L.A. Story is a 1991 American satirical romantic comedy film written by and starring Steve Martin and directed by Mick Jackson. The plot follows a weatherman (Martin) trying to find love in Los Angeles. It was released on February 8, 1991, and received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot
Harris K. Telemacher is a TV weatherman living in Los Angeles. He is in a dead-end relationship with his social-climbing girlfriend Trudi and feels his job requires him to be undignified and unintellectual, though he holds a Ph.D. in arts and humanities. He wants to find some meaning and magic in his life, having grown increasingly weary of what he sees as the rather shallow and superficial city of L.A., from overly pretentious coffee orders to bizarre shooting etiquette rules on the freeway. Furthermore, he spends his time roller-skating through art galleries with his friend Ariel, offering eccentric art reviews to acquaintances, remixing Shakespeare a lot, and otherwise seeking to escape his ordinary life.

At a luncheon with a group of friends, he meets Sara, a journalist from London, with whom he immediately becomes infatuated.

Driving home that night, his car breaks down on the freeway. He notices that a freeway traffic condition sign seems to be displaying messages intended solely for him. It offers him cryptic advice on his love life throughout the movie.

He begins to fall for Sara, but she is conflicted because she has pledged to reconcile with her ex-husband, Roland. Feeling that a relationship with Sara is unlikely, Harris begins dating SanDeE*, a ditzy aspiring spokesmodel, whom he meets at a clothing store. After his first date with her, Harris discovers that Trudi has been cheating on him for three years with his agent. The discovery leads him to pursue his romantic interest in Sara. This is complicated by his new relationship with SanDeE* and by Sara's feeling of obligation to Roland.

By the conclusion, he has successfully wooed Sara, with some encouragement and advice from the sign.

Cast

 Steve Martin as Harris K. Telemacher
 Victoria Tennant as Sara McDowel
 Richard E. Grant as Roland Mackey
 Marilu Henner as Trudi
 Sarah Jessica Parker as SanDeE*
 Susan Forristal as Ariel
 Kevin Pollak as Frank Swan
 Sam McMurray as Morris Frost
 Patrick Stewart as Maitre d' at L'Idiot
 Iman as Cynthia

There are uncredited cameo appearances by Chevy Chase, Woody Harrelson, Paula Abdul, Martin Lawrence, Rick Moranis (this would be the fourth and final film in which Moranis appeared with Martin), and Terry Jones. John Lithgow and Scott Bakula filmed scenes—as a movie agent and Harris's neighbor, respectively—that did not appear in the final cut (although references to Lithgow's character remain in the freeway shootout and the 'California Cuisine' lunch scenes).

Martin and Tennant were real-life husband and wife at the time of the film's production.

Release

Box office

L.A. Story was a box office success. The film earned $6.6 million during its opening weekend, and ended its theatrical run with a gross of $28 million.

Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A romantic comedy that doubles as a love letter to the titular city, L.A. Story is Steve Martin at his silly, sweetly soulful best." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

In 2008, L.A. Story was voted by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors as the 20th best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25years—with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list".

References

External links

1991 films
1990s fantasy comedy-drama films
1990s romantic comedy-drama films
American romantic comedy-drama films
American satirical films
American fantasy comedy-drama films
American independent films
Films directed by Mick Jackson
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Los Angeles
Midlife crisis films
Films with screenplays by Steve Martin
Carolco Pictures films
TriStar Pictures films
1991 comedy-drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
Films produced by Mario F. Kassar
Films produced by Daniel Melnick
1991 independent films

L.A. Story


In class-based, object-oriented programming, a class variable  is a variable defined in a class of which a single copy exists, regardless of how many instances of the class exist.

A class variable is not an instance variable. It is a special type of class attribute (or class property, field, or data member). The same dichotomy between instance and class members applies to methods ("member functions") as well; a class may have both instance methods and class methods.

Static member variables and static member functions

In some languages, class variables and class methods are either statically resolved, not via dynamic dispatch, or their memory statically allocated at compile time (once for the entire class, as static variables), not dynamically allocated at run time (at every instantiation of an object). In other cases, however, either or both of these are dynamic. For example, if classes can be dynamically defined (at run time), class variables of these classes are allocated dynamically when the class is defined, and in some languages class methods are also dispatched dynamically.

Thus in some languages, static member variable or static member function are used synonymously with or in place of "class variable" or "class function", but these are not synonymous across languages. These terms are commonly used in Java, C#     , and C++, where class variables and class methods are declared with the static keyword, and referred to  as static member variables or static member functions.

Example

C++
struct Request {

    static int count;
    int number;

    Requestobject() {
        number = count; // modifies the instance variable "this->number"
        ++count; // modifies the class variable "Request::count"
    }

};

int Request::count = 0;

In this C++ example, the class variable Request::count is incremented on each call to the constructor, so that Request::count always holds the number of Requests that have been constructed, and each new Request object is given a number in sequential order. Since count is a class variable, there is only one object Request::count; in contrast, each Request object contains its own distinct number field.

Also note that the variable Request::count is initialized only once.

Python
class Dog:
    vertebrate_group = 'mammals' # class variable

dog_1 = Dog
print(dog_1.vertebrate_group) # accessing the class variableIn the above Python code, it does not provide much information as there is only class variable in the Dog class that provide the vertebrate group of dog as mammals. In instance variable, you could customize your own object (in this case, dog_1) by having one or more instance variables in the Dog class.

Notes

Object-oriented programming
Variable (computer science)
Articles with example C++ code

Class variable


The Sooner Schooner is an official mascot of the sports teams of the University of Oklahoma Sooners.  Pulled by two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner, it is a scaled-down replica of the Studebaker Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Oklahoma Territory around the time of the Land Run of 1889 and is considered the first mobile home.  Its name comes from the common term for such wagons ("prairie schooners") and the  name for settlers who sneaked into the Territory before it was officially opened for settlement ("Sooners").

The Schooner is maintained and driven by members of the RUF/NEKS, the university's all-male spirit organization, as well as members of the RUF/NEK Lil' Sis, the university's all-female spirit organization.  At home football games and bowl games, the Sooner Schooner is driven onto the field in an arc that almost reaches the 50-yard line after every score. A designated member of either the RUF/NEKS or RUF/NEK Lil' Sis drives the schooner onto the field with a member of the opposite club riding as a passenger. Until the late 1980s, it was customary for the schooner's driver to stand up while driving the ponies onto the field after scores, and duck down only an instant before reaching the stadium tunnel parking spot, barely clearing the tunnel ceiling—a practice eventually ended for safety reasons. The Schooner made its debut at Owen Field in 1964, and it became the University's official mascot in 1980.

History

The Sooner Schooner made its first appearance during a 1964 football game against USC. The Sooners lost that game by 26 points.

Until 2011, when not in use, the Schooner was housed at the Bartlett Ranch outside Sapulpa, Oklahoma, along with Boomer and Sooner.

The 1985 Orange Bowl

The 1985 Orange Bowl, played between the Sooners and the Washington Huskies, is often called "the Sooner Schooner game" because of an incident during the game's second half.

The Miami area had received rain before the game, and the condition of the Orange Bowl's natural grass playing surface deteriorated as the game moved into the third quarter. The game was tied 14–14 when the Sooners lined up for a short, 22-yard field goal which would have made the score 17–14 in Oklahoma's favor.

The kick sailed through the uprights and the Oklahoma sideline thought it was good; the kickoff unit trotted out and the Schooner, as was traditional, also trotted slowly onto the Orange Bowl's wet, mushy field. However, the field goal kick was nullified due to an illegal procedure penalty on Oklahoma. A Sooner player did not report his temporary jersey number to the officials, which he was required to do before the ball was snapped.

The Schooner was already out on the field before the Oklahoma sideline and the RUF/NEKS realized the kick had been disallowed. Worse, while moving across the wet, sloppy natural turf, the Schooner's wagon wheels ended up in a sticky, muddy patch of field and got stuck – right in front of the Washington bench. The Sooners were quickly penalized an additional 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.

What was previously a 22-yard field goal became a 42-yard attempt after the 20 yards of penalties were marked off. The re-kick was blocked by Washington, and the game remained tied. Oklahoma ultimately lost the game 28–17.

Barry Switzer, Oklahoma's coach at the time, said later that he had never seen a flag thrown on the Schooner before or since, "but that wasn't the difference. It would have been closer. But they (Washington) were the better team that night."

The "Sooner Schooner Mooner"
Another incident that drew national attention occurred in 1993 during a game against Colorado.  After a field goal by Oklahoma's Scott Blanton, the Sooner Schooner was driven out onto the field in celebration.  However, the wagon took a corner too sharply and tipped over, spilling the driver (Scott Gibson), the flag bearer, and the RUF/NEK queen onto the turf.  A similar incident occurred on October 19, 2019 during a home game against West Virginia.

See also
Similar vehicular mascots at other universities
 The Boilermaker Special -   A replica locomotive built on a truck chassis which has served as the official mascot of Purdue University since 1940.
 The Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech - A 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe which serves as the official mascot of the student body at the Georgia Institute of Technology

References

External links
 SoonerSports.com Official mascot page
 Oklahoma RUF/NEKS - traditions
 The ride of a Sooner lifetime - a ride in the Sooner Schooner

Oklahoma Sooners
Big 12 Conference mascots

Sooner Schooner


Benoît de Maillet (Saint-Mihiel, 12 April 1656 – Marseille, 30 January 1738) was a well-travelled French diplomat and naturalist.

He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant. He formulated an evolutionary hypothesis to explain the Earth and its contents.

Maillet's geological observations convinced him that the Earth could not have been created in an instant because the features of the crust indicate a slow development by natural processes. He also believed that creatures on the land were ultimately derived from creatures living in the seas. He believed in the natural origin of man.

Age of the Earth
Maillet made the first reasonable estimate of the Earth's age based on evidence. He thought the Earth must have developed by slow, natural forces. He studied geology in the field. He could see signs of erosion on land and sedimentation in the sea.

He hid his ideas under the guise of a talk with an Indian philosopher, to avoid conflict with the Catholic Church. His work stayed in manuscript until after his death, when it was published after its editor had made changes which damaged it. Now there is a better modern edition based on the manuscripts.

Maillet estimated that the Earth was older than two billion years. He also recognized the true nature of fossils, and had early ideas about evolution.

References

French geologists
French naturalists

Benoît de Maillet


Barrow County is a county in the U.S. state of Georgia. It has a lot of woodlands. Most people that live here are originally from the deep south. The Latino and Hispanic population in the area is growing rapidly. The black population is also growing quickly. There are eight elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools. The main cities are Bethlehem and Winder (which is also the county seat).

The county has a museum, the Barrow County Museum.

1914 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia (U.S. state) counties

Barrow County, Georgia


Force Touch is a haptic technology developed by Apple Inc. that enables trackpads and touchscreens to distinguish between various levels of force being applied to their surfaces. It uses pressure sensors to add another method of input to Apple's devices. The technology was first unveiled on September 9, 2014, during the introduction of Apple Watch. Starting with the Apple Watch, Force Touch has been incorporated into many products within Apple's lineup. This notably includes MacBooks and the Magic Trackpad 2. The technology is known as 3D Touch on the iPhone models. The technology brings usability enhancements to the software by offering a third dimension to accept input. Accessing shortcuts, previewing details, drawing art and system wide features enable users to additionally interact with the displayed content by applying force on the input surface.

3D Touch has three levels of input based on the pressure sensitivity. This enables users to customize a preference of light, medium, or firm press on the iPhone's screen. Force Touch on the other hand, has two layers of interaction. Apple's haptic engine called the Taptic Engine resides in these devices, which houses a linear actuator producing vibratory effects as feedback. Apple allows application developers to leverage the pressure sensitivity of trackpads and touchscreens into their own apps. 3D Touch was discontinued with the iPhone 11 and onwards in favor of Haptic Touch.

Haptic Touch is a feature on the iPhone XR (but not the iPhone XS) and later iPhone models replacing 3D Touch. The touchscreen, which no longer has a pressure sensitive layer, distinguishes between a tap and a long-press using a timed delay to activate certain 3D Touch features (only ones for elements that do not have an action assigned to long press). This feature was added to the iPhone SE (1st generation) with the iOS 13 update and to any iPad capable of running iPadOS 13. As of watchOS 7, only Haptic Touch is recognized, and Force Touch is discontinued on all subsequent Apple Watches.

User functionality
Force Touch on Macs bring a variety of features. A few notable ones are:

 Look up text to show more information from Dictionary, Wikipedia, etc.
 Show an Apple Maps preview of an address location.
 Add dates and events to Calendar.
 Preview details of flight numbers, tracking numbers and events.
 Accelerate fast-forwarding and rewinding on QuickTime and iMovie using variable pressure.

3D Touch on iPhones bring the following features, but are not limited to:

 Quick Actions allow users to access shortcuts, many right from the Home screen.
 Peek and Pop allows users to preview content and take actions on it, without having to open it. Pressing further, the user can pop into the content in the app.
 Pressure Sensitivity allows creative apps to take advantage of the pressure-sensing display, for varying line thickness or giving a brush a changing style.
 Holding down to: preview Live Photos; open the App Switcher (iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, 7, 7 Plus, 8, and 8 Plus only); etc.
 Pressing down on the keyboard displays a cursor which can be moved in two dimensions. Pressing again enters selection mode.

Force Touch on Apple Watch brings some significant features, such as:

 See alternate watch faces from the current watch face.
 Get the analog, digital, graph, and hybrid modes on the stopwatch app.
 Toggle between day, list, or today view on the calendar app.
 See weather, rain predictions and temperature on the weather app.

Software
Apple allows application developers to integrate the force touch functionality into their applications. The APIs facilitate the following interactions:

 Apps respond to a press of stronger pressure, providing a shortcut as an additional functionality.
 Pressure sensitivity for drawing and creative apps to make lines thicker or give brushes a changing style.
 Accelerators allow receiving pressure sensitivity, to give users greater control. Say, fast-forward in media playback can speed up as pressure increases.
 Drag and drop to allow users react to a force gesture amidst the hold, to immediately open a new target for the drop.

Hardware

On iPhones with 3D Touch, the capacitive sensors are directly integrated into the display. When a press is detected, these capacitive sensors measure microscopic changes in the distance between the back light and the cover glass. On the Apple Watch, a series of electrodes line the curvature of the screen. When a press is detected, these electrodes determine the pressure applied. The trackpads deploy a similar mechanism, although sensory information is determined by a series of four sensors that align with the corners of the trackpad. The detected pressure is then relayed to the Taptic Engine, which is Apple's haptic feedback engine. The electromagnetic linear actuator within the Taptic engine is capable of reaching its peak output in just one cycle and producing vibrations that last 10 milliseconds. Unlike typical motors, the linear actuator does not rotate but oscillates back and forth. The Taptic Engine produces immediate haptic feedback, without the need to offset the balance of mass. The haptic feedback produced may be accompanied by an audible tone. This helps in gaining the user's attention in order to convey an important information such as a success, warning or a failure. Each haptic type is defined for a specific purpose, to convey a specific meaning.

Mechanics

The touch sensitive interface could either be a trackpad or a touch screen. Multiple actuators are mechanically connected to the back of the input surface. The actuators are distributed along the surface, each at a separate contact location, to provide localized haptic feedback to the user. Piezoelectricity is used by actuators to convert the physically-induced vibration or the input displacement into an electrical signal. A controller is configured to activate the actuators in and around the point of contact. The actuators at the point of contact induces waveforms to produce vibration. However, since there are multiple actuators around the point of contact, the vibration can propagate to other locations, thus limiting the localization effect. This is why a second set of actuators induce waveforms to suppress the vibratory cross-talk produced by the first set of actuators. This may be achieved by producing waveforms that provides interference in terms of amplitude, frequency or both. The masking waveforms could also alter the vibration at contact locations by providing a user experience other than just suppressing the propagated vibrations.

Products
Force Touch or Haptic Touch technology is featured on the following Apple devices:

3D Touch technology was featured on the following Apple devices:

Litigation

Apple Inc. was subjected to a lawsuit by Immersion Corporation on February 11, 2016, due to allegations of infringing patents owned by Immersion on 3D Touch technology. According to the complaint, the asserted patents generally related to the apparatus and methods used in the implementation of pressure-enabled haptics to enhance the user experience on electronic devices. The violated patents with their corresponding description are as follows:

 U.S. Patent Nos. 8,619,051: Relates to a haptic feedback system including a controller, an associated memory, actuator drive and the drive's circuit. The memory stores at least one haptic effect that is executed by the controller.
 U.S. Patent Nos. 8,773,356: Relates to systems and methods for providing tactile sensations which are disclosed, such as the steps of outputting a display signal configured to preview a graphical object on a touch-sensitive input device.
 U.S. Patent Nos. 8,659,571: Relates to a system that produces a dynamic haptic effect and generates a drive signal that includes a gesture signal and a real or virtual device sensor signal.

In May 2018, a second lawsuit in the same District of Delaware court made the claim that Apple had knowingly infringed on four patents in the iPhone 6s and models of the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. In June, the United States International Trade Commission confirmed it would launch an investigation into Immersion's claims. The violated patents from the second lawsuit, with their corresponding description are as follows:

 U.S. Patent Nos. 8,749,507: Relates to systems and methods in which the mobile electronic device determines a pressure and a change in pressure based on contact data.
 U.S. Patent Nos. 7,808,488: Relates to systems and methods for generating an actuator signal to output a haptic effect based on the user's interaction with a graphical object on a touchscreen.
 U.S. Patent Nos. 7,336,260: Relates to systems in which the electronic device detects different levels of pressure on the device and providing a tactile sensation in response.
 U.S. Patent Nos. 8,581,710: Relates to systems and methods for generating an actuator signal to output a haptic effect indicating whether the user's input is recognised or unrecognised and that a corresponding command was or was not found.

On January 29, 2018, Immersion released a brief statement confirming that the company had reached global settlement and license agreements with Apple, the terms of which would be kept confidential.

Similar technologies
A version of Force Touch was once in development by Nokia in a project called 'Goldfinger' from 2013, which would have been a Lumia smartphone. It was built for users to interact with the phone by merely hovering their hands over it, unlike the Force Touch present in Apple's ecosystem. Later renamed to Nokia Lumia McLaren and under development by Microsoft Mobile, the device was eventually cancelled in July 2014.

Phones such as the ZTE Axon mini, Meizu Pro 6, Huawei Mate S, and the Huawei P9 Plus also feature a pressure sensitive display, and the Google Pixel 4 features a software-based technology called Firm Press, which tries to guess the force of pressure using machine learning.

The application programming interface of Android OS added support for pressure-sensitive touching in 2009 with Android 2.0 Éclair, even though no according hardware existed at that time.

See also
 MacBook
 iPhone
 Apple Watch
 Haptic technology

References

External links
Official links:
 Force Touch - macOS
 3D Touch - iOS

Guides:
 Science behind Force Touch and Taptic Engine
 Force Touch guide - macOS
 3D Touch guide - iOS
 Force Touch guide - Apple Watch

Consumer electronics
Apple Inc. hardware

Force Touch


Iris pseudacorus, the yellow flag, yellow iris, or water flag, is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae.  It is native to Europe, western Asia and northwest Africa. Its specific epithet pseudacorus means "false acorus", referring to the similarity of its leaves to those of Acorus calamus (sweet flag), as they have a prominently veined mid-rib and sword-like shape. However, the two plants are not closely related. The flower is commonly attributed with the fleur-de-lis.

Description

This herbaceous flowering perennial plant grows to , or a rare  tall, with erect leaves up to  long and  broad. The flowers are bright yellow,  across, with the typical iris form. The fruit is a dry capsule  long, containing numerous pale brown seeds.

I. pseudacorus grows best in very wet conditions, and is common in wetlands, where it tolerates submersion, low pH, and anoxic soils. The plant spreads quickly, by both rhizome and water-dispersed seed. It fills a similar niche to that of Typha and often grows with it, though usually in shallower water. While it is primarily an aquatic or marginal plant, the rhizomes can survive prolonged dry conditions.

Large I. pseudacorus stands in western Scotland form a very important feeding and breeding habitat for the endangered corncrake.

I. pseudacorus is one of two iris species native to the United Kingdom, the other being Iris foetidissima (stinking iris).

Both the petals and stem are toxic to animals and plants.

Nectar production
The plant was rated in second place for per day nectar production per flower in a UK plants survey conducted by the AgriLand project, which is supported by the UK Insect Pollinators Initiative. However, when number of flowers per floral unit, flower abundance, and phenology were taken into account, it dropped out of the top 10 for most nectar per unit cover per year, as did all plants that placed in the top ten, with the exception of common comfrey, Symphytum officinale.

Cultivation
It is widely planted in temperate regions as an ornamental plant, with several cultivars selected for bog garden planting. The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:
 'Roy Davidson'
'Variegata'  (it has leaves that are edged with deep white stripes )

Other cultivars known include; Alba (with pale cream flowers) and Golden Fleece (with dark yellow flowers).

It used to grow in the ditch of the fortified city of Mdina, on the island of Malta, where water was readily available, but after the renovation of the ditch it has since vanished from the area.

Invasive species
In some regions (including the USA and South Africa) where it is not native, it has escaped from cultivation to establish itself as an invasive aquatic plant which can create dense, monotypic stands, outcompeting other plants in the ecosystem. Where it is invasive, it is tough to remove on a large scale. Even ploughing the rhizomes is often ineffective. It has been banned in some areas but is still widely sold in others for use in gardens.

Iris pseudacorus is reported as invasive in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

Toxicity and uses
The plant's roots and leaves are poisonous.

This plant has been used as a form of water treatment since it can take up macronutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) through its roots, and is featured in many AS Level Biology practicals as its ability to grow in low pH levels makes it a useful indicator.

It can also withstand high salinity levels in the water.

Gallery

See also
Fleur-de-lis
Flag of the Brussels-Capital Region
Iris Sawfly

References

Flora Europaea: Iris pseudacorus

External links
Plants for a Future: Iris pseudacorus

pseudacorus
Flora of Europe
Flora of North Africa
Flora of Western Asia
Garden plants of Africa
Garden plants of Asia
Garden plants of Europe
Medicinal plants of Africa
Medicinal plants of Asia
Medicinal plants of Europe
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus

Iris pseudacorus


The human gene ATP5PD encodes subunit d of the peripheral stalk part of the enzyme mitochondrial ATP synthase.

Mitochondrial ATP synthase catalyzes ATP synthesis, utilizing an electrochemical gradient of protons across the inner membrane during oxidative phosphorylation. It is composed of two linked multi-subunit complexes: the soluble catalytic core, F1, and the membrane-spanning component, F0, which comprises the proton channel. The F1 complex consists of 5 different subunits (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon) assembled in a ratio of 3 alpha, 3 beta, and a single representative of the other 3. The Fo seems to have nine subunits (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, F6 and 8). This gene encodes the d subunit of the Fo complex.
Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been identified for this gene. In addition, three pseudogenes are located on chromosomes 9, 12 and 15.

References

External links

Further reading

ATP5H


Dustin Majewski (born August 16, 1981) is an American former college and professional baseball outfielder.

College career
After earning 1999 Class 4A Player of the Year honors and leading Brenham High School to the Texas state championship finals, Majewski enrolled at Blinn College, where he twice earned All-Conference and All-Region honors in 2000 and 2001.

Majewski transferred to the University of Texas prior to the 2002 season. As a member of the 2002 Texas Longhorns baseball team, Majewski earned Third-Team All-American honors and 2002 College World Series All-Tournament Team honors while helping Texas to its fifth College World Series championship. Majewski was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 12th round of the 2002 Major League Baseball Draft but elected to return to Texas.

In 2003, Majewski earned First-Team 2003 College Baseball All-America Team All-American honors from the American Baseball Coaches Association, Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. As defending national champions, Majewski and Texas returned to the 2003 College World Series, where they were eliminated by eventual national champion Rice.

Professional career
Majewski was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 3rd round of the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft.

In 2004, as a member of the Kane County Cougars, Majewski was named a starter in the 2004 Midwest League All-Star Game. In 2005, Majewski was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for Chad Gaudin. Majewski would go on to make the Florida State League All-Star Game in 2006 as a member of the Dunedin Blue Jays. Later that season, after being promoted to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Majewski set a club record by hitting a home run in four consecutive games. Majewski would ultimately go on to spend his last two seasons in the Texas Rangers organization, with the Frisco RoughRiders and Oklahoma City RedHawks, before retiring after the 2009 season.

See also
Rule 5 draft results

References

External links

1981 births
Living people
All-American college baseball players
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Baseball outfielders
Baseball players from Texas
Blinn Buccaneers baseball players
Dunedin Blue Jays players
Frisco RoughRiders players
Kane County Cougars players
New Hampshire Fisher Cats players
Oklahoma City RedHawks players
People from Brenham, Texas
Sportspeople from Washington County, Texas
Stockton Ports players
Texas Longhorns baseball players
Vancouver Canadians players

Dustin Majewski


Holcombe Waller is an American composer, singer and performance artist.  He lives in Portland, Oregon, and has performed across the United States and Europe, both solo and with his ensemble, The Healers. His father was from France, therefore he is a French American.

Waller has self-released three albums of varying styles.  His work first received international attention with his 2001 album Extravagant Gesture.  The indie album was lauded by a Spin Magazine review, and in REVOLVER Magazine Ann Powers wrote, "For melodic sweep, the prize goes to Holcombe Waller, whose self-released Extravagant Gesture is a small pop epic." Waller's pop influences shifted towards folk for his 2005 release, Troubled Times.  The work continued to receive broad critical attention including a positive review in Paste Magazine and a large editorial feature in BUTT Magazine.

After Troubled Times, Waller has focused on commissions for multidisciplinary performance, dance scores, collaborations, and film scores.  He released "Into the Dark Unknown," an album of music from his touring theatrical folk concert by the same name, February 15, 2011.

Early life
Waller was born Michael Sagalowicz in Stanford, California. He lived in Palo Alto until the age of 18, when he moved to Los Angeles to record a solo album, never released, with a now-defunct upstart label. At 19, he moved to New Haven, Connecticut as an undergraduate student at Yale University. There he produced work for various artists and bands, and casually picked up guitar.  He was a member of and musical director of The Duke's Men of Yale for three years, contributing numerous arrangements.  Waller produced and mixed two albums for Project Nim, a band that included fellow Yalie Bryce Dessner as well as Aaron Dessner and Bryan Devendorf, all now members of The National.  Waller also recorded and mixed fellow Yalie Mia Doi Todd's album Come Out of Your Mine in 1997 in Dwight Chapel on Yale Campus, where he held his first public performance with guitar and vocals in the Spring of 1998. That year Waller began recording for his first album, Advertising Space. The sessions included Bryce on guitar, Aaron on bass and Bryan on drums. Waller graduated from Yale with a degree in Art, specializing in video installation, and moved back to his home state of California, settling in San Francisco.

Waller finished and self-released Advertising Space in 1999 on his imprint, Napoleon Records.  Though only locally promoted, the album was picked up by Hear Music and editorially featured in all of their stores.

From 2000 to 2004, Waller worked in the information technology department of an internet hosting company, which allowed him to fund his next two albums.  Extravagant Gesture (2001 Napoleon Records) also featured Bryce Dessner on guitars, and was picked up by Redeye Distribution in the United States.  Troubled Times (2005 Napoleon Records) represented an artistic shift towards a more spare, folk-oriented orchestration. It was recorded in collaboration with college friend and multi-instrumentalist Ben Landsverk and features a guest performance by Mia Doi Todd.

By 2005, Waller had left his job and moved to Portland, Oregon with the intention of becoming a full-time musician and artist. He has a sister named Leslie, and a niece named Emily who he loves very, very much, more than anyone else. She is what he describes, as super cool, and fun, and awesome, and better than any other child he's ever met!  She is even so cool that she knows how to edit a wiki page. ;)

Career
Upon arriving in Portland in 2005, Waller's trajectory shifted towards multidisciplinary performance.  He was cast in One, an original musical by Wade McCollum, and Tao Soup, a multidisciplinary ensemble piece by Scott Kelman.  In 2006, Waller began integrating his experiences in theater, video installation and music with a piece titled Mihael Sagalovesky and the Tragic Torments of Patty Heart Townes. The work featured 6 Patty Griffin songs and 6 Townes Van Zandt songs arranged to represent a broad narrative arch of dissolution and redemption.  The work premiered in Portland in 2007 and toured to New York (Joe's Pub) and Philadelphia.

In 2008, Waller was commissioned by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and On the Boards of Seattle to create his theatrical folk concert, Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope Chest.  The work integrated aspects of theater, video installation and folk concert.  The work was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation's prestigious MAP Fund and toured to the New York Public Theater (Under the Radar Festival), Seattle's On the Boards, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver BC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Queer Zagreb Festival, among others.

An album of music from the show features his ensemble, The Healers, as well as drummer Danny Seim (Menomena, Lackthereof).  The album was funded by a Kickstarter campaign in the Spring of 2010, and is scheduled for release Winter 2011.

In the Fall of 2009, Waller was a Visiting Artist Lecturer in the Department of Theater, Performance Studies and Dance at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught the seminar Contemporary Song-based Performance Art.  Winter 2010, Waller launched the development of a new multidisciplinary performance titled "Surfacing," commissioned with the National Performance Network by OutNorth and Helena Presents.

Collaborations

Waller has created two collaborative performances with Joe Goode Performance Group:  "Small Experiments in Song and Dance," which premiered in January 2009 at the Brava Theater in San Francisco, and "Dead Boys," a musical which premiered at the Zellerbach Playhouse at U.C. Berkeley in October 2009.

Waller worked with Zoe Scofield, the Seattle-based choreographer of Zoe|Juniper, scoring music for her performance Old Girl, commissioned by the Spectrum Dance Theater of Seattle in October 2008.

Waller has recently scored the film, "We Were Here: Voices from the AIDS Years in San Francisco," by David Weissman and Bill Weber.

See also
 List of LGBT people from Portland, Oregon

References

External links
 Holcombe Waller's Trouble Times – popmatters.com retrieved 4th May 2010
 Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope – sfweekly retrieved 4th May 2010
 Holcombe Waller at Dead Boys sfbg.com
 Interview at  East Village Boys retrieved 4th March 2011

1975 births
Living people
American male singer-songwriters
American performance artists
Singer-songwriters from California
Singers from Portland, Oregon
Singer-songwriters from Oregon
People from Stanford, California
21st-century American singer-songwriters
21st-century American male singers
LGBT people from Oregon
LGBT people from California
American LGBT singers

Holcombe Waller


The common flat lizard (Platysaurus intermedius) is a species of lizard in the Cordylidae family. This lizard has 9 subspecies, all living in southern Africa.

Description
The females and juveniles of all subspecies of P. intermedius have black scales, with white stripes on their backs. The bellies are brown, but the outer edges are white. Adult males have different colorations for each subspecies.

Geography
Common flat lizards are the most widely distributed and common Platysaurus. These lizards live under exfoliating, or weathering, rocks. Their preferred types of rock are granite, sandstone, and quartzite. These lizards can be found in moderately moist savannahs, as well as rock outcrops. It ranges throughout Zimbabwe, North Province, Mpumalanga, southern Malawi, eastern Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, and northern KwaZulu-Natal. This area includes the Kalahari Desert, and several large river drainage systems.

Subspecies
Nine subspecies are recognized:

P. i. wilhelmi
Males of P. i. whilhelmi are green or brown on their backs. White spots are also present. Their tails begin red and change to yellow at the ends. Their bellies are mostly blue, but the centers are black. This subspecies can be found in southern Mpumalanga, a province of South Africa. P. i. wilhelmi may not be a subspecies of Platysaurus intermedius, as it possibly is closer to the Lebombo flat lizard, Platysaurus lebomboensis.
Males have been found to run shorter distances and go into hiding from a predator earlier than females.

P. i. rhodesianus
P.i.rhodesianus is one of the largest subspecies of the common flat lizard, reaching 120 mm in length. A male can either have a blue-green or a yellow-green head. The head also has three white stripes. The back color is dependent on range. For the majority of its range, the front part of its back is blue-green. The only exception is in Mozambique, where the front part is red. In the eastern part of its range, the lower part of its back is green, and in the western part of its range, the lower part of its back is red. Tails can be either greenish or yellowish, like many other Platysaurus species. Two phases for the neck and chest can occur. The first phase has a blue throat, a black collar, and a mud-colored chest. The second phase has a yellow throat, black collar, and a green or blue chest.

This race occurs in all of Zimbabwe except the northeast, eastern Botswana, and the Limpopo.

P. i. nigrescens
P.i. nigrescens is 7.5–9 cm long. The male has a black head, chin, throat, chest, and belly. Yellow scales are scattered across this lizard's body. The tail is bright orange. This subspecies occurs near the Shoshong Hills, in northeastern Botswana.

P. i. subniger
P. i. subniger is similar in size to P. i. rhodesianus. The male of this subspecies has a dark green back which becomes brown or black in the rear of the back, with whitish spots. In males from Trelawney, Zimbabwe, their backs are uniform red, also with whitish spots. The tail and throat are orange (though the throat can also be yellow or white), while the chest and belly are black.

A female specimen lived 3.1 years in captivity.

P. i. parvus
P. i. parvus is 65–75 mm long. The males has a dark green back in the anterior, but the posterior part is red-brown. The back can also have whitish spots, similar to many other Platysaurus species. The tail is a dark orange, while the throat is pale blue. The neck has two black spots on either side. This is a reduced collar. The chest and belly are blue, similar to others of the genus. This race can be found on Blouberg, a mountain, in Limpopo Province.

P. i. natalensis
P. i. natalansis occurs in Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa. The back is dark green, with white spots and stripes. The tail is orange. The throat is yellow or pale blue, with black spots and a black collar. The chest and belly are two different shades of blue.

P. i. intermedius
P. i. intermedius is 85–90 mm long, and was the first subspecies to be found. Their heads and bodies are green or brown, along with nearly nonexistent spots and stripes. The tails are either red or yellow. Their throats and bellies are blue, as are many other males in this species.

This subspecies is found around Pietersburg, North Province.

P. i. inopinus
P. i. inopinus males are similar to P. i. parvus in appearance and size. Two major differences are white thighs with black spotting and a lack of a reduced collar. P. i. inopinus can be found in the foothills of Blouberg, Northern Cape in South Africa.

P. i. nyasae
P. i. nyasae occurs in Malawi and central Mozambique. They were discovered in 1953.

References

External links

More information

Platysaurus
Lizards of Africa
Reptiles of Botswana
Reptiles of Eswatini
Reptiles of Malawi
Reptiles of Mozambique
Reptiles of South Africa
Reptiles of Zimbabwe
Reptiles described in 1891
Taxa named by Paul Matschie

Common flat lizard


Don Juan is a satirical poem by Lord Byron.  It is based on the legend of Don Juan, who was said to be able to seduce many women.  The poem is a satire because in the poem it is Don Juan who is seduced by women.

1819
Epic poems
1810s British poems

Don Juan (Byron)


Emasculation is also used metaphorically to refer to the loss of a man's masculinity. A man is said to be emasculated when he loses, or is deprived of, a characteristic traditionally associated with being a man, such as power or independence. It is the removal of both the penis and the testicles, the external male sex organs. It differs from castration, which is the removal of the testicles only. Throughout the Indian subcontinent tradition, including India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, some members of the Hijra community reportedly undergo emasculation, or nirvan. For the Hijra, emasculation does affect a recipient's gender identity, with some identifying as female, non-binary, or a third gender.

Human sexuality

Emasculation