Mind (The Culture)

In Iain M. Banks' Culture series, most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sentient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators.

These Minds have become an indispensable part of the Culture, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating society (controlling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power). The main feature of these Minds—in comparison to extremely powerful artificial intelligences in other fiction—is that the Minds are (by design and by extension of their rational, but "humanistic" thought processes) generally a very benevolent presence, and show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators. Though this is commonly viewed in a utopian light, a view where the human members of the Culture amount to little more than pets is not unsupportable.

MinD

The MinD protein is one of three proteins encoded by the minB operon and also a part of the ParA family of ATPases. It is required to generate pole to pole oscillations prior to bacterial cell division as a means of specifying the midzone of the cell. It is a peripheral membrane ATPase involved in plasmid partitioning.

History

When first discovered in E.coli, MinD was thought to associate with MinC and form a stable cap at each bacterial pole, thereby specifying the mid-zone of the cell by alleviating inhibitory pressures in that region. Through the use of live-cell imaging with GFP fusion proteins, Raskin and de Boer revealed a dynamic interaction of the Min proteins, demonstrating that MinC and MinD instead rapidly oscillate between the two poles in a non-static manner.

Function

The ATPase activity of MinD is activated by MinE while in the presence of phospholipids, suggesting that the binding to the membrane induces a conformational change allowing it to become susceptible to MinE activation. MinD activity is dependent on local MinD concentration, suggesting an oligomerization process and cooperativity.

Mind42

Mind42 is an online mind mapping application that allows users to visualize their thinking using the provenmind mapping method. The name refers to the collaborative features of the product, and is intended to be pronounced like "mind for two." It has been recommended by Freelance Weekly as one of their favorite time-management and organization tools.

Features

The developer provides the full feature set of Mind42 free of charge, including:

Criticisms

Criticisms of Mind42 include the lack of offline editing ability, the lack of a mobile version and the limitation that only creators of mind maps, but not collaborators, can view and restore previous revisions of a mind map.

Cinema (Elaine Paige album)

Cinema is the fourth solo album by Elaine Paige. The album was released in 1984 on Warner Music, peaking at #12 in the UK album charts. This album has been re-issued on CD. It was the second of Paige's recordings to be produced by Tony Visconti. To follow the theme of Stages, Paige chose tracks that had been previously recorded for soundtracks. Like Stages, the recording was primarily conducted at Visconti's Good Earth Studios, other than for "Sometimes" (Theme from Champions) which had been previously recorded at CTS Studios, London featuring the New World Philharmonia.

Out-Takes

In 2014, Rhino UK released on the compilation album Elaine Paige - The Ultimate Collection the out-take "What A Feeling" (from the musical 'Flashdance') which was originally recorded as part of the 'Cinema' album sessions.

Track listing

Karsh Kale

Karsh Kale (pronounced Kursh Kah-lay, कर्ष काळे in Marathi) is an Indian American musician, producer and composer, and is considered one of the pioneering figures in defining the Asian Underground genre by mixing disparate genres of music such as Indian classical and folk with electronica, rock, pop and ambient music. In addition to production, remixing, and DJ work, Kale is known for his tabla drumming and film composition.

Biography

Early life

Born as Utkarsha Kale on November 1, 1974 to Indian Marathi speaking immigrants in West Bromwich, England, Kale was raised in Brooklyn, New York after his parents relocated in 1977. Kale took an interest in drums and eventually became a tabla player. Kale's father introduced Kale to a broad range of music, which included traditional Indian music, classical, rock, and even early hip-hop. From this broad range of influences, Kale, who was self-taught, developed his own style, which eventually led to his "electric tabla".

Tabla Beat Science

In 2000, Bill Laswell founded Tabla Beat Science, inviting Kale, along with Zakir Hussain, Talvin Singh, Trilok Gurtu and Sultan Khan. Together, the group released Tala Matrix that year. The album is considered to be one of the most influential Asian Fusion albums to date, and the group embarked on a tour, of which one of the shows was later released on DVD.

Cinema (Andrea Bocelli album)

Cinema is the fifteenth studio album by Italian classical tenor recording artist Andrea Bocelli.

The album featuring renditions of classic film soundtracks and scores, was released on October 23, 2015 through Sugar Music and Universal Music Group.

Background

The album was produced by David Foster, Humberto Gatica, and Tony Renis who also worked together on Bocelli's Amore in 2006.

Bocelli said of Cinema: "With the album ‘Cinema,’ I’m fulfilling a wish that I’ve harboured for decades. I’ve never made a secret of my dream of bringing to life a recording project associated with soundtracks, as I truly believe that it’s an exceptional artistic treasure trove."

Commercial performance

Cinema entered the Official UK Albums Chart at No. 3, behind 5 Seconds of Summer's Sounds Good Feels Good and Bryan Adams's Get Up!. The tally was Bocelli's highest UK chart position in over a decade, since 2001’s Cieli di Toscana, and his tenth Top 10 album on the UK pop charts, a record for a classical music artist.