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Viv Will Replace Your Smartphone With Your Fridge and Then Take Over the World
The guys who made SIRI are on the verge of releasing Viv, a word that conjures life itself. Viv is a way of optimizing the Internet that could, among other things, undermine Google and make you far more intelligent and capable. As with all innovations that claim to be advances, however, there, um, might be problems.
By John H. Richardson
Illustration by Jennifer BaumgardnerGetty Images
An anonymous green V marks the door of an ordinary office in downtown San Jose, California—inside, just a pool table, whiteboards scrawled with formulas, a dozen programmers working at computers with Nerf guns at their sides. The three founders gather in a glass-walled conference room. "What you're going to see here is a very early prototype," says Dag Kittlaus, the business guy. "This is only a few weeks old."
On the screen at the end of the room, a green V appears. Green bars radiate, and then it connects. This is Viv, their bid for world domination. It's a completely new concept for talking to machines and making them do our bidding—not just asking them for simple information but also making them think and react. Right now, a founder named Adam Cheyer is controlling Viv from his computer. "I'm gonna start with a few simple queries," Cheyer says, "then ramp it up a little bit." He speaks a question out loud: "What's the status of JetBlue 133?" A second later, Viv returns with an answer: "Late again, what else is new?"
To achieve this simple result, Viv went to an airline database called FlightStats.com and got the estimated arrival time and rec-ords that show JetBlue 133 is on time just 62 percent of the time.
Onscreen, for the demo, Viv's reasoning is displayed in a series of boxes—and this is where things get really extraordinary, because you can see Viv begin to reason and solve problems on its own. For each problem it's presented, Viv writes the program to find the solution. Presented with a question about flight status, Viv decided to dig out the historical record on its own. The snark comes courtesy of Chris Brigham, Viv Labs founder number three.
Now let's make it more interesting. "What's the best available seat on Virgin 351 next Wednesday?"
[pullquote]"We believe this will be as big as the Internet itself," says Cheyer. "It's a revolution."[/pullquote]
Viv searches an airline-services distributor called Travelport, the back end for Expedia and Orbitz, and finds twenty-eight available seats. Then it goes to SeatGuru.com for information on individual seats per plane, and this is when Viv really starts to show off. Every time you use Viv, you teach it your personal preferences. These go into a private database linked with your profile, currently called "My Stuff," which will be (they promise) under your complete control. So Cheyer is talking to his personal version of Viv, and it knows that he likes aisle seats and extra legroom. The solution is seat 9D, an economy-class exit-row seat with extra legroom.
Even at this most basic level, as Kittlaus points out, the implications of Viv are world-changing: Priceline pays Google about $2 billion a year to get displayed at the top of cheap-flight searches. The entire Internet sales model is based on finding something, if you can find it, then going to the Web site or the app and looking some more and entering your dates and credit card. But Viv knows what Cheyer's looking for. It knows if he likes hotels with swimming pools and the best deals on his favorite entertainment options, even the airport he usually flies from. And although some of this interactivity is already available on Google's Siri clone, Google Now, Viv also knows how to enter all Cheyer's personal data and credit-card numbers and execute the transaction—one-stop shopping without the stop.
"It's that weaving together of services that creates this new paradigm that we think is going to take over," Kittlaus says. "It completely changes the way advertising works online. This will be the filter to you."
Ariel Zambelich
And how much is Viv going to charge Priceline?
"I don't know yet," Cheyer says. "But it'll certainly be far less than buying words on Google. That's why advertising completely changes."
But won't Priceline pay Viv to get higher in Viv's rankings?
"We'll learn from the way that Google has done it," Cheyer says. "We'll have, um, organic results."
And Google? Why haven't they sent out a hitman after you?
"Well, they've sent people after us," Cheyer says. "They've showed a lot of interest in what we're doing—positive interest."
And Orbitz and Travelocity? If Viv goes direct to the data, who needs them? "Well," Kittlaus says, "they'll get involved, too."
Won't this be another death blow to the media, which has never been able to sell ads online? People really aren't going to want their phones singing jingles at them.
"I think the business models will change," Kittlaus says.
And this may be the understatement of the Internet age.
BRIGHAM CAME UP WITH the beautiful idea, which makes its own perfect sense. Cheyer was always the visionary. When they met at SRI International twelve years ago, Cheyer was already a chief scientist distilling the work of four hundred researchers from the Defense Department's legendary CALO project, trying to teach computers to talk—really talk, not just answer a bunch of preprogrammed questions. Kittlaus came along a few years later, a former cell-phone executive looking for the next big idea at a time when the traditional phone companies were saying the iPhone would be a disaster—only phone companies can make phones. An adventurer given to jumping out of planes and grueling five-hour sessions of martial arts, he saw the possibilities instantly—cell phones were getting smarter every day, mobile computing was the future, and nobody wanted to thumb-type on a tiny little keyboard. Why not teach a phone to talk?
Brigham, at the time just an undergrad student randomly assigned to Cheyer's staff, looked like a surfer, but he had a Matrix-like ability to see the green numbers scroll, offhandedly solving in a single day a problem that had stumped one of Cheyer's senior scientists for months. Soon he took responsibility for the computer architecture that made their ideas possible. But he also had a rule-breaking streak—maybe it was all those weekends he spent picking rocks out of his family's horse pasture, or the time his father shot him in the ass with a BB gun to illustrate the dangers of carrying a weapon in such a careless fashion. He admits, with some embarrassment, now thirty-one and the father of a young daughter, that he got kicked out of summer school for hacking the high school computer system to send topless shots to all the printers. After the SRI team and its brilliant idea were bought by Steve Jobs and he made it famous—Siri, the first talking phone, a commercial and pop-culture phenomenon that now appears in five hundred million different devices—Brigham sparked international news for teaching Siri to answer a notorious question: "Where do I dump a body?" (Swamps, reservoirs, metal foundries, dumps, mines.)
He couldn't resist the Terminator jokes, either. When the Siri team was coming up with an ad campaign, joking about a series of taglines that went from "Periodically Human" to "Practically Human" to "Positively Human," he said the last one should be "Kill All Humans."
In the fall of 2012, after they all quit Apple, the three men gathered at Kittlaus's house in Chicago to brainstorm, throwing out their wildest ideas. What about nanotechnology? Could they develop an operating system to run at the atomic level? Or maybe just a silly wireless thing that plugged into your ear and told you everything you needed to know in a meeting like this, including the names and loved ones of everyone you met?
Then Brigham took them back to Cheyer's original vision. There was a compromise in the ontology, he said. Siri talked only to a few limited functions, like the map, the datebook, and Google. All the imitators, from the outright copies like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana to a host of more-focused applications with names like Amazon Echo, Samsung S Voice, Evi, and Maluuba, followed the same principle. The problem was you had to code everything. You had to tell the computer what to think. Linking a single function to Siri took months of expensive computer science. You had to anticipate all the possibilities and account for nearly infinite outcomes. If you tried to open that up to the world, other people would just come along and write new rules and everything would get snarled in the inevitable conflicts of competing agendas—just like life. Even the famous supercomputers that beat Kasparov and won Jeopardy! follow those principles. That was the "pain point," the place where everything stops: There were too many rules.
So what if they just wrote rules on how to solve rules?
The idea was audacious. They would be creating a DNA, not a biology, forcing the program to think for itself.
Again, Kittlaus saw the many possibilities. Google was teaching cars to drive. Artificial intelligence breakthroughs were exploding. The "Internet of Things" was the new buzzword, machines all connecting by WiFi to the magic of the Cloud. And everybody was after the final interface that would unite them, spending billions of dollars in the hope of harnessing the winning innovation to their specific platform. Soon, Google would hire AI legend Ray Kurzweil and buy him a $500 million lab, and Facebook would spend another fortune on a team headed by NYU's Yann LeCun. But Viv was different. They were the little guy without big ties, and the idea of an open system was a hapkido move, leveraging their small size into something mighty. Their rebel DNA could work with all the platforms. And what medium could be easier than voice, their area of greatest expertise? One platform to rule them all!
They're joking, sort of.
They started out on pen and paper, breaking it down into the smallest possible pieces. You want the computer to do something, but you don't want to tell it how. It has to figure out that part for itself. So you start by teaching the program a concept, because a person can't act without a conception of where he's trying to go. Then you teach it an action. And you nudge it so that it finds its way from one to the other—which might just be the essential code of life itself, from DNA to the mysterious algorithms that unveiled the universe, from concept to the mysterious process that leads to action. If they could solve that, the program's brain could gobble up new concepts and actions until it contained . . . well, everything.
But was it possible? They weren't sure. Cheyer and Brigham spent the next six weeks trying to figure it out.
Brigham's bachelor party in Denver that fall included some of the smartest minds in artificial intelligence and computer engineering. After the party, Brigham ended up at a bar with Mark Gabel, a young hotshot at the University of Texas with the perfect mix of expertise: artificial intelligence, natural language, and program analysis. "He was completely shit-faced," Gabel remembers.
"Wait, wait, don't tell him about that," Cheyer says.
Gabel laughs. "He actually tried to recruit Danny—the guy you just met—at the same time, but he was so messed up and incoherent Danny just said, 'This is a complete joke. I'm not going to sacrifice my career for this.' He's kicking himself now."
They stayed in the bar for hours, talking about atomic functional units and program synthesis. Gabel couldn't figure out where Brigham was going with it. Research in program synthesis was stagnant, stuck at tiny little functions. How could they do entire tasks?
Then he got it. A working-class kid who split his time between math and classical piano, Gabel had come to understand that complex systems were always the same—you had to start by making the problem more abstract. He could see the beauty of the rule behind the rules, not a model but a metamodel. They had to define the problem in such a way that it could be solved without solving the problem.
But he still wasn't sure it was possible.
They started meeting at Brigham's apartment. Gabel would fly out and they'd set up a whiteboard and draw equations, starting with seemingly simple problems. How could they make the jump from concept to action? On the most basic level, if they said, "Find parking lots near the White House," how would the computer figure out which white house you were talking about? It might find restaurants named the White House. But they couldn't tell the computer how to make the distinction without writing a bunch of codes.
Then the answer came to them—the glimmer of an answer, an elegant subplan that was like another little piece of DNA: Find the solution, it said, and stop there. "Intent representation," they called it. By latching the program to a goal, they gave it a kind of freedom.
At the start of January, they were ready to start coding. Seed money came from the richest man in China and Gary Morgenthaler, the first investor in Siri. "I looked at the work they were doing," Morgenthaler remembers, "and said, This is as good or better than anything I've seen in twenty years." They hired just two employees, Joshua Levy, a kindhearted, homeschooled midwesterner who started college at thirteen, and Marcello Bastéa-Forte, a rumpled Stanford grad who was already the top front-end engineer at Siri in his early twenties. In a small cubicle in a space in San Jose with open ceilings, the smell of sawdust in the air, they wrote the basic code in a six-week push of furious coding.
Would it work? They still weren't sure.
For the first demo, they gathered around the table and asked for a simple weather report—and the program seemed to crunch along forever, trying to come up with a way to come up with an answer.
Then it asked for more information because it was confused. The program had intent! It wanted to do something.
Now the struggle against writing new rules became constant. They'd find some gremlin creeping in, like local movie listings in the middle of a flower search, and it was so tempting to just ban movie listings from the middle of the flower search. But then someone else would say "Find theater listing" and you'd have to add another rule. Every time, like parents trying to raise imaginative children, they had to define correct in a way that made the program improvise.
The solution was something they call the "planning objective function"—but at this point we get into trade secrets, says Cheyer. Or maybe religion. The point is, they did it. They created a program that could write its own code and find its own solutions. They named their invention Viv, after the Latin for "life." If it worked out in the marketplace and the feisty little improviser beat out the coded fortresses of the giant players, Cheyer's dream would finally be realized—he would make machines come to life.
For the next year and a half, they worked in secret.
ON THE SCREEN, CHEYER MOVES TO STEP TWO. This is how the world will connect to Viv. After a simple fifteen-minute video tutorial, you open this training module—it looks like lozenges of text with some words highlighted—and teach it your specialized vocabulary. That knowledge goes to Viv's brain, which gets smarter with every new lesson. Say you own a company called Wine.com and someone just asked Viv to find a good merlot—no, an awesome merlot. Awesome is the kind of imprecise word an enthusiastic human might use. Does your database make it clear that awesome is a rating?
"Find an awesome merlot," Cheyer says.
Instantly, Viv figures "awesome" must fit into the "rating" concept. Apparently, someone already taught it the meaning of awesome.
Cheyer's a little disappointed. "If it were wrong," he says, "you would literally drag and drop to teach it No, that's wrong."
And if you try to mess with it, Viv resists. Cheyer demonstrates by trying to teach it that a merlot is actually a kind of car.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Viv responds. "Please give a few more examples." In time, the hive mind will overwhelm mischief and human error. And all this requires no more skill than using a basic Web-site template, which hands the mysterious tools of artificial intelligence to ordinary people and lets them build on the contributions of all who came before.
Eventually, the Viv team hopes, its V will be everywhere. Press the V on your refrigerator and the fridge will say, Hello, how can I help, John? And you'll say, What is there to eat? And the fridge will see that it's lunchtime and ask if you want the usual cheese sandwich or something more interesting. You have ingredients that match a recipe for baked ziti on Edible Gourmet. Should I download it?
You don't even have to say "How long will it take to cook?" because your fridge understands you. It knows you don't like to waste time in front of a stove. Seventeen point four minutes, short enough even for a lazy ass like you.
Take the snark down 10 percent, you say, cursing Chris Brigham.
And how much will the recipe cost?
Ten cents, the fridge says.
After a little back and forth about nutritional content and your excess belly flab and the free recipes available on the Web, you say fuck it and the fridge sends the recipe to your iPhone—ka-ching for Edible Gourmet, ka-ching for the guys behind that talking V, and ka-ching for you, too, since your food is that much less likely to rot in your fridge. And there will be a V on your car, too, on your bathroom mirror, your washing machine, the pump at your gas station, the ATM at your bank. Ask the Coke machine if your son is free for softball on Saturday and the Coke machine will say, Looks like he's finished with his homework but the forecast is rain. Want me to book an appointment at the batting cage?
Ka-ching for Joe's Indoor Baseball.
It's the world of seamless convenience, all your desires satisfied with a minimum of fuss.
THE LARGER IMPLICATIONS TAKE A WHILE to sink in. Why do you need a fancy phone if you can talk to your refrigerator? How much are you going to spend on an expensive computer when your alarm clock can do your shopping? Just what we need—another hurricane of creative destruction. And Viv will make it easier to talk to machines at a time when machines are getting fiendishly smarter, which could be the biggest problem of all—not because they might become aware and send Terminators after us, although people like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking are starting to worry about that, but because they might take our jobs. As the technology writer Martin Ford details in an alarming new book called Rise of the Robots, there's already a robot pharmacist at the University of California that makes up ten thousand doses of medicine a day, reading the doses off bar codes so that there's never an error. Robot test scorers are more accurate than teachers, even at reading essays. Electronic-discovery services are eating the jobs of lawyers and paralegals. A newswriting program called Narrative Science puts out millions of simple sports and business stories. Online classes are taking on traditional universities, learning to solve their low completion rates with robot tutors. Fast-food robots are learning how to cook a burger, wrap it, and hand it to you—a threat to the jobs of 3.7 million fast-food workers. Robots are even learning to administer cancer treatments, diagnose diseases, and care for the elderly. According to a February report from Business Insider, the market for this mixture of intelligent algorithms and robots is now growing seven times faster than traditional manufacturing robotics, much of it driven by smartphones and tablets that can control them "at more accessible price points." And Viv will make all of this so much easier, turbocharging new services like Uber and Google's self-driving cars, which will be owned by Google or some other company and go back to a central warehouse for robot servicing, which is bad news for the millions of Americans working at car washes, service stations, taxi companies, and delivery companies.
Futurists like Jeremy Rifkin have been warning about the "end of work" for years, but most people have filed that fear under "Luddite" and assume that capitalism will continue replacing lost jobs. Now some of our smartest economists are starting to ring alarms. Back in 2012, Paul Krugman said there was "no question" that smart machines were rapidly replacing workers in many industries, a trend that had the potential to "turn our society into something unrecognizable." Last year, Larry Summers warned about the "devastating consequences of robots, 3-D printing, [and] artificial intelligence" on both white- and blue-collar jobs. In February, Robert Reich said we were "barreling toward" an economy in which robots do much of the work and most of the profits go to the robots' owners, while humans are reduced to odd jobs like "Uber drivers, Instacart shoppers, and Airbnb hosts." A new study from Jeffrey Sachs and three other prominent economists puts the question so starkly it seems a plot point from dystopian science fiction: "Will smart machines replace humans like the internal combustion engine replaced horses? If so, can putting people out of work, or at least out of good work, also put the economy out of business?"
Sachs's answer? An unqualified yes. His study "firmly predicts" a long-run decline in labor's share of the national income so severe it could crash the economy. "Absent appropriate fiscal policy that redistributes from winners to losers," he concludes, "smart machines can mean long-term misery for all."
Even the libertarians of Silicon Valley are starting to worry. "As much as it pains me to say so," says Jaron Lanier, the polymath behind virtual reality, "we can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and photographers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and heath care." Martin Ford cites a recent jobs summit he attended with about fifty tech-company CEOs. "Here in Silicon Valley, there's a remarkable consensus about this. Every single person agreed we're on the leading edge of a disruption, and we're going to have to move to a guaranteed basic income. There was overwhelming support for that."
It seems unfair to lay all this on the gentle geniuses of Viv, who are just trying to give life to their beautiful idea.
"We tell our investors they can take comfort that they're part of the beginning of the end," Brigham jokes.
"I don't think that's what we tell our investors," Cheyer says.
"Maybe business kind of gets destroyed in the process," he concedes. "But they can also get business they never would've gotten—like Match.com could say, 'Hey, it's Friday night and you've both indicated that you like theater. Do you want me to check out the shows on Friday night? Do you want me to get reservations for that restaurant near the theater? Do you want me to have an Uber pick up your date? Do you want flowers sent to the table?' It's new business for everyone."
And Viv solves the discovery problem, making it easier to find the little store or small magazine. It can integrate your loyalties, registering your preference for mom-and-pop stores or couch-surfing in Thailand. My Stuff will actually ask you questions to make this easy. "I've noticed you ate Mexican food three times this week. Can I infer that you like Mexican foods?" And unlike data-mining snoops like Facebook and Google, which can tell if you're gay or pregnant even before you admit it to yourself, you can also tell Viv what to forget. "This kind of turns the Google privacy model on its head," Kittlaus says.
And services will be working together in all kinds of new ways. Yummly and Edible Gourmet have recipes, but once they're plugged into Viv they might find somebody asking about the right wine to go with those recipes—and then linking to mapping services and local shops. If old-fashioned things like journalistic ethics were not of concern, Esquire could even harness its product reviews to recommend the best razors or shoes and take a cut on the purchases.
The opportunities are endless, they say. Somebody's got to teach Viv to monitor your refrigerator and order fresh milk. Somebody will build a program that sends out locations and lineups for all the local Little League games. Somebody could build a birds-and-bees tutorial to sidestep the fight over sex education. Law firms can develop their own specialized law-bots. A top cardiologist just suggested a medical noodge to nag you about taking your medicine and tell the doctor if you forget, which could actually save lives.
And who knows, maybe Viv will even help America's beleaguered musicians. "You can imagine just saying, 'Viv, take my latest track and put it on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest,' " Kittlaus says.
[pullquote]That's the real excitement of Viv, they insist—the idea of unleashing the creative and the entrepreneurial energy of millions of people.[/pullquote]
But all this wild potential may also be Viv's biggest threat. Established sources like OpenTable will probably dominate restaurant bookings, they concede, and companies like Yelp will have a huge content advantage over new arrivals. Amazon will grow ever mightier. "If you provide a unified interface with no way for people or vendors to differentiate themselves," Gabel says, "economics just tells you at that point it's just a race to the bottom. So we have to preserve branding and personalization. We don't really want this to become like Soviet Russia: 'Buy me the official state car. Get me the official state hotel room.' "
But the fact is they don't know the answers to many of these questions. They've been working with their heads down, pushing to beat the competition, and they'll just have to worry about all that later.
Anyway, it's not really in their hands. "The world is going to decide what this thing is going to do," Kittlaus says. "That's the novel part of it. We've been building things to inspire people, to show what's possible, but the real question is What's going to happen when we open this up? What are people going to create with it? We don't know."
VIV INVITES THE IMAGINATION, there's no doubt about that. You could sit in your hotel room and ask Siri gloomy questions: "Are you going to put everybody out of a job?"
"I can't answer that," Siri says.
"Are you going to put me out of a job?"
Or you could start a dating service, using that seductively radiating lime-green V to link up restaurants and florists and lingerie stores! You could have a robot music teacher with infinite patience. And how about a satellite-controlled Roomba to cut your damn lawn? Like those big modern combines! And Viv could write the software and run the mowers!
Not exactly, Kittlaus says. You'd still have to connect to the satellite and map out the trees and rocks and write the program to control the machine and build the machine (and handle the liability issues). "Viv's not going to be able to do all the work for you." But Viv would make it a lot easier to put the service out there without a ton of advertising. "Say I want a cheap lawn-mowing service, and because you've got this automated thing, all they do is come once a week and toss this thing in your yard and it just goes about its business. It's going to be pretty cheap."
And once it was in the yard, Viv would be happy to run it.
I'm gone a week—have the lawn cut when I get back?
"Exactly. And the beauty of it is it plugs your lawn mower into a wider ecosystem—like with the refrigerator, you can say 'Order me some more milk.' "
So the Roomba lawn mower could have sensors that told you if you needed more lime, connect you to a supplier, and have the lime delivered?
And John's RoombaMower Co. gets a cut?
And if its program for satellite guidance is great, RoombaMower Co. can sell the software to every aspiring robo-lawn-mower company in the universe?
"Absolutely," Kittlaus says.
RoombaMower will conquer the world!
"That's actually a really good idea," Kittlaus says. "I think you should quit your job and do it."
And that's the real excitement of Viv, they insist—the idea of unleashing the creative and entrepreneurial energy of millions of people. They all feel it will be the biggest thing they ever do in their lives. "As a founder," Cheyer says, "I'm allowed to be effusive. We believe this thing will be as big and important as the Internet itself and as mobile itself. It's a revolution."
They think they're about six months from a beta test and a year from a public launch, hopefully with a two-year head start on their giant competitors. Morgenthaler's optimistic: "They have a new vision and a time-to-market advantage, and the architecture is wholly new. It will take people a considerable amount of time to figure out."
Kittlaus has been so busy he hasn't even had time to patent a potentially huge new business idea of his own—the lightbulb idea.
The lightbulb idea?
"It's obvious," he says. Because they're everywhere and already have their own power source, lightbulbs will be the most convenient way to talk to machines. Add a microphone and some sweet little algorithm and bingo—it's a billion-dollar product.
Steal it fast.
IN THE MAIN ROOM, at four long tables, the coders work away, racing toward the public launch. One is working on the user interface, which has to be flexible enough to appear on all kinds of screens. Others are trying to give Viv a better short-term memory, so if you say "three," it will remember whether you're talking about how many children you have or how many there are in your party. This is called "dialogue management," currently a subject of much excitement and research at AI labs across the country. But, of course, the Viv guys don't want to hard-write too many rules. Once again, the program has to learn to analyze the context, taught by the input of thousands or millions of private developers pursuing the fulfillment of their own desires.
Another group of coders is teaching Viv how to supervise the approval process for new members, which Gabel happily describes as a "very nontraditional thing." The smart machine will actually be testing human contributions to the smart machine.
At his workstation, Cheyer is going through bugs, tweaking to make sure things are centered on the screen and there's no unintentional scrolling. Then he switches to playing the role of the flower-shop owner, teaching Viv to handle customers. No, there's no need to suppress funeral corsages. Yes, ask me whether it's a birthday or a wedding.
At his station, Brigham isn't happy with the way that the groups of flower products interact. He wants Theadora's Polka Dot Basket to show up in the centerpiece group more elegantly, with cleaner links to alternatives or a purchase decision. It's another design thing, final touches.
Across the room, Marco Iacono is working on the graphic design, tweaking the appearance for different devices. "This is the iPhone 5—which, you can see, yeah, fits perfectly."
Midmorning, they all gather for a stand-up meeting, passing a Frisbee around to designate the speaker. "Yesterday I spent a lot of time talking about the developer experience," one says. "I completed the P1's on the automated testing stuff," says another. "I did some cleanup and bulletproofing for Wine-Stein capsule," says a third.
Kittlaus makes a business announcement: "I'm working on getting $12.5 million wired into our accounts by tomorrow."
The scientists tease him. "What are you gonna do tomorrow?"
"Yeah, how many more millions next week?"
They're all a bit on fire with the potential of it all. "This is the dream project," says Richard Schatzberger, who joined the graphic-design team several months ago. "The technology that these guys here have built is something so radically new and different—it's something new."
"Behind the scenes," as Levy puts it, with the low-key pride shared by everyone at Viv Labs, "there are some pretty nontrivial algorithms."
"It feels awesome," Iacono says. "It's a wild, wild place to be."
For example, lately he's been experimenting with other ways of interacting with Viv.
Other ways? Besides typing or talking?
"Um, maybe."
Then he blurts it out: "Touching. We're kind of exploring the edges of possibilities."
Published in the May 2015 issue.
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Free from all political affiliations and governmental influence, CDIC is devoted to promoting the process of building and developing civil society in Georgia. The activities of the CDIC support the establishment of the conditions of civic participation and the culture of strategic thinking in the organizational practice and social life in Georgia.
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and support for the creation of institutions (non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations, community based organizations, foundations, etc.) of civil society.


Christian Louboutin, you've done it again! Never have I ever seen a shoe as unique as this look so good on this many celebrities! While I'm partial to the yellow dress/black coat ensemble worn by Irina Shayk and Brandy's crisp white pants and jacket duo, it looks absolutely stunning on every figure pictured below; and what is better than a platform that is incredibly stylish, eye-catching, and versatile? Not much! So what does this all mean? These will look amazing on you as well! Granted, this pair is sold out and priced well above most of our shoe budgets, but you can definitely get the same look with our help. Check out our fabulous steal further down the page and tell us what you think.
There's something about YSL shoes that always keeps me fascinated. I think it's how most of their shoes have this chunky, awfully impractical platform and the resulting ultra-high stiletto heel that comes with such a platform shape. Perfect examples are the Tribute sandals, the infamous YSL Trib Two pumps and also these black suede platform sandals below which I find myself being quite fond of.
Kylie Minogue has always been a dedicated fan of Yves Saint Laurent and can be often seen wearing something YSL like 2 days ago when she was papped at the airport in Lisbon, Portugal wearing the cutout platforms.
UPDATE (08/07/2012): And I stumbled upon yet another YSL look-a-like. These Simply Vera by Vera Wang will give you the Yves Saint Laurent look for under $70.
UPDATE (07/30/2011): After a long look-a-like hiatus, here's another great though slightly pricey YSL alternative coming from Via Spiga.
UPDATE (10/22/2009): Found yet another YSL knockoff by Boutique 9. Available in black & purple.
UPDATE (08/16/2009): Found another pair of YSL knockoffs by GUESS.
For weeks I was desperately trying to identify these bebe knockoffs. I think I already mentioned my knockoff intuition in a previous post. I knew that these platforms were designer knockoffs, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. The mystery is now finally resolved. If you prefer a different color and want to cut off the price by more than 50%, there is also a tiger-printed suede version of the Maya sandal available which is on sale for $38.49.
Update (06/24/2012): After more than 3 years, I stumbled upon these absolutely fab though admittedly quite steep fringed peep-toe booties by Boutique 9 which also double as great Alexander Wang Alexis look-a-likes.
If you want the Alexander Wang fringed ankle booties, but don't have a fat wallet to blow your cash on designer shoes, try these almost identical Wang look-a-like boots from Forever 21. The platform is not as high and the leather is faux, but it's a great alternative if you want Alexander Wang for less.


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Busy day on the transactions desk
Lots going on today in the world of Cleveland sports, starting with the Indians trading with Chicago for outfielder Kosuke Fukudome.
We'll admit our first reaction was "that's it?" as Fukodome isn't the big bat the Tribe needs right now, but we came to realize that, at a minimum, Fukodome is an upgrade over Austin Kearns and Travis Buck (who was designated for assignment after the trade).
As the always reliable DiaTribe points out, Fukodome's .742 OPS would put him fourth among current Indians behind Travis Hafner, Asdrubal Cabrera and Carlos Santana.
Fukodome doesn't hit for power, only 20 extra-base hits and three home runs this season, but he does get on base at a consistent level and, as having runners on the bases greatly enhances your chances of scoring, that's a good thing – especially with this team.
Not to be outdone by the Indians, the Browns made several moves of their own on Wednesday.
To no one's surprise, they released quarterback Jake Delhomme, who injured his ankle in the season opener last year and was never able to get what was left of his game back on track.
The team also reportedly signed second-round draft picks Jabaal Sheard and Greg Little; having them in camp from day one will be nothing but positive.
The Browns also agreed to a contract with Usama Young, a safety and former Kent State Golden Flash who played the past four years with New Orleans.
Young was a third-round draft pick of the Saints, playing safety the past two years and contributing on special teams for the past four. He recorded three interceptions and one sack in limited duty on defense.
Young played with current Browns linebacker Scott Fujita in New Orleans and with Josh Cribbs at Kent State. No doubt Cribbs and Fujita briefed the coaching staff and front office on what Young brings to the table.
And as Kent State has produced more Pro Bowlers in recent years than Ohio State – and did it without cheating – what's not to like about the signing?
Finally, the Browns reached a deal with Brandon Jackson, who should fit nicely as a third-down back in the West Coast offense.
Jackson caught 43 passes with Green Bay last season and has 110 receptions in four years wiht the Packers. He also rushed for 703 yards last year.
He's also only 25, so he comes to the Browns without a lot of mileage.
The Arizona Cardinals took the bait and traded for Philadelphia quarterback Kevin Kolb on Thursday, surrendering a second-round pick and staring cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, a Pro Bowler in 2009.
In addition (as if that wasn't enough) the Cardinals are expected to sign Kolb to a $63 million, five-year contract that includes $23 million guaranteed.
All for a quarterback that has seven career starts in the NFL.
For those fans who think the Browns should have pulled the trigger on a deal for Kolb, chew on this for a moment: current Browns quarterback Colt McCoy has eight career starts. Looking at the numbers for the two finds that:
They both have completed 60.8 percent of their passes
McCoy's yards per attempt is 7.40; Kolb's is 6.53
Kolb has 11 touchdowns to McCoy's six
Kolb has 14 interceptions to McCoy's nine
McCoy's quarterback rating is 74.5 to Kolb's 73.2
So why would anyone think that Kolb is an upgrade over McCoy, especially at $63 million?
We were shocked at the news that Bob Bradley has been relieved of his coaching duties for the U.S. national soccer team.
"We want to thank Bob Bradley for his service and dedication to U.S. Soccer during the past five years," federation president Sunil Gulati in a press release. "During his time as the head coach of our Men's National Team he led the team to a number of accomplishments, but we felt now was the right time for us to make a change. It is always hard to make these decisions, especially when it involves someone we respect as much as Bob. We wish him the best in his future endeavors."
As we've learned over the decades here in Cleveland, firing the coach is the easy part. The hard part comes when you have to find a replacement that will take the team to the next level.
According to Grant Wahl at Sports Illustrated, the next coach "will not be a surprise," which means that German legend Jürgen Klinsmann is probably on tap to replace Bradley.
If Gulati is targeting Klinsmann, he better hope he can seal the deal; Klinsmann has turned down opportunities to coach the U.S. team after each of the last two World Cups.
The one thing we'll say is, if you have to make a move, you want to do it now before the next World Cup qualifying cycle begins.
Posted in Bob Bradley, Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Colt McCoy, Kevin Kolb, Kosuke Fukodome, US soccer, Usama Young

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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TMYK
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku Live-Action Film Shows us How Chaotic Romance Can Be
The official website for the live-action film of Fujita's Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (Otaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii) manga began showcasing the official trailer for the film on Monday. In the trailer, it reveals and previews the musical scores by Evangelion and Shin Godzilla composer Shiro Sagisu. The trailer also reveals that Yumi Wakatsuki will play a "serious fujoshi" character who cosplays as a game character, and Mio Imada will play a stylish colleague of Narumi.
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku manga's story centers on the awkward romantic comedy between Narumi, a female office worker who hides her fujoshi lifestyle, and Hirotaka, a handsome and capable company man who is secretly a game otaku.
The film will open on February 7, 2020. Yūichi Fukuda (live-action Gintama) is directing the film. Fujita launched the manga on the image-sharing website pixiv in 2014. In November 2015, the manga moved to Ichijinsha's Comic POOL digital manga magazine. The manga's seventh volume shipped on March 29. Kodansha Comics is releasing the manga in English, and released the third omnibus volume in November 2018.
If you say "Please do this" to Mitsuru Takahata, everything will come back with a fastball. A long time ago, I had been a musical "fanatic" since there was no word like "Otaku". So, with professionals like Mitsuki, I really feel the happiness of having a musical that I love so much. It was also my own potential to make my music correspond to her wonderful performance. It was a very rewarding job, and it was a job for the composer. Kento Yamazaki absorbed music on the spot as the sponge absorbs water. This was the first time I met a male vocalist who was able to see such progress. It is a tremendous talent. The recording was a short period of time, but the evolution he achieved has undoubtedly raised his potential as a musical actor to another dimension. I admire him from the bottom of my heart! I think my song is my child, so I feel like having my daughter married to Yuichi Fukuda's house (laughs). In the summer of 2018, when I first heard about this movie from the first-time director, music began to sound in my head and never stopped. First of all, it is natural that "singing as it is!" Is the essence of the musical. It should be the biggest attraction of this work that I was able to record with all the performers happily at any time.
Comment from Shiro Konosu
Sources: website, Comic Natalie, Twitter
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Certain species of game have a highly developed sense of smell. Because bowhunting is done at close range, it's essential to learn which species are sensitive to human odor.
Big game animals are very sensitive to scent and quickly leave any area that contains the wind-borne or residual ground scent of humans.
White-tailed deer, Sitka black-tailed deer, foxes, and coyotes can detect the scent of hidden hunters.
Squirrels, rabbits, turkeys, and waterfowl are not sensitive to scent and rarely spook when they pick up human odor.
Wear rubber-soled boots that are less likely to absorb odors.
Store hunting clothes in plastic bags with boughs of cedar, pine, or other natural materials from your hunting area.


Contact an Austin Criminal Attorney | Protecting the rights of individuals during a prosecution is the job of many Austin criminal attorney firms today. An Austin criminal lawyer is the one responsible in providing a suitable defense of their clients. The Austin criminal defense attorney is also the one who represents them in court.
Protecting the rights of individuals during a prosecution is the job of many Austin criminal attorney firms today. An Austin criminal lawyer is the one responsible in providing a suitable defense of their clients. The Austin criminal defense attorney is also the one who represents them in court.


When working out some soreness is normal, but pain is not. Working out is often uncomfortable as you are working to increase your endurance and limits; however, it should not be outright painful. If you ever experience severe pain when working out, stop what you are doing immediately. If the pain does not subside, head to the doctor, as you may have suffered an injury.
Here is a fitness tip! If you experience post-workout fatigue, try to avoid taking painkillers like ibuprofen and acetaminophen. While these drugs do well for problems like inflammation, they are not very effective after a workout. In fact, some experts warn that using these drugs can actually hinder muscle development. If possible, try and stick to a hot shower and a good stretch to ease your soreness!
A great way to help you get fit is to invest in a decent home gym. Sometimes gym memberships can be too expensive or they can even be inconvenient. By having a home gym, you can workout whenever you want, from the comfort of your own home.
Wear the right shoes when you work out. If you fail to wear the proper shoes for the type of workout you favor, you are in danger of sustaining an injury. Also, your feet may be sore or cramped after exercising, which can lead to discouragement from continuing your workouts.
Taking advantage of seasonal sports can make fitness much more entertaining and rewarding. If you're in a region that receives a lot of snow on the winter, try your hand at skiing. During the summer, go for a long swim every day. Seasonal sports give you something to look forward to, making exercising more fun.
Get some sunshine and fresh air! It's easy to succumb to boredom and become completely inactive when we are always confined to the inside. Make an attempt to get outside for at least a few minutes every day. It will improve your mood and greatly increase your likelihood of exercising.


The Flush Valves are one of the main components of a Flush System. It is another efficient method for cleaning alleys and holding area of dairy farm.
Two flush valve models are available, one for manure alley cleaning and another for holding area cleaning. Both works similarly, the main difference is in the width and pattern of discharge. While the flush valve for manure alley provides a high volume discharge with narrow pattern, the other model for holding area offers a wider cleaning pattern up to 20 feet (6 m) wide thanks to its front lid flow pattern adjustment.
The air bag pressure inside the flush valves is operated by a control panel to ensure a smooth transition from one valve to another and to prevent water hammering from occurring inside the flush lines. Between flush cycles, the flush valves remain closed by he inflated air bag. When flush cycle is initiated, air pressure is rapidly released allowing for the first flush valve to open fast and to remain opened for the cleaning time period. As the flush valve is gradually inflated the following one opens and proceeds to its flush cycle.
Even and controlled liquid distribution.
Directed high volume flushes without splashes.
Robust and reliable 8" airbag to open and close the flush valve.
A complete range of flush line fittings are available to ensure maximum performance and durability.


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Albums That Never Were
hello i am soniclovenoize. because i have too much time on my hands, i waste it by reconstructing famous unreleased albums. here are some of them. enjoy.
The United States of America - Gifts and Creatures
The United States of America – Gifts and Creatures
(soniclovenoize "Second Album" reimagining)
1. Kalyani
2. You Can't Ever Come Down
3. Tailor Man
4. Nightmare Train
5. Osamu's Birthday
6. Do You Follow Me
7. No Love
8. The Sing-Along Song
9. Perry Pier
10. Invisible Man
11. The Sub-Sylvian Litanies
12. The Elephant At The Door
13. The Sing-Along Song (Reprise)
Happy Fourth of July! This is a reimaging of a possible second album from psychedelic-pop visionaries The United States of America. Using a combination of solo recordings from band-leaders Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz, as well as a few outtakes from the debut United States of America album, we will attempt to make what a theoretical sophomore 1969 album by the band would have sounded like. All tracks have been volume adjusted from the best sources and crossfaded into two continuous LP sides of music.
To put it simply, there was never a band like The United States of America, nor there ever will be again. Formed by young ethnomusicologist and Fluxus art movement centerpiece Joseph Byrd and his former-partner Dorothy Moskowitz in 1967, the pair were somehow equally influenced by John Cage and The Beatles. After composing a set of material with Byrd on keyboards and Moskowitz on vocals, the duo recruited the rest of the band from musicians whom they knew and performed with in the Los Angeles art, experimental and scholarly music scene: Gordon Marron was recruited to play an electrified violin through a ring modulator; African-drum student Craig Woodson was recruited to play a drumkit amplified by a number of contact mics; modern classical bassist Rand Forbes played fretless bass, often through a fuzz pedal. The quintet was also joined by Marron's friend Ed Bogas, who supplied additional keyboards. Young art students who essentially wanted to create a rock band—despite being totally unfamiliar with the medium—were also highly tapped into revolutionary 1960s politics and the counter-culture, and sought to subvert the establishment by ironically dubbing the band The United States of America.
After recording a demo in September 1967, success was found fairly quickly as The United States of America were signed to Columbia before they even performed their first show! After touring with Richie Havens and The Troggs, the group began recording their self-titled debut that December with Moby Grape producer David Rubinson. Cracks already began to form in the unit, as Rubinson allegedly attempted to elevate Moskowitz to being the star of the show; likewise, creative differences between Byrd and the union of Bogas, Marron and Rubinson put a strain on the recording sessions. Regardless, the sextet and it's producer created an album unparalleled in its fusion of rock music, experimental electronics, counter culture social commentary and genre hopping from pop to Dixieland to sound collage. Released in March 1968, the band followed its release with another tour with The Troggs and The Velvet Underground.
Despite being on the cusp of fame, the band quickly disintegrated. Unfortunate circumstances shadowed the tour, including audience hecklers, a random attack on Byrd by unhip locals and a literal backstage fistfight between Marron and Byrd. Columbia records had a difficulty in marketing the musical (and literal) revolutionaries and the band wondered if they were "selling out to the man". Internal band dynamics began to reach a breaking point as each tried to vie power of the band from its originator, Byrd. After an additional recording session in May 1968 for a follow-up single "You Can Never Come Down", the band called it quits that summer, with Byrd walking away from the creature he created (or fired from the band, as he claimed!). Not surprisingly, additional demo sessions with Moskowitz and a backing band of session musicians were recorded in late July still under the name of The United States of America, indicating Columbia's desire to continue the moniker with Dorothy as the centerpiece. These recording of two Moskowitz originals "Tailor Man" and "Perry Pier", as well as a third penned by Kenneth Edwards of Linda Ronstadt's band Stone Ponies, "Do You Follow Me", were decidedly more commercial-sounding, featured a standard rock instrumentation rather than the guitar-less and cutting edge sound of The United States of America. Regardless, nothing came of these recordings, which were shelved after the band's break-up.
Meanwhile, the outcast Byrd struggled to find direction. Salvation came when Columbia Records, recognizing him as a genius despite the failure to market and keep his band alive, offered him the chance to make a second album, this time a solo effort in which he (allegedly) had total creative control. Like Moskowitz just recently prior, Byrd gathered several session musicians—dubbed The Field Hippies—and recorded a song cycle of hastily-written material under the working title Gifts and Creatures, using a new version of the unused United States of America single "You Can Never Come Down" as a centerpiece. Although the sessions were difficult and Byrd had to utilize a series of female vocalists in obvious mimicry of his departed muse Moskowitz, the resulting album The American Metaphysical Circus was somewhat of a sequel to the sole Unites States of America album. Again mixing experimental rock and pop with Dixieland and gospel, the album began with a suite of songs designed to replicate an LSD trip, followed by a suite of sharp-tonged songs dedicated to President Lyndon B Johnson and concluding with another suite parodying the decaying older generation and their early retirement farms. Released in 1969, the album miraculously became a cult hit and remained in the Columbia Masterworks catalog for over 20 years, despite being too rock for the classical crowd and too arty for the pop crowd. Both The United States of America and The American Metaphysical Circus became cult classics of the psychedelic 60s, remaining hidden gems of the era, waiting patiently to be discovered by music aficionados over the next 50 years.
Even through the album title's implication and the obvious continuity of band-leader Byrd, The American Metaphysical Circus wasn't quite the sequel that these second-generation United States of America fans hoped for. While having some musical similarities, The Field Hippies seemed to go on tangents that circled Byrd's own fascination with traditional American music and his study in ethnomusicology. And of course, the obvious lack of Dorothy Moskowitz strong yet cool voice, replaced by ragtag facsimiles Christie Thompson, Susan de Lange and Victoria Bond who simply could not hit the mark. Is there somehow a way to reconstruct the album to make it more a proper encore to The United States of America?
For my reimagining, we will use the core of The American Metaphysical Circus, but patch in the original United States of America recording of "You Can Never Come Down", the three Moskowitz-lead United States of America recordings from 1968 and two outtakes from the self-titled 1967 sessions in order to make it a more appropriate follow-up that will almost solely feature lead vocals by either Dorothy or Joseph. Sources are simply the 1996 One Way Records remaster of The American Metaphysical Circus and the 2004 Sundazed remaster of The United States of America, the later featuring a number of the required bonus tracks for this reimagining. We will call the album Gifts and Creatures, the original, intended title of The American Metaphysical Circus, with cover art featuring imagery from The United States of America's live shows in 1968.
Side A begins with The Field Hippy's "Kalyani", but is hard edited into the USofA's "You Can Never Come Down", ideally establishing the intent of this reimagining. Crossfading back into the outro of The Field Hippy's version of the same song, we go directly into Moskowitz's "Tailor Man", followed by The Field Hippy's "Nightmare Train". Next is The United States of America "Osamu's Birthday", an outtake from their debut album, with Moskowitz's "Do You Follow Me" closing the side.
Side B begins with another outtake from the first USofA debut, "No Love", going directly into The Field Hippie's "The Sing-Along Song". Moskowitz's "Perry Pier" follows and then edited into The Field Hippy's "Invisible Man". Now, we could not have a United State of America album without a sound collage, right? If I may be so bold, what follows is my own creation from previously heard sound elements, ideally creating a reappropriation of several themes on the album into a new context, in which we will call "The Sub-Sylvian Litanies". We will use the most USofA-sounding selection from The Field Hippies as the epic track to conclude the album; hopefully there is a suspension of disbelief as we feature a lead vocal by Susan de Lange instead of our beloved Dorothy.
What is the result of Gifts and Creatures? While defiantly an interesting experiment of what could have been, two things become quite obvious. Firstly, both Dorothy and Joseph seemed to depart from the experimental rock of their debut album, with Moskowitz leaning towards the female soft-rock singer-songwriter territory and Byrd towards ethnomusicological pursuits. Strangely enough, those two sounds seems to match fairly well and make a cohesive album, despite it not really sounding like a true USofA album. Which leads us to the second point: the truth is, the trinity of Marron's modulated violin, Forbes' fuzzy bass and Woodson's electrified drums seemed to be the USofA's secret weapon, and what stylistically set the band apart from their contemporaries. Aside from the two songs that feature them, they are sorely missed from this reimagining of a sophomore album.
Regardless, I hope you enjoy the album (that admittedly simply originated as a little experiment of my own), and make your Fourth of July an American metaphysical circus!
320kps mp3s
Lossless FLAC
Sources used:
Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies - The American Metaphysical Circus (1996 One Way Records CD Remaster)
The Unites States of America - The United States of America (2004 Sundazed CD Remaster)
flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR, Audacity & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included
Posted by soniclovenoize at 10:28 AM 14 comments:
Labels: 1968, 1969, experiment, pop, psychedelic, rock, Unites States of America
Paul McCartney & Wings - Red Rose Speedway 2LP (upgrade)
Paul McCartney & Wings – Red Rose Speedway
(double-album reconstruction by soniclovenoize)
June 2019 UPGRADE
1. Big Barn Bed
2. My Love
3. When The Night
4. Seaside Woman
5. Get On The Right Thing
6. Best Friend (live)
7. Tragedy
8. I Would Only Smile
9. One More Kiss
10. Single Pigeon
11. Little Lamb Dragonfly
Side C:
1. I Lie Around
2. Hi Hi Hi
3. Loup (1st Indian on The Moon)
4. 1882 (live)
5. The Mess (live)
Side D:
6. Night Out
7. Mama's Little Girl
8. Country Dreamer
9. Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands of Love/Power Cut
This is an upgrade to my reconstruction of a double-album version of Paul McCartney & Wings' 1973 album, Red Rose Speedway. Originally conceived as a musically versatile 2LP with contributions from other members of Wings outside of McCartney, the album was trimmed down to a more commercial single-disc configuration, which was eventually released to mixed acclaim. Although an official release of McCartney's final 2LP configuration appeared in 2018, the tracklist was incongruent and had a rather lackluster flow; this reconstruction uses those original 1973 mixes, but configured with my own tracklist from 2013 that presents the material in a more pleasing track order.
Upgrades to this June 2019 edition are:
All sources taken from the Red Rose Speedway 2018 box set, using all original 1973 mixes.
"Big Barn Bed" and "My Love" are properly crossfaded, as originally intended.
Addition of "Hi Hi Hi" to Side C tracklist.
Original, unique edit of the a capella outro to "Get On The Right Thing" onto the album versio
Original, unique shorter edit of "Loup" which is segued into and thus serves as an into to "1882".
After a pair of solo albums--the second of which spawned some heavy hits--Paul McCartney was determined to form a new musical group he could front with his wife Linda and rediscover the excitement of his early Beatles days. By 1971, he had recruited former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and session drummer Denny Seiwell, the later who had already performed on McCartney's RAM from the previous year. Wings was born, and their debut album Wild Life was hastily written and recorded that summer. A disappointing and lightweight release, McCartney admitted it was the sound of a band in its infancy, as the band had not had the time to evolve and, frankly, improve beyond musical acquaintances just jamming. The only way to do that was to play live…
Early 1972 saw the addition Joe Cocker guitarist Henry McCullough to the lineup and the band embarked on a university tour of the UK in February. Boldly, the quintet entered Olympic Studios with the legendary Glyn Johns in March to record the new batch of road-tested songs, which also included material penned by other members of Wings besides McCArtney: "Big Barn Bed", "When The Night", "The Mess", "Single Pigeon", the Thomas Wayne & The DeLons cover "Tragedy", "Mama's Little Girl", the spacey instrumental "Loup (1st Indian On The Moon)", Linda's "Seaside Woman", Denny Laine's "I Would Only Smile", "Thank You Darling" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Although an album's worth of material was recorded, the quality was only marginally better than the previous year's Wild Life, and much of the studio time was wasted with Wings still trying to find their musical grounding. Fed up with what he perceived as just messing about rather than serious work, Glyn Johns quit the project at the end of the month. Only the session's final recording, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", was released as a single in May, to a perplexed audience. Is this a rock band or a children's song? It was barely anything in between.
Following the aborted Olympic Sessions, Wings embarked on another European through July and August, appropriately dubbed Wings Over Europe. While continuing to perform the new material tracked during the Olympic Sessions, Wings added even newer compositions to their repertoire, such as "1882", "Best Friend", "Soily", Laine's "Say You Don't Mind" and McCullough's "Henry's Blues". After the conclusion of the tour, the group recorded the reggae-influenced track "C Moon" in September for a future single release.
Doubling down to not only make a proper album but to produce it themselves, Wings recruited engineers Alan Parsons and John Leckie to record a second batch of new Wings material, this time in the luxurious Abbey Road Studios. The Wings Over America tour had whipped the band into shape, as the late-September/early-October Abbey Road sessions produced material more refined and colorful than either Wild Life or the Olympic Sessions: the rave-up "Night Out", country ballads "One More Kiss" and "Country Dreamer", four songs that were later conjoined into a medley "Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands of Love/Power Cut" and the rocker "Hi Hi Hi", which was selected to pair with "C Moon" as a stand-alone single release in December. Additionally, Wings went into McCartney's vault to finish off three half-finished tracks from the Fall 1970 RAM Sessions: "Get On The Right Thing", "Little Lamb Dragonfly" and "I Lie Around". Suddenly, the group had the basis of an album with promise.
The end of October saw the band track another new song, this time with Paul's old producer George Martin: "Live and Let Die", intended for the subsequent James Bond film. Much to Alan Parson's disappointment, that song was never destined for this ongoing album project, now titled Red Rose Speedway. But looking over the quantity of material recorded with Glyn Johns in March, Parsons in September and the refurbished RAM outtakes, it became obvious that this second Wings album could be a double-LP! Returning to the studio in November for follow-up sessions, a subpar "1882" was tracked along with a lackluster instrumental called "Jazz Street". It was decided that mutitracked tapes of "1882" and "The Mess" from the August tour were better than their studio counterparts and received overdubs; likewise, a live "Best Friend" was also used, with added overdubs. January 1973 saw the band track the final addition to the album, the ballad "My Live", recorded live in the studio with an orchestra. All of the pieces were now in place.
Assembling the vast amount of material into a cohesive double album was not an easy task. Several test masters have been discovered throughout the years, showing McCartney's difficulty in arranging the material cohesively. An acetate assembled December 13th, 1972 had the following configuration:
Side A – Big Barn Bed / When The Night / Single Pigeon / Tragedy / Mama's Little Girl / Loup / I Would Only Smile
Side B – Country Dreamer / Night Out / One More Kiss / Jazz Street
Side C – I Lie Around / Little Lamb Dragonfly / Get On The Right Thing / 1882 / The Mess
Side D – My Love / Best Friend / Seaside Woman / Medley
That tracklist was shifted around a bit, and the final double-album configuration, dated January 30th, 1973, looked like:
Side A – Night Out / Get On The Right Thing / Country Dreamer / Big Barn Bed / My Love
Side B – Single Pigeon / When The Night / Seaside Woman / I Lie Around / The Mess
Side C – Best Friend / Loup / Medley
Side D – Mama's Little Girl / I Would Only Smile / One More Kiss / Tragedy / Little Lamb Dragonfly
After a week of test listening, it was decided that a more concise (and thus more marketable) album was needed, and the material was paired down considerably. A single-disc master was prepared on February 22nd, 1973, which included:
Side A – Big Barn Bed / My Love / Get On The Right Thing / Country Dreamer / Medley
Side B – Single Pigeon / One More Kiss / Night Out / Seaside Woman / Mama's Little Girl / Tragedy / Little Lamb Dragonfly
After more tinkering, the final single-disc master was prepared March 26th, 1973:
Side A – Big Barn Bed / My Love / Get On The Right Thing / One More Kiss / Little Lamb Dragonfly
Side B – Single Pigeon / When The Night / Loup / Medley
Red Rose Speedway was released in April and although the critics were skeptical of the album's lightweight whimsy, "My Love" became a number one single anyways. Likewise, many fans claimed the album had potential but was missing something, although they couldn't quite put their finger on it. In hindsight, the nine tracks released only told half the story of Red Rose Speedway; the album is best heard in the session's entirety, as its value is best understood as the sum of its parts. While neither the released Red Rose Speedway nor the album's worth of outtakes are exceptional, when combined, it becomes an exceptional body of work. While not a blockbuster, it shows a band with the audacity to defy critics with a double album no one really asked for; that, a massive underdog, is it's strength. But how can we assemble this mess of three different sessions—four, counting the live tracks—into a sensible double LP?
Analysis of the running order of both the December 13th and January 30th 2LP acetates show a clumsy construction, although they both contain a number of isolated ideas that we can adopt into our more cohesive Red Rose Speedway. Firstly, we assign the notable rockers to begin each side of the double LP: "Big Barn Bed", "Best Friend", "I Lie Around" and "Night Out". Secondly, we assign the two mid-tempo rockers to end Sides A and C ("Get On The Right Thing" and "The Mess") and the two epics to close Sides B and D ("Little Lamb Dragonfly" and The Medley). Next, we disperse the songs led by the other members of Wings onto different sides of the album: Linda's "Seaside Woman", Laine's "I Would Only Smile" and his vocal on "I Lie Around". Likewise, the two (mostly) instrumental tracks "Night Out" and "Loup" should be placed on separate sides as well. Then we simply fill in the blanks, using some song pairs from both acetates that flow pleasantly, assembling four 20-minute LP sides.
My Side A begins with what seems to be the keystone track of Red Rose Speedway, the country-funk rocker "Big Barn Bed". It is crossfaded (correctly, as opposed to the current remasters) into the hit single of the album "My Love". "When The Night" follows, flowing into "Seaside Woman". Closing the side is "Get On The Right Thing", which features my own edit of the a capella ending from the rough mix, crossfaded from the standard album version, creating an interesting end to Side A. Side B begins with "Best Friend", followed by a grouping of the folkier tracks: "Tragedy", "I Would Only Smile" hard edited into "One Last Kiss", "Single Pigeon" and probably the best song of the set, "Little Lamb Dragonfly".
Side C begins with the joyous "I Lie Around", the only way to logically open the second disc, in my opinion. One complaint Red Rose Speedway had earned is the lack of McCartney's rock fare and its emphasis of lightweight pop and ballad. To offset this, I've included "Hi Hi Hi" to give the second disc some punch; although not originally intended for Red Rose Speedway, it really does give it the mid-album jolt it needs. To counter-balance this, I've edited nearly half of "Loup" down to merely a segue track into the fantastic live "1882". That song is crossfaded into "The Mess" to make a continuous live performance to close out the side, patching McCartney's "The Mess" dialog from the 1996 remaster of Red Rose Speedway, which was mysteriously absent from the 2018 remaster. Side D opens with "Night Out", a fun, albeit pointless track. Followed by the serene "Mama's Little Girl" and jaunty "Country Dreamer", the album closes with the only logical possibility: The Medley.
Paul McCartney & Wings – Red Rose Speedway (1996 Steve Hoffman remaster)
Paul McCartney & Wings – Red Rose Speedway (2018 Delux Edition)
Labels: 1973, beatles, folk, paul mccartney, pop, rock
The United States of America - Gifts and Creatures...
soniclovenoize


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View 89 Murray Street New York Ny 10007
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Nov 20, 2022 · 『田舎暮らしの本 web』では日本で唯一の田舎暮らし月刊誌として、新鮮な情報と長年培ったノウハウ、さらに田舎暮らしの楽しさを、皆様にお伝えしてまいります。
Due to its proposed location, two blocks from the world trade center site of the september 11 attacks, the … 83 murray street new york, ny 10007 hashgacha: Please reach out to the listing team with any inquiries. 89 e 42nd st, new york, new york 10017 hashgacha: On 5/28/1973, a category f3 (max. The 3, 5, and c trains stop here at … 33 west end avenue, new york, ny: Bronx 3880 orloff avenue qfc owners, llc (moda) queens: North american kosher/beis ben zion; On 8/8/2007, a category f2 (max. Tribeca (/ t r aɪ ˈ b ɛ k ə /), originally written as tribeca, is a neighborhood in lower manhattan in new york city.its name is a syllabic abbreviation of triangle below canal street. The triangle (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by canal street, west street, broadway, and chambers street.by the 2010s, a common marketing tactic was to extend tribeca's southern … Oct 14, 2022 · "should any consumers decide to switch from a gaming platform that does not give them a choice as to how to pay for new games (playstation) to one that does (xbox)," microsoft wrote.
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Source: www1.nyc.gov
Nov 20, 2022 · 『田舎暮らしの本 web』では日本で唯一の田舎暮らし月刊誌として、新鮮な情報と長年培ったノウハウ、さらに田舎暮らしの楽しさを、皆様にお伝えしてまいります。 176 west 94th street new york, ny 10025 hashgacha: On 5/28/1973, a category f3 (max.
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Source: www.emporis.com
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Source: rentpath-res.cloudinary.com
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Abu Dhabi, agora parte dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, foi anteriormente o maior dos sete xarifados que constituía os Estados da Trégua na Costa dos Piratas, situado no leste da Arábia, entre Omã e Catar. Os Estados da Trégua como um todo tinham uma área de aproximadamente 83.000 km2, sendo que apenas Abu Dhabi tinha 67.000 km2. A capital era a cidade de Abu Dhabi, que se situava em uma ilha no litoral, sendo estabelecida em 1761.

História

O nome Estados da Trégua surgiu a partir de tratado estabelecido com a Grã-Bretanha em 1820, que assegurou uma condição de paz na região e a supressão da pirataria e escravidão. O tratado expirou em 31 de dezembro de 1966. A decisão de formar os EAU foi tomada em 18 de julho de 1971 e a federação foi fundada em 1º de agosto de 1972, embora os selos postais inaugurais dos EAU não tenham sido emitidos até 1º de janeiro de 1973.

Serviços postais

Em dezembro de 1960, selos postais das agências britânicas dos correios situadas no leste da Arábia foram fornecidos a operários na Ilha Das, porém o correio era administrado por meio da agência localizada no Barém. As cartas eram, ainda, seladas no Barém a fim de que não houvesse qualquer indicação clara de que as mesmas eram provenientes da Ilha Das.

Em 30 de março de 1963, uma agência britânica foi aberta em Abu Dhabi e emitiu os selos postais após a recusa do xeique em usar as emissões base dos Estados da Trégua. O correio da Ilha Das continuou a ser administrado pelo Barém, contudo sendo, naquele momento, cancelado por um selo dos Estados de Trégua de Abu Dhabi.

Os primeiros selos de Abu Dhabi foram uma emissão base de 30 de março de 1964 que retratava o xeique Shakhbout bin Zayed al Nahayan. Havia onze valores sob a moeda indiana, fazendo com que 100 paisas equivalessem a 1 rupia. A faixa de valores era de 5 a 10 rupias.

Mesmo com a introdução dessas emissões base, os selos da agência britânica permaneceram válidos tanto em Abu Dhabi como na Ilha Das até o final do ano de 1966, quando foram retirados de circulação.

Uma agência postal foi aberta na Ilha Das em 6 de janeiro de 1966 e este fato pôs fim ao serviço realizado pelo Barém. O correio da Ilha Das era, então, administrado por Abu Dhabi.

Quando o tratado com a Grã-Bretanha terminou no final de 1966, Abu Dhabi introduziu uma nova moeda em que 1000 fils equivaliam a 1 dinar, e encarregou-se de sua própria administração postal, incluindo-se a agência da Ilha Das. As primeiras emissões estavam sujeitas a sobretaxas nesta moeda e a substituição das emissões base foi lançada retratando o novo regente, o xeique Zayed bin Sultan al Nahayan. As emissões continuaram até a introdução dos selos dos EAU em 1973.

No total, Abu Dhabi emitiu 95 selos de 1964 a 1972, sendo o conjunto final composto por três diferentes perspectivas da Cúpula da Rocha em Jerusalém.

Ver também
Selos postais e história postal de Sharjah
Selos postais e história postal dos Emirados Árabes Unidos
Selos fiscais dos Emirados Árabes Unidos

Bibliografia
 Stanley Gibbons Ltd: vários catálogos
 Encyclopaedia of Postal History
 Rossiter, Stuart & John Flower. The Stamp Atlas. London: Macdonald, 1986. ISBN 0-356-10862-7

Leitura adicional
 Alastair Gunn 'United Arab Emirates Postal History Volume 1 Abu Dhabi'
 Neil Donaldson 'The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf'

Ligações externas

Sistema postal dos Emirados Árabes Unidos

Filatelia dos Emirados Árabes Unidos

História dos Emirados Árabes Unidos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Last modified 157 days ago (Aug. 14, 2019)
Return to Marion County Record
Another family practice physician has signed to join the staff of St. Luke Hospital. Dr. Kim Hall will begin her practice at St. Luke Medical Clinic in April 1996. She currently is completing a residency program at Smoky Hills Family Practice in Salina.
Idaho State University junior John Wheeler is featured in the ISU football media guide this season. Wheeler is a 6'4", 255-pound defensive guard and lettered his first two years.
Charles Cowan, retired bricklayer, who helped do brick work for two well-known spots in town, Eastmoor United Methodist Church and Marion Elementary School, is the subject of Amy Pagenkopf's weekly series, "They made a difference."
Traci Darrow and Gabe Higgins have returned from a three-week visit in Berlin, Germany, where they were guests of Kai Langnickel, who was a part of a German exchange program that visited in Marion in recent years.
Brian Bina is the lucky winner of a football autographed by Detroit Lions Star running back, Barry Sanders. Brian's mother, Harriet Bina, purchased the winning chance during a Shrine fund-raising effort.
Last modified Aug. 14, 2019


All of our prints are limited edition digital prints. Proceeds go to making more ICDP projects possible.
We currently ship to the UK, Europe and USA. If you live elsewhere but would like to purchase a print, please get in touch for rates.


Hi everyone, been to Ramen Champion Singapore held in Iluma yet? If not, check out the links below for my take on all 6 stalls there.
Following their success in Iluma, they are going to open a branch in Changi Airport T3 with 2 of my favorite Gantetsu and Ikkousha along with 2 new ones - Hakkakuya and Gyoku!


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text:
Invert Your Database Caching Dependency for Extreme Scalability
Today most applications rely on a relational database (RDBMS) as its primary Service of Record (SoR) -- the master copy of the data. But in order to minimize latencies in response time (from the database transaction roundtrips), most applications uses some sort of database cache in order to try to keep the data close to its processing context. Database caches are most often seen deployed as the second-level cache in O/R mapping tools such as Hibernate or TopLink, but custom-built or general-purpose caches, like Ehcache and OScache, are also common. This architecture and design is proven, sound and has turned into the de facto standard way of building enterprise applications. But does it really solve the problem? First, the cache can only help us with read-mostly data and second, we still have to struggle with the object/relational impedance mismatch. The first step is to distinguish between temporary/intermediate/transient data and business-critical data. Where the former is the data that is needed/used in the process of doing a computation or keeping a conversation with the client etc., while the latter is the result of competition or the outcome of the client conversation (f.e. a completed order form). The latter naturally belongs in a RDBMS (for reporting, billing etc.) while the former is best kept persisted in memory (needed to for H/A) in some sort of cache (preferably backed up by Terracotta) -- keeping the data close to its processing context. Unfortunately, many developers fail to do this distinction and end up shoveling everything down in the RDBMS, with a high latencies, bad throughput and more complicated and hard to maintain software as the result. So far no news. But let me now propose an, in some ways, new and radical solution: Invert the RDBMS-Cache dependency.
Let the in-memory cache become the master SoR -- which is persisted in memory using an appliances-like infrastructure service -- like Terracotta's Network-Attached Memory (NAM).
Keep a transaction log, which logs every modification to the in-memory data.
Let a low priority thread asynchronously process the transaction log every X minutes/seconds and serially execute the database transactions.
Treat the RDBMS as an "offline" data snapshot on which you can run the usual reporting and data mining tools – needed for billing, weekly reports etc.
Since your SoR is now effectively persisted "on the network", instead of in the RDBMS, you can without any further effort add as many nodes to process the data as you want, e.g. scale-out your application and to ensure high-availability.
I am not arguing that this is a general-purpose solution, and there are certainly cases where it will be very hard or impossible to implement due to either political or practical constraints (like need for real-time access to data in the RDBMS etc.). But it fits many more use-cases than you might think. Mainly requires a bit of courage and out-of-the-box thinking. For those that have doubt; this is not vaporware but actually how some of Terracotta's customers have used Terracotta's NAM to solve their performance and scalability problems, and have been able to reach extreme scalability while keeping the simplicity of their POJO model intact.
Invert Your Database Caching Dependency for Extreme Scalability was published on June 27, 2007 .


Founded in 1989, the Triangle Rails to Trails Conservancy (TRTC) is a state chartered non-profit, organization. Its purpose is to work with local and state government officials to preserve local abandoned railroad corridors for future transportation and other interim uses such as recreational trails. The early members of TRTC worked closely with NC Rail-Trails to advocate and find funding for the 1992 ATT Master Plan which became the blueprint for the 22 mile trail we enjoy today. Support for the ATT has been and continues to be TRTC's most ambitious project.
TRTC has developed user maps for the ATT and is continuing to organize volunteers to do trail sweeps and trash clean-ups and help us in advocating for changes aimed at improving user safety at trail crossings. Since 2013 TRTC is participating as a stakeholder in long-term efforts by Durham to prepare a Master Plan for acquiring and developing a 2.2 mile rail corridor as an urban rail-trail in downtown Durham. In the future we'll be reporting on this project known as the Duke Beltline here on our web site.
We accept individual and corporate donations, and maintain a database of supporters and volunteers. Please join us in preserving these resources before they are lost forever. Help us put abandoned rail corridors back into use as recreational trails now and for use by generations to come.
American Tobacco Trail Endowment: At it's September 2000, meeting, the TRTC Board voted to devote at least 20% of our dues and member donations to the newly established American Tobacco Trail Endowment Fund. The fund's goal is $10,000. (As of 10/31/2018 the Endowment stood at $9,799) This fund's proceeds will be used to pay for upkeep at the Fayetteville Road Trailhead, the parking area and fountain at Pittard Sears Road and potentially other efforts, forever.
Donations to TRTC will be an excellent way to show your support for the American Tobacco Trail and to trails and greenways in the Triangle.
TRTC's Board of Directors has coordination meetings on the first Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Woodcroft Professional Center on Woodcroft Parkway in Durham.
For questions or suggestions concerning our web site please contact Curt Devereux (544-3948) our webmaster.