text:
Trisha Home
Trisha Shetty (Editor)
Im a simple gal who loves adventure, nature and dogs Im a perfectionist too
Loud Rocks
Released September 5, 2000
Label Loud Records
Release date 5 September 2000
Genres Nu metal, Rap rock, Hard rock, Alternative metal
Similar Nativity In Black II: A Tribute T, Chef Aid: The South Park Album, Strait Up, Steal This Album!, MTV The Return of the Rock
Wu tang system of a down loud rocks shame on a nigga
Loud Rocks is an album of collaborations between hard rock and hip hop artists performing songs of the latter. It was released by Loud Records in four editions: one with explicit lyrics, a clean version, a Japanese and a Canadian version (each including a bonus track).
System of a down wu tang clan shame
Select gave the album a two out of five rating. The review compared the album to the Judgement Night Soundtrack stating that it "did much the same thing, but it found room for curious hybrids like Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul. Only Everlast and Mobb Deep's 'Shook Ones'...shows anything like the same ambition here."
"Shame" - System of a Down & Wu-Tang Clan (2:40)
"Make Room" - Sugar Ray & Tha Alkaholiks (3:59)
"Hip-Hop" - Static-X & Dead Prez (3:52)
"Los Angeles Times" - Endo & Xzibit (4:05)
"Shook Ones Part II" - Everlast & Mobb Deep (4:16)
"Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothing ta Fuck Wit" - Tom Morello, Chad Smith & Wu-Tang Clan (3:52)
"Only When I'm Drunk" - Crazy Town & Tha Alkaholiks (4:54)
"What U See Is What U Get" - Sevendust & Xzibit (5:12)
"How Bout Some Hardcore" - Butch Vig & M.O.P. (3:28)
"For Heaven's Sake 2000" - Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi & Wu-Tang Clan (4:55)
"Caribbean Connection" - Shootyz Groove & Big Punisher (3:46)
"Survival of the Fittest" - Sick of it All & Mobb Deep (3:46)
"Still Not a Player" - Incubus & Big Punisher (4:12)
"Daaam!" - Finger Eleven & Tha Alkaholiks (4:27) (Canadian Bonus Track)
"Reign Of The Tec 2000" - YKZ & The Beatnuts (Japanese Bonus Track)
1ShameSystem Of A Down - Wu-Tang Clan2:41
2Make RoomSugar Ray - Tha Alkaholiks4:00
3Hip Hop [Explicit]Static-X - Dead Prez3:52
Loud Rocks Wikipedia
Similar TopicsChef Aid: The South Park Album
MTV The Return of the Rock
Steal This Album!
Chef Aid: The South Park Album


text:
package com.annimon.paperstyle;

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.os.Handler;
import android.os.Message;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.view.MotionEvent;
import android.widget.SeekBar;

/**
 * Material seekbar.
 * @author DrFailov
 * @author aNNiMON
 */
public class PaperSeekBar extends SeekBar {

    private static final int ANIMATION_DELAY = 20;

    private final Paint mColorPaint = new Paint();
    private final Paint mGrayPaint = new Paint();

    private int mColor;
    private float mCurrentProgress;

    private float mCircleSizeCurrent;
    private float mCircleSizeNormal;
    private float mCircleSizeTouched;

    public PaperSeekBar(Context context) {
        super(context);

        mColor = 0xFFF4B400;

        init();
    }

    public PaperSeekBar(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);

        final TypedArray a = context.getTheme().obtainStyledAttributes(
                attrs, R.styleable.PaperSeekBar, 0, 0);
        try {
            mColor = a.getColor(R.styleable.PaperSeekBar_pw_color, 0xFFF4B400);
        } finally {
            a.recycle();
        }

        init();
    }

    private void init() {
        mColorPaint.setColor(mColor);
        mColorPaint.setStyle(Paint.Style.FILL);
        mColorPaint.setAntiAlias(true);

        mGrayPaint.setColor(0xFFC8C8C8);
        mGrayPaint.setStyle(Paint.Style.STROKE);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh) {
        super.onSizeChanged(w, h, oldw, oldh);
        mColorPaint.setStrokeWidth(h / 10f);
        mGrayPaint.setStrokeWidth(h / 10f);
        mCircleSizeNormal = h / 4f;
        mCircleSizeTouched = h / 2f;
        mCircleSizeCurrent = mCircleSizeNormal;
    }

    @Override
    public void setProgress(int progress)
    {
        super.setProgress(progress);
        mCurrentProgress=progress;
    }

    public int getColor() {
        return mColor;
    }

    public void setColor(int color) {
        mColor = color;
        mColorPaint.setColor(mColor);
        invalidate();
    }

    @Override
    protected synchronized void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        final float gap = mCircleSizeTouched;
        final float width = getWidth() - 2 * gap, h2 = getHeight() / 2;
        final float cur = gap + mCurrentProgress * width / getMax();
        if (getProgress() == 0) {
            // Draw gray circle on left side
            canvas.drawLine(cur + mCircleSizeCurrent, h2, gap + width, h2, mGrayPaint);
            canvas.drawCircle(cur, h2, mCircleSizeCurrent - mGrayPaint.getStrokeWidth() / 2, mGrayPaint);
        } else {
            canvas.drawLine(mCircleSizeTouched, h2, cur, h2, mColorPaint);
            canvas.drawLine(cur + mCircleSizeCurrent, h2, gap + width, h2, mGrayPaint);
            canvas.drawCircle(cur, h2, mCircleSizeCurrent, mColorPaint);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
        super.onTouchEvent(event);
        switch (event.getAction()) {
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:
                mCircleSizeCurrent = mCircleSizeTouched;
                return true;
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
                mCircleSizeCurrent = mCircleSizeNormal;
                mAnimationHandler.sendEmptyMessage(0);
                return true;
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE:
                mCircleSizeCurrent = mCircleSizeTouched;
                mCurrentProgress = getProgress();
                return true;
        }
        return true;
    }

    protected void onDetachedFromWindow() {
        mAnimationHandler.removeMessages(0);
        super.onDetachedFromWindow();
    }

    private final Handler mAnimationHandler = new Handler() {

        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
            final float max = getProgress() - mCurrentProgress;
            mCurrentProgress += max * 0.2f;
            invalidate();
            if (Math.abs(max) > 1.0f) {
                mAnimationHandler.sendEmptyMessageDelayed(0, ANIMATION_DELAY);
            }
        }
    };

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Healthy living in the New Year
January 14, 2016 | Joan Semeria, Angie Lucia
Healthy Eating.
Six months after participating in a four-week program on healthy eating, a group of employees at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford are still following the program's regimen of eating more green foods, exercising regularly and avoiding the candy dish in the office.
A group of employees from the government and community relations department were selected to participate in the program. The idea of the program came from a team at the hospital's Pediatric Weight Control Program, who wrote the proposal and was awarded a $500 grant from the Employee HealthySteps to Wellness program to develop the sessions.
The lunchtime sessions followed the same principles that are taught to parents and children to help them change their eating and exercise habits for the long term. The eight employees learned strategies to avoid junk food, eat a healthy and balanced diet and incorporate exercise into their daily lives.
Cindy Zedeck, program manager for Pediatric Weight Control at Stanford, said employees were first given journals and taught about the benefits of keeping record of their eating habits.
"One of the most important ways to make changes in your lifestyle is to get a sense of where you are starting from and track your progress," she added.
The employees followed a tailored version of the "traffic light program," which breaks down foods into different colors. Red lights include foods such as desserts, sodas and snack foods (foods that aren't necessary in one's diet but still nice to have once in awhile.) Yellow lights foods include whole grains, lean meats and fruits – the bulk of our diets. Green lights are vegetables that can be eaten with no limits.
"We categorize all the food into these colors to help set goals," said Zedeck. "Once you know how many red lights you eat, you set goals around these type of foods."
Zedeck said employees quickly learned that making even small changes to their diet and environment made a big difference. For example, moving the candy jar out of the main traffic areas made it more difficult to indulge.
"This program did more than just move our M&M jar to a back shelf, it also brought us together in a fun way as a team around a common interest of being more healthy," said Felice Stonestrom, Manager Community Relations.
Melissa Burke, director of community relations, said it was rewarding to see the employees in her department motivated to improve their eating and exercise habits as well as bond over this shared endeavor.
"Some employees started walking as a group and going to the gym together,"
Burke said. "After the program ended, once a week people would take turns bringing in a meal that they prepared at home to share with everyone. It really enhanced camaraderie and they supported each other as they worked toward improving their health."
Make this year a healthy school year
With the days of summer vacation soon coming to an end, parents are getting in…
Sweet Strategies for a Healthy Halloween
We spoke to Cindy Zedeck, MA, program director at Stanford Medicine Children's Health Pediatric Weight…
Get a healthy start to the school year!
Along with getting all those school supplies in order, back to school is also a…
Joan Semeria
Angie Lucia
Tags: healthy eating, nutrition

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Russell's The Problems of Philosophy
I've just finished reading Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy". I loved the book even though I disagree with almost everything he has to say.
Here are some modest reflections about it:
This book is a perfect hinge between modernity and the twentieth century. On the one hand, Russell sums up the contributions of modern philosophers like Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume and Kant to the theory of knowledge; on the other, he sets out the foundations of the new epistemology that developed in the first half of the Twentieth Century and gave birth to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the Vienna Circle, logical positivism and Popperian falsificationism.
I was surprised to learn that Russell, for all his empiricism and positivism, was also a Platonist. That is, he thought that universals such as the principle of induction, mathematical entities (numbers, geometrical figures), the law of causality, etc. are all real. Moreover, Russell claims that they don't exist as material entities but as perfect, immutable, immaterial forms. Russell is not willing to follow Plato in his mystic moments, and he's not willing to embrace mystic readings of Plato's dialogs. In addition, he doesn't want to trace a very sharp division between doxa and episteme; as a good British empiricist, Russell sees a continuity between common sense and philosophical-scientific knowledge. He trusts our human instincts and claims that sense-data (the "sensible world") play a very important role in providing raw material to our knowledge. But, other than that, he's a full fledged Platonist.
Concerning the last point: this is perhaps where we feel more alien to Russell now. After Sellars' denunciation of the "myth of the given" and Quine's holistic understanding of knowledge processes as always based on ontological commitments, we are reluctant to accept Russell's lineal view of knowledge acquisition, which starts from value-neutral atomic data and uses it to build more complex and theoretical knowledge forms, such as knowledge by description (or inference). We now believe that sense-data are already penetrated by theory, and that our knowledge processes are circular (but not necessarily visciously circular).
This entry was posted in epistemology, plato and tagged bertrand russell, epistemology, plato, russell, sense-data on August 30, 2014 by gusfai.
Bertrand Russell on the analogy between truth and justice
The following quote belongs to the penultimate paragraph of Bertrand Russell's "Problems of Philosophy":
The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.
This is one more beautiful example of the point I've made over and over again, and that you can find, expressed in different ways, in such varied authors such as Plato, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Jean Piaget, Charles Peirce, Jean-Pierre Vernant and many others: that there is a fundamental analogy between truth and justice; and that this analogy does not merely consist in a formal similarity between both concepts, but stems from a common, deeper source: the struggle for justice in the realm of the practical affairs of mankind has evolved into the search for truth in the theoretical realm.
This entry was posted in a sense of justice, action, epistemology, institutional experience, normativity and tagged bertrand russell, human action, justice, morality, sense of justice, truth on August 30, 2014 by gusfai.
My son is an adorable and smart kid. I have talked about him in this blog, especially to provide illustrations of developmental milestones. But, in order to put his achievements in context, it's necessary to mention that he's developmentally delayed. That is, he's 4 years 1 month old now, and he's mastering certain behaviors that are typical of 2- and 3-year-olds.
For example, he has recently learned how to say "I'm sorry." There are several ways to perform this speech act (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) in Spanish; he uses "lo siento" instead of "perdón", the latter being more common here in Argentina. I guess he picked up "lo siento" from TV shows such as Caillou or Go Diego Go, that are dubbed in Mexico or Spain.
The speech act of apologizing is a very peculiar and interesting one. It involves a) the recognition that one has done something wrong (something morally bad, or perhaps neglectful or careless), as well as b) the request that the person one is interacting with forgives (gives up feelings of anger and decides not to punish) this behavior. It also implies that the person apologizing is committed to avoid such wrongdoing in the future. There's a whole conception of responsibility implicit in this apparently simple speech act.
As I have argued elsewhere, I support the Piagetian idea that action precedes thought (Piaget, 1976), which on the level of speech acts translates as: rhetorical moves precede explicit concepts. In other words, my son apologizes because he senses he can get certain pragmatic results by using this speech act. He performs the speech act pretty well, with the right tone in his voice and a cute expression on his face. So he convinces me and I capitulate: "ok, ok, but don't do that again".
Yet it's easy to see he's not mastered the rules of apology. For example, he tells me "I'm going to wash my hands", and so I reply, "ok, but please be careful not to make a mess with the water," and then he says "I am sorry". Or, when he's intentionally kicking a chair, I tell him "don't do that again" and he says "I'm sorry" but continues kicking the chair just as before. So he's contradicting two felicity conditions of the speech act of apologizing: in the former example he's not committed the wrongdoing yet; in the latter, he's not committed to avoid doing it again in the future.
To sum up: my son is pragmatically effective but he's still not conceptually clear about what "I'm sorry" means. He doesn't get responsibility, pardon, commitment, etc. Conceptual clarity about the meaning of apologies will arrive later, as a result of reflection on this interaction with the world, favored by social instruction, social representations and symbolic interaction in general.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.2307/3326622
Piaget, J. (1976). The grasp of consciousness (S. Wedgwood, Trans.). Cambridge Massachusettes Harvard University PressOriginal Work Published 1974.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (p. 203). Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Speech-Acts-Essay-Philosophy-Language/dp/052109626X
This entry was posted in developmental psychology, embodied self, institutional experience, normativity, rhetoric and argumentation, self and tagged apologies, austin, grasp of consciousness, human action, piaget, rhetoric and argumentation, searle, sorry on August 1, 2014 by gusfai.


text:
These tiny bio-electronic implants could treat Rheumatoid Arthritis
When you can't innovate copy
Nothing breeds copycats like a successful business venture. When a new business idea is incubated and executed successfully, cloners naturally emerge and imitate. To mitigate the investing risks associated with eroding market opportunities due to copycats, investors always look for companies with strong competitive resilience or those that are operating in markets with a high barrier to entry. In traditional investing philosophy, the most innovative firms are potentially the most profitable. So, from business books to business schools and corporate boards, everyone is talking about innovation. But, copying others is a reality of doing business. In African open markets, women will switch from selling bananas to selling yams once they notice that their neighbours are making more profits from yams. Even in developed markets like Western Europe and the U.S., companies copy — though with enough sophistication to avoid legal problems. Despite all the branding differences, Apple iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Cloud Storage, and Dropbox are imitating one another. And who can argue that smartphone manufacturers aren't copying each other – albeit with the occasional innovation thrown in now and again?
Yet, the focus on entrepreneurship training and start up intervention programs has centred on innovation. Few people ask entrepreneurs to go out there and copy others. Innovation has become a buzzword that connotes respect and profitability. It is seen as the fulcrum that will propel a business to success. So, firms are encouraged to invest in R&D to outflank competitors with potentially better products that could win markets and generate better margins. The push to the top of the innovation index means that some companies will try to avoid what others have done — even when others are yielding better results.
Personally, that has always been my way of looking at business — innovate or perish. And I have also supported the notion that innovation is central to economic prosperity but I experienced a different perspective in Abuja, Nigeria, two months ago when I visited to keynote a tech conference. A venture capitalist there was essentially running an imitation fund. He invited me to help evaluate potential ideas for investment. Naturally, I was looking for something new, not just in the African context, but globally. I made my recommendations, but the investor rejected all of them. He ranked my selections low and explained that he was out to make money and was therefore looking for companies that could copy successful global companies and tailor them for West African markets. It was immaterial whether the ideas were copied or not, provided that the process was lawful. He explained that Nigeria should not be pushing for innovative startups, but should instead be looking for ways to incubate copycat companies. He called it the Chinese method and said that Africa should follow it because it works.
Pt.11 of 18. Perks, leadership lessons from organised crime
I can understand companies copying ideas and adapting them for specific markets. But the story of these three German bothers, Marc, Alexander and Oliver Samwer, who've made their fortune building copycat companies, challenges that thinking. These brothers are among Europe's most consistently – successful internet entrepreneurs. They are rich and the company is estimated to be worth at least a billion dollars. They have copied top web companies from Pinterest to Groupon and eBay to Airbnb, and have invested in Facebook, LinkedIn and Zynga. Rocket Internet, their incubator, is a dominant force in Europe. They believe that, if you cannot create new ideas, you can legally copy them, as Oliver said in a recent interview: "Just as we might have a very good gift of execution, others have a unique gift for the purest form of innovation." But, most times, the only difference they bring to the table is the name of the product — the colour, the text, the photos — and everything else remains the same.
Imitating others may not offer the best path to becoming an industry leader. And it's not without risk. For instance, pioneers can command strong market loyalty that could be difficult for copycats to overcome. Still, startups need to understand that even big companies copy. Would Apple have created the iPhone if there was no BlackBerry? Entrepreneurs need to think about whether they need to innovate when there are business models that can be copied lawfully. The Samwer brothers have certainly shown that in the absence of innovation, copying and funding already-tested business models can work.
Business Strategy46 Entrepreneurship17 Innovation39 Innovation Strategy19
The future of Media and Entertainment
Using open innovation to gain first mover advantage
Matthew Griffin
Fanatical Futurist ● Int'l Advisor and Keynote Speaker ● Disruption, Futures and Innovation expert
Matthew Griffin, described as "The Adviser behind the Advisers" and a "Young Kurzweil," is the founder and CEO of the World Futures Forum and the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures consultancy working between the dates of 2020 to 2070, and is an award winning futurist, and author of "Codex of the Future" series. Regularly featured in the global media, including AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, RT, Viacom, and WIRED, Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled. Recognised for the past six years as one of the world's foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts Matthew is an international speaker who helps governments, investors, multi-nationals and regulators around the world envision, build and lead an inclusive, sustainable future. A rare talent Matthew's recent work includes mentoring Lunar XPrize teams, re-envisioning global education and training with the G20, and helping the world's largest organisations envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries. Matthew's clients include three Prime Ministers and several governments, including the G7, Accenture, Aon, Bain & Co, BCG, Credit Suisse, Dell EMC, Dentons, Deloitte, E&Y, GEMS, Huawei, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Lego, McKinsey, PWC, Qualcomm, SAP, Samsung, Sopra Steria, T-Mobile, and many more.
Book Futurist Matthew Griffin for your next virtual or in person event!BOOK NOW


text:
Trump Cancels Meeting With Putin
Hours after the Kremlin confirmed a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald J. Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires on December 1, the US president cancelled the appointment with his Russian counterpart citing the continued detention of Ukrainian naval vessels and their crew by Russia.
Atlantic Council Russia U.S.
Is Another Trump-Putin Meeting a Good Idea?
US President Donald J. Trump is expected to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Buenos Aires later this week. Is that a good idea in light of Russia's latest aggression toward Ukraine and the somewhat stymied success of past meetings between the two leaders? In an interview with The Washington Post , Trump left open the possibility that he might, after all, cancel the meeting over the incident in the Kerch Strait. "Maybe I won't even have the meeting," he said.
It's Time for the U.S. To Rethink North Korea Policy
A little over a year ago, U.S. President Donald J. Trump's third meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was making headlines as much for its historic nature—it was the first time that a sitting U.S. president had set foot in North Korea—as for what it represented about the lack of progress in U.S.-North Korea relations. The next U.S. administration, whether it is led by Trump or former Vice President Joseph Biden, will face a more emboldened regime in Pyongyang and, according to experts, must rethink past failed strategies for dealing with this challenge.
Ages before the technoboomers, there came the first pioneers. Riding out West armed with just grit, they built their El Dorados from scratch.
With AMLO, an Opportunity to Reset the US-Mexico R...
Trump-Xi Meeting at the G20: An Opportunity to Cal...
Russia-Ukraine Conflict Heats Up the Sea of Azov: ...
United States Sanctions Seventeen Saudi Officials ...
How Will the Outcome of the Midterms Affect Trump'...
Climate Change Is Doing More Than Raising Sea Leve...


Targeted cyber attacks along with the exploitation of common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection continues to show the software infrastructure of critical industries remains vulnerable.
Security vendors that protect enterprises are often the most at risk due to the poor quality of their very own software applications, according to a report released by Veracode. In fact, 72 percent of security products and services applications analyzed in the report failed to meet acceptable levels of security quality.
In its most recent State of Software Security report, Veracode analyzed 4,835 applications submitted to its cloud-based application security testing platform for independent security verification. That number is nearly double from the previous report (September 2010) and represents applications analyzed over the past 18 months.
One constant data point remains amidst all the findings: Software remains fundamentally flawed. In fact, 58 percent of all software applications across supplier types continued to fail to meet acceptable levels of security quality upon initial submission to Veracode's service.
The report includes several new areas of analysis including a more indepth look at the software industry, quarterly trending information on the prevalence of common vulnerabilities such as SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) errors, a study of flaw remediation behavior, and software developer education and training statistics.
•	66 percent of software industry applications had unacceptable security quality upon initial submission, a clear sign that significant work needs to occur just to equal the 58 percent unacceptable rate for applications across all industries.
•	72 percent of security products and services applications had unacceptable security quality: The two worst performers within the software industry upon initial submission were the categories of customer support, such as CRM and web customer support applications (82 percent unacceptable), followed by security products and services (72 percent unacceptable).
•	Private versus public software vendor applications – little discernable difference: Despite the heightened scrutiny faced by public companies and perhaps elevated expectations for application security, Veracode found little discernable differences in terms of security quality between the two sectors.
•	Even with its flaws, the software industry moves swiftly to remediate errors: Overall, more than 90 percent of all applications across the software industry achieved acceptable security policy within 30 days. The average for all applications in the security products and services sub-category was three days. This data illustrates how easy it is to fix a flaw once the company becomes aware of the issue.
•	SQL Injection errors slowly declining: Despite elevated awareness and frequency of exploitation in high-profile attacks, the percentage of applications infected with SQL Injection errors declined only slightly, 2.4 percent per quarter over the past eight quarters. The prevalence of XSS errors remaining largely unchanged.
Concerns abound among developer and security teams about gaining organizational buy-in for undertaking regular testing and programs. However, data from this report found remediation is not time consuming.
Veracode found more than 50 percent of those who took an application security fundamentals exam received a grade of C or lower. More than 30 percent received a failing grade of D or F. This supports the idea for the need for organizations to take responsibility to institute g more rigorous, contextual developer training and education programs to improve application security competency levels.


text:
Q: Getting $2^{-N} + 2^{-N+1} + ... + 2^0 + ... + 2^{-N}$ from $\sum_{-N \leq i \leq N} 2^{-|i|}=2^{-|-N|}+2^{-|-N+1|} + ... + 2^0 + 2^1 + ... +2^{-N}$ I have the unordered sum $\sum_{-N \leq i \leq N} 2^{-|i|}=2^{-|-N|}+2^{-|-N+1|} + ... + 2^0 + 2^1 + ... +2^{-N}$
Assuming $N$ is positive, is there any way to get  $2^{-N} + 2^{-N+1} + ... + 2^0 + ... + 2^{-N}$ from this without needing to specify, e.g. that for $2^{-|-N+1|}$ we should have $N < -1$, for $2^{-|-N+2|}$,  etc.? I ask this since, for the case $N=1$, it seems to me the notation $\sum_{-N \leq i \leq N} 2^{-|i|}=2^{-|-N|}+2^{-|-N+1|} + ... + 2^0 + 2^1 + ... +2^{-N}$ is actually false since it implies there is another term between $2^{-|-N+1|}$ and $2^0$.
It seems I would also need conditions in the case I used the notation without the middle terms, e.g. $2^{-|-N|}+2^{-|-N+1|} + ... + 2^{-N}$, since the absolute values here depend on the positivity or negativity of $|-N+x|$. In either case, would there be a way around this?
Any help is appreciated, thank you!

A: It looks like $\sum\limits_{n=0}^N 2^{-n}-1=\frac{1-2^{-(N+1)}}{1-2^{-1}}-1$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: MATLAB Save figure data in current view and lighting I need to create a random surface (which I created using peaks) and save it under certain lighting conditions (which I added using light). The plot itself is created using surf. Then I set the required viewing angle using view(2).
[X,Y] = meshgrid(-2:.025:2);
Z = peaks(X,Y);
h = surf(X,Y,Z);

% Necessary for task
h.AmbientStrength = 0.;
h.SpecularStrength = 0.;
h.DiffuseStrength = 1.;
h.BackFaceLighting = 'unlit';
h.FaceLighting = 'gouraud';

view(2);
l = light('Position',[-2, -2, 50],'Style','local','Color',[1 1 1]);

The Z matrix has dimensions 161x161. I want to save a 161x161 matrix that corresponds to the lighting/shading in the figure. Any ideas?
A sample generated plot:

Edit: I do intend to work with the saved image. The overall goal is to perform photometric stereo (something on these lines). Hence, I need to generate several images of the surface under different lighting conditions.
PS: Thanks for h.LineStyle='none';

A: I assume you want this for other reasons than processing the data, as getting data from a plot is the worst case. Assuming too that you forgot h.LineStyle='none';, else you will just not see them.
This code will approximately do the job:
% get the frame plotted in the figure
test=getframe(gca);
% the size of the image will be arbitrary, depends on the size of the figure on screen and your screen resolution. Lets interpolate, so we can get the values at the exact points you want. I use the same bounds as in your description
[Xi,Yi]=meshgrid(linspace(-2,2,size(test.cdata,2)),linspace(-2,2,size(test.cdata,1)));

% Only works if grayscale, repeat x3 for each dimension if you have color
img=interp2(Xi,Yi,double(test.cdata(:,:,1)),X,Y)/255;

figure;imshow(img);

A: The Zmatrix only contains the 3D data to represent the surface, it is not affected by the lighting / shading setting you are applying later-on to its visualization.
If you want to reproduce the figure you've obtained by loading "some saved data", you have to save the Z matrix (it should be better to save also X and Y) along the values of the lighting setting.
To do this you first have to modify your code by assigning the lightig values to a corresponding set of variables, then you have to use this vatiables to set the lighting.
At the end you have to save all these variables.
[X,Y] = meshgrid(-2:.025:2);
Z = peaks(X,Y);
h = surf(X,Y,Z);

% Necessary for task

%h.AmbientStrength = 0.;
%h.SpecularStrength = 0.;
%h.DiffuseStrength = 1.;
%h.BackFaceLighting = 'unlit';
%h.FaceLighting = 'gouraud';

% Assign the setting values to a set of varialbles
AmbientStrength_val=0.;
SpecularStrength_val=0.;
DiffuseStrength_val=1.;
BackFaceLighting_val='unlit';
FaceLighting_val='gouraud';

h.AmbientStrength = AmbientStrength_val;
h.SpecularStrength = SpecularStrength_val;
h.DiffuseStrength = DiffuseStrength_val;
h.BackFaceLighting = BackFaceLighting_val;
h.FaceLighting = FaceLighting_val;

view_val=2;
%view(2);
view(view_val);

light_pos=[-2, -2, 50]
light_style='local'
light_color=[1 1 1]
%l = light('Position',[-2, -2, 50],'Style','local','Color',[1 1 1]);
l = light('Position',light_pos,'Style',light_style,'Color',light_color);

save('data_peaks.mat','X','Y','Z','AmbientStrength_val','SpecularStrength_val', ...
                     'DiffuseStrength_val','BackFaceLighting_val', ...
                     'FaceLighting_val','light_pos','light_style', ...
                     'light_color','view_val')

To reproduce the figure, in the future, you can have a script like the following:
% Load the saved values
load data_peaks
% Plot the surface
h = surf(X,Y,Z);
% Set the parameters
h.AmbientStrength = AmbientStrength_val;
h.SpecularStrength = SpecularStrength_val;
h.DiffuseStrength = DiffuseStrength_val;
h.BackFaceLighting = BackFaceLighting_val;
h.FaceLighting = FaceLighting_val;

view(view_val);

l = light('Position',light_pos,'Style',light_style,'Color',light_color);


text:
archive,tag,tag-astrology,tag-152,stockholm-core-1.1,select-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,select-theme-ver-5.1.8,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-4.12,vc_responsive
astrology Tag
Brave New World Sun in Aquarius—January 20th —February 18th
I'm Still Standing—Sun in Capricorn—22 December—20 January 20th
Keeping the Faith—Sun in Sagittarius—November 22nd-December 22nd
Diamonds and Rust—Sun in Scorpio October 23rd
The Promises We Keep—Sun in Libra— September 23rd—October 24th
Aries astrology Brene Brown Cancer Capricorn Caroline Myss Chiron courage death Divorce Elizabeth Gilbert Esther Perel Facebook John O' Donohue Joy Jung Jupiter Leo Leonard Cohen Libra loss Love Marion Woodman Mars Mary Oliver Mercury Mercury Retrograde Neale Donald Walsch Neptune passion Pisces Pluto relationship Rumi Sagittarius Saturn Scorpio solstice Soul Mate Sun Thomas Moore Uranus Valentine's Day Venus Virgo
Dec 13, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman
There's a quickening amidst the hurdy-gurdy rub of holiday preparation, the hurried rush to cross the finishing line of this year gone by. There's a bright promise of something new that shimmers in the light of the Full Gemini Moon on December 14th. The last of three Supermoons, she's perigree, hugging close to the generous curve of the earth's flank. A minuscule mote of light in the infinite darkness of the cosmos.
For so many, this year has been a Perfect Storm. A sharp-bladed scythe of setbacks. A blow-out of betrayal. For others, a soul-searing loneliness coils tightly around gaudy decorations and the repetitive loop of Christmas carols. We may be wrung out. Weary amidst the clocks and calendars and linear time. Astrology like the seasons, is cyclical and there is " a time to every purpose under heaven."
The Super-moon illuminates and magnifies the energy of the Sun conjunct Saturn in Sagittarius, T-square to Chiron in Pisces. Concealed within the dark dross of loss and pain, secreted beneath those things that block or thwart us, lies the gold, back-lit now by lunar light.
There's a subtle theme change on December 19th. Mercury stations retrograde conjunct Pluto (Capricorn, 15 and 16 degrees respectively ) Mars moves into watery Pisces that same day introducing a subdued tone to the music of the spheres, a deeper, more introspective harmony, if you're willing to listen. The Solstice on December 22nd heralds the Sun's ingress into Capricorn marking mid-winter or mid-summer in the seasonal cycle. A pause. A gap. A hiatus that offers us time for spiritual renewal. The Solstice Libra Moon conjunct Jupiter opposing Uranus offers a liberating vision of exquisite beauty, inner peace and harmony if we are willing to look around us with new eyes and consider, as Judith Lasater suggests, that "we are being called into realization with great urgency and extraordinary beauty, and oftentimes not without difficulty."
In a world currently experiencing a great cycle of break-down and transformation, we do have a choice. Amidst the hurdy-gurdy rub of hurried distraction, the completion of deadlines, the planning for the future, we have an opportunity to pause, breathe out. To choose to remain, even if only for the briefest moment, in that magickal space between the past and the future. To be—in the gap—of now. To find grace amidst the tired, tattered tail-end of the year.
Writes Annie Dillard, "beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."
This human journey is a journey of discovery that everything that happens to us can deepen our understanding, open our heart to the new willingness to change our story.
Author and teacher Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes: "the doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door."
We are birthed with each new cycle, every new experience. Spiritual traditions are the husk that surrounds the fertile seed of forgiveness. Forgiveness like Love and Happiness is a word that has lost its currency and yet there is enormous potency in the mystical act of forgiveness. Estes names four stages of forgiveness:
Foregoing: refusing to dwell on the wounded place in our heart or the dervish thoughts that spin drying in our minds. To "take a vacation from it" to create a space for the healing to begin.
Forbearing: to make the decision not to be hostile, not to succumb to guilt or rage. Practicing instead generosity of spirit as a therapeutic balm over our scar tissue
Forgetting: letting it go, laying it to rest. Making a conscious effort to put it out of our mind.
Forgiving: to let go of any expectations that we are "owed" anything, or that the other person will take responsibility for our pain. We may not like the person, we may not choose to spend much time with the person, but we let go of the need to make them pay or suffer for what they did to us. We thank them for the part they have played in our growth. We become what we don't forgive, she reminds us.
May you have the Grace to forgive yourself and those who have hurt you so terribly, that you may be released to live the life you have come here for.
May Grace imbue the dying year with the promise of re-birth. May the light of the Sun and the Moon illuminate your pathway.
The Byrds, Turn, Turn, Turn
Kate Havenik- Grace
Jun 26, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman
Intuition, psychic powers, mediumship and spiritual séances are all the province of astrological Neptune.
Long before Rene Descartes announced, cogito, ergo sum. I think therefore I am, the irrational mind, the realm of intuition and symbolic thought, was an incendiary to the collective projections of those shadowy parts of our humanness that slumber within us all.
Can we hear the whisper of our Higher Self in the babble and bustle of over-scheduled lives? Do we have the time and inclination to spin straw into gold, or venture outside without iPhones or Sat Navs in search of our Swans?
Author Anne Lamott suggests, "You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating. Few of us arrive at a place of stillness where we can mine our intuitive knowing through sound bites and status updates."
Founder of bio cognitive science and author of The Mind Body Code, Mario Martinez says "We suffer from Desartesian Anxiety. The split between mind and body. We have to develop transcendental legs."
In many shamanic traditions as well as in ancient Greece, madness was thought to be a possession by a deity. What a shaman would call a vision quest or an ecstatic trance might today be termed a psychotic episode.
Mystics and Martyrs, the thousands of intractable virgins who met gruesome deaths today might be labelled "anti-social or borderline, paranoid, or narcissistic" by psychologists who name parts that cannot be named and try to capture souls in butterfly nets made of clinical cases.
For some, intuitive powers are ridiculed, dismissed, or trivialized by those who adorn themselves in the Emperor's Clothes of personal power.
We don't have a vocabulary to fully describe the feeling of an intuitive "hit". Some would say it diffuses the body with a deeper Knowing that feels like a union with the Divine. Our "gut feel" is part of our ancient legacy along with our dexterous prehensile thumb. Our foray into non-ordinary realms of more sophisticated levels of inner guidance is a quest for inner illumination and here we must enter the medial realm. Here we must find a place we can seek solace from the world and restore our trust in our own intuitive power without the comfort blanket of "proof" or a "sign."
Caroline Myss says, "I firmly believe that intuitive or symbolic sight is not a gift but a skill. It is based on self-esteem."
Those with supernatural powers who practiced the Old Religions seldom died peacefully in their beds. The old knowledge flowed through the generations in shadowy subterranean rivers across bones, through ashes of thousands of bodies consumed in the flames of suspicion and fear. It makes sense that our confidence is shaky.
Myth and fairy tales depict the hero's journey that usually involves some kind of impossible trial or death defying test. Later fairy tales, sanitized by the industrious Brothers Grimm are colour-washed with various hues of morality but the message, if somewhat diluted and Disney-fied is still clear: Pride and vanity, greed and ill manners won't impress Prince Charming. Only a pure and generous heart can receive the wisdom and guidance that brings true love and lasting happiness.
There is a gossamer veil between the much sought-after "peak experience" lauded by some exponents of transpersonal psychology and the descent into madness or the oblivion of addiction. When is a visionary a lunatic or a guru or a saint? When is mediumship or the ability to traverse the medial realm simply an hysterical personality disorder? When is an intuitive simply a cunning conman? The danger of course is that Never-Never-Land is a place of perennial pleasure and moral ambiguity.
All our experiences are subjective, deeply personal. Our human experience is eloquently reflected in our birth charts. Astrology has a planetary symbol to describe our human experience. There is a precise and perfect moment of divination. And As above so below. The great astrologer Isabel Hickey once told her students that so many of us ring up our Higher Selves then put down the phone before we can receive an answer.
When we appeal to our intuition ( Higher Self or Wise Man or Woman ) for guidance the answer may come in a dream or appear while we are walking to work.
Along with our ability to discern different colours of fruit and berries in the jungle our brains have evolved over the eons to discern, to compartmentalize, to judge and label – good or bad.
Many tarot cards readers and astrologers dread the black and white and the client that sits back in the chair saying, "so will this be good a good year for me?" as if some Celestial Thunderbolt will emerge from a bruised bank of clouds at the stroke of midnight and jump start a stalled relationship, reverse the course of cancer, remove all intractable obstacles towards riding to the ball in a glistening coach drawn by eight white horses.
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift," is the much-quoted comment by Piscean Albert Einstein.
We so generously hand over our power to others, so quickly forget that within the wisdom of our heart and the wise brain of our body, lie a repository of wisdom that had been encoded for centuries.
Deepak Chopra says that "intuition should come in the pure clarity of silence and should guide you into spontaneously making evolutionary choices." It requires courage and vigilance to sift our own emotional and mental flotsam – diligently and as it comes up to and weave a veil of integrity, whole heartedness and true compassion. This requires us to discern the difference between our own narratives and those voices that have authority over us. The real spiritual journey is ongoing. It requires what Caroline Myss calls becoming more attuned, even though we sometimes have to start all over again but we become more astute and stronger at it.
And so, if we stay true to our personal code of honour and practice loving kindness to all sentient beings, our intuition will be a beacon to guide us through even the darkest hours of our lives. It is inner sight that we develop as we undertake our heroes' journey and when our eyes grow dim with age our guiding light will shine brightly as we prepare to say our last goodbyes.
"He re is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye," said The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats
Oct 8, 2014 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman
Every family has one. A secret that pervades the air at family gatherings like the smell of moth balls. A death, a betrayal, an imprisonment. A relative that falls from the family tree and vanishes without a trace. Secrets roll through the dust of generations like fragile tumble weeds. Sometimes they are collected and fashioned into tales that are embellished with bright beads of drama, or muted strands of omission. Sometimes they are made more colourful, more heroic, to lighten the terrifying darkness, conceal the senseless waste.
Film, literature and poetry depict the flawed hero, the Black Sheep, the Sacrificial One who becomes the Redeemer. We vicariously watch the Rebel, the circuit breaker deliver the seismic shock that topples atrophy in the family system. We rejoice in the regeneration, the potency of new growth. The BBC's adaptation of Irish writer John Banville's novels portrays the pervasive power of family secrets and our complex relationship with what can be told and that which must be unspoken. Gabriel Byrne in the title role of Quirke, (like Morse, we never find out his Christian name ) enters the portal of his past and attempts to untangle the dark knots of his family complexes: Affairs, addictions, misuse of power, and the redemption of Love. Sarah Polley, in her documentary Stories We Tell explores the twisted thread of secrets in her own family. She discovers that her mother and Montreal producer Harry Gulkin sequestered their love. That she was born of their hidden passion.
In Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, author Margaret Heffernan explores the subtle and pervasive ways we choose, sometimes consciously but mostly not, to remain unseeing in situations where "we could know, and should know, but don't know because it makes us feel better not to know."
And yet, we do know. Many of us spend much of our lives moving forwards, never daring to look back. At first we may run like the Gingerbread Man, as fast as we can, to escape the dark shadows of our inheritance. Or like Bluebeard, we keep the gruesome corpses of our memories locked away with the key that bleeds. Perhaps we stuff the dark terror of our past into a glass bottle where it floats across the sea but eventually washes up on the shores of future generations. Family secrets are intuited even by young children, unpicked, uncovered, with the best intentions by loving parents who wish to protect them from what they perceive as a dangerous truth.
Author of Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel, examines the western belief that there should be total transparency." In America, lying can never be an act of caring. We find it hard to accept that lying would be protective, this is an unexamined idea. In some countries, not telling, or a certain opaqueness, is an act of respect. Also, maybe the opposite of transparency isn't intimacy, it's aggression. People sometimes tell for their own good, as an act of aggression."
Nations have secrets too. We turn a blind eye. Stay under the radar, in fear of reprisal, in terror of putting our lives or those of our families at risk. Like the frog in the beaker of slowly boiling water, we remain in physically or spiritually destructive environments as the temperature increases insidiously, lethal degree by degree. Often we must confront our past, choose differently, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.
So often it is in our families we inherit secrets and lies and encounter conflicts and complexes that have ossified over many generations. Sometimes it is helpful to revisit the past. Sometimes it is not.
Joseph Marshall Lakota teacher, writer and story teller tells how he would go out walking with his grandfather, sometimes for miles. "He had this curious little habit of stopping and then he would turn me around, grab me by my shoulders and he would say, Grandson, look back at the way we came. So I would. I finally asked him, Grandpa, why are you making me look back? He said, Because, Grandson, one of these times I'm going to send you down this trail by yourself and if you don't remember the way you came, you will be lost. To me, that is the greatest lesson I ever learned about history and about the past. Our past makes us who we are, makes us what we are."
Like racehorses, some of us are destined to be weighted more heavily from the start. Perhaps in looking back, we learn how to walk bravely in the dark. We may glimpse in the stories, the artifacts, the letters and perhaps the old photographs, the strength, the creativity, the courage of those who have walked before us. In their pain we discover the portal to our fragility. In the opaqueness of their secrets, the bright spark of Divinity is concealed in the soft folds of their humanity.
Sting and Paul Simon, Fragile
Oct 4, 2013 In Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman
Josh Smith – Already There
Nov 12, 2012 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman
We talk glibly of Love as if it can be bought like a bag of pastel-coloured macaroons. Or conjured up by a psychic who says, deftly spreading a well worn deck of cards: "now let's look at the love-life!"
We talk flippantly of Love as if Love can be compartmentalised into a neat life all of its own. As if Love is a play-thing, to put aside when we tire of it, or it becomes too big and boisterous for our small stingy lives. Each one of us yearns (whether we will admit it or not) to be loved and cherished. To have someone to love and cherish in return. Yet still we lazily window-shop for Love on dating sites. Foolishly mistake Love for Sex. Are not truly brave enough to do the inner work to weed our garden so that a small seed of Love may grow tall in the sunlight.
Many of us live our lives vicariously through the lives of other heroes or heroines. We balk at provocative choices. Terrified we may expose our soft-bellied vulnerability, we manacle ourselves with the cold steel fear of rejection, memories of past betrayals, disappointments. We play it safe, never daring to throw the dice lest we score too high for comfort. Then one new day, we awake to find our fervent prayers have been answered by a benevolent god! How we tremble and shake in unspeakable terror as we stand on the precipice; afraid to take that giant leap, to tumble weightlessly into Love. Afraid to do what it takes to be with the one we cannot be without. Love, like old age, and death, is not for the squeamish. To fall into Love requires valour. To stay in Love demands tenacity.
Science makes an attempt to measure the power of Love by assigning our light-headed omnipotence and euphoria to dopamine and oxytocin. Mood-altering chemicals that flood our brains and make us feel ecstatic. Our right (emotional intuitive) brain lights up like a Christmas tree, and our left (logical language) brain is all shook up, without words to adequately describe … well, nothing really matters any more, except the urgent desire to be with the one we love forever and ever … Astrology describes the synastry, the poetry of the composite chart of a relationship, yet not our warm arousal from a long slumber and our pulse that beats with ardour, urgent passion. We can measure the how. But why we fall we fall in love, why we swoon in the languor of our eroticism, why we bow our heads to our heart's holiness, why we enter the hallowed portals with blouse unbuttoned, tossing our hair in the face of our morbid fears, remains a Mystery. "Nothing is Mysterious. No human relation. Except Love," Susan Sontag wrote.
Love is the song of our soul, our connection with our own Divinity. We must take in Love through all six of our senses; imbibe it through all our orifices. Experience it, fully, bravely, with all our human hearts.
"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced," wrote John Keats who lived his life brightly, like a tremulous dew-drop, and died at twenty-five, having all too briefly experienced the intensely real burn of passion. Love is the substance of Life. And death. "We must love one another or die," Auden wrote. And cantankerous Philip Larkin affirmed in his famous ode to immortality, "What will survive of us is love".
There comes a time when we simply cannot go on rummaging through the closets of our childhood looking for reasons for why things happen as they do. We cannot go back to the postage stamps of our past fumbled attempts at Love. We must dredge up our strength, our courage, to stop punishing ourselves, each other. Risk using our imagination to see the perfection within one another. Bravely continue our pilgrimage, with blisters and bleeding feet, ravished by our own longing. Tenderly follow the scarlet blaze of our own life essence that carries like sweet perfume and mingles with the still night air.
We have just one choice: To allow our hearts to rule, and the warmth of our lover's perfect body to caress us back to life again.
When my heart came to rule
in the world of love,
it was freed
from both belief
and from disbelief.
On this journey,
I found the problem
to be myself.
When I went beyond myself,
the pathway finally opened.
Mahsati Ganjavi (12th Century)
Art by Irina Vitalievna
James Blunt – Cause I love you.
Feb 9, 2012 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman
Hometown Glory
"My sister's not talking to me again," lamented Maggie, who comes from a family that handles "hot potato" issues by abrupt withdrawal, rigidly polarized role-playing, vast, frozen lakes of silence. Behind closed doors, shuttered windows, or on the altar of talk shows we enact archetypal patterns. For most of us, though, family bonds flourish in adversity, survive ruptures, reincarnate in the comfort of shared history and the cohesion of blood ties. For others, feuds fester for generations; anger poisons the food at the dinner table.
As we grow into adulthood, it is within our family relationships that we are challenged to set the bar high for our personal growth. Our interactions with our parents and siblings ask that we draw from our creative Higher Self to break the cycle of habitual role playing, to short circuit destructive behaviour. We may need to be counterintuitive to breach the walls of a heavily guarded family secret. To ask questions that inspire thought and heart connection, rather than ignite reactivity. To validate and empathise rather than judge or blame. To choose not to react to behaviour that baffles or appears insensitive or cruel, in the knowledge that it rises from an ancient riverbed of pain. Sometimes it is the news of an accident, an affair, a splintering divorce or lingering illness that opens padlocked hearts, draws us together to deal with a family crisis bonded by our blood. Often it means dismounting from our high horse, bowing our heads to our hearts. Asking ourselves, "do you prefer that you be right, or happy?" (A Course in Miracles)
Like a flock of starlings, families have a murmuration, a rhythmic dance of energy that is passed on from generation to generation. Family therapists see "the identified patient", the disturbed child or adolescent, who comes bearing the symptoms of the psychic life of the family.
Astrology describes a different approach to the standard psychological view. Our birth charts depict our perceptions of our parents, the unconscious conflicts they bring into the family home, family fate… present in the symbolism of our life journey. There is an old adage "You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family." Our horoscopes suggest we certainly do choose our family. Our father's drinking, his covert affairs, the inconsistent or unavailable mother, our sister's anger, our brother's depression, is already innate, depicted in the birth chart. We are predisposed, or "fated" to experience our actual parents and the archetypal parents through inner images, our own filters. We may perceive our father as being rejecting, distant. Frequently our actual father will behave towards us in a way that will be rejecting and distant, despite himself. Our own behaviour and conscious or unconscious feelings will elicit a cold and distant response from this father figure who may have other attributes that are perceived very differently by our siblings. Though the protagonists in the family drama are easy to identify, family complexes are enduring. Salvador Minuchin speaks of a family "system" to which the individual must adapt. Our challenge, our growth comes from knowing that our family members mirror what we disown in ourselves. Only we can choose to break free of the tyranny of repetitive knee-jerk response to stressors, the old agreements, toxic dynamics and outworn resentments, to try on new behaviour.
Freedom from our suffering comes from taking back our projections, one by one. As Bryon Katie says succinctly, "Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them".
Families are temples for spiritual growth. We elect the curriculum, and set our own pace to do the work. When things get painful we can choose to cut ties with those who trigger our tantrum-throwing inner two year old. To diminish and dilute painful contact to an occasional well-mannered Hallmark greeting card or a one-line text message. To allow the misunderstandings, miscommunications, to stretch and strain into years of silence. Or we can value ourselves and our family of origin enough to stand in our own solid, flexible sense of Self. To take responsibility for our own lives, pull back our judgements, and open our hearts to incredible Love. That is Power.
The uniquely magnificent Adele, sings out her soul-sound: Hometown Glory
Dec 21, 2011 In Astrology, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman
Hush now. See the Light in the sky. A new day has come. The year is re-born.
The life-giving Sun stands still today, this day of the Capricorn Solstice – midwinter in the northern hemisphere, as the Sun lies low over the horizon. Here, in the south, at approximately 7:30am on December 22nd the Sun at its brilliant zenith, big blue skies, the brilliance of midsummer.
At the Solstice, the sun literally stands still. There is no movement. Our life-giving Star rests. Ancient stones placed on sacred sites now swathed in myth and mystery, still stand as silent sentinels to the pathway of the new born Sun, signifying survival in the famine months of the cruel winter. The Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year was celebrated by ancient cultures. In more recent history, the ancient Greeks made merry on Lenaia; in ancient Rome, Bacchus the god of wine was honoured and, later, the Romans overturned social conventions at the festival of Saturnalia (the feast of Saturn, god of agriculture) a time of excess and merry making.
New beginnings… beneath the Victorian trappings and commercialism of Christmas, the glitter of lights in celebration of Diwali and Hannukah, what we are all celebrating is the re-birth of Light, of a new day, the risen christ consciousness within us all.
"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…" * Many of us are efforting, pushing on beyond exhaustion, as this calendar year scurries to an end. Adrenal fatigue, crankiness, a frozen sea of aloneness amidst the frenetic agitation of the supermarkets and striving of the shopping malls. Family gatherings trigger explosive arguments as septic tensions ooze beneath the tinsel and baubles of festive cheer. The spectre of loneliness shadows the conviviality of office parties, with dinner for one on Christmas day. And yet, the celestial symbolism of astrology brings glad tidings. Jupiter, "benefic" planet of expansion and largesse, turns direct on Christmas Day, with the Capricorn New Moon on Christmas Eve, a lunation heralding a symbolic new beginning, as she marries the New Sun.Capricorn is an earth sign, so use the energy of the element of earth to ground new seeds of hopes, dreams, and intentions for the coming year. Place Hope and Faith at the centrepiece of your festive table. Bow your head to your heart this new day. Pause. Sit quietly and allow the soul to enter in its dappled brilliance. Sup on Gratitude for the year gone by. Raise your glass to Hope, on this New Day. "With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaGLVS5b_ZY
Celine Dion, A New Day Has Come
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Max Ehrmann.
Sep 7, 2011 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman
No White Flag
Nothing is more abrasive to the human spirit than being ignored or invalidated by the one you love. When a lover, or cherished friend makes a unilateral decision to abort a relationship, and "move on", we remain behind, emotions cauterised: unheard, unseen, invisible. Very few of us journey through this lifetime un-scalded by the sting of rejection.
"She won't return my calls," Jeff told me, despondently stirring a third spoon of sugar into his cappuccino, as if to sweeten the sorrow in his heart, ameliorate the loss of his dream. "She says it's over. She's in love with someone else. There's so much I feel I still want to say to her!" he says, staring despondently into the dark chasm of a future without his Kathy.
Deep attachments are excruciatingly difficult to release lightly, to unravel effortlessly. Especially if they come, not in a fit of pique, or a defensive cold shoulder, but as a deliberate closure, or when some fated event cracks us open, catapults us into the thunder ball of rage and grief. Of course, we can embalm the Love that once was. Conceal it like a precious pearl in our hearts. Defiantly refuse to raise the white flag and surrender. Or we can accept that these sudden jolts are critical moments in our spiritual life, in our evolution towards a new level of opening.
If we allow ourselves the Grace to experience the raw pain of loss and the darkness of depression, to sit, for as long as it takes, in the stinking sewer of our own self pity and anger, to allow the salty moisture of our tears to cleanse and heal – then, and only then, will our Wise Woman self emerge to garner the fruits from the dark Mystery of this experience.
Pathos, rather narrowly defined in the modern dictionary as "suffering" was understood in a far more sophisticated and subtle way by the ancient Greeks. For them, pathos embraced the profundity and enormous scope of human experience. We feel the breath of pathos when embraced by a powerful unexpected bolt of passionate love. Or when someone we love dearly leaves us or dies. Or when cataclysmic change occurs in our lives to shock and disorientate us, to fling us into the dark abyss of unknowing. Pathos is something outside us, bigger than ourselves. Joseph Campbell said, "It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."
Our ancestors knew Pathos. They knew Necessity. They embraced the Mystery of Fate that realigned their lives and personalities. The shaman would travel to the Underworld to enter into the temple of the soul, to be dismembered by pain and suffering, to be born a-new. With our fundamental either-or beliefs in "facts", our dumbed down, literal world-view, when Fate intrudes in a coldly detached way, we are so often left, entrails dangling, disorientated, stumbling in the darkness, searching outside ourselves for logical answers.
In my interpretation of astrology, I see pathos acitve in the birth charts of clients who are visited by fate in the form of life threatening illness, a devastating love affair, loss of a child, the seemingly inexplicable ending of a long friendship. It is a visitation of something non-ordinary, impersonal, supernatural. It is a breaking open. We face our own Armageddon when we succumb to our hidden longings, unfurl our crumpled wings, and free fall into the unknown – a new relationship, new job, a courageous move to a new country. Broken open, we allow our soul to shine through.
"White Flag" – Dido
I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it
where's the sense in that?
I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be
I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense
And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on….
To Begin Again
Endings can be unspeakably painful. Like a folding deck of cards, an ending can evoke a long-buried memory of a lacerating loss, open archives of ancient pain.
A friendship fades, a partnership dissolves, a Lover leaves, a life partner dies. Our default response is to ferret for some kind of logical reason; to dive into a chasm of rejection and abandonment; or find a balm to soothe the seeping wound. For years, we pick at the scabs of these endings, stew in the bitterness of our own bile, our ego waiting for an admission, an explanation, an apology that never comes.
We self-righteously blame the other for committing the savage crime of rupture. For answering their soul's call to move on. Like a little child sucking her thumb, we latch on the unforgiveable flaws and non-negotiable behaviours, crumbs of comfort. It would never have worked means "I did not have the courage, or I did not love enough to …"
So often, the astrological symbolism in a client's birth chart suggests that unconsciously it was she or he that felt the call of her soul to break free from the putrefying corpse of a relationship long deceased. The composite chart, which contains the soul of the relationship itself, with all its fateful twists and turns, may reflect this need to part, or to re-invent the relationship, some time before it actually happens. Relationships, like the orbits of the planets, cycles of nature, have seasons too. Some never survive the cruel frosts of winter. Others thrust new green shoots after vigorous pruning.
We all have our own narratives about times of endings. One of the great challenges at these times is to look at the stories we tell ourselves with gentleness and compassion. To acknowledge what is, to imagine what might be. To accept the initiation into a new soul-ful experience, which always comes through a death in some shape or form. Perhaps only one of us feels that the relationship has become lifeless. And the heart rending decision to leave must be carried alone. Is this being callous, selfish, or honouring of the relationship and the one we once loved? Out of the seed of Love blossoms Death, so that Love can grow a-new.
Our relationships, our lives, demand courage and endurance. Courage to Hope again. Endurance to gracefully embrace the cycles of life and death. The wisdom to breathe, and embrace a new beginning.
"After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot." Sex and the City
Stroud, United Kingdom © Copyright 2020


Series title: The TekWar Ser.
William "Captain Kirk" Shatner of Star Trek fame returns with his ninth action-packed TekWar adventure, certain to thrill his devoted legions of science fiction readers.
In the year 2122 an addictive new form of the fantasy-enabling electronic drug Tek is about to hit the market. This version, delivered to users over computer networks, would eliminate the need for Tek chips, thereby putting the old-school TekLords out of business. Jill Bernardino, the ex-wife of Sid Gomez, loyal partner of private eye Jake Cardigan, has been looking into this new development closely--a little too closely--and now finds herself in serious, possibly inescapable peril. Caught in the middle of a vicious international drug war, Jill is taken prisoner, and only Cardigan and Gomez can rescue her. But their efforts will put them directly in the crosshairs of warring squads of Tek-trade killers in a bloody cartel war.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Shatner including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.


When my gorgeous mutt Harlan was nearing the end of his life and had digestive issues, our veterinarian suggested we prepare a homemade dog food recipe of boiled chicken breasts and sweet potato and add it to his regular dry food. We enjoyed making it (because it feels good to feed a being that is in need). He loved it. And it bought us all enough time to say goodbye.
Ten months later we said goodbye to our other longtime friend, a lab named Lefty. He, too, needed something beyond regular dry food in the end, but this time it was prescription-grade wet dog food.
As a result, my family began to question what we were feeding our pets. We have all seen alerts over the years warning us about dog food recalls, added ingredients like fillers, and possible allergens. Did we unintentionally harm our pets? Would they have lived longer if we had given them more homemade food or specialized food?
This was all so new to me. I did not grow up making or buying homemade or specialized dog food. I spent my first few years of life on a dairy farm, then it was the '80s in Nashville, and then the '90s on Hilton Head Island. On the farm, in the city, and eventually here on the island, we consistently fed all our animals veterinarian-approved, and yet processed, dry food. Only after mealtime did the dogs get scraps and, as far as dog nutrition went, all we knew was to not feed them chocolate, grapes or raisins.
By my 20s, I adopted my own pets (Harlan and Lefty), and even though I worked as a health writer and advocate, I did not feel the need, or, perhaps more to the point, qualified to apply the same nutrition concepts to my dogs. I just went with my vet's recommendation and the status quo, and I continued feeding them solely high-quality, dry dog food.
With Harlan's and Lefty's passings, I felt compelled to learn more about canine wellness, especially since we recently adopted a rescue named Goodman (aka Goody). We asked my long-time friend (who recently moved to the area) and internal medicine veterinarian, Dr. Heather Graham, of Collaboration Veterinary Consulting, LLC., "Is high-quality, veterinarian-recommended dry food enough?" Graham responded first with a list of pros and cons about homemade dog food.
• You have control over your dog's ingredients, both from a source (organic, antibiotic-free, etc.) and composition perspective.
• The food is void of additives and preservatives.
• You can customize the food to the dog, which means the food contains ingredients the pet enjoys, is not allergic to, and that address any specific needs.
• Without a veterinarian nutritionist's oversight, you will have difficulty adequately balancing the dog's diet-based needs which can vary based on medical condition and in-life stage, amongst other factors.
• Also, without a veterinarian nutritionist, the improper provision of adequate minerals can complicate a variety of problems including, but not limited to, skeletal defects, kidney damage, urinary stones, growth retardation, skin disorders, and neurological defects.
• Homemade food can be more time consuming and expensive.
Without seeming like a dog chasing its tail, when it comes to feeding Fido, consider combining homemade dog food and dry food—under the supervision of a veterinary professional. "There are a number of veterinary nutritionists who offer services where they formulate homemade diets based on owner preferences," Graham said.
Becca Edwards is a wellness professional, freelance writer, and owner of b.e.WELL+b.e.CREATIVE (bewellbecreative.com).
In Case You Were Wondering...But Were Too Afraid to Ask!
Line in the Sand: Who do you actually want to vote for?


The M1 digital to analogue converter is a dual mono design; there are two completely isolated channels, each with its own dedicated linear power supply, D/A converter, DDS clocking, and analogue circuitry. This design ensures that analogue crosstalk is virtually non-existent, that the necessary power requirements for each channel are well met and isolated from each other and the digital processing is isolated, having its own power supply. With our twin DAC design, the dynamic range for each channel is optimized by using the stereo ADI 1955 D/A converter in a mono configuration. The M1 also includes Bricasti's own proprietary filter technology, further opening new territory with what is achievable in a modern D/A reference.


Although much has been written about the return of research results from clinical trials, and these can inform much of the discussion around results for clinical patients, the return of results from clinical testing is different. It is informed by a different kind of relationship, one in which there is a duty of care on the clinician to the patient . There is a different framework for liability in terms of not acting or disclosing results that a reasonable person would want to know. Although the legal opinions on disclosure are beyond the scope of this article, many laboratory professionals consider that there is a duty of care to return off-target results by a laboratory if these are 'actionable' (that is, if they would generally lead to a change in care), even when such a test was not ordered. An example of such an actionable off-target result would be if the results from an automated machine showed a critical platelet count when a test for hemoglobin has been ordered . Nonetheless, there are no clear statutory or professional recommendations. In several US states there are specific laws that may be construed as stating that DNA test results are considered the property of the tested individual . Therefore, there is the potential for a moral or legal obligation to return results when such information would lead to a change in current clinical management. However, it is unclear what obligations there should be on laboratories that evaluate genomes to search for such secondary findings. In addition, it is ambiguous what should be considered a result that 'would change clinical management' - for example, whether a result needs to lead to a change in treatment, or whether making a diagnosis is sufficient to be considered a change in management. Furthermore, it is unclear who should decide when something reaches this standard. This decision-making becomes considerably more difficult in the situation of individuals for whom a proxy decision maker is empowered, such as adults considered incompetent through illness of mental deficiency, and minors. Here, I provide a clinician's perspective on the issues of secondary results raised by genome-wide sequencing and consider strategies that have been implemented to address these issues.
The issues of off-target genomic data are not new to the clinical genetics community. Indeed, genome-wide copy number testing of minors has raised ethical issues with regard to variants of uncertain significance and the identification of adult-onset disease-causing variants. Consequently, centers have had to establish an approach to the consent and management of such results. Examples of potentially actionable off-target results at our center have included Y chromosome deletions that may lead to infertility, HNF4A deletions that may predispose to diabetes, deletions of genes that would predispose to cancer for which screening is recommended at varying ages (such as RB1, MSH6, and SMAD4), and deletions that alter therapeutic drug management (such as a deletion of PMP22 predisposing to vincristine toxicity in a patient with pediatric leukemia).
The entry of whole exome or whole genome sequencing (WGS) over the past 2 years into limited clinical practice for children with rare disorders has led to a widening of the availability of genome-scale testing beyond copy number arrays . With the consequent higher frequency of detection of genomic variants, establishing a plan to deal with secondary results becomes more important.
With mutations in over 2,000 genes currently causally associated with defects in human health, it is unrealistic to provide a definitive list of all variants that should or should not be considered for return. As a result of allelic heterogeneity in many disease-causing genes - for example, LMNA, which has more than ten clinical phenotypes associated with it that may be childhood or adult onset - it is also inappropriate to stratify genetic changes by the gene involved. Therefore, it is necessary to stratify each specific genomic change by the predicted effects on the health of the individual and the confidence that it will lead to the health outcome expected [5, 6].
These health effects can be stratified by age of onset into childhood-onset and adult-onset effects, and we have subdivided these into those in which there is a recognized preventive or therapeutic intervention and those in which there is not  (Table 1). Although most ethicists agree that utility is required before returning test results, there is considerable controversy about the precise threshold of utility that is required before a result can or should be returned in the research setting , and similar conversations can be expected in the clinical sphere. Some authorities have taken the position that proven clinical utility to the individual having their genome sequenced is necessary (that is, that some recognized preventive or therapeutic intervention must exist) before returning results [6, 8]. Others assert that utility to the wider family (for example, the possibility that the information could be used for family planning) is relevant . What has been less clear is the approach to take for variants that may affect risks of developing disease, or those that may have more personal rather than clinical utility (such as information on ethnic origin). Assessments of clinical utility, especially for secondary results, may also depend on cultural and philosophical beliefs of the patient and, if relevant, their care-givers. Furthermore, it is unclear what level of proof should be required to assert that a variant will have the expected clinical effect.
Given the lack of consensus in this area, there is a need for a discussion about what types of information can, should, or should not be offered to patients in a range of clinical contexts, and about who should determine what results should be returned.
When we embarked upon a clinical WGS program for children in late 2009, we consulted with multiple ethicists, both internally and at external institutions, to develop a pragmatic framework in which to return results . After education and counseling, parents elect to receive information based on their beliefs of utility for variants with an established disease association.
Clinical utility for the tested individual is clearly apparent for childhood-onset disorders and pharmacogenomic disorders in children, and it is our institutional policy to mandate return of treatable childhood-onset disorders. We are considering whether mandatory return, to the ordering physician or directly into the electronic medical record, should be implemented for pharmacogenomic variants with the highest level of evidence, that is, Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium of the Pharmacogenomics Research Network (CPIC) Level 1 variants.
The case for clinical utility in returning adult-onset treatable disorders is relatively uncomplicated. Specifically, detection of, for instance, a known pathogenic mutation in the breast cancer gene BRCA1 in a child has implications for the testing and health surveillance of the child's parent who carries the mutation. In this instance the benefits to the child in improving parental health outcomes can be seen to justify the child's loss of autonomy in not being able to ultimately choose not to know their own status.
Perhaps less intuitive, but commonly raised by families with whom we have discussed WGS, is the utility of knowledge about 'untreatable' disorders in future family decision-making. Many parents express a desire to know whether their child harbors such mutations, saying that it will change their current decisions - for instance, by not having further children or considering pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. The ethical weight of such parental choice over the child's autonomy is difficult to gauge. More significant is the ethical question of who has the right to choose which to favor - the parent's ability to manage their decisions or the child's autonomy. In general in Western societies, it is considered that parents are in the best position to make such choices over their child's healthcare and lifestyle decisions.
At our institution, after significant internal and external discussion with ethicists, geneticists, legal counsel and several groups of parents, we have come to the conclusion that parents themselves are in the best position to choose what information should be returned to them. Therefore, in the context of the categorical model of choice, we will return at the parent's request data on affected status for treatable and untreatable disease where we have definitive pathogenic mutations.
Clinical sequencing will identify variants in the genome that are published as conferring increased or reduced risk of developing disease, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms that are associated with increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus or heart disease. The strength of such associations must be considered, taking into account any prior risk of developing disease and the extent to which such risk is changed by the family history . Because of this uncertainty, we have chosen not to return such variants.
Over the subsequent 2 years of our clinical WGS program for children it has been interesting to note the wide variety of results-return options selected by parents of children undergoing clinical WGS at our institution. More than half of parents who have proceeded with WGS have elected to learn about adult-onset information. Some families have elected to receive information about adult-onset treatable conditions but not untreatable childhood conditions. This range of choices selected by parents from one center suggests that we should not pursue a policy of 'one size fits all' for data return.
The face-to-face education and counseling required for our current approach are not feasible for mass market delivery. However, our center and many others are receiving positive early opinions from consumers of computer- or web-based information delivery. Further research will be required to ensure that such tools live up to early promise. However, it appears that they will enable consumers to continue to exercise nuanced consent for secondary results return.
Consequently, irrespective of information and consent approaches, we will be able to continue to offer a variety of data-return options.
While the opinions presented in this article are mine, I wish to acknowledge the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin WGS review group for many stimulating conversions, especially Rodney Willoughby, Steve Leuthner, Regan Veith, Michael Gutzeit, Tom May and David Bick. I am grateful to the Genetic Counseling staff and Clinical Laboratory Staff at CHW/Medical College of Wisconsin, specifically David Bick, Regan Veith, Daniel Helbling, Jamie Wendt-Andrae, Michael Tschannen, Howard Jacob and Elizabeth Worthey. In addition, I am grateful to the many volunteers and financial donors who have made the clinical program a reality.


There is a strong, but complex interrelationship between family members, their assets (ownership) and the business. Effective governance empowers families to optimize synergies between assets, business and family members.
Through a governance assessment, Deloitte professionals can help families and their businesses to identify and set up the most effective governance structure to communicate effectively, plan for the future, and maintain decisiveness and cohesiveness.
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Only one in three family businesses survive the transfer from its founders to their children. Organizing succession is not an event. As an emotional subject, succession planning needs to be carefully tailored to every situation - whilst the principles are similar, personalities and circumstances vary greatly. Organizing succession is a process which needs to be anticipated and prepared for.
But preparing the next generation is not an easy task. At Deloitte, we believe in a more proactive approach and can work with you to give next generation family members access to the development activities required to meet their goals and aspirations as well as meet the needs of the family and the business.
At Deloitte, professionals from Consulting and Tax & Legal can help you to organize your transition by creating and executing a succession plan dedicated to your specific requirements.
Deloitte Tax & Legal professionals help family-owned companies and its family members to understand, plan and execute effective business and tax strategies. Services include entity income tax planning and compliance services, individual tax, international tax, as well as choosing the right legal structures and other legal matters.
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The Hypersonic55's Realm of Reviews and Other Stuff
A place where I review things and talk about other random stuff
Tag Archives: Man of Steel 2
Ben Affleck to Play Batman in Man of Steel Sequel
So yeah this is probably the biggest news to hit the superhero film scene for a while and while I'm a bit late to this party I still gotta blog about it so let's get cracking! The following information comes from IGN:
"Ben Affleck is set to star as Batman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel sequel, Warner Bros. has announced.
"We knew we needed an extraordinary actor to take on one of DC Comics' most enduringly popular Super Heroes, and Ben Affleck certainly fits that bill, and then some" said Greg Silverman, President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production at Warner Bros. earlier today. "His outstanding career is a testament to his talent and we know he and Zack will bring new dimension to the duality of this character."
"Ben provides an interesting counter-balance to Henry's Superman," added director Snyder. He has the acting chops to create a layered portrayal of a man who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne. I can't wait to work with him."
"We are so thrilled that Ben is continuing Warner Bros.' remarkable legacy with the character of Batman," continued Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution President Sue Kroll. He is a tremendously gifted actor who will make this role his own in this already much-anticipated pairing of these two beloved heroes."
Warner Bros. has a longstanding relationship with Affleck. His most recent hit for the studio was 2012's Argo, which won Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. Affleck's next directorial effort, Live By Night, will also be produced by Warner.
Affleck is no stranger to the superhero gig, having played Daredevil in 20th Century Fox's 2003 flick of the same name. His will be the fifth big-screen Batman since Michael Keaton donned the cowl in Tim Burton's 1989 effort.
The Man of Steel sequel, which will likely be called Batman vs Superman, was announced at Comic-Con earlier this year. The film will be penned by Snyder and Man of Steel screenwriter David S. Goyer, and is currently slated to open worldwide on July 17, 2015. The sequel will reunite Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill, Laurence Fishburne, Amy Adams and Diane Lane."
Alrighty then so Ben Affleck is going to be the next Batman? Damn, those words just don't compute in my mind. When I heard from John Campea of AMC Theatres that he thought that Warner Bros and Zack Snyder already had their eyes on an actor for the role of Batman I thought "That'd be impressive but unlikely." And now here we are with a pretty seasoned actor taking on the role.
So what do I think of this new development? Well I'm kind of in two minds about. Firstly the good:
They could have picked a lot worse
Ben Affleck definitely has the acting skills necessary to pull off a character like Batman
Affleck looks like he could have the Bruce Wayne/Batman look down if the costume people do their work properly
This guy has won Oscars and has the right amount of star-power to pull in new casual fans
And now for the bad:
His last superhero film, Daredevil sucked and I'm not gonna let that go
Having someone like Affleck be directed by a more inferior director like Snyder seems questionable
Even though I dunno I would have picked as the next Batman I'm not sure he was the only choice
So yeah I dunno if you agree or disagree with my points, I'm basically just getting my thoughts out there. I am now really interested to see how this 'Batman Vs. Superman' thing is gonna play out.
Posted by Hypersonic55 on August 23, 2013 in Films, Media
Tags: 2013, Batman, Ben Affleck, Blog, Blogging, Entertainment, film, Man of Steel 2, Media, Movies, News, Zack Snyder
My Thoughts on Man of Steel 2 Announcement With Batman Set to Appear!
Okay. I think this single-handedly is the biggest news to come out of Comic-Con this year. While I'm not over the moon about it, I've seen all over the internet, loads of DC fanboys blowing up everywhere. I am of course talking about the fact that in Man of Steel 2 we're also gonna get Batman in the film too. THIS. IS. BIG. NEWS. Now as I've said before on numerous occasions I'm a Marvel fan more so than DC, however Batman and Superman together is a concept that I'm totally up for and would love to see go down in a live-action adaptation… Provided that the filmmakers can create a logical and comprehensive story that would justify them being in the same film together.
Anyways here's the official article from superherohype for you to wrap your heads around:
"Warner Bros. has just revealed plans for their own DC Cinematic Universe with the announcement of a Man of Steel sequel that will feature none other than Batman! Snyder took the stage at the Warner Bros. panel to announce something and brought up actor Harry Lennix to read a special message.
"I want you to remember, Clark," Lennix said, "in all the years to come. In all your private moments. I want you to remember my hand at your throat. I want you to remember, the one man who beat you."
And with that famous speech from The Dark Knight Returns, Snyder unveiled the logo below. No further details were announced but WB has revealed that Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane will return along with the Man of Steel himself, Henry Cavill."
There it is, the logo that made loads of comic book fans shit their pants.
Honestly this is good news for DC fans and I am pretty interested to see how this'll turn out. Because let's face facts, as good as Man of Steel was, DC and Warner Bros. were still wanting to do Justice League after that in 2015 and logically there is no way that would have worked without easing in another character or two through a second Superman film or one of their own solo films. I guess the big question now is who are DC gonna get to play Batman. We know Christian Bale is out of the question because he officially ruled himself out (though I dunno if that'll be the case forever), I'm just not sure of any particular actor who could take on the role. I guess I would prefer someone a little under the radar, say like how Henry Cavill wasn't all that big until he became Superman, so yeah an unknown actor would work just fine for me.
So yeah for once DC are playing it smart and I want to see how these two iconic characters come together, I hope it'll be similar to the good stuff I've witnessed in Batman: The Animated Series or the Justice League TV series. All I know now is that 2015 is a gonna be a filthy year for films, I dunno if I'll survive with all this awesomeness going down in the cinema, I might blow up.
So what are your thoughts on this revelation? Drop off in the comments below! 😀
Posted by Hypersonic55 on July 21, 2013 in Films, Media
Tags: 2013, Batman, Blog, Blogging, Comic-Con, Entertainment, film, Man of Steel 2, Media, Movies, News, Superman
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