'Hours...'

'Hours...' is the twenty-first studio album by British musician David Bowie. It was released on 4 October 1999 on Virgin Records. This was Bowie's final album for the EMI sub-label. It was the first complete album by a major artist available to download over the Internet, preceding the physical release by two weeks.

Background

A lot of the material that ended up on 'Hours...' was originally used, in alternate versions, for the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, which also featured two characters based on Bowie, as well as one on his wife Iman, one on 'Hours...' collaborator Reeves Gabrels, and one on bassist Gail Ann Dorsey.

To drum up interest in the impending album, a "Cyber Song" contest was held on Bowie's personal website BowieNet to compose lyrics to an early instrumental version of the song "What's Really Happening". The winning lyrics would be featured on 'Hours...' . Contest winner Alex Grant also won a trip to Philip Glass' Looking Glass Studios on 24 May 1999 to watch Bowie record the final vocal during a live Webcast. There, Grant contributed backing vocals to the song, along with a friend who accompanied him. Bowie also gave a "special creativity award" to Derek Donovan of Love Among Puppets for his entry, which Donovan posted on the Web after combining elements of the original instrumental track with his own new recording.

Symbol

A symbol is a person or a concept that represents, stands for or suggests another idea, visual image, belief, action or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a blue line might represent a river. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion. The variable x in a mathematical equation may symbolize the position of a particle in space.

In cartography, an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map.

Etymology

The word derives from the Greek symbolon (σύμβολον) meaning token or watchword. It is an amalgam of syn- "together" + bole "a throwing, a casting, the stroke of a missile, bolt, beam." The sense evolution in Greek is from "throwing things together" to "contrasting" to "comparing" to "token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine." Hence, "outward sign" of something. The meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded in 1590, in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Directory (computing)

In computing, a directory is a file system cataloging structure which contains references to other computer files, and possibly other directories. On many computers, directories are known as folders, catalogs (catalog was used on the Apple II, the Commodore 128 and some other early home computers as a command for displaying disk contents; the filesystems used by these did not support hierarchal directories), or drawers to provide some relevancy to a workbench or the traditional office file cabinet.

Files are organized by storing related files in the same directory. In a hierarchical filesystem (that is, one in which files and directories are organized in a manner that resembles a tree), a directory contained inside another directory is called a subdirectory. The terms parent and child are often used to describe the relationship between a subdirectory and the directory in which it is cataloged, the latter being the parent. The top-most directory in such a filesystem, which does not have a parent of its own, is called the root directory.

Ben Affleck

Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor and filmmaker. He has won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

Affleck began his career as a child actor, starring in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi (1984, 1988). He later appeared in Dazed and Confused (1993) and various Kevin Smith films including Chasing Amy (1997) and Dogma (1999). Affleck gained fame when he and childhood friend Matt Damon won the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997). He then starred in high-profile films including Armageddon (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Changing Lanes (2002) and The Sum of All Fears (2002). After a career downturn, during which he appeared in Daredevil and the much-derided Gigli (both 2003), Affleck received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Hollywoodland (2006). In 2014, he starred in the psychological thriller Gone Girl. Affleck will portray Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad (both 2016).

Anna Kendrick

Anna Kendrick (born August 9, 1985) is an American actress and singer. She began her career as a child actor in theater productions. Her first prominent role was in the 1998 Broadway musical High Society, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She made her film debut in the musical comedy Camp (2003).

Kendrick rose to prominence for her supporting role in The Twilight Saga (2008–12), the blockbuster film franchise based on Stephenie Meyer’s book series of the same name. She went on to earn critical acclaim for her performance in Up in the Air (2009), including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Kendrick has since featured in successful films like the comedy-drama 50/50 (2011), the crime drama End of Watch (2012), and the musical fantasy Into the Woods (2014). She has achieved further fame for playing the protagonist in the successful musical comedy Pitch Perfect (2012) and its blockbuster sequel Pitch Perfect 2 (2015).