Everybody Loves Raymond

Everybody Loves Raymond 1996 - 2005 IMDb

Everybody Loves Raymond is an Emmy, SAG, WGA winning and Golden Globe nominated American sitcom, originally broadcast on CBS from September 13, 1996 to May 16, 2005. Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of Ray Romano (who is represented by the Ray Barone character he plays) and the writing staff. The main characters on the show are also loosely based on Romano's family members. It is one of the most critically acclaimed American sitcoms of its time. Everybody Loves Raymond was nominated for and won many awards.

Show background

The show revolves around the life of Italian-American Ray Barone, a newspaper sportswriter from Lynbrook, Long Island. Ray lives with his wife, Debra Barone, their daughter, Ally, and their identical twin sons, Michael and Geoffrey. Ray's parents and brother Robert frequently make their presence known to the frustration of Ray and especially Debra. Unfortunately for Ray, he always has to hear about it from Debra. A passive-aggressive woman, Debra particularly finds herself at odds with Ray's mother, Marie. Ray often finds himself in the middle of all the problems and arguments. His biggest nemesis is Robert, who is insecure about Ray being the favorite son. Although Robert and Ray are frequently seen fighting like children and picking on each other, the brothers are very devoted to each other. Robert frequently calls Ray "Cubby" and stands up for him, while Ray has a great admiration for Robert, who is a police officer. One very touching episode had Ray taking care of Robert after he was wounded in the line of duty. Their father, Frank, is very tough and does not like to show his feelings, but through the years several episodes were crafted to show how much he loves his family. Ray and Debra have their share of marital disagreements, with Debra frequently denying Ray sex, and Ray prefers watching sports television to talking to his wife. A recurring theme on the show has them having a long interaction each night while in bed, just before going to sleep, and sometimes there is a sweetness between them.

Main cast

* Ray Barone (Ray Romano)
* Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton)
* Robert Barone (Brad Garrett)
* Marie Barone (Doris Roberts)
* Frank Barone (Peter Boyle)

Achievements

Bravo placed the Barone family at number 41 on their list of 100 greatest TV icons of all time TV Land placed Frank's exclamation 'Holy Crap' at number 79 on their list of 100 greatest catchphrases of all time. TV Land and TV Guide placed Marie's vagina sculpture at number 62 on their list of 100 most unexpected moments in TV history. TV Guide placed Ray Barone at number 10 on their list of 50 greatest TV dads of all time.

Montauk, New York

Montauk, New York 41°2′18″N 71°57′2″W
town.east-hampton.ny.us

Montauk is a hamlet (and census-designated place) in Suffolk County, New York on the South Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the hamlet population was 3,851. It is the easternmost area in Long Island, and thus the easternmost area in New York State.

Strategically located on the tip of the South Fork, Suffolk County, New York peninsula it has been used as an Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force base. Located 20 miles off the Connecticut coast, it is home to the largest commercial and recreational fishing fleet in New York State.

The Montauk Point Lighthouse was the first lighthouse in New York state and is the fourth oldest active lighthouse in the United States.

Montauk is a major tourist destination and it boasts six state parks. It is particularly famous for its fishing (claiming to have more world saltwater fishing records than any other port in the world) and surfing.

The Deep Hollow Ranch is the oldest cattle ranch in the United States.

Montauk is in the Town of East Hampton.

Maggie Cheung

Maggie Cheung (born September 20, 1964) is a multi award-winning Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Raised in England, she has over 80 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983.

Biography

Born in Hong Kong, Maggie Cheung traces her ancestry to Shanghai, China. Her merchant-class family emigrated from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom when she was a child. Cheung spent part of her childhood and adolescence in the UK. She returned to Hong Kong in 1982 for vacation, but ended up staying for modeling assignments. Soon she got a salesgirl job at a Japanese department store as well. In 1983, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant contest. She won second place and also bagged the Miss Photogenic award. She was a semi-finalist in the Miss World pageant the same year.

Prior to 1988, Maggie’s screen appearance was often limited to eye candy roles. One of Cheung's notable movie roles then is that of "Mei", the girlfriend of police detective "Kevin" Chan Ka Kui in Jackie Chan's Police Story movies (however, she did not reprise the role in Police Story 4: First Strike or New Police Story). Maggie frequently cited her performance in the movie As Tears Go By (1988), her first of many collaborations with film director Wong Kar-Wai 王家衛, as the piece that truly began her serious acting career. Maggie Cheung is famous for being a talented multi-lingual actress. In Centre Stage, she performed in Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese fluently, switching languages with ease. In Clean, she performed in fluent English, Parisian French, Cantonese and a smattering of Mandarin. Unlike most traditional actors in Hong Kong who are Cantonese monolingual, she is a polyglot as a result of her cosmopolitan upbringing.

Audiences outside Asia have become increasingly familiar with her work, including her roles in Centre Stage (as Ruan Lingyu), In the Mood for Love, Irma Vep, 2046, Hero, and, most recently, Clean.

She married French director Olivier Assayas in 1998 but divorced him in 2001. Their relationship remained amicable, however, as in 2004 Cheung made her award-winning movie Clean with him. As part of her portrayal of the drug-addicted aspiring singer Emily Wang in Clean, Maggie Cheung performed songs written by David Roback of Mazzy Star.

On 7 February 2007, The New York Times rated Maggie Cheung as one of the 22 Great Performers in 2006 for her Cannes winning role Emily in Clean. After 25 years of making movies, Cheung is deciding to retire from acting and pursue a career as a film composer. She allows that there might be room for an occasional comedic role, but she would like to paint and compose music, after fulfilling her acting potential.

Awards

Hong Kong Film Awards
Best Actress
1989 A Fishy Story
1992 Centre Stage
1996 Comrades: Almost a Love Story
1998 The Soong Sisters
2001 In the Mood for Love

Golden Bauhinia Awards
Best Actress
1996 Comrades: Almost a Love Story

Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
Best Actress
1996 Comrades: Almost a Love Story

Golden Horse Awards
Best Actress
1989 Full Moon in New York
1990 Red Dust
1991 Centre Stage
1996 Comrades: Almost a Love Story
2000 In the Mood for Love

Other Awards

Berlin International Film Festival
Best Actress
1992 Centre Stage

Cannes Film Festival
Best Actress
2004 Clean

Hawaii International Film Festival
Award for Achievement in Acting

HDRI

High Dynamic Range Image and Video Processing

In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.

HDRI was originally developed for use with purely computer-generated images. Later, methods were developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy-to-use desktop software, the term "HDR" is now popularly used to refer to the process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range. This composite technique is different from, and generally of lower quality than, the production of an image from a single exposure of a sensor that has a native high dynamic range. Tone mapping is also used to display HDR images on devices with a low native dynamic range, such as a computer screen.

OpenGL

OpenGL

OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL was developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in 1992 and is widely used in CAD, virtual reality, scientific visualization, information visualization, and flight simulation. It is also used in video games, where it competes with Direct3D on Microsoft Windows platforms.

History

In the 1980s, developing software that could function with a wide range of graphics hardware was a real challenge. Software developers wrote custom interfaces and drivers for each piece of hardware. This was expensive and resulted in much duplication of effort.

By the early 1990s, Silicon Graphics (SGI) was a leader in 3D graphics for workstations. Their IRIS GL API was considered the state of the art and became the de facto industry standard, overshadowing the open standards-based PHIGS. This was because IRIS GL was considered easier to use, and because it supported immediate mode rendering. By contrast, PHIGS was considered difficult to use and outdated in terms of functionality.

SGI's competitors (including Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and IBM) were also able to bring to market 3D hardware, supported by extensions made to the PHIGS standard. This in turn caused SGI market share to weaken as more 3D graphics hardware suppliers entered the market. In an effort to influence the market, SGI decided to turn the IrisGL API into an open standard.

SGI considered that the IrisGL API itself wasn't suitable for opening due to licensing and patent issues. Also, the IrisGL had API functions that were not relevant to 3D graphics. For example, it included a windowing, keyboard and mouse API, in part because it was developed before the X Window System and Sun's NeWS systems were developed.

In addition, SGI had a large number of software customers; by changing to the OpenGL API they planned to keep their customers locked onto SGI (and IBM) hardware for a few years while market support for OpenGL matured. Meanwhile, SGI would continue to try to maintain their customers tied to SGI hardware by developing the advanced and proprietary Iris Inventor and Iris Performer programming APIs.

As a result, SGI released the OpenGL standard.

The OpenGL standardised access to hardware, and pushed the development responsibility of hardware interface programs, sometimes called device drivers, to hardware manufacturers and delegated windowing functions to the underlying operating system. With so many different kinds of graphic hardware, getting them all to speak the same language in this way had a remarkable impact by giving software developers a higher level platform for 3D-software development.

In 1992, SGI led the creation of the OpenGL architectural review board (OpenGL ARB), the group of companies that would maintain and expand the OpenGL specification for years to come. OpenGL evolved from (and is very similar in style to) SGI's earlier 3D interface, IrisGL. One of the restrictions of IrisGL was that it only provided access to features supported by the underlying hardware. If the graphics hardware did not support a feature, then the application could not use it. OpenGL overcame this problem by providing support in software for features unsupported by hardware, allowing applications to use advanced graphics on relatively low-powered systems.

In 1994 SGI played with the idea of releasing something called "OpenGL++" which included elements such as a scene-graph API (presumably based around their Performer technology). The specification was circulated among a few interested parties – but never turned into a product.

Microsoft released Direct3D in 1995, which would become the main competitor of OpenGL. On 17 December 1997, Microsoft and SGI initiated the Fahrenheit project, which was a joint effort with the goal of unifying the OpenGL and Direct3D interfaces (and adding a scene-graph API too). In 1998 Hewlett-Packard joined the project. It initially showed some promise of bringing order to the world of interactive 3D computer graphics APIs, but on account of financial constraints at SGI, strategic reasons at Microsoft, and general lack of industry support, it was abandoned in 1999.

SU-37

Sukhoi

Youtube.com SU-37 search

The Sukhoi Su-37 is a single-seat, all-weather, fighter and ground attack prototype aircraft, derived from the Su-27 'Flanker'. The Su-27 is a Russian fourth generation jet aircraft that has been exported to over 20 nations. The Su-37 test aircraft made its maiden flight in April 1996 from the Zhukovsky flight testing center near Moscow. The Su-37 is referred to as the Terminator.

The Su-37 includes several updates over the Su-27, including all-weather multi-mode passive electronically scanned array radar with synthetic aperture, terrain avoidance, terrain mapping and a rear facing radar. The airframe includes a percentage of parts made from composites, unlike the all-metal Su-27. Additionally, the Su-37 incorporates the AL-37FU engines equipped with thrust vectoring. The Su-37’s nozzles are variable in pitch only and travel plus or minus 15 degrees, but they can be operated differentially to provide a rolling moment.



In the cockpit the aircraft is the first Russian fighter aircraft with the Hands On Throttle and Stick, or HOTAS, system. The weapon system shares much with the Su-30"MK", but it lacks the large display in the back cockpit that is utilized by the weapons system officer. The cockpit features four multi-function cockpit displays instead of dial type analogue instruments and has an inclined (30 degree) pilot ejection seat. The two-grip flying control configuration was designed to prevent the pilot from flailing around when doing the manoeuvers associated with the vectored-thrust engines. Both the fixed throttle and the side-stick controller provide secure points for the pilot to brace his hands.

The Su-37 also stores a radar in the tailcone of the plane that allows it to fire missiles behind the plane.

The engine not only incorporates 2D TVC but also is tough and resistant to engine surge even during classic, inverted and flat spins, giving better reliability and maneuverability, such as when the AOA is as high as 180 degrees.

The Su-37 appeared at the 1996 Farnborough air show piloted by Sukhoi test pilot Eugeny Frolov. During the performance, the Su-37 was flipped on its back while flying at 350 km/h (217 mph) so that it faced the opposite direction, inverted and almost stationary. After pausing for two seconds the thrust vectoring was used to complete a 360 degree rotation and the aircraft moved off in its original direction of flight at only 60 km/h (37 mph).

The Su-37 can carry air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons on 12 stations. The number of missiles and bombs carried can be increased to 14 with the use of multi-payload racks.

Russia has not ordered Su-37s, but it might find customers abroad, a market that now constitutes a sizable share of Sukhoi’s income. Several prototypes have been built, but the aircraft is not in production.

SGI Indy

SGI Indy Info

Introduced in 1993, the Indy was the fruit of SGI's effort to muscle into the market for desktop publishing, low-end CAD, and multimedia. At the time, the market was mostly dominated by Apple. The Indy was the first computer to include a digital video camera, and was built with a (then) forward-looking architecture including an on-board ISDN adapter. With the inclusion of analog and digital I/O, SCSI, and standard composite and S-Video inputs, the Indy really was a multimedia machine.



At the beginning of its life, the Indy came standard with 16MB of RAM. IRIX 5.1, the first OS for the Indy, did not take full advantage of the hardware due to inadequate memory management. SGI realized this and quickly increased the base specification to 32 MB, at considerable cost. Subsequent IRIX releases made huge improvements in memory usage. The latest release of IRIX available for the Indy workstations is 6.5.22.

CATIA

CATIA Official

CATIA (Computer Aided Three dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by French company Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM. The software was originally intended for the development of Dassault's Mirage fighter jet, but became a runaway success and was subsequently adopted by numerous well known companies world-wide, such as Boeing and IBM. The software was also famously used by architect Frank Gehry in his building of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. CATIA is written in the C++ programming language. CATIA is the corner stone of the Dassault Systemes PLM software suite.

History

CATIA started as an in-house development by French aircraft manufacturer Avions Marcel Dassault, at that time customer of the CADAM CAD software.

The software name was initially CATI (Conception Assistée Tridimensionnelle Interactive - French for Interactive Aided Three Dimensional Design ), but was renamed to CATIA in 1981. At that time Dassault created a subsidiary responsible for the software development and marketing, and finalized a non exclusive distribution agreement with IBM.

In 1984, the Boeing Company chose CATIA as its main 3D CAD tool, making it the largest customer.

In 1988, with version 3, CATIA was ported from the mainframe to the UNIX platform.

In 1992 CADAM was purchased from IBM and the next year CATIA CADAM v4 was published. Subsequently in 1996 CATIA V4 was ported from one to four Unix operating systems, including IBM AIX, Silicon Graphics IRIX, Sun Microsystems SunOS and Hewlett-Packard HP-UX.

In 1998, an entirely rewritten version of CATIA, CATIA V5 was released, with support for both UNIX, Windows NT and Windows XP since 2001.

VF-1 Valkyrie

Macross Mecha Manual

In the fictional series Macross and its English adaptation Robotech, the first mass-produced variable fighter (Macross) or Veritech fighter (Robotech) is called the VF-1 Valkyrie.



The VF-1 was initially designed by the legendary Japanese mecha designer Shoji Kawamori (with contributions by his Studio Nue partner Kazutaka Miyatake) in 1980-1982 to be the centerpiece mecha design of the anime series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982-1983).



In Robotech, the VF-1 is most commonly referred to as the "Veritech Fighter", which is short for Variable Engineering and Robotic Integration TECHnology, but its official popular name "Valkyrie" is used in a few infrequent references.

Michael Galasso

Michael Galasso

Composer, violinist and musical director Michael Galasso was born in Hammond, Louisiana in 1949, to a concert violinist father and an oboist mother. He began studying the violin at the age of 3 and had his solo debut performing Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor with the New Orleans Philharmonic at age 11. Galasso continued his studies at Oberlin and Dartmouth Colleges.

A musician of classical formation influenced by his encounter with John Cage at the age of 18, born in the land of jazz, rock and rhythm n’blues, author for theater, cinema, dance and sound installations, this violin virtuoso has been experimenting for 30 years on a melodical and rhythmical synthesis in which his affinities with Baroque music are entwined with his American heritage as well as with Iranian and central Asia traditions.

Michael Galasso began his career composing music for Robert Wilson's "Ouverture"(1972), "The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin" (1973), "A Letter for Queen Victoria" (1974-5), and "The $ Value of Man" (1975). Also with Wilson, he has written the score for Ibsen's "Lady from the Sea" (1998), Strindberg's "A Dreamplay" (1998), voted the best foreign theater production for the 1999-2000 season by the French Theater and Music Critics Society after a performance in Paris in March 2000 at the Theatre National de Chaillot, Chekhov’s "Three Sisters" (2001), and for the theatrical version of Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz and Robert Wiene's silent film, "The Cabinet of Doktor Caligari" (2002). In 2004, Wilson and Galasso collaborated on “Les Fables de La Fontaine” for the Comédie-Française, which premiered January 30, 2004 in Paris and has been an enormous critical and public success. In November 2004, Galasso and Wilson will premiere “2 Lips and Dancers in Space” with the Nederlands Dans Theater in Luxembourg. Galasso is presently finishing the score for “Peer Gynt”, directed by Wilson and premiering in Oslo in February 2005.

Recent film scores include Wong Kar-Wai’s “Chunking Express” and “In the Mood for Love”, Babak Payami’s Iranian film “Secret Ballot”, Tajikistan’s Djemsjed Osmonov’s “Angel on my Right Shoulder”, Sam Gabarski’s “The Tango Rashevski”, Darvish Zaim’s Turkish film, “Çamur” (Mud), and Mariana Otero’s documentary “Histoire d’un Secret” and Gabriele Salvatores’ “I am not afraid”.

Galasso also has made numerous sound/music installations, including the Giorgio Armani Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2000 (the first sound installation in the New York Guggenheim's history) and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2001. Subsequently the exhibition has traveled to the Neue National Galerie in Berlin in May 2003, followed by London’s Royal Academy of Arts in October 2003 and Rome at the Terme Diocleziano in May 2004. Other installations include the Swiss EXPO 2002, and the Basilique de Saint-Denis in Paris. Michael Galasso has also written and performed music for choreographers Karole Armitage, Andy DeGroat and Lucinda Childs.

Michael Galasso’s second album for ECM Records, “High Lines”, was released in March 2005.

Tenhi

Tenhi Official

Tenhi is a Finnish band formed in 1996, playing melancholic, neofolk music. The word tenhi is an old Finnish word meaning a village elder, wise old man or seer.

The music of Tenhi is minimalistic and dark. Usually, the rhythm instrument lines follow the customs of modern rock music. The melodical instruments and vocals are however very heavily folk-influenced. The basic instrumentarium of the band consists of acoustic guitar, bass and drums. Frequent additional instruments include piano, violin, viola and flute and less frequent didgeridoo, mouth harp, harmonium, cello, udu and synthesizer.

Members

Corecrew

* Tyko Saarikko - vocals, piano, harmonium, synth, guitar, percussions, didgeridoo, mouth harp, udu
* Ilmari Issakainen - drums, piano, guitar, bass, percussions, backing vocals
* Ilkka Salminen - vocals, guitar, bass, harmonium, percussions

The corecrew writes all the material and is in charge of the cover artwork as well.

Additional/session musicians

* Inka Eerola - violin
* Janina Lehto - flute
* Jaakko Hilppö - backing vocals, live bass
* Tuukka Tolvanen - backing vocals, live guitar
* Paula Rantamäki - live violin in 2007
* Eleonora Lundell - violin, viola (1998-2001)
* Veera Partanen - flute (1999-2000)
* Kirsikka Wiik - cello (on the Väre album)

Discography

* Kertomuksia (demo, 1997)
* Hallavedet (mcd, 1998)
* Kauan (CD, 1999)
* Airut:ciwi (mcd, 2000)
* Väre (CD, 2002)
* Maaäet (CD, 2006)
* Airut:aamujen (CD, 2006)
* Folk Aesthetic 1996-2006 (3CD in book format, 2007)

Anette Olzon

Anette Olzon at Nightwish.com

Anette Olzon (married name Anette Blyckert, born on June 21, 1971) is a Swedish musician and the new lead singer of Finnish symphonic power metal band Nightwish since 2007. Olzon was formerly the vocalist in the Swedish band Alyson Avenue.

Tuomas Holopainen has said that Olzon is more than just a singer, that she is a story teller in the way she sings.

Anette Olzon was raised in a musical family and has been singing since childhood. She began playing the oboe at age eight. She toured with her mother's band and sang with them at some occasions. Later, she started to take part in various talent shows and received applaudible recognition. The first band she joined (Take Cover) was a cover band at the time she was seventeen years of age. However, it was short-lived as she took part in several bands and projects. At twenty-one, she played the leading role in the rock opera/musical "Gränsland" in Helsingborg. After that she got in to the Balettakademien in Gothenburg. She sang in choirs, did studio work for various projects and occasionally performed as a wedding singer. Anette Olzon also sang a duet with Michael Bormann (ex-Jaded Heart-singer) on his album "Conspiracy". During her singing career, she has been exposed to a variety of musical genres and kinds; which reflects on the versatility of her talent on the 2007 Nightwish album "Dark Passion Play".

In her earlier days, Anette Olzon took singing lessons at the Copenhagen Music Conservatorie, in Helsingör, Denmark with a private teacher. Nowadays, when it's needed, she takes lessons from a private teacher at the Malmö Music University.

Discography

Studio albums

With Alyson Avenue

* 2000: Presence of Mind
* 2003: Omega

With Nightwish

* 2007: Dark Passion Play

Singles

With Nightwish

* 2007: Eva
* 2007: Amaranth
* 2008: Bye Bye Beautiful

Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle Official

Hauru no ugoku shiro IMDb

Howl's Moving Castle is an Academy Award-nominated Japanese animated fantasy film, based on Diana Wynne Jones' novel of the same name, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. Mamoru Hosoda, director of two seasons and one movie from the Digimon series, was originally selected to direct but abruptly left the project, leaving the then retired Miyazaki to take up the director's role.

The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2004 and was released in Japanese theaters on November 20, 2004. It went on to gross $231,710,455 worldwide, making it one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. The film was subsequently dubbed into English by Pixar's Peter Docter and distributed in North America by Walt Disney Pictures. It received a limited release in the United States and Canada beginning June 10, 2005 and was released nationwide in Australia on September 22 and in the UK the following September.

Awards

* Osella Awards for Technical Achievement; 61st Venice Film Festival
* Best Japanese Movie Overall; 2004 Mainichi Film Awards
* Excellence Prize, Animation; 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival
* Animation of the Year; 2005 Tokyo International Anime Fair
* Best Director (Hayao Miyazaki); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
* Best Voice Actor/Actress (Chieko Baisho); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
* Best Music (Joe Hisaishi); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
* Audience Award; 2005 Maui Film Festival
* 1st Runner Up, Golden Space Needle Award; 2005 Seattle International Film Festival
* Nomination, Best Animated Feature; 78th Academy Awards

Amstrad CPC

amstrad.com

Amstrad CPC 464


The Amstrad CPC was a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad during the 1980s and early 1990s. CPC stood for 'Colour Personal Computer', although it was possible to purchase a CPC with a green screen (GT65/66) as well as with the standard colour screen (CTM640).


The Schneider CPC664

The first machine, the CPC 464 was introduced in 1984. It was designed to be a direct competitor to the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum systems. The CPC range was very successful, and over 3 million were sold during the machine's lifespan.

Outwardly, the most distinguishing features of Amstrad's offering were the matt black console case with sharp corners and narrowly rectangular form factor (the latter due to the built-in cassette tape deck (CPC 464) or floppy disk drive (CPC 664 and CPC 6128), the keyboard's distinctly coloured special keys (all the non-typewriter-standard keys on the 464 and 664), and the unique power supply hookup with one lead going from the monitor to the computer (or RF modulator) and, on disc-based machines, one lead going the other way. A television could be used with an optional adapter, and an optional tuner was available to turn the monitor into a TV.

The CPC family

The original CPC was sold in the following configurations:

* CPC 464 – Tape deck, 64 KB RAM, square-edged keyboard
* CPC 472 – Tape deck, 72 KB RAM (although the extra 8 KB of RAM could not be used because the chip was not connected, only soldered to a dummy PCB); produced in small numbers for the Spanish market to avoid a legal ruling requiring that all computers with 64 KB or less RAM must be localized to the Spanish language, including the keyboard and screen messages. The law was subsequently changed to include machines with more than 64 KB RAM so a localised version of the 472 also exists.
* CPC 664 – 3" Floppy disk drive, 64 KB RAM, bowed keyboard; short-lived model, quickly replaced by the better-specified 6128
* CPC 6128 – 3" Floppy disk drive, 128 KB RAM (accessed using bank switching), more PC-like keyboard

An external disk drive (DDI-1) was available for the 464, incorporating the DOS in an interface unit. A second drive (FD-1) could be added to both this and 664/6128 machines. Cassette recorders could also be connected to the 664 and 6128. By and large, the later versions were compatible with earlier machines, though there were some incompatibilities in undocumented features. Third-party hardware add-ons such as Romantic Robot's popular Multiface allowed DIY backup of most tape software to disk.

Most games, especially in the early years, targeted the 64 KB RAM 464 and 664 models. However, an increasing number of applications and demos made use of the extra memory of the 6128 as time went on, to the extent that much CPC software from the 1990s will not run on an unexpanded 464/664. RAM expansions were available, the most popular being produced by dk'Tronics.

The memory layout of the system allowed the CPCs to run CP/M 2.2 and CP/M software adapted especially for the machines' terminal emulation was not uncommon. An Amstrad-specific variant of CP/M 3.1 (aka CP/M Plus) was shipped with the 6128.

Rosetta (ESA)

Ariane 5 Launch of Rosetta spacecraft

Rosetta is a European Space Agency-led robotic spacecraft mission launched in 2004 intended to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta consists of two main elements: the Rosetta space probe and the Philae lander. The probe is named after the Rosetta Stone, as it is hoped the mission will help unlock the secrets of how our solar system looked before planets formed. The lander is named after the Nile island Philae where an obelisk was found that helped decipher the Rosetta Stone.


3-D Reconstruction of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's nucleus from Hubble telescope observations

Timeline for the mission after its launch:

* First Earth fly-by (March 2005)
* February 25, 2007 Mars fly-by
* November 13, 2007 Second Earth fly-by
* September 5, 2008 - flyby of asteroid 2867 Šteins
* Third Earth fly-by (November 2009)
* July 10, 2010 - flyby of asteroid 21 Lutetia
* Deep-space hibernation (May 2011 - January 2014)
* Comet approach (January-May 2014)
* Comet mapping / Characterisation (August 2014)
* Landing on the comet (November 2014)
* Escorting the comet around the Sun (November 2014 - December 2015)

Einstein Ring

In observational astronomy an Einstein ring is the deformation of the light from a source into a ring through gravitational deflection of the source's light by a lens. This occurs when the source, lens and observer are all aligned.



Gravitational lensing is a result from Albert Einstein's theory of General relativity. Instead of light from a source traveling in a straight line (in three dimensions), it is bent by the presence of a massive body, which distorts spacetime. An Einstein Ring is a special case of gravitational lensing, caused by the exact alignment of the source, lens and observer. This results in a symmetry around the lens, causing a ring-like structure.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, taken on May 17, 1994.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9, formally designated D/1993 F2) was a comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994, providing the first direct observation of the collision of two solar system objects, not including collisions involving Earth. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and SL9 was closely observed by astronomers worldwide. The comet provided many revelations about Jupiter and its atmosphere and highlighted Jupiter's role in reducing space debris in the inner solar system.



The comet was discovered by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy. Shoemaker-Levy 9 was located on the night of March 24, 1993, in a photograph taken with the 0.4-metre Schmidt telescope at the Mount Palomar Observatory in California. It was the first comet observed to be orbiting a planet rather than the Sun.



SL9 was in pieces ranging in size up to 2 kilometres in diameter, and is believed to have been pulled apart by Jupiter's tidal forces during a close encounter in July 1992. These fragments collided with Jupiter's southern hemisphere between July 16 and July 22, 1994, at a speed of approximately 60 kilometres per second. The prominent scars from the impacts could be seen on Jupiter for many months after the impact, and observers described them as more easily visible than the Great Red Spot.



One of the surprises of the impacts was the small amount of water revealed compared to prior predictions. Before the impact, models of Jupiter's atmosphere had indicated that the break-up of the largest fragments would occur at atmospheric pressures of anywhere from 300 kilopascals to a few megapascals (from three to a few tens bar), and most astronomers expected that the impacts would penetrate a hypothesised water-rich layer underneath the clouds.

Astronomers did not observe large amounts of water following the collisions, and later impact studies found that fragmentation and destruction of the cometary fragments in an 'airburst' probably occurred at much higher altitudes than previously expected, with even the largest fragments being destroyed when the pressure reached 250 kPa (2.5 bar), well above the expected depth of the water layer. The smaller fragments were probably destroyed before they even reached the cloud layer.

The visible scars from the impacts could be seen on Jupiter for many months after the impact. They were extremely prominent, and observers described them as more easily visible even than the Great Red Spot. A search of historical observations revealed that the spots were probably the most prominent transient features ever seen on the planet, and that while the Great Red Spot is notable for its striking colour, no spots of the size and darkness of those caused by the SL9 impacts have ever been recorded before.

Spectroscopic observers found that ammonia and carbon sulfide persisted in the atmosphere for at least fourteen months after the collisions, with a considerable amount of ammonia being present in the stratosphere as opposed to its normal location in the troposphere.

Counterintuitively, the atmospheric temperature dropped to normal levels much more quickly at the larger impact sites than at the smaller sites: at the larger impact sites, temperatures were elevated over a region 15,000–20,000 km wide, but dropped back to normal levels within a week of the impact. At smaller sites, temperatures 10 K higher than the surroundings persisted for almost two weeks. Global stratospheric temperatures rose immediately after the impacts, then fell to below pre-impact temperatures 2–3 weeks afterwards, before rising slowly to normal temperatures.

Fortran

The Fortran Automatic Coding System for the IBM 704 (October 15, 1956), the first Programmer's Reference Manual for Fortran

Open Directory Fortran

Fortran (previously FORTRAN) is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing. Originally developed by IBM in the 1950s for scientific and engineering applications, Fortran came to dominate this area of programming early on and has been in continual use for over half a century in computationally intensive areas such as climate modeling, Finite Element Analysis, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computational physics, financial computing, and computational chemistry.



Fortran (a portmanteau derived from The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System) encompasses a lineage of versions, each of which evolved to add extensions to the language while retaining compatibility with previous versions. Successive versions have added support for processing of character-based data (FORTRAN 77), array programming, module-based programming and object-based programming (Fortran 90 / 95), and object-oriented and generic programming (Fortran 2003).

The legacy of FORTRAN

Since Fortran has been in use for more than fifty years, there is a vast body of Fortran in daily use throughout the scientific and engineering communities. It is the primary language for some of the most intensive supercomputing tasks, such as weather and climate modeling, computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, quantum chromodynamics, simulations of long-term solar system dynamics, high-fidelity evolution artificial satellite orbits, and simulation of automobile crash dynamics. Indeed, one finds that even today, half a century later, floating-point benchmarks to gauge the performance of new computer processors are still written in Fortran.

deus ex machina

The phrase deus ex machina (literally "god out of a machine") describes an artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (e.g. an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems).

Linguistic considerations

The Latin phrase "deus ex machina" has its origins in the conventions of Greek tragedy. It refers to situations in which a mechane (crane) was used to lower actors playing a god or gods onto the stage. Though the phrase is accurately translated as "God from a machine," in literary criticism, it is often translated to "God on a machine." The machine referred to in the phrase is the crane employed in the task. It is a calque from the Greek 'από μηχανής θεός' ápo mēchanēs theós.

The Greek tragedian Euripides is notorious for using this plot device as a means to resolve a hopeless situation. For example, in Euripides' play Alcestis, the eponymous heroine agrees to give up her own life to Death in exchange for sparing the life of her husband, Admetus. In doing so, however, she imposes upon him a series of extreme promises. Admetus is torn between choosing death or choosing to obey these unreasonable restrictions. In the end, though, Heracles shows up and seizes Alcestis from Death, restoring her to life and freeing Admetus from the promises. The first person known to have criticized the device was Aristotle in his Poetics, where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play.

Stephen R. Bourne

Stephen Bourne

Steve Bourne is a computer scientist, most famous as the author of the Bourne shell (sh), which is the foundation for the standard command line interfaces to Unix.

Bourne has a Bachelor's degree in mathematics from King's College London. He has a Diploma in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge. Subsequently he worked on an ALGOL 68 compiler at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory.

After Cambridge, Bourne spent nine years at Bell Labs with the Seventh Edition Unix team. As well as the Bourne shell, he wrote the adb debugger and The UNIX System, the second book on the UNIX system, intended for a general readership.

After Bell Labs, Bourne worked in senior engineering management positions at Silicon Graphics, Digital Equipment Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems. He is presently chief technology officer at El Dorado Ventures, a Menlo Park-based venture capital group in California. He is also the chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for ACM Queue, a magazine he helped found when he was President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and of the Royal Astronomical Society.

ASUS Eee PC

Asus EeePC

The ASUS Eee PC is a 'sub-notebook' designed by ASUS and Intel. ASUS describes the name Eee as deriving from "the three Es"; an abbreviation of their advertising slogan for the device: "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play".


Display: 7 in (17.8 cm) 800×480 TFT LCD with LED backlight
Graphics: Integrated Intel GMA 900 graphics processor (Shared Memory Architecture), additional VGA port (up to 1600×1280 pixels)
Storage: 2 GB Solid state drive (SSD) flash, 4 GB SSD, 8 GB SSD
Processor: 900 MHz Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 which has 512 kB L2 cache RAM, @ 630 MHz (70 MHz x 9) cooled by a fan
Memory: 512 MB DDR2-400 RAM, 512 MB DDR2-667, 1 GB RAM DDR2-667
Camera: 0.3 megapixel; up to 640×480, up to 30 fps

Operation: Bot Roast

Operation: Bot Roast is an operation by the FBI to track down bot herders or hackers who install malicious software on computers through the Internet without the owners’ knowledge, which turns the computer into a zombie computer that then sends out spam to other computers from the compromised zombie computer, making a botnet or network of bot infected computers. The operation was launched because the vast size of the botnet poses a threat to national security.

Abilities of bot herders

* Steal the computer owner’s identity.
* Launch massive spam campaigns.
* Engage in click-fraud - schemes which artificially inflate the number of visitors to a website.
* Launch denial of service attacks that can cripple web servers and crash sites.

The operation was created to disrupt and disassemble bot herders. The FBI has identified about 1 million computers that were compromised, and to arrest the persons responsible for creating the malware, and notify the owners of infected computers.

Some early results of the operation include the charging:

* Robert Alan Soloway of Seattle, Washington, is accused of using botnets to send tens of millions of spam messages touting his website.
* James C. Brewer of Arlington, Texas, is accused of infecting tens of thousands of computers worldwide, including some at Chicago-area hospitals.
* Jason Michael Downey of Covington, Kentucky, is charged with using botnets to disable other systems.

HMAC

RFC 2104 HMAC: Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication

HMAC Algorithm in Detail

In cryptography, a keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code, or HMAC, is a type of message authentication code (MAC) calculated using a specific algorithm involving a cryptographic hash function in combination with a secret key. As with any MAC, it may be used to simultaneously verify both the data integrity and the authenticity of a message. Any iterative cryptographic hash function, such as MD5 or SHA-1, may be used in the calculation of an HMAC; the resulting MAC algorithm is termed HMAC-MD5 or HMAC-SHA-1 accordingly. The cryptographic strength of the HMAC depends upon the cryptographic strength of the underlying hash function, on the size and quality of the key and the size of the hash output length in bits.

An iterative hash function breaks up a message into blocks of a fixed size and iterates over them with a compression function. For example, MD5 and SHA-1 operate on 512-bit blocks. The size of the output of HMAC is the same as that of the underlying hash function (128 or 160 bits in the case of MD5 and SHA-1), although it can be truncated if desired. Truncating the hash image reduces the security of the MAC which is upper bound by the birthday attack.


where h is a cryptographic hash function, K is a secret key padded with extra zeros to the block size of the hash function, m is the message to be authenticated, ∥ denotes concatenation, ⊕ denotes exclusive or (XOR), and the outer padding opad = 0x5c5c5c...5c5c and inner padding ipad = 0x363636...3636 are two one-block–long hexadecimal constants.


The construction and analysis of HMACs was first published in 1996 by Mihir Bellare, Ran Canetti, and Hugo Krawczyk, who also wrote RFC 2104. FIPS PUB 198 generalizes and standardizes the use of HMACs. HMAC-SHA-1 and HMAC-MD5 are used within the IPsec and TLS protocols.


The following pseudocode demonstrates how HMAC may be implemented.

function hmac (key, message)
opad = [0x5c * blocksize] // Where blocksize is that of the underlying hash function
ipad = [0x36 * blocksize]

if (length(key) < blocksize) then
key = key || [0x00 * (blocksize - length(key))] // Pad the key if shorter than blocksize
end if

for i from 0 to length(key) - 1 step 1
ipad[i] = ipad[i] XOR key[i]
opad[i] = opad[i] XOR key[i]
end for

return hash(opad || hash(ipad || message)) // Where || is concatenation
end function

Denial of Service

DoS

Understanding Denial-of-Service Attacks

ddos.org

RFC 4732 Internet Denial-of-Service Considerations

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to, motives for and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally comprises the concerted, malevolent efforts of a person or persons to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely.

One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by:

* forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consume its resources such that it can no longer provide its intended service; and/or,
* obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.

Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB's Internet proper use policy. They also commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations.

exFAT

#define OEM_FLASH_PARAMETER_GUID 0A0C7E46-3399-4021-90C8-FA6D389C4BA2

msdn exFAT

msdn TFAT Overview

Extended file allocation table (exFAT) is a new file system that is better adapted to the growing needs of mobile personal storage. The exFAT file system not only handles large files, such as those used for media storage, it enables seamless interoperability between desktop PCs and devices such as portable media devices so that files can easily be copied between desktop and device. In addition, exFAT can be adopted with minimal effort. The exFAT file system encapsulates standard FAT and TFAT functionality.

# Enables the file system to handle growing capacities in media, increasing capacity to 32 GB and larger.
# Handles more than 1000 files in a single directory.
# Speeds up storage allocation processes.
# Removes the previous file size limit of 4 GB.
# Supports interoperability with future desktop OSs.
# Provides an extensible format, including OEM-definable parameters to customize the file system for specific device characteristics.

struct
{
GUID OemParameterType; //Value is OEM_FLASH_PARAMETER_GUID
UINT32 EraseBlockSize; //Erase block size in bytes
UINT32 PageSize;
UINT32 NumberOfSpareBlocks;
UINT32 tRandomAccess; //Random Access Time in nanoseconds
UINT32 tProgram; //Program time in nanoseconds
UINT32 tReadCycle; // Serial read cycle time in nanoseconds
UINT32 tWriteCycle; // Write Cycle time in nanoseconds
UCHAR Reserved[4];
}
FlashParameters;