A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue.  In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime (US:  pantomime) and title cards.  The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system.  After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace.  Within a decade, popular widespread production of silent films had ceased.  Until the standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films between 1926 and 1930, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or "frame rates") anywhere from 12 to 26 fps, depending on the year and studio.   "Standard silent film speed" is often said to be 16 fps as a result of the Lumière brothers' Cinématographe, but industry practice varied considerably; there was no actual standard.  Cameramen of the era insisted that their cranking technique was exactly 16 fps, but modern examination of the films shows this to be in error, that they often cranked faster.  Unless carefully shown at their intended speeds silent films can appear unnaturally fast or slow.  However, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting to accelerate the action—particularly for comedies and action films.  The following are the silent films from the Unites States that earned the highest gross income in film history. The dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation.

The Birth of a Nation (1915) - $10,000,000
The Big Parade (1925) - $6,400,000
Ben-Hur (1925) - $5,500,000
Way Down East (1920) - $5,000,000
The Gold Rush (1925) - $4,250,000
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) - $4,000,000
The Circus (1928) - $3,800,000
The Covered Wagon (1923) - $3,800,000
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - $3,500,000
The Ten Commandments (1923) - $3,400,000
Orphans of the Storm (1921) - $3,000,000
For Heaven's Sake (1926) - $2,600,000
Seventh Heaven (1926) - $2,400,000
Abie's Irish Rose (1928) - $1,500,000
The early studios were located in the New York City area.  In December 1908, Edison led the formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers.  The "Edison Trust", as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph, Essanay Studios, Kalem Company, George Kleine Productions, Lubin Studios, Georges Méliès, Pathé, Selig Studios, and Vitagraph Studios, and dominated distribution through the General Film Company.  The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and were dissolved.  Edison Studios were first in West Orange, New Jersey (1892), they were moved to the Bronx, New York (1907).  Fox (1909) and Biograph (1906) started in Manhattan, with studios in St George Staten Island.  Others films were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey.  The Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser.  The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, including the first film serial ever, The Million Dollar Mystery, released in 1914.  The first westerns were filmed at Scott's Movie Ranch.  Cowboys and Indians galloped across Fred Scott's movie ranch in South Beach, Staten Island, which had a frontier main street, a wide selection of stagecoaches and a 56-foot stockade.  The island provided a serviceable stand-in for locations as varied as the Sahara desert and a British cricket pitch.  War scenes were shot on the plains of Grasmere, Staten Island.  The Perils of Pauline and its even more popular sequel The Exploits of Elaine were filmed largely on the island.  So was the 1906 blockbuster Life of a Cowboy, by Edwin S. Porter. Companies and filming moved to the west coast around 1911.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film

'One Today' by Richard Blanco, extract from the inaugural poem

One sky:  since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea.  Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience. 

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work:  some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky.  And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

Read entire poem at:   http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/today-richard-blanco-poem-read-barack-obama-inauguration/story?id=18274653

Shanta Gyan and family joined more than 800,000 people on Capitol Hill and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the Fifty-Seventh Presidential Inauguration.  Read the account at:  http://kids.baristanet.com/2013/01/a-familys-journey-to-the-fifty-seventh-presidential-inauguration-of-president-barack-obama/ 

A spokeswoman for the United States Marine Band said early on Tuesday, Jan. 22 that Beyoncé only pretended to sing, lip-syncing the words to a backing track.  What the listeners heard was a version she had recorded at a Marine Corps studio in Washington on Sunday night, said the spokeswoman, Master Sgt. Kristin duBois.  But by Tuesday afternoon, the Marine Corps had backed off Sergeant duBois’s statement, saying that while the band had not played live, neither Sergeant duBois nor anyone else in the Marine Band was in a position to know if Beyoncé had sung the anthem live or not.  Capt. Gregory A. Wolf, a Marine Corps spokesman, said the corps had determined that a live performance of the anthem was ill-advised because its members had little time to rehearse with the singer.  Earlier, Sergeant duBois had said that the weather was good and that the Marine Band had no trouble with intonation during most of the prelude and ceremony, nearly two and half hours of music.  Still, at the last minute, she said, the band received word that Beyoncé would use a recorded version of the national anthem.  Captain Wolf said it was standard operating procedure to record the music for the inauguration in advance, in case the weather is bad and it becomes impossible for musicians to keep their instruments in tune.  Four years ago, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues used backing tracks during their performance at President Obama’s first inauguration because of the bitter cold.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/arts/music/was-beyonce-singing-live-or-was-it-a-recording.html

"Catfishing" is the act of posing online as another individual or hiding one's true identity and engaging in and perpetuating a relationship that's confined to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and emailing.  J.A. Hitchcock, a Maine-based author and online safety advocate, explained the premise of catfishing.  "They're pretending to be someone and reeling in a victim," said Hitchcock, who founded the organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, which educates children and adults about online safety.  "It's literally fishing, the act of looking for someone to fall for them and keeping the relationship going online."  Nev Schulman's 2010 movie Catfish and the MTV series of the same name, which brokers face-to-face meetings between people in online-only relationships, brought the practice to light.  In the documentary, Schulman engaged in an online relationship with a woman named Megan Faccio and traveled to northern Michigan in an attempt to meet Faccio — who was, in fact, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, a mother who created online personas as a means to forge relationships.  At the end of the movie, Ms. Wesselman-Pierce's husband, Vince, explains to Mr. Schulman that cod would lose their firmness when they were initially shipped in vats from the United States to Asia.  That changed when handlers would place a catfish inside each vat before it was shipped, to keep the cod active while in transit.  The nature of deception is nothing new.  In the old testament of the Bible, Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau, instructs Jacob to disguise himself as Esau to receive a blessing from his blind father, Isaac — a blessing intended not for Jacob but for Esau.  In mythology, the Greeks gave the Trojans a gift — a large horse that was taken inside the walls of Troy and, unknown to the Trojans, was filled with Greek warriors.  Those warriors exited the horse and opened the city gates, allowing Greek forces to plunder Troy.  It's even become a part of pop culture.  In 2006, Geoffrey Knoop and Laura Albert admitted they had created the persona of JT Leroy, a male prostitute and drug addict who wrote three critically acclaimed novels. Knoop's half-sister had posed as Leroy at public events.  Rachel Lenzi 

http://www.toledoblade.com/Technology/2013/01/23/Catfishing-scam-is-nothing-new-but-now-is-in-the-national-spotlight.html