#[ david ming; interactions ]

[kvb227-n11044144]

There are a number of different contemporary artists that I have been interested during this semester, but that haven't directly linked to artworks I was creating.

A number of them relate to abject art movements. One of these is works by Tung Ming-Chin. This artwork really effectively connects figures of the body and the supple forms of human interaction with the hard nature of wood, and the level of labour needed to develop such perfectly smooth timber forms.

The Birth of a New Hero (2008), 35x30x45cm (Left). Inner Turmoil (2009), 85x85x30cm (Right). https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/05/wood-sculptures-by-tung-ming-chin/

Another artist who creates visibly similar artworks is Lois Cecchini. Cecchini creates artworks depicting objects almost languidly being contained in a stretching wall. It creates a similar sense of tension to Ming-Chin's work, but with much more sterile forms and a more architectural focus, as if a world was being absorbed and forced into sterility.

http://inspirationist.net/extruding-bodies-by-loris-cecchini/

Another artist that caught my interest is David Altmejd, with his artwork 'Le Trou' (The Hand). I found this artwork when researching contemporary artworks involving hands as they have been of interest to me recently. This particular artwork struck me because of how something without any form of colour and relatively simple forms could express such powerful emotion. In further research, I found a number of his other works were also highly psychological and abject, and focussed on distorting the human form, but in logical and mathematical ways, sometimes described as 'crystalline' to highlight the ways that different perceptions of reality can overlap and merge.

Image on Left sourced from daltmejd on Instagram.

Other images: https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com/viewing-room/one-on-one-david-altmejd

I don't want to make an excessively long post, so these are some other artists of interest I've looked into:

Susanna Bauer (the highly delicate and detailed embroidery works make powerful connections to the natural world), Armelle Blary Daphné (the stark red and white fabric sculptures convert the human body into dense structures of coral and roots), Wim Delvoye (the extremely detailed scultpures warp the world into a mathematical reality, drawing on contemporary and traditional art concepts), Keiko Sato (reminds me of exploring the ways that technology attempts to mimic the existing forms of the natural world), Jamie North (taking hard and industrial forms and placing them in organic shapes and softening them with plant inclusion), Marc Pouyet (using the natural world to create structural whimsy), Nicoletta De La Brown (Combining craft with contemporary waste in a performance that celebrates it rather than rejects it), Jonathan Callan (taking the readymade and converting it into something supple and new).

Image sources (in order) https://www.susannabauer.com/, https://armelleblary.com/sculptures-et-installations/, http://viemagazine.com/wim-delvoye-art-of-steel-and-elements/, http://kathrynrodrigues.blogspot.com/2011/02/metamorphosis-by-keiko-sato-laser-beam.html, https://www.behance.net/gallery/28139599/Rock-Melt-2015, https://www.designspiration.com/save/1845621598407/, https://www.mrxstitch.com/all-about-plastic-bags/, http://www.electricdreaming.com/archives/748

[ciceroisthefamilycat]

Night Moves

I’m participating in the Dream Show Challenge (2.0), held by @singledarkshade​ and @theadrogna

After the human health and energy crises of the 20’s, the U.S. finally adjusted Daylight Saving Time, at least – if only it weren’t replaced with an entirely new Schedule, designed to minimize energy use, food demand, and exposure to other social bubbles. For almost thirty years, the population has been divided into two societies living side by side but rarely interacting, with half the population only free to move about from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the other half only free to move about from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. (with only two meals a day, on the 10 and 2 o’clock hours). Energy use in homes is limited to base comfort and refrigeration, and social media left quicker than it came when computer use was restricted to work. But there are fringes everywhere. Those shirking the energy caps, to those shirking the curfew laws. And when another sickness, this one related to the scheduled shifts, breaks out, things may come crashing down all over again.

with:  Freema Agyeman, Malcolm Barrett , Lou Diamond Phillips, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Beth Jean Riesgraf,  David Tennant, and Ming-Na Wen (also Manny Jacinto)

The Cast

Maisie Richardson-Sellers (Legends of Tomorrow)- Dawn

Dawn was born on the cusp of the new Schedule. She doesn’t remember a time before, or ever spending an afternoon basking in the sun. She’s always been on the night schedule, and not had much of a life. She sometimes finds underground showings of old films and shows from the beforetimes and wonders what could have been, but otherwise she sticks to the schedule, and expects little. She’s a pharmacologist at a neighborhood convenience store, when she notices an uptick in exhaustion (which makes no sense- 10 hours of sleep is mandatory) and rashes. Then one night, Stephanie walks in and the store bell dings.

Beth Jean Riesgraf (Leverage)- Stephanie

Stephanie compiles news. After computers were restricted back to professional use, the world finally started reading newspapers again. She knows that crime is on the rise, as the stopgap Schedule starts to show its stresses. But more importantly, she knows that people are sick and tired. Doesn’t matter if they’re on the Day schedule, the Night schedule, or the rare Alternate schedule- everyone’s falling to pieces. While making a late-night run for medicine for her best friend, Stephanie finds the first break in her monotony in a while. She’d given up on white picket anything when she spent more than a decade stuck on the Night schedule, but it might all be worth it if her timing is aligned with Dawn.

Malcolm Barrett (Timeless)- Ryan

Ryan loves his life. He loves his wife, he loves their kids, he loves his job- and he loves that they’re now all on the Day schedule. After a big promotion, they’ve made the “Shift shift” and Ryan is determined to make it all work out. He’s not going backward. He remembers his middle school years, sitting in the park for hours and sketching how the sun filtered through the trees. He loves the sun.

Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who, Sense8)- Nathalie

Nathalie knows she should be excited. They’re on the Day schedule. It means hanging out with Stephanie will be extremely difficult, but her friend understands. And what this could mean for the kids’ future… the government tries to pretend there’s no preference, but Nathalie knows the doors being on an old-fashioned schedule will open up for them all. But the migraines and the sores are burning out the enthusiasm for her new life. And she has to wonder… being friends with Stephanie will be difficult on this Schedule, but how impossible would it be to live with her family if she has to shift back over?

Ming-Na Wen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) as Carmen

Carmen is a leading endocrinologist: she studies hormones, and what they mean for sleep, temperature, growth, stress, mood… And it’s tough. Especially because she’s on the rare Alternate schedule. She is awake for 24 hours every other day. It means she gets to eat more, but that’s about the only advantage. She’s ready to retire… but there’s a new illness on the horizon.

Lou Diamond Phillips (Longmire, Prodigal Son) as Daniel

Daniel was an actor, turned news anchor in the fall of the entertainment industry, then forced into early retirement when he started regularly criticizing the new schedule. He was shunted to a night schedule as punishment. But it’s not that bad for him. For one thing, it synchs up perfectly with his son’s Day schedule in Hong Kong. They’re not supposed to make so many long-distance calls, but Benji is a leading energy engineer who can swing it. And as for the rest of his day… Daniel has found some knot-ty habits down at the Solstice nightclub. The night can be liberating.

Manny Jacinto (The Good Place) as Benji, Carmen and Daniel’s son, living in Hong Kong

David Tennant (Doctor Who, Jessica Jones, Good Omens) as Mr. Docherty (Wiley)

A prolific businessman, Docherty made a fortune in real estate. He now owns a nightclub, the Solstice, and he manages to even keep the Curfew Keepers off his case. His money also purchased him the rights to an Alternate schedule. While everyone else struggles with too little energy, he’s always got more (and is maybe a bit over reliant on barbiturates that his money also affords him to get those mandatory 10 hours of sleep). But he can’t get enough of Daniel, and their nights together when Carmen is away at work.

So I feel slightly guilty for this being “hey we’re in a pandemic” (and it’s getting bad again so whoopie on that front) but the way I envision this show is thematically focusing on isolation and longing for companionship. It’s also a little inspired by the 1973 oil and gas crisis (when drivers with license plates ending in even numbers could fill up on one day, and odd on the other). I couldn’t really fine tune all the details. But I was certainly imagining that families get kind of priority over the daytime schedule slots, and for singles in their twenties (like Dawn) it just gets that more isolating. I also didn’t do all the thinking on the new sickness, but it would probably get a little sci-fi. Maybe there’s some radioactive elements (since the gif I used of Riesgraf as Parker mentions that), or maybe it is just typical “hey, people are going to have sunlight allergies sometimes”. But if there’s some grander conspiracy, Benji and Docherty get more to do (not saying they’re villains). Dawn would be the audience entry point, Nathalie the kind of heart of it, but Carmen would be the connective glue. Also I would enjoy the hell out of Ming-Na Wen, Tenant, and Phillips bouncing off of each other (I think Carmen and Docherty would definitely be antagonistic toward each other, but Daniel would be the most larger-than-life character). Also, sorry that I didn’t do anything with the Tenant/Agyeman history, but I haven’t really seen Doctor Who.

[popolitiko]

How Europe Became So Rich

In a time of great powers and empires, just one region of the world experienced extraordinary economic growth. How?

Aeon - Joel Mokyr

How and why did the modern world and its unprecedented prosperity begin? Learned tomes by historians, economists, political scientists and other scholars fill many bookshelves with explanations of how and why the process of modern economic growth or ‘the Great Enrichment’ exploded in western Europe in the 18th century. One of the oldest and most persuasive explanations is the long political fragmentation of Europe. For centuries, no ruler had ever been able to unite Europe the way the Mongols and the Mings had united China.

It should be emphasised that Europe’s success was not the result of any inherent superiority of European (much less Christian) culture. It was rather what is known as a classical emergent property, a complex and unintended outcome of simpler interactions on the whole. The modern European economic miracle was the result of contingent institutional outcomes. It was neither designed nor planned. But it happened, and once it began, it generated a self-reinforcing dynamic of economic progress that made knowledge-driven growth both possible and sustainable.

How did this work? In brief, Europe’s political fragmentation spurred productive competition. It meant that European rulers found themselves competing for the best and most productive intellectuals and artisans. The economic historian Eric L Jones called this ‘the States system’. The costs of European political division into multiple competing states were substantial: they included almost incessant warfare, protectionism, and other coordination failures. Many scholars now believe, however, that in the long run the benefits of competing states might have been larger than the costs. In particular, the existence of multiple competing states encouraged scientific and technological innovation.

The idea that European political fragmentation, despite its evident costs, also brought great benefits, enjoys a distinguished lineage. In the closing chapter of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1789), Edward Gibbon wrote: ‘Europe is now divided into 12 powerful, though unequal, kingdoms.’ Three of them he called ‘respectable commonwealths’, the rest ‘a variety of smaller, though independent, states’. The ‘abuses of tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame’, Gibbon wrote, adding that ‘republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation; and some sense of honour and justice is introduced into the most defective constitutions by the general manners of the times.’

In other words, the rivalries between the states, and their examples to one another, also meliorated some of the worst possibilities of political authoritarianism. Gibbon added that ‘in peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by the emulation of so many active rivals’. Other Enlightenment writers, David Hume and Immanuel Kant for example, saw it the same way. From the early 18th-century reforms of Russia’s Peter the Great, to the United States’ panicked technological mobilisation in response to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, interstate competition was a powerful economic mover. More important, perhaps, the ‘states system’ constrained the ability of political and religious authorities to control intellectual innovation. If conservative rulers clamped down on heretical and subversive (that is, original and creative) thought, their smartest citizens would just go elsewhere (as many of them, indeed, did).

***

A possible objection to this view is that political fragmentation was not enough. The Indian subcontinent and the Middle East were fragmented for much of their history, and Africa even more so, yet they did not experience a Great Enrichment. Clearly, more was needed. The size of the ‘market’ that intellectual and technological innovators faced was one element of scientific and technological development that has not perhaps received as much attention it should. In 1769, for example, Matthew Boulton wrote to his partner James Watt: ‘It is not worth my while to manufacture [your engine] for three counties only; but I find it very well worth my while to make it for all the world.’

What was true for steam engines was equally true for books and essays on astronomy, medicine and mathematics. Writing such a book involved fixed costs, and so the size of the market mattered. If fragmentation meant that the constituency of each innovator was small, it would have dampened the incentives.

In early modern Europe, however, political and religious fragmentation did not mean small audiences for intellectual innovators. Political fragmentation existed alongside a remarkable intellectual and cultural unity. Europe offered a more or less integrated market for ideas, a continent-wide network of learned men and women, in which new ideas were distributed and circulated. European cultural unity was rooted in its classical heritage and, among intellectuals, the widespread use of Latin as their lingua franca. The structure of the medieval Christian Church also provided an element shared throughout the continent. Indeed, long before the term ‘Europe’ was commonly used, it was called ‘Christendom’.

If Europe’s intellectuals moved with unprecedented frequency and ease, their ideas travelled even faster.

While for much of the Middle Ages the intensity of intellectual activity (in terms of both the number of participants and the heatedness of the debates) was light compared to what it was to become, after 1500 it was transnational. In early modern Europe, national boundaries mattered little in the thin but lively and mobile community of intellectuals in Europe. Despite slow and uncomfortable travel, many of Europe’s leading intellectuals moved back and forth between states. Both the Valencia-born Juan Luis Vives and the Rotterdam-born Desiderius Erasmus, two of the most prominent leaders of 16th-century European humanism, embodied the footloose quality of Europe’s leading thinkers: Vives studied in Paris, lived most of his life in Flanders, but was also a member of Corpus Christi College in Oxford. For a while, he served as a tutor to Henry VIII’s daughter Mary. Erasmus moved back between Leuven, England and Basel. But he also spent time in Turin and Venice. Such mobility among intellectuals grew even more pronounced in the 17th century.

If Europe’s intellectuals moved with unprecedented frequency and ease, their ideas travelled even faster. Through the printing press and the much-improved postal system, written knowledge circulated rapidly. In the relatively pluralistic environment of early modern Europe, especially in contrast with East Asia, conservative attempts to suppress new ideas floundered. The reputation of intellectual superstars such as Galileo and Spinoza was such that, if local censorship tried to prohibit the publication of their works, they could easily find publishers abroad.

Galileo’s ‘banned’ books were quickly smuggled out of Italy and published in Protestant cities. For example, his Discorsi was published in Leiden in 1638, and his Dialogo was re-published in Strasbourg in 1635. Spinoza’s publisher, Jan Riewertz, placed ‘Hamburg’ on the title page of the Tractatus to mislead censors, even though the book was published in Amsterdam. For intellectuals, Europe’s divided and uncoordinated polities enhanced an intellectual freedom that simply could not exist in China or the Ottoman Empire.

***

After 1500, Europe’s unique combination of political fragmentation and its pan-European institutions of learning brought dramatic intellectual changes in the way new ideas circulated. Books written in one part of Europe found their way to other parts. They were soon read, quoted, plagiarised, discussed and commented upon everywhere. When a new discovery was made anywhere in Europe, it was debated and tested throughout the continent. Fifty years after the publication of William Harvey’s text on the circulation of blood De Motu Cordis (1628), the English doctor and intellectual Thomas Browne reflected on Harvey’s discovery that ‘at the first trump of the circulation all the schools of Europe murmured … and condemned it by a general vote … but at length [it was] accepted and confirmed by illustrious physicians.’

The intellectual superstars of the period catered to a European, not a local, audience and enjoyed continent-wide reputations. They saw themselves as citizens of a ‘Republic of Letters’ and regarded this entity, in the words of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle (one of its central figures), as a free commonwealth, an empire of truth. The political metaphor was mostly wishful thinking and not a little self-flattery, but it expressed the features of a community that set rules of conduct for the market for ideas. It was a very competitive market.

Above all, Europe’s intellectuals contested almost everything, and time and again demonstrated a willingness to slaughter sacred cows. They together established a commitment to open science. To return to Gibbon: he observed that the philosopher, unlike the patriot, was permitted to consider Europe as a single ‘great republic’ in which the balance of power might continue to fluctuate and the prosperity of some nations ‘may be alternately exalted or depressed’. But this apprehension of a single ‘great republic’ guaranteed a ‘general state of happiness, system of arts and laws and manners’. It ‘advantageously distinguished’ Europe from other civilisations, wrote Gibbon.

In this regard, then, Europe’s intellectual community enjoyed the best of two worlds, both the advantages of an integrated transnational academic community and a com­petitive states system. This system produced many of the cultural components that led to the Great Enrichment: a belief in social and economic progress, a growing regard for scientific and intellectual innovation, and a commitment to a Baconian, ie a methodical and empirically grounded, research programme of knowledge in the service of economic growth. The natural philosophers and mathematicians of the 17th-century Republic of Letters adopted the idea of experimental science as a prime tool, and accepted the use of increasingly more sophisticated mathematics as a method of understanding and codifying nature.

The idea of knowledge-driven economic progress as the primum movens of the Industrial Revolution and early economic growth is still controversial, and rightly so. Examples of purely science-driven inventions in the 18th century are few, though after 1815 their number rises rapidly. Yet dismissing the scientific revolution as irrelevant to modern economic growth misses the point that without an ever-growing understanding of nature, the artisan-driven advances of the 18th century (especially in the textile industry) would slowly but ineluctably have ground to a halt.

Furthermore, some inventions still needed inputs from learned people even if they cannot be said to be purely science-driven. For instance, the marine chronometer, one of the most important inventions of the era of the Industrial Revolution (though rarely mentioned as a part of it) was made possible through the work of earlier mathematical astronomers. The first one was the 16th-century Dutch (more accurately Frisian) astronomer and mathematician Jemme Reinerszoon, known as Gemma Frisius, who suggested the possibility of what John Harrison (the ingenious watchmaker who cracked this thorny problem) actually did in 1740.

The triumph of scientific progress and sustained economic growth was no more predetermined than the evolution of Homo sapiens as dominant on the planet.

It is interesting to note that the advances in science were driven not only by the emergence of open science and the growing sophistication of the transnational market for ideas. They were also driven by the appearance of better tools and instruments that faci­litated research in natural philosophy. The most important ones include the micro­scope, telescope, barometer and modern thermometer. All of them were developed in the first half of the 17th century. Improved tools in physics, astronomy and biology refuted many misconceptions inherited from classical antiquity. The newly discovered notions of a vacuum and an atmosphere stimulated the emergence of atmospheric engines. In turn, steam engines inspired scientists to investigate the physics of the conversion of heat into motion. More than a century after Newcomen’s first pump (the famous Dudley Castle engine of 1712), thermodynamics was developed.

In 18th-century Europe, the interplay between pure science and the work of engineers and mechanics became progressively stronger. This interaction of propositional knowledge (knowledge of ‘what’) and prescriptive knowledge (knowledge of ‘how’) constituted a positive feedback or autocatalytic model. In such systems, once the process gets underway, it can become self-propelled. In that sense, knowledge-based growth is one of the most persistent of all historical phenomena – though the conditions of its persistence are complex and require above all a competitive and open market for ideas.

We must recognise that Europe’s (and the world’s) Great Enrichment was in no way inevitable. With fairly minor changes in initial conditions, or even accidents along the way, it might never have happened. Had political and military developments taken different turns in Europe, conservative forces might have prevailed and taken a more hostile attitude toward the new and more progressive interpretation of the world. There was nothing predetermined or inexorable in the ultimate triumph of scientific progress and sustained economic growth, any more than, say, in the eventual evolution of Homo sapiens (or any other specific species) as dominant on the planet.

One outcome of the activities in the market for ideas after 1600 was the European Enlightenment, in which the belief in scientific and intellectual progress was translated into an ambitious political programme, a programme that, despite its many flaws and misfires, still dominates European polities and economies. Notwithstanding the backlash it has recently encountered, the forces of technological and scientific progress, once set in motion, might have become irresistible. The world today, after all, still consists of competing entities, and seems not much closer to unification than in 1600. Its market for ideas is more active than ever, and innovations are occurring at an ever faster pace. Far from all the low-hanging technological fruits having been picked, the best is still to come.

Joel Mokyr is the Robert H Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history at Northwestern University in Illinois. In 2006, he was awarded the biennial Heineken Award for History offered by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. His latest book is A Culture of Growth: Origins of the Modern Economy (2016).

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https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-europe-became-so-rich

[undertheinfluencerd]

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After making her screen debut in 1989, Sandra Oh has enjoyed a remarkable career in both film and television. Although the versatile talent and 12-time Emmy nominated actress is best known for her iconic roles as Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy and Eve Polastri on Killing Eve, Oh has also worked with some of the finest movie directors, including Alexander Payne, Steven Soderbergh, Mina Shum, John Cameron Mitchell, and more.

RELATED: Killing Eve – 10 Best Quotes From The Show

As fans continue to enjoy Oh’s new hit Netflix sitcom The Chair, it’s worth recollecting her best movie moments for those who want to see more of the talented actress on the big screen.

10 Defendor (2009): 6.8

Peter Stebbings’ dark offbeat superhero comedy Defendor stars Oh as Dr. Ellen Park, a psychiatrist who gives hilarious facial and verbal reactions to the outlandish story relayed to her by Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson), an ordinary man moonlighting as a vigilante crime fighter.

Cut from the same genre-bucking, irreverent cloth as James Gunn’s Super, once Arthur confesses his secret life to Dr. Park, she convinces the judge to go easy on him and allow him to continue his heroic activity. When tragedy strikes, Oh shows how much heartfelt pathos she can portray by attending a touching ceremony for her patient.

9 Under The Tuscan Sun (2003): 6.8

Written and directed by the late Audrey Wells, Under the Tuscan Sun is a delightfully uplifting rom-com about Frances (Diane Lane), a writer who ups and leaves her life in San Francisco to live in Tuscany after discovering her husband’s infidelity. Oh plays Patti, Frances’ best friend who encourages her to travel to Italy.

RELATED: Sandra Oh – 10 Best Roles, Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

In addition to the gorgeous locations, breezy tone, and rich cinematography, Oh adds complexity to the story as Patti, a lesbian expecting a child even after her lover Grace (Kate Walsh) has left her. It’s Patti’s visit to Tuscany when she’s nine months pregnant that helps Frances find the courage to pursue true love despite the painful past.

8 Double Happiness (1994): 7.0

Oh made her feature film debut in Mina Shum’s must-see coming-of-age tale Double Happiness, in which she plays the lead role of Chinese-Canadian Jade Li. The intensely personal semiautobiographical drama shows how divided Jade is between her traditional Chinese upbringing and her modern Canadian lifestyle.

With a natural performance by Oh matched with the authentic, well-observed writing of Shum, the movie is a universally relatable tale of a person grappling with their own identity while trying to appease the expectations of loved ones. In her first film performance, Oh won the Genie Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, proving what a titanic talent she has been from the start.

7 Rabbit Hole (2010): 7.0

John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole is a bruising account of a family dealing with the death of a young child at the hands of a teenage driver. Nicole Kidman gives a memorable and towering performance as Becca, a mournful mother who begins to find solace by interacting with Jason (Miles Teller), the driver who accidentally took her son’s life.

Although she has a smaller supporting role, Oh plays Gabby, a fellow grieving parent who helps Howie (Aaron Eckhart) deal with his loss at the group therapy sessions he and Becca attend. With profound empathy for Howie, she becomes instrumental in his healing process.

6 Meditation Park (2017): 7.1

Twenty-three years after working with Mina Shum for the first time, Oh reunited with the filmmaker for the sweet-natured drama Meditation Park in 2017. The story concerns Maria Wang (Pei-Pei Cheng), an aging woman in the throes of an existential crisis upon suspecting her husband’s infidelity. Oh plays Maria’s daughter Ava, a mother of two who encourages Maria to reconcile with her estranged brother ahead of his wedding and break free from her husband’s hold.

RELATED: Asian-American Movies to Watch If You Loved Crazy Rich Asians

As another trenchant glimpse at the immigrant experience and a statement about the importance of women finding their own voice, Shum’s film is tender, touching, and triumphant.

5 Hard Candy (2005): 7.1

David Slade’s Hard Candy is a deeply unnerving glimpse at a predatory pedophile (Patrick Wilson) getting his just deserts when a teenager (Elliot Page) tricks, traps, and tortures him in his apartment. Oh plays the man’s neighbor, Judy Tokuda, admitting she only took the role due to her working relationship with Page, a fellow Canadian she worked with on Wilby Wonderful the year prior.

With most of the action set inside the inescapable apartment, the visceral terror of the violence that Hayley (Page) exacts on Jeff (Wilson) is met by the suffocating sense of claustrophobia, making for a really upsetting experience. However, the hugely satisfying conclusion helps atone for the squeamish and uncomfortable moments of carnage.

4 Last Night (1998): 7.2

The most unheralded of Oh’s top films happens to be Last Night, a mordant pitch-black comedy about the impending apocalypse and the rag-tag band of Canadians with differing views on how to react. With the end of the world set to strike at midnight, Sandra (Oh) tries to make it out of her stranded position in Toronto and reunite with her husband, Duncan (David Cronenberg). One bad thing after another ensues.

Weird, wild, and ultimately winning, Last Night boasts writer/director Don McKellar’s signature brand of dark humor and anarchic energy. As such, the film has become an unforgettable cult classic among those who’ve seen it.

3 Raya And The Last Dragon (2021): 7.4

With great respect and honor for the rich historical traditions of Southeast Asia, Raya and the Last Dragon is one of Disney’s most beloved recent animated movies. Sandra Oh lends her voice to the commanding role of Virana, the Fang chieftess and mother of Raya’s main rival, Namaari (Gemma Chan).

RELATED: Raya And The Last Dragon – What The Voice Actors Look Like In Real Life

With a moving story, spellbinding animation, and characters never before seen, Raya and the Last Dragon continue to soar in the hearts and minds of viewers.

2 Sideways (2004): 7.5

Directed by her then-husband Alexander Payne, Oh demonstrated her hilarious comedic chops in the indie darling Sideways, a character study of a failing writer at an existential crossroads. The boozy road trip follows Miles (Paul Giamatti), an uptight novelist, and his lecherous pal Jack (Thomas Hayden Church), as they hit Santa Barbara wine country on a tasting tour.

Praised for its excellent performances and light tonal touch between comedy and drama, Oh gives a standout turn as Stephanie, a cool sommelier who has a steamy love affair with Jack (whom she does not know has a fiancee). When she finds out, she goes absolutely ballistic in one of the movie’s funniest moments. The story is so sharply penned that it won an Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.

1 The Red Violin (1998): 7.6

Despite playing a bit role as Madame Ming in the fifth and final chapter of The Red Violin, the ambitious epic ranks among Sandra Oh’s most well-received movie to date. The film traces a famed 17th-century Violin from its creation in Italy to its auction in modern-day Montreal, and all that the instrument endured in creating some of the most beautiful music the world has ever heard.

Praised for its sumptuous set decorations and costume designs, Oscar-winning original music, intelligent story, and a throwback style of filmmaking that calls to mind the grand epics of the past, the resonance of The Red Violin is still felt today.

NEXT: Steven Spielberg’s 10 Best Historical Epics

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The post Sandra Oh’s 10 Best Movies, Ranked (According To IMDb) appeared first on undertheinfluencerd.net.

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[electrograins-moved-blog]

   “Look, just because I call her Miss Donnie don’t mean you can.” He wasn’t saying that due to not wanting the other to be friends with Donelle. Actually, he remembered the woman earlier grumbling about the other calling her that David thought it’ll be best to say something about it quick. “Stick with Miss Russo, m’kay?”

[abangtech]

AirPods 3 To Grab Technology & Design Upgrades From AirPods Pro, Analyst Claims – Forbes

AirPods Pro, left, and AirPods. Will AirPods 3 look more like the Pros?

David Phelan

The next Apple AirPods are coming! According to a note from super-reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from TF International Securities, AirPods 3 will be with us in the first half of next year, and will use a system to jam more tech into less space.

MORE FROM FORBESAirPods: Apple Reveals Yet Another Cool Upgrade Coming With iOS 14By David Phelan

In a new research note, seen by MacRumors, the next AirPods will look striking different from the current ones, too. Here’s what we have learned.

New design

Apple revealed AirPods back in September 2016, alongside the iPhone 7. Feels like a long time ago, right? So, even though the design has been unmistakable and become much-loved in that time, it’s no surprise that Apple might think the earbuds are due a reboot.

How different will they look from AirPods Pro?

Kuo has previously said that the design of AirPods 3 will more closely resemble the current AirPods Pro. Personally, I believe this means one of two things. The first option: there will still be enough difference between the designs to make it easy to distinguish between the Pro and 3 models (Apple loves to ensure that people can tell its products apart so the Pro retains a cachet that deserves the higher sticker price).

AirPods Pro and AirPods in their cases

David Phelan

The second option is that they will look almost identical to the Pro model, as Apple also loves to recycle its designs.

New tech

Although the current, second-generation AirPods contain a different chip, one that permits hands-free “Hey, Siri” interaction, the next model will have different tech again. Right now, the chip uses surface-mount technology, but this is likely to be replaced by a System in Package (SiP) solution.

Why SiP?

Apple AirPods Pro image showing the SiP design

Apple

When Apple revealed the AirPods Pro, it boasted that “The size and performance of AirPods Pro are made possible by a revolutionary system-in-package (SiP) design with the Apple-designed H1 chip at its core.”

In other words, though it’s more complex to design and manufacture, it means you can squeeze more tech, and therefore more features, into a smaller space.

The biggest difference between AirPods and AirPods Pro is noise-canceling, though more features, such as Spatial Audio, are coming later this year with the arrival of iOS 14. A firmware update will be needed for this, too.

MORE FROM FORBESOne Thing Nobody Has Told You About watchOS 7By David Phelan

So, what will be new?

It’s hard to know just now. It could be that some of the best Pro features, such as noise-canceling and Transparency mode which lets the outside world in, could be on the next regular AirPods. Actually, I’m not convinced: AirPods Pro headphones command a much higher price, so Apple isn’t going to take away the reason to buy its pricier headphones.

But there could be benefits from switching to a similar design to the Pro headphones, such as the fact that AirPods Pro come with three differently-sized silicone ear tips, to ensure a snug, noise-isolating fit even before you add the electronic noise-canceling.

The silicone ear tips would be a significant upgrade for AirPods – on the Pro there’s even a cute Ear Tip Fit Test program on the iPhone to ensure the fit is perfect. This uses a microphone pointing into the ear, so this could be a feature brought across to the AirPods 3, even if noise-canceling remains absent.

How about battery life?

Good point. AirPods 3 could have the battery currently found in the AirPods Pro, which is button-shaped instead of the long, thin one in the current AirPods. With this new battery but without noise-canceling, which has an effect on battery life, AirPods 3 could have significantly better battery life. Which is another desirable upgrade, for sure.

When will we know more?

With delivery not expected until 2021, we can expect more rumors to percolate in the coming weeks and months. Check back for more news as it arises.

Follow me on Instagram by clicking here: davidphelantech and Twitter: @davidphelan2009

More on Forbes:

MORE FROM FORBESNew Huawei Patent Reveals Game-Changing Phone With Cool DesignBy David Phelan Source

The post AirPods 3 To Grab Technology & Design Upgrades From AirPods Pro, Analyst Claims – Forbes appeared first on abangtech.

from abangtech https://abangtech.com/airpods-3-to-grab-technology-design-upgrades-from-airpods-pro-analyst-claims-forbes/

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home Edition May 29, 2020 – I WILL MAKE YOU MINE, THE HIGH NOTE, HBO MAX and more!

Before we get to any potential theatrical releases – there aren’t many (if any?) this week  –  today is the day that HBO MAX launches! I hope to add it to the streaming section below, but since it’s a newborn baby launching today, it will get the lead in this week’s column…

Some of the HBO Max original programming at launch will include On the Record, the new doc from The Hunting Ground and The Invisible War directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, which looks at the story of music exec. Drew Dixon and her decision to be one of the first women of color to come forward about being sexually assaulted by Russell Simmons. I’ll freely admit that I haven’t watched this yet, but my friend/colleague Candice Fredrick did this amazing interview with Dixon and the other subjects for Shondaland, which you can read right here, and it’ll make it obvious why  (like Dick/Ziering’s previous docs), this one NEEDS to be seen, even if you don’t have a horse in this race.

Anna Kendrick will be starring in new romantic comedy anthology series called Love Life from Sam Boyd, each season which will follow a different person from their first to last romance. I hope this is better than Kendrick’s Quibi series.

On a lighter night, there’s a new series of Looney Tunes Cartoons, a series of 11 to 12-minute cartoon collections featuring all your WB favorites. While I was mildly dubious about new cartoons, apparently WB has been making these for a few years although they’ll now be migrating over to HBO Max. Some of the first toons will include a couple Porky Pig-Daffy Duck shorts: “Curse of the Monkeybird” and “Firehouse Frenzy”; another one called “Harm Wrestling,” pitting Bugs Bunny against long-time nemesis Yosemite Sam, and another Bugs one called “Big League Beast.” These new toons definitely have their own identity and charm and are pretty clever with wackier modernized cartoon violence ala “Ren and Stimpy” or maybe Adult Swim would be a more current reference. The series is exec. produced by Peter Browngardt, and I don’t think regular Looney Tunes fans (or cartoon fans in general) will be too disappointed by these offerings.

There’s also the Not Too Late Show with Elmo, which looks cute, but it’s definitely veering more towards the TV side of things than movies, at least for now.

Something rather strange and interesting happened leading up to this week’s “Featured Movie,” but it involves an introductory story: Just before the lockdown on March 12, I went out to see Emily Ting’s great new comedy, Go Back to China on its very last day in New York theaters. One of the actors in the movie, Lynn Chen, seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t figure out where from. Sometime after that, I started seeing a few tweets about Alice Wu’s 2004 film, Saving Face, which I thought I was one of the only people who knew about it, having covered it 15 or 16 years ago. This led to a Twitter conversation about Wu’s new Netflix movie, The Half of It, which made me realize that Chen was one of the two leads in Saving Face. One thing led to another and besides learning about Wu’s new movie, I also found out that Chen’s own directorial debut would be coming out soon. That movie, I WILL MAKE YOU MINE (Gravitas Ventures), is now available digitally and on DVD/Blu-ray. Got all that? Good. So that’s what I’m going to write about next.

Chen’s directorial debut is an interesting black-and-white romantic dramedy, but you really need to go into it knowing that it’s also the third part of something being labelled, “The Surrogate Valentine Trilogy,” based on two indie comedies directed by Dave Boyle. I did not know this the first time I watched Chen’s movie, which may be why I was so confused about the relationships between three Asian-American women with a musician named Goh Nakamura (who plays himself in the film). Once I watched the previous movies, Surrogate Valentine from 2011 and Daylight Savings from 2012, things became a LOT clearer.

Both those movies were quirky comedies mostly based around Nakamura’s day-to-day, but they also had romantic undercurrents with three different women over the course of the two movies: Lynn Chen’s best friend Rachel, “the professor” Erika (Ayako Fujitani) and fellow singer-songwriter Yea-Ming (Yea-Ming Chen, also playing a version of herself). It’s immediately clear that Chen’s movie is going to focus on the three women, but it my not be as evident who these women are or their relationship to Nakamura without having seen the previous two films.

The movie takes place five years after the previous one, so Chen is taking the Linklatter “Before” trilogy approach, at least in concluding the overall story with a few players from earlier movies also making apperances. Erika and Yea-Ming are still polar opposites with Erika’s moodiness being increased by the death of her father and having to care for her five-year-old daughter (Ayami Riley Tomine).  Yea-Ming is still single and ready to mingle, while Rachel is now married but she is still reminiscing about Goh, who she long ago put in the friend zone despite his feelings for her.

Both the previous movies were left hanging with no real answers, so it’s quite respectable for Chen to take the reins in trying to answer some of the unanswered questions. The general idea is that all these women are still thinking of Goh, and you’ll have to watch the movie to see which one he ends up with, if any. (Not too sure how I feel about all these beautiful women chasing after the mopey Nakamura, but like the “Before” movies, you’ll be quite invested after seeing the other two movies.)

Nakamura is an incredibly talented musician, songwriter and singer (as is Yea-Ming) but not a particularly expressive actor, especially in comparison to a seasoned pro like Chen. As a director and co-star, she does a better job getting a performance out of him than Boyle did, although her character’s arc is more about dealing with her cheating husband Josh. Chen maintains the quirky humor of the earlier movies without involving as much of the bro-ness of the characters around Nakamura. Putting the focus on the three women trying to discover themselves and figure out what they want in life just makes her film a far more enjoyable experience as a whole, especially as we get to see them interacting with each other.

I particulary like this movie on its own merits due to the very funny and talented Yea-Ming Chen (whose own musical project is called DreamDate). She clearly has the best chemistry with Nakamura, but I Will Make You Mine gains so much more knowing the characters’ history together, even if those relationships were not necessarily the focus of the previous two films. There’s no question Lynn Chen has a solid future as a filmmaker, as she takes the ideas and characters introduced by Boyle’s films to a far more emotional level. I recommend watching the entire trilogy, which hopefully Gravitas Ventures will put all in one place (like a collection of all three movies with a soundtrack CD?) someday soon. In the meantime, you can find out where you can watch I Will Make You Mine on the official site, so do check it out!

I had been pretty interested in Focus Features’ new film, THE HIGH NOTE, which will be available via PVOD this Friday, mainly because it was directed by Nisha Ganatra, who did such an amazing job with last year’s Late Night. This is a very different movie, maybe more commercial but also not quite as much my thing, which is odd since it’s set in the music business, which is almost definitely my thing.

Dakota Johnson stars as Maggie, personal assistant to legendary soul singer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross from black-ish), but she would rather be a record producer. Maggie hs been practicing by doing an edit on a live album for Davis who is being drawn by her manager (Ice Cube) to take up a Vegas residency ala Celine. Soon after, Maggie meets Kelvin Harrison Jr’s David Cliff, an aspiring singer and songwriter who she decides to take under her wing, without letting him know she’s actually a personal assistant.

Written by Flora Greeson, her first produced screenplay, it’s almost immediately apparent this movie came about due to the success of the 2018 remake of A Star is Born, which did so well despite winning only a single Oscar for song.  There are a few hurdles the movie had to overcome right away, the first being my general “eh” feelings about Johnson as an actor, but then there are also serious credibility issues of a Hollywood personal assistant getting away with HALF the things Maggie does in the movie. There is definitely an aspect of the movie that reminded me of Working Girl, one of the movies that made Johnson’s mother (Melanie Griffith) a household name, but this sort of “everything works out for the white girl” just seems kind of stale and played and maybe a bit out-of-tune in this day and age.

The High Note is barely a drama and more of a romantic dramedy and while the songs are decent, there’s very little way that this can be deemed any sort of “musical.” There’s also the whole “white savior” thing in play where Maggie is there not only to save Grace’s flagging career but also trying to help David make it big. Harrison is as good as he’s been in almost every role, and that seems almost wasted among the other okay performances.

The thing is that The High Note did eventually win me over, oddly with a pull-the-rug-out twist that for some reason I didn’t see coming. There is a cuteness aspect to it that makes it palatable, if not always entertaining, but I definitely expected more and better from Ganatra for her second feature. It makes it that much more obvious what Mindy Kaling brought to the table as the writer/producer on Late Night.  

Next up is John Hyatt’s documentary SCREENED OUT (Dark Star Pictures), which is probably rather apropos right now as it deals with something very prominent and timely: our addiction to our devices. The movie follows Hyatt and his family who go through their own journey of dealing with screen addiction. It will be available in the US and Canada this Friday. I really couldn’t get too far into this movie, since I generally hate docs where the filmmakers turn the camera on themselves, and I’m not talking about Morgan Spurlock or Michael Moore so much, as those who make these movies about themselves without having too much to offer the viewer.

Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema adds two new repertory films this week: Philip Borso’s 1982 film, The Grey Fox, starring Richard Farnsworth (in a new 4K restoration) and Andrei Ujică’s 1992 film, Videograms of a Revolution.  Film at Lincoln Center’s own virtual cinema adds Mounia Meddour’s Papicha (Distrib Films) about a university student during the Algerian Civil War who is studying French with an interest in fashion so she defies religious conservatism to design dresses for her peers. The film won the César Award for Best Female Newcomer and Best First Film, and was a selection for the recent “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.”

STREAMING AND CABLE

Netflix’s big launch this week is the new series from The Office (American version) creator Greg Daniels (his second new one in the last month!), SPACE FORCE, a comedy based on the Trump military initiative that reunites Daniels with Steve Carell. He’s joined by John Malkovich, Jimmy O. Yang, the late Fred Willard, Ben Schwartz, Noah Emmerich and more, so we’ll see if I like it more than the Amazon series, Upload. (Granted, I’ve only seen one episode of that.)

I’m semi-flattered that Hannah Gadsby named her second Netflix comedy special, Hannah Gadsby: Douglas, after me, but honestly, I’m one of the few people who never really understood the appeal of her as a comic. She just seems like a snarky Australian who just happens to also be a lesbian, but I dunno, maybe I’ll like this one more?

Fernando Frias’ Mexican teen drama, I’m No Longer Here (also on Netflix), is about a young street gang in Monterrey, Mexico who get into a feud with a local cartel, forcing the leader to migrate to the United States.

Also, I’ve heard good things about Andrew Patterson’s THE VAST OF NIGHT, which will be available on Amazon Prime, this Friday. It stars Sierra McCormick as Fay Crocker, a switchboard operator in 1950s New Mexico, who discovers an audio frequency that can change their small town forever. It sends Fay and a radio DJ named Everett (Jake Horowitz) on a scavenger hunt into the unknown.  This movie played a lot of genre film festivals last year after debuting at Slamdance, and I generally enjoyed it, since it has a very different vibe of other thrillers, even period ones. The two leads are so cute together in the film’s opening scene, you’ll definitely want to see where things are going, and the dialogue is particularly good. Maybe the movie isn’t as direct in its genre elements as others, but it goes to interesting places for sure.

Also, the We Are One: A Global Film Festival is supposed to start this week, running for a week from this Friday to June 7 with proceeds going to benefit COVID-19 relief funds with programming curated by a number of film festivals including Tribeca, the New York Film Festival, Berlin and others. You can see some of the programming here, and the festival will run starting Friday on the YouTube channel.

Next week, more movies (mostly) not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[donovanenjb084]

Snake Calendar year 2020-21: Fortunes of your Tiger!

Chinese Astrology's 9th Indication, fast-witted Monkey's Snake Year 2013-14 fortunes from Monkey-small business are most promising. Nonetheless, warning is necessary over the health and fitness and interactions fronts. Standard guidance for Monkeys during this era follows.

Are you presently a Monkey? Your delivery yr, the Chinese Zodiac's Magical Monkey? Are you presently 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72 (and so-on in twelve-12 months increments) in between 8th February 2016 and 27th January 2017 (Monkey Yr's close)? Do associates, friends, kinfolk, colleagues, mom and dad, or little ones slide into this class? If the answer is 'Indeed' then This can be to suit your needs!

The Monkey: Many years in the MONKEY: 1908 Earth; 1920 Steel; 1932 Water; 1944 Wooden; 1956 Fire; 1968 Earth; 1980 Steel; 1992 Drinking water; 2004 http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=astrology Wood; 2016 Hearth, 2028 Earth.

Well-known Monkeys Contain: Gillian Anderson, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Jennifer Aniston, David Copperfield, Leonardo da Vinci, Ian Fleming, Richard Madeley, Jerry Hall, Elizabeth Taylor, Will Smith, Venus Williams, Kylie Minogue and Rod Stewart.

Persona: Monkeys thrive in City contexts due to their restless inquisitive natures. Right here intelligent Monkeys learn more options to profit from and exploit of their standard resourceful, multipurpose, and ingenious fashioned. At any time packed with excellent intentions Monkeys are usually fantastic businesses. Monkeys will often be (also) easily bored as well as their playful, brief-witted practical jokes can sometimes harm the inner thoughts of Many others. Monkeys will also be mischievous and deceptive occasionally.

Great Monkey Occupations and Occupations Incorporate: Singing, Engineering, Exploration, Cinema, Acting, Details Technological know-how, Accountancy, Banking, Science, Engineering, Inventory-broking, Gross sales, Finance, Accountancy, and Science.

Associations: In marriage phrases, Monkey compatibility is best with These born underneath the Signs of the Rat and Dragon and the very least with Horses or Snakes.

Fortunes of your Monkey in Snake Yr: Job and business luck is superb for Monkey-functions in the course of Snake Yr 2013-fourteen. 'Monkey' and 'money' ought to be virtually synonymous since the latter 'rolls in' from this kind of sources. On the other hand, Monkey ft ought to be planted firmly on the ground during this era, pride must be prevented in favor of persistence and humility.

On the romance front, prospects are bad and incompatibility could possibly be at the guts of connection complications. In health and fitness conditions, Monkeys could knowledge issues with their digestive methods and become prone to injuries springing from falls.

The Monkey in Chinese Lifestyle: The Monkey is the most well-liked animal in Chinese literature and China recognized the truth of Humanity's evolution from your ape thousands of a long time ahead of Darwin. Monkey style Martial Arts are based upon the animal's standard fighting moves. Shaolin Temple Monk Xuanzhang (600-664 CE) could be the Monkey King employing this in Wu Cheng En's well known thirteenth Century Ming Dynasty novel 'The Journey West'.

[jbuffyangel]

HVFF Nashville Wrap Up

It’s midnight. This is the first second I’ve had to sit down and write about Nashville. I was knee deep in SDCC planning with my Just About Write ladies today. It’s gonna be lit folks! We can’t wait to cover it for you.

So... I decided to go to HVFF Nashville for one reason and one reason only. M*lissa B*noist was attending and my daughter could meet Supergirl. The obsession runs deep my friends. When M*lissa canceled Lauren was absolutely devastated and I was in a bit of a panic. Primarily because I didn’t know what else she would enjoy at HVFF. She’s not allowed to watch Arrow. She’s only seen a few clips, but Lauren loves Felicity Smoak. Hand to God this is how she described the show to a friend.

Friend: What’s Arrow? 

(The friend overhead my husband and I discussing my blog)

Lauren: It’s about Felicity Smoak. She is super smart and loves computers like I do. She fights crime.

Friend: Okaaaay. But... who is Arrow?

Lauren: (completely blasé) Oh. He’s just Felicity’s boyfriend.

I mean.... she’s not entirely wrong. She also possibly summed up 95% of the fandom’s view of the show, so I give her points for that. But... Emily Bett Rickards wasn’t going to be there. So, I was unsure of her level of excitement over Stephen.

Turns out she was pretty excited to meet him. 

Well, she was excited to dress up as Felicity, spend time with Mommy, shop and swim at the hotel pool, but Stephen was absolutely on the list. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how much of the convention she would enjoy. Turns out she LOVED all of it. 

She shrieked when she saw Chewy and BB8. The force is strong with this child.

I fully support her superhero choices.

Honestly, it was just fun to share my little Arrow world with her. I already blogged about her autograph with Stephen, but here are a few more details. She was nervous and wanted very much to ask him a question, but didn’t know what to ask. So I gave her the question, “Will we have to wait all season for Olicity to get married?” Thanks @callistawolf for the suggestion. Man didn’t even blink. Folded immediately with, “No I don’t think so.” WEDDING CONFIRMED. THANK YOU MY ANGEL. Stephen is powerless against little Felicity Smoaks.

After the autograph, apparently Lauren felt like she had a rapport with Stephen. (Wink wink) Lauren floored me when she said she wanted to ask Stephen a question at the panel. Thought it all up by herself. Marched on up to the mic. I promise you she does not get this confidence from me. This is all her father.

Round three was the photos. Lauren said she had another question for Stephen. I explained that every time she had a question for Stephen, Mommy had to fork over a bunch of cash, so she was all done. Undeterred Lauren remembered she still had a photo with him and decided she could ask him there. She wanted to have a chat with Steve I think. Maybe over milk and cookies. I very quickly downplayed the interaction and explained he has a lot of people to get through and the photo goes very quickly. There won’t be any time for questions. 

She waited very patiently for her photo and, yes the line was moving fast. I could tell she was getting nervous again. When it was her turn, Stephen smiled at her and I said, “There he is. Go ahead.” I knew Lauren’s plan was to just stand next to him, but Stephen smiled at her again and said, “Yeah... no. Let’s try...” and he scooped her up. Lauren was airborne and completely shocked. My girl is tall but very thin for a 10 year old, so the man basically palmed her like a basketball. LOL To say she was thrilled would be an understatement. 

He set her down and I whispered thank you as she scurried back to me. And Stephen gave me a very sweet wink.

This was our convo after...

Lauren: HE PICKED ME UP MOMMY! I was NOT expecting that.

Me: I know. I saw. Pretty awesome!

Lauren: I was going to ask him on a scale of 1 to 100 how strong is he?

Me: I think he answered your question.

Lauren nodded speechless.

Me: I’d say as strong as Daddy. 99?

Lauren: (giddy) YES!

My daughter can be very introspective at times and the conversation we had on the airplane on the ride home struck a chord with me.

Lauren: Do you think Stephen gets tired of doing conventions?

Me: Well... I think he’s making a lot of money and people tell him he’s amazing all day. As jobs go, I don’t think it’s  a terribly tough one, but he does have to travel a lot and that can be hard.

Lauren: (very quietly) He probably doesn’t get to see his little girl very much.

(Stephen told a sweet story about Mavi at the panel. I was truly surprised Lauren brought her up.)

Me: That’s true. He lives in a different city when he films the show. Then he travels to conventions. Sometimes she comes with, but you are right. Stephen spends a lot of time away. Although I’m sure he sees Mavi every chance he gets.

Lauren: How old is his daughter?

Me: She’s little. I think she’s in preschool. 

Lauren was quiet again and I could tell what she was thinking.

Me: It’s nice that your Daddy is home every night isn’t it?

Lauren: Yeah.

Me: Fame has its perks, but there are negatives. Daddy isn’t famous, but I think you got the better end of the deal, don’t you?

Lauren: Yes.

Bonus points to my husband for remembering that Ming Na voiced Mulan as we scanned the guest list after Melissa canceled. Well played Dad. 

Of course, Ming Na is gorgeous and wonderful with kids. Lauren named off most of the characters in the movie and wanted to know if Ming Na had stuffed animals of them. (Stuffed animals rank high with her still). Answer: Yes, she does in her office. Lauren was quite pleased Ming Na was Disney Princess-ing properly. She had bracelets and candy for the kids too, so her parenting game was strong too.

Of course, meeting fandom friends is always a highlight of conventions. It’s always so funny when we introduce ourselves. Obviously, we start with our real names, but it’s only when we say our screen names that the light bulbs go off. 

I was able to meet @scu11y22, @jedichick04, @laurabelle2930, @ireland1733, @redpensandgreenarrows, @emmilynestill, @quant-um-fizzx, its_mjayy and Brittany_Ellis . (Sorry if I forgot anyone!!!) Y’all were as nice as can be. So sweet to both me and my daughter. Thanks for chatting Arrow with me, listening to me ramble (Yes, I do the same thing in person as I do in the reviews. I am deeply obsessed) and sharing your convention and real life stories with me!!! So happy to met you all.

We spent the weekend with my amazing friend @hotcookinmama. She is my life saving editor and beta for all my fics and Nashville tour guide extraordinaire. Angela picked us up from the airport, drove us around town and gave us a fantastic tour of Nashville. She found great restaurants for us to eat at. Absolute gem of a host. She is also one of the sweetest and most genuine people I’ve ever met. Our girls were fast friends and had a wonderful time playing together. #Perfectweekend

Two of my favorite convention moments were with Angela and both involved David Ramsey. I had a VIP ticket so I told Angela to tag along with me while I got my autograph with David. Typically they don’t mind how many people you have with as long as they don’t try to get an autograph at that time. I figured this would give Angela two visits with David (she would get her auto in the general admin line later). David and I chatted. He gave me that great spoiler and off we went. I started chatting about the spoiler as we walked away, but as I turned to look at her I realized she was crying. 100% FEELS OVERLOAD from meeting David Ramsey because he’s freaking David Ramsey and always wonderful. It was her first convention and I was just so happy to be part of that purely joyful moment with her. It’s so rare when we are gloriously happy as human beings and she absolutely was.

The second, of course, were the AMAZING SPOILERS David gave Angela. She essentially guessed the first six episodes of S6 because she’s a clairvoyant, kick ass fic writer. I was standing in Stephen’s empty booth, just on the other side of David’s. I was out of earshot, but enjoying watching Angela and her family interact with him. When Angela came over to me she was freaking out by what he told her. Then I was freaking out. It was AWESOME.

Regarding M*lissa’s cancellation - yes I was angry. These tickets are expensive, plus airfare, and it’s always difficult to disappoint your child. There seems to be some controversy over whether or not she was really working. Obviously, if she was working that’s understandable even though it’s frustrating. 

If she wasn’t really working well... that sucks. A LOT. 

That said, Stephen’s kindness went a long way to ease my daughter’s broken Supergirl heart and I appreciated it. I should probably let her watch Arrow now. ;) What’s most important though is the time we spent together and the memories we made on our mother/daughter trip.

[t-baba]

Domino's is no a11y?

#403 — August 7, 2019

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An Introduction to Svelte — Svelte is a frontend framework (in the same vein as React or Angular) — here’s a look at how it works, hot to get started with it, plus a few example apps.

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Making a Realistic Glass Effect with SVG

David Fitzgibbon

Bringing CSS Grid to WordPress Layouts

Andrea Gandino and Simone Maranzana

🔧 Code, Tools & Resources

Infinite Burger — Drag and resize the window and the burger will grow, thanks to the background-repeat: round property…and now I’m hungry.

Thiyagaraj T codepen

Font Style Matcher — Using a web font? This little tool helps you pick a decent fallback font to try and minimize any noticeable ‘flash of unsettled text’ during initial render.

Monica Dinculescu

Detect & Debug User-Facing Issues in Critical Endpoints & Apps with Synthetic API Tests

Datadog Synthetics sponsor

cessie: Transpile Your CSS Bundle — …to support CSS variables, calc, and future CSS for legacy browsers.

Bjarne Øverli

Photoronoi — This is a neat effect. Upload an image (or point it to an image URL) and see it turned into a Voronoi-style SVG.

Amelia Wattenberger

Hotkey: Trigger an Action on an Element When a Keyboard 'Hotkey' is Pressed — Want quick and simple keyboard shortcuts for elements on your page? Set the data-hotkey attribute and use Hotkey. GitHub built and uses it (view source on any GitHub page and look for the data-hotkey attributes).

GitHub

FileSaver.js: An HTML SaveAs() FileSaver Implementation

Eli Grey

   🗓 Upcoming Events

WebAIM: Web Accessibility Training, August 13-14 — Logan, Utah — Covers basic web accessibility principles to advanced accessibility techniques.

Front Conference, August 29-30 — Zurich, Switzerland — A two-day double-track conference for everyone involved from concept to implementation.

Web Unleashed 2019, September 13-14 — Toronto, Canada — Covers a variety of front-end topics leaving you 'informed, challenged and inspired'.

State of the Browser, September 14 — London, UK — A one-day, single-track conference with widely varying talks about the modern web.

CSSConf, September 25 — Budapest, Hungary — A community conference dedicated to the designers and developers who love CSS.

Accessibility Scotland, October 25 — Edinburgh, UK — One day of talks. Friendly, open discussion about accessibility.

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[myreadingexperience]

A week or so ago I finished “Liquid surveillance”. The conversation between Bauman and Lyon is at pace, unfolding the complicated truths of today’s surveillance. First, it’s said: it’s post-panoptical. We’re not in the age of Jeremny Bentham’s prison design anymore, the guards are away and we watch ourselves. Bauman emphasizes the fact that we do this out of a deep need of being together, and that the fear of being watched has transformed into exhilaration, a promise of never being abandoned: „the condition of being watched and seen has thereby been reclassified from a menace into a temptation”.  Quoting Josh Rose, „the internet doesn’t steal our humanity, it reflects it”, shines light on the fact that, maybe, Facebook had such a huge success because we have been in waiting for it.  In Georg Simmel’s writings, secrecy is important in shaping social interaction, because „how we relate to others depends deeply on what we know about them”. Whether Foucault would call today’s blogs and tweets confessional is at question, as Bauman says that this society has brought the private to the public in unprecedented ways. The paradox is that, while the hard end of the panoptic will generate resistance, the soft end „seems to seduce participans into a stunning conformity”. Bigo introduces the concept of „ban-opticon”, to indicate the way exclusion and profiling technologies work, through „managers of unease” (such as police) and „globalised (in)security” (through security technologies that make us feel threatened). The features of the ban-opticon are: exceptional power in liberal societies, profiling, and normalizing non-excluded groups (to a belief in free movement of goods, persons, etc.).  The DIY surveillance system expects people to „erect the walls themselves”. Because we live in a „consumer society”, we ourselves become commodities, and social media aids us to be both „promoters of commodities” and „the commodities we promote”.  In Sherry Turkle’s words, „we expect more from technology and less from each other”. For Bauman, the debate is between security and freedom, one must be sacrificed to another to find the viable solution. Morality comes to mind, as automation and remoteness allows us to be liberated from moral constraints, with the principle „we can do it, so we will do it”.  The adiaphorization of military killing is the removal „from the category of acts subject to moral evaluation”, as Gunther Anders warns there is negligibility in the effort needed to set off a cataclysm, including „globocide”. The need to cope with fear of „the other” makes citizens stockpile on alarms and insurances while endorsing extreme measures such as torture and domestic spying. „Security’s imagined future is one in which all abnormalities ... have been excluded.” 

I’ve been reading “I’m with the bears”, one or two stories each day. They’re quite depressing and scary. There’s a good introduction by Bill McKibben and then we’re on to a story about early eco-activists, very realistic, just one night unfolding, with a pointing question at the end, by T. C. Boyle. The second, Zoogoing, by Lydia Millet, is an account of a man who becomes obsessed with watching animals by himself, at their own pace, in their cages at night. “Sacred space” must be read to get it, but shortly, Kim Stanley Robinson describes a group of friends trekking up the mountains, experiencing a changing landscape. Hermie, by Nathaniel Rich, is a sad-funny story about a man talking, as an adult, to his imaginary childhood friend, a crab. Diary of an Interesting Year by Helen Simpson describes a world in which governments have fallen and the fittest survive, it’s quite violent, sad and engaging, but having read the MaddAddam trilogy by Atwood, it’s nothing new. Newromancer by Toby Litt happens in a world of control and no fun, telling the story of a few “rebels” trying to find some. The last four stories are, interestingly, my favorites. I also had some expectations of them, but they’ve been met. “The Siphoners” by David Mitchell is about an old couple living at the end of a land, in a world falling apart, with oil princes unimaginably high. It jumps from a life of before the fall, when they were anthropologists, to the now, when they’re old, vulnerable, and useless to society. This back and forth happens in “arzestula” by Wu Ming 1 too, a story that is quite poetic about a flooded world, also without internet and communications, in which a woman goes back to her home so she can go towards the future. “The tamarisk hunter” is particularly despairing, but I didn’t expect any less from Paolo Bacigalupi, from whom I read a few years ago a short story that stayed with me vividly (one about a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by mechanical humans who unexpectedly find an organic dog - interestingly, I didn’t much enjoy his novel, The wind-up girl). Anyway, it’s a world with water scarcity, insomuch that the river itself is taken by the rich and the rest cannot use it anymore. The last story, ending the book, is a short account of human history, from the past to a future of us-no-more, by Margaret Atwood.

Elena Ferrante’s “Those who live and those who stay” is so close to my heart it's a bit beyond a novel now, almost like having an old friend Elena who tells me her stories, so vividly they hurt & annoy me and I can see them happen. So whatever criticism there is to write about it, I cannot do it, I've been completely drawn in the universe.

"voglio che tu faccia meglio, e la cosa che desidero di piu, perche chi sono io se tu non sei brava, chi sono?" (says Lila to Lenu)

[hexhernandez]

The Power to Pass

He was in the hospital with his father, watching over his mother.

His mother laid in the hospital bed, hooked up to a respirator, barely holding on. A few years ago she broke her hip, and since then her health had been deteriorating. She had recently got pneumonia and had been in admitted.

Dave asked his dad to go home and feed the cat. His father left, and shortly after Mary looked at Dave, let out a tear and passed away.

Bob and I were too late. We had walked in minutes after she had passed. Dave was close to the window taking a deep breath, red faced. Unaware, I asked how his mom was, and he just let out a big breath stating “she’s gone.” Bob and I were frozen in silence. It took me a moment to understand, she was still hooked up to the respirator and I saw her chest moving.

Bob and I just tried to be present for Dave. We waited, fielding questions from the hospital staff. Waiting for Dave’s dad to come back.

Matt showed up, we told him the news... he had a flurry of questions.

Matt Ming: “What am I going to do now?”

In typical Matt fashion, he said “Mary, you stinker... Waiting for me to leave.”

When I told my mother the story, she said, “just like your grandma.”

They both chose to pass. Both with their child by their side.

It amazes me that we possibly hold that ability. To know when we’re ready. To hold on and fight for just a bit longer, to go on our terms.

It showed me how strong Mary had always been.

Mary Ming was Bob’s mom, and Mary Ming was my mom, too. She’s responsible for giving us one of our best friends, another brother.

I would always laugh, watching Matt, Mary, and Dave interact. Matt and Mary a little old school, a little old world, but always progressive and open. The phrases they used would make me laugh so hard when they would make fun of Dave. “You coo-coo head, David!”

All the parties, sleep-overs, picking us up from concerts because we were too young to be running around Chicago so late at night. She always made sure that there was something for me to eat, even though I was the biggest pain to feed. Mary let us go on our crazy adventures shaking her head at us as we ran out the front door.

Mary loved her son so much, and I know she loved Bob and me.  

                                                   Mary Ming                                     July 22, 1936 - March 5th, 2017

[mastcomm]

Beyond the D.J. in the Lobby: How Resorts Cater to the Creative Crowd

Transformational travel — or having experiences with lasting impact — seems like a reach for hotels to espouse. But the Potato Head Studios property, set to open in Seminyak, Bali, this month, aims to encourage creative renewal among both guests and locals through sustainability workshops, artistic programming and even its own architecture.

Designed by David Gianotten of OMA, the architectural firm founded by Rem Koolhaas, the resort organizes its 168 rooms in a raised structure, creating a ground-level pavilion for music and performance events and workshops on recycled design. This public aspect, Mr. Gianotten said, transforms “a hotel that is typically for hotel guests’ exclusive enjoyment, into a place for cultural encounters open to everyone living in and exploring Bali.”

The resort joins a growing list of hotels going beyond art on the walls and D.J.s in the lobbies to court the creative crowd. Both residents and travelers are being welcomed to tap their imagination through things like hands-on pottery classes, design workshops and art therapy.

“In today’s extensively digitized social network environment, actual interpersonal interaction is prized,” Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and the president of Atmosphere Research Group, said. “The classes can also help the hotel become a more active and respected part of its community.”

The art-filled 21c Museum Hotels group, which has locations in 10 American cities and plans to open in Chicago this year, has used artistic programming as a welcome mat for local residents. The 21c Museum Hotel Louisville, for example, recently partnered with the nonprofit Louisville Literary Arts agency to host a workshop in erotic writing over a series of four Sundays.

Similarly, Ace Hotels has cultivated the culturally curious with art exhibitions and concerts. Its newest location, the Ace Hotel Kyoto, opening in Japan in April, plans to hold monthly workshops in Japanese language and culture and will house a cinema devoted to Japanese cult and classic films with English subtitles.

Some resorts use creative programming as a means of cultural exploration. At Amanyangyun — an Aman resort, opened in 2018 near Shanghai, that rebuilt 13 Ming and Qing dynasty villas on site — a cultural center called Nan Shufang conjures a scholar’s studio. Here, guests can learn Chinese calligraphy and practice Chinese brush painting.

Other resorts incorporate creative classes as part of a holistic wellness approach. Opened in 2019, Blackberry Mountain, the sibling resort to Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn., houses an Art Studio offering opportunities to throw pots, build ceramics, paint, sketch, weave baskets or learn textile arts. This year, there are also periodic multiday events featuring professional artists such as the potter Keith Kreeger and the glass artist Richard Jolley.

“Part of creating the programming for the Mountain was developing opportunities for guests to explore connection, nature and wellness beyond the traditional avenues,” Mary Celeste Beall, Blackberry’s owner, wrote in an email.

The resort has fitness and yoga classes, massage therapy and many outdoor adventure activities, but the art program, she added, is designed for guests at any level of art proficiency to “reignite their imagination and shake them from their normal routine to tap into a deeper layer of creativity.”

Spas, too, are offering creative opportunities. The new Asaya Hong Kong, a destination spa in the Rosewood Hong Kong hotel, uses visual art, storytelling, movement, music and drama in its Expressive Arts Therapy as a means to emotional balance in a comprehensive program that also addresses fitness, nutrition, skin health and more.

“Research has shown that creative expression can have a powerful impact on health and well-being by reducing stress and increasing positive emotions,” wrote Simon Marxer, the director of spa and well-being for Miraval Group of destination spas, in an email.

Locations in Tucson, Ariz. and Austin, Texas, offer classes such as painting to music or learning to photograph with an instant camera.

“These classes awaken our guests’ creativity and teach them how to find beauty in the imperfect, tap into their childlike curiosity and experience mindfulness in a new and unique way,” he added.

Back in Bali, Potato Head Studios plans to house a recording studio, multifunctional gallery space and farm-to-table restaurant in a compound designed to balance community collaboration, sustainable living and vacation fun with the slogan, “Good Times, Do Good.” Its approach extends to children who will be welcomed at a sustainably built playground made of bamboo and covered in recycled flip-flops found on the island’s beaches. It will be the site of workshops designed to teach zero-waste building in hands-on fashion.

Ronald Akili, the founder and chief executive of Potato Head, which includes the new hotel, an existing hotel and a beach club, called the project a “creative village” intended to inspire travelers and community members of all ages through music events, design workshops and cultural excursions.

“We hope to be the facilitators that allow them to connect while leaving as little environmental impact on the planet as possible,” he wrote in an email.

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[biofunmy]

In 2019, We Were There: 12 Favorite Dispatches From the Earth’s 4 Corners

Being there makes all the difference. When our correspondents are on the ground — or underground or on the ice or at sea — they, and you, can get up close to the story, sometimes uncomfortably so, uncovering essential details that no phone interview could ever capture.

This means traveling to some of the world’s most far-flung and dangerous places, from an Islamic State camp in Syria, to the jungles of Thailand where armed rosewood smugglers roam, to an Afghan arena where the vicious fighting dogs pose the least of the dangers.

Living there matters, too. When our correspondents spend years as residents of the regions they cover, they discover cultural truths about a country that only slowly reveal themselves. The Germans love to go fast and, as we’ll see, to get naked. The Senegalese will never miss a workout. The Lebanese may not like each other, but they love basketball. In China, a parade can mean an eviction.

Spend enough time in a place and even humble objects and everyday animals can reveal outsize insights about a country’s mood and manners. Clay pots in Myanmar. Bagels in Montreal. A quirky ’60s convertible in Britain. A rooster in France. Snakes in Canada.

While covering India’s climatic extremes, a medical emergency intervened, and the story became not only about monsoons, but also about Indian society, the human mind and cancer.

“I was taken for dead by a mortuary crew, who toe-tagged me with the following ID: ‘Unknown Caucasian male, age 47 and a half,’” our reporter wrote. “Nothing could have cheered me up more. It was only days until my 70th birthday.”

—By Rod Nordland

As South Korea’s birthrate plummets, rural schools are emptying. To fill its classrooms, one school opened its doors to women who have for yearned for decades to learn to read and write.

“Writing letters to my children, that’s what I dreamed of the most,” said one of the students, who range in age from 56 to 80.

—By Choe Sang-Hun; photographs and video by Chang W. Lee

“Paraguay is the land of impunity,” said a notorious drug kingpin we interviewed in his prison cell.

Hours later, it was hard not to interpret those words as a blood bath foretold.

—By Ernesto Londoño

For years, a subculture of teenage hobbyhorse enthusiasts flourished under the radar. Now the craze is a national export, and a celebration of girlhood.

Asked which types of girls are drawn to hobbyhorses, Maisa Wallius, a Finnish girl training for a hobbyhorse competition, thinks for a while. “Some are sports girls,” she answered. “Some are really lonely girls. And some can be the coolest girl at school.”

—By Ellen Barry; photographs and video by Dmitry Kostyukov

The famous pasta-making women of Bari, Italy, are worried a crackdown on contraband orecchiette could threaten their way of life.

“They should help us pass this tradition down, not exterminate it,” said Nunzia Caputo as she nimbly molded some dough. “You should teach it at school. You have kids now who can speak two or three languages but can’t do this. If you give them a little ball of dough, their eyes light up.”

—By Jason Horowitz; photographs and video by Gianni Cipriano

After decades of a dictator’s rule, a wave of exuberance has rippled across Sudan’s capital as the young revel in newfound freedoms — to speak, party and find love.

“The changes were shocking at first,” said Zuhayra Mohamed, who defied her parents to join the protests. “It’s as if the regime had its arms around our necks for so long, and now there’s something so beautiful.”

—By Declan Walsh; photographs by Bryan Denton

Thirty years ago, 200 people lived in the Moldovan village of Dobrusa. But most have since left or died. After a twin killing in February, there’s only one survivor.

“When I work, I speak with the trees,” said Grisa Muntean. “With the birds, with the animals, with my tools. There is no one else to talk to.”

—By Patrick Kingsley; photographs by Laetitia Vancon

Australia’s largest city has a rare superpower: It turns urbanites into bird people, and birds into urbanites. Interacting with the huge avian population is a daily adventure and (mostly) a delight.

“There are ménages à trois,” observed a Sydney bird watcher, nodding toward some corellas. “We’re interested in their behavior.”

—By Damien Cave; photographs by David Maurice Smith

Germany’s nudist movement has survived Hitler, communism and Instagram. It has everything to do with wanting to be free, say adherents, and zero to do with sex.

“Once you’ve played Ping-Pong with someone naked, you can’t call them ‘colonel’ anymore,” said a German police officer, who once bumped into a high-ranking boss at a nudist camp.

—By Katrin Bennhold; photographs by Lena Mucha

Hong Kong’s intellectual and emotional links with the mainland, once strong, are withering, and this distance and disinterest could be the biggest threat facing Beijing.

“Young Hong Kongers want nothing to do with China,” said Liu Kin-ming, a veteran Hong Kong journalist. “They have no more interest in subverting China than they do in subverting Zimbabwe.”

—By Andrew Higgins; photographs by Lam Yik Fei

The abacus is still taught in Japanese schools, although not as intensively as it once was. But the centuries-old tool remains popular, and national tournaments attract elite competitors.

“As soon as I hear the unit like trillion or billion, I start to move my fingers,” says one of the teenage champions.

—By Motoko Rich; photographs by Chang W. Lee

A European court stopped logging in the Bialowieza Forest in Poland, one of Europe’s last remaining primeval wilderness areas, largely untouched since the last glaciers receded more than 10,000 years ago. But many still fear for its future.

“This place is so different than any forest I had ever seen,” said Prof. Rafal Kowalczyk of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

—By Marc Santora; photographs by Andrea Mantovani

Sahred From Source link Travel

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[lancecarr]

SIGGRAPH 2019 concluded with the highest attendance since 2013

Four world-premiere immersive experiences and the first-ever 55-seat venue for virtual reality storytelling in the VR Theater were some of the highlights of SIGGRAPH 2019.

The computer graphics community made it to Los Angeles, and the week-long conference also honors ‘Best of’ Industry with Premier Awards concluded with its highest attendance since 2013, boasting 18,700 global professionals in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The 46th annual SIGGRAPH has ended, the  47th annual SIGGRAPH conference will be held in Washington, D.C., 19–23 July 2020.

On the conclusion of this year’s event, SIGGRAPH 2019 Conference Chair Mikki Rose said, “SIGGRAPH 2019 was a true spectacle for our community and I could not be happier for this event to have helped creators and scientists recharge and refuel for the year ahead. This year’s presenters delivered incredible content, once again, and I saw more young folks eager to learn than I’ve seen in my 17 years volunteering. I am so proud to be part of this global community and cannot wait to see it thrive for many years to come.”

Livestreams reached new audiences

SIGGRAPH 2019 played host to the latest innovations in art, science, technology, and more from over 700 presenters throughout its five-day stay in downtown L.A., and was enjoyed by an international audience from 79 countries. Representation out of six of seven continents included participants from the United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, France, Brazil, China, and more. Not to be out done, this year’s Exhibition housed more than 180 diverse companies, each showcasing the latest in computer graphics hardware, software, and more. Select livestreamed sessions also reached an audience of nearly 20K additional viewers.

Other highlights from the conference included a fireside-chat format keynote on career and industry from Executive Vice President of Production at Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso (watch the livestream); the presentation of over 150 research papers; four world-premiere immersive experiences from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Magic Leap, Epic Games, and Parallux and NYU Future Reality Lab; a one-night-only Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater event at Microsoft Theater.

There was more, though. Events like the SIGGRAPH’s two-day Business Symposium; sneak peek Production Sessions focusing on not only film and games but prestige TV from Netflix and HBO; a Talk on foundational principles for “the metaverse” from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney; Tuesday night’s Real-Time Live! retrospective and live awards vote; the first-ever 55-seat venue for virtual reality storytelling in the VR Theater; and, a special session celebrating 40 years of the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS. Attendees also enjoyed digital art installations and the chance to create and make within the Experience Hall.

SIGGRAPH 2019 Conference Award Winners:

Art Gallery Best in Show – “RuShi” John Wong, John Wong Art

Art Papers Best in Show – “CAVE: Making Collective Virtual Narrative” Kris Layng, Ken Perlin, Corrine Brenner, and Sebastian Herscher, New York University / Courant and Parallux; and, Thomas Meduri, New York University / Courant and VRNOVO

Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater Best in Show – “Purl” by Kristen Lester, Pixar Animation Studios (United States) Best Student Project – “Stuffed” by Élise Simoulin of Supinfocom Rubika (France) Jury’s Choice – “The Stained Club” by Mélanie Lopez of Supinfocom Rubika (France) Audience Choice* – “Mayday – Final Chapter” by Muh Chen, Grass Jelly Studio (Taiwan)

Emerging Technologies Best in Show – “Matching Visual Acuity and Prescription: Towards AR for Humans” Jonghyun Kim, Michael Stengel, Ben Boudaoud, Josef Spjut, Kaan Akit, David Luebke, Rachel Albert, Trey Greer, Ward Lopes, Zander Majercik, and Peter Shirley, NVIDIA; Jui-Yi Wu, NVIDIA and National Chiao Tung University; Morgan McGuire, NVIDIA and University of Waterloo; and, Youngmo Jeong, NVIDIA and Seoul National University

Immersive (Immersive Pavilion and VR Theater) Best in Show – “Bonfire” Larry Cutler, Eric Darnell, Wei Wang, Michael Hutchinson, and Nathaniel Dirksen, Baobab Studios

Real-Time Live Best in Show and Audience Choice – “GauGAN: Semantic Image Synthesis With Spatially Adaptive Normalization” Taesung Park, University of California Berkeley; Ting-Chun Wang, Chris Hebert, Gavriil Klimov, and Ming-Yu Liu, NVIDIA; and, Jun-Yan Zhu, MIT

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[donovanenjb084]

Astrology Forecast for November 2020 - Normal Tendencies for All Solar Indications

Chinese Astrology's 9th Signal, brief-witted Monkey's Snake Year 2013-14 fortunes from Monkey-business enterprise are most promising. https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=astrology Nevertheless, warning is needed within the health and fitness and interactions fronts. Basic assistance for Monkeys throughout this era follows.

Will you be a Monkey? Your start yr, the Chinese Zodiac's Magical Monkey? Are you presently 12, 24, 36, 48, sixty, 72 (and so-on in 12-12 months increments) in between 8th February 2016 and 27th January 2017 (Monkey 12 months's conclusion)? Do partners, buddies, family members, colleagues, mothers and fathers, or youngsters tumble into this group? If The solution is 'Sure' then This is certainly for you personally!

The Monkey: Years in the MONKEY: 1908 Earth; 1920 Metal; 1932 H2o; 1944 Wooden; 1956 Hearth; 1968 Earth; 1980 Metallic; 1992 H2o; 2004 Wooden; 2016 Fire, 2028 Earth.

Popular Monkeys Involve: Gillian Anderson, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Jennifer Aniston, David Copperfield, Leonardo da Vinci, Ian Fleming, Richard Madeley, Jerry Hall, Elizabeth Taylor, Will Smith, Venus Williams, Kylie Minogue and Rod Stewart.

Personality: Monkeys thrive in City contexts because of their restless inquisitive natures. In this article clever Monkeys find extra alternatives to take advantage of and exploit within their regular resourceful, functional, and ingenious fashioned. Ever filled with excellent intentions Monkeys tend to be good organizations. Monkeys are sometimes (way too) very easily bored as well as their playful, swift-witted useful jokes can from time to time hurt the emotions of Other people. Monkeys can also be mischievous and deceptive sometimes.

Perfect Monkey Careers and Occupations Include: Singing, Engineering, Study, Cinema, Acting, Information Know-how, Accountancy, Banking, Science, Engineering, Inventory-broking, Sales, Finance, Accountancy, and Science.

Associations: In relationship conditions, Monkey compatibility is biggest with These born underneath the Signs of the Rat and Dragon and minimum with Horses or Snakes.

Fortunes on the Monkey in Snake 12 months: Profession and business luck is very good for Monkey-pursuits through Snake Yr 2013-14. 'Monkey' and 'money' should be literally synonymous because the latter 'rolls in' from these kinds of resources. However, Monkey toes needs to be planted firmly on the ground during this period, pride need to be avoided in favor of persistence and humility.

About the romance front, prospective customers are lousy and incompatibility may very well be at the heart of marriage complications. In wellbeing phrases, Monkeys could experience problems with their digestive systems and become vulnerable to accidents springing from falls.

The Monkey in Chinese Culture: The Monkey is the preferred animal in Chinese literature and China understood the reality of Humanity's evolution with the ape Many many years right before Darwin. Monkey design and style Martial Arts are centered upon the animal's common preventing moves. Shaolin Temple Monk Xuanzhang (600-664 CE) would be the Monkey King making use of this in Wu Cheng En's famed thirteenth Century Ming Dynasty novel 'The Journey West'.