Smile

A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a "Duchenne smile". Smiles performed without the eye contraction can be perceived as "fake".

Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences between different cultures, with some using smiles to convey confusion or embarrassment.

Historical background

Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. The smile may have evolved differently among species and especially among humans. Apart from Biology as an academic discipline that interprets the smile, those who study kinesics and psychology such as Freitas-Magalhaes view the smile as an affect display that can communicate feelings such as love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment.

Kirk Franklin

Kirk Dewayne Franklin (born January 26, 1970) is an American gospel musician, choir director, and author. He is known for leading urban contemporary gospel choirs such as The Family, God's Property and One Nation Crew (1NC), and has won multiple awards, including seven Grammy Awards.

Early years

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his aunt, Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother. Gertrude collected and resold aluminum cans to raise money for Kirk to take piano lessons from the age of four. Kirk excelled in music, being able to read and write music, while also playing by ear.

He received his first contract offer at the age of seven, which his aunt turned down. He joined the church choir and became music director of the Mt. Rose Baptist Church adult choir at the age of twelve.

Despite his strict religious upbringing, Franklin rebelled in his teenage years, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his grandmother arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university. He was accepted and, while his life seemed to be on track for a while, the announcement of a girlfriend's pregnancy and his eventual expulsion from school for behavioral problems proved otherwise.

Harry Gregson-Williams

Harry Gregson-Williams (born 13 December 1961) is a British composer, orchestrator, conductor, and music producer. He has regularly written for television and films, such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Martian, and the Shrek franchise.

Gregson-Williams has also composed music for several video games, having notably helped score every main entry in the Metal Gear series since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Education

Gregson-Williams won a musical scholarship to St John's College at the University of Cambridge at the age of seven, where he was a child chorister, and later attended Stowe School, a boarding independent school in the civil parish of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, where he was a music scholar, followed by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Discography

Film

1990s

2000s

2010s

Television

Video games

Rides

Awards and nominations

Awards

User Friendly

User Friendly is a daily webcomic about the staff of a small fictional Internet service provider, Columbia Internet. The strip's humor tends to be centered on technology jokes and geek humour.

Drawn and authored by J. D. Frazer, a.k.a. "Illiad", it has been running since November 17, 1997. Frazer is one of the few, and first, webcomic creators successful enough to make a living as an artist. This is probably because it is one of the first webcomics, and was targeted at a specific, tech-related audience, which was already abundant on the Internet at that time.

It is remarkable for having been updated daily from when it started in 1997 until June 2009 (most webcomics are updated only a few times a week), and for having all previous strips online in the archive.

When it is being updated there is a running storyline and sometimes several days' worth of comics are drawn in advance, but the Sunday comic is always drawn for immediate release and breaks from the regular storyline. The Sunday strip is based on current events and is in full color, unlike the regular daily strips.