Fields of Gold

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Ave Maria

Prayer of the Children

Zero Gravity

—We’ll upload other videos soon

Thanks to jncohen569, CynCity009, iparsum, rtolen67, ToL1337, and pouncer84 =)

Congratulations world! It is now officially December 1st, 2009  North American Eastern Time! That being said, the countdown has now begun till Christmas Day. 25 days till awesomeness!

Good night!

Tristan

Perhaps the greatest lie originating (and arguably, perpetuated by) Capitalism is the idea that the wealthy are wealthy because they are intelligent, disciplined, and hardworking and the poor are poor because they are ignorant and lazy. As a result, if a man in a business suit and flawless grammar knocks on your door and asks if he can use your bathroom, chances are you’ll let him. You probably wouldn’t do the same for a man in a ragged bathrobe whose grasp of the English language was sub-average. Indeed, the quality of treatment you offer people is usually determined by what social class they hail from. We make assumptions about people based on whether or not they seem to be poor, middle-class, or wealthy.

Quite simply, we’re bigots.

And not without reason either. If a person is less willing to let a homeless man into his house than a man who is (or at least, seems to be) doing quite well for himself, then the person’s fear is not completely unfounded. A wealthy man has less reason to rob you than a poor man. Crime rates, alcoholism, and drug abuse are highest among the lower classes. Likewise the poorer classes tend to have the lowest levels of education. Statistically speaking, yes, you are more likely to be mugged by a poor person than a rich one, but so what? Bigotry is never tolerable, no matter what. So what if you’re more likely to be mugged if you get a poor guy into your house instead of a rich one? You don’t know either man. Maybe the man in the bathrobe is an honest, honorable person who’s had a run of bad luck. Maybe the man in the suit is a sociopathic murderer or a con artist. Judging people according to how wealthy they are is, no matter how you look at it, wrong!

So why is it that we’re bigoted to trust the middle-class and wealthy rather than the poor? Is it because the poor are ignorant and criminal while the wealthy are intelligent and decent? Of course not! The poor aren’t poor because they’re criminals; the poor have high crime levels because they are poor. Sure the poor man is more likely to mug you, but is that because of him or the fact that he’s cold and hungry? Obviously there are those who are poor because of their own issues- all humans have a propensity towards greed and indolence. At the same time, it is ridiculous to claim that the poor are only poor because they’re lazy. It’s the poorest of the poor who have the heaviest workload. Across Africa, Asia, Latin America and yes, even Europe, Australia, and North America there are millions of those who for ten hours a day for wages of less than a dollar a day! There’s a reason we call them the Proletariat- the working class! It’s because they’re the ones doing all the actual work. They do the farming, the mining, the sweeping, the building, the cleaning, the producing and manufacturing! Why on earth would we even dare to consider these people to be lazy?

Because we’re lazy.

As I’ve said, humans are lazy. More often than not we don’t take the time and effort to investigate something for ourselves; we simply make assumptions or believe whatever our leaders and the media feed us. Since the poor are poor and unable to afford decent (if any) healthcare, we immediately assume that the poor are simply dirty. Since the poor can’t afford decent (if any) educations, we immediately assume that the poor are ignorant and stupid. Since the poor are poor and can’t always afford food/medicine/etc., many are forced into lives of crime- we immediately assume that the poor are naturally criminal. But laziness isn’t the only reason we don’t ask why the poor live in poverty.

Humans are also naturally arrogant. The idea- no, the myth- that the poor are poor because they are lazy makes us feel better about ourselves. We’re where we are because of our efforts! We’re wealthy because of our intelligence, our skill! We’re where we are because of our work-ethic, our self-discipline, and our decency!

Egotistical lies.

We’re where we are because of our own efforts and the efforts of our parents and their parents before them and because of the state of the world we live in and the class we were born into. Personal effort makes up about ten percent of it- the rest is accident of birth and dumb luck. A person pulling himself to the top from nothing is such a rare event that we make a major Hollywood film out of it. If you’re born poor, chances are you’ll stay poor no matter how hard you get unless you get not one but a whole chain of lucky breaks. If you’re born into a middle-class family, you’re probably going to stay middle-class unless you get a bunch of lucky breaks (though less than if you were poor). If you’re born into wealth and privilege than you haven’t done anything to deserve your life and don’t have to do anything to maintain it. Like I said, it really comes down to accident of birth. If you’re lucky, you’re wealthy, if you’re not, you’re poor and probably will be poor for the rest of your life. The Caste System isn’t exclusive to Hinduism.

So in short, don’t believe in the fairy-tale that the wealthy are the best of society and the poor are the worst, or that the poor are poor only because of their own efforts. We are, for the most part, fixed in our place by statistical chance- individual effort has very little effect on us.

It isn’t fair, is it? Only a sadist or an idiot could honestly state that this is an ethical system. Most of us simply shrug our shoulders and say that “life isn’t fair” or “that’s just the way things are…”. I say that when someone’s been murdered, we can’t stick our hands in our pockets and say “life isn’t fair”. I say that when any injustice has been committed, no matter on what scale, the only ethical course of action is to establish justice. Yes, life isn’t fair- but maybe that’s because no one’s doing anything about it!

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
FUND RAISING 
Database Reference:  F231109-254
Business:  PBworks
Web:  http://pbworks.com/
Location:  USA, San Mateo, CA
Region:  North America
Business description:  Wiki hosting provider
Category: Web Technology
Contact:  Jim Groff, CEO 
 
Investor:  Undisclosed
Amount raised:  $650,000
 
Details:  Wiki hosting provider PBworks has raised $650,000 in rights and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. The company is backed by Mohr Davidow Ventures, Seraph Group, Ron Conway and Chris Yeh. It previously raised $2.45 million in venture funding.

Link:  VentureBeat

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
FUND RAISING 
Database Reference:  F231109-253

Business:  SimpleGeo
Web:  http://simplegeo.com
Location:  USA, Boulder, CO
Region:  North America
Business description:  An infrastructure that other applications can use to easily build location-based applications.
Category: Web Technology
Contact 1:  Matt Galligan
Contact 2:  Joe Stump.
 
Investors:  First Round Capital, also includes from Redpoint Ventures, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Joshua Schachter, David Cohen, Debbie Landa, Tim Ferriss, Shawn Fanning, Gary Vaynerchuk, David Lee, and Freestyle Capital.
  
Amount raised:  $1,500,000 
 
Details:  SimpleGeo has just closed a $1.5 million seed round of funding. They raised $195,000 in a debt funding round, according to a recent regulatory filing by the firm three weeks ago. The source of the funding was not disclosed, although the filing indicates that there were 7 investors involved.

Link:  TechCrunch

Oxford Cup Debates – By Ms. T. Lee, Debate Coach

The Oxford Union Society’s annual schools’ competition is the largest British Parliamentary schools level competition in the world. Over a thousand schools in the UK, Ireland and Canada are invited to participate every year in qualifying regional tournaments; last year’s finals day had 550 teams competing to attain one of the 88 spots available for Finals day. Canada is eligible to send the top two teams (from different provinces) from North America’s Oxford Cup tournament. This year’s Oxford Cup was hosted by Gray Academy in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The top provincial teams from nine provinces competed in an intense two-day tournament that tested students’ knowledge of international issues and global affairs.

West Point Grey Academy debaters Iqbal Kassam, Jonathan Carson, Ashley Bowron and Sophie Bird stepped up to the challenge of debating diverse topics such as North Korea’s nuclear power, tougher immigration policies, Somalian piracy and foreign aid policies.

– snip — Oxford Cup champions, Jonathan Carson and Iqbal Kassam will represent Canada in the 2010 Oxford Finals. Kassam & Carson will be the third West Point Grey senior team to debate at the Oxford Finals.

http://wpga.whipplehill.net/
Previously posted

Slowly, you see it happening to your parents: a jar that does not open, important dates forgotten, missed appointments, the feeling of being lost at times. One day, there is a rapid escalation — a bad fall followed by a slow recovery, or an illness that never leaves. Realisation strikes: you are becoming a parent to your own parents.

In the United States, November is National Family Caregivers Month in recognition of those who care for aging parents and other family members who are unable to take care of themselves. Geriatric Psychiatrist Dr Sultan Ali Lakhani supports family caregivers with education and counseling, and offers some tips for caregivers.

Read at the source: Doctor prescribes tips for National Family Caregiver’s Month

Though the idea of fairies existing may seem ridiculous to some, just two years ago another fairy hoax was perpetrated. I must have been asleep when this hit the news, as I don’t remember anything at all about it at the time. In 2007 sculptor and illusion designer Dan Baines created the below ‘corpse’ of a dead fairy as an April Fools’ Day joke. He then posted pictures on his website along with details stating it was an unknown 8 inch creature and had been discovered by a man walking his dog on Firestone Hill in Duffield, Derbyshire. News of the posting spread and the website received upwards of 20,000 hits in one day. On April 1^st he admitted it was a hoax and thanked people for their interest, but this did not stop people from emailing and it took him four days to answer all the emails from people regarding the ‘dead’ fairy. Many people refused to believe it was a hoax and thought it was a cover-up. Mr Baines placed the fairy on Ebay and it sold to a private art collector in the US for £280 ($461). I’m sure there are many people who continue to believe in the existence of things such as fairies, and though I personally do not, I like the fact that in the modern world where science increasingly tries to explain everything a belief continues in such things. Thanks for reading.

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website

NEWS

Link: Daily Telegraph

Lachlan Murdoch, the elder son of News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch, has sold half of his stake in the media empire for $27.6m (£16.7m). It is thought he sold down his stake to fund the purchase of half of DMG Radio Australia from Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT).

“Pictures of pictures” is my attempt at a catchy name for photos of artwork. In other words, any image I’m taking a picture of – a painting, a sculpture, a document, stained glass – sometimes even another photo. One reason to do this is to remember the information, though usually it’s to remember the image itself. This is probably the one I plan the least – often, I don’t realize what I’ve done till afterward. Plus, it’s not quite as clear cut a category as, say, people, or planes. At the time, I’m thinking, “Oh, wow – I want to see this again!” or “That is so cool, I want to remember it!” Some trips generate crazy amounts of “pix of pix” or POP photos; other trips, just a handful or none at all. Museums are great for this, and also graffiti, billboards, and even advertisements.

Surprisingly, I’ve already turned up a number of pictures from Phoenix, partly due to my summer photography class and partly to researching historical neighborhoods for class. There was even enough for a whole post just on Rosita’s. Many of the remaining POP photos fell into two categories – ones I’d taken for my summer photography class and ones I’d taken for class assignments in the journalism program.

Photography class

First, playing with a borrowed DSLR at night. I took an awesome online photography class from Karen Russell. I needed a DSLR to take the class, difficult on a student budget. In a deeply generous move that made taking the class possible, I was loaned a Canon Rebel. The experience was amazing. I learned so much from the class, the camera, and the combination. There’s a whole new photographic world out there I knew nothing about which now fascinates me! This is a downtown building, Trinity Cathedral, which lights up nearly every evening for at least a few hours. I wanted to try to capture the windows.

Another lesson of photography class (which also bled neatly into journalism) was to notice the details. That lesson had me taking a few pictures like these before I knew our first photo assignment for our media class.

From Abstracts

From Abstracts

Now, for me, photography’s a learning experience, one I’ve far from mastered! But that’s the thing about learning – it’s a journey itself, and for this case, the picture to remember it by are built right in.

An Archuleta concert is all about “the voice”

David Archuleta Sunday (Nov. 29, 2009) at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa, Ca.

Concerts have a certain sameness to them – merchandise table, slightly late start, opening act you wish would hurry up, grand entrance of the main act. You know the routine.

Then comes the star of the show and one of two things occur after the obligatory 90 minute performance – you soon forget the act on the way home or you don’t.

You don’t forget David Archuleta.

Why?

Pretty simple – his voice.

Although as one of the judges on American Idol proclaimed two seasons ago when Archuleta finished second – “David, you could sing the phone book” – his 90-minute, one encore show Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Center was anything but songs from the Yellow Pages.

Dubbed David Archuleta’s “Christmas from the Heart” tour, it was really a combination of about half pretty pure pop Archuleta and half Christmas.

The venue wasn’t full, but it was close; the crowd wasn’t all screaming teenage girls, but it was close; and the songs weren’t all perfect, but they were close.

If you came just to hear for yourself if what you were hearing on Idol was real, well you found out – yes, and moreso.

At time, it was hard to fathom that you were listening to an 18-year old kid from Utah because the voice is something most singers take years to cultivate. And although he has been at this singing gig for much of his young life, the voice is still natural. They just don’t teach what Archuleta projects.

The first half of the show hit a peak with Zero Gravity and then Crush. The latter being his first mega-hit off his initial self-titled album.

Archuleta and his four-piece band took a mini-break to change clothes, alter the stage and change the mood to the holidays.

“It just seems so odd that we are really into the holidays now,” Archuleta said. “I’ve been working on this album for six months and now it’s finally here.”

He sang eight Christmas songs and if ever there was a voice holiday-appropriate it is Archuleta’s. Every song he did just seemed to get better.
Ave Maria sung in Spanish was then topped by a song in French – Pat-A-Pan. Then he went back to Spanish and a song titled Riu Riu Chiu, then Silent Night and finally an encore of O Holy Night.

He wasn’t perfect. Someone on Idol had given him the advice to not close his eyes while he sings, but he did that often. And his connection to the audience between songs was a bit scattered.

But who came to see his eyes or listen to him speak words of wisdom?

We came to hear the voice. And, oh, my, did we. || SOURCE

Larissa here. This is just a small sampling from my photo collection. I’m not loading all now because (1) I’m exhausted and (2) I don’t want to kill everyone at once. At least the concert peeps with me now told me about (2).

The Riddle  

Melodies of Christmas  

Oh Holy Night

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Prayer of the Children

Fields of Gold  

Crush

Zero Gravity

Pat-A -Pan

Waiting For Yesterday

ALTNOY

My Hands  

We’ll post other videos soon as soon as they’re uploaded

Credits to genevievewang, iianeii, daai08, pouncer84 and daviddailycom

11/29/2009

FINALLY! A new shirt!

These photos are from @gengenw. Thanks, so much!!!