Civilization: Beyond Earth

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy, 4X video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games, published by 2K Games and released for Microsoft Windows on October 24, 2014, the Mac App Store on November 27, 2014 and for Linux on December 18, 2014. A spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, Beyond Earth shares much of that game's development team, as well as some concepts which were introduced in the 1999 title. The game's setting is unique to the Civilization series in that it takes place in the future, with mankind traveling through space and founding colonies on extraterrestrial planets after Earth becomes uninhabitable due to an undescribed disaster known as "the Great Mistake".

An expansion pack, titled Rising Tide, was released on October 9, 2015.

Gameplay

Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy game played on a hexagonal-based grid, iterating the ideas and building upon the engine of its predecessor, Civilization V. Co-lead designer David McDonough described the relationship between the two games by saying "The bones of the experience are very much recognisably Civ. The idea of the cities, city-base progression, leaders, the passage of time, tile-based, turn-based, building improvements, technologies. A lot of them are very familiar themes to the Civ player."

Remix (I Like The)

"Remix (I Like The)" is a song by American pop group New Kids on the Block from their sixth studio album, 10. The song was released as the album's lead single on January 28, 2013. "Remix (I Like The)" was written by Lars Halvor Jensen, Johannes Jørgensen, and Lemar, and it was produced by Deekay. The song features Donnie Wahlberg and Joey McIntyre on lead vocals.

"Remix (I Like The)" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, becoming their first lead single to fail charting since "Be My Girl" (1986). Instead, the song peaked at number 38 on the Adult Pop Songs chart.

Critical reception

PopCrush gave the song 3.5 stars out of five. In her review Jessica Sager wrote, "The song sounds like an adult contemporary answer to The Wanted mixed with Bruno Mars‘ ‘Locked Out of Heaven.’ It has a danceable beat like many of the British bad boys’ tracks, but is stripped down and raw enough to pass for Mars’ latest radio smash as well." Carl Williott of Idolator commended the song's chorus, but criticized its "liberal use of Auto-Tune" and compared Donnie Wahlberg's vocals to Chad Kroeger.

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.

Vila (surname)

Vila (Eastern Catalan: [ˈbiɫə, ˈviɫə], Western Catalan: [ˈvila, ˈbiɫa]; Galician: [ˈbila]; Occitan: [ˈbilɔ, ˈvilɔ]; Portuguese: [ˈvilɐ]) is a popular surname in Catalan, Galician, Occitan and Portuguese that means 'village' or 'farm'. Other spelling: Villa, Villar, Vilar, Vilares, Villares, Villalta, Villalba.

Come Sail Away – The Styx Anthology

Come Sail Away – The Styx Anthology is a musical album by Styx, released on May 4, 2004. It is a compilation consisting of two compact discs and contains a thorough history of the band. The album encompasses many of the band's most popular and significant songs, ranging from the band's first single from their self-titled album, "Best Thing," through the song "One with Everything," a track included on Styx's most recent album at the time of release, Cyclorama.

The most notable omission from the compilation is "Don't Let It End," Dennis DeYoung's top-ten single from their 1983 album, Kilroy Was Here.

This is the only Styx compilation album to date to combine the original versions of songs from the band's early Wooden Nickel albums with their later material. Their Wooden Nickel breakout hit "Lady" was included on the 1995 Greatest Hits collection, but as a note-for-note re-recording, labelled "Lady '95." As such, this is the first truly career-spanning collection for the band ever compiled.

Sir Sly

Sir Sly is an American indie pop band, formerly known as "The Royal Sons", formed and based in Los Angeles, California, United States. The band is fronted by vocalist Landon Jacobs with instrumentalists Jason Suwito and Hayden Coplen accompanying him. While they originally operated together under the band name "The Royal Sons", the trio gradually built a steady following and managed to top The Hype Machine chart, eventually revealing their identities. Their original band gathered over $13,000 in a Kickstarter campaign, released an album, and then split up. Now they have come together under the new band name of "Sir Sly"

Their debut single, "Ghost", was released on March 4, 2013, on the National Anthem and Neon Gold labels followed by the single "Gold" on May 21, 2013. "Gold" peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and No. 45 on the Rock Airplay chart. "Gold" is also featured in the video game, MLB 14: The Show.

They gained international fame after the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag accolade trailer was released in which their song "Gold" was used.

Gold (2015 film)

Gold. is a German experimental short documentary film directed by Alexander Tuschinski. It intercuts abandoned 19th century gold-mining towns in the desert with sequoia trees in a forest. The film had its world premiere at Mykonos Biennale on July 3, 2015, where it was screened in competition and received the Biennale's Golden Pelican Award by Lydia Venieri. It had its German premiere at Berlin Short Film Festival on July 4, 2015.

Production

The film is set to the fourth movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony, which has been called "Apotheosis of Dance" by Richard Wagner. The director's intention was to intercut nature and human structures to show nature overtaking. It was filmed with a tight schedule and the crew travelled long distances in a short amount of time to get many different shots needed. Tuschinski edited the film from six hours of material from "countless camera-angles", as most shots are shown only very briefly due to the often rapid editing. Planning the film, he was inspired by the early works of his friend and mentor Hugo Niebeling that connect cinematoraphy and music in a very direct way.