Queen (soundtrack)

Queen is the soundtrack album by Amit Trivedi, to the 2014 Hindi film of the same name directed by Vikas Bahl and starring Kangana Ranaut in lead role. The album features eight tracks in a different array of genres. It was released digitally on 30 January 2014, and physically on 2 February 2014 at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai, attended by the cast and crew of the film and preceded by Trivedi's performance.

Trivedi travelled to European cities like Amsterdam and Paris in search of inspiration for the album, while also working on four different film projects at the time. The album received positive reviews from critics. All the tracks are composed by Trivedi and written by Anvita Dutt, with the exception of "Ranjha" written by Raghu Nath, composed by Rupesh Kumar Ram and the producer of the film Anurag Kashyap.

Development

Amit Trivedi composed the music soundtrack simultaneously working on four other ones like Ghanchakkar, Lootera, Bombay Talkies and Kusar Prasad Ka Bhoot in a time span of 5 months. The film based on a woman's self-discovery while travelling; Trivedi also travelled to Europe in Amsterdam, the film's shooting location so that he could understand the vibe and musical demand of the place in accordance with the local philosophy of "free living [..] especially in their [European] nightclubs". During the visit he also spent time in Paris and bonded with the locals there while working over music. Trivedi completed Ghanchakkar and Lootera before Queen.

Races of StarCraft

Blizzard Entertainment's bestselling real-time strategy game series StarCraft revolves around interstellar affairs in a distant sector of the galaxy, with three species and multiple factions all vying for supremacy in the sector. The playable species of StarCraft include the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth who excel at adapting to any situation; the Zerg, a race of insectoids obsessed with assimilating other races in pursuit of genetic perfection; and the Protoss, a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities, attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophical way of living from the Zerg. Each of these races has a single campaign in each StarCraft real-time strategy game. In addition to these three, various non-playable races have also been part of the lore of the StarCraft series; the most notable of these is the Xel'Naga, a race which features prominently in the fictional histories of the Protoss and Zerg races.

The original game has sold over 10 million copies internationally, and remains one of the most popular games in the world. One of the main factors responsible for StarCraft's positive reception is the attention paid to the three unique playable races, for each of which Blizzard developed completely different characteristics, graphics, backstories and styles of gameplay, while keeping them balanced in performance against each other. Previous to this, most real-time strategy games consisted of factions and races with the same basic play styles and units with only superficial differences. The use of unique sides in StarCraft has been credited with popularizing the concept within the real-time strategy genre. Contemporary reviews of the game have mostly praised the attention to the gameplay balance between the species, as well as the fictional stories built up around them.

Evil Queen (Disney)

The Evil Queen, also known as the Wicked Queen or just the Queen, and sometimes instead identified by her given name as Queen Grimhilde, is the primary antagonist in Disney's 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She is based on the Evil Queen character from the European fairy tale "Snow White".

In the film, similar to the Brothers Grimm story, the Evil Queen is cold, cruel, and extremely vain, and obsessively desires to remain the "fairest in the land". She becomes madly envious over the beauty of her stepdaughter, Princess Snow White, as well as the attentions of the Prince from another land; such love triangle element is one of Disney's changes to the story. This leads her to plot the death of Snow White and ultimately on the path to her own demise, which in the film is indirectly caused by the Seven Dwarfs. The film's version of the Queen character uses her dark magic powers to actually transform herself into an old woman instead of just taking a disguise like in the Grimms' story; this appearance of hers is commonly referred to as the Wicked Witch or alternatively as the Old Hag or just the Witch.

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals.

Each player begins the game with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently. The most powerful piece is the queen and the least powerful piece is the pawn. The objective is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, while supporting their own. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by voluntary resignation by the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways.

Chess is believed to have originated in India, some time before the 7th century; the Indian game of chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of xiangqi and shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century; the rules were finally standardized in the 19th century.

Chess annotation symbols

When annotating chess games, commentators frequently use widely recognized annotation symbols. Question marks and exclamation points that denote a move as bad or good are ubiquitous in chess literature. Some publications intended for an international audience, such as the Chess Informant have a wide range of additional symbols that transcend language barriers.

The common symbols for evaluating the merits of a move are "??", "?", "?!", "!?", "!", and "!!". In these cases, the corresponding symbol is juxtaposed in the text immediately after the move (e.g. Re7? or Kh1!?, see algebraic chess notation).

Use of these annotation symbols is subjective, as different annotators use the same symbols differently. Moreover, an annotator's use of symbols is often influenced by the player's strength: a positional misjudgment that an annotator might give a "??" if played by a strong grandmaster might pass unremarked if played by a beginner.

Annotators' use of punctuation also may possibly be influenced by the result of the game (regardless of the actual quality of the move); one possible example came in the 11th game of the 1972 World Championship, when Spassky played an unexpected move, 14.Nb1, retreating the knight to its initial square. Spassky won the game, and several annotators gave the move two exclamation points. Edmar Mednis asserted that if Spassky had lost the game, the move would likely have been given two question marks instead.

Computer chess

Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment (allowing players to practice and to better themselves when no sufficiently strong human opponents are available), as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human cognition.

Current chess engines are able to defeat even the strongest human players under normal conditions. Whether computation could ever solve chess remains an open question.

Availability

Chess-playing computers are now accessible to the average consumer. From the mid-1970s to the present day, dedicated chess computers have been available for purchase. There are many chess engines such as Stockfish, Crafty, Fruit and GNU Chess that can be downloaded from the Internet for free. These engines are able to play a game that, when run on an up-to-date personal computer, can defeat most master players under tournament conditions. Top programs such as the proprietary Shredder or Fritz or the open source program Stockfish have surpassed even world champion caliber players at blitz and short time controls. In October 2008 Rybka was rated top in the CCRL,CEGT, CSS,SSDF, and WBEC rating lists and has won many recent official computer chess tournaments such as CCT 8 and 9, the 2006 Dutch Open Computer Championship, the 16th IPCCC, and the 15th World Computer Chess Championship. As of February 03, 2016, Stockfish is the top rated chess program on the IPON rating list.