We asked our writers to give us a few reading recommendations – books/writers they love, books that have influenced their writing, or even just what's open on their desk at the moment.
Reading is as much a part of the writing process as actually putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, whatever you prefer). Sometimes finding a writer with a voice similar to yours (or what you hope to be) can be inspiring – and sometimes experiencing a work completely outside your usual comfort zone can open up your perspective.
My first of his I've read. This was a mystery/thriller with such elegant prose and powerful and simple story. I am now so in love with this writer I am going to read everything I can get my hands on. As an author in love with noir enough to marry it, I am inspired by the way Mosley loves his characters, and allows them to change.
I don't know how much influence this book has had on my writing, but it is one of my favorite books. I re-read it every Halloween. Sort of a tradition now. It's a very primal form of storytelling that reads like a history book filled with individual interviews with the survivors of the zombie apocalypse. It combines the Sci-fi/ Horror style of story telling with the current political environment that our society finds itself in, making the prospect of a zombie outbreak seem all too real and scary for the reader.
A friend gave this book to me as a thank you gift for writing a couple original monologues for his daughter, just because he thought I might like it. And I have to say, this is probably the best payment I've ever received for anything I've written (not that I've received many payments). Kelly Link's short stories are in the vein of magical realism/fantasy but don't get me wrong – this is not hobbits running around in the woods kind of fantasy (no offense Sean). There are wizards and ghosts and zombies and dueling librarians – it's dark and hilarious and very moving all at the same time. Her prose is very easy to connect with, very confident and very beautiful. And since reading this short story collection, I've searched out all her other works (two other collections, Pretty Monsters and Stranger Things Happen) and wait eagerly for that novel she's been promising. Her stories are an inspiration to me. I basically want to be her – is that weird?
This may be my all time favorite book – which is saying a lot since I have a lot of "favorite" books! The characters are fascinating and quirky and rich and the story is engrossing – the best of the John Irving style, with the most satisfying ending. The only other book I can think of that can compare in terms of end satisfaction (at least the only one I can think of at this moment) is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which may also be my all time favorite… I will say this: "Mockingbird" also has one of the best film adaptations ever. Definitely can't say the same for Meany (it was tried and failed so miserably that John Irving insisted they take his name and the name of his book off the film).
If you want to read a book about writing, I could give you a list to keep you reading for at least a year! I love to read books about writing. Of course, I must not be the only one because there are many, many books on writing to read out there! I will, however, only suggest On Writing by Stephen King here. Not only is it a great book about his writing process, but he also tells his own story about being hit by a drunk driver. No one else could express the true horror of that nearly fatal experience like the King of Horror. Honestly, I will read anything by Stephen King. Even when I don't like the book overall, I still love his "voice." I'm always sad when I reach the end of any piece he's written.
Recommend: Anything by Sharon Kay Penman if your an Medieval English history buff. She managed to fictionalize Richard III as a protagonist with out altering a single historical fact in "The Sunne in Splendour". Challenging me to look at characters from a different perspective outside of a popular or common historical narrative.
Guilty Pleasure: Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. A great Thriller / Airport reader.
Agree with Taylor Ashbrook on all three book choices. "On Writing" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" are two of a handful of books I have read twice.
This entry was posted on August 25, 2013 by Eclectic Voices in Blog and tagged book, book list, Harper Lee, horror, Iain Banks, John Irving, kelly link, magical realism, Man in my basement, Max Brooks, mystery, noir, reading, sci fi, Stephen King, thriller, Walter Mosley, Wasp Factory, world war z, writing, zombie.


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By Heather Hurst
It's a story we're all too familiar with, by now.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives across the country and the world, but its daily impact was most keenly felt at home. Our homes became our offices, schools and sanctuaries—leading so many people to take on renovations or home improvement projects that it rocked the design and construction sector and shifted the industry in substantial, even surprising ways.
When daily life ground to a halt in 2020, interior designer Emily Richter's practice EKR Interior Design Inc. was primarily focused on serving clients in the commercial and hospitality sectors. Practically overnight, restaurants replaced themselves with residences. Clients needed answers to storage, functionality and space issues, but beyond the practicality, Richter realized there was a common thread in what her clients sought: a sense of peace.
For many people, coming through the long, shut-in winter of early 2021 into the light and freedom of summer felt like a release from captivity. Staying at home, everyone had received a crash course in how design can support and sustain not just productivity and organization, but one's own mental and emotional well-being. Light, nature and space were no longer taken for granted, but rejoiced in. Everyone was getting back to basics.
So it was with Richter and the color gray. Gray has unequivocally been the stand-out neutral of choice thus far in the 21st century, but like anything that becomes fashionable, too much of a good thing becomes a challenge to reinterpret. When Richter's client in Asheville told her they loved the color gray, she knew she was up to the task. What she didn't expect, when she first took on the job, was how it would reignite not only her passion for the residential side of her work, but also for the versatility and elegance of the color gray.
Entrusting Richter and her team with the project while quarantined offsite, the client did not get to preview the remodel until the project was completed. Emily found the modern mountain style of their house charming and knew its character would play well to a streamlined aesthetic.
"There are so many possibilities with remodeling and that's something I really enjoy," says Richter. "I love to envision the potential of what's already there. Simplifying things is usually the best solution, only making changes where necessary."
In reimagining the client's well-cared-for but outdated master bathroom, Richter looked first to the outdoors. By replacing the small window and creating a centerpiece glass wall, the space now maximizes light, while taking full advantage of its stunning privacy and views. A simple, modern retractable shade was installed to complement the clean lines, while affording the option for additional privacy.
The floating vanity and cabinets are a custom design made by a local cabinetmaker, featuring a matte finish quartz composite countertop. The backdrop of artisan glass tile adds more interest to the space than did the previous wall to wall mirror.
While overdesigning the room might have competed with its indisputable star—the view—Richter has carefully combined and selected sophisticated materials that elevate the space and truly rise to the occasion. The most prominent feature is the tile, a large format onyx porcelain is the main finish, accented with a glass mosaic.
The subtle interplay of patterns creates interest, while the soft, muted gray palette allows the eye to rest and draws one's view to the mountains beyond. Even the delicate, modern light fixture belies her expertise: instead of choosing a statement light that interferes with the view, she has skillfully incorporated an arrestingly simple and elegant wall fixture that radiates a sense of intimate, cozy luxury.
It is, at once, an ideal setting for forgetting about the world, and also for preparing to face it once again. For Richter, it has reaffirmed her love of transforming a space and making it extraordinary.
Emily K. Richter NCIDQ, LEED AP
Principal/Designer
ekrinteriordesign.com
RESIDENTIAL | COMMERCIAL | HOSPITALITY

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Tag Archives: lawyers
Last Breath (Good Daughter #0.5) by Karin Slaughter
Published: July 11. 2017
Protecting someone always comes at a cost.
At the age of thirteen, Charlie Quinn's childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into her home – and after that shocking night, Charlie's world was never the same.
Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teen, begs for help, Charlie is reminded of her own past, and is powerless to say no.
But honour-student Flora is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Soon she must ask herself: How far should she go to protect her client? And can she truly believe everything she is being told?
The book opens as Charlie is at a career women speaking event with the Girl Scouts. It seems like most of the girls don't care that she's there. She's also not feeling well. Suddenly, she knows she's about to be sick and bolts for the bathroom. It's there that one of the girls decides to talk with her. As the girl, Florabama Faulkner (Flora) starts to talk about her life, Charlie feels a kinship with her. At first, Flora is hesitant to say what she really wants to say, but finally blurts it out…."I want to be emancipated"
Flora tells Charlie about everything that's going on. Charlie feels for this seemingly fragile, young, and lonely girl. (I knew right there that Flora was TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE) She wants to help her. People like Flora Faulkner are one of the main reasons Charlie chose to move back to Pikerville, instead of working at some hotshot firm in some big city.
But not everything is what it seems. Normally as a defense lawyer, she knows more about her clients, their friends, and family etc. than they know about themselves. But this time, Charlie isn't sure just what she's gotten involved in.
From there, she does some investigating into her grandparents, in an effort to try and understand how to get Flora out of there… however, nothing is ever that simple, not even in a short story. What thrills me with this story is that Karin Slaughter has accomplished a satisfying OMG moment, which is only one amazing part of this short story, and more importantly to me, highlights the strengths of her characters.
As far as prequels go, it's an effective one into Charlie, into her past and where she now. It's also insight into how her past affects her choices and her thinking with regards to her clients — which can be prove dangerous in her line of work.
It is not necessary to read this prior to reading The Good Daughter, but is does give you more insight into the character of Charlie Quinn.
By popcorn317 • Posted in adult angst, audio book, Books, crime-fiction, dysfunctional people, family drama, Mystery, surprise twist	• Tagged audio book, blog, crime-fiction, drugs, emancipation, Karin Slaughter, lawyers, listened, prequel, series, short, surprise twist
Damaged (Rosato and DiNunzio #4) by Lisa Scottoline
Damaged finds Mary DiNunzio, partner at the all-female law firm of Rosato & DiNunzio, embroiled in one of her most heartbreaking cases yet. Suing the Philadelphia school district to get help for a middle school boy with emotional issues, Mary ends up becoming the guardian ad litem of her minor client. As she goes up against Nick Machiavelli, her opposing counsel and the dark prince of South Philly lawyers who will use any means necessary to defeat her, she becomes more and more invested in the case—and puts everything, including her engagement to her longtime boyfriend, on the line.
Mary DiNunzio, a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & DiNunzio, takes on a heartbreaking case involving a dyslexic fifth grader, Patrick O'Brien, who's bullied at school and is getting no support for his language disability. Patrick, who's being raised by his paternal grandfather, allegedly attacked a school aid with scissors, and now the aid is suing both Patrick and the school board for damages. On the brink of her wedding to college professor Anthony Rotunno, Mary becomes emotionally attached to Patrick, more so than any previous client, and finds herself pitted against a diabolical attorney, Nick Machiavelli (aka the Dark Prince), who's determined to win a settlement, despite the emotional cost to the 10-year-old boy. In her struggle to save Patrick, Mary finds herself fighting her associates, her fiancé, and social services. Tensions mount until the story concludes with a satisfying, unexpected twist.
This was the fourth book in the Rosato & DiNunzio series, and it's an excellent addition to the series although it can certainly be read as a stand-alone novel. Damaged made an excellent addition to my Scottoline collection, and I highly recommend it!
By popcorn317 • Posted in audio book, Books, crime-fiction, family drama, past and present merge, surprise twist	• Tagged audio book, bullying, crime-fiction, dyslexia, foster care, lawyers, Lisa Scottoline, listened, series, surprise twist, wedding
The Good Daughter (Good Daughter #1) by Karin Slaughter
Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind…
Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father — Pikeville's notorious defense attorney — devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.
Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself — the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again — and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized — Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a case that unleashes the terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried forever…
Five Stars !!!!!!
What a roller coaster ride! Just when I thought I knew where this book was headed Karin Slaughter (one of my favorites) throws in a giant twist.
I had the audio version and listening was very painful in some parts and I won't say which because it would give too much away.
The Good Daughter is the kind of exceptional psychological thriller that only comes around once every so often—a story as in-your-face shocking as it is tender and heartbreaking. Chapter by chapter, the author unceremoniously unfolds the history of two sisters, and reveals the horrific past that has both tied them together and driven them apart.
This is a brilliant, bold crime novel that examines the unbreakable bond of family and the lengths two women will go to uncover the truth about the brutal secrets of their past.
It is tough and dark and Slaughter doesn't shy away from describing violence in graphic detail, yet each moment of violence is purposeful and intentional, driving character development and giving readers firsthand investment in finding justice for the victims of these horrific acts.
It is character driven and readers who want a straight police procedural or a true legal thriller will be better off looking elsewhere—THE GOOD DAUGHTER is first and foremost a story of a family struggling to overcome its dark and secret-laden past. While this isn't the kind of read I went into the book expecting, the story's rich character development and emotional, often horrific flashbacks left me all the more invested in it.
This book is dark, but it's dark for a purpose.
I highly recommend it!
By popcorn317 • Posted in a must read, audio book, Books, crime-fiction, dark and edgy, family drama, five stars, heart wrenching, Mystery, past and present merge, surprise twist	• Tagged attempted rape, audio book, blog, crime-fiction, Death, five stars, Karin Slaughter, kidnapping, lawyers, listened, murder, sisters, thriller
Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn't see many homicides.
As Lu prepares for the trial, the case dredges up painful memories, reminding her small but tight-knit family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man's life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Now, Lu wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld from her when she was a child?
The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise. What does it mean to be a man or woman of one's times? Why do we ask our heroes of the past to conform to the present's standards? Is that fair? Is it right? Propelled into the past, she discovers that the legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. Lu realizes that even if she could learn the whole truth, she probably wouldn't want to.
"What begins as a tale of lost innocence in the summer of 1980 becomes, woven with alternating chapters set in the present, an unsettling study of the moral compromises people make to keep their lies hidden. As the events of her childhood insinuate themselves into her current life, Lu begins to question essential truths about her beginnings: Who is her father beneath his comforting words and mysterious behavior? Who was her mother before she died in childbirth? What really happened with her brother on that fateful graduation day? (Free to attend Yale, AJ got rich with the Lehman Brothers, left to take up with a yoga instructor, and now is an "Eat, Pray, Love"-type guru and MacArthur fellow.)
Lu, who moved into her father's house with her two daughters following her husband's death, is no angel herself. She regularly meets with one of AJ's old friends for bruising motel room sex. As assertive and irreverent as she is ("Have you ever noticed only another competitive person will ever call you competitive?"), she didn't get to become state's attorney without making political — and personal — compromises.
Ultimately, "Wilde Lake" is not so much a crime novel that rises to the level of serious literature as serious literature that rises to the level of great crime fiction. " taken from the Chicago Tribune.
This book was so much more than I had expected and I recommend it to anyone that likes a heart-breaking mystery.
By popcorn317 • Posted in audio book, crime-fiction, Mystery, past and present merge, surprise twist	• Tagged audio book, blog, cover-up, crime-fiction, Laura Lippman, lawyers, murder, rape, secrets
My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite #1) by Robert Dugoni
Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah's disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn't believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah's murder — is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.
When Sarah's remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she's been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past — and open the door to deadly danger.
Because of all the twists and turns in this book, I think I have whiplash!
If the main players in this story had just been honest – there would have been NO story.
The daughter of a prominent man in a small community goes missing and presumed dead, although no body was found, and a convicted rapist who served his time and now back in town, is "framed" for the disappearance. All of those involved in the frame up take a vow of silence. The missing girl's sister has never believed that the trail was all it could have been and when, after twenty years, her sister's body is discovered, she vows to get the convicted man a new trial and have her sister's case re-opened.Well, that opens a whole new can of worms and she finds out how dangerous it is to uncover some things.
I won't give anything away, but you'll be surprised who turns out to be the murderer.
Great read/listen.
By popcorn317 • Posted in audio book, Books, crime-fiction, surprise twist	• Tagged audio book, blog, childhood friend, crime-fiction, deceptions, five stars, kidnapping, lawyers, murder, police, Robert Dugoni, secrets, sisters
Final Appeal by Lisa Scottoline
Grace Rossi is starting over after a divorce, and a part-time job with a federal appeals court sounds perfect. But she doesn't count on being assigned to an explosive death penalty appeal. Nor does she expect ardor in the court in the form of an affair with the chief judge. Then Grace finds herself investigating a murder, unearthing a secret bank account and following a trail of bribery and judicial corruption that's stumped even the FBI. In no time at all, Grace under fire takes on a whole new meaning.
Another great book from Lisa Scottoline about the judical system from a women's view-point. I had the audio version and the narrator, Kate Burton, did a fantastic job. This book involves the murder of a chief judge with whom Grace just had sex, dealing with coming to grips with parents who are far from perfect, the love of a child, friendships and relationships, and betrayal. It's a murder mystery with a twist and so much more.
By popcorn317 • Posted in Books	• Tagged audio book, betrayal, friendships and relationships, judges, lawyers, Lisa Scottoline, murder, new found love, parents
Courting Trouble (Rosato & Associates #7) by Lisa Scottoline
Anne Murphy thought she'd put her unhappy past a continent behind her when she joined Philadelphia attorney Bennie Rosato's all-woman law firm. Then a friend who's housesitting for Anne is murdered in what's clearly a case of mistaken identity, and Anne realizes that the past has caught up with her and that the only way to outrun it is to catch the killer before he realizes that she's still alive. But how can Anne play dead with a high-profile case just days away from starting? The only way to pull it off is to let her new colleagues in on the secret, which would mean telling them her other secrets, too, including the fact that she's in love with opposing counsel and the probability that her client may not be as innocent as she thought he was.
Action begins early in this book and hardly lets go all the way to the end. It is crime fiction at its finest because there are many twists and turns and heart stopping moments before the identity of the killer comes to light. This is my third venture into the lives of Rosato & Associates and I'm enjoying them more and more. I had the audio version and the narrator was very good.
By popcorn317 • Posted in Books	• Tagged audio book, crime-fiction, drama, lawyers, Lisa Scottoline, murder, Rosato & Associates
Want it Bad by Melinda DuChamp
Carla thought she had it all together.Then Jake moved in next door.
She never expected to fall for someone half her age. Especially Jake, an escort who specialized in very kinky sex.
But Carla was curious. And rich. And when Jake accepts her as a client, they each may have gotten more than they'd bargained for…
This is the first erotic romance that I found with humor as one of its main components and I love it. It's too funny how Carla, a partner in a law firm, turns into a peeping tom when a male escort moves in next door. It's hilarious when she goes to the yarn store and the adult toy store. (you'll have to read the book to find out how yarn and learning to crochet has to do with sex). There is even some humor in the HOT sex scenes which makes them less embarrassing (at least for me)
I loved this book and it's characters. Great read.
By popcorn317 • Posted in Books	• Tagged a hint of romance, adult, BDSM, erotica, explicit sex, humorous, lawyers, male escort, secrets, sexual
Dead Ringer (Rosato and Associates #8) by Lisa Scottoline
They say that blood is thicker than water, but just how far should you go for a sister?
When ace lawyer Bennie Rosato's twin sister returns to Philadelphia, she knows that trouble is on the horizon, for her sister never contacts her with familial love at the forefront of her agenda – if she contacts her at all. At the same time, Bennie's law firm is in trouble, so she takes on a potentially lucrative class-action suit to try to save the day. It could be make or break – both for her family and her firm.
Meanwhile, her colleague Mary DiNunzio persists in bringing in a case that looks more like an Italian wedding than a lawsuit, and then a mysterious stranger appears just in time to help Bennie in the fight of her life – for her life.
Full of pace, suspense and laugh-out-loud humor, bestselling New York Times author Lisa Scottoline has written her strongest book ever, featuring many of the much-loved characters from the wise-cracking all-women Philadelphia law firm of Rosato and Associates.
I know I said I wouldn't read another book in the Rosato & Associates Series but, again, I found this one at my local library and since the narrator was different I decided to check it out. The narrator made all the difference, plus Mary didn't have a large part so her family members weren't around too much.
The story line was great and involves Bennie's twin and a lot of hatred toward the successful lawyer.
So glad I tried another book by Lisa Scottoline.
By popcorn317 • Posted in Books	• Tagged brothers, class action law suit, falsely accused, family, lawyers, mistaken identity, murder, sisters
Motive (Alex Delaware #30) by Jonathan Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman writes razor-sharp novels that cut to the quick. Now comes Motive, which pits psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis against a vicious criminal mind—the kind only Kellerman can bring to chilling life.Even having hundreds of closed cases to his credit can't keep LAPD police lieutenant Milo Sturgis from agonizing over the crimes that don't get solved—and the victims who go without justice. Victims like Katherine Hennepin, a young woman strangled and stabbed in her home. A single suspect with a solid alibi leads to a dead end—one even Alex Delaware's expert insight can't explain. The only thing to do is move on to the next murder case—because there's always a next one.
This time the victim is Ursula Corey: a successful, attractive divorcée who's been gunned down—not a robbery but an execution, a crime that smacks of simple, savage revenge. And along with that theoretical motive come two strong contenders for the role of perp: the dead woman's business partner/ex-husband and her divorce lawyer/secret lover. But just as Alex and Milo think they're zeroing in on the most likely suspect, a bizarre new clue stirs up eerie echoes of the unsolved Hennepin murder. And the discovery of yet another crime scene bearing the same taunting signature raises the specter of a serial killer on a mission, whose twisted method is exceeded only by his manipulative and cunning madness.
I love the friendship between Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis because of the way they play off of one another. They both have a dry sense of humor and want the same thing – justice for victims.
This storyline is twisted and one I've never read before. The killer murders the victims, who are on the surface not related, and then leaves a meal for two at the crime scene or somewhere meaningful. The main suspect turns out to be wrong and the story goes into another direction and not until the end do we find out how the killer is.
Great story with well-defined characters and steady paced action. I highly recommend it.
**I had the audio book version and the narrator did a fantastic job.**
By popcorn317 • Posted in Books	• Tagged Alex Delaware, audio book, friendships and relationships, jealousy, Jonathan Kellerman, lawyers, murders
Never make a promise you can't afford to keep…


ADRIAN — A local railroad company and economic development officials again are applying for federal funding to extend a rail line into Ohio.
The Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road and Lenawee Now are applying for $6,262,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program to fund part of the projected $10,750,000 cost of laying eight miles of track from Riga to Ottawa Lake to connect to an existing Norfolk Southern Railway line. That line goes into Sylvania.
A&B would pay $3,580,000, and the Michigan Department of Transportation has pledged $908,000 toward the project, according to a summary of the application provided to the Lenawee County Board of Commissioners' personnel/ways and means committee for its meeting Tuesday.
The committee voted 9-0 to allow county administrator Martin Marshall to sign the grant application. The county officially is the applicant, but is otherwise not involved in the project. Marshall said no county funds would be used for the project.
"The whole emphasis of this grant is to get our products to the port of Toledo or the railyards in Toledo without a three-day trip," Randy Yagiela, Lenawee Now development staff member, told the committee.
Products presently being shipped by train from Lenawee County to Toledo have to go to Fort Wayne and then Elkhart in Indiana before getting to Toledo, which takes three days. Connecting to the Norfolk Southern line in Ottawa Lake would shorten the trip to one day.
Other benefits of the project would be fewer traffic tie-ups from trains crossing streets in Adrian, fewer hazardous materials passing through the city and fewer big trucks on local roads transporting materials to Toledo, Yagiela said.
The grant application summary estimated building the new line would save about $47 million in travel time in Adrian. It would be offset by about $1.9 million in traffic delays caused by crossing nine county roads between Riga and Ottawa Lake.
The line would follow an existing railbed between Tagsold Highway and Ottawa Lake Road, the summary said. Yagiela said some of the project costs are for property acquisition, but most is for buying rails and other materials to rebuild the railroad that once was along that route.
Commissioner K.Z. Bolton, D-Adrian, asked if the project could involve passenger trains. Yagiela said including passenger travel would require Lenawee Now to study the economic impact of tourism, which it is not prepared to do. He said they need to get the rails built first before exploring passenger travel on them.
Yagiela said this time around A&B and Lenawee Now commissioned a study to provide a cost-benefit analysis for the grant application, using funds from another grant program to help pay for it. He said the TIGER program is highly competitive, with both rural and urban projects competing for the same funding, and the analysis should make it more competitive.
"I was told it's easier to get into Harvard than to get this grant," he said.
The study looked at a reduction in road crashes, reduction in travel time, reduction in pollutant emissions and fuel consumption, and business expansion due to the new rail route.
"The evidence has shown that this project would save $500 million to almost $1 billion (in) 2017 (dollars) in aggregate social monetized utility over 25 years using various discounting methods recommended by the TIGER Grant in these categories," the summary said.
Yagiela said the project has the support of legislators and local municipalities.
If the grant is approved, the project could be completed by September 2023, Yagiela said.


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Application platform as a service (aPaaS) är en typ av molntjänst som tillhandahåller en applikationsplattform, där användaren själv kan skapa och köra applikationer utan att behöva några programmeringskunskaper. Leverantören tillhandahåller designverktyg, nätverk, servrar, lagring med flera tjänster.

Exempel på Application platform as a service i Sverige är IS Tools och internationellt finns Windows Azure, Google App Engine och SalesForce.

Se även
 Datormoln
 Platform as a service

Referenser

Externa länkar
IS Tools

World Wide Web
Datorteknik

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Guests Dan Clowes and Annabelle Hurwitch. Dan Clowes is the screenwriter of the film "Art School Confidential," which is based on a short comic story from his anthology series Eightball. Eightball was also the birthplace of "Ghost World." Annabelle Hurwitch is the former host of TBS' "Dinner and a Movie," and the author of "Fired," a collection of firing stories from "entertaining people," including David Cross, Felicity Huffman, and Robert Reich. Also: a comedy sketch from Free Love Forum.


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Be Natural ©riginal Story of Alice Guy Blache by Herself with Emile Cohl
With those two simple words [BE NATURAL] Alice Guy-Blaché transformed the art of screenacting for all time. -
With those two simple words [BE NATURAL] Alice Guy-Blaché transformed the art of screenacting for all time.
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Du 11 au 13 avril Cinemateque
S'il y a un mot qui convient particulièrement à Emile Cohl, c'est celui d'inventeur. Ce sont des circonstances presque hasardeuses qui ont conduit ce personnage hors du commun et déjà célèbre, caricaturiste, philatéliste, escrimeur, excellent dessinateur, à franchir les portes de la société Gaumont, en 1908, pour réaliser, à plus de 50 ans, son premier film. Qui sera suivi de beaucoup d'autres, chez Gaumont, chez Pathé ou chez Eclair, pour qui il travaillera même quelques années aux Etats-Unis. Lorsqu'en 1923 Emile Cohl abandonnera la caméra, il aura réalisé plus de trois cents courts métrages.
Libellés : emile cohl, gaumont le cinema premier, vol 2
Retrospective Emile Cohl
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5obo7_genese_creation ZOETROPE de Franck Mercky "Les fées aux choux accélérées" sous emphetamine
Rétrospective Emile Cohl
Du 11 au 13 avril 2008, la Cinémathèque propose, en partenariat avec le Forum des images, une rétrospective intégrale des films d'Emile Cohl conservés à ce jour. A cette occasion, on pourra découvrir l'ensemble de ses films retrouvés dans le monde, ainsi que le travail des ses héritiers dans le cinéma d'animation et dans la création expérimentale.
Le programme "CINECO(H)LE : le cinéma d'Emile Cohl vu par les écoles d'animation" permet aux étudiants de six écoles d'animation de réinterpréter les films "perdus" du réalisateur.
Libellés : emile cohl
Emile Cohl Video
Libellés : alice guy jr, autist artist associat, dvd.video, gaumont le cinema premier
Fantasmagorie Emile Colh
Alice Guy rencontre Emile Cohl Citè Elge qui deviendra un de ses colaborateur at
SITE EMILE COHL
http://www.emilecohl.com/
In 1907, Emile Cohl, who was a contemporary of George Melies the Lumiere Brothers, Alice Guy, started making his first animated cartoons in Paris, France. His first cartoon, Fantasmagorie (1907) applied all of the basic principles behind animated cartoons by making a series of progressive drawings photographed on motion picture film. By all accounts, Cohl was the first cartoon animator, and the great-grandfather of all animators who have followed since.
Émile Cohl (January 4, 1857 – January 20, 1938), born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet, was a French caricaturist of the largely-forgotten Incoherent Movement, cartoonist, and animator, called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon" and "The Oldest Parisian".
Despite their long ancestry, the Courtet family was not high on the social ladder. Émile's father Elie was a rubber salesman, and his mother, Emilie Laure, was a linen seamstress. The rubber factory Elie worked for had many ups and downs, causing the family to move from one home in Paris to another.
During the first few years of Émile Courtet's life, France was ruled by Napoleon III of France, nephew of Napoleon I of France, a protector of middle class families like the Courtets. Émile saw little of his father during his childhood, and was over-protected by his ailing mother until her death in 1863. In 1864, at the age of 7, he was enrolled at the Ecole professionnelle de Pantin, a boarding school known as the Institute Vaudron after its founder. There his artistic talents were discovered and encouraged. The next year, a cold kept him in his father's apartment, where he began stamp collecting, a hobby that would become his sole source of income several times in his life.
On July 15, 1870, the Franco-Prussian War began. France was invaded and Napoleon III was forced to surrender on the battlefield of Sedan. A "French Third Republic" was declared in Paris to succeed the "Second French Empire" of Napoleon III. Almost immediately, the city was besieged by Prussian armies. It fell on January 28, 1871, and foreign armies were occupying the streets of the capital when Adolphe Thiers was elected President of France. Thiers was too conservative for many Parisians, so a Paris Commune was declared, a sort of anti-government of radicals. The French Army, so ineffective against the Prussians, was used to wipe out the Commune while the Prussians watched. The Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871) ended the Franco-Prussian War and imposed an indemnity of 5 billion francs on the losers. President Thiers organized finances to pay the indemnity, resigning on May 24, 1873.
The chaos caused by the siege of Paris led to the closing of Elie Courtet's factory. Émile was transferred to the less-exclusive Ecole Turgot, but his lessons were soon forgotten as the teenager wandered the streets of Paris to watch history being made. He made two discoveries that in time that became the controlling elements of his life: Guignol puppet theater and political caricature. Guignol was a form of drama (usually involving love triangles) where the characters were played by marionettes. A subset of the Guignol was Fantoche, a form of puppetry where the puppeteer's head was stuck through a hole in a black sheet with a small puppet body underneath.
Political caricature had begun in France during the Second Empire, but had been suppressed by Napoleon III. During the free-for-all weeks of the Commune (all eleven of them), the caricaturists were free to post broadsheets on the streets for all to see. The center of this activity was the Rue du Croissant, only blocks from the Ecole Turgot.
In 1872, Elie Courtet placed his 15-year old son in a three-year apprenticeship with a jeweler. Émile drew caricatures, enlisted in the Cherbourg regiment, and drew some more. Elie placed him with a maritime insurance broker. Émile left the broker, got a much poorer-paying job with a philatelist and declared his preference for drawing, the Bohemian lifestyle, and if necessary, going hungry.
In 1878, Émile obtained a letter of recommendation from Etienne Carjat to approach André Gill, the best-known caricaturist of the day, for a job. Gill had made his fame a decade earlier by publishing La Lune, a periodical critical of Napoleon III. His presses were smashed and he was incarcerated. He started La Lune Rousse in 1876 to continue his work. By this time, he had moved beyond attacking individuals to making observations on the ludicrousness of conformist bourgeois values in general. However, the government was becoming increasingly liberal, leaving him with few big-name targets. As a result, La Lune Rousse closed in 1879.
Émile Courtet's job as one of several assistants to Gill was to complete the backgrounds; he may have done a few of the illustrations by himself. During this process, the young man developed a style of caricature based on Gill's. Gill's trademark was the large, recognizable head of the target (with a fairly benign expression) atop a small puppet body (doing something ridiculous). Clearly, it was based on Fantoche puppetry. Émile took this style and added touches to suggest movement and imagery from the rest of Guignol puppetry. At about this time he adopted the pseudonym of Émile Cohl. The meaning of "Cohl" is obscure: it may be from the pigment known as "kohl", or perhaps it means that Émile stuck to his mentor Gill like glue ("colle" in French). Perhaps it was chosen because it sounded exotic. The visual signature of a paste-pot appears in a few of Cohl's caricatures.
Thiers was succeeded as president by Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, a conservative monarchist who had been at Sedan. He became steadily less popular under the assault of caricatures. One of these, "Aveugle par Ac-Sedan", a French pun on "accidentally blind" and "Bungler at Sedan", put its creator, Émile Cohl, in jail on October 11, 1879, making him instantly famous. Three months later, MacMahon resigned in disgrace--the caricaturists liked to believe that they were responsible. He was succeeded by Jules Grévy, who transferred real power from the post of president to the prime minister and legislature. This led to a period of internal stability and prosperity for France.
Through Gill, Cohl had become acquainted with an artistic circle calling themselves the Hydropathes. The group was united by various "modern" ideas and a love of poetry. The group, like many others of the time, based most of their activities on shocking people. As a result of his new-found fame, Cohl was named editor of the group's spokes-piece, L'Hydropathe, on October 28, 1879. At about this time Émile's estranged father died, leaving him a modest legacy. Émile Cohl set out to discover his abilities, writing and producing two satiric plays that did very poorly. The co-author of both plays was Norés (pseudonym of Edouard Norés), an American who had been an architect before giving up his former life for Bohemianism on the banks of the Seine. Besides a strong friendship, Norés taught Cohl English, a useful skill later on.
End of the Hydropathes
Émile Cohl married on November 12, 1881; his wife later left him for an author. At the same time, André Gill was committed to the Charenton mental asylum. He managed to recover in a few months and in 1882 submitted his first serious painting, "Le Fou" (The Madman) to the Salon. The painting's poor reception by the artists of the Salon sent him back to Charenton.
Meanwhile, the Hydropathes had disbanded in 1882. Their place in Cohl's life was replaced by the Incoherents. The group was founded by Jules Lévy, who coined the phrase "les arts incohérents" as a contrast to the common expression "les arts décoratifs". The Incoherents were even less politically-minded than the Hydropathes. Their slogan was "Gaity is properly French, so let's be French". The focus was absurdism, nightmares, and the drawing style of children. Cohl's Incoherent art joined his caricatures and satiric news reporting at La Nouvelle Lune, where he had become the major contributor and acting editor. He became editor in chief on November 30, 1883.
By November 1883, the Incoherents had become so big that an exhibit was arranged at the Vivienne Gallery, open to the public. It was called "an exhibition of drawings by people who do not know how to draw." Émile Cohl's contribution was titled Portrait garanti ressemblant (Portrait--Resemblance Guaranteed). The exhibit accepted any and all entries, so long as they were not obscene or serious. The public was taken with the show, and the profits were donated to public assistance. There was a second show in 1884, and the 1885 show was replaced by a masked ball (Cohl went as an artichoke). In 1886, Cohl produced his most bizarre and characteristic work in the Incoherent vein: Abus des metaphors, a collection of more than a dozen colorful expressions brought to life.
Death of André Gill
Cohl's personal life was nowhere as rosy as his professional life would suggest, despite the birth of his daughter Marcelle Andrée in May 1883. André Gill never recovered his sanity, and after a few months Charenton seized his property and drawings, auctioning them off to pay their bills. Cohl was unable to keep his hero in the public eye. André Gill died on May Day, 1885, with only Cohl by his side. Cohl never forgot Gill's desertion by his friends and the public. The Incoherent movement collapsed in 1888.
After the collapse of his marriage, Cohl moved to London to work for Pick Me Up, a humor magazine that specialized in French artists (he left his long-standing second job as a philatelist at this time). He returned to Paris in June 1896 and married Suzanne Delpy, the daughter of one of André Gill's followers. Their son André Jean was born on November 8, 1899. By this time, Cohl had moved away from caricature, sending humorous drawings to bicycle magazines, family magazines, and children's magazines. He also wrote articles on French history, stamps, and fishing. In July 1898 he started contributing to L'Illustré National. This would be the origin of Cohl's comic strips. At the same time, Cohl's art moved from scene-setting to story-telling, and from the Gill fantoche style to Impressionism. Other interests during this period included puzzles, toys (he invented a few new ones), and drawings of figures made from wax matches. In the political arena, he submitted anti-Dreyfus illustrations to La Libre Parole Illustrée.
By 1907, the 50-year old Émile Cohl, like everyone else in Paris, had become aware of motion pictures. How he actually entered the business is shrouded in legend. According to Jean-Georges Auriol in a book of 1930, one day Cohl was walking down the street when he spotted a poster advertising a movie obviously stolen from one of his strips. Outraged, he confronted the manager of the offending studio (Elge) and was hired on the spot as a scenarist (responsible for one-page story ideas for movies). The story is rather doubtful in the detail of which strip and which short film; it is also possible that the story is completely false, and that Cohl was approached for the job, either by director Alice Guy, Etienne Arnaud or by artistic director Louis Feuillade, both of whom had once worked for caricature papers and therefore could be expected to know Cohl by reputation if not personally.
At Elge, Cohl collaborated with the other directors whenever possible, learning cinematography from Arnaud and directing chases, comedies, féeries ("fairy pieces"), and pageants. But his specialty was animation. He worked in a corner of the studio with a vertically-mounted Gaumont camera and a single assistant to operate it. He turned out four sequences a month for insertion in mostly-live action films. Studio director L.G., in one of his visits, dubbed him "the Benedictine".
The idea for doing animation was born from the huge success of the film "The Haunted Hotel", released by Vitagraph and directed by J. Stuart Blackton. It premiered in Paris in April 1907 and immediately there was a demand for more films using its incredible object animation techniques. According to a story told by Arnaud in 1922, Gaumont had ordered his staff to figure out the "mystery of 'The Haunted Hotel'." Cohl studied the film frame by frame, and in this way discovered the techniques of animation. It should be noted that Cohl, who was always seeking to enlarge his reputation in later life, never corroborated this story. Also, there were a fair number of films released before 1907 with stop-motion and/or drawn animation in them, by Blackton and others, any one of which could have taught Cohl animation, if he didn't just work the technique out on his own. The only reason "The Haunted Hotel" is significant is the fact that it was popular enough to make the arduous work of animation profitable.
Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl, 1908
Cohl made "Fantasmagorie" from February to May or June 1908. This is considered the first fully animated film ever made. It was made up of 700 drawings, each of which was double-exposed, leading to a running time of almost two minutes. Despite the short running time, the piece was packed with material devised in a "stream of consciousness" style. It borrowed from Blackton in using a "chalk-line effect" (filming black lines on white paper, then reversing the negative to make it look like white chalk on a black chalkboard), having the main character drawn by the artist's hand on camera, and the main characters of a clown and a gentleman (this taken from Blackton's "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces"). The film, in all of its wild transformations, is a direct tribute to the by-then forgotten Incoherent movement. The title is a reference to the "fantasmograph", a mid-Nineteenth Century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images that floated across the walls.
"Fantasmagorie" was released on August 17, 1908. This was followed by two more films, "Le Cauchemar du fantoche" ["The Puppet's Nightmare", now lost] and "Un Drame chez les fantoches" ["A Puppet Drama", called "The Love Affair in Toyland" for American release and "Mystical Love-Making" for British release], all completed in 1908. These three films are united by their chalk-line style, the stick-figure clown protagonists, and the constant transformations. Cohl made the plots of these films up as he was filming them. He would put a drawing on the lightbox, photograph it, trace onto next sheet with slight changes, photograph that, and so on. This meant that the pictures did not jitter and the plot was spontaneous. Cohl had to calculate the timing in advance. The process was demanding and time-consuming, which is probably why he moved away from drawn animation after "Un Drame chez les fantoches".
The rest of the films Cohl made for Gaumont involve strange transformations ("Les Joyeaux Microbes" ["The Joyous Microbes", aka "The Merry Microbes" (UK)] (1909)), some great matte effects ("Clair de lune espagnol" ["Spanish Moonlight", aka "The Man in the Moon" (US), aka "The Moon-Struck Matador" (UK)] (1909)), and loving puppet animation ("Le Tout Petit Faust" ["The Little Faust", aka "The Beautiful Margaret" (US)] (1910)), and "Mobilier fidèle" (1910), released in the U.S. as "The Automatic Moving Company" in 1912. Other films used jointed cut-outs or animated matches (the later an especial favorite of Cohl).
In his lifetime, Cohl's most-famous film was Le Peintre néo-impressionniste ["The Neo-Impressionistic Painter"], made in 1910. An artist is sketching a classically-draped model holding a broom as a stick-figure when a collector storms in demanding to know the progress of his work. The artist shows the collector a series of blank colored canvases (the film is color-tinted). As he gives their ridiculous titles, the collector imagines them being drawn on the canvas. For example, the red canvas is "a cardinal eating lobster with tomatoes by the banks of the Red Sea". The collector is soon so delirious that he buys every blank canvas he can see. Quite obviously, the artist is not a neo-Impressionist (the name taken from the latest vogue in Paris)--he's an Incoherent.
The Cohl animated films had a large impact through their American distribution by Kleine. Many of them received rave reviews in the trade magazines, although Cohl was only identified as "Gaumont's animator". It was probably in response to "Fantasmagorie" that Winsor McCay made Little Nemo (1911). Motifs of Cohl's can be found in Little Nemo and later films by McCay: the dots coalescing into Little Nemo reflect effects in Un Drame chez les fantoches and Les Joyeaux Microbes; the metamorphosis of the rose into the Princess may have been inspired by Fantasmagorie; the titular character of The Story of a Mosquito (1912) sharpening his beak comes from Un Drame chez les fantoches; the live-action/animation interaction of McCay throwing a pumpkin to Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) may have been an answer to the matador hurling his hatchet at the moon in "Clair de lune espagnol". But if there were borrowings of Cohl by McCay, there was also a wealth of style and spirit in McCay's films that were uniquely his own.
On November 30, 1910, Cohl left Gaumont for Pathé, probably for more money. He made only two animated films before being forced into exclusively live-action work as a director of burlesques starring Jobard (Lucien Cazalis), one of the first generation of great screen comics. Cohl made ten Jobard films between March and May 1911 before leaving for a vacation. Apparently, one of these films was the origin of pixilation, the technique of applying stop-motion to human beings.
One of those two animated films was "Le Ratapeur de cervelles" ["Brains Repaired"], which is a re-hash of "Les Joyeaux Microbes" using a mental disease. The transformations here are some of the most remarkable (and non-sensical) of Cohl's career: as two men shake hands in profile, their heads expand into huge crossed bird beaks, filling the screen in a zoom until only their shared eye is seen, which itself expands into a bellows. The other film, "La Revanche des espirits" [The Spirit's Revenge] (now lost) may have been the first film to combine live-action and animation by drawing directly on the live-action film (previous work had used mattes exclusively).
In July 1911, Émile Cohl learned that his estranged daughter Andrée had died in an auto accident. Disastisfied with Pathé and too proud to return to Gaumont, Cohl signed with Eclipse in September. None of Cohl's Eclipse films have survived, so little is known of his work there--it appeared to consist of object animation and travelogues. The Eclipse contract was not exclusive, so Cohl made films for other studios. One of these films, "Campbell Soups", was his first film made for Éclair, the Number Three studio in France.
Éclair's American studio at Fort Lee, New Jersey was run by Cohl's friend Arnaud. As Éclair was moving into comedies for American audiences, it was not too hard for Arnaud to have his friend sent over the Atlantic to join him. Émile, his wife Suzanne, and their son André sailed first class from La Havre to New York City. At Ellis Island, he was required, for "sanitary reasons", to shave off the mustache he had worn for thirty years in honor of André Gill.
Despite the inevitable xenophobia from the locals, the French colony at Fort Lee was enthusiastic about finally invading the coveted American market. Cohl bought a house and settled into a typical middle-class American lifestyle. He had a considerable advantage over fellow-Éclair employees, as he was fluent in English.
Cohl had two basic assignments at Fort Lee: humorous newsreel inserts and The Newlyweds animated series. The newsreel (one of the first of its kind) was started by the Sales Company in March 1912 and continued by Universal (Éclair's distributor). The Newlyweds started life as a newspaper comic strip by George McManus in the New York World. The three main characters are a fashionable woman drawn in the style of the "Gibson Girl", her obliging husband, and Baby Snookums, an absolute hellion of a child who nevertheless gets everything he wants (usually at the expense of the father). The series was popular both in the United States and in France (under the name Le Petit Ange). Cohl wanted to make the first animated series, and he liked The Newlyweds. As for McManus, he may have been convinced to sign with Cohl at the urging of his friend Winsor McCay. Prior to this point, there had been a few adaptations of comic series into films, but they were all live action. Examples include Happy Hooligan (starring J. Stuart Blackton as the title character), Buster Brown, and Mutt and Jeff (later to become a successful animated series).
Cohl began work on The Newlyweds series in November 1912, and the ads started appearing in February 1913. These ads are the oldest on record to use the phrase "animated cartoons"; as would be usual for all of the following comic adaptations, only the comic artist is mentioned in the advertising, never the animator. Cohl achieved his speed (thirteen Newlyweds cartoons in thirteen months) by using the bare minimum of actual animation, the scenes consisting of static tableau with dialog balloons appearing above each character's head (done faithfully in the McManus style). What little motion necessary was done with hinged cut-out figures animated by stop-motion. The only ingenuity in these films lay in the transitions between tableaux, which utilized Cohl's trademark transformations. Nevertheless, Cohl had proved that commercial animation was possible. The series was an instant hit. Only one film in this series has survived, "He Poses for His Portrait" [aka "Le Portrait de Zozor" (Fr.)] (1913).
The success of the series led to an explosion of animation, all adaptations of comic strips, and few of them remembered today. Meanwhile, Cohl saw both "The Story of a Mosquito" and "Gertie the Dinosaur" live at the Hammerstein Theater in New York, and he recorded his admiration of each in his diary. For animation to be practical, it had to move beyond the techniques of Cohl (cut-outs) and McCay (tracing), both of which were arduous, single-person processes. Two men were to independently work out ways around this problem: Raoul Barré and Randolph Bray. Barré studied art in Paris in the 1890s and was known for his pro-Dreyfus cartoons. In 1920, Cohl told the story of two unnamed visitors that Éclair had forced on him to study his techniques, techniques that they later stole to make their own series. It is possible that these two were Barré and his business partner William C. Nolan. It is possible that Cohl's obvious hostility to his visitors was the result of the knowledge that they were on opposite sides in the Dreyfus Affair. On the other hand, Barré's method for making cartoons quickly, the "slash system", is the exact opposite of Cohl's cut-out system. It is true that Barré's series, The Animated Grouch Chasers, frequently stole characters and scenarios from Cohl, but then again everyone was doing that. Randolph Bray, in collaboration with Earl Hurd, developed the patents that nearly made them the Motion Picture Patents Company of animated film. Animation historian Michael Barrier speculates that one of Cohl's unnamed visitors may have been Bray instead of Barré.
[edit] World War I
On March 11, 1914, the Cohl family left New Jersey for Paris in response to a death in Suzanne's family. They never returned. Eight days later, a fire destroyed most of Éclair's American films, including all but two of Cohl's films ("He Poses for His Portrait" and "Bewitched Matches" [aka "Les Allumettes ensorcelées" (Fr.)]). The later is the only one of the animated matches films Cohl made to survive. The American studio later moved to Tucson, Arizona. The chaos caused by the fire brought Éclair's work in France to a near-standstill. Cohl made a handful of films for Éclair in France, but the outbreak of World War I on August 3, 1914 forced those films to be held back for years before being released.
By August 11, 80% of the French film industry had enlisted or had been drafted. Cohl (at 57 years of age) was too old to fight, but he volunteered as best he could while working at Éclair. His heart was no longer in his work, for his beloved wife Suzanne was slowly dying. In 1916, American cartoons took France by storm. Gaumont imported The Animated Grouch Chasers and for the first time since the early films of Blackton, animated films were being advertised with the name and face of their animator, Raoul Barré. If Barré is the individual who "stole" Cohl's techniques, this must have made him furious (it didn't help that it was his former employer that was doing all the hoopla).
It was at this moment that Cohl was approached by Benjamin Rabier, a popular illustrator of children's books. Rabier wanted Cohl to animate his characters. The producer for the series was René Navarre, a former actor who had become famous playing the anti-hero Fantomas in a series of films in 1913 and 1914. The distributor was Agence Générale Cinematographique (AGC). The trio parted company over Cohl's resentment that he was not being credited in the advertising. The series, Les Dessins animés de Benjamin Rabier (The Animated Drawings of Benjamin Rabier) starred Flambeau the War Dog. The only surviving film, "Les Fiançailles de Flambeau" ["Flambeau's Wedding"] (released 1917) has cute naturalistic characters from Rabier and coarse morbid humor from Cohl. By the time of Cohl's departure, Rabier had learned enough animation to carry on with the help of two assistants. The series lasted for several years.
Cohl continued work with Éclair throughout this debacle, mostly making newsreel inserts. Based on the few fragments that remain, the series Les Aventures des Pieds Nickelés [Adventures of the Leadfoot Gang] may have been the best work of Cohl's career. It was based on a working class comic strip by Louis Forton, about a gang of anarchistic youngsters constantly getting into trouble with both the criminal underground and the law. The series was terminated by the war, as the Éclair-Journal studios were occupied to make American war propaganda.
Cohl spent the rest of the war serving his country. He joined the United States Air Service Supply as a volunteer on May 11, 1918. His son André had joined the American Transportation Division the previous November.
Commemorative plaque at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery
With the war over, Cohl quit Éclair in May 1920 and made his last significant film, "Fantoche cherche un logement" ["Puppet Looks for an Apartment"]. It was released as "La Maison du fantoche" ["Puppet's Mansion"] in April 1921 by AGC. The only notice paid to it in the trade journals was a one-line plot summary. Nobody cared about Cohl's work anymore, or any other French filmmaker, for that matter. Cohl's career was finished, since there was no longer any way to justify the cost of an animated short subject in a world of live-action features.
Cohl died in 1938. His ashes are kept in the columbarium of the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris.
* Donald Crafton; Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film; Princeton Press; ISBN 0-69-105581-5 (1990)
* Michael Barrier; Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age; Oxford University Press; ISBN 0-19-503759-6 (1999)
* Giannalberto Bendazzi (Anna Taraboletti-Segre, English translator); Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation; Indiana University Press; ISBN 0-253-20937-4 (2001 reprint)
Libellés : alice guy jr, be natural alice guy blache, be natural the movie, cinema animation, emile cohl
Emile Colh Alice Guy Blache
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Alice Guy Jr.
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	 * Returns a new RefAssuranceQuery object.
	 *
	 * @param     string $modelAlias The alias of a model in the query
	 * @param     Criteria $criteria Optional Criteria to build the query from
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery
	 */
	public static function create($modelAlias = null, $criteria = null)
	{
		if ($criteria instanceof RefAssuranceQuery) {
			return $criteria;
		}
		$query = new RefAssuranceQuery();
		if (null !== $modelAlias) {
			$query->setModelAlias($modelAlias);
		}
		if ($criteria instanceof Criteria) {
			$query->mergeWith($criteria);
		}
		return $query;
	}

	/**
	 * Find object by primary key.
	 * Propel uses the instance pool to skip the database if the object exists.
	 * Go fast if the query is untouched.
	 *
	 *
	 * $obj  = $c->findPk(12, $con);
	 *
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $key Primary key to use for the query
	 * @param     PropelPDO $con an optional connection object
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssurance|array|mixed the result, formatted by the current formatter
	 */
	public function findPk($key, $con = null)
	{
		if ($key === null) {
			return null;
		}
		if ((null !== ($obj = RefAssurancePeer::getInstanceFromPool((string) $key))) && !$this->formatter) {
			// the object is alredy in the instance pool
			return $obj;
		}
		if ($con === null) {
			$con = Propel::getConnection(RefAssurancePeer::DATABASE_NAME, Propel::CONNECTION_READ);
		}
		$this->basePreSelect($con);
		if ($this->formatter || $this->modelAlias || $this->with || $this->select
		 || $this->selectColumns || $this->asColumns || $this->selectModifiers
		 || $this->map || $this->having || $this->joins) {
			return $this->findPkComplex($key, $con);
		} else {
			return $this->findPkSimple($key, $con);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Find object by primary key using raw SQL to go fast.
	 * Bypass doSelect() and the object formatter by using generated code.
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $key Primary key to use for the query
	 * @param     PropelPDO $con A connection object
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssurance A model object, or null if the key is not found
	 */
	protected function findPkSimple($key, $con)
	{
		$sql = 'SELECT `ASSURANCE_ID`, `LIBELLE_ASSURANCE`, `PRIX_ASSURANCE` FROM `ref_assurance` WHERE `ASSURANCE_ID` = :p0';
		try {
			$stmt = $con->prepare($sql);
			$stmt->bindValue(':p0', $key, PDO::PARAM_INT);
			$stmt->execute();
		} catch (Exception $e) {
			Propel::log($e->getMessage(), Propel::LOG_ERR);
			throw new PropelException(sprintf('Unable to execute SELECT statement [%s]', $sql), $e);
		}
		$obj = null;
		if ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_NUM)) {
			$obj = new RefAssurance();
			$obj->hydrate($row);
			RefAssurancePeer::addInstanceToPool($obj, (string) $key);
		}
		$stmt->closeCursor();

		return $obj;
	}

	/**
	 * Find object by primary key.
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $key Primary key to use for the query
	 * @param     PropelPDO $con A connection object
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssurance|array|mixed the result, formatted by the current formatter
	 */
	protected function findPkComplex($key, $con)
	{
		// As the query uses a PK condition, no limit(1) is necessary.
		$criteria = $this->isKeepQuery() ? clone $this : $this;
		$stmt = $criteria
			->filterByPrimaryKey($key)
			->doSelect($con);
		return $criteria->getFormatter()->init($criteria)->formatOne($stmt);
	}

	/**
	 * Find objects by primary key
	 *
	 * $objs = $c->findPks(array(12, 56, 832), $con);
	 *
	 * @param     array $keys Primary keys to use for the query
	 * @param     PropelPDO $con an optional connection object
	 *
	 * @return    PropelObjectCollection|array|mixed the list of results, formatted by the current formatter
	 */
	public function findPks($keys, $con = null)
	{
		if ($con === null) {
			$con = Propel::getConnection($this->getDbName(), Propel::CONNECTION_READ);
		}
		$this->basePreSelect($con);
		$criteria = $this->isKeepQuery() ? clone $this : $this;
		$stmt = $criteria
			->filterByPrimaryKeys($keys)
			->doSelect($con);
		return $criteria->getFormatter()->init($criteria)->format($stmt);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query by primary key
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $key Primary key to use for the query
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByPrimaryKey($key)
	{
		return $this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::ASSURANCE_ID, $key, Criteria::EQUAL);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query by a list of primary keys
	 *
	 * @param     array $keys The list of primary key to use for the query
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByPrimaryKeys($keys)
	{
		return $this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::ASSURANCE_ID, $keys, Criteria::IN);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query on the assurance_id column
	 *
	 * Example usage:
	 *
	 * $query->filterByAssuranceId(1234); // WHERE assurance_id = 1234
	 * $query->filterByAssuranceId(array(12, 34)); // WHERE assurance_id IN (12, 34)
	 * $query->filterByAssuranceId(array('min' => 12)); // WHERE assurance_id > 12
	 *
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $assuranceId The value to use as filter.
	 *              Use scalar values for equality.
	 *              Use array values for in_array() equivalent.
	 *              Use associative array('min' => $minValue, 'max' => $maxValue) for intervals.
	 * @param     string $comparison Operator to use for the column comparison, defaults to Criteria::EQUAL
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByAssuranceId($assuranceId = null, $comparison = null)
	{
		if (is_array($assuranceId) && null === $comparison) {
			$comparison = Criteria::IN;
		}
		return $this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::ASSURANCE_ID, $assuranceId, $comparison);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query on the libelle_assurance column
	 *
	 * Example usage:
	 *
	 * $query->filterByLibelleAssurance('fooValue');   // WHERE libelle_assurance = 'fooValue'
	 * $query->filterByLibelleAssurance('%fooValue%'); // WHERE libelle_assurance LIKE '%fooValue%'
	 *
	 *
	 * @param     string $libelleAssurance The value to use as filter.
	 *              Accepts wildcards (* and % trigger a LIKE)
	 * @param     string $comparison Operator to use for the column comparison, defaults to Criteria::EQUAL
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByLibelleAssurance($libelleAssurance = null, $comparison = null)
	{
		if (null === $comparison) {
			if (is_array($libelleAssurance)) {
				$comparison = Criteria::IN;
			} elseif (preg_match('/[\%\*]/', $libelleAssurance)) {
				$libelleAssurance = str_replace('*', '%', $libelleAssurance);
				$comparison = Criteria::LIKE;
			}
		}
		return $this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::LIBELLE_ASSURANCE, $libelleAssurance, $comparison);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query on the prix_assurance column
	 *
	 * Example usage:
	 *
	 * $query->filterByPrixAssurance(1234); // WHERE prix_assurance = 1234
	 * $query->filterByPrixAssurance(array(12, 34)); // WHERE prix_assurance IN (12, 34)
	 * $query->filterByPrixAssurance(array('min' => 12)); // WHERE prix_assurance > 12
	 *
	 *
	 * @param     mixed $prixAssurance The value to use as filter.
	 *              Use scalar values for equality.
	 *              Use array values for in_array() equivalent.
	 *              Use associative array('min' => $minValue, 'max' => $maxValue) for intervals.
	 * @param     string $comparison Operator to use for the column comparison, defaults to Criteria::EQUAL
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByPrixAssurance($prixAssurance = null, $comparison = null)
	{
		if (is_array($prixAssurance)) {
			$useMinMax = false;
			if (isset($prixAssurance['min'])) {
				$this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::PRIX_ASSURANCE, $prixAssurance['min'], Criteria::GREATER_EQUAL);
				$useMinMax = true;
			}
			if (isset($prixAssurance['max'])) {
				$this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::PRIX_ASSURANCE, $prixAssurance['max'], Criteria::LESS_EQUAL);
				$useMinMax = true;
			}
			if ($useMinMax) {
				return $this;
			}
			if (null === $comparison) {
				$comparison = Criteria::IN;
			}
		}
		return $this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::PRIX_ASSURANCE, $prixAssurance, $comparison);
	}

	/**
	 * Filter the query by a related TblAssurance object
	 *
	 * @param     TblAssurance $tblAssurance  the related object to use as filter
	 * @param     string $comparison Operator to use for the column comparison, defaults to Criteria::EQUAL
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function filterByTblAssurance($tblAssurance, $comparison = null)
	{
		if ($tblAssurance instanceof TblAssurance) {
			return $this
				->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::ASSURANCE_ID, $tblAssurance->getRefAssuranceId(), $comparison);
		} elseif ($tblAssurance instanceof PropelCollection) {
			return $this
				->useTblAssuranceQuery()
				->filterByPrimaryKeys($tblAssurance->getPrimaryKeys())
				->endUse();
		} else {
			throw new PropelException('filterByTblAssurance() only accepts arguments of type TblAssurance or PropelCollection');
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Adds a JOIN clause to the query using the TblAssurance relation
	 *
	 * @param     string $relationAlias optional alias for the relation
	 * @param     string $joinType Accepted values are null, 'left join', 'right join', 'inner join'
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function joinTblAssurance($relationAlias = null, $joinType = Criteria::LEFT_JOIN)
	{
		$tableMap = $this->getTableMap();
		$relationMap = $tableMap->getRelation('TblAssurance');

		// create a ModelJoin object for this join
		$join = new ModelJoin();
		$join->setJoinType($joinType);
		$join->setRelationMap($relationMap, $this->useAliasInSQL ? $this->getModelAlias() : null, $relationAlias);
		if ($previousJoin = $this->getPreviousJoin()) {
			$join->setPreviousJoin($previousJoin);
		}

		// add the ModelJoin to the current object
		if($relationAlias) {
			$this->addAlias($relationAlias, $relationMap->getRightTable()->getName());
			$this->addJoinObject($join, $relationAlias);
		} else {
			$this->addJoinObject($join, 'TblAssurance');
		}

		return $this;
	}

	/**
	 * Use the TblAssurance relation TblAssurance object
	 *
	 * @see       useQuery()
	 *
	 * @param     string $relationAlias optional alias for the relation,
	 *                                   to be used as main alias in the secondary query
	 * @param     string $joinType Accepted values are null, 'left join', 'right join', 'inner join'
	 *
	 * @return    TblAssuranceQuery A secondary query class using the current class as primary query
	 */
	public function useTblAssuranceQuery($relationAlias = null, $joinType = Criteria::LEFT_JOIN)
	{
		return $this
			->joinTblAssurance($relationAlias, $joinType)
			->useQuery($relationAlias ? $relationAlias : 'TblAssurance', 'TblAssuranceQuery');
	}

	/**
	 * Exclude object from result
	 *
	 * @param     RefAssurance $refAssurance Object to remove from the list of results
	 *
	 * @return    RefAssuranceQuery The current query, for fluid interface
	 */
	public function prune($refAssurance = null)
	{
		if ($refAssurance) {
			$this->addUsingAlias(RefAssurancePeer::ASSURANCE_ID, $refAssurance->getAssuranceId(), Criteria::NOT_EQUAL);
		}

		return $this;
	}

} // BaseRefAssuranceQuery

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


advance-fee-for-a-loan scam the only difference is it's a grant instead of a loan, as described here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/telemarketing/tel16.shtm which states "It is illegal for companies doing business in the U.S. by phone to promise you a loan and ask you to pay for it before they deliver." They will want you to wire the money via Western Union (Moneygram, etc.) because wired-cash is irretrievable – once it's picked up at the other end, it's untraceable and the scammers will vanish on you. Report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx , the Federal Communications Commission http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm , the Federal Trade Commission https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ and your state AG.
[ I point out that the manufacturers of body scanning machines have spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to ensure their deployment. Finally, for good measure, I ask my frisker whether he has heard about the "cancer cluster" at Boston's Logan airport. Security workers there have argued that their cancers were caused by standing close to the X-ray baggage scanners. T.S.A. officers do not like to hear about the Logan cancer cluster.
Circadas 17 year Journey arrives June 2013!
Here comes Swarmageddon! The name is a direct derivation of the Latin cicada, meaning "tree cricket" The 17-year cicadas are found mainly in the northern, eastern, and western part of their range.
Ciracadas are good to eat.
Experts say that the best way to eat cicadas is to collect them in the middle of the night as they emerge from their burrows and before their skins harden. When they are in this condition—like soft-shell crabs—they can be boiled for about a minute. It is said they taste like asparagus or clam-flavored potato.
Mature cicadas should be boiled while still alive to kill any bacteria, and already-dead cicadas should never be harvested because they could be decomposing. Also, anyone with allergies to shellfish, which belong to the same family as cicadas, should avoid the bugs altogether.
– Cicadas sautéed in butter and garlic.
– Dipped in chocolate for a sweet, crunchy snack.
Facts: Only the males sing.
The females are lured to the sound and fly nearer. A female responds to a male with a flick of her wings. The two gradually draw close to one another until they meet for mating.
• In China male cicadas are kept in cages in people's homes so that the homeowners can enjoy the cicadas' songs.
Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg is playing in a musical celebration 17 years in the making: the emergence of the cicadas. This summer, these noisy insects will come out in droves to molt and mate—filling the air with their characteristic buzzing. Explore the extraordinary mating rituals of these and other six-legged creatures to find out what their songs are saying, why they're saying it, and how this knowledge is impacting our understanding of communication, behavior, and the ecosystem in Cicada Serenades: Music, Mating, and Meaning.
The depictions of cicadas on the early bronzes vary from quite realistic (6) to highly stylized (13, 16, 17, 22, 24) and almost leaflike (16). In some cases they are associated with another beast. Munsterberg (17) says that "in several instances the tiger is shown spitting out a cicada." Later he says that "the t'ao t'ieh daemon is also frequently shown with a cicada on his outstretched tongue." Bachhofer (2) refers to dragons in moderate relief, "their bodies… covered with a diminutive cicada pattern." Speaking of bronze vessels he states that the heads of serpents are identical with the heads of cicadas. Certainly the "snake-head" with a "tongue" that rattles, terminating handle of a ritual bronze sword shown on page 39 in Fontein and Wu (13), looks more like a cicada than a snake head. Could the rattle have even been an imitation of a cicada's call? Even a rattlesnake does not rattle with its head, and in this case there is apparently no snake body, only the "head." The rattle mechanism looks like a wing, not a snake's tongue.
In addition to bronzes, cicadas have been found decorating Shang white pottery ware (2). Laufer (16) reproduces (from ancient manuscripts) cicadas on ceremonial jade axes, jade cups, and a jade buckle which also includes a mantis.
New Orleans jams Happy Friday!
The Financial Literacy Certification Program has touched the lives of more than 250,000. On average, 75 percent of students pass the Certification Test every year, graduating financially literate. The ranking will be published annually, giving all schools that participate in the Financial Literacy Certification Program an opportunity to earn a place on it each year.
This is a huge joke.
This is not a national ranking (since the certification program is not even offered in 22 states) and to claim that it is is just plain false.
1997, The NFI Report said the average financial literacy score was 57.3% — a failing grade, but that's the best it has ever been, and it has fallen consistently ever since.
2013 83% of Students Want Financial Education in Schools, however the curriculum requirements are largely set at the state and local level. Only Four States Virginia, Missouri, Utah and Tennessee Mandate one stand alone class in personal finance in high school. By 2014, personal finance education will be mandatory in schools in the UK!
2013 National opinion poll of high school students probed their attitudes and found teenagers almost expect to be victimized by financial firms. 60% of students firmly believe that credit card companies often entice people into taking on more debt that they can handle, while 70% believe that businesses try to "trick" young people into spending more than they should. The stock market is rigged mostly to benefit greedy Wall Street bankers.
How does a hospital decide how much you pay and what to bill you for?
What is a charge master?
A Charge Description Master (CDM), also known as a "chargemaster," is a comprehensive and hospital-specific listing of each item.
It's this giant price list of every item that the hospital provides, ranging from an aspirin to the paper cup that you drink the water out of when you take the aspirin to, you know, a $10,000 wonder drug for cancer.
It's every single item, and the thing about the charge master is that every hospital has completely different prices. They're typically five to 10 times what it cost the hospital to buy those items or provide those items. And insurance companies get big discounts off of the charge master, but the discounts that they get are still not enough to keep these hospitals from making very high profit margins and from all the non-doctor administrators at these hospitals from making exorbitant salaries.
Patients are captive consumers who don't know what they're buying from hospitals or what things cost.
Hire a medical billing advocate.
For a fee, you can hire someone who has similar expertise as the payers to fight back, and often reduce these bills to a tiny fraction of their original amount. Eight out of 10 medical bills have mistakes on them. They either charge an hourly fee, ranging from $60 to $175, or they work on a contingency basis, earning a commission of 15 percent to 35 percent of the amount they save you. It's mostly phone work, so they don't have to be in your same city.
How does a Hospital come up with the charges on your bill?
The chargemaster is an enormous computer file that lists prices for thousands of products and services, and all hospitals maintain them.
Can your Hospital administrators explain the basis of chargemaster prices. Prices appear to be unrelated to actual cost, they vary from hospital to hospital, and they go up automatically.
Most people never pay those prices. Medicare determines on its own what it will pay, and private insurers negotiate their prices with hospitals. But the chargemaster prices are so high that private insurers don't negotiate down from there — they negotiate up 30 percent to 50 percent from the Medicare prices, Brill reported. Then insurers tell customers how much they "saved" them.
Health-care finance in the United States is complex and not always logical or fair. Hospitals tally charity care based on chargemaster prices. The actual cost is more like $3 billion, or less than half of 1 percent of the annual revenue of U.S. hospitals.
Nonprofit, tax-exempt hospitals have become hugely profitable businesses in the United States. Internal Revenue Service rules state that nonprofits may take in more money than they spend as long as no profits go to shareholders. Nonprofit hospitals are buying other hospitals, doctors' practices, building their own labs and becoming monopolies in cities nationwide, Brill reported. Doctors and nurses aren't getting wealthy, but hospital administrators earn hefty salaries. Keeping the hospital running plus an extra 11.5 to 12 percent in pure profit that goes to the non-doctor administrators at the hospital, who are making a million, $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $6 million dollars a year in salaries.
Medicare, which collects data on what it costs hospitals to deliver all types of tests and treatments. Under the law, Medicare must reimburse hospitals for the cost of the services, plus factor in overhead, capital expenses, salaries, insurance, education of medical students and regional differences in cost of living.
Medicare has 600 or 700 government employees and about 8,000 employees from the private sector who do a terrific job administering the claims and running the program. Medicare buys its services much more efficiently, because it is the big player in the marketplace. None of the insurance companies have the leverage that Medicare has.
You could save taxpayers money, believe it or not, is if you lowered the age of Medicare and allowed more people in their 60s to join Medicare, as opposed to the Obamacare solution now, which is they're all going to have to buy health insurance, but the government is going to subsidize their much more expensive private health insurance. Buyers don't have any leverage. And Obamacare really does nothing to attack that.
The data posted today on CMS's website include information comparing the charges for services that may be provided during the 100 most common Medicare inpatient stays. Hospitals determine what they will charge for items and services provided to patients and these "charges" are the amount the hospital generally bills for an item or service.
To view the new hospital dataset, please go to: http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Medicare-Provider-Charge-Data/index.html.
To access the funding opportunity announcement, visit: http://www.grants.gov, and search for CFDA # 93.511.
For more information on HHS efforts to build a health care system that will ensure quality care, please see the fact sheet "Lower Costs, Better Care: Reforming Our Health Care Delivery System," at http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=4550.
To read a fact sheet about the Medicare data showing variation in hospital charges, please see: http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/fact_sheets.asp.
www.billadvocates.com: That's the website for the Medical Billing Advocates of America. Among other things, they offer a state-by-state guide of patient advocates.
It was a vision that never saw the light of day.
The year was 1949, and computers and robots were still largely the stuff of science fiction. Only a few farsighted thinkers imagined that they would one day become central to civilization, with consequences both liberating and potentially dire.
One of those visionaries was Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), an American mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1948 he had published "Cybernetics," a landmark theoretical work that both foreshadowed and influenced the arrival of computing, robotics and automation. Two years later, he wrote "The Human Use of Human Beings," a popularization of those ideas and an exploration of the potential of automation and the risks of dehumanization by machines.
In 1949, The New York Times invited Wiener to summarize his views about "what the ultimate machine age is likely to be," in the words of its longtime Sunday editor, Lester Markel.
Wiener accepted the invitation and wrote a draft of the article; the legendarily autocratic Markel was dissatisfied and asked him to rewrite it. He did. But through a distinctly pre-Internet series of fumbles and missed opportunities, neither version ever appeared.
"I had assumed that the first version of my article was finished business. To get hold of the paper in my office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would involve considerable cross-correspondence and annoyance to several people.
The following week the Times editor returned the second draft to Wiener, and it eventually made its way to the libraries' Archives and Special Collections. It languished there until December 2012, when it was discovered by Anders Fernstedt, an independent scholar who is researching the work of Karl Popper, the 20th-century philosopher.
Almost 64 years after Wiener wrote it, his essay is still remarkably topical, raising questions about the impact of smart machines on society and of automation on human labor. In the spirit of rectifying an old omission, here are excerpts from "The Machine Age," courtesy of the M.I.T. Libraries (all rights reserved).
GREAT #RIAA group's financial power is weakening!
New tax records reveal that the RIAA has made heavy employee cuts after revenue dropped to a new low. Over the past two years the major record labels have cut back their membership dues from $33.6 to $23.6 million. RIAA staff plunged from 107 to 60 workers in the same period. The IRS filing further shows that the music industry group paid $250,000 to the six strikes anti-piracy system. The RIAA has submitted its latest tax filing to the IRS, covering the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. The figures follow the trend we spotted last year and show a massive decline in revenue for the music group. In just two years overall revenue has reduced from to $34.8 to $24.8 million.
For decades the RIAA has been the anti-piracy bastion of the music industry, but the new numbers show that the group's financial power is weakening.
The drop in income can be solely attributed to lower membership dues from the major music labels. Over the past two years label contributions have dropped to $23.6 million, and over a three-year period the labels cut back a total of $30 million, which is more than the RIAA's total income today. The cutbacks are not immediately apparent from the salaries paid to the top executives.
RIAA Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman, for example, earned $1.46 million compared to $1.37 million the year before. Senior Executive Vice President Mitch Glazier also saw a modest rise in income from $618,946 to $642,591.
A lot of the revenue decline has translated into employee cuts. Over a two year period the number of RIAA employees has been slashed almost in half from 107 to just 60. The reduction in legal costs is even more significant, going from to $6.4 million to $1.2 million in two years.
In part, this reduction was accomplished by no longer targeting individual file-sharers in copyright infringement lawsuits, which is a losing exercise for the group. Looking through other income we see that the RIAA received $196,378 in "anti-piracy restitution," coming from the damages awarded in lawsuits against Limewire and such. Finally, the tax filing also reveals that the RIAA paid $250,000 to the Center of Copyright Information for the "six strikes" scheme.
. Overall the filing appears to suggest that the major labels believe that the RIAA can operate with fewer funds. This is a trend that has been going on for a few years and it will be interesting to see how long it continues.
KNOW YOUR JURY RIGHTS DEFEAT THE RIAA IN COURT DEFEND YOURSELF IN COURT FROM THE RIAA THE JURY ACTS AS THE FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT The Principle of Jury Nullification.
FAIR USE Learn more about why file sharing is not theft and the false claims of the RIAA due to P2P, From the Educational CyberPlayGround.