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Publications by Year: 1999
S. Marsella, J. Adibi, Y. Alonaizan, Gal Kaminka, I. Muslea, and Milind Tambe. 1999. "On being a teammate: Experiences acquired in the design of Robocup teams ." In International conference on Autonomous agents, Agents '99.Abstract
tract Increasingly multiagent systems are being designed for a variety of complex dynamic domains Eective agent inter actions in such domains raise some of the most fundamental research challenges for agentbased systems in teamwork multiagent learning and agent modelling The RoboCup research initiative particularly the simulation league has been proposed to pursue such multiagent research chal lenges using the common testbed of simulation soccer De spite the signicant popularity of RoboCup within the re search community general lessons have not often been ex tracted from participation in RoboCup This is what we attempt to do here We have elded two teams ISIS and ISIS in RoboCup competitions These teams have been in the top four teams in these competitions We compare the teams and attempt to analyze and generalize the lessons learned This analysis reveals several surprises pointing out lessons for teamwork and for multi-agent learning.
1999_3_teamcore_robocup_agents99.pdf
M. Georgeff, B. Pell, M. Pollack, Milind Tambe, and M. Wooldrige. 1999. "The Belief-Desire-Intention model of agency ." In Agents, Theories, Architectures and Languages (ATAL).Abstract
Within the ATAL community, the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model has come to be possibly the best known and best studied model of practical reasoning agents. There are several reasons for its success, but perhaps the most compelling are that the BDI model combines a respectable philosophical model of human practical reasoning, (originally developed by Michael Bratman [1]), a number of implementations (in the IRMA architecture [2] and the various PRS-like systems currently available [7]), several successful applications (including the now-famous fault diagnosis system for the space shuttle, as well as factory process control systems and business process management [8]), and finally, an elegant abstract logical semantics, which have been taken up and elaborated upon widely within the agent research community [14, 16]. However, it could be argued that the BDI model is now becoming somewhat dated: the principles of the architecture were established in the mid-1980s, and have remained essentially unchanged since then. With the explosion of interest in intelligent agents and multi-agent systems that has occurred since then, a great many other architectures have been developed, which, it could be argued, address some issues that the BDI model fundamentally fails to. Furthermore, the focus of agent research (and AI in general) has shifted significantly since the BDI model was originally developed. New advances in understanding (such as Russell and Subramanian's model of "boundedoptimal agents" [15]) have led to radical changes in how the agents community (and more generally, the artificial intelligence community) views its enterprise. The purpose of this panel is therefore to establish how the BDI model stands in relation to other contemporary models of agency, and in particular where it can or should go next.
1999_7_teamcore_bdi_panel.pdf
Milind Tambe and H. Jungh. 1999. "The benefits of arguing in a team ." AI Magazine, Winter 1999 20 (4).Abstract
In a complex, dynamic multi-agentsetting, coherent team actions are often jeopardized by conflicts in agents' beliefs, plans and actions. Despite the considerable progress in teamwork research, the challenge ofintra-team conflict resolutionhas remained largely unaddressed. This paper presents CONSA, a system we are developing to resolve conflicts using argumentation-based negotiations. CONSA is focused on exploiting the benefits of argumentation in a team setting. Thus, CONSA casts conflict resolution as a team problem, so that the recent advances in teamwork can be brought to bear during conflict resolution to improve argumentation flexibility. Furthermore, since teamwork conflicts sometimes involve past teamwork, teamwork models can be exploited to provide agents with reusable argumentation knowledge. Additionally, CONSA also includes argumentation strategies geared towards benefiting the team rather than the individual, and techniques to reduce argumentation overhead.
1999_8_teamcore_tambe00benefits.pdf
Gal Kaminka and Milind Tambe. 1999. "I'm OK, You're OK, We're OK: Experiments in Centralized and Distributed Socially Attentive Monitoring ." In International conference on Automonomous Agents, Agents 99.Abstract
Execution monitoring is a critical challenge for agents in dynamic, complex, multi-agent domains. Existing approaches utilize goalattentive models which monitor achievement of task goals. However, they lack knowledge of the intended relationships which should hold among the agents, and so fail to address key opportunities and difficulties in multi-agent settings. We explore SAM, a novel complementary framework for social monitoring that utilizes knowledge of social relationships among agents in monitoring them. We compare the performance of SAM when monitoring is done by a single agent in a centralized fashion, versus team monitoring in a distributed fashion. We experiment with several SAM instantiations, algorithms that are sound and incomplete, unsound and complete, and both sound and complete. While a more complex algorithm appears useful in the centralized case (but is unsound), the surprising result is that a much simpler algorithm in the distributed case is both sound and complete. We present a set of techniques for practical, efficient implementations with rigorously proven performance guarantees, and systematic empirical validation.
1999_2_teamcore_agents99_monitor.pdf
D. V. Pynadath, Milind Tambe, and N. Chauvat. 1999. "Rapid integration and coordination of heterogeneous distributed agents for collaborative enterprises ." In DARPA JFACC symposium on advances in Enterprise Control.Abstract
As the agent methodology proves more and more useful in organizationalenterprises, research/industrial groups are developing autonomous, heterogeneous agents that are distributed over a variety of platforms and environments. Rapid integration of such distributed, heterogeneous agent components could address large-scale problems of interest in these enterprises. Unfortunately, rapid and robust integration remains a difficult challenge. To address this challenge, we are developing a novel teamwork-based agent integration framework. In this framework, software developers specify an agent organization through a team-oriented program. To locate and recruit agent components for this organization, an agent resources manager (an analogue of a "human resources manager") searches for agents of interest to this organization and monitors their performance over time. TEAMCORE wrappers render the agent components in this organization team ready, thus ensuring robust, flexible teamwork among the members of the newly formed organization. This implemented framework promises to reduce the development effort in enterprise integration while providing robustness due to its teamwork-based foundations. We have applied this framework to a concrete, running example, using heterogeneous, distributed agents in a problem setting comparable to many collaborative enterprises.
1999_4_teamcore_jfacc_symp.pdf
Milind Tambe, W. Shen, M. Mataric, D. Goldberg, Pragnesh J. Modi, Z. Qiu, and B. Salemi. 1999. "Teamwork in cyberspace: Using TEAMCORE to make agents team-ready ." In AAAI Spring Symposium on Agents in Cyberspace.Abstract
In complex, dynamic and uncertain environments extending from disaster rescue missions, to future battlefields, to monitoring and surveillance tasks, to virtual training environments, to future robotic space missions, intelligent agents will play a key role in information gathering and filtering, as well as in task planning and execution. Although physically distributed on a variety of platforms, these agents will interact with information sources, network facilities, and other agents via cyberspace, in the form of the Internet, Intranet, the secure defense communication network, or other forms of cyberspace. Indeed, it now appears well accepted that cyberspace will be (if it is not already) populated by a vast number of such distributed, individual agents. Thus, a new distributed model of agent development has begun to emerge. In particular, when faced with a new task, this model prescribes working with a distributed set of agents rather than building a centralized, large-scale, monolithic individual agent. A centralized approach suffers from problems in robustness (due to a single point of failure), exhibits a lack of modularity (as a single monolithic system), suffers from difficulty in scalability (by not utilizing existing agents as components), and is often a mismatch with the distributed ground reality. The distributed approach addresses these weaknesses of the centralized approach. Our hypothesis is that the key to the success of such a distributed approach is teamwork in cyberspace. That is, multiple distributed agents must collaborate in teams in cyberspace so as to scale up to the complexities of the complex and dynamic environments mentioned earlier. For instance, consider an application such as monitoring traffic violators in a city. Ideally, we wish to be able to construct a suitable agent-team quickly, from existing agents that can control UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles), an existing 3D route-planning agent, and an agent capable of recognizing traffic violations based on a video input. Furthermore, by suitable substitution, we wish to be able to quickly reconfigure the team to monitor enemy activity on a battlefield or illegal poaching in forests. Such rapid agent-team assembly obviates the need to construct a monolithic agent for each new application from scratch, preserves modularity, and appears better suited for scalability. Of course, such agent teamwork in cyberspace raises a variety of important challenges. In particular, agents must engage in robust and flexible teamwork to overcome the uncertainties in their environment. They must also adapt by learning from past failures. Unfortunately, currently, constructing robust, flexible and adaptive agent teams is extremely difficult. Current approaches to teamwork suffer from a lack of general-purpose teamwork models, which would enable agents to autonomously reason about teamwork or communication and coordination in teamwork and to improve the team performance by learning at the team level. The absence of such teamwork models gives rise to four types of problems. First, team construction becomes highly labor-intensive. In particular, since agents cannot autonomously reason about coordination, human developers have to provide them with large numbers of domain-specific coordination and communication plans. These domain-specific plans are not reusable, and must be developed anew for each new domain. Second, teams suffer from inflexibility. In real-world domains, teams face a variety of uncertainties, such as a team member's unanticipated failure in fulfilling responsibilities, team members' divergent beliefs about their environment [CL91], and unexpectedly noisy or faulty communication. Without a teamwork model, it is difficult to anticipate and preplan for the vast number of coordination failures possible due to such uncertainties, leading to inflexibility. A third problem arises in team scale-up. Since creating even small-scale teams is difficult, scaling up to larger ones is even harder. Finally, since agents cannot reason about teamwork, learning about teamwork has also proved to be problematic. Thus, even after repeating a failure, teams are often unable to avoid it in the future. To remedy this situation and to enable rapid development of agent teams, we are developing a novel software system called TEAMCORE that integrates a general-purpose teamwork model and team learning capabilities. TEAMCORE provides these core teamwork capabilities to individual agents, i.e., it wraps them with TEAMCORE. Here, we call the individual TEAMCORE "wrapper" a teamcore agent. A teamcore agent is a pure "social agent", in that it is provided with only core teamwork capabilities. Given an existing agent with domain-level action capabilities (i.e., the domain-level agent), it is made teamready by interfacing with a teamcore agent. Agents made team-ready will be able to rapidly assemble themselves into a team in any given domain. That is, unlike past approaches such as the open-agent-architecture (OAA) that provides a centralized blackboard facilitator to integrate a distributed set of agents, TEAMCORE is fundamentally a distributed team-oriented system. Our goal is a TEAMCORE system capable of generating teams that are: 1. Flexible and robust, able to surmount the uncertainties mentioned above. 2. Capable of scale-up to hundreds of team members 3. Able to improve the team performance by learning at the team level and avoiding past team failures. An initial version of TEAMCORE system based on the Soar [Newell90] integrated agent architecture is currently up and running. A distributed set of teamcore agents can form teams in cyberspace. The underlying communication infrastructure is currently based on KQML. The rest of this document now briefly describes the TEAMCORE design, architecture and implementation.
1999_9_teamcore_aaai_spring99.pdf
D. V. Pynadath, Milind Tambe, N. Chauvat, and L. Cavedon. 1999. "Toward team-oriented programming ." In Agents, theories, architectures and languages (ATAL'99) workshop, to be published in Springer Verlag 'Intelligent Agents VI'.Abstract
t. The promise of agent-based systems is leading towards the development of autonomous, heterogeneous agents, designed by a variety of research/industrial groups and distributed over a variety of platforms and environments. Teamwork among these heterogeneous agents is critical in realizing the full potential of these systems and scaling up to the demands of large-scale applications. Unfortunately, development of robust, flexible agent teams is currently extremely difficult. This paper focuses on significantly accelerating the process of building such teams using a simplified, abstract framework called team-oriented programming (TOP). In TOP, a programmer specifies an agent organization hierarchy and the team tasks for the organization to perform, abstracting away from the innumerable coordination plans potentially necessary to ensure robust and flexible team operation. Our TEAMCORE system supports TOP through a distributed, domain-independent layer that integrates core teamwork coordination and communication capabilities. We have recently used TOP to integrate a diverse team of heterogeneous distributed agents in performing a complex task. We outline the current state of our TOP implementation and the outstanding issues in developing such a framework.
1999_5_teamcore_atal99.pdf
T. Raines, Milind Tambe, and S. Marsella. 1999. "Towards automated team analysis: a machine learning approach ." In Third international RoboCup competitions and workshop.Abstract
Teamwork is becoming increasingly important in a large number of multiagent applications. With the growing importance of teamwork, there is now an increasing need for tools for analysis and evaluation of such teams. We are developing automated techniques for analyzing agent teams. In this paper we present ISAAC, an automated assistant that uses these techniques to perform post-hoc analysis of RoboCup teams. ISAAC requires little domain knowledge, instead using data mining and inductive learning tools to produce the analysis. ISAAC has been applied to all of the teams from RoboCup'97, RoboCup'98, and Pricai'98 in a fully automated fashion. Furthermore, ISAAC is available online for use by developers of RoboCup teams.
1999_6_teamcore_isaac99.pdf
Z. Qiu, M. Tambe, and H. Jung. 1999. "Towards flexible negotiation in teamwork ." In Third International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents).Abstract
In a complex, dynamic multi-agent setting, coherent team actions are often jeopardized by agents' conflicting beliefs about different aspects of their environment, about resource availability, and about their own or teammates' capabilities and performance. Team members thus need to communicate and negotiate to restore team coherence. This paper focuses on the problem of negotiations in teamwork to resolve such conflicts. The basis of such negotiations is inter-agent argumentation based on Toulmin's argumentation pattern. There are several novel aspects in our approach. First, our approach to argumentation exploits recently developed general, explicit teamwork models, which make it possible to provide a generalized and reusable argumentation facility based on teamwork constraints. Second, an emphasis on collaboration in argumentation leads to novel argumentation strategies geared towards benefiting the team rather than the individual. Third, our goal, to realize argumentation in practice in an agent team, has led to decision theoretic and pruning techniques to reduce argumentation overhead. Our approach is implemented in a system called CONSA.
1999_11_teamcore_agents99_poster.pdf
Milind Tambe, Gal Kaminka, S. Marsella, I. Muslea, and T. Raines. 1999. "Two fielded teams and two experts: A Robocup response challenge from the trenches ." In International joint conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 99.Abstract
The RoboCup (robot world-cup soccer) effort, initiated to stimulate research in multi-agents and robotics, has blossomed into a significant effort of international proportions. RoboCup is simultaneously a fundamental research effort and a set of competitions for testing research ideas. At IJCAI'97, a broad research challenge was issued for the RoboCup synthetic agents, covering areas of multi-agent learning, teamwork and agent modeling. This paper outlines our attack on the entire breadth of the RoboCup research challenge, on all of its categories, in the form of two fielded, contrasting RoboCup teams, and two off-line soccer analysis agents. We compare the teams and the agents to generalize the lessons learned in learning, teamwork and agent modeling.
1999_1_teamcore_ijcai99_isis.pdf
Milind Tambe, Jafar Adibi, Yasar Alonaizan, Ali Erdem, Gal Kaminka, Ion Muslea, and Stacy Marsella. 1999. "Building agent teams using an explicit teamwork model and learning." Artificial Intelligence 110, Pp. 215-240.Abstract
Multi-agent collaboration or teamwork and learning are two critical research challenges in a large number of multi-agent applications. These research challenges are highlighted in RoboCup, an international project focused on robotic and synthetic soccer as a common testbed for research in multi-agent systems. This article describes our approach to address these challenges, based on a team of soccer-playing agents built for the simulation league of RoboCup—the most popular of the RoboCup leagues so far.
To address the challenge of teamwork, we investigate a novel approach based on the (re)use of a domain-independent, explicit model of teamwork, an explicitly represented hierarchy of team plans and goals, and a team organization hierarchy based on roles and role-relationships. This general approach to teamwork, shown to be applicable in other domains beyond RoboCup, both reduces development time and improves teamwork flexibility. We also demonstrate the application of off-line and on-line learning to improve and specialize agents' individual skills in RoboCup. These capabilities enabled our soccer-playing team, ISIS, to successfully participate in the first international RoboCup soccer tournament (RoboCup'97) held in Nagoya, Japan, in August 1997. ISIS won the third-place prize in over 30 teams that participated in the simulation league.
1999_10_teamcore_tambe98building.pdf


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South Africa have produced great legends of the game. Yet to join the elites of course, Faf Du Plessis is a player who has every right to become one of the greatest batsman cricket has witnessed of late. Born in Pretoria, Faf Du Plessis fortune played a major part in him being in South Africa and not in England. Kolpak deals have been a tough ask for the South African players with the new rules in place. However, it turned out to be boon for Faf, who cherished every single day of cricket that he has played in South Africa. If there is one tale of friendship in cricket, it should be of Far Du Plessis and AB De Villiers. They look alike, they bat alike, they play alike, and above all, they live alike. What differentiates them are just numbers. Faf Du Plessis is currently South Africa's captain and will be playing the IPL 2019 for Chennai Super Kings.
He held the record for not getting out on a duck for 99 consecutive innings.
Faf's career turning point is actually quite a twist. He would have never been playing for South Africa had that twist not happened. Faf du Plessis had signed a Kolpak Deal with Lancashire, but due to the new rules, he couldn't play there. Upon his return, Du Plessis amassed 567 runs in 10 matches in the MTN Pro40 competition for the Titans. Since then, the only thing Faf Du Plessis received were call ups from teams around the globe.
Faf du Plessis was once charged with 50% of his match fees for an alleged attempt for ball tampering during a test match against Pakistan.
More usually known for his composed and sound nature, Faf du Plessis was once involved in a brawl with New Zealand bowler Kyle Mills. The batsman was seen to have pushed the bowler after what could be termed as sledging.
Faf Du Plessis grew up with AB de Villiers, and wanted to do everything with him in his career. Just like ABD, Du Plessis too went to apply for a graduation in Sports Science, but after watching the crowd, he came back and decided to focus on Cricket only.
Faf's father wanted him to play rugby. However, he was scared to see his bones getting broken and hence, did not prefer to play rugby. Aged 16, he eventually did break his wrist while playing rugby.


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Sarracenia purpurea (Northern & Southern Subspecies)
Sarracenia purpurea gibbosa (Rafinesque) Wherry
Northern pitcherplant
by Edgar T. Wherry
Northern pitcher plant ranges from Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey northward over a vast territory in this country and Canada. The geographic relations, together with the presence of intermediates between the northern and southern subspecies in southern New Jersey, indicate that the northern one originated in that region. Evidently the southern ancestor, after arriving in New Jersey, became variable, and gave rise to descendants differing more or less in morphological and physiological characters. Most of these, lacking ability to extend their ranges, have remained where they originated. One, however, became highly aggressive, and as it also differs in pitcher shape, it is classed as a distinct subspecies.
During the ice advances of the glacial epoch, this pitcher plant was of course unable to migrate northward, and merely spread a short distance into Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, but after the retreat of the last ice sheet it soon occupied the newly developed bogs, and even managed to reach sub-Arctic Canada.
Click here for the watercolor by Mary Vaux Walcott.
Click here for USDA's current information and distribution map of this sub-species (Sarracenia purpurea ssp. gibbosa).
Back to the Index of North American Pitcher Plants.
Sarracenia purpurea venosa (Rafinesque) Wherry
Southern pitcherplant
Southern pitcherplant occurs in swamps, bogs, and wet meadows in nearly every part of the state of North Carolina. It probably originated in the region now constituting Henderson and adjacent counties, but when this territory was uplifted, the immediate ancestors of the plant were exterminated. There can be little doubt, however, that it is a remote descendant from Sarracenia jonesii, which has managed to survive in the same general region, for the flowers of the two are almost identical, in spite of the dissimilar leaf shape.
In the course of time its seeds were transported down several of the eastward-flowing rivers, forming colonies on the Piedmont and ultimately on the newly emerging Coastal Plain. Some seeds also found their way down the Chattahoochee River system, and an extensive series of colonies developed near the coast on either side of this valley. In addition, unlike other species, it migrated from northeastern North Carolina to southern New Jersey, over a strip of land which apparently connected these states during the Tertiary and early glacial times.
Click here for USDA's current information and distribution map of this sub-species (Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea)


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Vacuous Mumbling
For myself and a few others I know (for them and I), originality is a pursuit above all others, a goal to be reached, a success beyond measure. Synthesizing, creating, weaving together new ideas is our craving. It is, ultimately, our downfall, as we analyze ourselves and analyze our work and realize that everything we do is ultimately derivative of something, leading to a personal dissatisfaction and an unnecessary negative self-esteem feedback loop. "Why?" we ask ourselves, why can't we write like Melville, paint like Van Gogh, play music like Barry Manilow? Why can't we develop entirely new things, like they did? Why can't we revolutionize our field of creativity like them? Ultimately the secret, the things we forget to tell ourselves, the part of life that we ignore is that none of these artists were original themselves. No artist is. No person is. We are the sum of our experience, the output of our own lives. We are kaleidoscopes, twisting and repurposing everything we take in as our creative source. The concept of "the starving artist" or the "tortured soul" of an artist stem from an understanding of our kaleidoscopean natures. If we as people experience suffering or loss in an emotionally profound way, our art reflects the profundity of our emotions likewise. If we as people do not suffer, if we do not have any real depth of emotion to draw upon, our art demonstrates a lack of depth. It's not to say that tragedy (or bliss) is a necessary component of a good artist. What is to say is that emotions are a necessary component of good art. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the art.
Culture, specifically modern American culture, creates the drive for originality that plagues us, and to a larger extent plagues my entire generation. Originality is a marketing hook, a way to sell a product. Buy these shoes and express your individuality. Wear this hat, you'll be the most original on the block. Dang. I'm having trouble focusing on writing this, so It's about to get a bit looser.
Despite this common perception, however, culture (at least, pop culture, the culture sold on television) is a reflection of society and the individuals in that society. No one would try to sell originality if no one wanted originality. While there is certainly a large streak of people who want originality because they're told that people should want originality, the source (the egg) of the problem ultimately comes from people (rather, artists) themselves. Why would we become so driven by this concept? What changed between now and say, 100 years ago? Technology did. More people are yet again exposed to more art in more places than ever before. We preserve art in such vast quantities that it becomes impossible to honestly say "I've never heard of that" of anything in any field. The sheer amount of data is overwhelming and intimidating and ultimately the source of this anxiety. A thousand, even hundred years ago, the only music you heard was music made in the few places you could afford to travel. The only books you read (assuming you could read) were the ones that your local rich man or clergy or (if you were very lucky and lived near one) place of learning happened to possess. Ideas that were inimical to any of those sources were often kept hidden and relatively inaccessible. The only paintings you saw were again the ones in wealthy hands or in church. It was entirely possible to be original because every existing idea in the world wasn't more or less available to you for whatever purpose. As human beings are constantly driven towards novelty and invention, being shackled with the knowledge of every idea and being unable to develop anything new is a legitimate psychic fear. Who are we as people if we are simply re-iterating previous paths? How do we reconcile ourselves as having worth if all that we create is obsolete upon creation. It's no mistake that we're driven towards "consumerism" and defining ourselves by what we buy, because what we buy is one of the few things we have left to ourselves as expression. At least I can buy different things from everyone else, if I can't draw something different than all of them.
Have you ever visited tvtropes? Odds are, yes. It's a website with a reputation for addicting explorations in the categorization of "tropes" or themes represented in fiction. It's a great read, because it inspires a lot of the sort of knowing "aha!" that comes from making connections between works. Ultimately, though, it is damaging to our collective artistic psyches, because it emphasizes the salient point that nothing you come up with will ever have its own individual tv trope. Your creative output will be measured and analyzed and slotted into the website as an amalgam of all that has come before. Here, too, are the tools to unnecessarily analyze your own work even as you attempt to create it. May you never live free from your own insecurity. This is the reality we live in today; an endless spiral of feelings of inadequacy inspired by nothing larger or more significant than our own brains.
The only way artists will escape the whirlpool is through a tacit ability to ignore your self when creating art. To escape the need to innovate by escaping one's own mind. It's an attitude, ultimately. It's a state of mind that is wholly focused upon the creation and not even partially on the creator. The state of mind is often referred to as "being inspired" or "inspiration." Some people never feel this a single moment of their lives. Others are so frequently inspired that they're locked up in a facility for fear of them doing harm to themselves or others. It is yet another component of creating art, and one that has become all the more vital with the conscious brain achieving such greater heights in insecurity. Other than that, the only option is to either become so sheltered that every idea becomes innovative to you, or to be intellectually uncurious, so that the exploration of other's ideas becomes uninteresting and ultimately is avoided. There are other options, but none that escape the insecurity entirely. Some artists embrace the insecurity and self-deprecate to the point of absurdity, essentially becoming depressing vacuums of depression that are suspicious in that they've yet to simply kill themselves because they are clearly not happy and in the attitude they're in, they only promulgate further unhappiness by continuing to exist. It is to the point where you wonder whether or not they're sincere in their self-deprecation and why they continue to put themselves forth before the public if they really have that bad an attitude of themselves. Never believe and actor who claims they can't stand themselves, because there they are, in the limelight, on the big screen, pretending to be other people only so they can be seen. Certainly, they are other people, but in reality, it's still them, and so much them that they are recording them and showing them to everyone they can. Even further, don't listen to the people who claim to be honest and that their honesty somehow makes them that much better than those other guys who don't tell you that they're just selling a product. They're still selling a product, they're just smiling sweetly and informing you that their dick is in your ass while they screw you.
Well, ultimately I've come to the point in this essay where my internal voice insists that I balance it out by saying "I could be wrong. Maybe no one cares about originality but me. Maybe originality is actually sold by marketers and is not particularly prevalent in the populace. Maybe I'm just obsessive about this and the "human drive for novelty" is something that I and other obsessives created to feel good about ourselves. Maybe people in the past had just as much access to ideas, either through simple neighbors or just word of mouth proliferation. Maybe inspiration doesn't exist, and maybe art doesn't need emotions of particular depth to express something. I don't know. And ultimately it's because I don't know that I write. I'm trying to describe what I feel like a situation is. I'm trying to express a point of view. Ultimately, every part of my point of view could be wrong, but it still exists. Arguing against it does not destroy the viewpoint and will probably not change the viewpoint.
That is my method of evading my constant internal stream of argument. That is the only way I evade the stings of realizing that nothing I believe is founded in reality. I believe in the inherent worth and existence of every viewpoint, and I disregard claims of their disfactuality by emphasizing the inherent worth of every viewpoint as being interesting and relevant to the environment the viewpoint came from.
I can't really think of where to go from here, and I just read my last sentence and it seems pretty incoherent, so I'm going to stop. Baring the internal processes of my writing has more to do with me attempting to give my writing relevance by hoping that they help you, the reader, relate to me, the author, or at least me, the author at the present time I'm writing this. Hopefully that makes the work readable and relatable on some scale beyond the simple (extraneous, multisyllabic, imaginary) words in it.
Written by Coyolxauhqui at 12:56 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
The Dao of Jake
I'm feeling restless tonight, so I'm going to write up some self-affirming, biased "aphorisms" or possibly "moral standards" or maybe a "coda." To emulate the rather annoying trend of people using the word Dao literally (see: The Daos of Wu and Pooh), I'll call it the Dao of Jake, incidentally my name on twitter. (thetaoofjake)
These are things that I try and often fail to live by, and not necessarily things that have worked or will always work or will work for you. Ultimately it's yet another of my ongoing attempts at self-description, of understanding how and why I function while still functioning.
The first step in being able to do anything is to believe that you can do anything. The moment you tell yourself "I cannot do this" is the moment you are not able to do this. This is not to say that you can actually do anything. That would be impossible. But you can do nothing if you do not believe you can. Do not listen to those who would tell you that you cannot do something because until you try, you don't know and neither do they. Remember, until you prove otherwise, I can fly and shoot lasers from my eyes.
Don't be afraid of what other people think of you. People are always going to dislike you no matter what you do. Literally. There is no legitimate way to get everyone to like you if they actually know anything about you. There are simply too many people to reasonably manage an entirely successful public image. So many politicians and celebrities have tried, but all it takes is one person who can't stand either to ruin it for them. So accept it. Embrace it, and do whatever you feel is best without the fear of what other people might think is best. Inhibition is just society's way of trying to control you, but you know the secret, society is just a perception of reality independent of actual people. Remember: the people who think you're an asshole or a weirdo or a nut are not the sort of people you would want to hang out with anyway and if you meet enough people, you're certain to find plenty that support you in every aspect simply because you're you.
Everything is transitory. This is the "this too shall pass" line. Nothing is permanent. It's not a reason for concern, but a cause for celebration! All sorrow, all hurt, all wounds do heal over time. Or they don't because people nurse them and feed them and turn them into purposes for existence. Letting go (see: detachment) is the most important part of transcending pain or sadness. It really is no coincidence that the "wise holy words" of nearly every popular religion happen to mention this. It's the point and focus of Buddhism, which takes it to a bit of an extreme. It's mentioned a few times in the Judeo-Christian bible. It's sort of mentioned in a somewhat indirect way (the direct way follows) in the Dao De Jing. I tend to summarize it in "sooner or later we're all going to be dead. There's no point in wasting time on that sort of thing anyway."
Don't take anything personally. Nothing is really personal anyway, because no one else can really understand you (cue linkin park) because their perceptual reality is entirely different than yours. Ten times out of ten, when someone insults you or insults something you cherish, it's more out of a reaction to something that bothered them than an actual assessment of your character. To take it to an absurdist extent, when someone calls you a motherfucker, they really don't mean that you go out and fuck mothers. They're just using terms that the disembodied "society" point of view labels as "vulgar" and "crude" in an attempt to irk your societal appreciation portion of your brain. (no, I refuse to mention Freud) If they're yelling it at you, then they're also trying to irk the threat elimination portion of your brain and cause you to back down and flee or escalate into a conflict which they hope they'll win. Again, they don't actually think you're a motherfucker. And this applies to everything, even stuff that sounds like legitimate criticism. The key to this entire section is detachment. In order to successfully avoid falling into the trap of reacting on instinct, you need to approach a situation from a non-emotional level. Emotions are great and fantastic and a big portion of being human, but in many cases they cripple people's ability to work together effectively and harmoniously. Detaching in these situations is the difference between, for example, thinking of an entire population of people versus a few people. Morally, or specifically socio-morally, detachment occupies a weird oscillating viewpoint of either being bad or good depending on the event, the time of day, the economic climate, whatever. Often detachment is viewed as a negative approach to life and considered being essentially inhuman. Robots are often presented in movies and novels as being essentially monsters for lacking compassion or remorse or a sense of horror that society tends to assume would strike the average person. Characters in fiction are rather often presented with a choice between who lives or dies; a loved one and, say, an entire planet. The heroes always (e-mail me with exceptions, I'll read/view them) choose the particular survival of the few or the one over the greater whole or the many. It's an essentially selfish choice based primarily on emotions, but the hero is always lauded for his strong moral compass and his ability to choose what's most important (themselves) and incidentally they manage to save everyone else too. A detached, rational analysis would posit that given the choice of the two with no likely alternative and no guarantee that you're living a Hollywood movie, the logical answer (and honestly, the legitimately moral answer) would be to sacrifice that which is important to you so that others can live and have things that are important to them. Sometimes, the opposite is presented, as a character can prove his/her moral triumph through sacrificing themselves so that others may succeed, but never are the characters asked to sacrifice someone they love or, say, their family. (again, exceptions emailed to thejakeman16ATgmailDOTcom) So overall, it's a fuzzy space to be in. It's really one of those things that will make people either love you or hate you, which ties back in with the not caring what other people think of you. Personally, I don't think that detachment necessarily entails a lack of compassion. I just think it means that at the moment in time when you are detached, you are letting your (brain) pre-frontal lobe think things through rather than letting your (heart) hypothalamus think things through. If you are truly compassionate, your brain will consider that first, without having to go through the emotional turmoil where you feel sorrow and remorse and anger and fear wracking your brain and insisting on a choice that may not actually be compassionate or at least considerate. Of course if you're already a dick, your brain will be working out how to benefit from a situation with or without emotions. It really depends on where your loyalties lie and not on whether you're detaching from your emotions.
Love everyone. Everyone else is a living being, something that is so rare and so extraordinary that somehow we ended up with a staggering number of us and it's now considered mundane. Some crazy underwear-on-the-outside stuff when you think about it. Each of these living people has their own perspective, too. They're all out there, experiencing a version of the world that you will never experience yourself because you are too busy experiencing your own version of reality that no one else can share. Sometimes this concept is considered tragic and ultimately dividing and separating us all in our own little words so that no one can truly understand us (cue: linkin park and heavy doses of neon genesis evangelion), but that ignores the reality of the situation and places reality in a WIIFM ("what's in it for me?" thank you Ms. Merlin and DECA marketing) situation. What's really important here is that there are this many other people and they do have entirely different experiences and worldviews and this is amazing and you should love them all merely because they exist and are so different and are unable to understand us. Marvel at the concept of culture and the idea that despite ostensibly the same language being spoken between you and another English speaker, each word means something different to them. It's a crazy and poorly-understood-and-often-overlooked facet of life. Wasting your time hating or disregarding or ignoring these other points of view is the real tragedy here.
No one is wrong. Factually, someone can be wrong. A person can be demonstrated to be wrong about certain things, like the claim "the earth is flat" by being sailed around the world going more or less one direction and shown that the earth is in fact a globe. However, most people don't have that point of reference because they've never experienced for themselves whether or not the earth is a globe. All they know is that a lot of people say that the earth is a globe, so they take it on faith that the earth is a globe. Even having sailed around the world does not grant a person the knowledge that the earth will always be a globe. Because reality is entirely unpredictable, perhaps the earth becomes flat for a fraction of a fraction of a smaller fraction of a second every year without anyone noticing. Perhaps the earth is physically a globe, but behaves in two-dimensional space as a cube for some inexplicable reason. There really is no logical way to disprove these claims. In fact, there is no logical way to disprove anything. All people really go on is faith, either in their own experiences, or in other people's assertions of reality. And that's everything. Even the concept of the words I'm supposedly typing on a computer is entirely subjective to my own assumption that I'm experiencing this and not, in fact, dreaming it or imagining it or simply a mindless automaton trained to believe that I'm expressing myself but I'm actually slaving away for Big Government/Corporation/Boss. I cannot say for certain any of these experiences are real. There's a popular Phil 101 concept wherein the universe was created last Thursday, with everyone suddenly having all of the memories and ideas and belongings that they assume they always had and there's no way to disprove it, which should also prove that it's pretty much pointless to take any further philosophy classes. I'm a practical man and the practical application of this isn't to despair at the entire uncertainty of existence, but to apply it to the appreciation of differences in existence from one person to the next. It is entirely true, for example, for a devout man in Kabul that Allah is the lord and the only lord and he insists upon the rules that he gave to his prophet Mohammed, just as much as it is true for me to believe that all of us are a part (specifically, tiny reflections) of a greater being that is comprised of the entire universe and the source of all things. There is no real way to logically disprove either of us, and our views are entirely contradictory, but neither of us is wrong, because our perceptions, our very versions of reality are different. Extend this to every other belief (which is everything) and you should understand.
Rules are made by people. This one is a tad less philosophical and much more practical. We live in a world full of rules. We actually live in a world full of exponentially increasing rules, because rules have become pretty popular these days. I saw a news report on some new device that will allow parents who purchase a new Ford set limits not only on the speed their teens can drive the car, but on the specific Sirius radio stations they can listen to. Honestly, horrifying, but followed by a report on new rules for teens to earn a full license, which is literally a license to follow more rules. Also I keep misspelling license "liscense" because I can't spell. (Secretly I'm not literate either. I just read magazines and porn novels.) Rules are actually important, though, because they define reality and give it a sense of legitimate predictability. Rules are enforced upon children in hopes of instilling some sense of discipline or moral values on them by granting the universe a sense of legitimate consequence for being a little jerkface. It doesn't matter that the consequences are totally unrelated (take candy from your brother and you'll be made to stand in the corner for five minutes), what matters is instilling the vague sense that reality itself (id est: your parents) will punish your transgression. All of this is an amazing sort of abstraction created by people to obscure the ultimate truth that people are making the rules. Ignore the man behind the green curtain, focus only on the razzle-dazzle of applied karma. It doesn't matter that the consequences are usually out of whack with the actual actions (Anyone feel like rolling on E for 30 years of imprisonment? Maybe you can get caught three times and be put away for life in California), what matters is that reality is defined and controlled. The practical application of this knowledge is (surprise) not anarchy, but understanding that talking to the right person and not being afraid of the rules goes a lot farther towards getting you through "the system." A lot of the time, it won't work. There are probably a thousand people who are totally bought into "the system" for every one reasonable person. What's important, though, is that you don't give up on something just because the rules say you can't do it, which hopefully ties back to my first point and wraps this damn thing up.
I'm not perfect (though I believe the first step towards being perfect is believing that you can be) and these might not be the best things to do for you (though in my version of reality, they totally are). I don't always follow them and they don't always work for me, but I think just defining and describing them says something more about me (I'm pretty egocentric) than before, and I hope they way you react or interpret what I said helps you understand a little more about yourself.
Damn. I should write a self-help book. Watch the fuck out, The Power.
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Cristoforo Colombo és una òpera en quatre actes i un epíleg composta per Alberto Franchetti sobre un llibret italià de Luigi Illica. L'escrivia el 1892 per commemorar el 400è aniversari de l'arribada de Cristòfor Colom a Amèrica.

Encarregada per la ciutat de Gènova, l'hipotètic lloc de naixement de Colom, l'òpera tracta sobre el viatge de la descoberta, la seva oposició per les autoritats espanyoles, l'encoratjament de Colom per la reina Isabel, i finalment, després de les dificultats i el triomf, la seva angoixa quan s'assabenta de la seva mort.

És una òpera essencialment melòdica escrita en l'estil del verisme, rica harmònicament, amb referències òbvies al treball de Richard Wagner. El monòleg del segon acte conté un motiu que recorda Das Rheingold; després de peticions de Terra! Terra! l'orquestra respon amb èxtasi en un fragment que recorda Tristany i Isolda, i llavors un arc de Sant Martí fa d'arc de triomf. S'hi detecten elements anticlericals, especialment en les versions primeres de l'òpera: són els clergues que s'oposen al viatge inicialment, i que violentament intenten evangelitzar als nadius sud-americans.

Referències

Òperes del Verisme
Òperes ambientades a Espanya
Òperes ambientades a Amèrica
Òperes del 1892
Òperes estrenades al Teatro Carlo Felice
Òperes en italià

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Nightfire Catalog
The Last House on Needless Street
Catriona Ward
Horror, Psychological Horror
Amazon Apple Books Barnes & Noble Indiebound Bookshop
Macmillan Goodreads
Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street is a shocking and immersive read perfect for fans of Gone Girl and The Haunting of Hill House.
"The new face of literary dark fiction." —Sarah Pinborough, New York Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
"The buzz…is real. I've read it and was blown away. It's a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end." —Stephen King
In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.
A teenage girl who isn't allowed outside, not after last time.
A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.
And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.
An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
Get the reading group guide here.
CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She studied English at the University of Oxford, and later, completed a Creative Writing Masters at the University of East Anglia. Ward won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel for her debut, The Girl from Rawblood, and again for Little Eve, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Little Eve, which also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, will be published by Nightfire.
Cover art by Corey Brickley
Cover design by Katie Klimowicz
Praise for The Last House on Needless Street
"The buzz building around Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street is real. I've read it and was blown away. It's a true nerve-shredder that keeps its mind-blowing secrets to the very end. Haven't read anything this exciting since Gone Girl." —Stephen King
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"Brilliant. Breathtaking. Terrifying. A masterpiece to read at your own peril." —Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger
"Brilliant. One of the best novels I've read in a long, long time… It's a fucking masterpiece…. A perfect horror novel, but not in the way you expect. Good God — it lives up to the buzz. It's stunningly good." —Alex North, author of The Whisper Man
"A brutal, twisty, puzzle box of a book. I stayed up way past my bedtime." —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places
"Absolutely brilliant. This is extraordinary, high-wire-act horror, audacious as hell." —Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Red Hands
"As mad as a snake but all the better for it. A story that slinks deeply into uncomfortable places in the tradition of Fowles' The Collector. An enigmatic story of trauma." —Adam Nevill, author of The Ritual
"I loved The Last House on Needless Street … It surprised the hell out of me in countless ways, and it's so beautifully written and conceived. Already a firm contender for book of the year 2021."—Tim Lebbon, New York Times bestselling author of Eden
"THIS IS THE BEST HORROR NOVEL I HAVE EVER READ. Even Shirley Jackson, her Majesty, would have to concede to this one." —Natasha Pulley, author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
"Incredible. Just incredible. Throughout, I didn't know where to put my heart. A breathtaking, fiercely beautiful novel." —Rio Youers, author of Halcyon
"Books like this don't come around too often… I would say I inhaled this in one, but I think I was too busy holding my breath throughout. Bravo." —Joanne Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Gospel of Loki
The Gift of Fear: 2021's Best Gifts for Horror Fans
Download a Free Digital Preview of Catriona Ward's The Last House on Needless Street
Read Olivia's Story From The Last House on Needless Street
Where to Find Nightfire at TorCon 2021
Announcing Nightfire's First Season of Books, Coming This Fall
Announcing The Last House on Needless Street, a New Novel from Catriona Ward


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Every citizen is entitled to inspect and copy public writings.
When an instrument consists partly of written words and partly of a printed form, and the two inconsistent, the former controls the latter.
The language of a writing is to be interpreted according to the meaning it bears in the place of its execution.
A married woman who is adjudged a sole trader is responsible and liable for the maintenance of her minor children.
The husband of a sole-trader is not liable for any debts contracted by her in the course of her sole-trader business, unless agreed by contract.
If original pleadings or papers be lost, the court may authorize a copy thereof to be filed and used in place of the original.
When debts are incurred by any person or his wife or family for the common necessaries of life, one half of his earnings for personal ser-vices rendered at any time within thirty days next preceding attach-ment or execution, are subject to execution, garnishment or attach-ment, to satisfy debts so incurred.
Legal holidays are every Sunday, the first day of January, 22d of February, 30th of May, 4th of July, and 25th of December.
If the 1st of January, 22d of February, 30th of May, 4th of July, or 25th of December fall on Sunday, the Monday following is a holiday. The day of the state elections, or by order of the President or Governor.


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The French composer Hector Berlioz made four attempts at winning the Prix de Rome music prize, finally succeeding in 1830. As part of the competition, he had to write a cantata to a text set by the examiners. Berlioz's efforts to win the prize are described at length in his Memoirs. He regarded it as the first stage in his struggle against the musical conservatism represented by the judges, who included established composers such as Luigi Cherubini, François-Adrien Boieldieu and Henri-Montan Berton. Berlioz's stay in Italy as a result of winning the prize also had a great influence on later works such as Benvenuto Cellini and Harold en Italie. The composer subsequently destroyed the scores of two cantatas (Orphée and Sardanapale) almost completely and reused music from all four of them in later works. There was a revival of interest in the cantatas in the late 20th century, particularly Cléopâtre, which has become a favourite showcase for the soprano and mezzo-soprano voice.

Berlioz and the Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was an award for composers allowing the winner to spend a year studying at the Villa Medici in Rome. It also entitled him to a five-year pension. The prize was adjudicated by the Paris Conservatoire. Entrants had to submit a fugue as proof of their compositional skills and the four successful candidates were then required to write a dramatic cantata to a text chosen by the judges.

The cantatas
The four cantatas are:

La Mort d'Orphée

La Mort d'Orphée (The Death of Orpheus) (1827), text by Berton. For tenor, chorus and orchestra. Result: failed.

Herminie

Herminie (Erminia) (1828), text by Pierre-Ange Vieillard. For soprano and orchestra. Result: second prize.
Recitative: Quel trouble te poursuit, malheureuse Herminie!
Aria: Ah! si de la tendresse
Recitative: Que dis-je?
Aria: Arrête! Arrête! Cher Tancrède
Aria: Venez! Venez! Terribles armes! -and prayer: Dieu des chrétiens, toi que j'ignore

The theme from the first movement was later used as the idée fixe in the Symphonie fantastique of 1830.

Cléopâtre

Cléopâtre (Cleopatra) (1829), text by Pierre-Ange Vieillard. For soprano and orchestra. Result: no first prize awarded.

Sardanapale

Sardanapale (Sardanapalus) (1830), text by Jean François Gail. For tenor, chorus and orchestra. Result: joint first prize.

Recordings

All four cantatas
Cantatas: Béatrice Uria-Monzon (Cléopâtre), Michèle Lagrange (Herminie), Daniel Galvez-Vallejo (La Mort d'Orphée, La Mort de Sardanapale). Chœur régional Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Orchestre National de Lille, Jean-Claude Casadesus cond. (Harmonia Mundi, 10/1994 & 11/1995)

Herminie
Herminie (with Les Nuits d'été): Mireille Delunsch, Paris Champs-Elysées Orchestra, Philippe Herreweghe cond. (Harmonia Mundi)
Herminie (with Symphonie fantastique): Aurélia Legay, Mahler Chamber Orchestra / Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski cond.
Herminie (with Cléopâtre): Janet Baker, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond. (Philips, 1979)

Cléopâtre

Cléopâtre (with Harold en Italie): Jennie Tourel, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein cond. (CBS, rec. 10/1961)
Cléopâtre (with Sara la Baigneuse, Méditation religieuse, La Mort d'Orphée): Anne Pashley, English Chamber Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond. (Oiseau-Lyre, rec. 1967)
Cléopâtre (with other works by Berlioz): Janet Baker, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Alexander Gibson cond. (EMI, rec. 09/1969)
Cléopâtre (with works by various composers): Marilyn Tyler, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Jean Fournet cond. (Radio Nederland, rec. 1973)
Cléopâtre (with Les Nuits d'été): Yvonne Minton, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez cond. (CBS, rec. 09/1976)
Cléopâtre (with Herminie and 5 songs): Janet Baker, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis cond. (Philips, rec. 03/1979)
Cléopâtre (with Les Troyens à Carthage, excerpts): Nadine Denize, Nouvel Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Gilbert Amy cond. (Erato, rec. 1980)
Cléopâtre (with Les Nuits d'été):  Jessye Norman, Orchestre de Paris, Daniel Barenboim cond. (DGG, rec. 04/1981)
Cléopâtre (with Symphonie funèbre et triomphale): Dunja Vejzović, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach cond. (Supraphon, rec. 01/1988)
Cléopâtre (with Herminie and orchestral works by Berlioz): Rosalind Plowright, Philharmonia Orchestra, Jean-Philippe Rouchon cond. (ASV, 1994)
Cléopâtre (with Les Nuits d'été): Véronique Gens, Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Lyon, Louis Langrée cond. (Virgin, rec. 06/2000)
Cléopâtre (with Symphonie fantastique): Olga Borodina, Wiener Philharmoniker, Valery Gergiev cond. (Philips, rec. 05/2003)
Cléopâtre (with works by Barber, Ravel and Britten): Jennifer Larmore, Grant Park Orchestra, Carlos Kalma cond. (Cedille Records, rec. 08/2006)
Cléopâtre (with Symphonie fantastique): Susan Graham, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle cond. (EMI, rec. 06/2008)
Cléopâtre (with Symphonie fantastique): Anna Caterina Antonacci, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin cond. (BIS, rec. 03/2010)
Cléopâtre (with Les Nuits d'été): Karen Cargill, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Robin Ticciati cond. (Linn, rec. 04/2012)
Cléopâtre (with Herminie and La Captive): Lisa Larsson, Het Gelders Orkest, Antonello Manacorda cond. (Challenge Classics, rec. 05/2013)
Cléopâtre (with Harold en Italie): Karen Cargill, London Symphony Orchestra, Valeriĭ Gergiev cond. (LSO Live, rec. 11/2013)

Notes

Sources
David Cairns: Berlioz: The Making of an Artist (the first volume of his biography of the composer) (André Deutsch, 1989)
Hugh Macdonald: Berlioz ("The Master Musicians", J.M.Dent, 1982)
Berlioz: Memoirs (Dover, 1960)

External links
http://www.hberlioz.com/Libretti/Rome.htm

Compositions by Hector Berlioz
Cantatas
1827 compositions
1828 compositions
1829 compositions
1830 compositions


Is a term used to describe a variety of internet based platforms, applications and technologies that enable people to interact "socially" with one another online. Examples of social media sites and applications include Facebook, YouTube, Google Plus,Twitter, LinkedIn, website blogs or forums and other sites that have content based on user participation and user-generated content (UGC).
One of the primary objectives for implementing social media strategies is to assist marketing teams in implementing and executing social media marketing strategies. This entails creating social media marketing planning, content distribution, calendars, social communications and social media reporting analytics.
Social media and technology in general is a growing component of everyday life and society. Information is relayed non-stop, much through social media. Today's businesses understand that social media platforms are used by consumers as a tool to instill trust, create engagement strategies, create conversations, and ultimately drive brand-awareness.
When starting a social media program Palmetto Digital Marketing Group of Charleston SC, recommends that organizations use these following social media platforms for promoting your business: Facebook and Facebook Ads (testing), Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google Plus.
Using content that your organization has already created and spreading this content to as wide an audience as possible. Hint, is there any written content that can be morphed into a video or a fantastic image that could be tweeted. Repurposing email marketing content is always effective if an organization uses email as a marketing tool.
These ideas can lead to a blog post or even a change in policy. However, make sure the content you produce references a social topic from the social media platforms, this earns you added trust.
This is a great way to distribute 3rd party content that promotes your brand. It allows you to put a focus on the fans, it's promoting them and your brand at the same time, which is a win.
When planning travel accommodations do you book your hotels on the hotel corporate website or a 3rd party booking site?
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We are big fans of top 10 list. The possibilities are endless and social media fans eat them up! Just be sure to put logical arguments behind your choices, this makes it even more fun.
We've seen where going negative has created firestorms on social media. As a general rule, keep the conversation positive and urge angry customers to call customer service vs. having it escalate on social media.
This is always a good idea and often times creates a bond with your fans. Functions and special events can provide a chance to create content that is shareable, personal and engaging.
Social media allows companies to show their human side. It creates a dialogue between you and your consumer. It's more personal and resonates better than traditional marketing methods.
The best ideas come from those who are closest to the business. Have a working lunch and brainstorm for ideas to use in social media. Or better yet, have everyone share social media ideas or strategies that impressed them from other companies.
PDMG recommends posting on average 2 to 3 times per week. We also urge posting on special holidays, as this usually resonates well. Lastly, special news events also are great social media messaging catalyst..
Companies should be analyzing monthly reports via Google Analytics to report growth and consumer interaction. We will also use 3rd party reporting when available.
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text:
Person: Dave McCormick
McCormick's Denouncement of 'Structural Bigotry' Not an Endorsement of BLM
A TV ad from a super PAC backing Dr. Mehmet Oz for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania stretches the facts in an attempt to tie Oz's chief rival, Dave McCormick, to Black Lives Matter.
Ads Attacking Dr. Oz
A super PAC that supports Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick has been flooding the airwaves in the Keystone State with ads attacking his opponent, cardiac surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, as a "Hollywood liberal" and RINO, or Republican in Name Only. We'll provide some context about the claims.
Ads Attacking Dave McCormick
The campaign of Dr. Mehmet Oz and a super PAC supporting him are running ads that seek to paint his chief rival in the Pennsylvania Senate Republican primary, Dave McCormick, as a "friend" of China who outsourced Pittsburgh jobs and is out of step with former President Donald Trump. But the ads distort some facts to make that case.


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WaterTectonics provides both lease and ownership options for customers in the construction industry. Our rental fleet includes treatment systems of various flowrates and sizes, customizable to suit the needs of your project. For short-term projects, WaterTectonics can provide turnkey support, including setup, full-time operations, and tear-down. On longer-term projects, WaterTectonics can provide competitive rental rates, operator training programs, and flexible purchase, lease-to-own, and buyback programs.
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ANC vs DA vs EFF: Biggest victories and defeats for each party so far
With around a third of the votes left to count, we're having a look at the polls and charting the success stories and own goals from the ANC, DA and EFF.
We are crawling towards the finish line on Friday. The end is in sight, but we're moving towards it at a glacial pace. The IEC said on Thursday that they would have "90%" of the results in by 22:00 last night. On Friday morning, we're only at the 66% mark. As it stands, the ANC, DA and EFF still have some scores to settle.
You can follow live coverage of the results coming in via our running blog.
Yet if you chose to see the cup as two-thirds full rather than a third empty, you can still put together a solid picture of what South Africa's future will look like. Voting has almost wrapped up in some provinces, but one of the key battlegrounds of this election is lagging behind.
Only half the votes in Gauteng have been counted as of Friday morning, and with the ANC's coalition hanging by a thread, it's still impossible to call who has had the best time of it in the province. As of 8:30, the ANC holds 50.52% of the vote and they're trailed by the DA, on 27.4%.
On a national level, things are pretty much already sorted:
ANC – 57.24%
DA – 21.79%
EFF – 10.09%
Provincial party performance
Here's a quick look at where each major party experienced the most joy and the areas which the three big players ended up under-performing.
ANC vs DA vs EFF: Wins and losses at the 2019 Elections
ANC performance at the 2019 Elections
Success: Eastern Cape
With seven of the nine provinces as good as sewn-up by the ANC, you can take your pick. However, the ruling party have matched their performance levels of 2014 in the Eastern Cape, taking almost 70% of the vote. More than 90% of all ballots have been counted in the province, and the ANC have trounced the opposition once more.
They've also taken 75% of the vote in Limpopo, and although this is their highest provincial vote share, they've lost a bit of ground to the EFF over the past few years, and 40% of votes are still to be counted.
Failure: Western Cape
However, their promise to shake things up in the Western Cape ended miserably. Fikile Mbalula, the ANC's head of elections, has conceded the province to the DA already.
EFF performance at the 2019 Elections
Success: Mpumalanga
The thing with the EFF is that they've shown growth in almost every province. Even in the Western Cape, they've jumped from 2% to 4% of the vote. Their "nothing-to-lose" status has worked in their favour, and it looks as if they've pulled off a big result in Mpumalanga.
The red berets are on the verge of becoming the official opposition in MP for the first time, taking the reigns from the DA. On Friday morning, the EFF held a 3% lead over their opponents with just 12% of the vote left to count.
Failure: Free State
Perhaps the only blot on the copybook would be in the Free State. They're about 20 000 votes shorts of their total from 2014, suggesting they haven't kicked on in the province as they have in other places. At the time of writing, two-thirds of the vote had been counted.
DA performance at the 2019 Elections
Success: Western Cape
The national vote has been a rollercoaster ride for the party. They were polling over 25% for much of Thursday, but they've now dropped to 21.75%. Despite the nervy wait for Parliamentary seats, the Blues have managed to complete one of their most important missions by retaining the Western Cape.
Their majority has been reduced, but the DA have kept hold of the one province they control with over 54% of the vote. Less than 5% of the ballots are left to be counted and the party have claimed more than one million votes in the province.
Failure: Potentially KwaZulu-Natal, others
Things are precariously perched in KwaZulu-Natal, and the picture is a cause for concern to the DA. Just like Mpumalanga, their position as the official opposition is under major threat. IFP currently sit in second-place on 17% behind the ANC, with the DA trailing on 15.3%.
Of the wards left to be accounted for – about 35% of them – none of them were under DA rule in 2014. This one could still flip, but if current projections hold out, the IFP are on course to snatch second place.
The DA's support has also dwindled in Limpopo and North West. While not a major loss, the EFF have been able to establish more daylight between themselves are their rivals in these two regions.
Previous Elections 2019: Here are the parties who missed the mark
Next How Ramaphosa rose from activism to business and finally, power


VPNpro ❯ The Web ❯ What is cyber security?
The ideal cyber security definition is the protection of computer systems to prevent damage to their software, hardware, or electronic data as well as theft. It also expands into preventing the disruption of the services that they provide. This can be as a result of sabotage or malware attack. In other words, cyber security also ensures that the computer systems are protected from botnets, thereby ensuring that they are up to the task of providing the services that they are dedicated for.
The demand for firms dealing in cyber security has surged in recent times because of the spread of technology. In fact, since the advent of the new Millenium, the tech industry has grown immensely and there are quite a number of tech-companies listed in the world's fortune 500 companies.
The invention of the smartphone which replaced the analog mobile phone devices has contributed to the need for internet security. Smartphones have Bluetooth and Wifi connectivity just like computers, but they are more vulnerable to attacks. This is why cyber security has become so vital these days. The evolution of smartphones has actually led to the development of some very spectacular phone models some of which have a high performance, that overshadows some computer models.
Nowadays, even such devices need an antivirus and extra security features some of which we shall discuss in depth.
To understand the various types of cyber security, we must first understand the forms of cyber attack that are prevalent in our society today. A cyber attack will occur for a myriad of reasons. But the most common is either to sabotage or garner information that is restricted. In the business world, having the better technological equipment, or rather, investing heavily in technology can sometimes give your business an edge over the rival groups.
In a competitive world such as the one we live in today, it is easier to stall, competitors progress by sabotaging their system. It can lead to a day's worth of losses if not for the entire duration it will take to fix the problem.
The second most common reason for cyber attacks is to gather information, acquire sensitive details such as passwords, PINs, or even bank codes. A hacker will try to get your bank account details to commit fraud or even wipe your bank account clean leaving you with no money.
To effectively carry out such heinous acts, the perpetrator has to carry out a cyber attack, and the three probable ways to do this over the years, has been to; spread malware, Dos (Denial of Service) attacks, and Phishing. Below are the respective countermeasures which are types of cyber security put in place and have given new meaning to cyber security definition.
A malware is basically any software that is spread to damage computer systems. The first widely known of its kind was the 1999 Melissa Virus which was ideally released to cause mayhem in the IT world at the time. A virus is the most common type of malware because easily spreads and often causes a lot of damage.
Other forms of malware include worms and bots. The best way to prevent an attack is to install anti-malware software such as an antivirus on your computer. A Dos, on the other hand, is simply an attack that floods data to a server, thereby overwhelming it until it crashes. It is an effective form of sabotage, and the best way to combat this is to have enough bandwidth (extra bandwidth). You understand that a server is where an organization really conducts business from because it is the server that enables the website to run.
When you have extra bandwidth, it means that you have allocated enough space on the server, because you anticipate a Dos. If and when it happens, the extra bandwidth cushions the effect of the abrupt and sudden influx of external data. Phishing can simply be determined as a con man's job albeit on an online platform. As a user, you are unknowingly deceived or compelled to give out sensitive details without really knowing that you are doing so. It might be a link sent to you that requires you to 'log in' and once you do, the perpetrator gets the login details to your online accounts.
Using your credentials, you can dupe people on your contact list to do the same. A two-factor authentication, where an access code is required to authorize a login, is one way to beat this trap. Bank websites and other secure online platforms also use captcha which verifies that you are a human and not a bot, before allowing you to access the login page. Some send confirmation codes to your email which you are required to click, after which they redirect you to a secure login page.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to surf the internet anonymously, even bypassing security in most local networks (read the page 'What is VPN' to find out more). It encrypts your data, which is a form of coding, to protect your identity and IP address. Assuming that the local network is unsafe and subjects you to the aforementioned cyber attacks such as phishing, it is a recommended means of boosting security for your online presence.
If you're considering getting a powerful VPN that provides top-notch security (and a lot of other great features), we definitely recommend ExpressVPN or NordVPN (which has a much better price). For an overview of the VPNs we consider the best on the market at the moment, check out our best VPNs list.
It is evident that as the global economy grows thanks to the input of technology, we will need cyber security firms to step up. They are constantly developing new ways of fighting cybercrime. The seem to have the full backing of everyone, including the governments because as it seems, even war has taken a turn and seems to have gone digital.
So, what is cyber security? Well with cases, nowadays, of governments pointing fingers at each other over damaging cyber attacks, it seems this is being redefined by such incidences because even the supremacy war has gone digital.
Most of all, it is important to invest in cyber security to avoid losing your valuable data on your computer. Be it old digital family photos, memos, work files, assignments, reports, and anything else that is dearly close to your and can be accessible via the internet.
Do you guys know of any websites where I can learn about cyber security? And maybe a little about programming. I think it would be really helpful for my job. Thank you!
I am really thinking that I don't have this covered the way I should. I better look into a bit more security before I end up in an issue.
What antivirus do you recommend using? I've been using AVG and BitDefender (not at the same time of course) and I'm also running AdwCleaner from time to time to wipe out any potential threats. Are these enough? BitDefender seems like a good choice to me but would like your opinion as well. Thanks.
Hello, BitDefender sounds like a really good choice, as it is one of the best antivirus system! We would also recommend using the free version of Malwarebytes combined with the AdwCleaner, as they are from the same company and provides a really nice protection!
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Next article What is identity theft? What is identity theft?


Lectures – with knowledge, views and intentions Ulrika Stengard-Olsson is a certified physiotherapist and hippotherapist. She has been committed to habilitating children and young people for many years, and also has experience in primary care and in a clinic specializing in back and neck pain. In addition, she has basic training in agriculture and extensive experience and practice handling animals and conserving nature. This unique combination of training and experience has prepared Ulrika for her lectures at universities, medical service centers, companies, associations and federations in Sweden and abroad.
Subjects that Ulrika is very concerned about are e.g.
Training for physiotherapists and other medical personal.
The influence of animals and nature on the individual – "Green Rehabilitation".
The natural and cultural values inherent in Söderåsen.
The female entrepreneur in the field of agriculture.
Little talk – lots of action!


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Q: Rebuild regex string based on match keywords in python Example regular expression
regex = re.compile('^page/(?P<slug>[-\w]+)/(?P<page_id>[0-9]+)/$')
matches = regex.match('page/slug-name/5/')
>> matches.groupdict()
{'slug': 'slug-name', 'page_id': '5'}

Is there an easy way to pass a dict back to the regex to rebuild a string?
i.e. {'slug': 'new-slug', 'page_id': '6'} would yield page/new-slug/6/

A: Regex methods operate on strings. Since you have a dict, I think the string format method is a better fit:
In [16]: d={'slug': 'new-slug', 'page_id': '6'}

In [17]: 'page/{slug}/{page_id}'.format(**d)
Out[17]: 'page/new-slug/6'

There are all sorts of more complicated regex for which the following won't work, but if you always use non-nested named match groups (?P<name>...) and restrict pat to having nothing more complicated than \A, or ^, \Z or $ or \b in your regex pattern otherwise, then perhaps you could do this:
import re
import string

pat=r'\Apage/(?P<slug>[-\w]+)/(?P<page_id>[0-9]+)/\Z'
regex = re.compile(pat)
matches = regex.match('page/slug-name/5/')
print(matches.groupdict())
# {'page_id': '5', 'slug': 'slug-name'}

# Convert '(?P<slug>...)' to '{slug}'
reverse_pat=re.sub(r'\(\?P<(.*?)>.*?\)',r'{\1}',pat)
# Strip off the beginning ^ and ending $
reverse_pat=re.sub(r'^(?:\\A|\^)(.*)(?:\\Z|\$)$',r'\1',reverse_pat)
# drop any `\b`s.
reverse_pat=re.sub(r'\\b',r'',reverse_pat)
# there are many more such rules one could conceivably need...
print(reverse_pat.format(**matches.groupdict()))
# page/slug-name/5/

A: Here is a solution which does not require a new regex:
import re
import operator

regex = re.compile('^page/(?P<slug>[-\w]+)/(?P<page_id>[0-9]+)/$')
matches = regex.match('page/slug-name/5/')
groupdict = {'slug': 'new-slug', 'page_id': '6'}
prev_index = matches.start(0)
new_string = ""
for group, index in sorted(regex.groupindex.iteritems(), key=operator.itemgetter(1)):
    new_string += matches.string[prev_index:matches.start(index)] + groupdict[group]
    prev_index = matches.end(index)

new_string += matches.string[prev_index:matches.end(0)]
print new_string
# 'page/new-slug/6/'

This works by replacing named groups by the value provided in groupdict, the rest of the string is inserted using slices on the input string (matches.string).  new_string will be the portion of the original string that matched the regex with the relevant replacements.  To get new_string to include even the non-matching portions of the string replace prev_index = matches.start(0) with prev_index = 0 and remove matches.end(0) from the final slice after the for loop.

A: Django's django.core.urlresolvers.reverse_helper seems to be able to do this (funnily enough, it uses regex to parse regex).
You may be able to reuse reverse_helper and MatchChecker that it provides.

A: Here's a solution using sre_parse
import re
from sre_parse import parse

pattern = r'^page/(?P<slug>[-\w]+)/(?P<page_id>[0-9]+)/$'
regex = re.compile(pattern)
matches = regex.match('page/slug-name/5/')
params = matches.groupdict()
print params
>> {'page_id': '5', 'slug': 'slug-name'}

lookup = dict((v,k) for k, v in regex.groupindex.iteritems())
frags = [chr(i[1]) if i[0] == 'literal' else str(params[lookup[i[1][0]]]) \
    for i in parse(pattern) if i[0] != 'at']
print ''.join(frags)
>> page/slug-name/5/

This works by grabbing the raw opcodes via parse(), dumping the positional opcodes (they have 'at' for a first param), replacing the named groups, and concatenating the frags when it's done.

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