Stigma (Mind Assault album)

Stigma is the first full-length album by the South African metal band Mind Assault. Stigma was released in February 2008. The album has received largely positive reviews.

The creation of “Stigma”

The members of Mind Assault have had the opportunity to gain a stronger sense of themselves since the beginning of 2007. It was at this juncture, when the line-up was fully completed and all of those elements which the founding members had sought out were finally in place, that the band thought it feasible to think about an album.

It took some time, and a fair amount of argument to decide on which songs to include, and why. At the end of the day, “Stigma” is not so much an album as it is a compilation intended to showcase the abilities and spectrum of the band. The purpose of this creation was twofold:

1) Over the years of tireless performing, there has grown a public demand for good quality recorded material from Mind Assault.

2) If Mind Assault were ever going to achieve greater things than were possible in Southern Africa, then the band would require a “showcase” of sorts to exhibit themselves to prospective overseas interest.

Stigma (letter)

Stigma (ϛ) is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma (Σ) and tau (Τ), which was used in writing Greek between the Middle Ages and the 19th century. It is also used as a numeral symbol for the number 6. In this unrelated function, it is a continuation of the old letter digamma (originally Ϝ, cursive form ), which had served as a numeral since antiquity and was conflated with the σ-τ ligature in the minuscule handwriting of the Middle Ages.

History and use

The στ ligature (, ) was one of many ligature forms that came into widespread use as part of the minuscule writing style of Greek from the 9th and 10th centuries onwards. It is based on the lunate form (Ϲ) of the letter sigma.

With many other ligatures, it was used to print Greek during the early-modern era. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of ligatures in print gradually diminished. The στ ligature was among the last to go, around the middle of the 19th century.

The name, stigma (στίγμα), is originally a common Greek noun meaning "a mark, dot, puncture", or generally "a sign", from the verb στίζω ("to puncture"); the related but distinct word stigme (στιγμή) is the classical and post-classical word for "geometric point; punctuation mark".Stigma was co-opted as a name specifically for the στ sign, evidently because of the acrophonic value of its initial st- as well as the analogy with the name of sigma.

Stigma (wrestler)

Stigma (stylized as STIGMA) is an American professional wrestler, best known for his work in the Chikara professional wrestling promotion, where he is a former Young Lions Cup Champion and King of Trios winner. He was previously known as Shane Storm and has also wrestled for other independent promotions such as Combat Zone Wrestling, Full Impact Pro and Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South.

Professional wrestling career

Stigma received his initial training from Chikara founder Mike Quackenbush at the Chikara Wrestle Factory, where he was trained on the fourth term of the school. He was later also trained by Chris Hero and Jorge "Skayde" Rivera, who joined the school in the following terms.

Chikara

Men@Work (2004–2005)

On March 20, 2004, he made his Chikara debut as a tecnico (good guy) named Shane Storm, wearing a clown mask with either a red, yellow or blue mullet and the gimmick of a traffic regulator, teaming with Private Eye in a tag team match, where they defeated Darkness Crabtree and Phantasmo. At the following show on April 9 Storm scored a major upset by defeating Young Lions Cup Champion Hallowicked in a non-title match to earn his spot in the second Young Lions Cup tournament. Storm entered the tournament on July 10 by defeating Ash, but was eliminated the following day in the quarterfinals, when Larry Sweeney pinned him and grabbed a hold of his tights for leverage. After the tournament Storm formed the tag team Men@Work with Mister Zero and together the two took part in Chikara's feud with Sweeney's stable Sweet 'n' Sour International. The feud culminated on October 30 in the first ever torneo cibernetico match, where Chikara defeated Sweeney's stable.

Primer (film)

Primer is a 2004 American indie science fiction drama film about the accidental discovery of a means of time travel. The film was written, directed, produced, edited and scored by Shane Carruth, who also stars in the main role.

Primer is of note for its extremely low budget (completed for $7,000), experimental plot structure, philosophical implications, and complex technical dialogue, which Carruth, a college graduate with a degree in mathematics and a former engineer, chose not to simplify for the sake of the audience. The film collected the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, before securing a limited release in the United States, and has since gained a cult following.

Plot

Two engineers -- Aaron and Abe -- supplement their day-jobs with entrepreneurial tech projects, working out of Aaron's garage. During one such research effort, involving electromagnetic reduction of objects' weight, the two men accidentally discover an 'A-to-B' time loop side-effect; objects left in the weight-reducing field exhibit temporal anomalies, proceeding normally (from time 'A,' when the field was activated, to time 'B,' when the field is powered off), then backwards (from 'B' back to 'A'), in continuous A-then-B-then-A-then-B sequence, such that objects can leave the field in the present, or at some previous point.

Primer (firearm)

In firearm ballistics, the primer (/ˈpraɪmər/) is a component of pistol, rifle, and shotgun rounds. Upon being struck with sufficient force, a primer reacts chemically to produce heat which ignites the main propellant charge and fires the projectile.

Priming methods

The first step to firing a firearm of any sort is igniting the propellant. The earliest firearms were cannons, which were simple closed tubes. There was a small aperture, the "touchhole", drilled in the closed end of the tube, leading to the main powder charge. This hole was filled with finely ground powder, which was then ignited with a hot ember or torch. With the advent of hand-held firearms, this became an undesirable way of firing a gun. Holding a burning stick while trying to pour a charge of black powder carefully down a barrel is dangerous, and trying to hold the gun with one hand while simultaneously aiming at the target and looking for the touchhole makes it very difficult to fire accurately.

External priming

Primer (molecular biology)

A primer is a strand of short nucleic acid sequences (generally about 10 base pairs) that serves as a starting point for DNA synthesis. It is required for DNA replication because the enzymes that catalyze this process, DNA polymerases, can only add new nucleotides to an existing strand of DNA. The polymerase starts replication at the 3'-end of the primer, and copies the opposite strand.

In most cases of natural DNA replication, the primer for DNA synthesis and replication is a short strand of RNA (which can be made de novo).

Many of the laboratory techniques of biochemistry and molecular biology that involve DNA polymerase, such as DNA sequencing and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), require DNA primers. These primers are usually short, chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, with a length of about twenty bases. They are hybridized to a target DNA, which is then copied by the polymerase.

Mechanism in vivo

The lagging strand of DNA is that strand of the DNA double helix that is orientated in a 5' to 3' manner. Therefore, its complement must be synthesized in a 3'→5' manner. Because DNA polymerase III cannot synthesize in the 3'→5' direction, the lagging strand is synthesized in short segments known as Okazaki fragments. Along the lagging strand's template, primase builds RNA primers in short bursts. DNA polymerases are then able to use the free 3'-OH groups on the RNA primers to synthesize DNA in the 5'→3' direction.