The Curse (short story)

"The Curse" is a postapocalyptic short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1953.

The story is set in the immediate aftermath of a global nuclear war that has wiped out mankind and describes in great detail the devastation it has caused to a small town. In the end, the town is revealed as Stratford-upon-Avon, with the epitaph on the grave of William Shakespeare providing both the location and the title of the story.

Employing a third-person objective narrator and a very matter-of-fact style, the story achieves a chilling effect despite completely omitting descriptions of human tragedy and suffering. Instead, it merely shows the bleakness of the completely depopulated ruins of the town and surrounding landscape, interspersed with sparse hints of how its destruction fit into the global events. Concepts like mutual assured destruction, nuclear overkill and (insufficient) missile defense systems are also hinted at.

Curse (comics)

The Curse is a fictional villain in the comic book, Spawn. The Curse in the book is a billionaire and a religious zealot who seeks a place in Heaven and knows far more about the war between Heaven and Hell than most on Earth.

Fictional character biography

The Curse, born Phillip Krahn, seeks a chance to lead Heaven's armies against the armies of Hell. When he was a boy he removed his own left eye and scarred his face with a large, deep scratch from a rusty metal fence running horizontally over his right eye. When he was older, he removed his right arm to show his dedication to God. He grew to become wealthy and studied the occult. He used technology to rebuild his arm, far stronger and better than it was before.

He sought to gain Spawn's powers, believing him at first to be a soldier of Heaven, but Spawn destroyed his bionic arm and beat him severely, leaving the Curse crucified on a wall in Rat City to teach him and others that the alleys belong to Spawn. He was found and tortured by the demon-hunter, Sankser.

The Curse (Omen album)

The Curse is the third studio album of the American heavy metal band Omen. It was originally released in 1986 by Metal Blade. In 1996 Metal Blade re-released The Curse with the EP Nightmares as bonus tracks. This is the final studio album recorded by Omen's original lineup.

Track listing

Personnel

References

Curse (The Secret Circle)

"Curse" is the 17th episode of the first season of the CW television series The Secret Circle, and the series' 17th episode overall. It was aired on March 22, 2012. The episode was written by Don Whitehead & Holly Henderson and it was directed by John Fawcett.

Plot

Cassie (Britt Robertson) and Adam (Thomas Dekker) after the night they spent together, they are informed by John Blackwell (Joe Lando) that their love has awakened the curse about the Blake and Conant families. The "written in the stars" might be destined but it's also cursed. Blackwell explains that Amelia was the one who told him about the curse and only Jane (Ashley Crow) can tell them the details about it.

Cassie and Blackwell visit Jane at the clinic to find out about the curse. When Cassie asks her about the curse, Jane says that if it is triggered, then one of the members of the Circle will die.

Cassie and Adam inform the rest of the members about the situation while Jake (Chris Zylka) starts to not feeling well. When they see that the curse is killing Jake, they are trying to find a way to stop it. Blackwell finds a recipe of an elixir that will break the curse and the three of them go with him to Calvin's (Hiro Kanagawa) store to find the ingredients.

ZeroAccess botnet

ZeroAccess, also known as Max++ and/or Sirefef, is Trojan horse computer malware that affects Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is used to download other malware on an infected machine from a botnet mostly involved in bitcoin mining and click fraud, while remaining hidden on a system using rootkit techniques.

History and propagation

The ZeroAccess botnet was discovered at least around May 2011. The ZeroAccess rootkit responsible for the botnet's spread is estimated to have been present on at least 9 million systems. Estimates of the size of the botnet vary across sources; antivirus vendor Sophos estimated the botnet size at around 1 million active and infected machines in the third quarter of 2012, and security firm Kindsight estimated 2.2 million infected and active systems.

The bot itself is spread through the ZeroAccess rootkit through a variety of attack vectors. One attack vector is a form of social engineering, where a user is persuaded to execute malicious code either by disguising it as a legitimate file, or including it hidden as an additional payload in an executable which announces itself as, for example, bypassing copyright protection (a keygen). A second attack vector utilizes an advertising network in order to have the user click on an advertisement that redirects them to a site hosting the malicious software itself. A third infection vector used is an affiliate scheme where third party persons are paid for installing the rootkit on a system.

Max Damage

Slade Mercer (born 1987 in New Plymouth, New Zealand) is a professional wrestler, otherwise known as Max Damage or Max "The Axe" Damage. He currently wrestled for the Brisbane based promotions PWA Queensland. He is an Ex-New Zealand Heavyweight Champion and Ex-New Zealand Tag Team Champion.

Career

New Zealand Wide Pro Wrestling

Damage initially trained under Jonnie Juice before joining New Zealand Wide Pro Wrestling where he was further trained by Martin Stirling, Inferno, Island Boy Si and a myriad of other senior wrestlers with the group. He made his official debut as Max Damage on 25 March 2005 at NZWPW's Powerplay II. He lost to Island Boy Si in the semi-finals of the New Zealand Heavyweight Championship tournament, where IBS was later crowned the inaugural champion.

At the start of his tenure in NZWPW, Damage joined the heel stable, The 'Naki Phullas, wrestling alongside "The Deal" Dal Knox, "Silencer" Jean Miracle, and Gold. By the time he had joined, Dal Knox had already left to wrestle for IPW, and Gold had been ejected from the company, making it a two-man team consisting of himself and "Silencer" Jean Miracle.

Max (2015 film)

Max is a 2015 American adventure drama film directed by Boaz Yakin, and co-written with Sheldon Lettich. The film stars Josh Wiggins, Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake, Thomas Haden Church, Robbie Amell, Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, and Jay Hernandez. The film was released by Warner Bros. on June 26, 2015.

Plot

Max, a Belgian Malinois used to help U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, is handled by Kyle Wincott. Kyle is questioned when weapons seized by his squad go missing. Realizing his friend Tyler Harne is among those involved with the shady dealings, he warns Tyler that he cannot cover for him. The two then go into the battlefield with their squad, with Max on point. While advancing on a suicide bomber, Max is injured by an explosion. In the ensuing gunfight, Kyle is shot and killed.

Kyle's younger brother Justin, who makes money pirating video games, their mother Pamela and their father Ray are informed of his death. After Kyle's body is brought home for burial, the other Marines notice that Max is only calm when he is around Justin, apparently sensing that he is Kyle's brother. The family adopts the dog, who would otherwise be euthanized for his disturbed behavior. Justin initially wants little to do with Max but eventually warms up to him. While meeting up with his friend Chuy, Justin meets Chuy's cousin Carmen, who offers to go to his house and show him some handling tricks for Max. Little by little, Max's behavior improves around other people.