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Alan Melikdjanian
Alan Melikdjanian (; Russian: Алан Меликджанян; born April 13, 1980), known by the alias Captain Disillusion, is a Soviet-born American independent filmmaker and YouTuber. Melikdjanian has been active in the founding of video-sharing sites Openfilm and Filmnet.com, and is the creator of the webseries ''Captain Disillusion'', which focuses on critical analysis of visual effects and video editing while promoting critical thinking and skepticism. Early life Melikdjanian was born to Soviet-era circus performer parents, and is of Armenian and Russian descent. His father, Vilen, was a particularly well-known performer. He toured the Soviet Union with his parents until age 6, where he would live with his grandmother while attending school. During summer, he would resume touring with his parents. In his youth, Melikdjanian would spend most of his free time trying to copy the styles of Disney animators. His family defected to the United States in the late 1980s; he re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Amazing Meeting
The Amazing Meeting (TAM), stylized as The Amaz!ng Meeting, was an annual conference that focused on science, scientific skepticism, skepticism, and critical thinking; it was held for twelve years. The conference started in 2003 and was sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Perennial speakers included Penn & Teller, Phil Plait, Michael Shermer and James Randi, James "The Amazing" Randi. Speakers at the four-day conference were selected from a variety of disciplines including scientific educators, magicians, and community activists. Outside the plenary sessions the conference included workshops, additional panel discussions, music and magic performances and live taping of podcasts including ''The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe''. The final Amazing Meeting was held in July 2015. History and organization TAM was first held in 2003, attracting around 150 attendees. When the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, CSICOP conferences entered a seven-year hiatus in 2005, T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miami International University Of Art & Design
Miami International University of Art & Design (formerly the International Fine Arts College) is a Private university, private, For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit art school in Miami, Florida. It is owned and operated by the non-profit Education Principle Foundation (aka Colbeck Foundation). The school has programs in design, media and visual arts, fashion, and culinary arts. Its sister schools are the Art Institutes, a collection of schools once owned by Education Management Corporation (EDMC) and Dream Center Education Holdings (DCEH). Established in 1965, the university provides career-focused education in the applied arts and design. It is Higher education accreditation in the United States, accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Miami International University of Art & Design has branch campuses in Tampa and Dallas. Faculty AI Miami has 11 full-time instructors and 93 part-time instructors for 934 students. References ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news featuring columnists. It was created to provide a progressive alternative to the conservative news websites such as the Drudge Report. The site offers content posted directly on the site as well as user-generated content via video blogging, audio, and photo. In 2012, the website became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize. Founded by Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, the site was launched on May 9, 2005 as a counterpart to the Drudge Report. In March 2011, it was acquired by AOL for US$315& ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. IMDb began as a fan-operated movie database on the Usenet group "rec.arts.movies" in 1990, and moved to the Web in 1993. It is now owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon. the database contained some million titles (including television episodes) and million person records. Additionally, the site had 83 million registered users. The site's message boards were disabled in February 2017. Features The title and talent ''pages'' of IMDb are accessible to all users, but only registered and logged-in users can submit new material and suggest edits to existing entries. Most of the site's data has been provided by these volunteers. Registered users with a prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010p. 271/ref> He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo". Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously expo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Skeptic Zone
Richard Saunders is an Australian skeptic, podcaster and professional origamist. He received recognition by the Australian Skeptics with a Life Membership in 2001, and has twice served as their president. He founded Sydney Skeptics in the Pub. He has presented on skepticism, represented the Australian Skeptics on television and radio shows, and is the co-host of ''The Skeptic Zone'' podcast. Early life Saunders was born in Kurri Kurri, New South Wales, Australia, and lived in Tribune, Saskatchewan in 1968 and 1969, as his father R. H. Saunders, who was a reverend, was posted there. Returning to Australia, Saunders attended a variety of primary schools in Mullumbimby, Lithgow, and graduated from Woy Woy High School in 1984. Professional career Web design After graduating from high school, Saunders joined educational publisher Ashton Scholastic and sold educational software for Apple II and Commodore 64 home computers. He also worked as a web designer for The Advance Bank of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Da Vinci Systems
da Vinci Systems was an American digital cinema company founded in 1984 in Coral Springs, Florida as a spinoff of Video Tape Associates. It was known for its hardware-based color correction products, GPU-based color grading, digital mastering systems, and film restoration and remastering systems. It was one of the earliest pioneers in post-production products. The company was owned by Dynatech Corporation (Acterna after 2000) for the majority of its lifespan until being bought by JDS Uniphase in 2005 and by Blackmagic Design in 2009. Company history In 1982, Video Tape Associates (VTA), a Hollywood, Florida-based production/post-production facility, began developing the Wiz for internal use and introduced it to the public the following year. The Wiz controlled early telecines such as the RCA FR-35 and the Bosch FDL 60 and offered basic primary and secondary color correction. The American post-production facilities company EDITEL Group asked VTA to build multiple Wiz syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blender (software)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool set used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and, formerly, video games. Blender's features include 3D modelling, UV mapping, texturing, digital drawing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animation, match moving, rendering, motion graphics, video editing, and compositing. History The Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (not related to Neo Geo video game hardware) started to develop Blender as an in-house application, and based on the timestamps for the first source files, January 2, 1994 is considered to be Blender's birthday. Version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal. The name ''Blender'' was inspired by a song by the Swiss electroni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Effects can be used for keying, tracking, compositing, and animation. It also functions as a very basic non-linear editor, audio editor, and media transcoder. In 2019, the program won an Academy Award for scientific and technical achievement. History After Effects was originally created by David Herbstman, David Simons, Daniel Wilk, David M. Cotter, and Russell Belfer at the Company of Science and Art in Providence, Rhode Island, where the first two versions of the software, 1.0 (January 1993) and 1.1, were released by the company. CoSA, whose CEO was William J. O'Farrell, along with After Effects was then acquired by Aldus Corporation in July 1993, which was in turn acquired by Adobe in 1994, and with it PageMaker. Adobe's first new release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Media Composer
Avid Media Composer is a film and video editing software application or non-linear editing system (NLE) developed by Avid Technology. Initially released in 1989 on Macintosh II as an offline editing system, the application has since evolved to allow for both offline and online editing, including uncompressed standard definition (SD), high definition (HD), 2K and 4K editing and finishing. Since the 1990s, Media Composer has been the dominant non-linear editing system in the film and television industry, first on Macintosh and later on Windows. Avid NewsCutter, aimed at newsrooms, Avid Symphony, aimed at finishing, were all Avid products that were derived from Media Composer and share similar interfacing, as were Avid Xpress Pro (discontinued in 2008) and its predecessor Avid Xpress DV, which were aimed at the lower end of the market. There are 4 versions of Avid Media Composer; Media Composer , First (a freeware version), Media Composer, Media Composer , Ultimate, and Media C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skeptical Inquirer
''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2013 about the mission and goals of the skeptical movement, criticized the idea that people wanted to read about the paranormal, Uri Geller and crystal skulls not being relevant any longer. Paul Kurtz in 2009 seemed to share this sentiment and stated that the organization would still research some paranormal subjects as they have expertise in this area, but they would begin to investigate other areas. S.I. "has reached an historic juncture: the recognition that there is a critical need to change our direction." While editor Frazier did expand the scope of the magazine to include topics less paranormal and more that were an attack on science and critical thinking such as climate change denialism, conspiracy theories and the influence of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perception (for example, telepathy), spiritualism and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology. Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
