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Margaret Mullett
Panagiotis Agapitos is Professor of Byzantine literature and culture at the University of Cyprus. In addition to being a highly respected Byzantinist and philologist, he is also a best-selling novelist. Dumbarton Oaks was pleased to welcome Professor Agapitos as a Visiting Scholar in Byzantine Studies in April of 2012. The following is an interview conducted by Margaret Mullett, Director of Byzantine Studies.
Panagioti, it has been great having you here this month. Can you tell us a little about the project you've been working on and what has been special about doing the work in DO?
Well, it has been a great stay and I have very much enjoyed the company of the fellows, a really young group, but also it has been great to spend time with colleagues, and old and new friends. I have been working on a little book on histories of Byzantine literature on the way to writing one myself. I've also been looking at periodization of Byzantine literature: it sounds rather precious but it is in fact a useful methodological tool. I have been exploring the attitudes to Byzantine literature of one of the founders of our field, Karl Krumbacher (1856–1909) who wrote a Handbook to Byzantine Literature 120 years ago. I discovered that the DO library was amazingly helpful: I wasn't expecting it to have almost all the old material, but it does, including an offprint of 1895 which allowed me to reevaluate Krumbacher and his developing views. For example, we always think of him as believing that Byzantine literature started in the fourth century with the emperor Constantine, as the second edition (1897) of his Handbook does—but in fact in his first edition (1891) he thought that Byzantine literature should start in the seventh century with arguments very similar to the ones used today to mark the end of Late Antiquity, but he was forced to start in the sixth century where the classical volume in the series ended. I've also discovered that Krumbacher in 1905 proposed how Byzantine literature should look, in a chapter within a popularizing book with no footnotes, but in his most mature synthetic moment.
It is surprising, isn't it, that Krumbacher's vision is more attractive to us than that of many who followed him?
Yes, indeed. I've also been looking at Franz Dölger (1891–1968), who we wouldn't automatically think of as a student of Byzantine literature, largely because we think of him more as a student of Byzantine diplomatics, but his PhD research after the First World War was on Theodore Meliteneiotes' poem Eis ten sophrosynen [On Chastity]. He never integrated his interest in literature with his social and economic concerns--he never developed a theory of Byzantine literature as a socio-cultural product of its time: rather he saw it as a field where endless imitation, variation and repetition went on, and only in vernacular literature was there anything original. This is a very different view from ours today, but also from Krumbacher's. Dölger's approach reflected an ideology close to that of Nazi Germany in which texts that failed to conform to his hieratic model, perfectly organized in a ceremonial system, were regarded as dissidents to a perfect regime. His views were hugely influential in that he wrote the overview of Byzantine literature for the Cambridge Medieval History IV.ii (published in 1967), and also provided the foundation for the Greek philology curriculum during the junta through a student of his who acted as consultant to the regime. Even now Greek university education reflects a tripartite division into 1. Introduction to Byzantine philology, 2. Byzantine poetry, 3. Byzantine prose—and this is exactly the structure of Dölger's chapter in Cambridge Medieval History IV.ii.
Here at DO when we think of histories of Byzantine literature we think of Alexander Kazhdan, who grew up in a very different political system…
Yes, but he made the leap from his early work as an economic historian to look at Byzantium as having a literature like any other literature, and he reacted strongly against Dölger's overschematic and rigid categorization. He suddenly began in the very late 1960s to work on literary texts with his first article on Niketas Eugenianos, and in subsequent essays and finally in the two volumes of his History of Byzantine Literature he tried to liberate the texts, their authors, and their social setting from Dölger's categories. He was one of the first scholars really to think of Byzantine literature as a literature in its own right, not a tissue of classical quotations and evidence for lost tragedies, or the means of transferring ancient Greece to the Renaissance, or a powerful influence on Slavonic literature or a stage in the transfer of the folk tale from east to west and west to east.
His was the way of the future, surely?
Yes, indeed. The way we looked at the field twenty-five years ago has moved it dramatically away from Dölger, and a younger generation has done fantastic work and established firm theoretical foundations. You might think that postmodernism has crushed any idea of history of literature, but in fact this has not proved a problem for Byzantine literature, given that it never had a history of its own to start with.
Another issue of course is the training of students capable of reading this literature, and this is an area where you have been able to make a wonderful contribution in Cyprus.
We started there by building our own syllabus, not by adopting the Greek system, and we created a more modern program of study: students take six courses in Byzantine literature over three historical periods (early, middle, and late), which gives them the opportunity to read a large number of texts and this creates confidence in them for understanding the texts.
You've talked by implication about your Munich training, and now explicitly about your four-person department and its exciting activities, but not about your training at Harvard.
Well, Harvard was very important to me, a real transformation from my German-speaking education in Athens and Munich, a chance to put it into perspective. And from the cradle of Byzantine studies (and modern Greek studies) I was now involved in a department where there were other Hellenists and specialists in Vergil and Seneca and comparative languages like Sanskrit and Old Norse. And the exposure to the methods of classical philology opened up a dawning awareness that Byzantine philology demands different methods. Finally, for the first time I was exposed to the theory of literature through scholars in comparative literature, which led me to change my dissertation topic from metrics and Byzantine music to narratology. I was fortunate to be there while Ihor Ševčenko was in his prime, and also to have been at Harvard when Margaret Alexiou, famous for her classical training and for her father George Thomson, arrived in January 1986. I took her first course on death in Byzantine literature and was astonished to hear an intelligent educated scholar freely interpreting Byzantine texts as literature. Meg finally took over the supervision of my dissertation.
This might have been seen as a defection from Byzantium, since she was Professor of Modern Greek literature, and the vernacular literature of the late medieval period is disputed ground. Was it?
Well Meg was not that kind of Neohellenist: she wanted to see those texts both in a Byzantine context and from the viewpoint of modern Greek literature, but she never tried to capture them for modern Greek. She believed in the 'continuity' of Greek literature where others were anxious to push the origins of modern Greek literature as far back as possible. This arose from the early nineteenth-century concern for nation states and national literatures and a desire to find an equivalent to Old French and Mittelhochdeutsch: without that equivalent modern Greek literature appeared to be impoverished. What these scholars didn't immediately realize was that vernacular literature was not "popular" but high-level aristocratic poetry, produced under the very highest patronage, steeped in the most sophisticated of rhetoric. A Neohellenist will look at the twelfth century and see only the so-called epic of Digenis Akritis and the vernacular experiments (Ptochoprodromos, Glykas, Spaneas); a Byzantinist will see these texts in the context of everything that was written in the period. Literature like art is an open space, not a territory marked out by fortresses. And this is true at the other end of our subject—the relationship of classics or Late Antiquity with Byzantine studies is just as fraught with battles for territorial control.
You said that Byzantine philology demands different methods: how does this work through in the editing of texts?
Traditionally Byzantine texts have been made to look like ancient Greek texts; they have datives and infinitives and were edited as ancient Greek with fully normalized spelling, accentuation, and punctuation according to the German school or the French school. Byzantinists have the advantage over classicists in that we have manuscripts written in the time of the authors, which means that we can reflect contemporary practice in our editing, not the unchanging mimesis of older philologists. We no longer think that manuscripts of vernacular texts are full of scribal errors which need to be corrected (normalized) by the editor: we know now that a scribe with a nice professional hand would copy two texts, one learned with "good," educated spelling, the other vernacular spelled chaotically. The chaos reflects the experimental state of a language and literature which was written without being taught in school. We need to see how the text is structured, how it can be understood, how it uses language before we can decide whether or not to "correct" it. We can learn a great deal from architects restoring monuments: our ideas of preservation now are very different from those of the nineteenth century.
Panagioti, as well as a highly respected Byzantinist and philologist you are also a best-selling novelist. How does each activity feed into the other?
I originally thought it was straightforward. Why shouldn't a Byzantinist set a murder mystery in Byzantium? For forty years now Ellis Peters has enabled Cadfael to solve medieval mysteries, not to speak of Umberto Eco and William of Baskerville. But I admit I was wrong. It is neither unlaborious nor simple. The process of writing narrative in three dimensions drives us beyond scholarship. Ninth-century shoes may not have come down to us, but we need to represent shoes in the narrative. So I decided to take the process seriously, to be self-conscious about it, to control my own laboratory. So I ask where are the limits, and instead of creating a Philip Marlowe in Constantinople or a body in a library, I ask instead what did the Byzantines perceive as crimes in society, and I go to the legal handbooks of the ninth century to find out. This has the result of allowing me to portray a whole society not just one individual crime. This has taught me not to assume that everything happened in Constantinople: Byzantium was an empire of many cities and languages and also frontiers, and my hero experiences all this diversity. It has also helped me see that when we look at Byzantium we cannot rely on a single specialism: literary scholars must know history and art and architecture, and it is very clear that that is the way Byzantine Studies is practiced here at DO with a great concern for interdisciplinarity, and an openness to surrounding fields. Something else I gained is that writing narrative has given me a broader perspective on the history of Byzantine literature: the author is not down on the plain or on the beach but he climbs a mountain, and the distant view from the height offers clarity. And crime fiction offers its own delights of postmodernity. Intertextuality is to be expected; authors are now competing to complete Conan Doyle, or to offer Oscar Wilde as a detective; readers love that sort of game because they knowingly participate in it. Texts exist because other texts exist, and this is no surprise to the learned reader of Byzantine literary texts where mimesis creates a metalanguage which will drive dynamic response, nor is it a surprise to the avid listener to saints' lives in monastery, church or home expecting the topoi of a narrative genre and rejoicing on finding them. All kinds of narrative constantly recur; all literature is always true. Texts are not individual masterpieces but part of a linguistic system of production and use. We should forget the concept of a masterpiece, which in the classical world has been so much promoted by processes of selection, edition, education and loss; we should concentrate on the whole of what we have and begin to understand and appreciate the processes of production and reception in Byzantium.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Tony Bennett, the beloved and durable interpreter of American standards whose chart-topping career spans seven decades, has been honored with this year's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
The Library of Congress announced the award Tuesday. The lifetime achievement award named for the duo of George and Ira Gershwin was created by Congress to honor singers and songwriters who entertain, inform and inspire. Past recipients include Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder.
Bennett, 90, gained his first pop success in the early 1950s with a string of singles for Columbia Records, including "Because of You" and "Rags to Riches." His 24 Top 40 hits included his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (1962), which won two Grammy awards.
Bennett enjoyed a career revival in the 1990s and became popular with younger audiences in part because of an appearance on "MTV Unplugged." He continued recording and touring constantly, and in 2014, his collaboration with Lady Gaga, "Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek," debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
"His staying power is a testament to the enduring appeal of the Great American Songbook the Gershwins helped write, and his ability to collaborate with new generations of music icons has been a gift to music lovers of all ages," Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement.
Bennett recalled that one of his earliest recordings was "Fascinating Rhythm," a song by the Gershwins.
"To be receiving an award named in their honor is one of the greatest thrills of my career, and I am deeply appreciative to the Library of Congress to be named this year's recipient," Bennett said in a statement.
U.S. & World
Born Anthony Thomas Benedetto in Queens, New York, in 1926, Bennett served in World War II, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp. He marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to support civil rights and has performed for 11 U.S. presidents.
He is also an accomplished painter whose work has been exhibited at galleries around the world.
Bennett is scheduled to accept the award in Washington in November.


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In his series "tautochronos", German artist Michel Lamoller takes multiple photographs of the same place at different times, then prints and layers them, physically carving them into one image, sculpting two-dimensional space into three-dimensions. By then photographing the transformed image Lamoller returns the work to two-dimensions, playing with space and volume, echoing the compression of time and place in his work. The deconstructed figures in the resulting photographs are a visual reminder that people are always changing and never fully revealed.
People often speak of ghosts, and that's what these photographs bring to mind—the pieces left behind when time passes and things change. It's almost archeological, the parts covered, the parts revealed. The remains remain, an artifact of time passed.
The photos that are mainly figural express the changes in an individual over time. Clothed, naked. Smiling, serious. Button-down, t-shirt. They are a literal portrait of days.
The images that integrate a figure into the environment are more evocative. In one image, a woman seems to be decomposing, dissolving into grass and trees. Another figure blends into a brick building, almost indecipherable. One person's body seems to be fossilizing as cobblestones stretch up his legs like moss. A book-lined wall is interrupted by fragmented pieces of a man's face. Are the pieces so small because the impact of the person in the space was so inconsequential?
The word tautochronos is made of two Greek parts: tauto from the combining form meaning same, chronos meaning time. In combining different moments in the same place Lamoller has stopped time.
The Carved Photographs Of Michel Lamoller Reveal What Lies Beneath appeared first on Beautiful/Decay Artist & Design.


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We hope by explaining different video formats that you are able to better understand the type of format that would work best for your podcast. There are many video file formats available for distributing media across the Internet. The "MP4" format is the most commonly used in the industry. The format is supported by most portable media players, Internet-connected TVs and software based media players.
Below is a list of the most common video formats with a brief description and note on usage:
MP4 is currently the most widely supported video format playable by most portable audio players, Internet-connected TVs, and software based media players.
MP4 is a video format based on Apple's QuickTime video format and is essentially identical to the Apple QuickTimeMOV format, with additional features. MP4 video format most commonly contains AAC encoded audio and H.264 encoded video.
File extensions: .mp4
M4V (Apple's iTunes implementation of MP4)
M4V is a non-standard file extension of the MP4 (MPEG-4) format (see above) popularized by Apple's iPod, iPhone and the iTunes Store.
M4V is essentially identical to the MP4 except it has additional capabilities added by Apple. Since the file extension of .m4v was popularized by iTunes, the media opens in the iTunes application rather than by the default media player. The consumer of the media will typically be presented a "Save As" dialog if the iTunes application is not installed on the computer. The M4V format also allows for the inclusion of Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM).
Note: Even though the .m4v and .mp4 file extensions are essentially interchangeable, we do not recommend using the .m4v file extension due to the unpredictable behavior with how the media will play on the consumer's computer.
File extensions: .m4v
FLV (Flash video)
FLV is a format used to deliver video across the Internet using Adobe Flash Player embedded in hardware devices and Web browsers. It is commonly paired with a HTML embed using a Flash Player (Flash Players use the .swf file extension). YouTube has one of the most popular HTML embed codes that use FLV formatted video with their own custom Flash player.
Note: Flash video is typically used to complement a podcast and is typically only used on websites. The FLV format is not recommended for syndication through a podcast feed.
File extensions: .flv, .f4v
Ogg (Theora)
Ogg Theora, not to be confused with the Ogg Vorbis audio format, is a (royalty-free) video format maintained by Xiph.Org Foundation. Even though the media file contains both Theora video-based on VP3 and Vorbis Audio, we simply refer to it as Ogg Theora to eliminate confusion.
Ogg Theora is not a widely popular format and is unable to be played by most portable media players and Internet connected TVs.
The Ogg Theora format is unrestricted by software patents. As a result, the format is very popular among open source software developers and is commonly used in gaming applications.
The Ogg Theora format is embraced by the open source and Linux community. If you are creating content for this community, it is highly recommended that you distribute versions of your media in the Ogg format, in addition to MP4.
File extensions: .ogv, .ogx
Note: Since 2007, the Xiph.Org Foundation recommends that .ogg file extension only be used for audio only Ogg Vorbis media.
WMV (Microsoft Video Media)
The WMV is a proprietary video format developed by Microsoft. The WMV format can support Digital Rights Management (DRM). The WMV format is most commonly found in Microsoft products and select portable media players.
File extensions: .wmv
WebM (Google Sponsored Media Format)
WebM is an (royalty-free) video format maintained by Webm.org and sponsored by Google. The video media file contains VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis audio. It is very similar, but not identical, to Ogg Theora video.
WebM format is unrestricted by software patents. All users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license.
The format was announced in 2010 and has already gained wide acceptance as a video format for future versions of Google Chrome, Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9 and Safari Web browsers, as well as Adobe Flash, WinAmp, Miro media players and the open source FFMpeg video editing tool.
File extensions: .webm
3GP and 3G2 (Mobile H.263)
3GP and 3G2 are video formats typically found on portable media devices such as Android, Blackberry and other smartphones. The video media file contains either Mpeg-4 part 2, H.263 or a variation of H.264. Playback of such a format on a desktop computer typically requires additional updates or software for playback.
3GP and 3G2 media files are not typically used for Internet media distribution. This format is usually converted to one of the other formats above for the maximum device distribution.
File extensions: .3gp, .3g2
Other common formats not supported for podcasting
There are many more video formats, including MPEG (.mpg/.mpeg) and MOV (.mov), which are not used for podcasting. These formats are considered "raw", meaning they contain the original recording and are not compressed or optimized for the Web in any way. In most all cases, a raw recording converted to a Web-friendly version is 10-50 times smaller in size, making the Web-friendly version the ideal choice for both bandwidth and speed of delivery.


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|Syntactic Confectionery Delight
comment on
|( #3333=superdoc: print w/replies, xml )
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It is for that reason that I think everyone should spend a while writing in assembly language. I spent some time doing graphics demo coding for fun, and it has given me a deep insight into the inner workings. Of course, you're not going to do much work in assembler, but you get a fine feel for efficiency.
Even though you're miles above that level when writing Perl, it gives you a sense for what approaches generally are efficient, so even when you're not trying to squeeze cycles out of your code (and most of the time you shouldn't, you should be coding for maintainability), you are instinctively economical. It simply sharpens one's senses.
Makeshifts last the longest.
In reply to Re^2: Do your homework!
by Aristotle


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Oopsie. About a million liters of radioactive acid sludge accidentally poured out of a tank at the Ranger uranium mine in northern Australia. As if the spill itself weren't bad enough, the mine is also located in the Kakadu National Park, where most of Crocodile Dundee was filmed. That place is a national treasure.
Luckily, this catastrophic-sounding event might be resolved without too much destruction. The people who run the mine say they can clean up the mess easily and there's been "no impact to the environment," because the spill was confined to the mine. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen, as the radioactive acid sludge is strong enough to damage the local ecosystem if it makes it into the nearby water supply. Again, this would be bad since this mine is sitting smack dab in the middle of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
What's a toxic uranium mine doing in the middle of a national park full of indigenous Australians and elegant wildlife, you might ask? The Green Party in Australia has no idea and has been trying to get the mine closed for years. However, the mine owners argue that the giant vat of radioactive sludge they've dug in the middle of the wilderness isn't technically part of the Kakadu National Park. Nevermind the fact that an estimated 100,000 liters of contaminated water leak from the mine into the ground on a daily basis, according to a 2009 government report, and that spills like this most recent one actually happen pretty often.
Yet the mine owners maintain it's all safe: it's just a radioactive uranium mine prone to leaks and spills in the middle of a national park. What could go wrong? [New Scientist]


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I greet you, dear users. Bought a smartphone eSTAR Beauty HD Quad Core, want to get root rights and extend the functionality of the device? Guideroot wil help you.
What is the root on Android 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 pie, 8 Oreo, 7.0, 6, 5
root it is a super administrator . They can significantly speed up the operation of the device, effectively adjust the energy saving and much more. Read more about it read here.
Tutorial how to root eSTAR Beauty HD Quad Core
The administration is not responsible for your actions! On the website Guideroot no paid programs and "left" instructions, if any. The following information is tested on the model eSTAR Beauty HD Quad Core.
- You will need download the application Baiduroot APK, we have Russian version. Below are screenshots of how it looks.
- Copy the application on the device and install, accepting the agreement on the use
- Click "to get root"
- Wait for the end of the process and alerting
- Make checks smartphone root
How rodirovanie second
If you for some reason could not use the first method, try the second.
- Download program Eroot
- Please install and run Eroot
- Pick up the device and included in the Android settings USB debugging on
- Plug apparatus via a microUSB to your computer (make sure that the battery was 50% and above)
- Wait until the program will detect the connected device
- All the necessary drivers, the program will find itself.
The program usually Eroot nothing shakes , and in front of us just a window with a button root, you need to click and wait
Find and to buy case, headphones or other accessories for this device, you here.


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The Media Squat is freeform, bottom-up, open source radio looking towards similarly open source, bottom-up solutions to some of the problems engendered by our relentlessly top-down society.
Each show will initiate a series of discussions, which will themselves comprise part of an expanding wiki of resources, support material, and community-generated content.
This isn't pure '60s or Whole Earth radicalism and self-sufficiency (though it's certainly related) but a 21st Century, cyberpunk reclamation of all technologies and social contracts as essentially open source, up for discussion, and open to modification. It's an application of the hacker ethic and net collectivism to everything, done in the spirit of fun and adventure.
Ongoing forums with host, guests, and listeners take place at http://www.mediasquat.net.
RSS feeds for The Media Squat with Douglas Rushkoff: Playlists feed | MP3 archives feed| E-mail Douglas Rushkoff | Other WFMU Playlists | All artists played by The Media Squat with Douglas Rushkoff |


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William James Kirkpatrick
Born: February 27, 1838, Duncannon, Pennsylvania.
Died: September 20, 1921, Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Buried: Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Pseudonym: Annie F. Bourne.
Son of a school teacher and musician, Kirkpatrick grew up in a musical atmosphere. In 1854, he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to study music and learn a trade; he spent over three years as a carpenter. But he was more interested in music than mechanics, devoting all his leisure time to its study. His ambition at the time was to become a violinist.
In 1855, Kirkpatrick joined the Wharton Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, and from then on devoted himself mostly to sacred music, giving his services to the choir and Sunday school. As there were few church organs in that day, his violin and cello were in constant demand for choir rehearsals, singing societies, and church programs. During this time he wrote a number of unpublished hymn tunes and anthems.
Kirkpatrick studied vocal music under Professor T. Bishop, then a leading oratorio and ballad singer. He became a member of the Harmonia and Handel and Haydn Sacred Music Societies, where he heard the greatest singers of the day and became familiar with the principal choral works of the great composers. Kirkpatrick's first published composition was When the Spark of Life Is Waning, which appeared around 1858 in the Musical Pioneer in New York. He went on to publish about 50 hymn collections.
Source: The Cyber Hymnal


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NEW YORK: Bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a bank investor conference in New York, Dimon said, "The currency isn't going to work. You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart."
Jamie Dimon said that if any JPMorgan traders were trading the crypto-currency, "I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous."
Dimon's comments come as the bitcoin, a virtual currency not backed by any government, has more than quadrupled in value since December to more than $4,100.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables individuals to transfer value to each other and pay for goods and services bypassing banks and the mainstream financial system.
While banks have largely steered clear of bitcoin since it emerged following the financial crisis, the virtual currency has a range of people who support it, including technology enthusiasts, liberterians skeptical of government monetary policy and speculators attracted by its price swings.
"Like it or not, people want exposure to bitcoin," Edward Tilly, chairman and CEO of exchange group CBOE Holdings, said at the same conference.
CBOE has applied with US regulators to launch a bitcoin futures contract and a bitcoin exchange traded fund on its venues.
Any good trade is started with a difference of opinion, Tilly added. "So Jamie can be on the short side and the issuers and those trading in physical can be on the long side, and it sounds like we have a great trade."
Dimon may also be on the other side of another bitcoin trade closer to home.
At another conference about two hours later, Dimon said that one of his daughters had bought some bitcoin.
"It went up and she thinks she's a genius now," Dimon said at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha Conference.
Banks and other financial institutions have been concerned over bitcoin's early association with online crime and money laundering.
The supply of bitcoin is meant to be limited to 21 million, but there are clones of the virtual currency in circulation that have made the market for it more volatile.
"It is worse than tulips bulbs," Dimon said, referring to a famous market bubble from the 1600s.
JPMorgan and many of its competitors, however, have invested millions of dollars in blockchain, the technology that tracks bitcoin transactions. Blockchain is a shared ledger of transactions maintained by a network of computers on the Internet.
Dimon said such uses will roll out over coming years as it is adapted to different business lines.
Financial institutions are hoping blockchain can be adapted to simplify and lower the costs of processes such as securities settlement, loan trading and international money transfers.
Dimon predicted big losses for bitcoin buyers. "Don't ask me to short it. It could be at $20,000 before this happens, but it will eventually blow up." he said.
"Honestly, I am just shocked that anyone can't see it for what it is."
Bitcoin's price fell as much as 4 percent following Dimon's comments and was last trading at $4,164. Rumors that the Chinese government is planning to ban trading of virtual currencies on domestic exchanges has weighed on bitcoin recently.
"It feels like we are in the midst of a negative news cycle, but even considering all this, we are still trading above $4,000." said John Spallanzani, chief macro strategist at GFI Group.
Bitcoin 'is a fraud', says JPMorgan chief executive
Bitcoin 'is a fraud', says JPMorgan chief executive
NEW YORK: Bitcoin "is a fraud" and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, said on Tuesday.


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Misses 8-22
This treasure chest of lingerie styles from the 1920s and 1930s includes a camisole, tap pants, bias teddy, and slip. Depending on fabric choice, they can be made for under-garment pleasure or sassy summer outerwear. Pattern includes instructions for lace appliqué, filet crochet lace, and decorative ribbon flowers.
Suggested fabrics: Lightweight, soft fabrics of silk, cotton, rayon, synthetics, or blends such as crepe, challis, batiste, voile, or satin.


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Vancouver (Vintage 3 Layer)Regular price $ 18.00CAD Sale price $ 9.00CAD Save $ 9.00CAD
Our vintage 3-layer style face mask. Made from 100% polyester fabric, it is reusable and machine washable with a floating inner layer to help minimize droplet transmission.
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Made with 100% polyester twill, lined with soft bamboo cotton, for a breathable and lightweight feel.
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Free Expedited Shipping for orders over $150.
$5 Flat Rate Shipping for all Reusable Face Mask and T-shirt Orders (No Tracking)
Free In-Store pick up option available.


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From Openmoko
Literki is a full qwerty keyboard with configurable layout, always transparent, therefore applications don't need to redraw screens and popup is therefore very fast. With literki comes the touchpad. With it use can use the bottom of the touchscreen to move a cursor around. You can then use left and right click with it. There are also four scroll buttons, which are useful if your application has very small scroll bars. Opkg page
opkg install http://extremic.com/~miki150/literki_0.0.2-r6_armv4t.ipk
Source code
To pop up the keyboard: slide your finger upwards from the bottom right corner. To hide the keyboard: slide your finger down on the keyboard.
By doing the same in the bottom left corner, you open the touchpad.
Please have a look at /etc/literki.conf. Things you can change there include colors, window sizes and vibration options.
If you want to have literki always started at system boot and thus don't want to waste space for an icon on the desktop, you can place a script in /etc/X11/Xsession.d:
#!/bin/sh # /etc/X11/Xsession.d/82literki # use this for log messages # /usr/bin/literki >>/var/log/literki.log 2>&1 & # normal operation /usr/bin/literki >/dev/null 2>&1 &


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Bhalukpong Travel Pictures
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Shut up and listen day 4
It's the day before final presentations and looking around, its interesting to see how every project has developed since the first day. From traditional to experimental, everyone has something interesting going on. The formats are facinating also -- two dimensional to three. All kinds of crazy things!
-Dennis (the guy with the cable)
3 comments so far: read comments , please do comment


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Werner Speer, Head of Acquisition Department
"...very good handling combines with excellent traction."
"Continental Tires are developed exactly for our mixed-application needs. The new HSC1 convinced us with good handling combined with excellent traction."
"Our company's focus is reclaiming land back off of the former uranium mine deposits in Eastern Germany. Here you will find extremely varying conditions: from sharp-edged stone tracks with heavy clay, up to muddy tracks covered with mining and construction waste. For this reason our fleet requires strong tires that can master this demanding and harsh environment."
Francisco Arques Salaet, Driver
"...precise handling and an excellent on-road performance."
"With 40 years of experience I know what makes a good construction tire. The new Continental HSC1 with precise handling and an excellent on-road performance, is such a tire.
My present job is to transport grit to other building sites, so I am on the move with my vehicle not only off- but also a lot on-road. That is why I need construction tires which are also reliable on the motorway. The new HSC1 tire provides me with the necessary safety and a good overall driving experience that I can truly rely on."
Giuseppe Mattina, Driver
"...very good traction and high durability."
"Climbing the narrow, stony roads, I really have to rely on my tires. With very good traction and high durability, the new Continental construction tires turned out to be an excellent choice for my needs.
We climb those narrow roads several times a day arriving at the top and loading big marble blocks. Then we have to come back. There is no possibility to do a u-turn so we have to go back engaging the reverse gear. Under these conditions it is essential to have tires like HSC1 and HDC1 which offer very good handling and superb robustness against damage."


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Nov 22, 2012
Holiday shopping marathon starts as consumer sentiment shaky
Nov 22, 2012
Forget that Turkey trot. Thanksgiving is now the start of the annual holiday shopping endurance race, as more stores open on Thursday's national holiday to seek a bigger share of spending that is expected to grow slowly this season.
Target Corp has joined Wal-Mart and Gap Inc in being open at least part of the day, and some retailers will be open throughout the day, a trend that began to take hold in 2011.
Traditionally, retailers enticed shoppers with "doorbuster" deals early Friday morning. Then they shifted to midnight following Thanksgiving.
Now Walmart's U.S. discount stores, which will already be open during the day, will offer some "Black Friday" deals at 8 p.m. and special deals on some electronics at 10 p.m. Target has moved its opening from midnight to 9 p.m. on Thursday and Toys R Us is opening at 8 p.m.
Other retailers, like J.C. Penney Co Inc are holding out and will not open until Friday morning, so shoppers trying to get all the deals will need a lot of stamina.
"The retailers are taking what was a very plannable sport that was four or five hours where you can get things done and turned it into a marathon," Trutina Financial Chief Investment Officer Patty Edwards said. "I think the retailers have diluted the sport."
The stakes are high for U.S. retailers, which can earn more than a third of their annual sales in the holiday season. Investors hope holiday sales will help retail stocks cap a strong year. The Standard & Poor's retail index is up almost 27 percent this year, compared with a 10.6 percent increase for the broader S&P 500.
The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, forecast a 4.1 percent increase in retail sales during the November-December holiday period this year, down from the 5.6 percent increase seen in 2011.
Consumers heading into the holiday shopping season remain worried about high unemployment and possible tax increases and government spending cuts in 2013.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, two-thirds of shoppers said they were planning to spend the same amount as last year or were unsure about spending plans, while 21 percent plan to spend less and 11 percent plan to spend more.
On Wednesday, The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on consumer sentiment fell from its initial reading earlier in the month.
One element in favor of retailers this year is the calendar, as there are two more days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than last year and Christmas falls on a Tuesday instead of a Sunday, giving shoppers an extra full weekend before Christmas.
Lazard Capital Markets analyst Jennifer Davis estimated the additional two days will benefit December comparable sales by 3 percent to 4 percent.
But "the extra weekend before Christmas this year will likely amplify the post Black Friday lull and result in even more back-end loaded sales," she said in a note to clients.
Cooler weather could boost apparel sales from last year, when unseasonably warm weather left many stores stuck with winter clothes they had to sell at drastic discounts.
But analysts and economists also said superstorm Sandy, which lashed the densely populated East Coast in late October, could cut into how much shoppers can spend on the holidays.
While the holiday season is important for all retailers, two will be under especially close watch this year - J.C. Penney and Best Buy Co Inc.
J.C. Penney is in the middle of a radical transformation under CEO Ron Johnson, who is trying to turn 700 of the retailer's stores into collections of boutiques by 2015.
But while some of the new shops in its stores have been performing well, overall the retailer has turned customers off with its plan to eliminate coupons and most sales. Friday will be the company's only sales event of the year.
"I think eventually it will work. It is going to be a lot of pain until it works," Edwards said.
At Best Buy, new chief executive Hubert Joly is trying to devise a plan to stem falling sales and stave off cutthroat competition from the likes of Walmart and Amazon.com. At the same time, the company's largest shareholder and founder, Richard Schulze, is trying to put together a bid to take Best Buy private.
"They haven't been very price savvy, haven't really known how out of whack they've been or if they've known, they haven't really responded to it," Liz Ebert Director, Advisory at KPMG, LLP, said.
© Thomson Reuters 2023 All rights reserved.


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Associated Press//January 21, 2013
//January 21, 2013
DALLAS — Southwest Airlines has added a $40 pay-at-the-gate option for travelers with cheaper tickets who want to be among the first to group to board.
Dallas-based Southwest doesn't offer assigned seats and the carrier Monday announced the latest option for coveted group "A" boarding. The boarding slots for cheaper tickets are assigned based on when a person checks in for the flight.
Business select fares cost the most but are refundable and include priority boarding. Other passengers can pay extra to reserve a boarding spot right behind elite fliers.
The latest plan offers passengers the chance to buy one of the earliest boarding positions for $40 per flight. The offer begins 45 minutes before the flight departs. Passengers will hear an announcement at the gate if the slots are available.-


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Human Rights Watch, Tanya Lokshina / AP
Published Tuesday, July 16, 2013 | 7:51 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, July 16, 2013 | 10:06 a.m.
MOSCOW (AP) — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Tuesday submitted a request for temporary asylum in Russia, his lawyer said, claiming he faces persecution from the U.S. government and could face torture or death.
WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling site that has been advising Snowden, and Russia's Federal Migration Service both confirmed the application request. The service is required by law to consider the application within three months, but could do it faster.
Snowden, who revealed details of a U.S. intelligence program to monitor Internet activity, argued in his application that the reason he needs asylum is "he faces persecution by the U.S. government and he fears for his life and safety, fears that he could be subjected to torture and capital punishment," lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said on Rossiya 24 television.
Kucherena told The Associated Press that he met the former NSA systems analyst in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport to give him legal advice and that Snowden made the request after the meeting.
Snowden has been stuck there since he arrived on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23. He's had offers of asylum from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but because his U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of reaching whichever country he chooses are complicated.
He said Friday at an airport meeting with Russian rights activists and public figures, including Kucherena, that he would seek at least temporary refuge in Russia until he could fly to one of the Latin American nations that have offered him asylum.
The temporary asylum would allow Snowden to freely travel and work in Russia, Kucherena said. He chose to apply for temporary asylum and not political asylum because the latter takes longer to consider.
Kucherena added that Snowden said he had no immediate plans to leave Russia. According to Russian law, temporary asylum is provided for a period of one year and could be extended each year.
Snowden's stay in Russia has strained already chilly relations between Moscow and Washington. Granting him asylum would further aggravate tensions with the U.S. less than two months before Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama are to meet in Moscow and again at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.
Putin on Monday described Snowden's arrival as an unwelcome present foisted on Russia by the U.S. He said that Snowden flew to Moscow intending only to transit to another country, but that the U.S. intimidated other countries into refusing to accept him, effectively blocking the fugitive from flying further.
Snowden previously had sought Russian asylum, which Putin said would be granted only if he agreed not to leak more information. Snowden then withdrew the bid, the Kremlin said.
During Friday's meeting in the transit zone, Snowden argued that he hadn't hurt U.S. interests in the past and has no intention of doing that. Putin did not say Monday if that would be sufficient grounds for asylum.
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to the Interfax news agency, that while Snowden voiced his agreement with Putin's condition, he has made "no confirmation of that in writing."
Putin noted that Snowden apparently did not want to stay in Russia permanently. Asked where the former NSA systems analyst could go, Putin responded: "How would I know? It's his life, his fate."
Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia's presidential Human Rights Council, said Tuesday that Snowden should be granted temporary asylum until the U.N. refugee agency could ensure his transit to a country that has offered him permanent asylum. It was not clear what the likelihood of that was.
Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.


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We Have Swine Flu to Look Forward To
Right this very minute, trillions of deadly Mexican Pig Flu microbes are just cold chillin' in nooks and crannies somewhere, waiting for the fall flu season, when they will emerge and strike nearly 100,000 Americans dead. Say scientists!
Here is what the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology officially consider a "possibility," this fall:
- 20%-40% of the US population develops swine flu.
- Two million Americans hospitalized.
- 300,000 in intensive care.
- 90,000 dead, from swine flu.
Or it could be not that bad!
[Pic: Getty]


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National Mario Day is observed each year on March 10th and honors Mario from the popular Nintendo game.
It is celebrated on March 10th because of the way the date appears, when abbreviated (Mar.10), it looks just like the name Mario.
. 1832 ~ Muzio Clementi died. He was an Italian-born English composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. He is also the subject of this month's Piano Explorer, which is enjoyed by my students.
. 1844 ~ Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist
. 1879 ~ Ignaz Moscheles died. He was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso
. 1892 ~ Arthur Honegger, French composer
Read quotes by and about Honegger
More information about Honegger
1903 ~ "Bix" Beiderbecke, American jazz cornetist
More information about Beiderbecke
. 1935 ~ Nelson Eddy recorded Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life for Victor Records. The song came from the film, "Naughty Marietta". Later, Eddy recorded the classic tune with Jeanette MacDonald.
. 1937 ~ An audience of 21,000 jitterbuggers jammed the Paramount Theatre in New York City to see a young clarinetist whom they would crown, 'King of Swing' on this night. The popular musician was Benny Goodman.
. 1940 ~ W2XBS-TV in New York City originated the first televised opera as members of the Metropolitan Opera Company presented scenes from "I Pagliacci".
. 1956 ~ Julie Andrews was 23 years old this night when she made her TV debut. She appeared with Bing Crosby and Nancy Olson in the musical adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's play, "High Tor".
. 2003 ~ Lionel Dakers, who directed the Royal School of Church Music for 16 years, died at age 79. Dakers was a stickler for high musical standards and opposed some of the modernizing trends in English church music. Dakers was organist at Ripon Cathedral from 1954 to 1957, then moved to Exeter Cathedral before his appointment as director of the Royal School of Church Music in 1972. In 1976, he was appointed a director of Hymns Ancient & Modern, publisher of some of the most widely used Anglican hymnals.
. 2016 ~ Keith Emerson died. He was an English keyboardist and composer.


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Dr. Weeks' Comment: I bet, dear reader, that your level of Vitamin D is dangerously low. I also bet that your doctor won' think to test your level ("25-OH D3" is the test). Again, if the solution isn't a profitable (patentable) drug, then the idea doesn't get taught to doctors by the omnipresent drug reps. Your level of Vitamin D3, really a hormone, is worth checking. Your heart is at stake.
(Many thanks to Arch for sending this to my attention!
"vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher rates of death among all people.."
Study links vitamin D, race and cardiac deaths January 5, 2010 Vitamin D deficiency may contribute to a higher number of heart and stroke-related deaths among black Americans compared to whites, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study.
The journal Annals of Family Medicine is publishing the study in the January-February edition, which goes online Jan. 11, 2010.
Researchers sought to understand the well-documented disparity between blacks and whites in cardiovascular deaths. They turned to vitamin D because growing evidence links low serum levels of D to many serious illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, kidney and heart disease.
Lead author Kevin Fiscella, M.D., said a complex host of genetic and lifestyle factors among blacks may explain why this population group has lower vitamin D levels across the lifespan than other races.
People get vitamin D through their diets, sun exposure, and oral supplements. Genetic factors common to blacks sometimes preclude vitamin D absorption, such as a higher incidence of lactose intolerance, which can eliminate vitamin-D fortified milk from the diet, and darker skin pigment that significantly reduces vitamin D synthesis.
"Therefore, our study suggests that the next step would be to intervene to boost vitamin D levels safely, with supplements," said Fiscella, a national expert on disparities in health care and a professor of Family Medicine and Community and Preventive Medicine at URMC.
With funding through The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, Fiscella and colleagues studied a sample of more than 15,000 American adults. The data included measurements of blood levels of vitamin D and death rates due to cardiovascular disease. Researchers also looked at other factors that contribute to heart health, such as body mass index, smoking status and levels of C-reactive protein.
Overall, the analysis showed that, as expected, a vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher rates of death among all people in the sample. In fact, those adults with the worst deficiency had a 40 percent higher risk of death from cardiac illness. This suggests that vitamin D may be a modifiable, independent risk factor for heart disease, Fiscella said.
Most striking, however, was that when researchers adjusted the statistics to look at race, blacks had a 38 percent higher risk of death than whites. As vitamin D levels rose, however, the risk of death was reduced. The same was true when researchers analyzed the effect of poverty on cardiovascular death rates among blacks, which suggests that vitamin D deficiency and poverty each exert separate risk factors, the study said.
A review article published in September 2009 in The American Journal of Medicine, noted that Vitamin D deficiency is a worldwide health problem. In the U.S., inadequate Vitamin D has been reported in about 36 percent of otherwise healthy young adults and about 57 percent of general medicine hospitalized patients.
Vitamin D is metabolized in the liver and converted to 25 hydroxyvitamin D or 25(OH) D, the form used to determine a person's status through a blood test. Deficiency is usually defined by levels of less than 20 nanograms per milliliter; 30 ng/ml is viewed as sufficient. The mean blood level in the study sample was 29.5 ng/ml.
Most of the body's tissues and cells have vitamin D receptors, making it a potent regulator of cell activity and growth. A deficiency contributes to inflammation associated with heart disease, many cancers and poor bone health.
Fiscella cautions, however, that not all observational studies of vitamin deficiency are borne out by subsequent clinical trials. For example, previous observational studies of vitamin E and beta-carotene that were associated with poor heart health did not hold up in later clinical studies. The need to further assess the vitamin D connection to heart disease is convincing, however, particularly among blacks, he added.
Other at-risk people include the obese and the elderly, (particularly housebound or nursing home residents), because vitamin D levels decline with age. And although more sun exposure can boost levels of D, skin cancer is also an increasing risk to many people. Therefore, medical authorities usually recommend increased dietary intake and/or supplementation as the best way to correct a deficiency.


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Dear Mexican: I live in La Habra, Calif., and I've noticed that the local Mexicans have a real affinity for palm trees—the more, the better. Some houses have more than 50 planted in a 10-by-20 front yard—so many that you can't see the house. What's up with this? Is this some kind of Mexican status symbol?
The Crazy Gringa
Dear Loca Gabacha: It's a reminder of—take your pick—Palm Sunday, a Mexican's home state, the beach, the beauty of nature, the eternal Mexican propensity to turn anything into a business, and the fact that it's better to buy better weapons and no longer rely on fronds for your shivs.
My boss, a gringo, questioned me on the choice of words I used in an ad that I wrote in a local grocery-retailer magazine. The article informed the reader that my company is now supplying a product that many of the customers who shop at their stores had grown up on. I stated, "We can now expand our product offerings to your Mexican customers." My boss took exception to this statement and thought it might be offensive to Mexicans. I hope that it was not in anyway offensive to our neighbors to the south and those living here in the United States.
Was my boss being overly sensitive or did I indeed use the wrong choice of words?
A Proud American
Dear: Gabacho: Both. Your jefe must be clueless about the billions of spending dollars controlled by Mexican consumers in the United States, a market that'll be loyal to a brand for life, for even the most nominal of nods—witness the Mexican affinity for gabacho beer companies because of their sponsorship of soccer teams and Vicente Fernández tours.
And your sentence, to quote The Elements of Style, is una pinche porquería. You should've written "We know Mexis. Give us more mucho dinero, pendejos."
Attracting the Mexican dollar isn't something hard; hard is trying to imagine Mexico winning the FIFA World Cup at some point in this millennium.
How can I explain to a Mexican to pay the printed price without hurting feelings?
Let's Not Make a Deal
Dear Gabacho: You can't—haggling is as ingrained into the Mexican psyche as hating the United States. And it ain't just Mexis who won't accept the printed price—read the memoirs of the children of immigrants over the, oh, last 150 years in this country.
Cry me a río about making people pay the value of the product. You bought your merchandise at a reduced, wholesale price gracias to your business license, which allows you to mark up that price and make a profit. The producer, in turn, marked the price up for you so they could make a profit. That gabachos still insist on paying an arbitrary price for something despite it being inflated to nearly twice its actual value is the biggest question that the Mexican has about gabachos after the allure of Friends.
During the Iraq invasion, a Mexican guy at work said that every extended Mexican family has one person who looks just like Saddam Hussein. Are you the Saddam in your family?
Gin Rummy
Dear Gabacho: No, I'm the Saladin.
Ask the Mexican at email@example.com; be his fan on Facebook; follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano; or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!


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|Genres Hip hop
Also known as Common Badu
Height 1.84 m
|Name Lonnie Lynn Jr
Years active 1992–present
|Born March 13, 1972 (age 51) (1972-03-13)
Origin Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Role Hip-hop artist · thinkcommon.com
Birth name Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.
Occupation(s) Rapper, actor, poet
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. (born March 13, 1972), better known by his stage name Common (formerly Common Sense), is an American hip hop recording artist, actor, poet and film producer from Chicago, Illinois. Common debuted in 1992 with the album Can I Borrow a Dollar? and maintained a significant underground following into the late 1990s, after which he gained notable mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians. In 2011, Common launched Think Common Entertainment, his own record label imprint, and, in the past, has released music under various other labels such as Relativity, Geffen and GOOD Music, among others.
- Common biography life and career of the rapper and actor
- Early life
- 19921996 Career beginnings
- 19961999 One Day Itll All Make Sense
- 19992003 Soulquarians era
- 20042011 GOOD Music era
- The DreamerThe Believer and feud with Drake
- Artium Recordings and Nobodys Smiling
- Acting
- Film production
- Modeling and clothing
- Writing
- Activism
- Personal life
- Discography
- Awards and nominations
- References
Common's first major-label album, Like Water for Chocolate, received widespread critical acclaim and tremendous commercial success. His first Grammy Award was in 2003, winning Best R&B Song for "Love of My Life", with Erykah Badu. Its popularity was matched by May 2005's Be, which was nominated for Best Rap Album, at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Common was awarded his second Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, for "Southside" (featuring Kanye West), from his July 2007 album Finding Forever. His best-of album, Thisisme Then: The Best of Common, was released on November 27, 2007.
Common won the 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and the 2015 Academy Award for Best Original Song, for his song "Glory" from the 2014 film Selma, in which he co-starred as Civil Rights Movement leader James Bevel. Common's acting career also includes starring significant roles in the films Smokin' Aces, Street Kings, American Gangster, Wanted, Terminator Salvation, Date Night, Just Wright, Happy Feet Two, New Year's Eve, Run All Night, Being Charlie, and John Wick: Chapter 2. He also narrated the award-winning documentary Bouncing Cats, about one man's efforts to improve the lives of children in Uganda through hip-hop/b-boy culture. He starred as Elam Ferguson on the AMC western television series Hell on Wheels.
Common biography life and career of the rapper and actor
Early life
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr, better known as Common, was born March 13, 1972 at Chicago Osteopathic Hospital in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was raised in the Calumet Heights neighborhood. He is the son of educator Dr. Mahalia Ann Hines and former ABA basketball player turned youth counselor Lonnie Lynn. They divorced when he was six years old, resulting in his father's moving to Denver, Colorado. This left Common to be raised by his mother, but his father remained active in his life and landed Lonnie Jr. a job with the Chicago Bulls during his teens. While a student at Luther High School South in Chicago, Lynn with his friends, record producer and Corey Crawley formed C.D.R. a rap trio that opened for acts that included N.W.A and Big Daddy Kane.
Common attended Florida A&M University for two years under a scholarship and majored in business administration. After being featured in the Unsigned Hype column of The Source magazine, Lynn debuted in 1992 with the single "Take It EZ", followed by the album Can I Borrow a Dollar?, under stage name Common Sense.
1992–1996: Career beginnings
With the 1994 release of Resurrection, Common achieved a much larger degree of critical acclaim, which extended beyond Chicago natives. The album sold relatively well and received a strong positive reaction among alternative and underground hip hop fans at the time. Resurrection was Common's last album produced almost entirely by his long-time production partner, No I.D., who would later become a mentor to a young Kanye West.
In 1996, Common appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, America Is Dying Slowly, alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Fat Joe, among many other prominent hip hop artists. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as "a masterpiece" by The Source magazine. He would later also contribute to the Red Hot Organization's Fela Kuti tribute album, Red Hot and Riot in 2002. He collaborated with Djelimady Tounkara on a remake of Kuti's track, "Years of Tears and Sorrow".
The song "I Used to Love H.E.R." from Resurrection ignited a feud with West Coast rap group Westside Connection. The lyrics of the song criticized the path hip hop music was taking and was interpreted by some as directing blame towards the popularity of West Coast Gangsta rap. Westside Connection first responded with the 1995 song "Westside Slaughterhouse," with the lyrics "Used to love H.E.R. mad cause I fucked her". Westside Connection recorded tracks venting their issues with rival East Coast rappers (see East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry). "Westside Slaughterhouse" also mentioned Common by name, prompting the rapper to respond with the scathing Pete Rock-produced attack song "The Bitch in Yoo". Common and Westside Connection continued to insult each other back and forth before finally meeting with Louis Farrakhan and setting aside their dispute. Following the popularity of Resurrection, Common Sense was sued by an Orange County-based reggae band with the same name, and was forced to shorten his moniker to simply Common.
1996–1999: One Day It'll All Make Sense
Initially scheduled for an October 1996 release, Common finally released his third album, One Day It'll All Make Sense, in September 1997. The album took a total of two years to complete and included collaborations with artists such as Lauryn Hill, De La Soul, Q-Tip, Canibus, Black Thought, Chantay Savage, and Questlove – a future fellow member of the Soulquarians outfit. The album, which made a point of eschewing any gangsterism (in response to questions about his musical integrity), was critically acclaimed and led to a major label contract with MCA Records. In addition to releasing One Day, Common's first child, daughter Omoye Assata Lynn, was born shortly after the release of the album.
As documented by hip hop journalist Raquel Cepeda, in the liner notes for the album, this event had a profound spiritual and mental effect on Common and enabled him to grow musically while becoming more responsible as an artist. She writes:Rashid found out that he was going to become a daddy in about 8 months. Stunned and confused, Rashid had life altering decisions to make with his girlfriend, Kim Jones. The situation led to the composition of his favourite cut on One Day... that offers a male slant on abortion. "Retrospect for Life", produced by James Poyser and No I.D. featuring Lauryn Hill (who was due on the same day as Rashid's girlfriend), is the song that is the driving force behind the project. Rashid listens to "Retrospect for Life" today at the mastering session geeked, as if it were for the first time. He tells me as we listen to L-Boogie wail the chorus, "when I listen to the song now, I think about how precious her (Omoye's) life is".
Common addresses family ethics several times on One Day..., and the album sleeve is decorated with old family photos, illustrating the rapper's childhood, as well a quote from 1 Corinthians 13:11, which summarizes the path to manhood:
1999–2003: Soulquarians era
Following One Day..., Common signed a major label record deal with MCA Records and relocated from Chicago to New York City in 1999. He began recording almost exclusively with a loose collective of musicians and artists (dubbed the "Soulquarians" by central figure Questlove) throughout 1999, and made a few sporadic guest appearances on The Roots' Things Fall Apart, and the Rawkus Records compilation, Soundbombing 2.
In 2000, his fourth album, Like Water for Chocolate, was released to mass critical acclaim. Executive produced by Questlove and featuring significant contributions by J Dilla, (who helmed many tracks except – "Cold Blooded", "Geto Heaven Part II", "A Song For Assata", "Pop's Rap Part 3...All My Children" & the DJ Premier-produced track "The 6th Sense"), Like Water for Chocolate transpired to be a considerable commercial breakthrough for Common, earning the rapper his first gold record, and greatly expanding his fanbase among critics and listeners alike.
With both artists hailing from the Great Lakes region of the United States (Chicago and Detroit, respectively), Common and J Dilla established their chemistry early on. Both became members of the Soulquarians collective, and collaborated on numerous projects together, even placing one song, "Thelonius", on both the Slum Village album Fantastic, Vol. 2, and Common's Like Water for Chocolate. As Dilla's health began to decline from the effects of Lupus Nephritis, he relocated to Los Angeles, and asked Common to make the move with him as a roommate (Dilla would later lose his battle with the rare disease).
This album saw Common exploring themes (musically and lyrically), which were uncommon for a hip hop record, as he does on the song "Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela)"; a homage to Nigerian music legend, and political activist Fela Kuti. The most popular single from the album "The Light" was nominated for a Grammy Award.
In 2002, Common released his fifth album, Electric Circus. The album was highly anticipated and praised by many critics for its ambitious vision. However, it was not as commercially successful as his previous album, Like Water for Chocolate, selling under 300,000 copies. An eclectic album, Electric Circus featured fusions of several genres such as hip hop, pop, rock, electronic, and neo soul. The album's style tended to divide critics; some praised its ambitious vision while others criticized it for the same reason. Most of the criticism tended to revolve around the album's experimental nature; some felt Common had strayed too far from his previous sound. This was Common's second and last album for MCA, and the label's final release prior to its absorption into Geffen Records.
2004–2011: GOOD Music era
In early 2004, Common made an appearance on fellow Chicagoan Kanye West's multi-platinum debut album, The College Dropout (on the song "Get Em High"), and announced his signing to West's then-newfound label GOOD Music. West had been a longtime fan of Common and the two even participated in a friendly on-air MC battle, where West took jabs at his lyrical idol for "going soft" and wearing crochet pants (as he does for his appearance in the video for the Mary J. Blige song "Dance for Me"). The pair worked together on Common's next album, Be, almost entirely produced by Kanye West, with some help from Common's longtime collaborator the late James Yancey (J Dilla) – also a favorite of West. The album was released in May 2005, and performed very well, boosted by Kanye's involvement and the singles "The Corner", and "Go". Be earned Common the second gold record of his career, with sales topping out at around 800,000 copies. The Source magazine gave it a near perfect 4.5 mic rating, XXL magazine gave it their highest rating of "XXL", and AllHipHop gave the album 4 stars. The album was also nominated for four Grammy Awards in 2006.
Following the release of Be in 2005, several mixed-race artists from the UK hip-hop scene took exception to Common's comments about interracial relationships on the song "Real People." Yungun, Doc Brown and Rising Son recorded a track over an instrumental version of "The Corner" named "Dear Common (The Corner Dub)." Common states that he has heard of the track but never actually taken the time to listen to it, and has not retaliated in song.
Common's seventh LP titled Finding Forever was released on July 31, 2007. For this album, he continued his work with Kanye West, as well as other producers such as will.i.am, Devo Springsteen, Derrick Hodge, and Karriem Riggins, as well as the only J Dilla-produced track, "So Far To Go". The album features guest spots from artists such as Dwele, Bilal, D'Angelo, and UK pop starlet Lily Allen. The first single from the album was "The People" b/w "The Game". West predicted that Finding Forever would win the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. The album was nominated for Best Rap Album, but did not win, losing to West's Graduation; however, Common did win his second Grammy for "Southside," which won the 2008 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by Duo or Group. On July 31, 2007, Common performed a free concert in Santa Monica, California on the 3rd Street Promenade to promote the release of Finding Forever. Common explained to the audience that the title "Finding Forever" represented his quest to find an eternal place in hip-hop and also his wishes to be an artist for the rest of his life. The album debuted at #1 on the national Billboard 200 charts.
In an August 2007 interview with XXL, rapper Q-Tip of the group A Tribe Called Quest stated that he and Common were forming a group called The Standard. While the two were meant to hit the studio to record a Q-Tip-produced album, possibly with contributions from Kanye West, Common put out Universal Mind Control instead and has already planned a next album, The Dreamer, The Believer, for late 2011.
Common was instrumental in bridging the trans-Atlantic gap by signing UK's Mr Wong and J2K to Kanye West's Getting Out Our Dreams recording outfit. Common met the pair during his tour in the UK earlier on in the year. It is speculated that the deal is not only to bring the UK and US hip hop genres together but that to rival Syco Music's cross-Atlantic success with Leona Lewis. He also has a deal with Zune mp3 players. In 2008 Common made an estimated 12 million dollars, making him equal in earnings to Eminem and Akon, tied for the 13th highest grossing Hip-Hop artist.
The eighth album from Chicago hip-hop artist Common was originally scheduled to be released on June 24, 2008 under the name Invincible Summer, but he announced at a Temple University concert that he would change it to Universal Mind Control. The release date was pushed back to September 30, 2008 due to Common filming Wanted. The release date was set for November 11, 2008, however it was once again pushed back to December 9, 2008.
The album's eponymous lead single "Universal Mind Control", was officially released on July 1, 2008, via the US iTunes Store as part of The Announcement EP (sold as Universal Mind Control EP in the UK). The song features Pharrell, who also produced the track. The Announcement EP included an additional track titled "Announcement", also featuring Pharrell. The video for the lead single was filmed in September by director Hype Williams. In 2009, Common was prominently featured throughout his GOOD Music label-mate Kid Cudi's debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day, as a narrator and featured artist. In late 2009, it was revealed Common was nominated for two Grammys at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Make Her Say", alongside Kid Cudi and Kanye West, as well as Best Rap Album for Universal Mind Control.
The Dreamer/The Believer and feud with Drake
American producer No I.D., stated that he and Kanye West would be producing Common's album The Dreamer/The Believer. In July 2011, it was announced that No I.D. would be the album's sole producer. Common made an appearance on The Jonas Brothers' most recent album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times as a guest rapper for the group's new song, "Don't Charge Me for the Crime."
On July 6, 2011, Common released his first single, titled "Ghetto Dreams", from his next album. A second single,"Blue Sky", was released on October 4, 2011. On December 20, 2011, Common released his ninth solo album titled The Dreamer, The Believer. Although he left GOOD Music in 2011, Common was featured on the label's first compilation album, 2012's Cruel Summer. Common released a song entitled "Sweet", from The Dreamer/The Believer, which included lyrics critical of rappers who sing, although this criticism was not aimed specifically at Canadian recording artist Drake. Drake took offense and responded by releasing "Stay Schemin'", a song with Rick Ross and French Montana. Common fans only had to wait two-and-a-half days for him to respond to Drake's diss track. On February 13, 2012, Common commented on the feud by saying "It's over. But it was all in the art of hip hop. He said some things to me so I had to say some things back...I wouldn't say [he started it] but I know I heard something that I felt was directed to me so I addressed it. That's all. But you know, thank God we were able to move forward from it and all is good."
Artium Recordings and Nobody's Smiling
After a quiet 2012, Common announced he would release an extended play (EP) in January 2013, and his first mixtape in April. In February 2013, Common announced his tenth solo studio album would be released in September 2013 and will feature Kanye West and production from Kanye West and No I.D.. Later on September 8, 2013, he gave an update to his projects saying the previously announced EP would be released soon, and would feature a song with new Def Jam signee Vince Staples. He also told HipHopDX, his tenth solo studio album would be released in early 2014.
On January 6, 2014, Common announced his tenth studio album to be titled Nobody Smiling and would be produced entirely by longtime collaborator No I.D.. The album, which Common revealed was originally going to be an EP, is set to feature Vince Staples, James Fauntleroy and "some new artists from Chicago." The concept of the album was inspired by his troubled hometown of Chicago: "We came up with this concept 'nobody's smiling.' It was really a thought that came about because of all the violence in Chicago," he says. "It happens in Chicago, but it's happening around the world in many ways." He continues, "We was talking about the conditions of what's happening, when I say 'nobody's smiling.' But it's really a call to action." On June 4, 2014, it was announced Common signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings and No I.D.'s Artium Records. It was also announced Nobody's Smiling would be released July 22, 2014.
Lonnie "Pops" Lynn was to be featured on this album as well but the recording fell through as Lonnie's health declined. A recording was indeed made and is in process of being released on Dirty Laboratory Productions featuring production by AwareNess.
In 2003, Common appeared on the American UPN sitcom Girlfriends. In the episode "Take This Poem and Call Me in the Morning", he appeared as Omar, a slam poet who competes with fellow poet Sivad (played by Saul Williams) for the affection of Lynn Searcy (played by Persia White). He also had a cameo appearance on an episode of UPN's One on One, where he played a drama class instructor named Darius. He also made an appearance on the ABC show Scrubs. In 2007, Common appeared with Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, and Alicia Keys in the crime film Smokin' Aces, making his big screen debut as villainous Mob enforcer Sir Ivy. He appeared alongside Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, The RZA and T.I. in the 2007 crime thriller American Gangster. On January 20, 2007, one week before the opening of Smokin Aces, he appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch as himself. The show's host was Piven, his Aces co-star.
In 2007, Common played the role of Smokin' Aces co-star Alicia Keys's boyfriend in the music video "Like You'll Never See Me Again".
In 2008, he starred in the film adaptation of the comic book Wanted alongside Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. Common also appeared in the movie Street Kings with Keanu Reeves, Hugh Laurie, The Game, and Forest Whitaker. Common also starred in the 2010 movie Just Wright as a basketball player who falls in love with his trainer Queen Latifah. He appeared in the 2009 film Terminator Salvation as John Connor's lieutenant Barnes.
In 2009, Common was cast as John Stewart/Green Lantern in the unproduced film Justice League: Mortal.
Common starred as a corrupt cop in the 2010 comedy Date Night with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. He was part of the ensemble cast of AMC's Hell on Wheels, as one of the lead characters, Elam Ferguson, a recently freed slave trying to find his place in the world. In the 2014 film Selma, for which he also co-wrote the Oscar-winning song "Glory", Common co-starred as 1960s civil rights leader James Bevel. In 2015, he played a hit man in Run All Night (film).
Common appeared as a gangster in the 2016 film Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer and part of the DC Extended Universe.
In December 2015, Common appeared in the NBC TV special The Wiz Live!, as the Bouncer guarding the Emerald City.
In 2016 he co-starred in the film Barbershop: The Next Cut.
In February 2017, he appeared alongside Keanu Reeves again, this time as professional hitman/bodyguard Cassian in John Wick: Chapter 2.
In August 2017, Common voiced Kiburi the crocodile in an episode of Disney Junior's The Lion Guard.
Film production
On October 27, 2015, Common inked a 2-year deal with HBO that allowed to start his own film production company, Freedom Road Productions. He stated in an interview in February 2012 that one of his big career goals was to start his own film production company.
In 2016 Common also worked with Amazon Studios and American Girl, serving as an executive producer for the direct-to-video feature An American Girl Story - Melody 1963: Love Has to Win.
Modeling and clothing
In 2006, Common was a model for photos of The Gap's fall season collection, appearing on posters in stores. Later that year, he performed in The Gap's "Holiday in Your Hood" themed Peace Love Gap. In February 2007, Common signed a deal with New Era to promote their new line of Layers fitted caps. Common also stars in a television commercial for the 2008 Lincoln Navigator. He appears in NBA 2K8 in NBA Blacktop mode. In the fall of 2008, Common appeared in an ad for Microsoft's Zune, comparing his new song, "Universal Mind Control", to "Planet Rock", a song from hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. Also, he featured in the Diesel campaign for a new fragrance called "Only The Brave". His song "Be (intro)" is featured in a commercial for BlackBerry as of January 2011.
In December 2008, Common launched a new clothing line in partnership with Microsoft titled "Softwear", based on 1980s computing.
Common was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to appear at a poetry reading on May 11, 2011 at the White House. His poetry was found to be greatly influenced by Maya Angelou's works. This caused furor with the New Jersey State Police and their union, who disagreed with his lyrical content. The president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association voiced concern to the White House. They cite the song "A Song For Assata" about a member of the Black Liberation Army and step-aunt of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur named Assata Shakur, previously known as Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted in 1977 of the first degree murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster.
At another poetry reading, Common said, "flyers say 'free Mumia' on my freezer", a reference to Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was controversially convicted of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Common stated, "The one thing that shouldn't be questioned is my support for the police officers and troops that protect us every day."
Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary at the time, spoke for President Obama on the matter by saying the president does not support, but actually opposes, some of the kind of words and lyrics that have been written by Common and others. Even though the president does not support the lyrics in question, he believed that some reports were distorting what Mr. Lynn stands for more broadly. Common gave a single line response to the entire controversy: "I guess Sarah Palin and Fox News doesn't like me."
Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show questioned Fox News' coverage of the controversy, saying that they "took the time to ignore Common's entire body of work, save for one poem he wrote in 2007 that they appear to misunderstand." Stewart also pointed out that in 2002, George W. Bush honored Johnny Cash, whose songs contain violent lyrics. Stewart further pointed out that Fox News itself offered positive coverage of Common's career in 2010, and that Sean Hannity, who criticized Common's White House invitation, is a friend of musician Ted Nugent, who in clips played on The Daily Show, used violent rhetoric in comments he made about President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Common later discussed the matter with Stewart during a September 14, 2011 appearance on the program.
In September 2011, Common published his memoir, One Day It'll All Make Sense, through Atria Books. As the book details how his close relationship with his mother influenced his life, it is partially narrated by her.
Common used to be vegan, but is now a pescetarian. In addition, he is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. He appeared in a print advertisement for PETA titled "Think Before You Eat".
Common is also part of the "Knowing Is Beautiful" movement, which supports HIV/AIDS awareness. He is featured in the video for "Yes We Can", a song in support of the candidacy of Barack Obama, which made its debut on the internet on February 2, 2008. Common has pledged to stop using anti-gay lyrics in his music.
Common is the founder of the Common Ground Foundation, a non-profit that seeks to empower underprivileged youth to be strong citizens and citizens of the world. The foundation includes programs dedicated to leadership development & empowerment, educational development, creative expression, as well as a book club. In 2014, Common Ground inaugurated the AAHH! Fest music festival in Chicago's Union Park. After a one-year hiatus, AAHH! Fest returned in 2016, but was canceled one week before showtime in 2017. An official announcement stated the fest would return September 15, 2018.
Rapper Common along with other rappers and activists appear in the award winning documentary short film #Bars4Justice which was shot in Ferguson, Missouri and produced by Nation19 Magazine.
Personal life
Common has had romantic relationships with singer Erykah Badu, actresses Kerry Washington and Taraji P. Henson, and tennis player Serena Williams, but as of July 2014 maintained that he was single.
He is a pescatarian and is both a Chicago Bulls and Chicago Bears fan.


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- Strength: 93
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iPhone SE (2020) / 8 / 7 Leather Folio Case - Black
A 'naked' iPhone still feels slippery in the hand and it's easy to scratch or drop one accidentally. Inspired by some of favorite street style looks as well as the high-fashion runways, the Futlex® Folio case has evolved beyond basic protection to become the perfect fashion accessory. The light-duty case provides reliable protection - the flip cover and curved corners protects from scratches, bumps and debris, a small magnetic clasp additionally holds iPhone in place. Handcrafted Futlex® Folio case has a classic look and luxurious feel.
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