Pixar

 

                Pixar Animation Studios, or simply Pixar it is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction which made Jobs Disney's largest shareholder.

                 Luxo Jr., a character from an early Pixar film, is the mascot of the studio.
Pixar has produced fourteen feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995) and its most recent Monsters University (2013). All of the films have received both critical and financial success, with the notable exception being Cars 2 (2011), which, while commercially successful, received substantially less praise than Pixar's other productions. All fourteen films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least "A-", indicating a positive reception with audiences. The studio has also produced several short films. As of December 2013, its feature films have made over $8.5 billion worldwide, with an average worldwide gross of $607 million per film. Both Finding Nemo (2003) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, and all of Pixar's films are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films, with the latter being the 2nd all-time highest, just behind Disney's Frozen, grossing over $1 billion worldwide.

                The studio has earned 27 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and eleven Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Since the award's inauguration in 2001, most of Pixar's films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, with seven winning: Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Brave (2012). Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars (2006) are the only two just being nominated for the award. Up and Toy Story 3 were the second and third animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (the first being Beauty and the Beast). On September 6, 2009, executives John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich were presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Biennale Venice Film Festival. The award was presented by Lucasfilm founder George Lucas.

Tiger Woods

             Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods was born on December 30, 1975, and is an American professional golfer who is among the most successful golfers of all time. He has been one of the highest-paid athletes in the world for several years.

             Tiger Woods turned professional in 1996, and by April 1997 he had already won his first major, the 1997 Masters in a record-breaking performance, winning the tournament by 12 strokes and pocketing $486,000. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997. Through the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf, spending 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010 as world number one. From December 2009 to early April 2010, Woods took leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity. His many extra-marital indescretions were revealed by several different women, through many worldwide media sources. This was followed by a loss of golf form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011. He ended a career-high winless streak of 107 weeks when he captured the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. After winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 25, 2013, he ascended to the No.1 ranking once again, holding the top spot until May 2014.

        Tiger Woods has broken numerous golf records and he has been world number one for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any other golfer. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record eleven times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in ten different seasons. He has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any player, and 79 PGA Tour events, second all time behind Sam Snead, who had 82 wins. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer, after Jack Nicklaus, to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships, and won at least one of those events in each of the first 11 years after they began in 1999. Woods and Rory McIlroy are the only golfers to win both The Silver Medal and The Gold Medal at The Open Championship.

The Walt Disney Company

            The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American diversified multinational mass media corporation headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. It is  one of the world's second largest broadcasting and cable company in terms of revenue, after Comcast. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. The company also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio, then Walt Disney Productions. Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theater, radio, music, publishing, and online media. In addition, Disney has since created corporate divisions in order to market more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands.

• Some Movies include:
• The Lion King
• Beauty and the Beast
• Frozen
• The Little Mermaid
• Aladdin
• Tangled
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

           The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Studios, which is  today one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, A+E Networks, and ABC Family; publishing, merchandising, music, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 14 theme parks around the world. An early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is a primary symbol of The Walt Disney Company.

Nike

             By now almost everyone in the world knows the brand, Nike it is an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing and worldwide marketing and selling of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment.

             The company was founded on January 25, 1964, as Blue Ribbon Sports, by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971. Nike markets its products under its own brand, as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, Air Force 1, Nike Dunk, Foamposite, Nike Skateboarding, and subsidiaries including Brand Jordan, Hurley International and Converse. Also in addition to manufacturing sportswear and equipment, the company operates retail stores under the Niketown name. Nike sponsors many high-profile athletes and sports teams around the world, with the highly recognized trademarks of "Just Do It" and the Swoosh logo.

             Nike produces a wide range of sports equipment. Their first products were track running shoes. They currently also make shoes, jerseys, shorts, cleats, baselayers, etc. for a wide range of sports, including track and field, baseball, ice hockey, tennis, association football (soccer), lacrosse, basketball, and cricket. Nike Air Max is a line of shoes first released by Nike, Inc. in 1987. Additional product lines were introduced later, such as Air Huarache, which debuted in 1992. The most recent additions to their line are the Nike 6.0, Nike NYX, and Nike SB shoes, designed for skateboarding. Nike has recently introduced cricket shoes called Air Zoom Yorker, designed to be 30% lighter than their competitors'. In 2008, Nike introduced the Air Jordan XX3, a high-performance basketball shoe designed with the environment in mind.

Jan-Ove Waldner

     Jan-Ove Waldner (Stockholm, 3 October 1965) is a Swedish table tennis player. He is known as "the Mozart of table tennis" and is a legend in his native Sweden as well as in China. Jan-Ove Waldner's potential was recognized at an early age and was displayed in 1982 as a 16-year-old when he reached the final of the European Championship, losing to teammate Mikael Appelgren. When he was young, he, along with other Swedish players, went to a training camp in China and was amazed by their dedication and claims he learned much during his stay. In China, a country that loves table tennis, he is the best-known Swede and a well-known sports personality. In the 1990s he was more recognized in China than Bill Clinton. Waldner is referred to as "the evergreen tree" and "Old Wa", and people often flock to see him when he comes.

        Jan-Ove Waldner received the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal in 1992. As of 2012, Waldner has been playing international elite level table tennis for 30 years, which is unusual in the table tennis world where hand–eye coordination and quick reactions are essential factors. Some young Chinese players that he has recently played against are trained by those he played against in the 1990s, who were in turn trained by others he played against in the 1980s. Jan-Ove Waldner is one of seven active table tennis players to have competed at the first five Olympics since the sport was introduced to the Games in 1988. 

        The others are Swede Jörgen Persson, Croatian Zoran Primorac, Belgian Jean-Michel Saive, Hungarian Csilla Bátorfi, Serbian-American Ilija Lupulesku, and German Jörg Roßkopf. In 2010 Waldner won his ninth Swedish championship against Pär Gerell, born the same year Waldner became Swedish champion for the first time. He is one of seven active table tennis players to have competed at the first five Olympics since the sport was introduced to the Games in 1988. The others are Swede Jörgen Persson, Croatian Zoran Primorac, Belgian Jean-Michel Saive, Hungarian Csilla Bátorfi, Serbian-American Ilija Lupulesku, and German Jörg Roßkopf.

         In 2010 Waldner won his ninth Swedish championship against Pär Gerell, born the same year Waldner became Swedish champion for the first time. Jan-Ove Waldner played for TTC Rhön-Sprudel Fulda-Maberzell in the German Bundesliga until May 2012. In May 2012 Stefan Frauenholz, Fulda-Maberzell's President, confirmed that Jan-Ove Waldner finished his contract with the club. Timo Boll: "Was yesterday's match against us the last one for Jan-Ove Waldner?" referring to the Bundesliga semifinal between Borussia Düsseldorf and Fulda-Maberzell. This ended his career at the international elite level, at the age of 46 years.

         Jan-Ove Waldner is one of four male players in the history of table tennis to achieve a career grand slam (World Champion and World Cup winner in singles, Olympic gold medal in singles) (in 1992). The others are: Liu Guoliang, China (in 1999), Kong Linghui, China (in 2000) and Zhang Jike, China (in 2012). When it comes to Olympic singles medals he is still (after the 2012 Olympics) the leader of the scoreboard, with one Gold and one Silver medal. In 2012 he started playing for Spårvägens BTK.

Roger Federer

           Roger Federer is a Swiss professional tennis player who is currently ranked world no. 2 by the Association of Tennis Professionals. He has been ranked inside the top 10 continuously since October 2002 and the top 20 since April 2001. Numerous commentators, pundits, and former and current players of the sport regard Federer as the greatest tennis player of all time.

            Roger Federer holds several men's world records of the Open Era: holding the world no. 1 position for 302 weeks overall,that also includes a 237-consecutive-week stretch at the top from 2004 to 2008; winning 17 Grand Slam singles titles; reaching each Grand Slam Final at least five times; and reaching the Wimbledon final nine times. He is one of seven men, and one of four in the Open Era, to capture the career Grand Slam. Federer also shares the Open Era record for most titles at the Australian Open with Andre Agassi and Novak Djokovic (4), at Wimbledon with Pete Sampras (7) and at the US Open with Jimmy Connors and Sampras (5).

              Federer has also appeared in 25 men's singles Grand Slam finals, with 10 in a row, both records, and appeared in 18 of 19 finals from the 2005 Wimbledon Championships through to the 2010 Australian Open. Roger Federer is also the only man to reach at least the semifinals of 23 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, from the 2004 Wimbledon Championships through the 2010 Australian Open. At the 2014 US Open, he played in a record 60th consecutive Grand Slam tournament, reached a record 43rd Grand Slam quarter-final and a record 36th Grand Slam semi-final. Earlier at the 2013 French Open, Federer reached a record 36th consecutive Grand Slam quarter-final. He has also won the most matches, 279, in men's Grand Slam tournaments and is the only player to record 60+ wins each at all the Grand Slam tournaments (70+ wins at 3/4 slams).

Studying the Effects of Playing Violent Video Games

           The moral issue of playing violent video games is that it could lead to violent acts in the real world. It is certain that boys play them at some point; girls play at lower rates and are scientifically less likely to play violent video games. In a newspaper article titled “Studying the effects of playing violent video games” they talked about how social scientist have been studying and debating the effects of media violence behavior. It was not clear whether over long periods of time of such a habit increases the likelihood that someone will commit a violence crime, like murder, rape, or assault, like the Newtown-like massacre. They discovered that a dose of violent gaming makes people act a little more rudely than they would otherwise, at least for a few minutes. Playing the game can and does stir hostile urges and mildly aggressive behavior in the short term. Many psychologists argue that violent video games “socialize” children over time, prompting them intimate the behavior of the games characters, the cartoonish machismo, the hair-trigger rage, and the dismissive brutality. Violence rates are seasonal, generally higher in the summer than in the winter; so are video game sales, which peak during the holidays.

            This article mainly tells us that to some people, playing violent video game like Call of Duty, Killzone 3, and Battlefield 3 can cause side effects such as rage. Its okay to enjoy playing violent video games, but it could also sometimes lead to death and violent behavior. The behavior of the player depends on the video game they are playing like a first person shooter the are playing as a killer, if they are playing a third person game they are playing as the character, they are more likely to behave rudely and aggressively when they play as a violent character. Lastly, when playing any violent video game they are rewarded for killing the bad guy, but then when you transfer it into real life when killing someone you don’t get rewarded with points or a medal; they just killed an innocent person for nothing.

           Different ways violence is shown is by young kids playing with toy guns like water guns and pointing them at there friends, who knows if it was a real gun and they were pointing at there friend. Violence is often shown in competitive sports, media, song lyrics and computer games. It is okay to play violent video games most of the time, but when kids play hours and hours of violent video games they can sometimes turn into psycho-path killers. Young kids ages 7-10 are most likely to play violent video games because once they see an advertisement for the game, they start to beg for it and then there parents get it for them. Young kids should not be aloud to play these types of games because then they can ruin there life or someone else’s.

          In conclusion, the article “Studying the effects of playing violent video games” talks about playing too much of violent video games can cause rude behavior, and can make people want to kill people in real life. This problem can be solved, when playing a violent video game like Call of Duty, once you get killed turn off the TV, walk away and stop playing the game for the rest of the day. That makes the player feel like the people who would die in real life if they were someone with a gun trying to kill as many people as they can to win. This is why people have the decision to keep playing violent video games and maybe eventually start to kill people in real life or to play the game until they die and turn of the TV and walk away.