Kanye West Power Preveiw

. This kinda production money is only reserved for TV 30 second commercials around SuperBowl time or 2 hour long Tyler Perry movies. But if your gonna go big, this is the way to do it. I think it's GAW-jus, visually, it was the best one minute forty-two-seconds of my day... except when I'm looking at you Boo... you know who you are. (wink)

Spell Bots

All-girl, All-African American Robotics team is breaking barriers from Mari Fagel on Vimeo.

President Barack Obama has said it’s his priority to bring American students to the top of the pack in science and math achievement. However, African-American students, and girls in particular, are still falling behind. According to the U.S. Department of Education, African American students are five times less likely to be college-ready in science and math than white students upon completion of high school.

Yet an all-girl, all-African-American robotics team from Spellman College in Atlanta is breaking that stereotype. The SpelBots have competed in robotics championships around the world and they’re proving that African-American women can also become computer scientists.

On Wednesday, the team visited Howard University Middle School of Math and Science in Washington as part of the first-ever National Lab Day. The nation-wide event was created to raise awareness about the importance of math and science education. The team met with the school’s brand-new all-girls robotics team to teach them a few tricks and inspire them to follow in their footsteps.

Think inside the sensory box

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

Bad Water = Death

Bad water kill more children than wars. This is a fact that UNICEF wants to bring to the attention of the mainstream with thoughtful print adds and memorable commercials

Solidarités International: Water talks from La Boite Concept on Vimeo.

Michael Jackson Radical

Producing the first video proved to be a difficult task for Jackson. State authorities unsuccessfully tried to ban the singer filming in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador (Pelorinho). Officials feared images of poverty might affect tourism and accused Jackson of exploiting the poor. Ronaldo Cezar Coelho, the state secretary for Industry, Commerce and Tourism demanded editing rights over the finished product, stating, "I don't see why we should have to facilitate films that will contribute nothing to all our efforts to rehabilitate Rio's image". Some were concerned that scenes of poverty and human rights abuses would affect their chances of hosting the Olympics in 2004. Others supported Jackson's wish to highlight the problems of the region, arguing that the government were embarrassed by their own failings. read more

Deviant Exposure

Check out my Urban Horror inspired work at deviantart click here

On & On Tarsem 1997

Pangea Day

Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film.

Why? In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.

The Pangea Day Event

Starting at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes.

Click here to see the list of films

Click here to see how and where you can see the films

Why Not Be Great by Seth Godin

The thing is, we still live in a world that's filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity -- we have an obligation. An obligation to spend our time doing great things. To find ideas that matter and to share them. To push ourselves and the people around us to demonstrate gratitude, insight, and inspiration. To take risks and to make the world better by being amazing.

Are these crazy times? You bet they are. But so were the days when we were doing duck-and-cover air-raid drills in school, or going through the scares of Three Mile Island and Love Canal. There will always be crazy times.

So stop thinking about how crazy the times are, and start thinking about what the crazy times demand. There has never been a worse time for business as usual. Business as usual is sure to fail, sure to disappoint, sure to numb our dreams. That's why there has never been a better time for the new. Your competitors are too afraid to spend money on new productivity tools. Your bankers have no idea where they can safely invest. Your potential employees are desperately looking for something exciting, something they feel passionate about, something they can genuinely engage in and engage with.

Click here for full blog

8 Ways to take action now

Wipe the slate clean – If you have too many projects on the go, clear them all and start from scratch. When you have wiped the slate clean, concentrate on thing at a time until it’s finished and then move onto the next. If you can’t clear everything, just drop them temporarily, concentrate on one thing until it’s finished and then move on. You will find you move a lot quicker through everything you need to get done.

List everything – Make a list of everything you would like to do, whether it be cleaning the house to taking the dog a walk. Write it down.

Prioritise – Pick the most important thing you have to do for the day, or week or year, and then pick the next most important thing and so on until you have reached the bottom off your list.

Eliminate distraction – No I don’t mean kill your partner! Eliminate the things you do from day to day that distracts you from taking action for example TV, books, computer. When you eliminate distractions, your mind wants something to do and this makes you more inclined to take action on the things you want or need to do.

Take a day off – Maybe a bit contradictory this one. It’s a simple piece of advice but one that is hard to do. Just take a whole day off, the world will still turn, the work will get done and nobody will die because you are not there. You will come back refreshed and ready to take action again which means you will be a lot more productive than you would have been should you have kept going.

Clear the clutter – Clearing the clutter, whether it be from your desk, your house, or your wardrobe. When there is clutter in your life there is clutter in your mind, clearing the clutters clears your mind.

Analysis paralysis – This is the term given to people who are analysing things too much and it keeps them from moving on. Stop analysing and just do it. There comes a time when you have to stop evaluating something and just bite the bullet and do it, if it doesn’t work out do something else and start again.

Change the narrator of your thoughts – Do your thoughts predominantly sound like Elmer Fud on dope; ‘Yeah, I have to get up but I can’t be arsed, I’ll do it tomorrow’. Change Elmer Fud to someone who gets you going, someone who can motivate you into doing something. It can be anybody from your best mate to your wife or a film star, anybody as long as they can motivate you. This can be quite amusing and the results can be great.

Found It!

Have You ever watched a music video that sticks in your brain, and even the years can't erase it? That was the case of this Tony Rich video. I saw it on MTV maybe twice and the visuals just stuck in my head

LIFE'S COMING ATTRACTIONS

By Katie Byrd

Albert Einstein believed “Your imagination is the preview to life’s coming attractions.” What do you think? By effectively using your imagination you can create solutions to any problem, take a successful idea and mold and modify it to work in an even better way or you can start from scratch and invent something new and outrageous - the sky’s the limit!

But, if this is all possible, then why aren’t we busy doing it? Why aren’t we using our imagination creatively? Well, the truth is we’re always using our imagination for one thing or another. The problem being that most people seldom focus their imagination in the direction of their real desires.

If you’re thinking about (imagining) what you want half the time and half the time you’re thinking about what you don’t want, what do you think you will end up with? Probably a big zero, don’t you “imagine”? Wouldn’t the two opposing imaginings just cancel each other out?

Now what if you were to spend 55% of your time joyfully imaging what you want. That would only leave 45% for worry, anger, fear, etc. Don’t you “imagine” that you would improve your results? And as you practice and learn to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative,” don’t you “imagine” you could vastly improve your odds – maybe even up to 70, 80, 90 or 100%? That way you could start creating your life exactly the way you want it.

I think you can do it. And so does Albert Einstein. Because Einstein not only discovered the Theory of Relativity, he also knew that “Your imagination is the preview of [your] life’s coming attractions.”

Katie Byrd will take you by the hand and teach you the skills she's used to journey from a financially strapped, bad credit nightmare to debt free abundant living. To find out more visit: http://abundanceandwealth.bellaonline.com

A Series of Beliefs

"...I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen, I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it..."

Samantha-black-crows-speech-in “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman

Black Cartoonists Plan Feb. 10 Comics-Page Action

By Dave Astor Published: January 08, 2008 3:00 PM ET NEW YORK At least eight African-American cartoonists plan to take part in a Feb. 10 comics-page action to draw attention to the way their strips are perceived and purchased. "Many editors and readers consider different 'black comics' to be interchangeable," said "Candorville" cartoonist Darrin Bell. This, he told E&P today in a phone interview, is among the reasons why many papers run only one or two comics by African-Americans and other creators of color -- no matter how many strips and panels are in their comics sections. But, Bell said, comics by black cartoonists are obviously as different from each other as comics by white cartoonists are different from each other. "Some are political, some are about friends, and some are about family," noted Bell, who organized the Feb. 10 action along with "Watch Your Head" cartoonist Cory Thomas. (Both are syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group.) For the action, the cartoonists will all do a version of one of Thomas' comics. The theme and writing in each strip will be similar, though "we're all plugging in our own characters," said Bell. The idea is to satirically protest the erroneous notion of many editors and readers that comics by African-American creators are interchangeable. What might the action accomplish? "I hope editors will start allowing minority cartoonists to compete for all their comics slots, not just one or two slots," replied Bell, whose 2003-launched "Candorville" strip runs in 60 to 65 papers. The cartoonist -- who also does the "Rudy Park" comic with Theron Heir for United Media -- further noted that strips by African-American cartoonists are enjoyed by many white readers as well as black readers. Bell said he's not sure the Feb. 10 action should be called a protest, noting that black cartoonists face a problem nowhere near as serious as, say, New Orleans residents still without housing after Hurricane Katrina. But it's still a problem. "It's like a weather forecast of mostly sunny with patches of racism," Bell said wryly. The action will be publicized beforehand by media stories, press releases from one or more syndicates, information on creators' Web sites, and in pre-Feb. 10 comics. Bell, for instance, plans to do a related strip for Feb. 3. Eight cartoonists have agreed to participate at this point, according to Jerry Craft, who tipped E&P off to the Feb. 10 action today. Craft ("Mama's Boyz"/King Features Weekly Service) said the eight include himself, Bell, Thomas, Steve Bentley ("Herb and Jamaal"/Creators Syndicate), Charlos Gary ("Cafe Con Leche" and "Working It Out"/Creators), editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson, Keith Knight ("The K Chronicles"/self-syndication), and Steve Watkins ("Housebroken"/Tribune Media Services). At least two other cartoonists were interested but could not participate because their Feb. 10 comic deadlines had already passed. (Sunday strips have to be done far in advance.) Of the more than 200 comics distributed by major syndicates, perhaps 15 or so are done by cartoonists of color. Why Feb. 10? Bell replied that the date is near the Feb. 14 birthday of renowned black cartoonist Ollie Harrington (1912-1995). Craft, after being interviewed over the phone, subsequently e-mailed this comment: "I think of all the different genres of comic strips, African-American cartoonists get pitted against each other the most. For many papers, it's like the Highlander syndrome where 'There can be only one!' "I hope to live long enough to see the day when I no longer hear of how 'Mama's Boyz' is 'like Curtis or The Boondocks.' With that said, it's great to be involved with so many talented cartoonists who unfortunately share the same fate. Hopefully one day that will change."

Elements of Happiness

Over at Think Happy Thoughts.com (great website) I came across the elements of happiness

Elements of Happiness: #1: Thought control

Elements of Happiness: #2, Physiology

Elements of Happiness: #3, Focus

Elements of Happiness #4: Vocabulary

Elements of Happiness #5: Beliefs

Elements of Happiness #6: Valuing Happiness

Elements of Happiness #7: Happiness and Identity

Comics in the Class Room

Comics in the class room is created by Scott Tingley, an early years teacher in the New Brunswick (Canada) public school system

His site includes k-4 level plans -lesson plans for teacher BUT most can be easily adapted for older students:

- Language Arts -

Developing good word choices - I developed it for use with Write Traits and uses a comic strip as an important part of the plan.

-Using Comic Strips to Teach the Use of Quotation Marks

-Using the “Silent” comic Owly to inspire creative writing

-Pre-reading - Using the “Silent” comic Owly to teach using picture cues to create meaning in reading

How creativity is being strangled by the law

Larry Lessigpins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. and how they crimanalize our children

SUCCESS : DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

By Cheryl Clausen

Do you know you want to succeed, but at this moment you don’t have any idea how you will do that? You belong to the same group as the vast majority of people. You think something looks good so you follow that path for a while, and then things just begin to fall apart and you feel like you’re back at square one. It’s frustrating, tiring, and it erodes your self-confidence. You can get off this path and make obtaining success easier.

Success is a big journey a life-long journey, and you want to think about it that way. The reason the things you’ve tried in the past didn’t work out was because you weren’t thinking long-term. Begin with the end the ultimate outcome that you want, and the “how” will come later. You can’t develop a plan to succeed when you don’t fully understand what success means to you in all aspects of your life. You need to think about this in enough detail that you can envision a typical day in your life when you’re successful.

Knowing the ultimate outcome will help you to avoid some of the pitfalls. Knowing the ultimate outcome you want will help you to know what you’re looking for. There a places you can go where they allow you to dig for gem stones. You pay a certain amount and you get to keep the stones you dig up. Now if you were to visit one of these places you could go with certain intentions or objectives. You might just want to see what happens to turn up and just dig for a little while turning in your rocks and seeing if you got anything of value. You might also have the objective of finding at least one stone that’s value exceeded the fee you paid to dig for gemstones. Because you know the ultimate result you want, a gemstone whose value is greater than the fee to dig, you would go to the library to learn what various gemstones look like in their natural state. Now as you dig for stones you’ll be able to recognize what they are, and you can then even begin to focus on a specific gemstone. If you did that can you imagine that you would be more likely to find a valuable gemstone than if you went and just did some random digging? It’s a whole lot easier to find something when you know what you’re looking for. It also helps when you know how what you’re looking for fits into your overall plans making it easier to get the ultimate result you want.

Have you noticed that big success is always tied in one way or another to specialized knowledge? You aren’t necessarily the person who has to have that specialized knowledge. But you do need to know how to organize that knowledge, and put it to use in a way that supports your plan for success. In fact, great success can be had simply from compiling and presenting specialized knowledge into a more user friendly format. You can even take the specialized knowledge of others and identify a new way to use that knowledge to solve an existing problem. You may also need those with specialized knowledge acting on your behalf supporting the various functions you need to get to success.

Know what you’re looking for by knowing the end result you want. Start to rough out your plan for how you could get that. From your rough plan begin to identify your action steps and search for the resources you’ll need to put your plans into action. Once you know exactly what you’re looking for it’s a whole lot easier to find it.

Want to develop your path for success? Success Model.

Ready to get unstuck and get going? Start here.

Success and Imagination

Whatever your dream, there’s always someone out there who can help you with the background and understanding you are looking for. We have resources from around the globe on an assortment of topics that can help with tools, methods and more. If there’s a specific topic you are interested in, or if you have a particular area of expertise, please let us know.
SUCCESS AND YOUR IMAGINATION By Michael Obi
Do you realize that in order to succeed in any of life’s endeavor, you need to use your imagination? You have to start imagining things. If you really wish to succeed begin here and now to imagine that. Imagination can be described as “the workshop or the laboratory of all man’s plans”. Desire is the very first principle of success discussed in an earlier article. Yet for that success to actualize and materialize, you need to use your imagination. This is in consonance with the popular saying that “whatever the mind of man conceives and believes, it can achieve”. This quotation has been referred to in other articles I wrote.
So, if you badly want to succeed, begin to imagine and begin to believe that which you have imagined. I have often maintained that the expression “seeing is believing” should be changed to read “believing is seeing”. I want you to begin to think of the various technological inventions that have taken place in this age of ours; and that includes space travel. There was a time when space travel was featured only on cartoons or in fiction movies. Today, all this has become reality because man has imagined things and successfully materialized these things. He has been able to use his imagination to maximum effect.
It is creative imagination that is being referred to here. Those who rely on creative imagination are the ones who are most likely to make the big discoveries and bring about innovation. They generally make things happen in this world, as it is often said. To make maximum use of your imagination, you need to be aware of your intuitive feelings. These feelings are sometimes referred to as the sixth sense by experts in psychology and spiritualism, a topic I wrote about in my book and hope to develop further in another article.
To develop your imaginative and creative powers, you need to practice frequently, and there are simple methods devised to achieve this in my book. Did you know that the secret of great leaders of industry, business, finance, music and other fields of human endeavor, is the ability to use their imagination effectively? Only those who can imagine can create and when you create you have no competition because you produce something new and spectacular. This is why the copyright law of every country in the world protects your invention and your interest. For instance, my philosophy and book which I labeled “Success Through Mind Power” are the products of my imagination. Think today, what wonderful new thing your imagination can bring to you.
Many people in life are prisoners of their own imagination. They are so full of fear to use their imagination that they would not consider new or big ideas. They get caught in their own rut and refuse to make the necessary changes to take them to the next level in life. Thus, they do not achieve the success they only dream about. So if you want to make outstanding progress in life, you must break out of your rut and begin to use your imagination creatively.
It is good to heed this warning; any thought that is registered strongly in your mind is acted upon, though it might not be immediate. The seed is sown through your imagination. Remember your mind is like a garden where you can plant weeds or sweet roses. Your garden does not discriminate. The mental weeds are the major fears of poverty, failure and ill health or death. These weeds are so dangerous that they can strangle excellent ideas by blocking your imagination.
Finally, remember that your mind has been described by one psychologist as a camera picturing whatever thought or ambition fed to it by you. Mix your thought of success with strong positive feelings and the means to achieve your goal will manifest physically. Knowing how best to do this is the basis of my philosophy and book Success through Mind Power, which is very popular at the prestigious National war College in Abuja, Nigeria, where the author has been a guest lecturer of long standing. A copy of the book is available at the website http://www.mindpowersuccess.com

Talking to Yourself

THE SECRET OF SELF TALK by Steven Gilman

What is self talk? Something we all do. You are telling yourself things all the time, and your unconscious mind is listening without arguing.What you tell yourself affects the quality of your life, and your abilities as well. Don't you think you should pay more attention to that internal dialog?
What are you primarily using, positive self-talk or negative self-talk? Look at the example below of some of the things that positive and negative people say. Notice the difference, because when you do, you'll start to understand how "mere words" can affect your life.
Examples Of Negative Self Talk
Negative self talk often involves explaining bad things by internalizing them ("There I go again."). It treats bad things as permanent ("It's always the same."). It generalizes ("Work sucks."). When explaining good things, negative people often externalize them ("That was just lucky."). They consider them temporary ("That went well THIS TIME."). They see them only in a specific context ("Well at least that part went right."). Some more examples of negative self talk:
"I always screw up when I meet someone new."
"This is fun for now."
"This place is great, not like mine."
"Well, at least THAT meeting went okay, I guess."
"I picked the wrong lane like I always do."
"This nice weather can't last."
Examples Of Positive Self Talk
Positive self-talk explains bad things by externalizing them ("The weather stopped the picnic."). It considers them temporary ("Those were a few tough hours."). It sees them as isolated ("Well, THAT part didn't work out, but..."). When positive people explain good things, they internalize them ("My life is going great!"). They consider them as more or less permanent changes ("Now I've got the hang of this."). They generalize from them ("This job is really working out well."). Some more examples of positive self-talk:
"I did well on that test."
"I like the way things are going at work."
"This could be a great business to be in."
"That problem was just due to technical problems."
"It was rough, but only for an hour or two."
"It rained, but the trip was fun."
You don't have to believe that your self talk makes a difference. If you are just willing to watch, you will see the evidence for yourself. Explain things to yourself in a positive constructive way, and you'll see a difference in your attitude today. Make positive self talk a habit and you'll see a difference in your life.
Steve Gillman writes on many topics including brainpower, weight loss, meditation, habits of mind, creative problem solving, generating luck and anything related to self improvement. Learn more and get FREE e-courses at http://www.selfimprovementnow.com/