text:
Q: Space complexity on creating an object on recursion checkIfBalanced() method in the code below returns true if the tree is balanced and false otherwise. However in each recursion it creates TreeData object. In my opinion space complexity is O(1) as after each stack frame is popped, the reference of the object created on that stack frame is lost and garbage collected.
Am I right ?
Please note:

*

*I am not looking for suggestions to improve/change my code. The following example of code is tailor made to ask my question.

*Also, please ignore space-complexity adding stack frames. I am looking for space complexity of number  'TreeData' objects created. It looks to me that at any point there would be only 3 TreeData objects. Thats what I want to verify. Thanks.

   private static class TreeData {
        private int height;
        private boolean isBalanced;

        TreeData(int height, boolean isBalanced) {
            this.height = height;
            this.isBalanced = isBalanced;
        }
    }

    public boolean checkIfBalanced() {
        if (root == null) {
            throw new IllegalStateException();
        }
        return checkBalanced(root).isBalanced;
    }

    public TreeData checkBalanced(TreeNode node) {
        if (node == null) return new TreeData(-1, true);

        TreeData tdLeft = checkBalanced(node.left);
        TreeData tdRight = checkBalanced(node.right);

        if (tdLeft.isBalanced && tdRight.isBalanced && Math.abs(tdLeft.height - tdRight.height) <= 1) {
            return new TreeData(Math.max(tdLeft.height, tdRight.height) + 1, true);
        }

        return new TreeData(Math.max(tdLeft.height, tdRight.height) + 1, false);
    }

A:
In my opinion space complexity is O(1) as after each stack frame is
  popped, the reference of the object created on that stack frame is
  lost and garbage collected. Am I right ?

No, you are wrong in assuming that. Ray Toal has very beautifully explained this. At any point in the recursion, you must count all those internal stack frames which are being saved into memory, as Space-Complexity considers into account all the auxiliary space(extra space) alongwith the input(not emphasised here).
Next,

I am looking for space complexity of number 'TreeData' objects
  created.

The maximum space consumed by a recursive program is proportional to the maximum depth of the recursion tree framed. The maximum depth of the recursion tree is defined as the length of the longest path in the tree.
For the given program, the program will start from root of the tree, and first start creating the left sub-tree and then checking the right-subtree. Finally, it will return the length of the longest path and whether the tree is balanced OR not.

It looks to me that at any point there would be only 3 TreeData
  objects. That's what I want to verify.

No, at any particular execution time, first all the left subtrees are verified and then the right-subtrees are verified, so the number of objects of TreeData in the memory would be only 1. It will every time check for it's left OR right child. And, hence, all those (log n --- in case of balanced tree, OR n --- in case of degenerate tree) nodes except one will keep getting stacked in the memory. At a particular moment of time, only 1 TreeData object would be in the active state, others would be paused and stacked in the memory and waiting for their turn to pop out.

A: You are not using tail recursion here, and you are building stack frames as you recurse up the tree. To be fair, count those stack frames. If your tree is balanced then you will be making log n stack frames as you recurse. In the worst case, with a fully degenerate tree, you might have up to n stack frames.

A:
However in each recursion it creates TreeData object.

Not true.  You only create the new TreeData object at the base case of your recursion.  If you're concerned about this, why don't you just have a static final TreeData instance declared once in the class that you can use.  After all, the only thing you're propagating back from this Node is it's isBalanced boolean value.
You can also just propagate the boolean value back up directly if you change your method signature to return a boolean.


text:
L'architecture à Philadelphie est l'une des plus anciennes et des plus variées des États-Unis. La ville offre de nombreuses constructions de styles divers, allant du style georgien aux gratte-ciel modernes.

, la municipalité a entrepris de mettre en valeur ce patrimoine architectural, afin de développer le tourisme.

Urbanisme

L'urbanisme de Philadelphie est caractéristique d'une grande ville américaine, à ceci près qu'elle possède un quartier historique que l'on ne retrouve qu'à Boston ou La Nouvelle-Orléans.

Le centre-ville (Center City) suit un plan orthogonal ; il forme un quadrilatère délimité à l'est par le Delaware au nord par Vine Street, à l'ouest par la Schuylkill et au sud par South Street. Le centre de ce quadrilatère est l'hôtel de ville. Ce bâtiment se trouve dans l'axe de deux rues, Broad Street et Market Street, qui se coupent à angle droit à la manière d'un cardo et d'un decumanus romain. La Benjamin Franklin Parkway, sorte de Champs-Élysées de Philadelphie, est une avenue radiale qui relie l'hôtel de ville au Fairmount Park et au Museum of Art. Le centre historique se trouve à l'est, le centre des affaires à l'ouest. Le quartier compte de nombreuses institutions culturelles, des galeries et des centres commerciaux.

Autour du centre-ville se trouvent des ghettos (West Philadelphia, Camden) ainsi que le quartier universitaire (University City, à l'ouest de la Schuylkill). Cette première auréole est également constituée de quartiers intermédiaires et mixtes, qui ont chacun leur identité. La plupart correspondent aux anciens villages ou villes qui composaient le comté de Philadelphie avant leur annexion par la ville. Les quartiers de classes moyennes et aisées s'étendent assez loin du centre-ville et sont reliés à lui par un système de voies rapides.

Architecture coloniale

Philadelphie est, avec Boston, l'une des rares métropoles américaines à disposer d'un patrimoine historique remontant au . Ce patrimoine se trouve essentiellement dans l'est du Center City :
 Independence Hall est un bâtiment construit en briques rouges entre 1732 et 1753. Son plan fut conçu dans le style georgien par l'architecte Edmund Woolley et l'avocat Andrew Hamilton. Il fut construit pour abriter l'assemblée coloniale de Pennsylvanie avant la Révolution. Il est encadré par deux autres bâtiments politiques : à l'est le vieil hôtel de ville (Old City Hall) et à l'ouest la salle du Congrès (Congress Hall). Ensemble, les trois édifices qui occupent un bloc de la ville forment le « square de l'indépendance » (Independence Square) avec le Philosophical Hall, où se réunissait l'American Philosophical Society.

 Le Carpenters' Hall est un bâtiment du  de quatre étages, construit par Robert Smith (1722-1777). Situé sur Chester Street, il fit office de salle de réunion politique à partir de 1770. Son architecture georgienne a été classée monument historique en 1970.

Le Premier Congrès continental, assemblée des délégués des Treize colonies américaines au , se réunit dans le Carpenters' Hall en septembre et , car la Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) était déjà occupée par l'assemblée provinciale torie de Pennsylvanie.

Style néo-classique

 Le Philadelphia Museum of Art, fondé en 1876, se trouve dans le Fairmount Park. Sa façade évoque un temple grec.
 First Bank of the US.
 Second Bank of the US.

Gratte-ciel

Philadelphie n'est pas une ville très haute en raison d'une loi tacite qui interdisait d'édifier des bâtiments plus hauts que la statue de William Penn situé en haut du City Hall. Le One Liberty Place fut le premier bâtiment à rompre cet usage, ce qui d'ailleurs serait la cause des malédictions arrivant sur les équipes sportives de la ville, appelée la malédiction de Billy Penn. Mais aujourd'hui, il est possible de construire des gratte-ciel et les nombreux projets en cours témoignent de la renaissance économique de la ville. Ainsi, le Comcast Center sera le plus grand gratte-ciel de Philadelphie.
Parmi les plus grands édifices de la ville :

Voir aussi

Notes

Bibliographie
  Frank Cousins, Phil Madison Riley,The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia, Kessinger Publishing, 2007,
  Edward P. Allinson, Boies Penrose, Philadelphia, 1681-1887: A History of Municipal Development, Kessinger Publishing, 2007,
  John A. Gallery,The Planning of Center City Philadelphia: From William Penn to the Present, Paul Dry Books, 2007,
  Thom Nickels, Philadelphia Architecture, Arcadia Publishing, 2005,

Liens externes
 PhillySkyline.com
 Emporis.com : page sur Philadelphie
 Photographies historiques de Philadelphie
 Architectes et constructions de Philadelphie

Articles connexes
 Philadelphie
 Boathouse Row
 Église Saint-Pierre (Philadelphie)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Before Visual Basic .NET arrived in 2002, the highly popular Visual Basic 6 provided programmers with the ability to create what were known as control arrays. In real terms, a control array was actually a collection of controls that could be programmed as an array thanks to some fairly complex behind-the-scenes code provided by Microsoft.
Like other array variables, each member of a control array had an array subscript by which it could be referenced. If one button in an array of button controls was clicked, the control's array subscript was passed to the event handler, which would determine which button had been clicked and take the required action for that button.
From the programmer's point of view, the ability to create control arrays at design time by simply copying an existing control and pasting it onto the form as many times as required was an attractive feature of Visual Basic 6.
Microsoft abandoned control arrays with VB .NET, somewhat to the chagrin of a large number of VB6 developers. One of the main complaints was that existing VB6 applications that employed control arrays were difficult to upgrade to VB .NET. Microsoft provided a workaround that involving writing some rather inelegant-looking and complex code in order to create an array of controls at run time. However, since one of the attractions of Visual Basic in the past has been that it is an easy programming language for new programmers to learn, this was not an ideal solution.
Microsoft also provided a number of "control array compatibility classes" that could be added to the VB .NET toolbox, but at the same time advised developers not to use them as they could not guarantee continued support in future versions of Visual Basic .NET. Indeed, Microsoft subsequently declared these classes to be obsolete.
A lively debate ensued between developers over whether or not control arrays should have been omitted from the .NET platform. Many methods were suggested for creating control arrays programmatically, and the subject continued to generate controversy. Ultimately, one had to accept that Visual Basic .NET was very different to Visual Basic 6, and adopt a new way of working.
Despite the demise of the control array, it is still possible to manage a related group of objects as if they were members of an array. Although things are no longer quite so straightforward in this respect, Visual Basic now has features that provide more flexibility to the programmer. For example, a control array in Visual Basic 6 could only include controls of one type. By contrast, we can now assign the same event handler to the Click event of any number of controls on a form, even if they are not all of the same type.
The program presented in this section makes use of this feature to enable a single event handler to handle the Click event for all of the button controls for a simple calculator application. The application is very similar to the Standard version of the desktop calculator provided by Microsoft Windows.
Open a new project called "Calculator" and create an interface like the one illustrated below.
For practical reasons, the number of digits that the calculator can display is limited to a maximum of eighteen characters, including any decimal point and a leading zero. The integer variables charLimit and inputLength are used to keep track of the number of characters allowed for the current input string, and the number of characters entered by the user, at any given time. The Boolean variables opFlag, eqFlag and funcFlag are used to determine whether the user has clicked on any of the operator buttons ("+", "-", "*", or "/"), the equals button ("="), or a function button ("±", "√", "1/x" or "%").
Double-precision floating point variables are used to store numeric input and results. In an ongoing calculation, the number currently being entered by the user is stored in the variable secondTerm, and any value held in memory is stored in the variable memory. The integer variables activeOp and lastOp store numeric references to the operator most recently clicked and the operator previously clicked, if applicable.
The addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operators are referenced by the integer values 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The Boolean variable startFlag is set to True if a number has been entered and an operator button has been pressed, to indicate that a calculation is in progress and that a value has been assigned to firstTerm. The character array variable opCharArray() simply holds the operator symbols that will be displayed by the program when an operator button is clicked.
The program has only one event handler - cmdButton_Click() - that is invoked when the user clicks on any of the calculator buttons. There are a number of subroutines that must be created first, however. The code for these procedures is given below, and should be entered as shown somewhere within the form's class definition. The first procedure is numClick().
The numClick() subroutine is called whenever a numerical button, the decimal point or the backspace key is clicked on the calculator. The opening If . . . End If code block checks to see whether the previous click was an operator button (in which case the opFlag variable will be True). If so, a backspace at this point would be inappropriate.
The nested If . . . Else . . . End If block checks to see whether the current click is a backspace. If so, the program will issue an audible beep and exit the subroutine. Otherwise, it will clear the lblDisplay control's text and set opFlag to False.
The next If . . . End If block checks to see whether the previous click was the equals key (in which case the eqFlag variable will be True). If so, the program would have completed a calculation and be ready for the next operation. The lblDisplay control's text will be cleared and eqFlag set to False. A similar situation arises if a function key has just been clicked, so the third If . . . End If block checks to see whether the previous click was a function key (in which case the funcFlag variable will be True). If so, the main text window will be cleared and funcFlag set to False.
If the preceding conditional statements do not apply, then either the last button clicked (if any) was a numeric key, a decimal point or a backspace (or the input was cleared). The next line of code sets the inputLength variable to the length of the text currently displayed in the main section of the output window. The next If . . . End If block after this statement checks for a Backspace key click (index = 11).
If this is the case, a nested If . . . Else . . . End If block checks to see whether inputLength is greater than 1. If so, the last character added to the lblDisplay control's text is removed (the Mid() string function is used to achieve this). Otherwise (since the input would effectively now be cleared), the lblDisplay control's text is set to "0".
The next If . . . End If block checks for a decimal point key click (index = 10). A nested If . . . End If block checks to see if a decimal point already exists in the lblDisplay control's text. If so, no action will be taken and the code exits the subroutine. Otherwise, a decimal point is added to the control's text and a nested If . . . Else . . . End If block checks to see whether the leftmost character in the string is a zero. If so, the charLimit variable is set to 18, otherwise it is set to 17 (the string is allowed to contain up to sixteen significant digits, not including a decimal point or a leading zero).
The final If . . . Else . . . End If block checks to see if inputLength has reached or exceeded the current value of charLimit, and if so exits the subroutine. Otherwise the code checks to see if inputLength is 1. If not, the digit for the key that was clicked is appended to the lblDisplay control's text. If inputLength is equal to 1 but the existing digit is not zero, the same thing happens. If the existing digit is zero, the same thing still happens unless the input key itself was also zero. If this occurs, the code exits the subroutine.
The next procedure we shall write is opClick().
The opClick() subroutine is called each time the user clicks on an operator button and accepts the index value assigned by the cmdButton_Click() event handler (1, 2, 3 or 4) as its argument. If no operator is currently active, the opFlag variable is set to True, and lastOp is set to the index value.
If startFlag is set to False (which will be the case if this is the first operator that has been invoked in the current calculation), then the firstTerm variable is set to the value obtained by converting the lblDisplay control's text to a double-precision floating point value, and startFlag is set to True. Otherwise, the value of the conversion is assigned to the secondTerm variable, and the activeOp variable is assessed using a Select Case block.
Depending on the value of activeOp, the value of firstTerm is modified by adding or subtracting the value of secondTerm from it, multiplying it by secondTerm, or dividing it by secondTerm. The lblDisplay control's text is then set to the text representation of the current value of firstTerm. Finally, the lblSuperscript control's text is set to the same value as the lblDisplay control's text, followed by a space, followed by the character that represents the operator key clicked by the user.
The next procedure is funcClick(), which is (thankfully!) somewhat shorter.
The funcClick() subroutine is called whan a user clicks on one of the function keys ("±", "√", "1/x" or "%"), and accepts the index value assigned by the cmdButton_Click() event handler (1, 2, 3 or 4) as its argument. A Select Case block is used to determine which of the function keys has been clicked and take the appropriate action.
If the change sign function has been invoked (index value = 1) , the lblDisplay control's text value is converted to a double-precision floating point value, negated, and then re-displayed as the control's text. If the square root function has been invoked, the lblDisplay control's text value is converted to a double-precision floating point value, the Math.Sqrt() function is used to find the square root of the value, and the new value is re-displayed as the lblDisplay control's text.
A similar process occurs for the inverse function, which re-displays the original value as its inverse value (for example, "5" becomes "0.2"). If the percentage key ("%") has been clicked, a local double-precision floating point variable called percentage is declared, and the lblDisplay control's text value is converted to a floating point value and assigned to percentage. The variable firstTerm is then multiplied by percentage and divided by 100. The result is assigned to the lblDisplay control's text property.
The subroutine that provides the final result our our calculation is evaluate ().
The evaluate() subroutine first checks whether any operator has been invoked. If not, the code exits the procedure without taking any further action. Otherwise, activeOp is assigned the value of lastOp, and secondTerm is assigned the value represented by the lblDisplay control's text property after it has been converted to a double-precision floating point value.
A Select Case block evaluates activeOp to determine which operator has been invoked, and then applies the operator to firstTerm and secondTerm to calculate the value of result. The clearAll() procedure is then called to clear the display and reset the value of various global variables. Finally, the lblDisplay control's text property is set to display the result of the calculation, and the value of eqFlag is set to True (this is necessary to ensure that any further input is treated as a new calculation).
The final subroutine is clearAll(), which is used to clear the display and do a little housekeeping (essentially, it resets most of the global variables to their initial values, with the notable exception of memory).
The main part of the code is the cmdButton_Click() event handler, which deals with all button clicks made by the user.
The cmdButton_Click() subroutine begins with a rather long list of events for which it is the handler. The bulk of the code is taken up by a Select Case block that determines which key has been clicked by the user, and takes the appropriate action. Although our collection of calculator buttons does not constitute a control array in Visual Basic 6 terms, it can be handled almost like an array by using the TabIndex property of each button as an array subscript. This requires a certain amount of care on the part of the programmer to ensure that each button has a unique TabIndex property, and that the correct TabIndex number is referenced elsewhere in the code for each button.
The event handler code itself is for the most part relatively simple. For values of sender.TabIndex up to 19, the handler simply calls the appropriate function with the relevant numeric argument. For a sender.TabIndex value of 20, the evaluate() subroutine is called. For a value of 21, the clearAll() subroutine is called, and a value of 22 (the Clear Entry button) resets the value of the lblDisplay control's text to "0".
The remaining cases (sender.TabIndex values of 23 - 27) all relate to calculator memory operations. For a sender.TabIndex value of 23, the lblDisplay control's text is converted to a double-precision floating point value and stored in the variable memory. If memory is not equal to zero, the lblMemStatus control (which displays the character "M") becomes visible to indicate that memory contains a non-zero value.
For a value of 23 (the Memory Clear button), memory is set to zero and the lblMemStatus control is hidden once more. For a value of 25 (the Memory Recall button), the lblDisplay control's text is set to the text representation of the value stored in memory. A value of 26 represents the Memory+ button, so the lblDisplay control's text is converted to a double-precision floating point value and added to the value of memory.
Given the possibility that under certain circumstances this could leave the value of memory as zero, an If . . . Else . . . End If block tests to see if memory is zero, and sets the visibility of the lblMemStatus control accordingly. A value of 27 represents the Memory- button, which requires similar handling to the Memory+ button. The only difference is that the lblDisplay control's text is converted to a double-precision floating point value and is subtracted from the value of memory.


text:
Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka
Shanto leads defence of cricket gold
Bangladesh men's cricket team defended their South Asian Games title in style, cruising to a seven-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the final at the Tribhuvan University Ground yesterday.
Soumya and Co. beat Sri Lanka in final to claim gold
Soumya Sarkar and Co. clinched gold, defeating Sri Lanka by seven wickets in the T20 cricket final of the 13th South Asian Games at Kirtipur today.
Bangladesh suffer loss in last fixture before final
Bangladesh men's cricket team succumbed to their first defeat in the 13th South Asian Games, suffering a nine-wicket loss against Sri Lanka in the final group fixture at Kirtipur today.
Tigers suffer whitewash
There was no change in approach, body language, game plan and execution as Bangladesh suffered a 122-run defeat against Sri Lanka in the third and final ODI at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo yesterday to end their dismal tour with a 3-0 whitewash.
'Tigers imbalanced in Shakib's absence'
Shakib Al Hasan is not in Sri Lanka for the three-match ODI series as the champions all-rounder was granted a break by the Bangladesh Cricket Board following a magnificent World Cup and it seems that the hosts have worked out their plan of action in the stalwart's absence.
'A lot to prove' in dead rubber
When Bangladesh stand-in captain Tamim Iqbal walked into the media room of the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo yesterday, there was a smile on his face, probably in anticipation of the kind of questions that would be thrown at him ahead of the third and potentially face-saving ODI against Sri Lanka today.
Tigers seek revival
Today's third and final ODI against Sri Lanka is not just about avoiding a whitewash or ending a lost series on a high. Perhaps even more importantly, it will be about finding the self-belief that seems to have gone missing over four straight defeats beginning with the World Cup loss against India at the start of the month.
Luck not really a factor
Everybody knows that luck is a factor in cricket and the players often mention that when their good efforts go in vain for no apparent reason. But when a proven batsman like Tamim Iqbal get bowled out for a sixth consecutive time it would not be wise to just blame
Mushfiqur the lone warrior
A fighting, unbeaten 98-run knock from Mushfiqur Rahim was the only positive in an otherwise horrible batting display from Bangladesh in the second of a three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo yesterday.
Sri Lanka clinch series with comfortable seven-wicket win
Bangladesh posted 238 for 8 wickets as Mushfiqur Rahim remained unbeaten on a 110-ball 98. Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat in the second ODI against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium.
Some work to do after comfortable win
Bangladesh registered a comfortable five-wicket win over the Sri Lanka Board President's XI in the practice game ahead of the three-match ODI series at the P Sara Oval in Colombo yesterday.
Mahmudullah fit and ready to bowl
There was good news for Bangladesh fans during the Tigers' practice game against the Sri Lankan Board President XI yesterday as Mahmudullah Riyad bowled for the first time since sustaining a shoulder injury during the tour of New Zealand earlier this year.
Mithun fills the big shoes
The concern regarding how to fill the gap when the team's best player misses out on a tour or series is a perennial one. Bangladesh have travelled to Sri Lanka to play a three-match ODI series against the hosts sans star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, who was granted a break by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB)
'Thinking only about cricket'
For both Bangladesh and hosts Sri Lanka, the importance of winning the upcoming three-match ODI series between the sides was made clear during the grand pre-series press conference at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo yesterday.
Bangladesh to tour Sri Lanka
Bangladesh will be back to business as usual shortly after their gruelling ICC Cricket World Cup journey in England as the Tigers are set to play three One Day Internationals on July 26, 28 and 31 at the Premadasa International Stadium in Colombo. The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC)
Tigers' match against Sri Lanka abandoned due to rain
The toss did not take place today at Bristol in the match against Bangladesh and Srilanka. The match has been abandoned following incessant rain.
Tigers to battle SL as well as weather
Crunch time has come for Bangladesh sooner than they would have liked, and it has as much to do with their opposition in today's World Cup match as it does with the weather in Bristol.
A new kind of pressure
Bangladesh will be confronted with pressure of a different kind when they take on Sri Lanka today in the World Cup game at the Bristol County Ground. In the five World Cups they have played so far, Bangladesh were not expected to beat Test playing nations other than Zimbabwe
Shower of sixes to ward off rain threat
Mahmudullah Riyad was hitting some of the biggest sixes not just straight down the ground against spinners but also square on the leg side against pacers. At one stage he unveiled the switch hit against a spinner. The right-hander did make a connection
Media calls Sri Lanka 'flop of Asia'
Sri Lankan newspapers and fans lambasted the national cricket team Tuesday after the former champions were dumped out of the Asia Cup by up-and-coming Afghanistan. Sri Lanka, who now have lost 30 of their 40 matches since January 2017, had lost to Bangladesh by 137 runs in Dubai on Saturday at the opening match of the tournament.
Stats from Bangladesh's win over Sri Lanka
Bangladesh pulled off an impressive 137-run win over Asian rival Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup opener on September 15, capped by impressive performances from Mushfiqur Rahim, Mithun Ali, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and others.
Tamim out of Asia Cup
After a fair bit of dillydallying on the issue the Bangladesh team management finally confirmed that opener Tamim Iqbal has been officially ruled out of the ongoing Asia Cup.
Behind the scenes of Tamim's bravery
Tamim Iqbal's heavily bandaged left hand stuck out of a blue sling as he sat on the dressing room balcony staring off into space. The international match unfolding in front of him -- one that he was at the centre of just an hour and a half ago in hot sunshine before being reduced to a spectator as the Dubai sun was setting-- probably did not register.
Why keep waiting?
It has become common knowledge that even though he played a delivery one-handed after coming in at number 11 to allow Bangladesh's innings to continue in Saturday's Asia Cup opener against Sri Lanka, a fractured wrist has effectively ruled Tamim Iqbal out of the rest of the event.
Social media lauds Tamim heroic
The Bangladesh versus Sri Lanka opener in the Asia Cup was billed as a mouth-watering contest, not just because of how closely fought
'No replacements for the time being'
Tamim Iqbal suffered a painful fracture to his left wrist while batting against Sri Lanka in Bangladesh's Asia Cup opener on Saturday and will most likely miss the rest of the Asia Cup. With Tamim being the only quality opener in Bangladesh and his opening partner a long-standing problem for the team, it would indeed be a big blow, but the team management are not thinking of flying in a replacement at this point.
'Tamim walking out to bat boosted me'
Mushfiqur Rahim was stranded at 112 unbeaten when Mustafizur Rahim fell to a rather silly run out. Mushfiqur's face fell, knowing that it was the last wicket since Tamim Iqbal had already gone off the field with a fractured hand.
[Watch] Mushy giving an earful to Rubel Hossain
The incident occurred during the 42nd over of the Bangladesh innings. Rubel Hossain was facing up to Sri Lanka's star performer Lasith Malinga, who was looking for his fifth wicket of the match.
Heroes who batted with debilitating injuries
After Tamim Iqbal's heroics last night against Sri Lanka, we look back at instances where cricketers risked further injury and put their bodies on the line for their nation. Tamim might have faced only four deliveries overall but his sheer bravery put the wind right back on Bangladesh's sails
'It was also a question of Tamim's career'
Although the scoreboard shows that Tamim Iqbal scored just two runs off four balls in the Asia Cup opener against Sri Lanka , skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza gushes in praise of the opener's bravery

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100 Movie Trivia Team Names
March 11, 2019 Articles
In the world of pub trivia, choosing the perfect team name is one of the most important things you can do. But great names don't grow on trees, so it always helps to have some inspiration to draw from. And it turns out that movies can be an excellent source of material.
Below you'll find a list of the American Film Institute's list of 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition. These are what they consider to be the 100 greatest movies of all time. Using these films, we've put together a list of movie trivia team names – one name inspired by each film.
Fair warning: some films and franchises naturally lend themselves to good content. There are countless Disney Trivia Team Names or Star Wars Trivia Team Names, for example. Team names for Schindler's List or Platoon or Saving Private Ryan have the strong potential to border on being insensitive, and would be hard to do right. But even serious films have actors or actresses that could lend themselves to a punny or witty team name. So even if your favorite film is The Deer Hunter, you could still make a Christopher Walken or Robert De Niro name pun.
On that note, here is our list of 100 movie trivia team names.
1. Citizen Kane – Orson Welles, Welles, Welles
2. The Godfather – Luca Brasi Sleeps with the Quizzes
3. Casablanca – Of All the Trivia Shows in All the Towns in All the World, She Walks into Mine
4. Raging Bull – Raging Bull? You Mean Sparring Partner?
5. Singin' in the Rain – Quizzin' in the Rain
6. Gone with the Wind – Not a Single Damn was Given that Day
7. Lawrence of Arabia – Nothing Is Written
8. Schindler's List – Helium Neeson
9. Vertigo – Verti-Go-Get-Me-Another-Drink
10. The Wizard of Oz – The Quizard of Oz
11. City Lights – Charlie Chaplin's Angels: Silent but Deadly
12. The Searchers – Put Up Your Dukes
13. Star Wars – My Wookie Steak Is Chewie
14. Psycho – A Boy's Best Friend is His Trivia Host
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey – The Shallow Hal's
16. Sunset Blvd. – We're Ready For Our Close-Up
17. The Graduate – To the Team in Back, You're Trying to Seduce Me. Aren't you?
18. The General – We Have Loco Motives
19. On the Waterfront – I Coulda Been a Contender…If I Knew More Answers
20. It's a Wonderful Life – It's a Punderful Life
21. Chinatown – Forget it, Jake. It's Pub Trivia
22. Some Like It Hot – The Fuzzy End of the Lollipop is Yummy
23. The Grapes of Wrath – The Movie Was Better
24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – E.T.'s Phone Bill is Out of this World
25. To Kill A Mockingbird – Tequila Mockingbird
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – We Will Not Yield!
27. High Noon – Beer O' Clock
28. All About Eve – It's Going to be a Bumpy Night
29. Double Indemnity – A Thorn in Noir Side
30. Apocalypse Now – Apocalypse Meow
31. The Maltese Falcon – The Stuff That Trivia Is Made Of
32. The Godfather: Part II – We Know it Was you Fredo
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – We'll Take Our Medication Orally
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Whistle While You Twerk
35. Annie Hall – La-dee-da, La-dee-da
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai – The Quiz on the River Kwai
37. The Best Years of Our Lives – The Best Years of our Lives Were Spent in Dank Bars Playing Pub Trivia
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – We Ain't Got No Badges!
39. Dr. Strangelove – or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Trivia
40. The Sound of Music – It's A von Trrap!
41. King Kong – The Larry King Kongs
42. Bonnie and Clyde – We Rob Banks!
43. Midnight Cowboy – HEY! I'm Quizzin' Here!
44. The Philadelphia Story – Tom Dranks
45. Shane – The Low-Down Yankee Liars
46. It Happened One Night – Classic Cool
47. A Streetcar Named Desire – A Streetcar Named Streetcar McStreetcar Face
48. Rear Window – Dwayne "The Alfred Hitchcock" Johnson
49. Intolerance – Quiet on the Set
50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Drinking Is a Nasty Hobbit of Mine
51. West Side Story – Snapping is a Legit Form of Gang Violence
52. Taxi Driver – Robert De Niro, De Faro, Wherever You Aro
53. The Deer Hunter – Christopher Walken on Sunshine
54. M*A*S*H – M*A*S*H Hysteria
55. North by Northwest – North by Northwasted
56. Jaws – The Shark Side of the Moon
57. Rocky – Ain't Gonna Be No Rematch
58. The Gold Rush – Charlie's Chums
59. Nashville – The Damnedest Team You Ever Saw!
60. Duck Soup – Freedonia's Finest
61. Sullivan's Travels – Where Is This Train Going?
62. American Graffiti – Pinky's Pizza
63. Cabaret – Divine Decadence Darling
64. Network – I'm as Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Going to Take This Anymore!
65. The African Queen – Bogart's Buddies
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark – It's Not a Man Purse, It's a Satchel!
67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – We're Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf
68. Unforgiven – Clint Westwood
69. Tootsie – Bill You Murray Me?
70. A Clockwork Orange – My Three Droogs
71. Saving Private Ryan – America Wastes Billions Retrieving Matt Damon Characters
72. The Shawshank Redemption – Get Busy Quizzin'
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Quiz
74. The Silence of the Lambs – We Ate our Buffalo Wings with Some Fava Beans
75. In the Heat of the Night – They Call Me Mister Quiz!
76. Forrest Gump – I'm Not a Smart Man
77. All the President's Men – We'd Wiretap That
78. Modern Times – The Little Tramps
79. The Wild Bunch – Marky Mark and the Wild Bunch
80. The Apartment – The Junior Executive Model
81. Spartacus – I am Smarticus
82. Sunrise – Shhh…We're Trying to Watch a Silent FIlm
83. Titanic – There Was Room For Jack
84. Easy Rider – Queasy Rider
85. A Night at the Opera – The Groucho Marxists
86. Platoon – You Had Me at Dafoe
87. 12 Angry Men – 12 Intoxicated Men
88. Bringing Up Baby – Cary Grant Me One Wish
89. The Sixth Sense – I See Dumb People
90. Swing Time – Stop Fred Astaire-ing at Me
91. Sophie's Choice – Streep Smarts
92. Goodfellas – Ray Liotta's Laugh
93. The French Connection – Doyle Fights Dirty
94. Pulp Fiction – Check Out the Big Brain on Brad
95. The Last Picture Show – Jeff Golden Gate Bridges
96. Do the Right Thing – Do the Right Thing and Let us Win
97. Blade Runner – Blade Runner Puns are Hard to Replicate
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy – The Yankee Doodle Dandiest
99. Toy Story – We're A Little Buzzed
100. Ben-Hur – Ben-Hur An Hour and Still No Drinks
Can you think of any better names for any of these movies? Let us know in the comments below and they might get added to the post!
And if you need more trivia team name inspiration, you can click here to find more!
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Press Center GDC 2013 Markerless iPi Motion Capture Available Through Steam Store
Markerless iPi Motion Capture Available Through Steam Store
MOSCOW — Markerless motion capture iPi Motion Capture, from iPi Soft, is now available in the Valve Steam Store.
The move provides the 50 million members of the Valve gaming community with an optimized and integrated version of the mocap solution currently in use at various game developers, visual effects/animation studios and independent filmmakers.
Source Filmmaker (SFM) is the Steam Store's own state-of-the-art movie making tool, built and used by Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine. Because SFM uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie and vice versa.
For iPi Soft Founder and Chief Technology Architect Michael Nikonov, having iPi Motion Capture become part of this hugely popular and respected gaming platform, represents a key stepping-stone in the technology company's growth.
"As any serious gamer knows Valve and Steam Store are the pinnacle of gaming - whether it's the games they've developed or the community surrounding gaming overall," Nikonov says. "Having our product available to their 50 million members is both an honor and a great opportunity to show just how powerful our markerless mocap solution can be to game developers at all levels. We look forward to seeing how our product is used by the many creative professionals and amateurs who call Valve home."
The Valve Steam Store is the world's largest online gaming platform that guarantees instant access to more than over 2000 game titles ("Half-Life 2," "Team Fortress," "Counter-Strike," "Left 4 Dead" and "Portal 2" among many others), and provides a direct pipeline that connects its 50 million active users to each other.
Details and pricing for iPi Motion Capture are available via the Steam Storeat http://store.steampowered.com/app/221200/.
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Jul. 2, 2013 - LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Los Angeles, CA - NRG Global, a leading edge software performance testing and monitoring company, has announced that AppsWatch has completed all Microsoft Platform Ready testing and is now certified for Windows Server 2012.
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Blu-ray Reviews: Sleeping Beauty (2 Disc Platinum Edition)
Originally published in Australian HI-FI, Sept/Oct 2009, v.40#05
1959 - Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Director: Clyde Geronimi
Starring: Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes and Bill Thompson
Back when DVDs were on the verge of appearing, rumours of the destructive qualities of lossy video compression were flowing. One of these was the claim that animation would look dreadful when rendered in MPEG2. As it happened, animation looked fine (when the disc was encoded competently). Especially traditional animation.
Modern lossy video compression systems work in part by trying to eliminate redundancy (and near redundancy) not just within frames, but between them. Since much of the action in hand-drawn animated movies takes place at 12 frames per second, rather than 24, it is actually quite easy to compress while retaining quality.
So when Walt Disney Studios delivered its 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty on Blu-ray with a healthy 24.06Mbps in the more efficient MPEG4 AVC codec, you can be confident that the picture quality would be about as good as it can get.
Which is just as well, because the source film for this Blu-ray was shot in Technirama 70, Sequential Exposure. Basically, a 35mm film was run sideways through a large format film camera, providing much greater resolution. And the film was high quality monochrome, with each frame shot three times using red, green and blue colour filters. This meant that the Blu-ray could come from a freshly scanned (at 4,096 pixels wide) film, carefully restored and coloured.
This also allowed the originally intended aspect ratio of 2.55:1 to be restored. The case says 2.39:1 but it is incorrect. The display area of the Blu-ray is 1920 x 752 pixels.
The picture detail is extraordinary and the colours positively glow. This isn't a movie, it's a work of art.
Disney also went back to the original three channel recordings, made in Germany, for the Tchaikovsky-based score. That meant a lot of listening to find the segments actually used, but they did it and mixed in cleaned up effects and voice. There is just occasionally a sense of sterility in the spoken voice hinting at the use of digital hiss removal, but I can live with that. The music could easily pass for something recorded in the early 70s. It's that good.
Get this release before it goes back into the Disney vault for another seven years.
Picture: 2.55:1, 1080p24, MPEG4 AVC @ 24.06Mbps
Sound: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 16/48 3/4.1 @ 2591kbps (Core: DTS 16/48, 3/2.1 @ 1536kbps); Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Arabic: Dolby Digital 3/2.1 @ 640kbps; Commentary, English Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital 2/0.0 @ 192kbps
Subtitles: English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Arabic, On Screen Lyrics
Extras: Disc 3 DVD version; Cine-Explore BonusView PIP version of movie; 'Grand Canyon' Documentary Short (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DTS-HD MA 24/48 5.1 @ 3526kbps - 29 mins); Disney TV Presentation: 'The Peter Tchaikovsky Story' - 2 versions (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 49 mins each); 4 Deleted Songs (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 19 mins); Documentary: 'The Making of Sleeping Beauty' (1080i60, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 44 mins); 4 Featurettes (1080i60, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 23 mins); Alternate Opening (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 3 mins); Trivia Track; In-movie music lyrics; 3 Games ('Maleficent's Challenge', 'Briar Rose's Enchanted Dance Game', 'Sleeping Beauty Fun With Language Game'); Original Disneyland Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough Attraction - optional audio guide & optional branches to many short clips (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DD5.1 @ 448kbps or DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 8 mins); Art Galleries (637 stills with thumbnails, 1080p24, MPEG2, no audio); Live Action Reference (4:3, 480i60, MPEG2, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 2 mins); Featurette: 'The Sound Of Beauty: Restoring a Classic' (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DTS-HD Master Audio 24/48 7.1 @ 3703kbps - 11 mins); 3 Trailers (4:3, 480i60, MPEG2, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 6 mins); 1958 Disneyland segment: '4 Artists Paint 1 Tree' (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 16 mins); Dragon Encounter Audio Sensory Experience (1080p24, MPEG4 AVC, DTS-HD HR 24/48 7.1 @ 2046kbps - 5 mins); Music Video: 'Once Upon a Dream' - Emily Osment (1080p24, MPEG2, DD5.1 @ 640kbps - 4 mins); 2 Storyboard Sequences (4:3, 480i60, MPEG2, DD2.0 @ 192kbps - 4 mins)
Restrictions: Rated (Australian rating); Locked to Regions B & C
This is the video bitrate graph for this movie, generated by BDInfo 0.5.2:
This is the video bitrate graph for the BonusView PIP stream in this movie. It shows where the PIP windows appear during its course:
Before getting to the DVD/Blu-ray comparisons, let us consider the two different DVD versions. I previously had in my DVD collection the 'Collector's Two Disc' DVD of this movie. This has THX certification and has the main feature with DTS 5.1 sound. Disc 1 carries ID number P04760/1, Disc 2: P04760/2.
The 2-Disc Platinum Blu-ray version of this movie with which I was supplied is actually a three disc one. It also contains a DVD version of the movie as well, and this is drawn from the remaster upon which the Blu-ray was also based.
The remaster is a work of art in itself and involved a huge amount of work, going back to the original 'successive exposure' film stock -- a black and white film in which each frame was photographed three times, once each through a red, a blue and a green filter, in succession. Amongst other things, the film was able to be presented in its original 2.55:1 aspect ratio as originally shot, rather than the 2.35:1 format in which it has since been presented (due to changing standards). All the detail on this restoration is laid out in this excellent interview by Robert Harris with Theo Gluck, the Director of Library Restoration and Preservation for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
So let us first see my old DVD and the new one. This is the same frame from both, with the old one at the top. As you can see, there is more picture at both the left and right sides of the newer version. Rather more surprisingly, there is also more content at both the bottom and top of the frames, suggesting that the earlier DVD was rather severely cropped:
What follows now are comparisons between the new PAL DVD and the Blu-ray version of this movie. Both the DVD and the Blu-ray versions were from 2-Disc Platinum package provided to me by Disney.
In the following examples, at the top of each is the full frame (suitably shrunk down) used in the comparison, with a 250 pixel wide detail from the frame underneath. The left side is from the PAL DVD. The image was captured digitally from the disc, scaled up from its native 720 by 576 resolution to 1,024 by 576 (to present in the 16:9 aspect ratio), and then, in order to be comparable to the Blu-ray version, from that to 1,920 by 1,080. The detail is from that last scaled version, and has not been rescaled again. The right side is from the Australian Blu-ray. This has not been scaled at all.
Different applications were used to capture the two frames, so I am not normally comfortable comparing the colour between the two, merely the detail and sharpness. For those visitors from NTSC lands, generally the PAL DVD is just a touch sharper than the NTSC DVD.
While the shot above shows more detail and cleaner edges from the Blu-ray compared to the DVD, the shot below shows how the lower resolution of the DVD can quite misrepresent things. For example, in addition to being fuzzy, the stylised character in the crest at top left is distorted in the DVD. And how many candles are there on the table at the right of the shot?
Note the attention to detail by the Disney painters -- in the Blu-ray, anyway. Especially the yellow curlicues on the red backrest of the throne. Note, also that the framing of the DVD and the Blu-ray is identical. I use a macro to make the 250 by 300 pixel selection, and I normally move it in both the DVD and Blu-ray screen shots to a point of comparison. With this one I did not shift the selection areas, and clearly the selection describes identical areas in both shots:
A menacing face is rather more menacing when it can actually be seen:
Goodness me, what did the DVD do to the prince's mouth? It looks like it's making him leer:


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The Hunt for the Worst Album of All Time
Thread starter moonmaster
moonmaster
Without him, all of you would be lost souls roamin
Videogum has an excellent series called The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time. I am totally copying the **** out of it.
I personally have a tendency to give up on an album if I'm not being satisfied with it. If the first few tracks are boring me, I simply turn it off. This is actually a habit that I'd like to stop, because in writing reviews for Opinz, I'm not required to listen to anything, but I'd like to be able to look at things as objectively as possible. Hopefully in subjecting myself to the worst of the worst, I will be more willing to listen to crap so that people know what to look out for.
I'll ask for suggestions, though I'm going to be "researching" on my own time as well. This has to be something moderately well known, that doesn't fit into some terribly obscure genre. I'm sure there are plenty of EuropeanProtoCrustPunkIndustrialNoiseDrone bands who have recorded albums that are 50 minutes of guitar feedback. Not what I'm looking for. My initial list of albums I'm considering should give you an idea of what I'm getting at:
K. Fed - Playing with Fire
Garth Brooks - In the Life of Chris Gaines
Mariah Carey - Glitter
Aaron Carter - Aaron Carter
Soulja Boy - Souljaboytellem.com
Tokio Hotel - Anything by them, since I think they've actually released several albums.
Velvet Underground - Squeeze
Metallica - St. Anger
Further suggestions are welcome.
I will post my first review sometime in the next week.
Here's a good list.
That list looks good.
I've decided that Playing With Fire will be my first review. The worst reviewed album on Metacritic. It's too good to pass up.
The Hunt for the Worst Album of All Time, Round 1:
Kevin Federline, Playing With Fire (2006)
Playing With Fire is the debut and so-far only album by one Kevin Federline. If you're not familiar with Federline, he was the back-up dancer that Britney Spears married because she needed someone to spend all her money and fill her with gross wigger jizz. The album's Wikipedia page describes Federline as both a rapper and an "American personality". That's great. I'm going to start calling myself that. Like, if I'm ever asked to describe what I do, I'm going to say that I'm an American personality. This is 2008, people. You can totally do that now.
Federline originally positioned himself under the MC name "K-Fed" and - as one would hope and expect - was mocked relentlessly by the media. Note that he drops the moniker for this album in favor of his full name, clearly telling you of the classy, professional content that you'll find within. (NOT) On a side note, "Kevin Federline" is the worst rap name ever. And he actually refers to himself a few times on the album under his whole name. Sorry, Kev, but Kanye can only get away with not using a stagename because his name isn't "Federline", which sounds like some bizarre, German, cheese-centric dish.
Playing With Fire is where I decided to begin because it's widely regarded as one of the biggest musical failures of the past decade. The album is the lowest rated album on Metacritic since it's inception in 1999, and sold a mere 16,000 copies before they took the CD out of production. According to Wikipedia:
The "Playing with Fire" concert tour was also a commercial disaster. In New York City, Federline performed before an estimated audience of 300 out of a total seating capacity of 1,500 at Webster Hall, with only one-third of attendees remaining by the end of the concert. Although many of the tickets were given away for free, approximately three-quarters of the seats at his Chicago performance remained empty. Four of the eight scheduled tour performances (Cleveland, Atlantic City, Anaheim, and San Diego) were ultimately cancelled.
Ouch. At least he actually, shockingly enough, has a long-running and still active fan blog. Its author claimed that K-Fed's album is "probably some of the most sincere urban storytelling you'll hate to admit you like." LOLgasm. I'm surprised that they had enough time to write that review, considering that they must've been busy buying those 16,000 CDs that no one else in the world could logically want to buy. Actually, on second thought, that blog is probably run by K-Fed himself.
K-Fed's tag cloud at Last.fm should give you a pretty good idea of how people usually respond to his music:
Before delving into the gooey innards of Playing With Fire, let's take a look at a Brief History of White Boy Rapping.
A popular resource for all White Boy Rapologists.
White Boy Rapping experts initially theorized that White Boys could not, in fact, rap. This theory was proven wrong in 2000 with the release of The Marshall Mathers LP and the advent of "Em Theory". The truth of the matter is that "the ability to rap" originates from two key sources, talent for putting words together on your feet and songwriting skills, and simple swagger. There are lot of black people who have the latter but lack the former. Anyone who went into a fairly well mixed public school could tell you that every black guy thinks he's got xtra siiick rhymin' skillzz, and a very large percentage of them actually don't. Soulja Boy is like, the source from which half of these guys were apparently cloned. But they can, at least, get by on having the kind of swagger that most White Boys lack. K-Fed has some swagger (that he can't back up) but lacks any kind of talent. Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
His rhymes are nothing to write home about (if you do indeed write home to your parents when you hear some phat rhymes) and the beats are completely forgettable. K-Fed has a bewildering habit of changing his voice, switching between a smooth blackcent on some tracks and a rough, whispery, sort of growl on others, as if he's David Caruso trying his hand at hip hop. Whoever the **** produced this album decided that every line should be followed by a whispered voice repeating the last word, which is one of the cheesiest hip-hop effects ever devised, ranking along side auto-tuner, steel drums, and Ja Rule. Even the hooks are pretty boring. With the amount of "pop rap" stuff that's been released in this last decade, how hard is it to write a damn memorable hook? Couldn't you hire T.I. for like, $50 a line or something?
As one would expect, the lyrics are truly where the hilarity lies. K-Fed is mainly concerned with a few key things: how much money he (apparently) has, how much he likes to party, how much cooler and tougher he is than you, how he hates everyone and everything for vague reasons, and how he smokes massive, incredible, mindblowing amounts of weed. He revisits all of these themes constantly, on nearly every track, to the point where few of them are even thematically different at all. Really, you could think of it as a concept album. K-Fed probably conceived of this as being the Dark Side of the Moon of this generation, probably whilst forcibly inserting a bong into his anus because he already has seventeen spliffs in his mouth.
The album begins with an insanely inexplicable "intro": a chorus of children say "Grandpa, can you tell me a story about when you were young" and a voice that sounds like DJ Bobo telling vampires to get alive answers with a rich laugh and "Gather 'round, children". Oh boy. Then comes the montage of actors portraying newscasters doubting the legitimacy of K-Fed's marriage to Britney Spears, his talent as a rapper, and his parenting skills. Oh boy. Then a door smashes open, footsteps, wood creaking and breaking, a table flipped over, a glass breaks, a bird squawks and swords unsheath. The next track begins with the line "I'm a pirate on the sea, call me Captain Hook/Everything belong to me, every cranny and nook". Ooh boy.
With the intro, he establishes the point of the album: answering his critics, leaving a legacy for his grandchildren (sorry K-Fed's grandchildren), and...being a pirate. Okay. That next track is called "World is Mine" but is not a Nas rip-off Scarface homage, but is (I **** you not) built around K-Fed positioning himself as some kind of Pirate of the Carribbean. I went into Playing With Fire expecting absolute mediocrity. What I was not expecting was just how WTF this would be. It's like K-Fed ran out of synonyms for "cash", "weed" and "**** you" and just filled it with whatever insane **** he could think of, believing that no one would pay close enough attention to notice. He obviously did not count on geeks with too much time on their hands.
There are the times when he throws around confusingly bizarre slang. From "Snap": "I'm drinkin' French Connection, blowin' on Broccoli/You got lil' dough, I got cake with no icing/K-Federline, I snap like Mike Tyson" See, I don't know what that means, K-Fed. At other points, individual lines make sense, but are combined incoherently. Like on "America's Most Hated":
They watch me
So I duck and roll
Middle fingers still up sayin' **** the globe
And my dawgs still down
We don't trust them hoes
I live life like a King
I was extra stoned
Kevin Federline -
I come tight with every rhyme
I built a kingdom down the street from pepperdine
This marijuana got me heavily sedated
I'm Kevin Federline
America's most hated (what!)
Yes, what? It's like he gets bored every five words and starts talking about something else. Except what he talks about is inevitably something he just talked about ten lines ago but forgot, because oh my god he's so ****ing high. During "Crazy" - between the horribly-sung Britney Spears guest spot choruses - we can see another example of such WTF lyrics:
When the pen hits the pad
It's in the left hand
Every single word is worth thirty grand
Or maybe more
Don't think they understand
How much cake the pancake man had
So heavy like weight
Moving upstate
Care for my rhyme
Like the crime rate
I flick with your boy
The prince of the bay
Sit back, day to day
Got two back packs
Resno on one
LA in other
Whilst I'm holding my sons
As I march through the valley of the shadow of death
Daughter on my chest
Wife on my left
That's clearly some of the most sincere urban storytelling you'll hate to admit you like. That actually reminds me of another strange tendency K-Fed has: referring to himself as "the pancake man" or some variation there of. I have no idea why he's "the pancake man", and I don't recall any moment on the album where he explains it. He just starts calling himself that and talking about pancakes all the ****ing time. He mentions pancakes like, five times. Closer "Kept On Talkin'" features a chorus of "Pancake, pancake, pancake, I'm that bad!" No, really. I suppose the pancake thing explains this rhyme from "Dance With a Pimp", sort of:
Hair was out of style, I cut ten inches
Then I put 30 G's in my dentures
Now that's pimpin'
Never simpin'
I know your girl wanna come dance with a Bisquick
This is not the lamest reference that K-Fed makes on Playing With Fire. On the title track, he says "I'm like Val Kilmer, I'm bringin' this heat". I didn't even know that Val Kilmer was in Heat. I had to Google that ****. I haven't seen Heat, so maybe someone could tell me what the point of referencing Val Kilmer would be, instead of say, frequent gangster rap icons Robert De Niro or Al Pacino? Is K-Fed a Val Kilmer fan? Are there some unreleased tracks where he sings about Top Gun and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? Just a second or two later, he ends a line by sing-songing "Because of the wonderful things he does!" So gangsta.
There are some seriously LOL-inducing moments here. On "America's Most Hated", Federline warns "Little boys we can get it on/Watch your back". To quote someone far more talented than Kevin Federline:
[youtube]quncxbEl5Fs[/youtube]
Someone needs to take that man's children from him, now. Besides such hilarious parts, most of Playing With Fire is just what you'd expect, tired, boring platitudes about K-Fed's money and status. "I've got 50 mil I can do whatever I want." Such boasting is made hilarious by the fact that K-Fed is such a joke. He acts as if he should command respect, but it's not like he even earned any of that money. He just lucked into a disastrous relationship with a wayward pop star. In the long run, K-Fed is going to be about as culturally relevant and important as Joe the Plumber. And no one wants to listen to an album by Joe the Plumber.
This is perhaps the reason why Playing With Fire is really so terrible. The American people have demonstrated an incredible lack of taste this decade, but even we aren't dumb enough to think that an album of music by Kevin Federline deserves our time or money. The man got famous just by marrying and impregnating someone else who was famous. Then he decided to release an album, but his album literally has no point, except perhaps as a joke, and a joke that - despite the fun I've had with it here - is really not worth actually sitting and listening to. The music is nothing, the rapping is nothing, and Federline has no story to tell. Hopefully, when he has grandchildren he'll be old enough to have realized that his life was a waste and he has nothing of note to tell them. Most people could, in some way, justify their existence, but Kevin Federline has failed at this simple task. He has nothing interesting to say and doesn't do anything to benefit anyone else and in the end can't even do anything to benefit himself. He has essentially proven that he is a pointless human being.
Of course, I sound pretty harsh. According to all the entertainment news sources, K-Fed has stepped up as a dad since Britney went super-cuckoo and I think he's getting married again or something. Good for him. Those are some good excuses to exist. Let's just hope he never picks up a microphone again.
Because this is some terrible ****.
I'll leave you with one of the more hilarious lines from Playing With Fire:
"Cab looked better than a couple pair of Grammy's"
Now how would you ever know what those look like, Kevin?
Iceshadow
Bwahaha! Lookin' forward to more.
thee great one
Master of TOG-fu.
I'm tempted to give it a listen now...
That is the best line.
I don't know how this will be topped. It's so horrible, in exactly the way I was looking for. Soulja Boy might be up to the task.
thee great one said:
It's not totally unlistenable...it's just very, very pointless.
He's so obsessed with pancakes and I don't know why. Is it a reference or something?
moonmaster said:
Maybe he's really good at stompin' people that get up in his grill, he stomps them flat like a pancake.
This is hilarious. One of the many reasons I love the internet - you can go on and thoroughly deconstruct something you hate and then be satisfied, rather than real life where these things are deemed too trivial.
(I'm being sincere)
Also, I remember one line of his most of all, something like "Don't hate me because I'm a superstar/and I'm married to a superstar/there's no coming between what we are" which was then the most infuriating and now the most satisfyingly hilarious line ever.
[youtube]-QSlEk1VCxE[/youtube]
Iceshadow said:
He's says something, in reference to his pancake-ness, about "flipping" something. But I don't think that sufficiently explains why he's the pancake man.
What's funny is that that line doesn't actually make any sense.
It's like he started writing "there's no coming between us" and then realized at the last second that it didn't rhyme.
Oh god. That gave actually gave me a headache. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it through Soulja Boy.
St. Anger will likely be the next subject. I just downloaded it.
Excelsior Club
gross wigger jizz
The title of his next record, I hope.
"Throw some D's on it!"
I think that puppet should do all his videos. I would watch them.
I don't think St.Anger could be classified as a worst album of all time. I mean it was bad, not that bad.
Metallica, St. Anger (2003)
In the second round of the Hunt for the Worst Album of All Time, we're taking a look at St. Anger. This is mainly because of E, who hates this thing with a dark, fiery passion that he usually only reserves for mask squinting and Robert Smith. I don't want to speak for him, but I think it's safe to say that if St. Anger was a person, he would pay good money to skull-rape it to death, and then probably pee on it or something. He really doesn't like it.
The album has a mostly mixed reputation. Some like it, many are neutral towards it. Pitchfork hated it so much that they wrote one of their most pretentious reviews ever about it. (Which is saying something for Pitchfork.) I went into it unsure of what I would hear. I'm not a metal fan by any measure and had never heard a Metallica album before. I was worried if I'd even be able to properly judge it's quality. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can safely say that St. Anger sucks ****ing donkey balls.
The first thing one notices about St. Anger is the production. Producer Bob Rock said that they were trying to capture the sound of "a band jamming together in a garage for the first time, and the band just happened to be Metallica". That band also just happens to suck. I quite like "lo-fi" music. I think not giving everything a glitzy sheen can add a great sense of space, like you're in the studio with the band. See: My Morning Jacket, The Walkmen, Department of Eagles. In other cases it can just make the music sound like a noisy, unprofessional mess that no one wants to hear. See: Metallica.
The guitar work is deplorable. When we did that music exchange thing (that I gave up on because it didn't seem like anyone was all that interested) and Hellsbuttmonkey had us listen to My Bloody Valentine, I found that the thing I appreciate most about metal is the amount of talent behind the guitar work. Everything sounds like a solo. They might not be top-notch song writers but they know how to do crazy things with a guitar. I'm aware that Metallica has done plenty of solos in the past, but they're totally absent in St. Anger. All that's left is boring riffs played on down-tuned guitars. If Jimi Hendrix's guitar playing was like making love with music, this is like slowly humping a pile of mud.
Lars Ulrich's drumming is pretty terrible too. It sounds like he's banging on trashcans with hammers. It's dull, flat, clangy, and it seems to serve no purpose. Besides, it's so buried within the album's wall of noise, who cares. James Hetfield growls and sneers out ever line with a voice who's sense of anger or power has long since dissipated. It's funny to think that he still believes his voice has much of an effect. It's as familiar to people's ears as Bono's. These guys are professional musicians and they sound like ****ing amateurs. The copy of the album that I downloaded was actually ripped from a CD that skipped at several points. At first I thought this was intentional, and then was disappointed that it wasn't, since it would've been more interesting than anything actually done on the album.
And the worst part is that it goes on forever. The two most indulgent camps in the realm of popular music are rappers and metal bands, incapable of making albums that are any less than an hour long. This thing goes on for 75 minutes! There are moments where I thought it was never going to end. Every song is between 5 and 8 minutes long, and none of them sound like they should be over maybe 4 minutes long, or, y'know, any minutes long. They just go on and on with the same riffs. I have no opposition to long songs. There are songs that can totally justify it. None of these songs can do that. I get it, you guys want to pretend that you're really terrible musicians and yell at me about how you're angry about things and stuff.
That brings me to the lyrics, which were for more hilarious and poorly written than I ever could have imagined. The opening track, "Frantic", sets the tone:
If I could have have my wasted days back
Would I use them to get back on track?
Stop to warm at karmas burning
Or look ahead, but keep on turning?
Do I have the strength
To know how I'll go?
Can I find it inside
To deal with what I shouldn't know?
Could I have my wasted days back
You live it or lie it!
My lifestyle determines my deathstyle
Keep searching, keep on searching
This search goes on, this search goes on
Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock
That search obviously didn't lead him to a thesaurus, or to any kind of writing talent. There are so many things wrong with those lyrics, I don't even know where to begin. "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle" is a lyrical offense on the level of "Are we human or are we dancer?" I don't know what that even means. What is a deathstyle? Is this like, an anti-smoking PSA? Metallica do their best to sound brutal, but are hardly convincing. "Some Kind of Monster" features some bizarre chanting near the end, and "All Within My Hand" closes out the album with Hetfield horsely shouting "Kill! Kill! Kill!" All of this just comes off as funny when you imagine these guys going home to their mansions after their recording sessions. "I'd totally beat the **** out of you because I don't even give a **** and I'm so angry, but my manager probably wouldn't advise it and my wife would be really mad." You have to have something to back it up, guys. Those death metal guys are scary because they operate so far out of the mainstream. Avril Lavigne covers your songs. I've never heard Avril Lavigne cover a Mayhem song. Though I'd love to hear one if it's floating around out there somewhere.
The first few tracks all feature laughable choruses. On "St. Anger", Hetfield shouts "I'm madly in anger with you". Okay. On "Some Kind of Monster" he asks "We the people/Are we the people?" Yes, I guess I am a person, and that most other people are also people. Thank you for making me ponder such an interesting question for 1 second. "Dirty Window" actually features these lyrics:
Rejector
Infector
Dejector
Or take the opening verse of "Invisible Kid":
Invisible kid
Never see what he did
Got stuck where he did
Fallen through the grid
Got a place of his own
Wher he'll never be known
Inward he's grown
Adult men wrote these words. Like, middle-aged guys who've been doing this for a long time. These lyrics sound like they were written by a 13-year-old.
Professional songwriter.
One can only imagine the songwriting process:
Deleted scene from the "Some Kind of Monster" documentary.
In the end, St. Anger is probably not a very good candidate for the worst album of all time. Playing With Fire was far sillier and more poorly thought out. But St. Anger is certainly an atrocity in it's own unique way. At this point, I have completely refrained from mentioning Metallica's war on file-sharing. As many remember, Metallica was the first musical act to file suit against Napster. The resultant slew of lawsuits caused Napster to soon go out of business and forever set the music industry at odds with the internet.
The funny thing is that Metallica was implying in their actions that they were producing pieces of art that had real value, and managed to prove three years later that that was complete bull****. They want people to pay for their music but they decide to suddenly abandon their former style, not in favor of something new or more interesting, but in favor of some kind of "lo-fi" ploy that just made them sound crappier than ever before. And they still managed to spend millions of dollars on it. Even the event that resulted in the suing of Napster makes them look silly: a song of theirs leaked early on Napster, a song they'd done for the Mission: Impossible II soundtrack. Wow, you guys sure keep it real.
They went on some big crusade in the name of art and supporting artists and then produced something on the level of a child's finger painting. I have only one thing to say:
Lars Ulrich's drumming is pretty terrible too. It sounds like he's banging on trashcans with hammers. It's dull, flat, clangy, and it seems to serve no purpose.
Yes - EXACTLY.
It's not enough that the songs are poorly written and the lyrics awful. The production on it was terrible - so much so that Metallica decided to go with a different producer for their next (infinitely better) album.
So true, from what I've heard.
But I'd say pretty much all that about any Metallica album.
In fact, forget the "lica".
Latest: selfishmisery


text:
CREATIVE FICTION : A Circle of Fire by Pavithra Radhakrishnan
Mohan gave his packed suitcase a final once over, checking off its contents against the list his daughter-in-law had sent over Whatsapp - podis, pickles and varieties of snacks, all triple packed and sealed for freshness. Zippering it shut, he wheeled it to the living room, to be weighed and adjusted to stick to the airline limitations.
Sumathi, his wife, was clearing out the pantry, keeping aside packets of dry goods that were prone to infestation, to be handed over to her neighbor. She noted with a hint of pride how her meticulous grocery planning had accounted for the very last meal up to their departure and ensured there were minimal left-overs. After all, she was a seasoned Visiting Indian Parent, having been at this VIP gig for nearly eight years now. Every year, they would leave Chennai around March, headed to either California, where their son's family lived, or to Virginia, which was home to their daughter's family to spend a few months with each of them, returning to Chennai in October, just as the temperatures in the US started to fall too low for Sumathi's arthritic knees' liking. The timelines suited them, since it gave them long, lazy summers with their grandchildren and brought them back to Chennai in its most agreeable weather, well in time to enjoy its inimitable Margazhi spirit. Moreover, it enabled Mohan to perform the annual rites for his deceased parents in a timely manner at his home in Chennai, something that he was very particular about.
This year was the tenth anniversary of Mohan's mother's passing and they had performed the shrardha, the annual rites, just four days before. A faint trace of the smell of smoke from the homam*, still hung in the air, Mohan observed, as he weighed the suitcases. It was a smell that he always associated with his mother, Parvathi Amma. It was a smell that instantly transported him to the large, yet dingy taavaaram of his ancestral home in Lalgudi, with an array of mann* and kummiti* adupppus ( old-fashioned mud and cast iron stoves respectively) lined against its soot covered walls. A pile of firewood would be stacked against another wall, with a sackful of coir and other combustibles next to it. This was the space Parvathi had stepped into with trepidation as a demure sixteen year old bride, and reigned, for the next six decades. This was the space that featured in every memory that Mohan had of his mother, olfactory or otherwise.
As children, he and his siblings would stay up at bedtime every night, waiting for her to wind up her never-ending kitchen chores, and she would regale them with stories, till they drifted off to sleep, their faces buried in the soft folds of her well-washed Devendra saree that smelt of the dying embers in her hearth.
The times with Parvathi that Mohan held closest to his heart were when he was in his late teens. Marriage and jobs had taken his siblings to various parts of India, while Mohan was still attending college from home. His father had just retired after completing a highly distinguished career as the District Judge of Tiruchirapalli and had procured a new black and white television to enjoy their retirement. In addition to the melodramatic Tamil serials that she and her peers now had access and were hooked to, Parvathi found an unexpected interest in cricket, which soon matched the passion that father and son had for the game, and cricket matches, especially when India was playing, were almost sacred events at home. Mohan would spend a good hour in the kitchen in the evenings after returning from college, discussing the latest in agraharam gossip, cricket and politics. He learnt from her how the firewood logs needed to be prodded deftly to stoke the fire, and how different utensils had to be used depending on the dishes being cooked - eeya chombu for rasam, the iron vaanali made the best ladies finger roast, vengala paanai for that perfect arisi upma. Though all this amazed the science student in him, he also realized what an incredible amount of physical work it took to maintain that kitchen. When it was time for him to leave to Chennai for his first job, he insisted that she make a few basic upgrades, and bring in at least an LPG gas stove and a mixie/ grinder to ease her drudgery, but she rubbished his suggestions declaring that she was fit enough to make idli batter for an entire village with the aatukkal, her trusty grinding stone.
After Mohan got married a few years later, the whole family fell into a routine of making bi-yearly visits to Lalgudi - the children, their spouses and the now steadily growing brood of grandchildren. While Parvati half-heartedly relinquished control over the kitchen, allowing Sumathi and the other younger ladies to take over, even relenting to the entry of a gas stove and a mixie, she insisted on spending every afternoon in her beloved taavaaram, in front of huge woks of coconut oil, churning out tins and tins of varuvals, chips, made of plantains, raw bananas, potatoes, and a variety of other savories for her grandchildren. Vacations, to the kids, meant Parvati Paati's snacks, thatha's stories and unlimited play time with their cousins and cronies and they devoured and relished them all in equal measure.
With every passing year, it did not escape Mohan's attention how his parents seemed just a wee bit more frail, with noticeably increased measures of forgetfulness, grey hair and exhaustion; yet when that fateful call came in August 2005, Mohan was in complete denial. His father had gone to bed like any other day, suffered a massive cardiac arrest and passed away in his sleep. Even as Mohan was struggling to come to terms with his loss, he was even more fazed by his mother's dogged refusal to leave Lalgudi despite his entreaties to move in with his family in Chennai.
In a bid to make her days purposeful, Parvati Amma had now dedicated herself to cooking for an annadaana koodam, where meals were served as charity for the needy, but despite her outward resilience, Mohan could see that she never quite recovered from the loss of her husband. Her body did not take kindly to the long hours spent in constant exposure to the smoke from the firewood stoves, but Parvathi Amma was relentless. Eventually, she suffered a deadly tuberculosis infection, and in her characteristic adamance, told her children that time had come for her to go, and she wanted her end to be in her home and not on a hospital bed.
Much as he tried to accept her end gracefully, Mohan could not help rueing his mother's rigid attitude as he was performing her final rites and watching the agni take her mortal remains. If she had allowed herself some modern conveniences, if she had ventured outside of Lalgudi to gain some fresh experiences and get a glimpse of the very different lives her children enjoyed (why, his own son had just bought a home in California and had, in all earnestness expressed desire to make his favorite paati travel to A-mae-rikka, as she put it), and if only she had spared her body of the constant companionship of smoke and ash, maybe, just maybe, the tuberculosis would not have come knocking after all...
Mohan stirred in his sleep, and caught the orange hues of dawn streaming delicately through the windows. Like most mornings in the last few months, Mohan again awoke with wishful optimism that the very strange dream from last night would end, and he could finally find comfort in the fact that it had all been a dream. But as his languor passed, the familiar feeling of resignation struck - there was no getting away from this "dream".
It had all started five months ago as a faint murmur when he and Sumathi were at the Chennai airport, waiting to board their flight to London, the first leg of their journey to California. Mohan struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler, a young chap who, amidst the various topics of their small talk mentioned that some new viral attack had broken out in several parts of the world and possibly reached Kerala too. "Oh last year it was that Nippah or Neepah, that virus, now the next one has started! All sorts of diseases somehow make their way to Kerala!", interjected Sumathi dryly, before they moved on to other things.
But things escalated beyond their wildest imagination within a couple of weeks of their arrival in California. The murmur grew into a rumble and soon became a thundering explosion that deafened the whole world. Even before the world could digest the horrors of Italy reeling under the impact of Covid-19, New York and California were threatening to catch up at an alarming pace. Soon, even his three year old granddaughter, Mythri would emphatically declare - "Thatha! No shtoller buh-bye today. It's co-do-na time. Appa asked us to lock the house and stay indoors, otherwise bad guys will come in". Manav, her seven year old brother would rush to correct her with barely concealed annoyance - "We don't have to "lock" the house Mythu. It's just a "lockdown" - you can't go out because if the virus touches you, you'll fall sick. And then all of us will fall sick, and if thatha-paati catch the virus from us, it's very very dangerous for them."
Mohan's head spun; it seemed like they had it all figured out that with that crystal clear understanding that only children seem to possess. As for him, he was still trying to process the bevy of restrictions that his son and daughter-in-law issued in quick succession. In short, given their existing preconditions of diabetes and high blood pressure, they would have to live in a bubble, and the whole family would go to ridiculous lengths to keep this bubble pristine. Mohan and Sumathi tried to take things in their stride and count their blessings for being close to family in these times, but it was hard to keep the anxiety at bay. Things back home in India were taking a turn for the worse too and as the months passed, the number of people in their close circles falling prey to Covid-19 made them despondent. Days blurred into weeks and even as they were watching passively from their bubble, five months had rolled past.
But today was going to be a tad better. He could smell coffee in the air already; "did it smell a wee bit different?", wondered Mohan, unable to quite place it. In any case, that meant Sumathi was already up and had the decoction going; they could have their coffee and then step out on a short walk. It had taken a fair bit of persuasion, but his son had finally given in last evening and agreed that it would be okay for Mohan and Sumathi to step out for short walks. Only within the community, of course. Only with masks, of course. No stopping to chit chat with other walkers, of course. Just the thought of this simple freedom made Mohan feel infinitely better.
He walked into the huge living room that had huge French windows that opened up to the back yard and did a double take. The deep hues of orange in the sky appeared unnatural, menacing almost.
"Fires", spat his son, coming up from behind. "The wildfires are progressing rapidly and we have been advised to be on standby for evacuation orders. We are instructed not to step out because of the bad air quality."
Mohan felt numb. He slowly walked up to the huge windows. Fires, smoke and ashes outside, and him in a fortress, untouched by them. The vague smell he had sensed earlier came back to him with an astonishing force. The decade that had passed, the few thousand miles he had travelled and a lifetime of colorful experiences that he had amassed - all seemed to fade into oblivion as he found himself overcome by deja vu. ***
Pavithra is a product management professional by day and moonlights as a serial dabbler in all things music, books, writing and culture, in addition to being a full time warden at the boys hostel that she calls home. Give her a cup of chai and a loaded Kindle, she's a happy clam, and is most fascinated by writing that transforms the everyday mundane into engrossing stories.
Labels: Ashes Creative Fiction Indian Short Stories Indian Writers Inkspire