TAM Airlines (Portuguese: TAM Linhas Aéreas) is the Brazilian brand of LATAM Airlines Group. The merger of TAM with LAN Airlines was completed on June 22, 2012. The company is currently the largest Brazilian airline by market share and fleet size, though it is not a flag carrier.
Before the takeover, TAM was Brazil's and Latin America's largest airline. Its headquarters are in São Paulo, operating scheduled services to destinations within Brazil, as well as international flights to Europe and other parts of North and South America. Shares in the company were traded on the São Paulo Exchange (BM&F Bovespa) and New York Stock Exchange as "TAM". Prior to the merger with LAN, the company closed its capital, transferring its shares to LATAM Airlines Group. However, in August 2015, it was announced that the two airlines would fully rebrand as LATAM, with one livery to be applied on all aircraft by 2018.
According to the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC), between January and December 2014 TAM had 38.1% of the domestic and 78.82% of the international market shares in terms of passengers per kilometer flown, making it the largest airline in Brazil.
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) was started as an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. The JREF's mission includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions.In September 2015, the organization said it would change to a grant-making foundation.
The organization administers the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars which it will pay out to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. The JREF also maintains a legal defense fund to assist persons who are attacked as a result of their investigations and criticism of people who make paranormal claims.
The organization has been funded through member contributions, grants, and conferences, though it will no longer accept donations or memberships after 2015. The JREF website publishes a (nominally daily) blog at randi.org, Swift, which includes the latest JREF news and information, as well as exposés of paranormal claimants.
ULTra (Urban Light Transit) is a personal rapid transit system developed by the British engineering company ULTra Global PRT (formerly Advanced Transport Systems).
The first public system opened at London's Heathrow Airport in May 2011. It consists of 21 vehicles operating on a 3.9-kilometre (2.4 mi) route connecting Terminal 5 to its business passenger car park, just north of the airport. ULTra is in contention to develop an urban system in Amritsar, India projected to carry up to 100,000 passengers per day using 200 vehicles.
To reduce fabrication costs, ULTra uses largely off-the-shelf technologies, such as rubber tyres running on an open guideway. This approach has resulted in a system that ULTra believes to be economical; the company reports that the total cost (vehicles, infrastructure and control systems) is between £3 million and £5 million per kilometre of guideway.
The system was originally designed by Martin Lowson and his design team, Lowson having put £10 million into the project. He formed Advanced Transport Systems (ATS) in Cardiff to develop the system, and their site was later the location of its test track. ULTra has twice been awarded funding from the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). Much of the original research on ULTra was done by the Aerospace Engineering department at the University of Bristol during the 1990s. Recently the company renamed itself "ULTra PRT Limited" to better reflect its primary business, and moved its corporate headquarters to Bristol.
Pod is the name of a 2002 modern sculpture by American artist Pete Beeman, currently installed at Southwest 10th Avenue and West Burnside Street in downtown Portland, Oregon. The 30-foot sculpture, intended to represent the "infrastructure, energy, and vibrancy of Portland", is supported by its static tripod base with a 15-foot diameter. It is constructed from stainless steel, galvanized steel, bronze, titanium, lead and other materials. Pod was fabricated by Beeman and David Bermudez, and engineered by Beeman and Peterson Structural Engineers. It is considered interactive and kinetic, with a central, vertical pendulum that swings back and forth when pushed. The sculpture cost as much as $50,000 and was funded by the Portland Streetcar Project. Pod is part of the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection courtesy of the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
Pod was designed by native Portland resident Pete Beeman as a public art project for the Portland Streetcar. According to Beeman and the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the modern sculpture is designed to represent the "infrastructure, energy, and vibrancy of Portland". Of the work's design, Beeman said:
Pod, released May 4, 2004 by Real World Records, is essentially a remix album by Afro Celt Sound System of their first three albums, Volume 1: Sound Magic, Volume 2: Release, and Volume 3: Further in Time, done by members of the band and new artists as well, including some songs previously unavailable. It is also accompanied by a DVD of some music videos and some clips of their live tour.
Dice (singular die or dice; from Old French dé; from Latin datum "something which is given or played";) are small throwable objects with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers. Dice are suitable as gambling devices for games like craps and are also used in non-gambling tabletop games.
A traditional die is a rounded cube, with each of its six faces showing a different number of dots (pips) from 1 to 6. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing on its upper surface a random integer from one to six, each value being equally likely. A variety of similar devices are also described as dice; such specialized dice may have polyhedral or irregular shapes and may have faces marked with symbols instead of numbers. They may be used to produce results other than one through six. Loaded and crooked dice are designed to favor some results over others for purposes of cheating or amusement.
A dice tray, a tray used to contain thrown dice, is sometimes used for gambling or board games, in particular to allow dice throws which do not interfere with other game pieces.
Dice is the debut comedy album by comedian Andrew Dice Clay, which was released in 1989.