Seal (contract law)

In the law, a seal affixed to a contract or other legal instrument has had special legal significance at various times in the jurisdictions that recognise it. In the courts of common law jurisdictions, a contract which was sealed ("made under seal") was treated differently from other written contracts (which were "made under hand"), although this practice gradually fell out of favour in most of these jurisdictions in the 19th and early 20th century. The legal term seal arises from the wax seal used throughout history for authentication (among other purposes).

Originally, only a wax seal was accepted as a seal by the courts, but by the 19th century many jurisdictions had relaxed the definition to include an impression in the paper on which the instrument was printed, an embossed paper wafer affixed to an instrument, a scroll made with a pen, or the printed words "Seal" or "L.S." (standing for the Latin term locus sigilli meaning "place of the seal").

Notwithstanding their reduced significance, seals are still used on contracts, usually in the impression on paper form.

Seal (musician)

Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel (born 19 February 1963), better known by his stage name Seal, is a British singer and songwriter. He has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and is known for his international hits, including "Kiss from a Rose", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Batman Forever. He was a coach on The Voice Australia in 2012 and 2013.

Seal has won music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1992, four Grammy Awards, and an MTV Video Music Award. As a songwriter, he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award, for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, in consecutive years for "Killer" (1990) and "Crazy" (1991).

Early life

Seal was born Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel on 19 February 1963 in Paddington, London, England, to a Nigerian mother, Adebisi Ogundeji, and a Brazilian father, Francis Samuel. Seal's first and middle names are in the Yoruba language. Olusegun means "God is victorious", Olumide means "my Lord has arrived", and Adeola means either "rich crown" or "a crown of wealth". He was raised in the City of Westminster in inner London by his foster family. He received a two-year diploma, or associate degree, in architecture and worked in various jobs in the London area.

SEAL (cipher)

In cryptography, SEAL (Software-Optimized Encryption Algorithm) is a very fast stream cipher optimised for machines with a 32-bit word size and plenty of RAM. SEAL is actually a pseudorandom function family in that it can easily generate arbitrary portions of the keystream without having to start from the beginning. This makes it particularly well suited for applications like encrypting hard drives.

The first version was published by Phillip Rogaway and Don Coppersmith in 1994. The current version, published in 1997, is 3.0. SEAL, covered by two patents in the United States, both of which are assigned to IBM.

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Princess (Jam Hsiao album)

Princess (Chinese: 王妃) is Taiwanese Mandopop artist Jam Hsiao's (Chinese: 蕭敬騰) second Mandarin studio album. It was released on 17 July 2009 by Warner Music Taiwan. The album was available for pre-order, from 23 June 2009, as the Princess (First Press Limited Edition) (王妃 全球首日封榮耀限定款) which includes gifts and photobook. A further edition, Princess (Live Limited Edition) (王妃 Live 影音限定版 2CD+DVD) was released on 28 August 2009 with bonus CD and DVD containing live tracks and footage from Hsiao's Princess Live Concert Tour at Tainan, Taiwan.

The track "Say a lil something" is composed by label mate Khalil Fong and four tracks, "小男人大男孩" (Not A Boy, Not Yet A Man), "Green Door", "給愛人" (To My Beloved) and "寂寞還是你" (Lonesome for You) are composed by Hsiao. The music video for "我不會愛" (Don't Know How to Love) features Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna.

Reception

The album debuted at number one on Taiwan's G-Music Top 20 Weekly Mandarin and Combo Charts at week 29, and Five Music Chart at week 30 with a percentage sales of 33.1%, 22.76% and 24.45% respectively.

Princess (singer)

Desiree Heslop, best known as Princess, is a British singer who found chart success in the mid-1980s. In the late-1970s she worked with the group Osibisa. Her first solo album Princess (1986) was composed and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman which contained the hit single, "Say I'm Your Number One". The album spawned 5 charting singles, and was certified silver in the UK.

Heslop signed with Polydor and recorded her second album, All for Love (1987) in the United States, but neither the album nor its 3 singles had much success. In 1989, she released the stand-alone single "Lover Don't Go", which failed to chart. Her third album, "Say It", which was slated for release in 1990, eventually was never issued as Princess retired from the music scene and moved to the USA after the death of her mother and the assassination of her brother.

From 1991 to 2003 she lived in the U.S., before returning to England in 2003. That same year she formed her own music label with her brother Donovan, OnDa Ground Music Label, which has released all her music since, and released her first single in 14 years, "Ride", with rap ensemble EEDB. A music video was also filmed which referenced her retirement.

Princess (US automobile)

The Princess was an automobile built in Detroit, Michigan by the Princess Motor Car Company from 1914 until 1918. The original Princess was a light two-seater costing $475. It was powered by a 1.6-liter Farmer engine.

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