Sandra

Sandra may refer to:

People

Animals

Places

Film

Music

Acronyms

Other uses

See also

Sandra (film)

Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa is a 1965 Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti. It was released as Sandra (Of a Thousand Delights) in the USA and as Of These Thousand Pleasures in the UK.

Plot

Visconti's retelling of the Electra story starts with Sandra/Electra (Claudia Cardinale) returning to her ancestral home in Italy - and reviving an intimate involvement with her brother (Sorel) which troubles her naive husband (Michael Craig) - on the eve of an official ceremony commemorating the death of her Jewish father in a Nazi concentration camp. As ever with Visconti, he is ambivalently drawn to the decadent society he is ostensibly criticising; and Armando Nannuzzi's camera lovingly caresses the creaking old mansion, set in a landscape of crumbling ruins, where the incestuous siblings determine to wreak revenge on the mother (Bell) and stepfather (Ricci) who supposedly denounced their father.

The title, culled from the poem "Le ricordanze" by Giacomo Leopardi, could be translated as 'Glimmering stars of the Great Bear', and has a strong resonance with the movie's plot:

Sandra (Barry Manilow song)

Sandra is a song that was originally recorded by Barry Manilow on his album, Barry Manilow II in 1974. The song was also recorded by Dusty Springfield on her album It Begins Again.

External links

Brian

Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word meaning "high" or "noble". For example, the element bre means "hill"; which could be transferred to mean "eminence" or "exalted one". The name is quite popular in Ireland, on account of Brian Boru, a 10th-century king of Ireland. The name was also quite popular in East Anglia during the Middle Ages. This is because the name was introduced to England by Bretons following the Norman Conquest. Bretons also settled in Ireland along with the Normans in the 12th century, and 'their' name was mingled with the 'Irish' version. Also, in the north-west of England, the 'Irish' name was introduced by Scandinavian settlers from Ireland. Within the Gaelic speaking areas of Scotland, the name was at first only used by professional families of Irish origin. It was the fourth most popular male name in England and Wales in 1934, but a sharp decline followed over the remainder of the 20th century and by 1994 it had fallen out of the top 100. It retained its popularity in the United States for longer; its most popular period there was from 1968–1979 when it consistently ranked between eighth and tenth.

The Larry Sanders Show

The Larry Sanders Show is an American television sitcom set in the office and studio of a fictional late-night talk show. The show was created by Garry Shandling and Dennis Klein and aired from August 1992 to May 1998 on the HBO cable television network. The series stars Shandling, Jeffrey Tambor, and Rip Torn and features celebrities playing exaggerated, self-parodying versions of themselves. The show has its roots in Shandling's stand-up comedy background, his experience as a guest host on The Tonight Show and his earlier sitcom It's Garry Shandling's Show. The program has had a marked and long-lasting influence on HBO as well as on television shows in America and Britain such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock and The Office. The supporting cast includes Janeane Garofalo, Bob Odenkirk, Kathryn Harrold, Scott Thompson and Jeremy Piven.

Regarded as an influential and landmark series, it ranked 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, the only HBO comedy to make the list, and was also included in Time magazine's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."

Brian (software)

Brian is an open source Python package for developing simulations of networks of spiking neurons. Version 1 was developed by Dan Goodman and Romain Brette, and version 2 is being developed primarily by Marcel Stimberg.

Details

Brian is aimed at researchers developing models based on networks of spiking neurons. The design is aimed at minimizing users' development time, with execution speed a secondary goal. Users specify neuron models by giving their differential equations in standard mathematical form, create groups of neurons and connect them via synapses. The intent is to make the process as flexible as possible, so that researchers are not restricted to using neuron models already built into the simulator. The entire simulator is written in Python, using the NumPy and SciPy numerical and scientific computing packages. Parts of the simulator can optionally be run using C code generated on the fly. Computationally, Brian uses vectorization techniques, so that for large numbers of neurons, execution speed is of the same order of magnitude as C code.