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We’ve got no time for political games when it comes to the environment. But we may want to make more time for online gaming.

With more than 500 million gamers worldwide and a billion more expected in the next decade, there is no denying the collective power of their force. But can this very real human resource do more than save the virtual planet?

Jane McGonigal, a game designer at the Institute for the Future, says yes. In a fascinating TED talk, she described a gaming world producing a whole generation of “super-empowered hopeful individuals” who believe they are individually capable of changing the world. Just the kind of folks to tackle enormous problems such as climate change, deforestation, or giant ocean garbage patches.

McGonigal's big idea is to harness the power of their collaborative, problem-solving force that's been cultivated in the virtual world and apply it to real world problems.

Take the game, World Without Oil. Launched in 2007, it creates realistic scenarios for what gamers’ lives would be like after a massive oil shortage: a gamer, based on his or her geographic location, can simulate rising food costs and economic tumult and adjust his or her life to deal with these changes. Today, three years later, McGonigal says most of the 1,700 players who piloted the game kept up their gaming habits in their real lives.

A slightly different approach on the same idea is FarmVille’s recent initiative to promote organic farming by selling Cascadian Farm blueberries. It’s a new form of advertising for businesses to get their products into games, but, in this case, it’s also a means to educate a huge, unlikely audience about organic farming's benefits.

Those familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers will know of the interesting statistic that, for any activity, from learning music to computer programming, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become a virtuoso. Turns out, gamers in developed countries spend about 10,000 hours gaming by the time they are 21.

I think McGonigal is on to something big. The John Muirs and Thoreaus walking the wilderness may have been the ones to first extol the virtue of saving the Earth, but perhaps it’s the gaming geeks who will finish the job. I say, let the games begin.

Unless you've been living in the proverbial cave - or under rock, or under a rock in a proverbial cave - you'll realise that today is d-day for StarCraft II, the long awaited successor to the most successful RTS game of all time.

Developer Blizzard is one of the greatest PC developers in the world - with a slew of stellar hits that read like a Who's Who of PC gaming over the past decade, including StarCraft, Diablo and, of course, all-conquering online juggernaut World of Warcraft.

Yet for such a renowned developer of PC games, Blizzard are apparently platform agnostic when they begin the process of making a new title. At least that's what Michael Ryder, Vice President and Executive Managing Director of International Operations told us when we spoke this morning.

We asked Ryder if he felt Blizzard was "flying the lone flag" for PC gaming.

He replied: "We don't focus on the platforms so much, especially in the early stages of creating a game, we really focus on what the game experience ought to be, what the gameplay should be. Once we're inspired about what we want the game to be, we think about what's going to be the best platform for it. "

"As it happens, that the games we've done in recent years have been on the PC and the Mac because we've just genuinely felt that for the game experience we want to create, they're the best platform."

"We don't think about being alone on the PC - we just focus on making the coolest game we can on that platform. And the players have responded to that."

It's an interesting perspective from the world's premier PC developer - even if it's one we're not totally convinced by... Nevertheless, it's intriguing to hear Blizzard claim that their design process doesn't apparently include a pre-ticked PC platform box.

So is there hope for a Blizzard produced console title any time soon? Michael Ryder again:

"We're very aware of the consoles, we look at other platforms and we give thought to those things. We think about it, it's something that could happen at some point, but we don't really have anything to announce at this point."

In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard) (1904), sold for U.S. $20.one million. In 2006, the journal Proceedings in the Royal Society published a paper delivering evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas’ Hospital more than the river Thames.

Falaises près de Dieppe (Cliffs near Dieppe) has been stolen on two separate occasions. As soon as in 1998 (where the museum’s curator was convicted on the theft and jailed for 5 many years along with two accomplices) and most lately in August 2007. It was recovered in June 2008.

Monet’s Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of the railway bridge spanning the Seine close to Paris, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for a report $ 41.4 million at Christie’s auction in New York on 6 May 2008. The earlier record for his oil painting stood at $ 36.five million.[26] Le bassin aux nymphéas (in the water lilies series) offered at Christie’s 24 June 2008, good deal 19, for ￡36,500,000 ($71,892,376.34) (hammer price) or ￡40,921,250 ($80,451,178) with fees, setting a new auction record for your artist.

Nympheas – H2o Lilies marketed for USD 71,846,600. . This was one on the highest costs paid for Monet’s function.

In the start of May possibly 1883, Monet and his large family rented a property and 2 acres (8,100 m2) from a local landowner. The property was situated around the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and also a small garden. The house was close adequate on the local colleges for that kids to attend and also the surrounding landscape provided quite a few suitable motifs for Monet’s perform. The family worked and built up the gardens and Monet’s fortunes started to change for your much better as his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel experienced growing success in marketing his paintings. By November 1890, Monet was prosperous adequate to buy the home, the adjoining buildings along with the land for his gardens. During the 1890s, Monet constructed a greenhouse plus a 2nd studio, a spacious making well lit with skylights. Beginning within the 1880s and 1890s via the finish of his life in 1926, Monet worked on “series” paintings, by which a topic was depicted in various light and weather ailments. His initial series exhibited as such was of Haystacks, painted from unique points of view and at various times of the evening. Fifteen from the paintings were exhibited in the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. He later developed numerous sequence of paintings such as: Rouen Cathedral, Poplars, the Parliament, Mornings about the Seine, as well as the Water Lilies that had been painted on his residence at Giverny.

Monet was exceptionally fond of painting controlled nature: his personal gardens in Giverny, with its h2o lilies, pond, and bridge. He also painted up and down the banks of the Seine, creating paintings just like Break-up from the ice within the Seine.

He wrote daily directions to his gardening staff, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet’s wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even soon after he hired seven gardeners.

Charing Cross Bridge, 1899, Selection Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, MadridBetween 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled towards the Mediterranean, exactly where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, just like Bordighera. He painted an essential series of paintings in Venice, Italy, and in London he painted two essential series—views of Parliament and views of Charing Cross Bridge. His second wife, Alice, died in 1911 and his oldest son Jean, who obtained married Alice’s daughter Blanche, Monet’s particular favourite, died in 1914. After his wife died, Blanche looked soon after and cared for him. It was for the duration of this time that Monet started to create the 1st indications of cataracts.

During Globe War I, in which his younger son Michel served and his good friend and admirer Clemenceau led the French nation, Monet painted a sequence of weeping willow trees as homage on the French fallen soldiers. In 1923, he underwent two operations to eliminate his cataracts: the oil paintings carried out although the cataracts affected his vision have a common reddish tone, which can be characteristic on the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that immediately after surgery he was able to find out certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are typically excluded through the lens of the eye, this may well have received an impact about the colors he perceived. After his operations, he even repainted some of these paintings, with bluer water lilies than prior to the operation.

Many times a difficult Camille month later, a sorrowful Monet (solution never died break stones to start to found he best the 19th century’s some pictures earnestly once more). In the early 1880s, he thought in several Monet oil paintings scenery and the seascape group is the movement, by document French village. His widespread propaganda campaign evolves his series painting.



Camille Monet has become in 1876 tuberculosis to be sick. Her second child, she was pregnant gives birth to Michelle Monet in March, 1878. Monets has brought in family Ernest temporarily in 1878 Hoschedé (from 1837 to 1891), a wealthy Department store boss and artistic patronne. Two family’s houses, then wet Iraq in sharing in the summer. (Ernest Hoschedé) goes bankrupt after her husband, and left Belgium in 1878, after and Camille Monet died in 1879 September, but lived continually in Monet is wetting the Iraqi house; Ailisi Hoschedé Monet helps them to enhance Paris, she lives together 6 children, his two sons, Jean and Michelle.

They Blanche Hoschedé Monet (she finally married Jean Monnet), Germain, Susan Hoschedé, Martha, Jean Pierre and Jacques. In the spring of 1880, Alice Hoschedé and all the children leave Paris back to Monet still vetheuil House to live in. in 1881, they moved to Poissy, Monet and hate. In 1883, in April, the finding of Vernon and Ghani train window, he found that Kat Pooh. Then they moved to Vernon, and then in a House Kat Pooh, Earl in Normandy, where he planted a big garden and where he painted for his life. With her estranged husband died, 1892 married Alice Hoschedé Claude Monet.

The latter eruption franco-prussian war (on July 19, 1870), Monet occurred in September, 1870 seeks asylum in Britain. in there, he has studied project John Constable and William Joseph Mallord Turner, both’s landscape, will be helpful in stimulated Monet’s color research innovation achievement. In 1871 the spring, Monet’s work is refused to display in the imperial institute includes the authorization.



in May, 1871, he left London, lived is approving Dan in Holland,(and police suspects his revolutionary activity) in his 05 year drawing. he also visited nearby visited Amsterdam for the first time. In October or in November in 1871, he returned to France. From December Monet lived from 1871 to 1878 Ahl, pair of right bank village Seine Paris nearby rivers, as well as the popular Sunday picnic’s Parisian, he drew his most famous work in there to have the destination. in 1874, he returned to Holland briefly.





in 1872, he drew the impression sunrise (impression, display of vigour and vitality) describes the le havre landscape. It hung in the display first impression in 1874, at present time period Marmottan Monet held before the demonstration in Paris. From the drawing title, artistic critic Louise Leluoyi proposed “the impressionist school “, he plans the achievement to despise, but impressionist school appropriate.



is also in this display oil painting named main road ten thousand capucines, a picture this main road from makes the photographer Nadaer apartment not to have. 35. Has, however, these two works by main road Monet: One is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, another Nelson art museum in the Kansas city. It has not become the explicit drawing display to appear unprecedentedly in 1874, but had been favored recently in the Moscow picture.



Monet and Camille doncieux’s war (1870-June 28) and later they visited London and buhrs, they moved to Al, in 1871. It was at this time, Monet painted modern life. Camil ill in 1876. They have a second son, Michel, 17 March 1878, (cowboy was born in 1867). This undermined her second child has faded. In the same year, he came to the village of vetheuil. 5 September 1879, died of tuberculosis in Camil Monet and 32; Monet painting her death bed.

When Monet goes to Paris to visit the Louvre he to witness that the painter duplicates from the old master. Also presented his paint and other with his tool, but not goes to and him sits in a window, describes him to see. Monet met for several years in Paris, is other young painter who the friend and the colleague impressionist school painter, including Edward Manai.



in June, 1861, Monet has joined the African light cavalry first group in Algerian 7 year pledges, but two years later, he infected typhus, his mother’s sister Mary Jennie Lecadre carries on the intervention, lets him leave the army, if he agrees in a complete Art academy’s artistic curriculum. This possibly is the Dutch painter John Basore Germany accommodates Jinde, Monet knew, possibly urges him to this matter paternal aunt. With the traditional art broken Art school teacher, in 1862 Monet, became student Charles Gleyre in Paris, has run into Pierre August Renoir in there him, Frederick female genitals cheerful Ahl Fred Sisley.



Monet Camil or women in a green skirt (la robe women protection Verte), painted in 1866, he acknowledged, and his future wife, one with a lot of work, Camil doncieux, she is the digital model of the following year, the women in the garden as well as author: Seine banks, NICOT, 1868, described here. Shortly thereafter, Camil became pregnant and gave birth to her first child, cowboy.

When Monet goes to Paris to visit the Louvre he to witness that the painter duplicates from the old master. Also presented his paint and other with his tool, but not goes to and him sits in a window, describes him to see. Monet met for several years in Paris, is other young painter who the friend and the colleague impressionist school painter, including Edward Manai.



in June, 1861, Monet has joined the African light cavalry first group in Algerian 7 year pledges, but two years later, he infected typhus, his mother’s sister Mary Jennie Lecadre carries on the intervention, lets him leave the army, if he agrees in a complete Art academy’s artistic curriculum. This possibly is the Dutch painter John Basore Germany accommodates Jinde, Monet knew, possibly urges him to this matter paternal aunt. With the traditional art broken Art school teacher, in 1862 Monet, became student Charles Gleyre in Paris, has run into Pierre August Renoir in there him, Frederick female genitals cheerful Ahl Fred Sisley.



Monet Camil or women in a green skirt (la robe women protection Verte), painted in 1866, he acknowledged, and his future wife, one with a lot of work, Camil doncieux, she is the digital model of the following year, the women in the garden as well as author: Seine banks, NICOT, 1868, described here. Shortly thereafter, Camil became pregnant and gave birth to her first child, cowboy.

Monet died of lung cancer on five December 1926 in the age of 86 and is buried inside the Giverny church cemetery.Monet had insisted that the occasion be straightforward; hence only about fifty folks attended the ceremony.
His well-known house, garden and waterlily pond were bequeathed by his son Michel, his only heir, for the French Academy of Fine Arts (part on the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the residence and gardens were opened for check out in 1980, following restoration. In addition to souvenirs of Monet along with other objects of his existence, the house consists of his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The property is a single from the two principal attractions of Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.

Monet was born in 1840, 14 November at 45th Street, 5th floor, Laffite, ninth in Paris. he was Claude Monet and Louis-Adolphe Haining Aubrey Monet paintings, second son, which is the second generation of Paris. May 20, 1841, he was baptized in the parish church, Notre-Dame on the ground, Laurette as Oscar Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar Award. 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go home grocery business, but his wish to become an artist. His mother was a singer.

In 1851, the first to enter Le Havre Monet art school. He was very understanding of the local people on his charcoal cartoon, he will be sold for 10 to 20 francs. Monet also undertook his first lessons from Jacques Francois Orchard has been a student of Jacques Louis David. On the Normandy beaches around 1800 1800 57 points 56, he recognized the same artist Dan Europe, who became the renbu his mentor, and teach him to use Paint. Inbjudan teach Monet "en plein air" paintings (outdoor).

28 January 1857, his mother died. In 16-year-old, he left school and went to widowed without children living with his aunt, Mary Jane Lecadre.