dans tous ses états : visions locales, dialogues transnationaux. Il a donc accompagné la séance plénière de Viola Shafik sur le cinéma arabe et les hégémonies transnationales (qui aident à le définir tout en le compliquant tout au long de son histoire).
Il a attiré les congressistes sous les parasols de la terrasse pour une pause café ou thé à la menthe bien méritée entre les sessions. Celles-ci furent fascinantes : ce matin, Peter Limbrick a dévidé les rapports du cinéma de Moumen Smihi à une modernité transnationale en mouvance, Ayoub Bouhouhou a démontré comment Hakim Belabbès troublait le(s) genre(s) du documentaire ; enfin Joshua A. Sabih a rendu compte de l'image du Juif marocain dans les documentaires, séries télévisées et cinéma israélien.
Joshua Sabih
Et le soleil ne fut pas le seul à apparaître spontanément aujourd'hui !
Une nuée d'étudiants en cinéma de la Faculté des Arts et des Sciences Humaines de Marrakech est venue se poser à nos côtés, comme de sages oiseaux souriants et attentifs. Puis, sans tambour ni trompette, Farida Benlyazid est arrivée, accompagnée de Mohamed Abderrahmane Tazi nous honorer de leur présence. Ces deux visites ont changé l'ambiance du colloque : nous avions soudain l'impression d'avoir un vrai « chez nous marrakchi », un lieu chaleureux où deux invités de marque du cinéma marocain et une troupe de jeunes curieux passent en voisins ou en amis qui décideraient de passer prendre un café et voir ce qui se passe chez nous. Les discussions fusaient et dans la salle du colloque et sur la terrasse. Un beau moment.
Mohammed Abderrahman Tazi
Deux films en compétition vus cet après-midi et ce soir au festival : Tombé du ciel / Min assamah (Wissam Charaf, France et Liban, 2016) et Parting (Navid Mahmoudi, Iran et Afghanistan, 2016). Le premier un montage d'humour et de surréel sur une constante de violence made in Beyrouth ; le second l'émouvant récit d'un couple de réfugiés vu depuis Téhéran et Istanbul.
Demain, on prévoit à nouveau du soleil, des cinéastes, et puis aussi des directeurs de festival, et on attend tous de voir Mimosas (Oliver Laxe, 2016, Espagne, Maroc, France, Qatar) avec impatience.
Florence Martin
Moroccan Cinema Uncut Conference: Day 1
4 December 2016 Conference, Marrakech, TransnationalStefanie Elvire Van De Peer
TMC's first international conference "Moroccan Cinema Uncut: Local Perspectives, Transnational Dialogues" (Marrakech, 4-7 December 2016) kicked off with warm words of welcome by Principal Investigator Will Higbee (University of Exeter) and Co-investigator Florence Martin (Goucher College). They welcomed all the delegates, who have travelled from different parts of the world to give papers, keynote addresses and attend the Marrakech International Film Festival (2-10 December). Will also thanked the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for making this conference and project possible in the first place. The Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM) and its director Sarim Fassi-Fihri were also thanked for their help.
Kevin Dwyer
The conference kicked off with a keynote address by Kevin Dwyer, an established anthropologist and specialist of Moroccan cinema and Maghrebi media cultures. Dwyer surveyed the landscape of documentary production in Morocco and Tunisia. He started by revealing his own personal and scholarly journey as an anthropologist of rural Morocco and human rights activism. This trajectory has led him to work on Moroccan cinema over the last twenty years. After a discussion of key questions around the difficulty of defining documentary due to its immense diversity and limitless subject focus, Dwyer argued that the documentary is gaining in visibility and influence in both Tunisia and Morocco despite enormous political and financial obstacles as well as considerable challenges in relation to distribution. The 2011 uprisings have helped documentary filmmaking to gain new momentum due to its urgency and immediacy.
In Morocco, the CCM has supported documentary filmmaking from the country's independence in 1956. Most Moroccan films until the 1980s were largely shorts, made in the service of nation-building. CCM support continues today through financial aid to filmmakers every year in spite of the prominence of feature films among CCM-funded and internationally co-produced films. The institution has also supported documentary film festivals in Morocco such as FIDADOC in Agadir. The second public TV channel 2M has also supported the Moroccan documentary through production support and granting documentaries prime time on television. However, the institutional support for the Moroccan documentary remains insufficient, and documentary filmmakers have often complained about not feeling supported to the same extent as those making feature films. Dwyer also pointed out the existence of Moroccan documentaries produced outside the CCM and 2M circuits. For example, Guerilla Cinema has produced many online-distributed films by Nadir Bouhmouch in recent years.
Keynote Discussion
Moroccan and Tunisian documentary films have also faced problems such as legal issues in the case of Mohamed Ulad Muhand's Hercule contre Hermès (هرقل ضد هيرمس, Morocco 2012) and Nadia El Fani's Laïcité Inch'Allah! (اللائكية، إن شاء الله!, Tunisia 2011). Dwyer also dwelt on similar problems faced by documentary filmmakers and anthropologists such as the delicate issue of how both relate to the subject of their inquiry. This relationship poses many ethical questions and can lead to censorship in various cases.
The Q&A session following the first keynote address pushed the discussion in new directions such as the emergence and role of a powerful player like Al Jazeera Documentary. This Qatari TV channel has sponsored and screened ever-larger numbers of Maghrebi documentary films or international productions on the Maghreb. Other comments and questions drew attention to the rise of transnational Moroccan-Israeli documentaries, which focus on the history and present of Moroccan Jews in Israel, Morocco and beyond.
The first panel of day 1 consisted of a paper by Abdelaziz Amraoui (Cadi Ayyad University, Safi). He dwelt on the attractive nature of Morocco to international filmmakers. This movement started almost at the same time that cinema was invented in the late 19th century. Amaraoui focused on how these films willingly and unwillingly have led to what he calls cine-tourism in Morocco. Many international tourists come to Morocco to visit, among others, film locations and sets especially in Ouarzazate, which is often called the African Hollywood. Internationally renowned films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Babel (2006) were partly or entirely made in Ouarzazate. However, the Moroccan tourism ministry does not seem to care about such tourism. A lot remains to be done to cash in on this desire by organising themed visits and other film-focused trips for national and international (film) tourists.
Hamid Aidouni and Florence Martin
The afternoon session of the conference started with a keynote address by Hamid Aidouni (Université Abdelmalek Saadi, Tetouan). He started with some general remarks about Moroccan cinema in which he tried to debunk some myths about some films and filmmakers. He dwelt mostly on the films of Ahmed Bouanani (1938-2011), one of the most famous and experimental Moroccan film directors despite the large interest he has generated in recent years. Aidouni borrowed Ali Safi's phrase "Bouanani School" in Moroccan cinema. Bouanani was a unique filmmaker and talented artist and poet. His films like Mémoire 14 (1971) and Mirage (1979) are revered among large sections of Moroccan film scholars. They are visual poems. Aidouni showed clips from some Bouanani works. He also played clips from Mohamed Afifi's equally experimental documentary Retour en Agadir (1967). It was filmed not long after the Agadir earthquake in 1960. Afifi and Bouanani are two of the great fathers of Moroccan cinema whom new generations of filmmakers have yet to kill for this (trans)national cinema to be reborn.
Lively discussions
The conference's last panel today was devoted to women in Moroccan cinema. The first speaker Nadir Bouhmouch (Moroccan filmmaker and activist) focused on what he called the "male condition" in Moroccan cinema. He read many Moroccan films through the lens of gender, class and ideology in "the New Urban Cinema" (NUC, Bahmad 2012, 2013). NUC was taken to task by Bouhmouch for its negligence of female characters despite its claim to social realism. He argued that these films focus on male characters, particularly degenerate patriarchs. The next paper by Zakia Salime (Rutgers University) analysed two documentary films on Moroccan youth cultures and women's suffering and resistance in a patriarchal society. Farida Benlyazid's Casanayda (2007) chronicles the renaissance of Moroccan youth cultures in music, lifestyle and cultural life in the 2000s. The film focuses on the city of Casablanca where Morocco's first and largest urban music festival L'Boulevard takes place every year until 2016 when financial issues forced the organisers to cancel this year's edition while working on new ways to finance the festival and guarantee its future. Hind Bensari's documentary 475: Trêve de silence (2013) gives voice to many female victims of the infamous and even since amended Article 475 in Moroccan criminal law which allowed rapists to marry their victims so as to escape justice. The film also brings in some legal scholars who reveal the dark side of this law inherited from the colonial period. Said Chemlal presented the last paper on the panel and dwelt on the representation of Amazigh women in Najis Nejjar's feature film Alen Zwanin / Dry Eyes (2003). This controversial film foregrounds the suffering of women in a remote village in the Moroccan Middle Atlas mountains. The film explicitly and sometimes unwittingly reveals the long suffering and marginalization of Amazigh people in their homeland.
The conference attracted a great deal of interest from Moroccan and other media outlets that are in Marrakech to cover the film festival, the largest of its kind in Morocco and the region. Dr Jamal Bahmad, one of the TMC team members, was interviewed for 20 minutes by Moroccan national radio this evening. This and other media will continue to cover our conference with more interviews and news stories due over the next few days. Stay tuned!


text:
/*
 * Antonin Bas (antonin@barefootnetworks.com)
 *
 */

#ifndef _BM_ACTIONS_H_
#define _BM_ACTIONS_H_

#include <vector>
#include <functional>
#include <memory>
#include <unordered_map>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#include <cassert>

#include "phv.h"
#include "named_p4object.h"
#include "packet.h"
#include "event_logger.h"
#include "calculations.h"
#include "meters.h"
#include "counters.h"
#include "stateful.h"
#include "expressions.h"

// forward declaration of ActionPrimitive_
class ActionPrimitive_;

class ActionOpcodesMap {
public:
  static ActionOpcodesMap *get_instance();
  bool register_primitive(
      const char *name,
      std::unique_ptr<ActionPrimitive_> primitive);

  ActionPrimitive_ *get_primitive(const std::string &name);
private:
  std::unordered_map<std::string, std::unique_ptr<ActionPrimitive_> > map_{};
};

#define REGISTER_PRIMITIVE(primitive_name)\
  bool primitive_name##_create_ =\
    ActionOpcodesMap::get_instance()->register_primitive(\
        #primitive_name,\
        std::unique_ptr<ActionPrimitive_>(new primitive_name()));

struct ActionParam
{
  // some old P4 primitives take a calculation as a parameter, I don't know if I
  // will keep it around but for now I need it
  enum {CONST, FIELD, HEADER, ACTION_DATA,
	HEADER_STACK, CALCULATION,
        METER_ARRAY, COUNTER_ARRAY, REGISTER_ARRAY,
        EXPRESSION} tag;

  union {
    unsigned int const_offset;

    struct {
      header_id_t header;
      int field_offset;
    } field;

    header_id_t header;

    unsigned int action_data_offset;

    header_stack_id_t header_stack;

    // non owning pointer
    const NamedCalculation *calculation;

    // non owning pointer
    MeterArray *meter_array;

    // non owning pointer
    CounterArray *counter_array;

    // non owning pointer
    RegisterArray *register_array;

    struct {
      unsigned int offset;
      // non owning pointer
      // in theory, could be an owning pointer, but the union makes this
      // complicated, so instead the ActionFn keeps a vector of owning pointers
      ArithExpression *ptr;
    } expression;
  };
};

struct ActionData {
  const Data &get(int offset) const { return action_data[offset]; }

  void push_back_action_data(const Data &data) {
    action_data.push_back(data);
  }

  void push_back_action_data(unsigned int data) {
    action_data.emplace_back(data);
  }

  void push_back_action_data(const char *bytes, int nbytes) {
    action_data.emplace_back(bytes, nbytes);
  }

  size_t size() const { return action_data.size(); }

  std::vector<Data> action_data{};
};

struct ActionEngineState {
  Packet &pkt;
  PHV &phv;
  const ActionData &action_data;
  const std::vector<Data> &const_values;

  ActionEngineState(Packet *pkt,
		    const ActionData &action_data,
		    const std::vector<Data> &const_values)
    : pkt(*pkt), phv(*pkt->get_phv()),
      action_data(action_data), const_values(const_values) {}
};

struct ActionParamWithState {
  const ActionParam ≈
  ActionEngineState &state;

  ActionParamWithState(const ActionParam &ap, ActionEngineState &state)
    : ap(ap), state(state) {}

  /* I cannot think of an alternate solution to this. Is there any danger to
     overload cast operators like this ? */

  /* If you want to modify it, don't ask for data..., can I improve this? */
  operator const Data &() {
    // thread_local sounds like a good choice here
    // alternative would be to have one vector for each ActionFnEntry
    static thread_local unsigned int data_temps_size = 4;
    static thread_local std::vector<Data> data_temps(data_temps_size);

    /* Should probably be able to return a register reference here, but not
       needed right now */
    switch(ap.tag) {
    case ActionParam::CONST:
      return state.const_values[ap.const_offset];
    case ActionParam::FIELD:
      return state.phv.get_field(ap.field.header, ap.field.field_offset);
    case ActionParam::ACTION_DATA:
      return state.action_data.get(ap.action_data_offset);
    case ActionParam::EXPRESSION:
      while(data_temps_size <= ap.expression.offset) {
	data_temps.emplace_back();
	data_temps_size++;
      }
      ap.expression.ptr->eval(state.phv, &data_temps[ap.expression.offset],
			      state.action_data.action_data);
      return data_temps[ap.expression.offset];
    default:
      assert(0);
    }
  }

  operator Field &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::FIELD);
    return state.phv.get_field(ap.field.header, ap.field.field_offset);
  }

  operator Header &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::HEADER);
    return state.phv.get_header(ap.header);
  }

  operator HeaderStack &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::HEADER_STACK);
    return state.phv.get_header_stack(ap.header_stack);
  }

  operator const NamedCalculation &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::CALCULATION);
    return *(ap.calculation);
  }

  operator MeterArray &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::METER_ARRAY);
    return *(ap.meter_array);
  }

  operator CounterArray &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::COUNTER_ARRAY);
    return *(ap.counter_array);
  }

  operator RegisterArray &() {
    assert(ap.tag == ActionParam::REGISTER_ARRAY);
    return *(ap.register_array);
  }
};

/* This is adapted from stack overflow code:
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11044504/any-solution-to-unpack-a-vector-to-function-arguments-in-c
*/

template <std::size_t... Indices>
struct indices {
  using next = indices<Indices..., sizeof...(Indices)>;
};

template <std::size_t N>
struct build_indices {
  using type = typename build_indices<N-1>::type::next;
};

template <>
struct build_indices<0> {
  using type = indices<>;
};

template <std::size_t N>
using BuildIndices = typename build_indices<N>::type;

template <size_t num_args>
struct unpack_caller
{
private:
  template <typename T, size_t... I>
  void call(T *pObj, ActionEngineState &state,
	    const ActionParam *args,
	    indices<I...>){
    (*pObj)(ActionParamWithState(args[I], state)...);
  }

public:
  template <typename T>
  void operator () (T* pObj, ActionEngineState &state,
		    const ActionParam *args){
    // assert(args.size() == num_args); // just to be sure
    call(pObj, state, args, BuildIndices<num_args>{});
  }
};

class ActionPrimitive_
{
public:
  virtual ~ActionPrimitive_() { };

  virtual void execute(
      ActionEngineState &state,
      const ActionParam *args) = 0;

  virtual size_t get_num_params() = 0;
};

template <typename... Args>
class ActionPrimitive : public ActionPrimitive_
{
public:
  void execute(ActionEngineState &state, const ActionParam *args) {
    phv = &state.phv;
    pkt = &state.pkt;
    caller(this, state, args);
  }

  // cannot make it constexpr because it is virtual
  // too slow? make it a return value for execute?
  size_t get_num_params() { return sizeof...(Args); }

  virtual void operator ()(Args...) = 0;

protected:
  Field &get_field(std::string name) {
    return phv->get_field(name);
  }

  Header &get_header(std::string name) {
    return phv->get_header(name);
  }

  // in practice, regular primitives should not have to use this
  PHV &get_phv() {
    return *phv;
  }

  // so far used only for meter arrays and counter arrays
  Packet &get_packet() {
    return *pkt;
  }

private:
  unpack_caller<sizeof...(Args)> caller;
  PHV *phv;
  Packet *pkt;
};

// This is how you declare a primitive:
// class SetField : public ActionPrimitive<Field &, Data &> {
//   void operator ()(Field &f, Data &d) {
//     f.set(d);
//   }
// };

// class Add : public ActionPrimitive<Field &, Data &, Data &> {
//   void operator ()(Field &f, Data &d1, Data &d2) {
//     f.add(d1, d2);
//   }
// };

// forward declaration
class ActionFnEntry;

class ActionFn : public NamedP4Object
{
  friend class ActionFnEntry;

public:
  ActionFn(const std::string &name, p4object_id_t id)
    : NamedP4Object(name, id) { }

  void parameter_push_back_field(header_id_t header, int field_offset);
  void parameter_push_back_header(header_id_t header);
  void parameter_push_back_header_stack(header_stack_id_t header_stack);
  void parameter_push_back_const(const Data &data);
  void parameter_push_back_action_data(int action_data_offset);
  void parameter_push_back_calculation(const NamedCalculation *calculation);
  void parameter_push_back_meter_array(MeterArray *meter_array);
  void parameter_push_back_counter_array(CounterArray *counter_array);
  void parameter_push_back_register_array(RegisterArray *register_array);
  void parameter_push_back_expression(std::unique_ptr<ArithExpression> expr);

  void push_back_primitive(ActionPrimitive_ *primitive);

private:
  std::vector<ActionPrimitive_ *> primitives{};
  std::vector<ActionParam> params{};
  std::vector<Data> const_values{};
  // should I store the objects in the vector, instead of pointers?
  std::vector<std::unique_ptr<ArithExpression> > expressions{};

private:
  static size_t nb_data_tmps;
};

class ActionFnEntry
{
public:
  ActionFnEntry() {}

  ActionFnEntry(const ActionFn *action_fn, ActionData action_data)
    : action_fn(action_fn), action_data(std::move(action_data)) { }

  ActionFnEntry(const ActionFn *action_fn)
    : action_fn(action_fn) { }

  void operator()(Packet *pkt) const
  {
    if(!action_fn) return; // happens when no default action specified... TODO
    ELOGGER->action_execute(*pkt, *action_fn, action_data);
    ActionEngineState state(pkt, action_data, action_fn->const_values);
    auto &primitives = action_fn->primitives;
    size_t param_offset = 0;
    for(auto primitive_it = primitives.begin();
	primitive_it != primitives.end();
	++primitive_it) {
      (*primitive_it)->execute(state, &(action_fn->params[param_offset]));
      param_offset += (*primitive_it)->get_num_params();
    }
  }

  void push_back_action_data(const Data &data) {
    action_data.push_back_action_data(data);
  }

  void push_back_action_data(unsigned int data) {
    action_data.push_back_action_data(data);
  }

  void push_back_action_data(const char *bytes, int nbytes) {
    action_data.push_back_action_data(bytes, nbytes);
  }

  size_t action_data_size() const { return action_data.size(); }

  const Data&get_action_data(int offset) const {
    return action_data.get(offset);
  }

  void dump(std::ostream &stream) const {
    if(action_fn == nullptr) {
      stream << "NULL";
      return;
    }
    stream << action_fn->name << " - ";
    std::ios_base::fmtflags ff;
    ff = std::cout.flags();
    for(const Data &d : action_data.action_data)
      stream << std::hex << d << ",";
    stream.flags(ff);
  }

  ActionFnEntry(const ActionFnEntry &other) = default;
  ActionFnEntry &operator=(const ActionFnEntry &other) = default;

  ActionFnEntry(ActionFnEntry &&other) /*noexcept*/ = default;
  ActionFnEntry &operator=(ActionFnEntry &&other) /*noexcept*/ = default;

private:
  const ActionFn *action_fn{nullptr};
  ActionData action_data{};
};

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The C2C Network exists to glorify God and make disciples in Canada by planting and multiplying gospel-centred churches and enabling new missional opportunities. Each day, C2C staff pray the verse engraved in stone on the Peace Tower at Parliament in Ottawa: "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea" (Psalm 72:8, KJV).
We desire that millions of Canadians will come to faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our vehicle for this mission is gospel-centred churches with a multiplying mindset.
This year's C2C Network theme is Follow Me (Matthew 4:19) – the very words Jesus spoke when he chose his first disciples. Following Jesus is the distinguishing mark of those who seek to multiply the church. For a church planting family, it often requires leaving a home church, jobs, friends and relatives. It requires complete submission to follow Jesus.
When Jesus asked a group of fishermen to follow him, they immediately left their nets, boat and father, and followed him. It's a staggering response. They left their source of income, occupation, identity, predictable and fairly safe lifestyle – and immediately followed Jesus.
Would we immediately leave our jobs (nets), our family (father), and our resources (boats) and follow him? Bert and Sheila Thomson did. They left a secure and significant ministry role and beautiful home in Nashville, Tenn., and followed Jesus to Toronto.
believer at Kits Beach in Vancouver.
C2C is committed to helping people discern if God has equipped them and is calling them to follow him to lead a new expression of the church. We have an extensive interview and assessment process that helps shepherd church-planting candidates into the ministry best suited for them. Trevor and Melissa Berry let C2C help them discern their calling. They are now residing in Barrie, Ont., and are gathering people on mission.
"We have a small core group that has begun meeting in our home on Thursday nights," say the Berrys. "We eat together, pray for our city together, and are learning how to follow Jesus together." The Berrys are forming a launch team and will begin preview services in September.
Following Jesus means we are gathering his people and making disciples. Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of people." We are passionate about more Canadians becoming followers of Jesus. Our focus is on the lost souls in our country.
Chris and Yanci McGregor followed Jesus from a megachurch in Dallas, Texas, and returned home to Canada to plant City Church in Montreal.
"By removing our comfort," says Chris, "God has shown us how he is our Peace. By removing the presence of loyal friends and a great church, he showed us the intimacy of his presence. By removing financial security, he revealed himself as our Provider. As we started over in so many ways, God removed our ability to trust in many human-made solutions that were competing against him.
We ask that you earnestly pray for the C2C Network and for church planting families. Would you prayerfully consider adding C2C to your church mission budget so more lost souls in Canada – from sea to sea – can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ?


Simon Hart has been working in sports journalism since the late 1990s and has been present at the past five World Cups. He reports on European football for UEFA's website and publications, and also writes for The Independent and the i. This is his second book and follows Here We Go: Everton in the 1980s, published in 2016.


S.T.A.R. Quest Academy – Regional Safe Schools Program is an educational program that provides an off-campus learning environment for disruptive students, age 12-15, in grades 6-8 whose behaviors could result in expulsion, or long-term, or multiple suspensions from school. Students must be administratively transferred from their local schools and must meet at least one of the eligibility criteria. Generally, students are enrolled for the length of the pending expulsion or suspension and then return to their schools.


Country Venezuela is situated in a location / continent South America. Venezuela has an area of 912 050 km2 and 28 047 938 residents. The highest point has a height 5 007 above sea level. and it is called Pico Bolivar (La Columna). The lowest point is located at the level of 0 above sea level and it is named Caribbean Sea. System of government is Federal Republic and the date of independence July 5, 1811. The capital city is Caracas. Venezuela has the international abbreviation VE.
Total gross domestic product (GDP) is 378 900 000 000 $. Total gross domestic product per capita in purchasing power parity is 12 700 $. GDP grows by 4.20 % a year. Inflation (consumer price index) is equal to 26.10 % a year. Venezuela have 13 320 000 working-age population (from a total population 28 047 938 people). Unemployment is at 8.20 %. and 1,20 % GDP to army. The public debt of the country is 34.90 % GDP. The total amount of foreign debt is 89 600 000 000 USD.
As suggested above, Venezuela has 28 047 938 people. Population growth is in the amount 1.47 % per year. Number of children born per 1000 population per year is 19.88.Every mother has average 2.40 children. The infant mortality rate is 20.18 and maternal mortality 92.00 deaths per 100,000 births. Average estimated life expectancy makes 74.08 years. Mortality is 5.20 people per 1000 population per year.
Venezuela has 96 155 km of roads, 806 km of railway lines and 492 airports. The total length of waterways (navigable rivers, canals, etc.) is 7 100 km. There is registered 53 ships.
Number of active mobile phones (sim card) in the country Venezuela is 27 880 000. Number of active fixed telephone lines is 7 083 000. Venezuela has 8 918 000 internet users, who have the available 888 028 Internet connections. Venezuela has been assigned a domain first Choose range .ve.
Venezuela consumes a year 85 850 000 000 kWh of electricity. Annual electricity production is 123 100 000 000 kWh in power plants with a total installed electrical capacity 24 850 000 kW. Venezuela exports 633 000 000 kWh and imports 260 000 000 kWh of electricity per year Energy mix of power generation is as follows: fossil fuels: 41.1 %, nuclear energy: 0 %, renewable: 0.0 %, hydropower: 58.9 %. The country Venezuela is harvested annually 2 453 000 barrels of oil.
Keywords: flag states, list of countries, telecommunications, flag, world countries, demography, all flags, information, list of flags, transport, Flags of countries, energetics, economy, national flags, flags of countries in the world, Flag of Venezuela, Venezuela, politic.


text:
← Silver Linings Playbook
2013 Oscar Predictions: Final Thoughts →
2013 Oscar Predications, Part One
This is Part One because these are my first thoughts, or my thoughts of the moment. I will continue to brainstorm and think this week, and may post another set of thoughts closer to next Sunday.
This year is a little different from most. As in many other years, there is no single runaway film that got all the nominations and has all the love. There are perhaps no great films this year, but there are several good ones, some that time will determine are very good. What have really thrown things for a loop this year are the omissions. Not having an Oscar nomination for Best Director for two of the best films this year—Ben Affleck (Argo) and Katherine Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) has thrown the race into something of a tailspin in terms of predicting. There are a few sure bets, but the rest are difficult to guess with any degree of certainly. But here goes….
This one is the one most up in the air because of the two directing omissions, but the two major "snubs" have sent their two films in opposite directions. Zero Dark Thirty was winning many Best Picture awards at the end of the year. Now it's practically off the radar. Argo, however, has had all sorts of award love thrown at it, from the Golden Globes to the Screen Actors Guide awards to the Directors Guild of America awards. The film may well do an end run around the others because of the affection for Affleck and the fact that he didn't pick up a much-deserved and expected nomination.
Will (Probably) Win: Argo
Might Win: Lincoln
This is the category that has made all the others so difficult to predict. But remembering that for most directors, the award IS the nomination, it's likely that the trade-off for Argo winning the big prize will be love for Lincoln in the form of a statuette for director Stephen Spielberg.
Will Win: Stephen Spielberg for Lincoln
Improbable Dark Horse: David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook
This is easy. It will be Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the few acting geniuses of our time. No other performance comes close this year in reach or accomplishment.
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln
Other Possible Winner: Nobody
This was looking like a two-way race between Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. It will be one or the other, but since Zero has diminished and Lawrence won the Screen Actors Guild award and Silver Linings is still very much on people's radar, it's likely to be Lawrence.
Will (Probably) Win: Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook
Might Win: Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty
All nominees have already won an Oscar, so there will be no sympathy awards given this year. It should go to Philip Seymour Hoffman (full disclosure—he is from the area I live in) for his brilliant work in The Master, but that film was only on the radar from one bright and shining moment, and has been generally ignored ever since except by the more curious and perceptive. Robert DeNiro of Silver Linings Playbook could win because "he's back!" as an actor and has left behind the near-parodic performances based on send-ups of his tough-guy/gangster image. And then there is Tommy Lee Jones of Lincoln, all literate, verbally dexterous and attractively politically correct as an anti-slavery radical, with just a touch of the lovable grouch we all have come to know as TLJ. Lastly, Christoph Waltz just won the Screen Actors Guild award for his work in Django Unchained, and even though he won a couple of years back, that win has thrown this race into official confusion.
Will (Probably) Win: Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln
Might Win: Robert DeNiro for Silver Linings Playbook or Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained
Should Win But Won't: Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master
There's no competition for this one. It's Anne Hathaway for her heart-wrenching role as Fantine the prostitute in Les Misérables, or more accurately, for reinvigorating "I Dreamed a Dream" and ripping many hearts out in the process. It's the dominant performance on the awards circuit, and people want to honor the film in a real but minor way. This will accomplish both. No one else has a chance.
Will Win: Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables.
Looked Like She Could Have Won Except for Anne Hathaway: Sally Field for Lincoln
Might Win: Nobody else.
Since Amour (technically from Austria with an Austrian director, but in French and starring French actors) is ALSO nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay—and no other Best Foreign Picture nominees are nominated for anything other than in that one category—it's hard to imagine this won't be the one category Amour will capture handily. It's the one easy way to honor the film, its esteemed director, and its legendary stars (Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant).
Will Win: Amour
Still mulling the two screenplay categories.
No picture will dominate the awards this year. But at least the show will have some suspense!
About Mark DuPré
Full-time (associate) pastor at a Christian church. Part-time film professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband for 40 years to the lovely and talented Diane. Father to three children and father-in-law to three more amazing people. I preach, teach, counsel, write and plan in my real job. I teach a subject I love at RIT in my "other job," which is a lot of fun most of the time.... I play piano for our local college choir, and sing and play at church occasionally. I also have a film-related website at www.film-prof.com.
View all posts by Mark DuPré →
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