The Academy Awards

The Academy Awards will be at the lime light after the new year celebrations are over. The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is among the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremonies in the world.
The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held on Thursday, May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 1927 and 1928. It was hosted by actor Douglas Fairbanks and director William C. DeMille. Most recently, the 79th Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 2006. It was hosted by day-time television talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
The 80th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, February 24, 2008, and will be hosted by Comedy Central's The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart. AMPAS, a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,830 as of 2007. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes for Oscars have been tabulated and certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 72 annual awards ceremonies.
The official name of the Oscar statuette is the Academy Award of Merit. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes each represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers and Technicians. MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Academy members, supervised the design of the award trophy by printing the design on scroll. In need of a model for his statue Gibbons was introduced by his then wife Dolores del Río to Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Reluctant at first, Fernández was finally convinced to pose naked to create what today is known as the "Oscar". Then sculptor George Stanley sculpted Gibbons' design in clay, and Alex Smith cast the statue in tin and copper and then gold-plated it over a composition of 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. Approximately 40 Oscars are made each year in Chicago, Illinois by the manufacturer, R.S. Owens. If they fail to meet strict quality control standards, the statuettes are cut in half and melted down.
The root of the name "Oscar" is contested. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another claimed origin is that of the Academy’s Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, who first saw the award in 1931 and made reference of the statuette reminding her of her Uncle Oscar. Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick’s naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'" (Levy 2003). Both Oscar and Academy Award are registered trademarks of the Academy, fiercely protected through litigation and threats thereof.
As of the 79th Academy Awards ceremony held in 2007, a total of 2,663 Oscars have been awarded. A total of 290 different actors have won an acting Oscar (including Honorary Awards and Juvenile Awards). Of these, 144 are still alive today.

Systems Theory Overview

Systems theory is one of the most influential concepts that the modern day has ever seen. Ideas from systems theory have grown with diversified areas, exemplified by the work of Béla H. Bánáthy, ecological systems with Howard T. Odum, Eugene Odum and Fritjof Capra, organizational theory and management with individuals such as Peter Senge, interdisciplinary study with areas like Human Resource Development from the work of Richard A. Swanson, and insights from educators such as Debora Hammond. As a transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary and multiperspectival domain, the area brings together principles and concepts from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, computer science, biology, and engineering as well as geography, sociology, political science, psychotherapy (within family systems therapy) and economics among others. Systems theory thus serves as a bridge for interdisciplinary dialogue between autonomous areas of study as well as within the area of systems science itself.
In this respect, with the possibility of misinterpretations, Bertalanffy believed a general theory of systems “should be an important regulative device in science,” to guard against superficial analogies that “are useless in science and harmful in their practical consequences.” Others remain closer to the direct systems concepts developed by the original theorists. For example, Ilya Prigogine, of the Center for Complex Quantum Systems at the University of Texas, Austin, has studied emergent properties, suggesting that they offer analogues for living systems. The theories of Autopoiesis of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana are a further development in this field. Important names in contemporary systems science include Russell Ackoff, Bela Banathy, Stanford Beer, Mandy Brown, Peter Checkland, Robert Flood, Fritjof Capra, Michael C. Jackson, and Werner Ulrich, among others.
With the modern foundations for a general theory of systems following the World Wars, Ervin Laszlo, in the preface for Bertalanffy's book Perspectives on General System Theory, maintains that the translation of "general system theory" from German into English has "wroth a certain amount of Havoc". The preface explains that the original concept of a general system theory was "Allgemeine Systemtheorie (or Lehre)," pointing out the fact that "Theorie" (or "Lehre") just as "Wissenschaft" (translated Scholarship), "has a much broader meaning in German than the closest English words ‘theory’ and ‘science'". With these ideas referring to an organized body of science and "any systematically presented set of concepts, whether they are empirical, axiomatic, or philosophical," "Lehre" is associated with theory and science in the etymology of general systems, but also does not translate from the German very well; "teaching" is the closest equivalent. While many of the root meanings for the idea of a “general systems theory” might have been lost in the translation and many were led to believe that the theorists had articulated nothing but a pseudoscience, systems theory became a nomenclature that early investigators used to describe the interdependence of relationships in organization by defining a new way of thinking about science and scientific paradigms.
A system from this frame of reference is composed of regularly interacting or interrelating groups of activities. For example, in noting the influence in organizational psychology as the field evolved from “an individually oriented industrial psychology to a systems and developmentally oriented organizational psychology,” it was recognized that organizations are complex social systems; reducing the parts from the whole reduces the overall effectiveness of organizations. This is at difference to conventional models that center on individuals, structures, departments and units separate in part from the whole instead of recognizing the interdependence between groups of individuals, structures and processes that enable an organization to function. Laszlo explains that the new systems view of organized complexity went "one step beyond the Newtonian view of organized simplicity" in reducing the parts from the whole, or in understanding the whole without relation to the parts. The relationship between organizations and their environments became recognized as the foremost source of complexity and interdependence. In most cases the whole has properties that cannot be known from analysis of the constituent elements in isolation. Bela H. Banathy, who argued - along with the founders of the systems society - that “the benefit of humankind” is the purpose of science, has made significant and far-reaching contributions to the area of systems theory. For the Primer Group at ISSS, Banathy defines a perspective that iterates this view:
The systems view is a world-view that is based on the discipline of SYSTEM INQUIRY; Central to systems inquiry is the concept of SYSTEM. In the most general sense, system means a configuration of parts connected and joined together by a web of relationships. The Primer group defines system as a family of relationships among the members acting as a whole. Bertalanffy defined system as "elements in standing relationship."
Similar ideas are found in learning theories that developed from the same fundamental concepts, emphasizing that understanding results from knowing concepts both in part and as a whole. In fact, Bertalanffy’s organismic psychology paralleled the learning theory of Jean Piaget (Bertalanffy 1968). Interdisciplinary perspectives are critical in breaking away from industrial age models and thinking where history is history and math is math segregated from the arts and music separate from the sciences and never the twain shall meet. The influential contemporary work of Peter Senge provides detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems grounded in conventional assumptions about learning, including the problems with fragmented knowledge and lack of holistic learning from the "machine-age thinking" that became a "model of school separated from daily life." It is in this way that systems theorists attempted to provide alternatives and an evolved ideation from orthodox theories with individuals such as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim in sociology and Frederick Winslow Taylor in scientific management, which were grounded in classical assumptions. The theorists sought holistic methods by developing systems concepts that could be integrated with different areas.
The contradiction of reductionism in conventional theory (which has as its subject a single part) is simply an example of changing assumptions. The emphasis with systems theory shifts from parts to the organization of parts, recognizing interactions of the parts are not "static" and constant but "dynamic” processes. Conventional closed systems were questioned with the development of open systems perspectives. The shift was from absolute and universal authoritative principles and knowledge to relative and general conceptual and perceptual knowledge, still in the tradition of theorists that sought to provide means in organizing human life. Meaning, the history of ideas that proceeded ere rethought not lost. Mechanistic thinking was particularly critiqued, especially the industrial-age mechanistic metaphor of the mind from interpretations of Newtonian mechanics by Enlightenment philosophers and later psychologists that laid the foundations of modern organizational theory and management by the late 19th century. Classical science had not been overthrown, but questions arose over core assumptions that historically influenced organized systems, within both social and technical sciences.

Digital Audio Player

More commonly referred to as an MP3 player, a digital audio player ("DAP") is a portable handheld electronic device that stores, organizes and plays audio files. Some DAPs are also referred as portable media players as they have image-viewing and/or video-playing support. Most DAPs are powered by rechargeable batteries, some of which are not user replaceable. Listening to music stored on DAPs is typically through earphones connected with a 3.5 mm jack. Internal speakers and docking stations are also available.
Digital audio players are generally categorized by storage media:

• Flash-based Players – These are non mechanical solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal flash memory or removable flash media called memory cards. Due to technological advancements in flash memory, these originally low-storage devices are now available commercially ranging up to 16 GB. Because they are solid state and do not have moving parts they require less battery power and may be more resilient to hazards such as dropping or fragmentation than hard disk-based players. Basic MP3 player functions are commonly integrated into USB flash drives.
• Hard drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes – Devices that read digital audio files from a hard disk drive (HDD). These players have higher capacities currently ranging up to 160 GB. At typical encoding rates, this means that thousands of songs – perhaps an entire music collection – can be stored on one player. Because of the storage capacity, devices that also display video and pictures are often hard disk drive based. Such multi-media devices are usually called portable media players (PMPs).
• MP3 CD Players – Portable CD players that can decode and play MP3 audio files stored on CDs.

Chocolate Tips

Storing chocolate in refrigerator or freezer is not a good idea, because when chocolate is brought into the room temperature condensation will form on the surface of the chocolate and affect its ability to melt smoothly. In most cases chocolate and water makes a disastrous combination. If you're melting chocolate all by itself and even a drop of water accidentally makes its way into the pot, you can possibly cause the chocolate mixture to "seize", meaning the chocolate will tighten and form an unworkable mass. If this should happen when you are melting chocolate add a few drops of vegetable oil to the chocolate which will allow it to relax enough those other ingredients can be mixed in. Chocolate chips, also known as morsels, are fine for cookie baking but don't be tempted to melt them down and utilize them in lieu of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate. When forced to melt you'll find the consistency is thick and difficult to use because it contains significantly less cocoa butter than average bar chocolates.

It stands to reason the better tasting the chocolate you elect to use the better the chocolate dessert. Be sure to choose chocolate that has a glossy, unblemished surface. Superficial imperfections such as bloom, that white dusty film, is an indication that the chocolate has been improperly stored and/or has melted and hardened once again, although it may not always affect its taste. Chocolate in fine condition will snap cleanly when you break it, poor quality chocolate on the other hand will crumble. Select chocolate that smells chocolate and appetizing and make sure the chocolate you buy is neither initially or subsequently stored in or around very aromatic foods like garlic, tea, coffee, or detergents, all which can affect its flavor. Last, try to buy chocolate you've had a chance to try first. Wondering how to judge a good chunk of chocolate? Just place a piece on your tongue and hold it in your mouth allowing it to slowly melt. If it coats your mouth with a smooth, velvety feel that's a good sign you're eating an excellent, albeit most likely, an expensive piece of chocolate. A sandy, grainy texture however should be avoided.

How To Overcome Jitters

Trust me my friend, everyone who ever performed for the first time gets the butterfly. Well to be honest even seasoned performers get the jitters at times before stepping onto the stage. Unlike bands, solo performers have the most pressure backstage, here are some of my methods to keep calm and stay focused before any show.

Go to the your room 5-10 minutes before your turn on stage. If you are a vocalist you tend to consume a lot of water just to clear the throat. This is understandable, but too much fluid in the system is not a good idea if you are about to go on stage. Just be sure that you consumed just enough water to smoothen the vocal chords.

Once you're in front of the mike, take 5-10 seconds to take a look at the crowd. Now the purpose of doing this is to warm up the crowd, and to ease yourself and the crowd into your first song or the first poem that you’re going to recite.

Take a step at a time. Perform at a smaller gigs first, preferably at open mikes, since the settings of an open mike gig is more intimate, and the crowd is more laid back and forgiving and gradually to a larger crowd, for this will build your confidence when you confront with a hard to impress audiences.

Be sure to rehearse because, practice makes perfect. Naturally when you are too nervous, you tend to blank out, as a result you will forget your lyrics, you can't recall your verses or your words muffled. But if you practice, the show will go on smoothly, even there's a tinged of nervousness in your body movement.

Don't forget to have fun; whenever you are in your elements the performance will be a second nature to you. Nervousness comes from uncertainty. To you the performer is a matter of uncertainty of whether you will win the crowd over or not, but if you're worrying too much then you will take the pleasure out of your performance, so don't stress yourself, just take a deep breath and just let loose and have yourself a blast.

Stress Free Apartment Moving Tips

Some times moving small capacity can also be very stressful. Depending on where you are moving, the issues are different – from house hunting in another state to moving to an apartment, each move brings with it its own set of challenges. For those who are moving into any of the Chicago apartments, there are a number of specifics that must be addressed. Chances are only if you plan carefully and are organized in the steps leading up to the move, the stress come move-in day can be kept to a minimum. But where to begin might be your big question.

First and foremost thing when you are moving into an apartment, there are number of contractual elements that must be addressed before. The signing of the lease legally binds you to the apartment. It makes the most sense to have the lease reviewed by a lawyer. While most leases use standard language, they are not all the same. In order to protect yourself and have the most comfortable living arrangement that you can, it is very important that you study all the details of your lease. For a small fee and a little bit of time you can save yourself plenty of headaches.

Once if your lease has been reviewed you can begin the planning for your move-in date. Moving to an apartment may require that you downsize some of your belongings to allow for a smaller space. Doing the work now, however, improves the stress of moving too much stuff into too small of a space. Choose those items that are absolutely coming with you and pack them ahead of time. Separate the remaining items into categories including those you will sell, those you will donate, and those you will put in storage.

The same strategy works well for furniture when it comes to moving to an apartment. Take careful measurements of your apartment so you are absolutely clear on what will fit and where. It’s a waste of money and time to move a piece of furniture that will not fit in your new home so be prepared to make some difficult decisions ahead of time. Do your homework early and remain committed to stay controlled and see every thing going on-track.