Star (702 album)

Star is the third and final studio album from American R&B group 702, released March 25, 2003 by Motown.

The album peaked at number forty-five on the Billboard 200 chart. and is mostly remembered for its cult classic single "I Still Love You".

Release and reception

The album peaked at forty-five on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached the twenty-second spot on the R&B Albums chart.

Andy Kellman of Allmusic gave the work a rather dismissive review, stating that "it continues in the group's tradition of being able to deliver a couple of solid singles surrounded by middling to fair album tracks."

Track listing

Chart history

Album

Singles

Personnel

Information taken from Allmusic.

Asterisk

An asterisk (*; from Late Latin asteriscus, from Ancient Greek ἀστερίσκος, asteriskos, "little star") is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as star (as, for example, in the A* search algorithm or C*-algebra). In English, an asterisk is usually five-pointed in sans-serif typefaces, six-pointed in serif typefaces, and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten. It can be used as censorship. It is also used on the internet to correct one's spelling, in which case it appears after or before the corrected word.

The asterisk is derived from the need of the printers of family trees in feudal times for a symbol to indicate date of birth. The original shape was seven-armed, each arm like a teardrop shooting from the center.

In computer science, the asterisk is commonly used as a wildcard character, or to denote pointers, repetition, or multiplication.

Usage

Censorship

When toning down expletives, asterisks are often used to replace letters. For example, the word 'fuck' might become 'f*ck' or even '****'.

Star polygon

In geometry, a star polygon (not to be confused with a star-shaped polygon) is a concave polygon. Only the regular star polygons have been studied in any depth; star polygons in general appear not to have been formally defined.

Branko Grünbaum identified two primary definitions used by Kepler, one being the regular star polygons with intersecting edges that don't generate new vertices, and a second are simple isotoxal concave polygons.

The first usage is included in polygrams which includes polygons like the pentagram but also compound figures like the hexagram.

Etymology

Star polygon names combine a numeral prefix, such as penta-, with the Greek suffix -gram (in this case generating the word pentagram). The prefix is normally a Greek cardinal, but synonyms using other prefixes exist. For example, a nine-pointed polygon or enneagram is also known as a nonagram, using the ordinal nona from Latin. The -gram suffix derives from γραμμή (grammḗ) meaning a line.

Regular star polygon

A "regular star polygon" is a self-intersecting, equilateral equiangular polygon, created by connecting one vertex of a simple, regular, p-sided polygon to another, non-adjacent vertex and continuing the process until the original vertex is reached again. Alternatively for integers p and q, it can be considered as being constructed by connecting every qth point out of p points regularly spaced in a circular placement. For instance, in a regular pentagon, a five-pointed star can be obtained by drawing a line from the first to the third vertex, from the third vertex to the fifth vertex, from the fifth vertex to the second vertex, from the second vertex to the fourth vertex, and from the fourth vertex to the first vertex.

Remix (book)

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy is Lawrence Lessig's fifth book. It is available as a free download under a Creative Commons license. It details a hypothesis about the societal effect of the Internet, and how this will affect production and consumption of popular culture.

Summary

In Remix Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and a respected voice in what he deems the "copyright wars", describes the disjuncture between the availability and relative simplicity of remix technologies and copyright law. Lessig insists that copyright law as it stands now is antiquated for digital media since every "time you use a creative work in a digital context, the technology is making a copy" (98). Thus, amateur use and appropriation of digital technology is under unprecedented control that previously extended only to professional use.

Lessig insists that knowledge and manipulation of multi-media technologies is the current generation's form of "literacy"- what reading and writing was to the previous. It is the vernacular of today. The children growing up in a world where these technologies permeate their daily life are unable to comprehend why "remixing" is illegal. Lessig insists that amateur appropriation in the digital age cannot be stopped but only 'criminalized'. Thus most corrosive outcome of this tension is that generations of children are growing up doing what they know is "illegal" and that notion has societal implications that extend far beyond copyright wars. The book is now available as a free download under one of the Creative Commons' licenses.

Product Red

Product Red, styled as (PRODUCT)^RED, is a licensed brand that seeks to engage the private sector in raising awareness and funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is licensed to partner companies including Nike, American Express (UK), Apple Inc., The Coca-Cola Company, Starbucks, Converse, Electronic Arts, Head, Bugaboo, Penguin Classics (UK & International), Gap, Armani, Hallmark (US), SAP and Beats Electronics (Beats by Dr. Dre). The concept was founded in 2006 by U2 frontman and activist, Bono, together with Bobby Shriver of the ONE/DATA. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a recipient of (RED) money.

As part of a new business model, each partner company creates a product with the Product Red logo. In return for the opportunity to increase revenue through the Product Red license, a 50 percent of the profit gained by each partner is donated to the Global Fund. As Product Red is a private company, a portion of the contributions received from the partner brands is assigned as profit. Such an amalgamation of humanitarian aid and for-profit businesses is one example of "ethical consumerism."

Mega Man X7

Mega Man X7, known as Rockman X7 (ロックマンX7) in Japan, is a video game developed by Capcom for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) console. It is the seventh main game in the Mega Man X series and the first in the series to appear on the sixth generation of gaming consoles. Mega Man X7 was first released in Japan on July 17, 2003, with North American and European releases following in October and March respectively. It was also released for the PC in Asia. It is the first Mega Man X in the series to feature bilingual audio. The next game in the series, Mega Man X8, also features bilingual audio.

Mega Man X7 takes place in the 22nd century. Daily human life is often disrupted by "Maverick" crime from the "Reploids" robots that live and work amongst them. The heroic "Maverick Hunter" Mega Man X has retired from the battlefield. As such, various groups have begun springing up to stamp out the ever constant threat of Maverick activity. Axl, a member of "Red Alert", questions his group's methods and escapes, only to be pursued by its leader, Red. Like other games in the series, Mega Man X7 is an action-platform game in which the player fights through an octet of selectable stages. The game differs from previous side-scrolling entries by featuring fully 3D graphics intermixed with both 3D and 2D gameplay.

Red (T'Pau album)

Red is the fourth studio album by British pop/rock group T'Pau. It was released in 1998, and was the first album since The Promise from 1991.

The group originally gained success in the late 1980s and split in the early 1990s. In 1997 original lead singer Carol Decker reformed the band with a completely new line-up and released a brand new version of their original hit "Heart and Soul". The new line-up started playing gigs and recorded this album in 1998. The album was released on Decker's own Gnatfish label, and would be released in America during late 1999 with a bonus CD featuring three extra tracks (including the 1997 version of "Heart and Soul"). In 2007, the album was officially released for download. It would be Decker's last album/single release until the 2007 solo single "Just Dream".

Background

After the original split of T'Pau, Decker attempted a solo career. In 1993, she contributed a track to the soundtrack of the film Dirty Weekend, and the following year a small number of live performances followed. In 1995 she released the single "One Heart" - as the official anthem for the Halifax World Cup Rugby League Centenary '95. It peaked at #130 in the UK. She performed the song at Wembley Stadium during the opening and closing ceremonies. By 1997 though, Decker had taken the decision to build a 'new' T'Pau around her, and get back on the road after assembling a massive amount of new material. Although she considered continuing as a solo artist, it was advised that it would be easier if the band name was rekindled. The newly reformed band featured none of the original members aside from Decker. A brand new version of the band's original hit "Heart and Soul" was released as "Heart and Soul '97" (featuring the future Red album track "Make Love to Me"), and the band went onto Cilla Black's Surprise Surprise TV show to perform the song. However it was not a commercial success.