The Building Partnerships Canvas, An Interactive Game by XPLANE!

Object of play: The partnership canvas is a tool that enables visualization of current and/or future partnerships. It can also be used for early testing of the value creating potential of a partnership between two partnership candidates. The tool’s purpose is to define your business priority for partnering, and empathize with your partner to explore whether there is potentially a match. The partnership canvas can be used as a stand-alone tool, but comes to full strategizing value when it is jointly used with the business model canvas.

Bart Doorneweert & Ernst Houdkamp www.valuechaingeneration.com

Number of players: This can be done by yourself, but preferably with 2 teams of max 5 people representing each side of the partnership. Alternatively, make multiple pairs if there are more people.

Duration of play: (60-90 min):
- Step 1- Define intent (15 min)
–Step 2- Design partnership (15 min/sketch)
–Step 3- Bring teams to the negotiating table (15 min)
–Step 4- Evaluate the negotiation results and define next steps (20 min)

How to play
1. Define intent
a)    Describe the aim or goal of the partnership for your business
b)    List what would be ideal partners to work with and why. Organize a post up. Select a top partnership candidate, or multiple candidates.
c)    Create (multiples of) 2 teams; 1 representing your business, 1 for a potential partner’s business.
2. Design partnership
a)    Each team identifies their desired assets in their respective partner’s business model
b)    Teams sketches out a partnership canvas from their own team’s perspective using stickie notes to define each building block
3. Bring teams to the negotiating table
a)   Each team presents their partnership canvas
b)   Compare the two partnership canvasses by mirroring the partnership perspectives. Compare between  value offers of one team, to desired value of the other team, and whether there is mutual understanding of the transfer activities. Check for a clear fit.
c)   Create agreement on the created value for each partner. Adapt partnership canvas and iterate step 3 if required.
4. Evaluate the negotiation results and define next steps
a)   Do the elements of created value provide clear added value to each partner’s business?
b)   Define next steps to effectuate the partnership

Mirroring Partnership Perspectives

Strategy: The partnership canvas can be used to explore the idea of engaging in a partnership. A team can use the canvas to prepare for an upcoming conversation with a potential partner. Alternatively the session can be conducted jointly with a potential partner if there is already a mutual interest to explore partnering possibilities. The tool can firstly be used to determine whether there is a technical fit between two businesses. By working in teams and negotiating certain rivalry is always invoked, and teams can also get a sense of cultural fit between two partnering businesses.
In order to obtain full strategizing value from use of the canvas, it is advised to integrally work with the business model canvas. In the end, the partnership discussion is a key step in business model innovation

Gamestorming by XPLANE!

Creativity and invention has long been seen as a “black box.” As business people, we don’t typically try to understand this process. We fully expect that when designers, inventors, and other creative people go into a room with a goal, they will come out with more or less creative discoveries and results. Although when we watch them at work, we can observe some combination of sketching, animated conversations, messy desks, and drinking. But the fundamental nature of what happens in that room remains mostly a mystery.
It’s easy to leave creativity to the creative types, and say to yourself, “I’m just not a creative person.” The fact is that in a complex, dynamic, competitive knowledge economy, it’s no longer acceptable to take this position. If you are a knowledge worker, you must become, to some degree, creative.
That may sound a bit scary, but the fact is that successful creative people tend to employ simple strategies and practices to get where they want to go. It’s not so much that they employ a consistent, repeatable process that leads to consistent creative results. It’s more like a workshop with a set of tools and strategies for examining things deeply, for exploring new ideas, for performing experiments and testing hypotheses, to generate new and surprising insights and results.
So we set out, much like the brothers Grimm, to collect the best of these practices wherever we could find them, with a special focus on Silicon Valley, innovative companies, and the information revolution.
Many of these practices emerged from a kind of “Silicon soup” – the deeply interconnected network of Silicon valley, where ideas and people cross-pollinate like bees in a single massive hive. The practices live in a mostly oral culture, passed along from person to person by word of mouth. For example, a consultant uses an approach with a client, and the client begins to employ that approach internally. Over time, as more people employ a method, it evolves into something quite different, and over time the source of the original idea or approach may be lost. Sometimes methods are written down and sometimes, like folk tales, they exist in many different versions in many places.
We chose to call this practice “Gamestorming” because it seemed to come closer to describing the phenomenon than anything else we could think of.
Our goal with this collection was to find the best of these tools and practices and bring them together into a single place.
It is our hope that you will contribute games based on your personal knowledge and experience, that you will help us clarify the history of the ideas and practices, and that through your comments you can help us all better understand the complex and fascinating history of games at play in creative work.

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Company source: http://www.xplane.com/

Οι συγγραφείς είναι εραστές..

Σήμερα αγαπητοί μου φίλοι θα μιλήσουμε για την πραγματικότητα του συγγραφέα, όπως όχι μόνο πολλοί από εσάς την βιώνετε αλλά και μέσα από σκέψεις που πλέον είναι γνωστές, ελκυστικές, ενδιαφέρουσες αλλά και οικειοποιούμενες από πολλούς άλλους συγγραφείς. Σας παρουσιάζω ένα βιβλίο το οποίο είναι σίγουρο ότι θα αγοράσω και μάλιστα με ένα θέμα το οποίο είχα την τύχη όχι μόνο να ακούσω αλλά πλέον να μπορώ να το νιώθω. Το βιβλίο είναι της Πασχαλίας Τραυλού στοιχεία του οποίου βλέπετε παρακάτω:


Οι εραστές της γραφής
Πασχαλία Τραυλού
Ημ. Έκδοσης 08/04/2011
Ανατύπωση 2η

Λίγα λόγια για το βιβλίο 

Εραστής της γραφής είναι αυτός που περπατάει συνομιλώντας με τον ήρωά του, εκείνος που κρατάει συνεχώς σημειώσεις στο κουτί των τσιγάρων του, εκείνος που, ατενίζοντας τον ορίζοντα, βλέπει όχι ό,τι υπάρχει στην ευθεία των ματιών του, αλλά ό,τι εκτυλίσσεται στα άδυτα της ψυχής του. Τα ψέματα και οι αλήθειες, τα προσωπεία των ηρώων και των δημιουργών, οι συνειρμοί και τα σύμβολα, οι πληγές και τα οράματα, το φως και το σκότος, οι ιδέες που γίνονται λέξεις και οι λέξεις που φιλοτεχνούν «κοστούμια» ιδεών παίρνουν μια θέση στη χορεία αυτών των στοχασμών, προκειμένου να δώσουν κάποια εξήγηση για τον μεγαλειώδη όσο και ψυχοφθόρο έρωτα της γραφής. Μια χαρτογράφηση των σκοπέλων της δημιουργικής διαδικασίας. Ένα οδοιπορικό στην ψυχή του εραστή της γραφής. 

Συνεχίζοντας τις σκέψεις μίας υπέροχης συγγραφέος γύρω από τα άδυτα της ψυχής του ανθρώπου σε αντίθεση με τον ορίζοντα των ματιών του, σε ένα θέμα που υπερβαίνει κατά πολύ ακόμα και τον ιδανικό έρωτα, έτυχε να νιώσω λόγια και συζητήσεις ανθρώπων, επικαλούμενοι το φως και το σκοτάδι, μία επικείμενη συντριβή αλλά και μία σωτηρία, μέσα από τον αγώνα του ανθρώπου που πρέπει "να σκάψει και λίγο την ψυχή του"..;) Το να βγει νικητής από αυτή τη μάχη, άλλωστε, θα μπορούσε η γνήσια προέλευση μίας θρησκείας (όπως πολλοί επιστήμονες εστιάζουν στα φιλοσοφικά προβλήματα) να μελετηθεί χωρίς διαφωνία? Αν μπορείτε να προβάλλετε αυτό το φιλοσοφικό θρησκευτικό αγώνα στην έννοια ψυχή, στις εσωτερικές συγκρούσεις και προσδοκίες, σίγουρα αυτά που θα μάθετε θα είναι πολλά. Καλό σας βραδάκι...!

Venus

Venus, ancient Italian goddess associated with cultivated fields and gardens and later identified by the Romans with the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.

Venus had no worship in Rome in early times, as the scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 bce) shows, attesting that he could find no mention of her name in old records. This is corroborated by the absence of any festival for her in the oldest Roman calendar and by her lack of a flamen (special priest). Her cult among the Latins, however, seems to be immemorial, for she had apparently at least two ancient temples, one at Lavinium, the other at Ardea, at which festivals of the Latin cities were held. Hence, it was no long step to bring her to Rome, apparently from Ardea itself. But how she came to be identified with so important a deity as Aphrodite remains a puzzle.

That Venus’s identification with Aphrodite took place fairly early is certain. A contributory reason for it is perhaps the date (August 19) of the foundation of one of her Roman temples. August 19 is the Vinalia Rustica, a festival of Jupiter. Hence, he and Venus came to be associated, and this facilitated their equation, as father and daughter, with the Greek deities Zeus and Aphrodite. She was, therefore, also a daughter of Dione, was the wife of Vulcan, and was the mother of Cupid. In myth and legend she was famous for her romantic intrigues and affairs with both gods and mortals, and she became associated with many aspects, both positive and negative, of femininity. As Venus Verticordia, she was charged with the protection of chastity in women and girls. But the most important cause of the identification was the reception into Rome of the famous cult of Venus Erycina—i.e., of Aphrodite of Eryx (Erice) in Sicily—this cult itself resulting from the identification of an Oriental mother-goddess with the Greek deity. This reception took place during and shortly after the Second Punic War. A temple was dedicated to Venus Erycina on the Capitol in 215 bce and a second outside the Colline gate in 181 bce. The latter developed in a way reminiscent of the temple at Eryx with its harlots, becoming the place of worship of Roman courtesans, hence the title of dies meretricum (“prostitutes’ day”) attached to April 23, the day of its foundation.

The importance of the worship of Venus-Aphrodite was increased by the political ambitions of the gens Iulia, the clan of Julius Caesar and, by adoption, of Augustus. They claimed descent from Iulus, the son of Aeneas; Aeneas was the alleged founder of the temple of Eryx and, in some legends, of the city of Rome also. From the time of Homer onward, he was made the son of Aphrodite, so that his descent gave the Iulii divine origin. Others than the Iulii sought to connect themselves with a deity grown so popular and important, notably Gnaeus Pompeius, the triumvir. He dedicated a temple to Venus as Victrix (“Bringer of Victory”) in 55 bce. Julius Caesar’s own temple (46 bce), however, was dedicated to Venus Genetrix, and as Genetrix (“Begetting Mother”) she was best known until the death of Nero in 68 ce. Despite the extinction of the Julio-Claudian line, she remained popular, even with the emperors; Hadrian completed a temple of Venus at Rome in 135 ce.

As a native Italian deity, Venus had no myths of her own. She therefore took over those of Aphrodite and, through her, became identified with various foreign goddesses. The most noteworthy result of this development is perhaps the acquisition by the planet Venus of that name. The planet was at first the star of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar and thence of Aphrodite. Because of her association with love and with feminine beauty, the goddess Venus has been a favourite subject in art since ancient times; notable representations include the statue known as the Venus de Milo (c. 150 bce) and Sandro Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus (c. 1485).

(Source Encyclopedia Britannica)

Ηλύσια Πεδία (Μυθολογία)

Κατά την Ελληνική Μυθολογία τα Ηλύσια Πεδία αποτελούσαν τμήμα του Άδη. Ήταν ο τελικός προορισμός της ψυχής των ηρώων και των ενάρετων.

Μυθολογία

Ενώ τα Τάρταρα ήταν τόπος τιμωρίας, τα Ηλύσια Πεδία ήταν παραδείσιος τόπος με ολάνθιστα λιβάδια, όπου επικρατούσε αιώνια άνοιξη και οι πηγές της Λήθης ανάβλυζαν νέκταρ που έκανε τους νεκρούς να λησμονούν όλα τα γήινα δάκρυα και τις κακουχίες.

Εκεί βρίσκονταν κατά τον θρύλο ο Μενέλαος και η ωραία Ελένη, καθώς και ο Κάδμος και άλλοι θηβαίοι ήρωες. Κάτω από τη σκιά Μυρτιών εξασκούνταν στην ιππασία και τον στίβο ή έπαιζαν ζάρια και μουσική.

Ο Μίνως, αδερφός του Ραδάμανθυ βασίλευε στην πεδιάδα της άφιξης, εκεί που είχαν φέρει τον κοιμώμενο Κρόνο, που όντας μεθυσμένος από την πόση μελιού, είχε αιχμαλωτιστεί και δεθεί από τον Δία.

Σύμφωνα με τους Ορφικούς, ο Κρόνος βασίλευε εκεί έχοντας βασίλισσα την Ρέα.

Οι αναφορές για τα Ηλύσια Πεδία στην αρχαία γραμματεία μέχρι τον 4ο αιώνα π.Χ είναι σπανιότατες. Στο Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) εμφανίζονται μόνο δύο: Υπάρχει μία στην Οδύσσεια (Οδ 4.556) και μία αναφορά του Αριστοτέλη στο ίδιο χωρίο του Ομήρου.

Πηγή Βικιπαίδεια

Αρμονία (Μυθολογία)

Στην ελληνική μυθολογία η Αρμονία ήταν κόρη δύο θεών, κατά τη Θεογονία του Ησιόδου: του Άρεως και της Αφροδίτης και αδελφή του Φόβου και του Δείμου. Παντρεύτηκε τον βασιλιά των Θηβών Κάδμο (Αισχύλου Επτά επί Θήβας, στ. 105, 140, και Βιβλιοθήκη Απολλοδώρου Γ 4, 2). Οι περισσότερες από τις θηβαϊκές γενεαλογίες σχετίζονται με αυτό το βασιλικό ζεύγος, και όλες οι μεγάλες οικογένειες των Θηβών ισχυρίζονταν ότι κατάγονταν από αυτούς. Ακόμα και οι Αμαζόνες σύμφωνα με μία παράδοση ήταν κόρες της Αρμονίας. Ωστόσο, κατά μία άλλη εκδοχή, η Αρμονία ήταν κόρη του Δία και της Ηλέκτρας, και καταγόταν από τη Σαμοθράκη, από όπου είχε απαχθεί από τον Κάδμο. Αυτή την εκδοχή ασπάζεται ο Απολλώνιος ο Ρόδιος (Α 916).

Στους γάμους της Αρμονίας ήταν παρόντες όλοι οι θεοί και οι θεές, που κατέβηκαν από την κορυφή του Ολύμπου, με πλούσια και θαυμαστά δώρα, ενώ οι Μούσες τραγούδησαν τον ύμνο του υμεναίου. Παιδιά του Κάδμου και της Αρμονίας ήταν η Σεμέλη (μητέρα του θεού Διονύσου), η Ινώ (μητέρα του Μελικέρτη), η Αυτονόη (μητέρα του Ακταίωνα), η Αγαύη (μητέρα του Πενθέα και ο Πολύδωρος, πατέρας του Λαβδάκου, που έγινε πρόγονος του Οιδίποδα.

Κάποτε, ο Κάδμος και η Αρμονία εγκατέλειψαν τη Βοιωτία, αφήνοντας στον θρόνο τον εγγονό τους Πενθέα, και πήγαν να περάσουν τα ύστερά τους κοντά στους Ιλλυριούς. Στο τέλος της ζωής τους και οι δυο τους μεταμορφώθηκαν σε δράκοντες και μεταφέρθηκαν από τον Δία στα Ηλύσια Πεδία (Πίνδαρος, Ολυμπιόνικοι Β 78). Κοινό γνώρισμα της θηβαϊκής και της σαμοθρακικής παραλλαγής του μύθου της Αρμονίας είναι το ότι η Αρμονία φέρεται ως σύζυγος του Κάδμου.
Ιδιαίτερη σημασία έχουν τα γαμήλια δώρα των θεών προς την Αρμονία: τα σπουδαιότερα δύο ήταν η εσθήτα και το περιδέραιο. Η εσθήτα πιστευόταν ότι ήταν δώρο της Αφροδίτης ή της Αθηνάς, υφασμένο από τις Χάριτες. Το περιδέραιο ήταν δώρο του θεού Ηφαίστου. Αλλά και τα δύο δώρα στάθηκαν μοιραία αργότερα, για κάποιους από τους απογόνους της Αρμονίας (βλ. Αλκμαίων, Αμφιάραος).
Σύμφωνα με άλλη παράδοση, αμφότερα ήταν δώρα του ίδιου του Κάδμου προς τη σύζυγό του, θεϊκής προελεύσεως βέβαια: ο Κάδμος τα διατηρούσε από την Ευρώπη, στην οποία τα είχε χαρίσει ο Δίας. Σε μια τρίτη παράδοση, η εσθήτα της Αρμονίας ήταν δημιούργημα της Αθηνάς και του Ηφαίστου ποτισμένο με δηλητήριο. Ο λόγος ήταν ότι οι δύο θεοί μισούσαν την Αρμονία ως καρπό της μοιχείας της Αφροδίτης με τον Άρη (η Αφροδίτη ήταν σύζυγος του Ηφαίστου).

Πηγή Βικιπαίδεια

The story of John Forbes Nash

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (born June 13, 1928) is an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the factors that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are used in market economics, computing, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the latter part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

Nash is the subject of the 2001 Hollywood movie A Beautiful Mind. The film, loosely based on the biography of the same name, focuses on Nash's mathematical genius and also his schizophrenia.

Youth

Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia. His father, after whom he is named, was an electrical engineer for the Appalachian Electric Power Company. His mother, born Margaret Virginia Martin and known as Virginia, had been a schoolteacher before she married. He had a younger sister, Martha, born November 16, 1930.

Education

Nash attended kindergarten and public school. His parents and grandparents provided books and encyclopedias that he learned from. Nash's grandmother played piano at home, and Nash had positive memories of listening to her when he visited. Nash's parents pursued opportunities to supplement their son's education, and arranged for him to take advanced mathematics courses at a local community college during his final year of high school. Nash attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) with a full scholarship, the George Westinghouse Scholarship, and initially majored in Chemical Engineering. He switched to Chemistry, and eventually to Mathematics. After graduating in 1948 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Master of Science in Mathematics, he accepted a scholarship to Princeton University, where he pursued further graduate studies in Mathematics.

Nash's advisor and former Carnegie Tech professor R. J. Duffin wrote a letter of recommendation consisting of a single sentence: "This man is a genius." Nash was accepted by Harvard University, but the chairman of the mathematics department of Princeton, Solomon Lefschetz, offered him the John S. Kennedy fellowship, which was enough to convince Nash that Harvard valued him less. Nash also considered Princeton more favorably because of its location closer to his family in Bluefield. He went to Princeton where he worked on his equilibrium theory.

Personal life

In 1951, Nash went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a C. L. E. Moore Instructor in the mathematics faculty. There, he met Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé (born January 1, 1933), a naturalized U.S. citizen from El Salvador. De Lardé graduated from M.I.T., having majored in physics. They married in February 1957 at a Catholic ceremony, although Nash was an atheist. Nash experienced the first symptoms of mental illness in early 1959, when his wife was pregnant with their child. He resigned his position as member of the M.I.T. mathematics faculty in the spring of 1959. Nash's wife admitted Nash to the McLean Hospital for schizophrenia in 1959; their son, John Charles Martin Nash, was born soon afterward, but remained nameless for a year because his mother felt that her husband should have a say in the name.

Nash and de Lardé divorced in 1963, though after his final hospital discharge in 1970, Nash lived in de Lardé's house. They remarried in 2001.

Before his marriage, Nash also had a son named John David Stier from a relationship with Eleanor Stier, a nurse he met while she was caring for him as a patient. The film based on Nash's life, A Beautiful Mind, was criticized during the run-up to the 2002 Oscars for omitting this supposedly unsavory aspect of his life, given that he was alleged to have declined to marry Eleanor based on her social status, which he thought to have been beneath his.

In 1954, Nash was arrested for indecent exposure in a police trap in Santa Monica, California. Although the charges were dropped, he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance and fired from RAND Corporation where he had spent a few summers as a consultant.

Nash has been a longtime resident of West Windsor Township, New Jersey.

Mental illness

Nash began to show signs of extreme paranoia, and his wife later described his behavior as erratic, as he began speaking of characters like Charles Herman and William Parcher who were putting him in danger. Nash seemed to believe that all men who wore red ties were part of a communist conspiracy against him. Nash mailed letters to embassies in Washington, D.C., declaring that they were establishing a government.

He was admitted to the McLean Hospital, April–May 1959, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The clinical picture is dominated by relatively stable, often paranoid, fixed beliefs that are either false, over-imaginative or unrealistic, usually accompanied by experiences of seemingly real perception of something not actually present — particularly auditory and perceptional disturbances, a lack of motivation for life, and mild clinical depression.

In 1961, Nash was admitted to the New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton. Over the next nine years, he spent periods in psychiatric hospitals, where, aside from receiving antipsychotic medications, he was administered insulin shock therapy.

Although he sometimes took prescribed medication, Nash later wrote that he only ever did so under pressure. After 1970, he was never committed to a hospital again, and he refused any further medication. According to Nash, the film A Beautiful Mind inaccurately implied that he was taking the new atypical antipsychotics during this period. He attributed the depiction to the screenwriter (whose mother, he notes, was a psychiatrist), who was worried about the film encouraging people with the disorder to stop taking their medication. Others, however, have questioned whether the fabrication obscured a key question as to whether recovery from problems like Nash's can actually be hindered by such drugs. Nash has said they are overrated and that the adverse effects are not given enough consideration once someone is deemed mentally ill. According to Sylvia Nasar, author of the book A Beautiful Mind, on which the movie was based, Nash recovered gradually with the passage of time. Encouraged by his then former wife, de Lardé, Nash worked in a communitarian setting where his eccentricities were accepted. De Lardé said of Nash, "it's just a question of living a quiet life".

Nash dates the start of what he terms "mental disturbances" to the early months of 1959 when his wife was pregnant. He has described a process of change "from scientific rationality of thinking into the delusional thinking characteristic of persons who are psychiatrically diagnosed as 'schizophrenic' or 'paranoid schizophrenic'" including seeing himself as a messenger or having a special function in some way, and with supporters and opponents and hidden schemers, and a feeling of being persecuted, and looking for signs representing divine revelation. Nash has suggested his delusional thinking was related to his unhappiness and his striving to feel important and be recognized, and to his characteristic way of thinking, saying, "I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally." He has also said, "If I felt completely pressureless I don't think I would have gone in this pattern". He does not see a categorical distinction between terms such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Nash reports that he did not hear voices until around 1964, later engaging in a process of rejecting them. He reports that he was always taken to hospitals against his will, and only temporarily renounced his "dream-like delusional hypotheses" after being in a hospital long enough to decide to superficially conform – to behave normally or to experience "enforced rationality". Only gradually on his own did he "intellectually reject" some of the "delusionally influenced" and "politically oriented" thinking as a waste of effort. However, by 1995, although he was "thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists," he says he also felt more limited.

Writing in 1994, Nash stated:

    "I spent times of the order of five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis and always attempting a legal argument for release. And it did happen that when I had been long enough hospitalized that I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research. In these interludes of, as it were, enforced rationality, I did succeed in doing some respectable mathematical research. Thus there came about the research for "Le problème de Cauchy pour les équations différentielles d'un fluide général"; the idea that Prof. Hironaka called 'the Nash blowing-up transformation'; and those of 'Arc Structure of Singularities' and 'Analyticity of Solutions of Implicit Function Problems with Analytic Data'.

    "But after my return to the dream-like delusional hypotheses in the later 60's I became a person of delusionally influenced thinking but of relatively moderate behavior and thus tended to avoid hospitalization and the direct attention of psychiatrists.
    "Thus further time passed. Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists."

Recognition and later career

At Princeton, campus legend Nash became "The Phantom of Fine Hall"  (Princeton's mathematics center), a shadowy figure who would scribble arcane equations on blackboards in the middle of the night. The legend appears in a work of fiction based on Princeton life, The Mind-Body Problem, by Rebecca Goldstein.

In 1978, Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his discovery of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria. He won the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1999.

In 1994, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (along with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten) as a result of his game theory work as a Princeton graduate student. In the late 1980s, Nash had begun to use email to gradually link with working mathematicians who realized that he was the John Nash and that his new work had value. They formed part of the nucleus of a group that contacted the Bank of Sweden's Nobel award committee and were able to vouch for Nash's mental health ability to receive the award in recognition of his early work.

As of 2011 Nash's recent work involves ventures in advanced game theory, including partial agency, which show that, as in his early career, he prefers to select his own path and problems. Between 1945 and 1996, he published 23 scientific studies.

Nash has suggested hypotheses on mental illness. He has compared not thinking in an acceptable manner, or being "insane" and not fitting into a usual social function, to being "on strike" from an economic point of view. He has advanced evolutionary psychology views about the value of human diversity and the potential benefits of apparently nonstandard behaviors or roles.

Nash has developed work on the role of money in society. Within the framing theorem that people can be so controlled and motivated by money that they may not be able to reason rationally about it, he has criticized interest groups that promote quasi-doctrines based on Keynesian economics that permit manipulative short-term inflation and debt tactics that ultimately undermine currencies. He has suggested a global "industrial consumption price index" system that would support the development of more "ideal money" that people could trust rather than more unstable "bad money". He notes that some of his thinking parallels economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek's thinking regarding money and a nontypical viewpoint of the function of the authorities.

Nash received an honorary degree, Doctor of Science and Technology, from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, an honorary degree in economics from the University of Naples Federico II on March 19, 2003, an honorary doctorate in economics from the University of Antwerp in April 2007, and was keynote speaker at a conference on Game Theory. He has also been a prolific guest speaker at a number of world-class events, such as the Warwick Economics Summit in 2005 held at the University of Warwick. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

(Source Wikipedia)

The Baroque Period of Arts

By The Encyclopedia Britannica

Baroque period, era in the history of the Western arts roughly coinciding with the 17th century. Its earliest manifestations, which occurred in Italy, date from the latter decades of the 16th century, while in some regions, notably Germany and colonial South America, certain of its culminating achievements did not occur until the 18th century. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is stylistically complex, even contradictory. In general, however, the desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses, often in dramatic ways, underlies its manifestations. Some of the qualities most frequently associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, vitality, movement, tension, emotional exuberance, and a tendency to blur distinctions between the various arts.

The origin of the term

The term Baroque probably ultimately derived from the Italian word barocco, which was a term used by philosophers during the Middle Ages to describe an obstacle in schematic logic. Subsequently the word came to denote any contorted idea or involuted process of thought. Another possible source is the Portuguese word barroco (Spanish barrueco), used to describe an irregular or imperfectly shaped pearl, and this usage still survives in the jeweler’s term baroque pearl.

In art criticism the word Baroque came to be used to describe anything irregular, bizarre, or otherwise departing from established rules and proportions. This biased view of 17th-century art styles was held with few modifications by critics from Johann Winckelmann to John Ruskin and Jacob Burckhardt, and until the late 19th century the term always carried the implication of odd, grotesque, exaggerated, and overdecorated. It was only with Heinrich Wölfflin’s pioneer study Renaissance und Barock (1888) that Baroque was used as a stylistic designation rather than as a term of thinly veiled abuse, and a systematic formulation of the characteristics of Baroque style was achieved.

Three main tendencies of the era

Because the arts present such diversity within the Baroque period, their unifying characteristics must be sought in relation to the era’s broader cultural and intellectual tendencies, of which three are most important for their effect on the arts. The first of these was the emergence of the Counter-Reformation and the expansion of its domain, both territorially and intellectually. By the last decades of the 16th century the refined, courtly style known as Mannerism had ceased to be an effective means of expression, and its inadequacy for religious art was being increasingly felt in artistic circles. To counter the inroads made by the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church after the Council of Trent (1545–63) adopted a propagandistic stance in which art was to serve as a means of extending and stimulating the public’s faith in the church. To this end the church adopted a conscious artistic program whose art products would make an overtly emotional and sensory appeal to the faithful. The Baroque style that evolved from this program was paradoxically both sensuous and spiritual; while a naturalistic treatment rendered the religious image more accessible to the average churchgoer, dramatic and illusory effects were used to stimulate piety and devotion and convey an impression of the splendour of the divine. Baroque church ceilings thus dissolved in painted scenes that presented vivid views of the infinite to the observer and directed the senses toward heavenly concerns.

The second tendency was the consolidation of absolute monarchies, accompanied by a simultaneous crystallization of a prominent and powerful middle class, which now came to play a role in art patronage. Baroque palaces were built on an expanded and monumental scale in order to display the power and grandeur of the centralized state, a phenomenon best displayed in the royal palace and gardens at Versailles. Yet at the same time the development of a picture market for the middle class and its taste for realism may be seen in the works of the brothers Le Nain and Georges de La Tour in France and in the varied schools of 17th-century Dutch painting.

The third tendency was a new interest in nature and a general broadening of human intellectual horizons, spurred by developments in science and by explorations of the globe. These simultaneously produced a new sense both of human insignificance (particularly abetted by the Copernican displacement of the Earth from the centre of the universe) and of the unsuspected complexity and infinitude of the natural world. The development of 17th-century landscape painting, in which humans are frequently portrayed as minute figures in a vast natural setting, is indicative of this changing awareness of the human condition.

The visual arts

The arts present an unusual diversity in the Baroque period, chiefly because currents of naturalism and classicism coexisted and intermingled with the typical Baroque style. Indeed, Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, the two Italian painters who decisively broke with Mannerism in the 1590s and thus helped usher in the Baroque style, painted, respectively, in classicistic and realist modes. A specifically Baroque style of painting arose in Rome in the 1620s and culminated in the monumental painted ceilings and other church decorations of Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni, Il Guercino, Domenichino, and countless lesser artists. The greatest of the Baroque sculptor-architects was Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed both the baldachin with spiral columns above the altar of St. Peter’s in Rome and the vast colonnade fronting that church. Baroque architecture as developed by Bernini, Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini, and Guarino Guarini emphasized massiveness and monumentality, movement, dramatic spatial and lighting sequences, and a rich interior decoration using contrasting surface textures, vivid colours, and luxurious materials to heighten the structure’s physical immediacy and evoke sensual delight.

Pronounced classicizing tendencies subdued the Baroque impulse in France, as is evident in the serious, logical, orderly paintings of Nicolas Poussin and the somewhat more sumptuous works of Charles Le Brun and the portraitists Hyacinthe Rigaud and Nicolas de Largillière. French architecture is even less recognizably Baroque in its pronounced qualities of subtlety, elegance, and restraint. Baroque tenets were enthusiastically adopted in staunchly Roman Catholic Spain, however, particularly in architecture. The greatest of the Spanish builders, José Benito Churriguera, shows most fully the Spanish interest in surface textures and lush detail. He attracted many followers, and their adaptations of his style, labeled Churrigueresque, spread throughout Spain’s colonies in the Americas and elsewhere. Diego Velázquez and other 17th-century Spanish painters used a sombre but powerful naturalistic approach that bore little direct relation to the mainstream of Baroque painting.

The Baroque made only limited inroads into northern Europe, notably in what is now Belgium. That Spanish-ruled, largely Roman Catholic region’s greatest master was the painter Peter Paul Rubens, whose tempestuous diagonal compositions and ample, full-blooded figures are the epitome of Baroque painting. The elegant portraits of Anthony Van Dyck and the robust figurative works of Jacob Jordaens emulated Rubens’s example. Art in Holland was conditioned by the realist tastes of its dominant middle-class patrons, and thus both the innumerable genre and landscape painters of that country and such towering masters as Rembrandt and Frans Hals remained independent of the Baroque style in important respects. The Baroque did have a notable impact in England, however, particularly in the churches and palaces designed, respectively, by Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh.

The last flowering of the Baroque was in largely Roman Catholic southern Germany and Austria, where the native architects broke away from Italian building models in the 1720s. In ornate churches, monasteries, and palaces designed by J.B. Fischer von Erlach, J.L. von Hildebrandt, the Asam brothers, Balthasar Neumann, and Dominikus Zimmermann, an extraordinarily rich but delicate style of stucco decoration was used in combination with painted surfaces to evoke subtle illusionistic effects.

Music and literature in the Baroque period

One of the most dramatic turning points in the history of music occurred at the beginning of the 17th century, with Italy again leading the way. While the stile antico, the universal polyphonic style of the 16th century, continued, it was henceforth reserved for sacred music, while the stile moderno, or nuove musiche—with its emphasis on solo voice, polarity of the melody and the bass line, and interest in expressive harmony—developed for secular usage. The expanded vocabulary allowed for a clearer distinction between sacred and secular music as well as between vocal and instrumental idioms, and national differences became more pronounced. The Baroque period in music, as in other arts, therefore, was one of stylistic diversity. The opera, oratorio, and cantata were the most important new vocal forms, while the sonata, concerto, and overture were created for instrumental music. Claudio Monteverdi was the first great composer of the “new music.” He was followed in Italy by Alessandro Scarlatti and Giovanni Pergolesi. The instrumental tradition in Italy found its great Baroque composers in Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, and Giuseppe Tartini. Jean-Baptiste Lully, a major composer of opera, and Jean Philippe Rameau were the masters of Baroque music in France. In England the total theatrical experience of the Stuart masques was followed by the achievements in vocal music of the German-born, Italian-trained George Frideric Handel, while his countryman Johann Sebastian Bach developed Baroque sacred music in Germany. Other notable German Baroque composers include Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Georg Philipp Telemann.

The literature that may specifically be called Baroque may be seen most characteristically in the writings of Giambattista Marino in Italy, Luis de Góngora in Spain, and Martin Opitz in Germany. English Metaphysical poetry, most notably much of John Donne’s, is allied with Baroque literature. The Baroque period ended in the 18th century with a transition of its characteristic style into the lighter, less dramatic, more overtly decorative Rococo style.

(Source Britannica http://www.britannica.com/)

Galileo Galilei, Times & Accomplishments

By The Galileo Project

Galileo's Early Life

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a musician. Galileo's mother was Giulia degli Ammannati. Galileo was the first of six (though some people believe seven) children. His family belonged to the nobility but was not rich. In the early 1570's, he and his family moved to Florence.

The Pendulum

In 1581, Galileo began studying at the University of Pisa, where his father hoped he would study medicine. While at the University of Pisa, Galileo began his study of the pendulum while, according to legend, he watched a suspended lamp swing back and forth in the cathedral of Pisa. However, it was not until 1602 that Galileo made his most notable discovery about the pendulum - the period (the time in which a pendulum swings back and forth) does not depend on the arc of the swing (the isochronism). Eventually, this discovery would lead to Galileo's further study of time intervals and the development of his idea for a pendulum clock.

On Motion

At the University of Pisa, Galileo learned the physics of the Ancient Greek scientist, Aristotle. However, Galileo questioned the Aristotelian approach to physics. Aristotelians believed that heavier objects fall faster through a medium than lighter ones. Galileo eventually disproved this idea by asserting that all objects, regardless of their density, fall at the same rate in a vacuum. To determine this, Galileo performed various experiments in which he dropped objects from a certain height. In one of his early experiments, he rolled balls down gently sloping inclined plane and then determined their positions after equal time intervals. He wrote down his discoveries about motion in his book, De Motu, which means "On Motion."

Mechanical Devices

In 1592, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. While teaching there, he frequently visited a place called the Arsenal, where Venetian ships were docked and loaded. Galileo had always been interested in mechanical devices. Naturally, during his visits to the Arsenal, he became fascinated by nautical technologies, such as the sector and shipbuilding. In 1593, he was presented with the problem involving the placement of oars in galleys. He treated the oar as a lever and correctly made the water the fulcrum. A year later, he patented a model for a pump. His pump was a device that raised water by using only one horse.

Family Life

Galileo was never married. However, he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba, a woman he met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina lived in Galileo's house in Padua where she bore him three children. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, were both put in convents where they became, respectively, Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela. In 1610, Galileo moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the Medici family. He left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina Gamba in Padua. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence.

Telescope

Galileo invented many mechanical devices other than the pump, such as the hydrostatic balance. But perhaps his most famous invention was the telescope. Galileo made his first telescope in 1609, modeled after telescopes produced in other parts of Europe that could magnify objects three times. He created a telescope later that same year that could magnify objects twenty times. With this telescope, he was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites of Jupiter, observe a supernova, verify the phases of Venus, and discover sunspots. His discoveries proved the Copernican system which states that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Prior to the Copernican system, it was held that the universe was geocentric, meaning the sun revolved around the earth.

The Inquisition

Galileo's belief in the Copernican System eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church. The Inquisition was a permanent institution in the Catholic Church charged with the eradication of heresies. A committee of consultants declared to the Inquisition that the Copernican proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe was a heresy. Because Galileo supported the Copernican system, he was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine, under order of Pope Paul V, that he should not discuss or defend Copernican theories. In 1624, Galileo was assured by Pope Urban VIII that he could write about Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical proposition. However, with the printing of Galileo's book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 to face the Inquisition again. Galileo was found guilty of heresy for his Dialogue, and was sent to his home near Florence where he was to be under house arrest for the remainder of his life. In 1638, the Inquisition allowed Galileo to move to his home in Florence, so that he could be closer to his doctors. By that time he was totally blind. In 1642, Galileo died at his home outside Florence.

Source (http://galileo.rice.edu/)

The Salvador Dali Biography

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech was born at 8:45 on the morning of May 11, 1904 in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain. Figueres is located in the foothills of the Pyrenees, only sixteen miles from the French border in the principality of Catalonia. The son of a prosperous notary, Dali spent his boyhood in Figueres and at the family’s summer home in the coastal fishing village of Cadaques where his parents built his first studio. As an adult, he made his home with his wife Gala in nearby Port Lligat. Many of his paintings reflect his love of this area of Spain.
The young Dali attended the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. Early recognition of Dali’s talent came with his first one-man show in Barcelona in 1925. He became internationally known when three of his paintings, including The Basket of Bread (now in the Museum’s collection), were shown in the third annual Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928.
The following year, Dali held his first one-man show in Paris. He also joined the surrealists, led by former Dadaist Andre Breton. That year, Dali met Gala Eluard when she visited him in Cadaques with her husband, poet Paul Eluard. She became Dali’s lover, muse, business manager, and chief inspiration.
Dali soon became a leader of the Surrealist Movement. His painting, The Persistance of Memory, with the soft or melting watches is still one of the best-known surrealist works. But as the war approached, the apolitical Dali clashed with the Surrealists and was “expelled” from the surrealist group during a “trial” in 1934. He did however, exhibit works in international surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade but by 1940, Dali was moving into a new type of painting with a preoccupation with science and religion.
Dali and Gala escaped from Europe during World War II, spending 1940-48 in the United States. These were very important years for the artist. The Museum of Modern Art in New York gave Dali his first major retrospective exhibit in 1941. This was followed in 1942 by the publication of Dali’s autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.
As Dali moved away from Surrealism and into his classic period, he began his series of 19 large canvases, many concerning scientific, historical or religious themes. Among the best known of these works are The Hallucinogenic Toreador, and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in the museum’s collection, and The Sacrament of the Last Supper in the collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
In 1974, Dali opened the Teatro Museo in Figueres, Spain. This was followed by retrospectives in Paris and London at the end of the decade. After the death of his wife, Gala in 1982, Dali’s health began to fail. It deteriorated further after he was burned in a fire in his home in Pubol in 1984. Two years later, a pace-maker was implanted. Much of this part of his life was spent in seclusion, first in Pubol and later in his apartments at Torre Galatea, adjacent to the Teatro Museo. Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989 in Figueres from heart failure with respiratory complications.
As an artist, Salvador Dali was not limited to a particular style or media. The body of his work, from early impressionist paintings through his transitional surrealist works, and into his classical period, reveals a constantly growing and evolving artist. Dali worked in all media, leaving behind a wealth of oils, watercolors, drawings, graphics, and sculptures, films, photographs, performance pieces, jewels and objects of all descriptions. As important, he left for posterity the permission to explore all aspects of one’s own life and to give them artistic expression.
Whether working from pure inspiration or on a commissioned illustration, Dali’s matchless insight and symbolic complexity are apparent. Above all, Dali was a superb draftsman. His excellence as a creative artist will always set a standard for the art of the twentieth century.
(Source http://salvadordali.com/)

Το παραμύθι της Σταχτοπούτας..

Η Σταχτοπούτα είναι ένα κλασικό παραμύθι που αφηγείται τις περιπέτειες μιας κοπέλας, που την κακομεταχειρίζονται η κακιά μητριά της και οι αδερφές της. Συγγραφέας της Σταχτοπούτας θεωρείται ο Σαρλ Περώ, ωστόσο υπάρχουν καταγεγραμμένα στοιχεία παρόμοιων ιστοριών σε κινεζικά χειρόγραφα που χρονολογούνται από το 850 μ.Χ., και μια έκδοση του μύθου από την αρχαία Αίγυπτο.

Το κεντρικό πρόσωπο του παραμυθιού είναι η Σταχτοπούτα (Cendrillon στο πρωτότυπο του Περώ), κόρη ενός πλούσιου εμπόρου. Η μητριά της και οι ετεροθαλείς αδελφές της υποβιβάζουν την Σταχτοπούτα σε ρόλο υπηρέτριάς τους, ενώ αυτές χαίρονται όλα τα πλούτη του εμπόρου, και την αναγκάζουν να κοιμάται στις στάχτες του τζακιού, απ' όπου και το όνομα Σταχτοπούτα. Κάποιο βράδυ, την επισκέπτεται η νεράϊδα-νονά της και της δίνει ένα φόρεμα, μια άμαξα κι ένα ζευγάρι γυάλινα γοβάκια, προκειμένου να πάει στον χορό του Πρίγκιπα. Ο πρίγκιπας εντυπωσιάζεται και την επόμενη μέρα, όταν η άγνωστη εμφανίζεται πάλι στο παλάτι. Καθώς δεν ξέρει τίποτα γι' αυτήν, αποφασίζει να τη βρει χρησιμοποιώντας το γοβάκι που άφησε στις σκάλες φεύγοντας, βάζοντας τις γυναίκες της περιοχής να το δοκιμάσουν για να δει σε ποια ταιριάζει. Οι αδελφές της προσπαθούν με κόπους και βάσανα να φορέσουν το γοβάκι, προκειμένου να κερδίσουν τον πρίγκιπα, μάταια όμως, καθώς ταιριάζει μόνο στην Σταχτοπούτα, την οποία και παντρεύεται ο πρίγκιπας.

Το παραμύθι έχει γνωρίσει αρκετές παραλλαγές, που διαφέρουν σε ορισμένες λεπτομέρειες της πλοκής. Έχει διασκευαστεί σε μπαλέτο από τον Σεργκέι Προκόφιεφ και τον Γιόχαν Στράους και αρκετές φορές σε όπερα από τον Ροσσίνι και άλλους συνθέτες. Έχουν γυριστεί επίσης αρκετές ταινίες βασισμένες στην ιστορία, με πιο γνωστή διασκευή αυτή του Ουώλτ Ντίσνεϊ.

Η Εκδοχή των Γκριμ

Στην μεταγενέστερη εκδοχή των αδελφών Γκριμ, ο ρόλος της νεράιδας-νονάς αντικαθίσταται από το περιστέρι που μένει στο δέντρίλι δίπλα από τον τάφο της μητέρας της Σταχτοπούτας. Το περιστέρι έχει έναν σημαντικό ρόλο σε όλη την ιστορία, διότι βοηθά την Σταχτοπούτα να καθαρίσει τις φακές έτσι ώστε να πάει στον χορό, της δίνει το φόρεμα και τα γοβάκια. Όταν ο πρίγκιπας πάει να δοκιμάσει στην μια αδερφή το γοβάκι, αυτή παρακινούμενη απ' την μητριά, κόβει το μεγάλο δάχτυλο του ποδιού της και το πόδι της χωράει στο γοβάκι. Ο πρίγκιπας νομίζει πως αυτή είναι η κοπέλα που έψαχνε, την ανεβάζει στο άλογο του και ξεκινάνε για το παλάτι, όμως τα περιστέρια στα δέντρα του φωνάζουν να κοιτάξει το γοβάκι που είναι μουσκεμένο από το αίμα του ακρωτηριασμένου δαχτύλου. Ο πρίγκιπας καταλαβαίνει την πλεκτάνη και επιστρέφει την αδερφή σπίτι της. Το ίδιο ακριβώς συμβαίνει και με την δεύτερη αδερφή, με την διαφορά ότι εκείνη κόβει την φτέρνα της. Το περιστέρι τον οδηγεί στον περιστερώνα, όπου είχαν κλειδώσει την Σταχτοπούτα. Επίσης, η κολοκύθα/άμαξα, τα ποντίκια/άλογα, ο αρουραίος/αμαξάς και οι σαύρες/ακόλουθοι δεν υπάρχουν στην εκδοχή αυτή. Μια άλλη καινοτομία των Γκριμ είναι η αύξηση του χορού από έναν σε τρεις. Τις δύο πρώτες νύχτες, η Σταχτοπούτα φορά ένα ασημοκέντητο φόρεμα, ενώ στην τρίτη ένα χρυσό. Οι αδελφοί Γκριμ αναφέρουν ότι ο λόγος που ξεχάστηκε το γοβάκι είναι επειδή κόλλησε στην πίσσα που είχε διατάξει να βάλουν ο πρίγκιπας για να μη μπορέσει να φύγει η Σταχτοπούτα.

(Πηγή Βικιπαίδεια)

Cinderella (Disney character)

Cinderella is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' 12th animated feature film Cinderella (1950) and its sequels Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007). In the original film, Cinderella is voiced by American singer and actress Ilene Woods. For the sequels and subsequent film and television appearances, Woods was replaced by American actresses Jennifer Hale and Tami Tappan, who provide the character's speaking and singing voices respectively.

In the wake of her father's untimely demise, Cinderella is left in the unfortunate care of her cruel stepmother and jealous stepsisters, who constantly mistreat her, forcing Cinderella to work as a domestic servant. When Prince Charming holds a ball, Cinderella, aided by her kind Fairy Godmother and equipped with a beautiful ballgown and a unique pair of glass slippers, attends, only to have to leave at 12 Midnight, when the Fairy Godmother's spell is broken (Including Cinderella's ball gown turning back into pink & white rags).

Reception towards Cinderella has been generally negative, with film critics describing the character as much too passive, boring and one-dimensional, additionally admitting to finding the film's supporting characters more intriguing. Woods' vocal performance, however, has been lauded. Unaffected by her unfavorable reception, Cinderella has nonetheless become one of the most famous and recognizable princesses of all-time. With her iconic glass footwear, ballgown, hairstyle and transformation, one of the first on-screen makeovers of its kind, the character has been established as a fashion icon, receiving accolades and recognition from InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour and Oprah.com, as well as footwear designer and fashion icon Christian Louboutin himself, who in 2012 designed and released a shoe based on Cinderella's.

(Source Wikipedia)

The Snow White Fairytale..

At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the freshly fallen white snow on the black windowsill. Admiring the beauty of the resulting color combination, she says to herself, "Oh how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony." Soon after that, the Queen gives birth to a baby girl who is as white as snow, as red as blood and has hair as black as ebony. They name her 'Snow White,' but sadly, the Queen dies after giving birth to her.

After a year has passed, the King takes a new wife, who is beautiful but also unutterably wicked and vain. The new queen possesses a magic mirror which she asks every morning, "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror always replies, "My queen, you are the fairest in the land." The Queen is always pleased with that because the magic mirror never lies. But when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes more beautiful each day and even more beautiful than the Queen, and when the Queen asks her mirror, it responds, "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you."

This gives the queen a great shock. She becomes yellow and green with envy and from that hour on, her heart turns against Snow White, and she hates her more and more each day. Envy and pride, like ill weeds, grow in her heart taller every day, until she has no peace day or night. Eventually, the Queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods to be killed. As proof that Snow White is dead, the Queen demands that he return with her lungs and liver. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest. After raising his knife, he finds himself unable to kill her as she sobs heavily and begs him: "Oh, dear huntsman, don't kill me! Leave me with my life; I will run into the forest and never come back!" The huntsman leaves her behind alive, convinced that the girl would be eaten by some wild animal. He instead brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a young boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the Queen.

After wandering through the forest for days, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs. Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine and then tests all the beds. Finally the last bed is comfortable enough for her and she falls asleep. When the seven dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that someone sneaked in secretly, because everything in their home is in disorder. During their loud discussion about who sneaked in, they discover the sleeping Snow White. The girl wakes up and explains to them what happened and the dwarfs take pity on her, saying: "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want." They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains.

Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again: "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror replies: "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White beyond the mountains at the seven dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you." The Queen is horrified to learn that the huntsman has betrayed her and that Snow White is still alive. She keeps thinking about how to get rid of Snow White, then she disguises herself as an old peddler. The Queen then walks to the cottage of the dwarfs and offers her colorful, silky laced bodices and convinces the girl to take the most beautiful bodice as a present. Then the Queen laces it so tightly that Snow White faints, causing the Queen to leave her for dead. But the dwarfs return just in time, and Snow White revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces.

The next morning the Queen consults her mirror anew and the mirror reveals Snow White's survival. Now infuriated, the Queen dresses as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present. She brushes Snow White's hair with a poisoned comb, and the girl faints again, but she is again revived by the dwarfs. And the next morning the mirror tells the Queen that Snow White is still "a thousand times more beautiful." Now the Queen nearly has a heart attack in shock and rage. As a third and last attempt to rid herself of Snow White, she secretly consults the darkest magic and makes a poisoned apple, and in the disguise of a farmer's wife, she offers it to Snow White. The girl is at first hesitant to accept it, so the Queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red (poisoned) half to Snow White. The girl eagerly takes a bite and falls into a state of suspended animation, causing the Queen to triumph. This time the dwarfs are unable to revive the girl because they cannot find the source of Snow White's poor health, and assuming that she is dead, they place her in a glass coffin.

Time passes and a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin and, enchanted by her beauty, instantly falls in love with her. The dwarfs succumb to his entreaties to let him have the coffin, and as his servants carry the coffin away, they stumble on some roots. The tremor caused by the stumbling causes the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, awakening her. The Prince then declares his love for her, and soon a wedding is planned. The couple invite every queen and king to come to the wedding party, including Snow White's stepmother. Meanwhile the Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her magical mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says: "You, my queen, are fair so true. But the young Queen is a thousand times fairer than you."

Appalled, in disbelief, and with her heart full of fear and doubts, the Queen is at first hesitant to accept the invitation, but she eventually decides to go. Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth. As a punishment for her attempted murders, a pair of glowing-hot iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is forced to step into the burning shoes and to dance until she drops dead.

(Source Wikipedia)

Καλοκαίρι, Ημερολόγια, Ετικέτες

Αγαπητοί μου φίλοι, φίλες, νομίζω ότι φέτος το καλοκαίρι, μετά το καλοκαίρι, το φθινόπωρο και έως ότου ολοκληρωθεί αυτή η διαδικασία, θα ασχολούμαι φουλ με τα ημερολόγια όμως περισσότερο αναφορικά με θέματα λογικής και background. Μάλλον τώρα που έχω ξεπεράσει τις πολλές εκατοντάδες άρθρα , θα ήθελα να διαγράψω μία ποσότητα (αν και τα ημερολόγια λειτουργούν στο φουλ), να τροποποιήσω πολλά άλλα, νομίζω ήδη ότι τα κείμενα αλλάζουν πολύ λιγότερο σε σχέση με τον τίτλο του άρθρου, να διορθώσω ότι χρειάζεται με την έννοια ότι θα προτιμούσα λιγάκι να δουλέψω πιο υπεύθυνα τα γραπτά μου και έτσι λοιπόν, σας παρουσιάζω τις κατηγορίες με άλλα λόγια τα labels, etiquettes, λέξεις κλειδιά, με τις οποίες θα ήθελα να προσαρμόσω το υλικό σε όλα τα ημερολόγια, ακόμα και να ερευνήσω το ενδεχόμενο δύο labels ανά άρθρο.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση έχω αποφασίσει ήδη πως έτσι όπως εξελίσσεται ο Blogger, το WordPress, το Free Hosting και άλλα πολλά που επισκέπτομαι στο ίντερνετ, πραγματικά αξίζει τον κόπο μία ιστοσελίδα να είναι free and organized και μάλιστα στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις με πολλαπλάσια οφέλη σε σχέση με την επί πληρωμή υπηρεσία. Άλλωστε αυτά που χρειάζεται να μάθετε για να διαχειρίζεστε τις πλατφόρμες μπορείτε να τα μάθετε με τον ένα ή με τον άλλο τρόπο, καθιστώντας έτσι την κοστολογημένη και χρονοβόρα υλοποίηση απαρχαιωμένη. Έχουμε και λέμε λοιπόν, Article Etiquettes:

1.)    Multimedia
2.)    Art
3.)    Science
4.)    Education
5.)    Thoughts
6.)    Personal
7.)    Writing
8.)    Storytelling
9.)    Fantasy
10.)    …

Όπως καταλάβατε αγαπητοί αναγνώστες η ετικέτα 10 είναι ακόμα άγνωστη, με την έννοια ότι θα έχουμε τη δυνατότητα να την ανακαλύψουμε στο μέλλον μόλις δούμε ότι… κάποια άρθρα είναι λίγο διαφορετικά. Και επί της ουσίας επαναλαμβάνω τα λόγια του βραβευμένου Jacob Krueger στο Screenwriting, Branding Yourself as A Writer, The Brand is You, Your voice at your most Authentic. Έτσι λοιπόν σήμερα θα σταματήσω εδώ, προτιμώ να πιω το φασκόμηλό μου και εύχομαι σε όλους σας καλό Σαββατοκύριακο..!

Palette (Painting) of An Artist..

A palette /ˈpælɨt/, in the original sense of the word, is a rigid, flat surface on which a painter arranges and mixes paints. A palette is usually made of wood, plastic, ceramic, or other hard, inert, nonporous material, and can vary greatly in size and shape. The most commonly known type of painter's palette is made of a thin wood board designed to be held in the artist's hand and rest on the artist's arm. Watercolor palettes are generally made of plastic or porcelain with rectangular or wheel format with built in wells and mixing areas for colors.

From the original, literal sense above came a figurative sense by extension, referring to a selection of colors, as used in a specific art object or in a group of works comprising a visual style. This second, figurative sense is the one extended in the digital era to the computing senses of "palette".

Wet palette

A wet palette is a sealable container with a layer of absorbent material (such as tissue paper or sponge) that can be soaked with water and a semi-permeable membrane (such as parchment, greaseproof paper or baking paper (silicone paper)) over that. The paint sits on the membrane and is kept wet by osmosis. The main purpose of the wet palette is to keep acrylic paint, whose drying is unreversable, workable. Wet palettes are easily made, but can be bought.

(Source Wikipedia)

Fan Club Websites (Majorly Hollywood Themed)

A fansite, fan site, fan blog or fanpage is a website created and maintained by a fan or devotee interested in a celebrity, thing, or a particular cultural phenomenon. The phenomenon can be a book, television show, movie, comic, band, sports team, video game, or the like.

Fansites may offer specialized information on the subject (e.g., episode listings, biographies, storyline plots), pictures taken from various sources, the latest news related to their subject, media downloads, links to other, similar fansites and the chance to talk to other fans via discussion boards. They often take the form of a blog, highlighting the latest news regarding the fansite subject. They often include galleries of photos and/or videos of the subject, and are often "affiliates" with other fansites.

Fanlistings are another common type of fansite, though they are much simpler than general fansites, and are designed simply to list fans of a certain subject. In fact, many do not contain much information on the subject at all, aside from a small introduction. They are generally made with the thought that visitors will already have knowledge on the subject. However, several are a part of a bigger fansite, used to amplify the fanbase's experience. Most fanlistings are unofficial.

Many sites utilize other aspects as well, such as communities and social networking tools to augment the experience further. Indeed, by the early 2010s, independently run fansites had largely been superseded by Facebook groups.

Most fansites are unofficial, but a few are officially endorsed, where the subject will supply material and reimbursement for the expense and bother of running the site. To state that they are unofficial, many fan webmasters put a disclaimer on a visible place on the website, which sometimes also includes the copyright of the site. Many celebrities prefer to create and run their own sites, in order to control the content and perhaps retail their personal views. They employ their own webmaster and own the copyright.

Motivations

A study suggests that unofficial fansites are often built as an alternative to the "hard sell" approach of official fansites that carry commercial messages. A classification system developed by Wann breaks down eight motives of fandom. These motives, particularly those related to group affiliation and self-esteem, are a driving factor in the creation of unofficial fansites.

Satisfying the social psychology needs of group affiliation and self-esteem by visiting fansites, and in particular participating in the community aspects of fansites, appear to serve to increase fan behavior.

Research of inter-personal attraction indicates that people generally prefer to socialize with those who are similar to them. For example, sports fans fulfill this need by attending sporting events in person. In the online world, fans fulfill this need by building and/or participating in online fansites.

Many fans prefer to visit unofficial fansites for fan-related services, but still prefer an official fansite as the primary source for accurate information since it affords the closest affiliation with the target itself.

(Source Wikipedia)

P.S.  Importance of such websites is relevant with a non-profit, unofficial web page directly embracing multiple object oriented techniques in terms of surpassing 1-dimensional networks and become organic enough in the 21st century World Wide Web. A reality that makes websites free and glorious, hence surpassing their etiquette limits (fan clubs).

All About Philosophical Platonic Realism..

Platonic realism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects after the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BC), a student of Socrates. As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal forms, this stance is confusingly also called Platonic idealism. This should not be confused with Idealism, as presented by philosophers such as George Berkeley: as Platonic abstractions are not spatial, temporal, or mental they are not compatible with the later Idealism's emphasis on mental existence. Plato's Forms include numbers and geometrical figures, making them a theory of mathematical realism; they also include the Form of the Good, making them in addition a theory of ethical realism.

Plato expounded his own articulation of realism regarding the existence of universals in his dialogue The Republic and elsewhere, notably in the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Meno and the Parmenides.

Universals

In Platonic realism, universals do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects exist, even though Plato metaphorically referred to such objects to explain his concepts. More modern versions of the theory seek to avoid applying potentially misleading descriptions to universals. Instead, such versions maintain that it is meaningless (or a category mistake) to apply the categories of space and time to universals.

Regardless of their description, Platonic realism holds that universals do exist in a broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms.

Theories of universals

Theories of universals, including Platonic realism, are challenged to satisfy certain constraints on theories of universals.

Platonic realism strongly satisfies one of those constraints, in that it is a theory of what general terms refer to. Forms are ideal in supplying meaning to referents for general terms. That is, to understand terms such as applehood and redness, Platonic realism says that they refer to forms. Indeed, Platonism gets much of its plausibility because mentioning redness, for example, seems to be referring to something that is apart from space and time, but which has lots of specific instances.

Some contemporary linguistic philosophers construe "Platonism" to mean the proposition that universals exist independently of particulars (a universal is anything that can be predicated of a particular). Similarly, a form of modern Platonism is found in the predominant philosophy of mathematics, especially regarding the foundations of mathematics. The Platonic interpretation of this philosophy includes the thesis that mathematics is not created but discovered.

Forms

Plato's interpretation of universals is linked to his Theory of Forms in which he uses both the terms εἶδος (eidos: "form") and ἰδέα (idea: "characteristic") to describe his theory. Forms are mind independent abstract objects or paradigms (παραδείγματα: patterns in nature) of which particular objects and the properties and relations present in them are copies. Form is inherent in the particulars and these are said to participate in the form. Classically idea has been translated (or transliterated) as "idea," but secondary literature now typically employs the term "form" (or occasionally "kind," usually in discussion of Plato's Sophist and Statesman) to avoid confusion with the English word connoting "thought".

Platonic form can be illustrated by contrasting a material triangle with an ideal triangle. The Platonic form is the ideal triangle — a figure with perfectly drawn lines whose angles add to 180 degrees. Any form of triangle that we experience will be an imperfect representation of the ideal triangle. Regardless of how precise your measuring and drawing tools you will never be able to recreate this perfect shape. Even drawn to the point where our senses cannot perceive a defect, in its essence the shape will still be imperfect; forever unable to match the ideal triangle.

Some versions of Platonic realism, like that of Proclus, regard Plato's forms as thoughts in the mind of God. Most consider forms not to be mental entities at all.

(Source Wikipedia)

Web Content Lifecycle..

The web content lifecycle is the multi-disciplinary and often complex process that web content undergoes as it is managed through various publishing stages.
Authors describe multiple "stages" (or "phases") in the web content lifecycle, along with a set of capabilities—such as records management, digital asset management, collaboration, and version control—that may be supported by various technologies and processes. One recognized technology for managing the web content lifecycle is a web content management system.
Concepts often considered in the web content lifecycle include project management, information management, information architecture, and, more recently, content strategy, website governance, and semantic publishing.

Stages

Various authors have proposed different "stages" or "phases" in the content lifecycle. Broadly speaking, the stages include content creation/development, revision, distribution, and archiving. The lifecycle processes, actions, content status, and content management roles may differ from model to model based on organizational strategies, needs, requirements, and capabilities.

Two stages

In 2003, McKeever described "two iterative phases": "the collection of content, and the delivery or publishing of that content on the Web." She also explains a Web Content Management (WCM) "four layer hierarchy"—content, activity, outlet, and audience—intended to illustrate the breadth of WCM.

Three stages

Bob Boiko's Content Management Bible emphasizes three major parts: collect (creation and editing is much more than simply collecting), manage (workflows, approvals, versioning, repository, etc.), and publish. These concepts are graphically displayed in a Content Management Possibilities poster developed by Boiko. The poster details such content management concepts as metadata, syndication, workflows, repositories, and databases.
Gerry McGovern also sees three "processes," designating them creation, editing, and publishing.

Four stages

JoAnn Hackos' Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery argues for four "components": authoring, repository, assembly/linking, and publishing.
In Managing Enterprise Content, Ann Rockley argues for the planning of content reuse through four stages: create, review, manage, deliver. A stage can have sub-stages; for example, the "create" stage has three sub-stages: planning, design, and authoring and revision. She notes that content is often created by individuals working in isolation inside an enterprise (the coined term is the Content Silo Trap). To counter this content silo effect, she recommends using a "unified content strategy," "a repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers’ needs."

Five stages

Nakano described five "collaboration operations": Submit, Compare, Update, Merge, and Publish.
The State government of Victoria (Australia) produced a flowchart with a diagrammatic view of the web content lifecycle with five stages: Develop, Quality Approval, Publish, Unpublish, and Archive. Some of the stages include sub-stages (for example, Archive consists of Storage, Archived, and Disposed) intended to further delineate content status. In addition, this model depicts three aspects—Status, Process, and Roles—as part of the flow for web content. The four roles in this model are content author, content quality manager, business quality manager, and records manager.
The AIIM speaks of managing content “to achieve business goals”. AIIM ECM 101 Poster from 2003, and the AIIM Solving the ECM Puzzle Poster from 2005, present the same five stages: Capture, Manage, Store, Deliver, Preserve.

Six stages

The Content Management Lifecycle Poster devised by CM Pros suggests six "steps":

    Plan
    Develop
    Manage
    Deploy
    Preserve
    Evaluate

Each step contains sub-steps. For example, step 1, Plan, consists of Align, Analyze, Model, and Design; and step 2, Develop, consists of Create, Capture, Collect, Categorize, and Edit.

Seven stages

Bob Doyle suggests seven stages of the Web content lifecycle:

    Organization
    Creation
    Storage
    Workflow
    Versioning
    Publishing
    Archives

Doyle argues for seven stages based on the psychologist George A. Miller's famed magical number "seven plus or minus two " limit on human information processing. He notes this is merely a suggestion and that one should "add or subtract a couple of your own favorites."

Governance rather than workflow

In a 2005 article, Woods addressed governance of the content lifecycle. In his model, there are categories of issues to address, rather than a simple, cradle-to-grave pathway. He writes that most content governance questions fall into one of the following categories:

    Legacy Content Migration
    Template Considerations
    New Content Creation
    Content Modification and Reuse
    Version Control and Site Rollback
    Content Rotation and the End of the Road
    Monitoring Progress, Managing for Success

More recently, Halvorson has humorously suggested 15 discrete steps in the web content lifecycle: Audit, Analyze, Strategize, Categorize, Structure, Create, Revise, Revise, Revise, Approve, Tag, Format, Publish, Update, Archive.

Role of technologies

Enterprise content management as a business strategy might incorporate web content management:

    When integrated with an ECM system, WCM enables organizations to automate the complete Web content lifecycle. As soon as new content is developed, the system ensures that it goes live the moment it is intended to—not a minute earlier. By specifying timed releases and expiration dates, content is published to and removed from the Web according to recommendations, requirements and even regulations.
    —Jenkins (2004)

A web content management system can support and enhance certain processes because of automation, including document management, templates, and workflow management. However, the absence of well defined roles and process governance will greatly dilute the effectiveness of any technology intended to augment/enhance the publishing process overall.

Role of information management

Information management describes the "organization of and control over the structure, processing, and delivery of information." The goal of information lifecycle management is to use policies, operations, and infrastructure to manage information throughout its useful life. However, businesses struggle to manage their data and information.

    The missing stage in all the major sources is the organization of information, structuring it where possible, for example using XML or RDF, which allows arbitrary metadata to be added to all information elements. This is the secret that the knowledge managers describe as turning mere data or information into knowledge. It allows information to be retrieved in a number of ways and reused or repurposed in many more.
    —Doyle (2005)

Using semantic markup in the publishing process is part of semantic publishing. Tim-Berners Lee's original vision for the Semantic Web has yet to be realized, but many projects in various research areas are underway.

(Source Wikipedia)

History of Arts Vs Art History!

A talk of the history of the visual arts worldwide. For the academic discipline of art history, see Art history.

The history of art is the history of any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview. Over time visual art has been classified in diverse ways, from the medieval distinction between liberal arts and mechanical arts, to the modern distinction between fine arts and applied arts, or to the many contemporary definitions, which define art as a manifestation of human creativity. The subsequent expansion of the list of principal arts in the 20th century reached to nine: architecture, dance, sculpture, music, painting, poetry (described broadly as a form of literature with aesthetic purpose or function, which also includes the distinct genres of theatre and narrative), film, photography and comics. At the conceptual overlap of terms between plastic arts and visual arts were added design and graphic arts. In addition to the old forms of artistic expression such as fashion and gastronomy, new modes of expression are being considered as arts such as video, computer art, performance, advertising, animation, television and videogames.

The history of art is a multidisciplinary science, seeking an objective examination of art throughout time, classifying cultures, establishing periodizations and observing the distinctive and influential characteristics of art. The study of the history of art was initially developed in the Renaissance, with its limited scope being the artistic production of western civilization. However, as time has passed, it has imposed a broader view of artistic history, seeking a comprehensive overview of all the civilizations and analysis of their artistic production in terms of their own cultural values (cultural relativism), and not just western art history.

Today, art enjoys a wide network of study, dissemination and preservation of all the artistic legacy of mankind throughout history. The 20th century has seen the proliferation of institutions, foundations, art museums and galleries, in both the public and private sectors, dedicated to the analysis and cataloging of works of art as well as exhibitions aimed at a mainstream audience. The rise of media has been crucial in improving the study and dissemination of art. International events and exhibitions like the Whitney Biennial and biennales of Venice and São Paulo or the Documenta of Kassel have helped the development of new styles and trends. Prizes such as the Turner of the Tate Gallery, the Wolf Prize in Arts, the Pritzker Prize of architecture, the Pulitzer of photography and the Oscar of cinema also promote the best creative work on an international level. Institutions like UNESCO, with the establishment of the World Heritage Site lists, also help the conservation of the major monuments of the planet.

(Source Wikipedia)

Θέα Τριών Κόσμων, Από το Στούντιο Δραματικής Τέχνης του Εσωθεάτρου

Θέα-τρον = θέα τριών

Αναστάσιος Ασημακόπουλος (Ενωδών)

Το θέατρο, το αληθινό θέατρο, λέει όλη η εσωτερική φιλοσοφική παράδοση, είναι ΘΕΑ ΤΡΙΩΝ ΚΟΣΜΩΝ. Ο θεατής μετέχει δηλαδή κατ’ ουσίαν, σε μια μυσταγωγία, κατά την οποία ΘΕΑΤΑΙ ΤΑΥΤΟΧΡΟΝΑ:
α. τον απτό υλικό κόσμο, που εμπίπτει των αισθήσεων και αποκαλείται «πραγματικότητα»
β. τον λεπτοφυέστερο συναισθηματικό-ψυχικό, που διαβιεί μεταξύ λόγου και δράσης και μένει στην μνήμη ως ζωηρή εντύπωση και
γ. τους ανωτέρους υπερβατικούς κόσμους, τους κόσμους της Όντως -κατά Πλάτωνα- Πραγματικότητας.

Η επικοινωνία μεταξύ σκηνής και πλατείας σ’ αυτές τις συνθήκες, καθίσταται ευκρινής, γιατί το κείμενο ερμηνεύεται από  ηθοποιούς ειδικά εκπαιδευμένους, με δραματική συγκρότηση και ευαισθησία, ικανούς να ανασύρουν από το ψυχικό τους βάθος  πρωταρχικές αλήθειες, οι οποίες, «υλοποιούμενες» στην σκηνή, συγκινούν τους θεατές και ανυψώνουν τις ψυχές σε τέτοια επίπεδα ταύτισης, όπου θεατής, θεώμενος και θέαμα γίνονται Ένα.

Όταν επιτυγχάνεται αυτή η εσωτερική συγκινησιακή φόρτιση, απότοκη της θέασης των τριών κόσμων, τότε μόνον έχει συντελεστεί μια ουσιαστική δραματική πράξη. Οι θεατές αποκαθαίρονται και οι ηθοποιοί νιώθουν ευτυχή πληρότητα, αφού πέτυχαν να συντονιστούν με την ανώτερη έσω-ύπαρξή τους, καταθέτοντας υλικό από τα ψυχικά τους αποθέματα.

Το δε έργο, στον λόγο και στην δραματική του απόδοση, πρέπει να διαθέτει ουσία, αισθητική και μέτρο, κυρίως όμως μέγεθος.  Το ασήμαντο, το ευτελές, το ποταπό… πώς να συγκινήσουν; Το θέατρο οφείλει να τέρπει τις αισθήσεις των θεατών. Το ωραίο πρέπει να γεμίζει τα μάτια τους και ο λόγος να είναι γλυκύς -«ηδυσμένος», όπως λέει ο Αριστοτέλης στην Ποιητική, στον ορισμό του για την τραγωδία- και να έχει ρυθμό, εναλλαγές και μουσικότητα. Η κίνηση των ηθοποιών στον χώρο να είναι αρμονική, με μέτρο και χάρη και το σκηνικό, τα κοστούμια, οι φωτισμοί, οι ήχοι και η μουσική να συμβάλλουν στην προσφορά ενός άρτιου και υψηλής ποιότητας αισθητικού αποτελέσματος.

Το θέατρο που εμείς υπηρετούμε, έχει αλήθεια. Αποσκοπεί μεν στην αισθητική παρουσίαση του φαινόμενου αλλά ζητά να συλλάβει και το νοούμενο. Δεν μας ενδιαφέρει η φωτογραφική απεικόνιση μιας μίζερης «πραγματικότητας» αλλά το αιώνιο και συνεχές που είναι πίσω από τα πράγματα, που φωλιάζει ανάμεσα στις γραμμές του κειμένου και στις παύσεις του. Μας αφορά η Αλήθεια και όχι η περιγραφή της. Μας συγκινεί το θέατρο που από μία συγκεκριμένη κατάσταση σε δεδομένο τόπο και χρόνο, οδηγεί τον θεατή στο συμβολικό διαχρονικό επίπεδο και από εκεί, στο Αρχετυπικό, στο άχρονο Τώρα, στο Είναι, όπου νιώθει και συνειδητοποιεί την Αλήθεια και τον εαυτό του μέσα σε αυτήν, ως αιωνιότητα, συνείδηση και ευδαιμονία.

Αυτό είναι το θέατρο: λούσιμο στο Απολλώνειο φως και εσωτερική βύθιση στην θεία Βακχική μανία. Έχοντας αυτές τις σκέψεις για οδηγό, κάνουμε θέατρο για την ψυχή μας –όπως έλεγε ο δάσκαλος Κάρολος Κουν- μα και για την ψυχή των θεατών.

How To Find Your Theme, J Krueger!

What the Heck is an Archetype? J Krueger!

The Passover Question, J Krueger!

How To Avoid a Dud Ending, J Krueger!

Disruptive Innovation by Wikipedia!

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.
In contrast to disruptive innovation, a sustaining innovation does not create new markets or value networks but rather only evolves existing ones with better value, allowing the firms within to compete against each other's sustaining improvements. Sustaining innovations may be either "discontinuous" (i.e. "transformational" or "revolutionary") or "continuous" (i.e. "evolutionary").
The term "disruptive technology" has been widely used as a synonym of "disruptive innovation", but the latter is now preferred, because market disruption has been found to be a function usually not of technology itself but rather of its changing application. Sustaining innovations are typically innovations in technology, whereas disruptive innovations change entire markets. For example, the automobile was a revolutionary technological innovation, but it was not a disruptive innovation, because early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt the market for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower priced Ford Model T in 1908. The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market. The automobile, by itself, was not.
The current theoretical understanding of disruptive innovation is different from what might be expected by default, an idea that Clayton M. Christensen called the "technology mudslide hypothesis". This is the simplistic idea that an established firm fails because it doesn't "keep up technologically" with other firms. In this hypothesis, firms are like climbers scrambling upward on crumbling footing, where it takes constant upward-climbing effort just to stay still, and any break from the effort (such as complacency born of profitability) causes a rapid downhill slide. Christensen and colleagues have shown that this simplistic hypothesis is wrong; it doesn't model reality. What they have shown is that good firms are usually aware of the innovations, but their business environment does not allow them to pursue them when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from that of sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition). In Christensen's terms, a firm's existing value networks place insufficient value on the disruptive innovation to allow its pursuit by that firm. Meanwhile, start-up firms inhabit different value networks, at least until the day that their disruptive innovation is able to invade the older value network. At that time, the established firm in that network can at best only fend off the market share attack with a me-too entry, for which survival (not thriving) is the only reward.
The work of Christensen and others during the 2000s has addressed the question of what firms can do to avoid oblivion brought on by technological disruption.