While reminiscing about his childhood and teenage years in his hometown, Ed Sheeran begins “Castle On The Hill” in a misty fog out in the grassy pastures of a wheat field where he recounts adventures of experimenting — running from the law, kissing a girl, having campsite conversations, and bonding with his friends ripping at 90 MPH down country roads. With a juxtaposition between the past and present with his young and grown self respectively, Sheeran makes each moment come alive as the episodic memory turn strong as he rolls briskly down memory lane from six to nineteen years of age. During his first time down those roads, he is eager to reunite with them to share his stories and eventually, learns where they have drifted off into desperate paths from their teenage years. As Sheeran jumps through his life, the castle on the hill might have meant a meeting point for his group to watch the sunset and share cigarettes and stories to dwell the stress of puberty. Each time, memorable landmarks through the video has some sort of emotional baggage that he can never forget. His first love and broken relationships become a cornerstone of his transformation from child to adult. The scents of perfume that he remembers so poignantly is something that he longs for and is missing. Is it from the opposite gender or the natural aroma on the hill? Later in the video, Sheeran is living very carefree with the scenes of playing snookers, ingesting alcohol, and inhaling tobacco. However, this is a stark contrast to his current and more matured self that might have the weight of the world on his shoulders. One might believe that the fog in the beginning of the video signifies short-sightedness about the consequences of his actions during his youth. All in all, Sheeran imbues the sympathy of his listeners with his homesickness but also, has them affirming that they have grown through time and will never be the same person ever again.
[Music Video Review] “Still Feel Like Your Man” by John Mayer
Unlike any previous video with John Mayer, the headline song titled “Still Feel Like Your Man” of John Mayer’s new album “The Search For Everything” starts off with two thematic colors — blue and red. The blue forest with the piano interlude is found in the introduction of the song and the slow intermission in between the repeated phrase of the song’s title. While called a “disco dojo” by Mayer during an interview with the New York Times, he, for the first time, dances with a set of Hare Krishna gone Japanese wannabes and comical Pandas who dance with a Michael Jackson-like open-leg pelvis strut. Why does the brunette wear an eye patch? Could it be that she is blind or does it pay homage to the Japanese-flavor thriller Kill Bill as conjectured by New York Magazine? The drum background instrumentation becomes apparent as the ambiance of the red Oriental “fantasy” makes Mayer seemingly alien to the wardrobe of the sumo wrestler, geishas, non-Asians, and Panda Bears who quickly gets into sync with their rhythm and hand movement as butterflies project outward behind the wedding gown-dressed blonde. Surprisingly, Mayer mumbles about the “shampoo in my shower” to showcase his everlasting memories about a girl who seemingly has moved on with another man. These feelings never leave and he later states that he is “never gonna find another you” so even the “prettiest girl in the room” doesn’t fit his mold like the previous one. With all the trappings of the grooves, string ensemble, and guitar rhythm along with the percussion, “Still Feel Like Your Man” gives the musician approaching forty years a new trick to his sleeve — dancing notably — while he fights inside himself about his resistance to entertain new partners as noted by the fencing scene in the middle of the video. Why does the villain or not throw the box to Mayer at the conclusion of the video only to see a butterfly resting inside? My Deja Vu moment was when the non-Asians pranced around Mayer like in Usher’s DJ’s Got Me Falling In Love or Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Was the director, Mister Whitmore, joking with us with the bird hat woman or throwing our minds into total disarray?
Sources:
[1] http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/watch-john-mayer-dance-through-colorful-still-feel-like-your-man-video-w475183
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/arts/music/john-mayer-search-for-everything-interview.html?_r=1
[3] http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/04/john-mayer-still-feel-like-your-man-video-offensive.html
[4] https://imvdb.com/video/the-chainsmokers/paris
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyCst7We6Uw
Analysis & Reaction — Meet The Press (NBC) — April 16, 2017
Syria, Russia, North Korea, China, Afganistan:
- “Irrational actor” ~ Sen. John McCain
- “First real test of the Trump presidency” ~ Sen. John McCain
- “We have to develop an overall strategy” ~ Sen. John McCain
- “He’s growing in office” (attributed) ~ Chuck Todd to Sen. John McCain
- “Have to have a deliberate plan” ~ Sen. Jack Reed
- “He [DJT] needs a stronger State Dept.” ~ Sen. Jack Reed
- “Are you comfortable with the flip-flops?” ~ Chuck Todd
- “Spirit on Al Queda” ~ Sen. John McCain
Reaction Questions (by Shyamal Chandra):
- Will there be ramifications or terrorism in the USA as a result of the bombings in Afganistan, war in Syria, and the missile malfunction in North Korea?
- Is there a macro plan by the President that is not being told to the MSM or to the American citizen to ensure that the playbook is held in confidence?
- Why can’t the MSM connect the dots and find the underlying reason for the series of events?
- Is there some sort of concerted attempt by all the countries to unite against the USA
Homeland Security:
Reaction Questions (by Shyamal Chandra):
- Do you think multinational companies should invest in growing the technological and industrial know-how of Mexico to dwindle the number of illegals that cross the border so there are jobs available in Mexico that mirror or even dwarf both the salary and the perks of the jobs in the USA when compared to the cost of living and currency rate?
Link to the original show.
Interesting find from reading the “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again”
President Trump Budget Blueprint – Fiscal Year 2018 by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd
- Restructures and reduces Federal subsidies to Amtrak to focus resources on the parts of the passenger rail system that provide meaningful transportation options within regions. The Budget terminates Federal support for Amtrak’s long distance train services, which have long been inef cient and incur the vast majority of Amtrak’s operating losses. This would allow Amtrak to focus on better managing its State-supported and Northeast Corridor train services.
Is that good for Americans? Eliminate long tail for short tail? Stay tuned. Until then, read the Blueprint.
Department of Education Spending Cut [ Reaction & Analysis ]
In the proposal for $9 billion in cuts to the Department of Education, the proposed 2018 budget adds $250 million for private school voucher program and adds $168 million for publicly funded but privately operated charter schools.
Following the ultimate dream of a both centralized, perishable and non-perishable store of Amazon, Trump must centralize all education tools using MOOCs with the interaction capabilities of Google Hangout. Social MOOCs are the future with F2F communication, F2C questioning, C2F instruction, and P2P learning. Have you seen French-based 42 in Fremont or other bootcamps throughout the United States? Furthermore, the social interactions in a physical school will remain without the physical teachers in every room, only proctors that might eventually become robots using the camera, microphone, and other security equipment. My classroom would include MOOCs, security equipment, larger student populations, sick kid participation through the online VPN, and tons of exercise because “health is wealth”. You must make sure that kids have interaction with other peers of both genders to prepare them for a lifetime of relationships and connections. Furthermore, the technology will help them do peer-to-peer learning instead of teacher-driven learning that doesn’t scale and isn’t personalized. That’s my two cents!
Being Indian in Trump’s America [ Analysis & Reaction ]
The New Yorker has lowered its reputation with vicarious (non-investigative) reporting from Amitava Kumar. Where’s Steve Coll?
However, one point to note from the post is that Indian-Americans have “…the highest median income of any ethnic group in the United States…” and bring Americans many things including but not limited to “…spelling bees, lazy “Slumdog Millionaire” references, yoga and chai lattes, motels, software moguls, Bollywood-style weddings, doctors and taxi drivers, henna, Nobel laureates, comedians, the baffling wisdom of Deepak Chopra, and Mahatma Gandhi…”
Bill Gates’ Measure of Success [ Reaction & Analysis ]
WHG3 recently stated the following:
For Bill Gates, it’s defined by two factors: making a difference and taking care of the people closest to you.
Isn’t the purpose of life to have a life of purpose?
Life of purpose only comes from meaning something to others and/or yourself. Purpose comes from both loving what you do and doing what you love. When you achieve a mastery of some task, you most likely are passionate about it and cannot wait to do it the next day.
What’s your purpose/objective?
Change the world, country, state, county, city, community, home, or family! Please decide.
Making progress everyday so you can celebrate at the conclusion. You should mix unselfish and selfish prerogatives to versify your portfolio. Please share some of your personalized experiences and gifts on your favorite social networking sites too.
Or are you counting the days instead of making the days count?
Time management is important as we run the marathon of life with our checkpoint assessments. Don’t let the time melt away! Have an achievement that is like the A-B-C list of WJC (POTUS42) in “My Life”. Without time deadlines, nothing can be achieved or measured.
Finally, shouldn’t you bring happiness to others with personalized experiences and gifts instead of giving hollow materialistic gifts according to the YouTube video below?
$4.1 billion Trump’s Wall Proposal [Reaction & Analysis]
The reported $4.1 billion for a wall? How about stockpiling on the $7.99 infrared iris/retinal scanners found on the new Samsung phones for a universal, card-agnostic identity system? If you do the back-of-the-envelope calculation, you can purchase ~513 million iris scanners with that much money and then have a distributed database of key-values with the iris data and the social security number of the person at every POS (point-of-sales) in the United States. Why doesn’t Donald Trump have a coding challenge like DARPA with universities competing on the best front and backend solution with the iris scanners to this problem with a limited budget and personal so the job is done much cheaper or even a consortium of Mexican universities? Make a Square (Jack Dorsey’s company) with an iris scanner. That’s my two cents!
Yahoo!’s 500 million account hack seems far from realistic and was preventable!
Supposedly according to my sources of information, Yahoo both didn’t have and doesn’t have Google Authenticator support to this day and especially in January 2014 when the 500 million accounts were hacked by exploiting users with a logged in account. That was eventually fixed possibly as early as 2016 when 2FA was added according to Google search engine results. They had two-step authentication or verification according to this dated YouTube video but not 2FA but possibly, the account attacked didn’t have it turned on. Also, how could it be possible that you could have rogue cookies or “mints” that could be injected into a browser’s cache be used to authenticate a user. How did someone even get access to the reported “UDB” unless they were Russian spies and also Yahoo! employees? The whole story seems far from realistic but still possible. Finally Google Authenticator is open source (a legacy version).
Universal Speech Recognition AI
If anyone wants to edge closer to 100% speech recognition, they must parameter sweep and create multi-track, three-dimensional, synthetic speech dataset that can handle the “wildness” of the background noise and other ambient sounds (cocktail party). Then, you can create universal AI!
Until then, you must use the 80/20 “Reddy” rule for long-tail situations that cannot be mastered by machines and delicately handled by crowd-sourcing to cheap human labor like Mechanical Turk.
Shyamal Chandra 