Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012

The 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, the 70th Governor of Massachusetts, was formally announced on June 2, 2011 at an event in Stratham, New Hampshire. Having previously run in the 2008 Republican primaries, Mitt Romney's campaign in the 2012 election was his second bid for the Presidency of the United States.

He filed his organization with the Federal Elections Commission as an exploratory committee and announced the organization in a video message on April 11, 2011. He became the party's presumptive nominee with his victory in the Texas primary on May 29, 2012.

On August 11, 2012, in Norfolk, Virginia, Romney announced that his running mate for vice president was Paul Ryan, the U.S. Congressman for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district.

On August 30, 2012, in Tampa, Florida, Romney formally accepted the Republican Party's nomination at the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Romney's campaign came to an end on November 6, 2012, upon defeat by incumbent President Barack Obama.

Microsoft Video 1

Microsoft Video 1 or MS-CRAM is an early lossy video compression and decompression algorithm (codec) that was released with version 1.0 of Microsoft's Video for Windows in November 1992. It is based on MotiVE, a vector quantization codec which Microsoft licensed from Media Vision. In 1993, Media Vision marketed the Pro Movie Spectrum, an ISA board that captured video in both raw and MSV1 formats (the MSV1 processing was done in hardware on the board).

Compression algorithm

Microsoft Video 1 operates either in a 8-bit palettized color space or in a 15-bit RGB color space. Each frame is split into 4×4 pixel blocks. Each 4×4 pixel block can be coded in one of three modes: skip, 2-color or 8-color. In skip mode, the content from the previous frame is copied to the current frame in a conditional replenishment fashion. In 2-color mode, two colors per 4×4 block are transmitted, and 1 bit per pixel is used to select between the two colors. In 8-color mode, the same scheme applies with 2 colors per 2×2 block. This can be interpreted as a 2-color palette which is locally adapted on either a 4×4 block basis or a 2×2 block basis. Interpreted as vector quantization, vectors with components red, green, and blue are quantized using a forward adaptive codebook with two entries.

Tourism

Tourism is travel for pleasure; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international, or within the traveler's country. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only ", as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".

Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments. Today, tourism is a major source of income for many countries, and affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases being of vital importance.

Tourism suffered as a result of a strong economic slowdown of the late-2000s recession, between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus, but slowly recovered. International tourism receipts (the travel item in the balance of payments) grew to US$1.03 trillion (€740 billion) in 2011, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 3.8% from 2010. International tourist arrivals surpassed the milestone of 1 billion tourists globally for the first time in 2012, the same year in which China became the largest spender in international tourism globally with US$102 billion, surpassing Germany and United States. China and emerging markets such as Russia and Brazil had significantly increased their spending over the previous decade.

Referee

A referee is the person of authority in a variety of sports who is responsible for presiding over the game from a neutral point of view and making on-the-fly decisions that enforce the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known, in addition to referee, by a variety of other titles as well (often depending on the sport), including umpire, judge, arbiter, arbitrator, linesman, commissaire, timekeeper, touch judge or Technical Official (by the International Olympic Committee).

Origin

The term referee originated in association football. Originally the team captains would consult with each other in order to resolve any dispute on the pitch. Eventually this role was delegated to an umpire. Each team would bring their own partisan umpire allowing the team captains to concentrate on the game. Later, the referee, a third "neutral" official was added, this referee would be "referred to" if the umpires could not resolve a dispute. The referee did not take his place on the pitch until 1891, when the umpires became linesmen (now assistant referees). Today, in many amateur football matches, each side will still supply their own partisan assistant referees (still commonly called club linesmen) to assist the neutral referee appointed by the governing football association if one or both assistant referees are not provided. In this case, the role of the linesmen is limited to indicating out of play and cannot decide off side.

Horizon (novel)

Horizon is a fantasy novel by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is the fourth in the tetralogy The Sharing Knife.

Plot

With Fawn's prompting, Dag seeks out a teacher. A powerful groundsetter at local New Moon Cutoff Camp could be the answer to his prayers, but conflicts arise between the insular Lakewalker traditions and Dag's determination to be a healer for farmers. Dag, Fawn, Arkady the groundsetter and others embark on a long journey by wagon. They are joined by several other characters, some Lakewalker, some farmer, including Fawn's brother, Whit, and his wife, Berry. On their way up the Trace, a long wagon road, they encounter a malice, an evil being with great power. A Lakewalker kills the malice with a sharing knife. Fawn guesses that this malice was fleeing something even more powerful. That turns out to be a second malice. That malice is killed by Whit, aided by Fawn and Berry, which is unprecedented—no farmer has ever killed a malice without Lakewalker aid before.

At the end of the book, Dag and Fawn's vision of closer cooperation and understanding between Lakewalkers and farmers, as partners, is beginning to be achieved.

Music (Erick Sermon and Marvin Gaye song)

"Music" is a 2001 hit single by Erick Sermon featuring archived vocals from Marvin Gaye.

The song was thought of by Sermon after buying a copy of Gaye's Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions album, which overlook some of the original album's earlier mixes. After listening to an outtake of Gaye's 1982 album track, "Turn On Some Music" (titled "I've Got My Music" in its initial version), Sermon decided to mix the vocals (done in a cappella) and add it into his own song. The result was similar to Natalie Cole's interpolation of her father, jazz great Nat "King" Cole's hit, "Unforgettable" revisioned as a duet. The hip hop and soul duet featuring the two veteran performers was released as the leading song of the soundtrack to the Martin Lawrence & Danny DeVito comedy, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" The song became a runaway success rising to #2 on Billboard's R&B chart and was #1 on the rap charts. It also registered at #21 pop giving Sermon his highest-charted single on the pop charts as a solo artist and giving Gaye his first posthumous hit in 10 years following 1991's R&B-charted single, "My Last Chance" also bringing Gaye his 41st top 40 pop hit. There is also a version that's played on Adult R&B stations that removes Erick Sermon's rap verses. The song was featured in the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film The Lincoln Lawyer.

Music (Erick Sermon album)

Music is the fourth album and first album on J Records by hip hop artist Erick Sermon. It was received well critically and commercially. Its success was fueled by its title track "Music" which sampled vocals from Marvin Gaye and in terms of chart position is Sermon's most popular song, peaking at #22, along with inclusion on the soundtrack of the Martin Lawrence/Danny DeVito film What's the Worst That Could Happen?; the music video for the song featured scenes from the film intermixed with clips of Gaye performing in archived music videos and music programs. "Music" propelled the album to reach #33 on The Billboard 200 chart making it Sermon's second most popular solo album.

Track listing

Samples

Come Thru

Music

I'm That Nigga