Things (Bobby Darin song)

"Things" is a song which was written and recorded by Bobby Darin in 1962. It reached #3 in the US, #2 in the UK, and #3 in the first ever official Irish Singles Chart, published by RTÉ in October 1962. However, there had been an Irish Top 10 before 1962, published in the Evening Herald from February 1959. As a result, "Things" actually peaked at #2 in the "unofficial" Evening Herald Chart.

In 1962, Darin began to write and sing country music, with hit songs including "Things". It was the final Darin single released on the Atco Records unit of Atlantic Records before he began recording for Capitol Records. While vault material would continue to be issued on Atco, Darin would later return to Atlantic Records. The song was sung by Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra in the 1967 TV special Movin' with Nancy, starring Nancy Sinatra, which was released to home video in 2000.

A cover of the song by Anne Murray from her 1976 album Keeping in Touch peaked at #12 on the adult contemporary chart.

Things (film)

Things (stylized as THINGS) is a 1989 Canadian, low budget, independent, horror exploitation straight-to-video film, written and produced by Andrew Jordan and Barry J. Gillis. Marking the mainstream film debut of porn star Amber Lynn, this Z movie has a cult following of fans who call themselves "Things-ites". Some critics have argued that it might be the worst film of all time.

Plot

A husband with a fanatical desire but inability to father children is driven to force his wife to undergo a dangerous experiment. This results in hatching a non-human life form in his wife's womb, and the birth of a multitude of "things."

Cast

Production

With a budget between $35,000 and $40,000, the film was shot on both super 8 and 16mm film. Andrew Jordan figured the movie would not get any publicity if the true budget were announced, so he convinced Barry J. Gillis to go along with the lie that the movie was shot for $350,000. It wasn't until recent years that Gillis and Jordan began revealing the true budget.

Sam Riley

Samuel Peter W. Riley (born January 8, 1980) is an English actor and singer best known for his performance in the 2007 biographical film Control, about the life of Ian Curtis.

Early life

Riley was born in Menston, West Yorkshire, the son of Amanda, a nursery school teacher, and Andrew Riley, a textile agent. He was educated at Malsis School, Cross Hills, and at Uppingham School. He was turned down by both the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Career

Film

His breakthrough performance came when he played the role of Ian Curtis in the film Control, a biopic about the lead singer of the 1970s post-punk band Joy Division. The film received high critical acclaim due in no small part to Riley's performance, which won him a selection of awards including the British Independent Film Award for "Most Promising Newcomer" a BAFTA "Rising Star" nomination; and a Mark Kermode nod for Best Actor 2007.

Prior to his portrayal of Ian Curtis, Riley played the Fall frontman Mark E Smith in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, which details the Factory Records era and featured Sean Harris as Ian Curtis. Riley's scenes, however, were omitted from the final cut.

Modulo operation

In computing, the modulo operation finds the remainder after division of one number by another (sometimes called modulus).

Given two positive numbers, a (the dividend) and n (the divisor), a modulo n (abbreviated as a mod n) is the remainder of the Euclidean division of a by n. For instance, the expression "5 mod 2" would evaluate to 1 because 5 divided by 2 leaves a quotient of 2 and a remainder of 1, while "9 mod 3" would evaluate to 0 because the division of 9 by 3 has a quotient of 3 and leaves a remainder of 0; there is nothing to subtract from 9 after multiplying 3 times 3. (Note that doing the division with a calculator will not show the result referred to here by this operation; the quotient will be expressed as a decimal fraction.)

Although typically performed with a and n both being integers, many computing systems allow other types of numeric operands. The range of numbers for an integer modulo of n is 0 to n − 1. (n mod 1 is always 0; n mod 0 is undefined, possibly resulting in a division by zero error in computer programming languages.) See modular arithmetic for an older and related convention applied in number theory.

Null coalescing operator

The null coalescing operator (called the Logical Defined-Or operator in Perl) is a binary operator that is part of the syntax for a basic conditional expression in several programming languages, including C#,Perl as of version 5.10,Swift, and PHP 7.0.0.

In contrast to the ternary conditional if operator used as x ? x : y, but like the binary Elvis operator used as x ?: y, the null coalescing operator is a binary operator and thus evaluates its operands at most once, which is significant if the evaluation of x has side-effects.

C#

In C#, the null coalescing operator is ??. It is most often used to simplify null expressions as follows:

For example, if one wishes to implement some C# code to give a page a default title if none is present, one may use the following statement:

instead of the more verbose

or

The three forms are logically equivalent.

The operator can also be used multiple times in the same expression:

Once a non-null value is assigned to number, or it reaches the final value (which may or may not be null), the expression is completed.

Liberman (album)

Liberman is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton, released on October 23, 2015, through Dine Alone Records. It is the follow up to Carlton's 2011 album Rabbits on the Run and marks her first release since signing with Dine Alone Records. The title of the album comes from an oil painting made by Carlton's late grandfather, whose given surname was Liberman.

Background and writing

Following the 2011 release Rabbits on the Run, Carlton took time off to get married, start a family and write another album. She tells CBS News that these changes in her life are reflected in Liberman's songs and that she "wanted the whole album to feel like an escape type of album, where you put it on and you feel like you're in this dreamy state."

To avoid preconceived notions, demos recorded were sent to Dine Alone Records without Carlton's name attached. Label president Joel Carriere recalls hearing the demos and tells The Toronto Star, "The songs were amazing, it was atmospheric, it kind of fit into what we’re all into ... and we never would have guessed it was Vanessa Carlton because her voice has developed so much since her pop songs 14 years ago and the songwriting had obviously changed. We were, like: 'Yeah, we want to do this. But what is it we’re doing?'"