The Good Life

The Good Life or Good Life may refer to:

"The good life", a philosophical term for the life that one would like to live, originally associated with Aristotle.

Ethics and environmental philosophy

Film

Literature

Music

Songs

Open....

Open.... was the trading name of Open Interactive Limited, which was a subsidiary of British Interactive Broadcasting. British Interactive Broadcasting was in turn owned by a consortium consisting of companies involving HSBC, British Telecom, Matsushita and BSkyB. Launching a few months late in August 1999, it only survived until the service was acquired and rebranded by BSkyB in October 2001, losing £116 million. The service was awarded a Design Council Millennium Product Award.

Following disappointing revenues and a shift in marketing at Sky, BSkyB bought out the remaining shares of Open in May 2001 and the service was rebranded as "Sky Active".

Service

Open was marketed as the flagship Interactive TV service on the then newly launched Sky Digital platform in the UK. Open was originally designed to house all of Sky Digital's interactive functions under the one name and in the one place.

Open had a state of the art fully refurbished head office in Farringdon Street, London where its own content was designed and built. The offices also housed their service control room and the services proxy servers (for when users digiboxes dialled to download and upload data). Transmission took place at the then BT Teleport site in North London.

Form of the Good

Plato describes "The Form of the Good", or more literally "the idea of the good" (ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα), in his dialogue the Republic (508e2–3), speaking through the character of Socrates. Plato introduces several forms in his works, but identifies the Form of the Good as the superlative. This form is the one that allows a philosopher-in-training to advance to a philosopher-king. It cannot be clearly seen or explained, but once it is recognized, it is the form that allows one to realize all the other forms.

Usages in The Republic

The first references we see in The Republic to the Form of the Good can be found within the conversation between Glaucon and Socrates (454 c–d). When trying to answer such difficult questions pertaining to the definition of justice, Plato identifies that we should not “introduce every form of difference and sameness in nature” instead we must focus “on the one form of sameness and difference that was relevant to the particular ways of life themselves” which is the Form of the Good. This Form is the basis for understanding all other Forms, it is what allows us to understand everything else. Through the conversation between Socrates and Glaucon (508 a–c) Plato analogizes the Form of the Good with the sun as it is what allows us to see things. Here, Plato describes how the sun allows for sight. But he makes a very important distinction, “sun is not sight” but it is “the cause of sight itself.” As the sun is in the visible realm, the Form of Good is in the intelligible realm. It is “what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower”. It is not only the “cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge”.

Midnight sun

The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the local summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the sun remains visible at the local midnight. Around the summer solstice (approximately 21 June in the north and 22 December in the south) the sun is visible for the full 24 hours, given fair weather. The number of days per year with potential midnight sun increases the farther towards either pole one goes. Although approximately defined by the polar circles, in practice the midnight sun can be seen as much as 55 miles (90 km) outside the polar circle, as described below, and the exact latitudes of the farthest reaches of midnight sun depend on topography and vary slightly year-to-year.

There are no permanent economically autonomous human settlements south of the Antarctic Circle, only research stations, so the countries and territories whose populations experience it are limited to those crossed by the Arctic Circle: Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut), Greenland, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States (Alaska). A quarter of Finland's territory lies north of the Arctic Circle and at the country's northernmost point the sun does not set at all for 60 days during summer. In Svalbard, Norway, the northernmost inhabited region of Europe, there is no sunset from approximately 19 April to 23 August. The extreme sites are the poles where the sun can be continuously visible for a half year.

What's Inside

What's Inside is the fourteenth studio album by British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading. The album was written, arranged and produced by Armatrading, co-produced by David Tickle and recorded at the A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood. The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, with the Kronos Quartet's contribution recorded at The Plant Recording Studios, Sausalito, California and The Memphis Horns recorded at Kiva Recording Studio, Memphis, Tennessee. The album was released in 1995 by RCA and was Armatrading's only album for the label. She had left A&M in 1992 after an eighteen-year association with the company.

Background

Armatrading used a string orchestra on several tracks. She used the London Metropolitan Orchestra, along with the Kronos Quartet on one track and The Memphis Horns on two songs. Because of this, the album had several arrangers (see Personnel list) including Armatrading herself.

B. J. Cole returned to play slide guitar, the first time he had played on an Armatrading album since 1976, when he played on the track "Down to Zero" from the eponymous Joan Armatrading album; and Manu Katché once more returned to play drums. After a twelve-year gap, Tony Levin reprised his role as one of the album's bass guitarists – he had previously played on Walk Under Ladders in 1981 and The Key in 1983. Other than those, Armatrading and her co-producer David Tickle worked with a new set of musicians for the album, including some very experienced artists guesting on several tracks, such as Darryl Jones, who had worked with Miles Davis and Eric Clapton, among others, and who went on to join the Rolling Stones; Greg Phillinganes, a keyboardist who had worked with Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin and many others, and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.