Thing (The Addams Family)

Thing T. Thing, often referred to as just Thing, is a fictional character in the The Addams Family series. Thing was originally conceived as a whole creature (always seen in the background watching the family) that was too horrible to see in person. The only part of him that was tolerable was his human hand (this can be seen in the 1964 television series. The Addams called him "Thing" because he was something that could not be identified. Thing was changed to a disembodied hand for the 1991 and 1993 Addams Family movies.

In Spain it was called Cosa ("Thing") while in other Spanish-speaking countries it was named Dedos ("Fingers"); in German-speaking countries das eiskalte Händchen ("the little ice-cold hand"); in Portuguese-speaking countries Mãozinha ("Little Hand") or Coisa ("Thing"); and in Italian was called Mano ("Hand"). It was also named "Ting" (An easy word for calling a dog in the Thai language).

Appearances

Thing was the creation of Charles Addams, who drew the Addams Family cartoons in The New Yorker magazine, beginning in the 1930s. He first appeared in Addams's 1954 book Homebodies. One of Addams's cartoons shows the Addams mansion with a sign at the front saying "Beware of the Thing." Additionally, Thing has been in the original television series (1964-66), the revived series The New Addams Family (1998), in the related movies The Addams Family (1991), Addams Family Values (1993) and Addams Family Reunion (1998), and the 1992 animated series.

The Thing (listening device)

The Thing, also known as the Great Seal bug, was one of the first covert listening devices (or "bugs") to use passive techniques to transmit an audio signal. It was concealed inside a gift given by the Soviets to the US Ambassador to Moscow on August 4, 1945. Because it was passive, being energized and activated by electromagnetic energy from an outside source, it is considered a predecessor of RFID technology.

Creation

The Thing was designed by Soviet Russian inventor Léon Theremin, whose best-known invention is the electronic musical instrument the theremin.

The principle used by The Thing, of a resonant cavity microphone, had been patented by Winfield R. Koch of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1941. In US patent 2,238,117 he describes the principle of a sound-modulated resonant cavity. High-frequency energy is inductively coupled to the cavity. The resonant frequency is varied by the change in capacitance resulting from the displacement of the acoustic diaphragm.

The Thing (1982 film)

The Thing (also known as John Carpenter's The Thing) is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter, written by Bill Lancaster, and starring Kurt Russell. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeform that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them. The Thing infiltrates an Antarctic research station, taking the appearance of the researchers that it absorbs, and paranoia develops within the group.

The film is based on John W. Campbell, Jr.'s novella Who Goes There?, which was more loosely adapted by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby as the 1951 film The Thing from Another World. Carpenter considers The Thing to be the first part of his Apocalypse Trilogy, followed by Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness. Although the films are narratively unrelated, each features a potentially apocalyptic scenario; should "The Thing" ever reach civilization, it would be only a matter of time before it consumes humanity.

Remix (I Like The)

"Remix (I Like The)" is a song by American pop group New Kids on the Block from their sixth studio album, 10. The song was released as the album's lead single on January 28, 2013. "Remix (I Like The)" was written by Lars Halvor Jensen, Johannes Jørgensen, and Lemar, and it was produced by Deekay. The song features Donnie Wahlberg and Joey McIntyre on lead vocals.

"Remix (I Like The)" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, becoming their first lead single to fail charting since "Be My Girl" (1986). Instead, the song peaked at number 38 on the Adult Pop Songs chart.

Critical reception

PopCrush gave the song 3.5 stars out of five. In her review Jessica Sager wrote, "The song sounds like an adult contemporary answer to The Wanted mixed with Bruno Mars‘ ‘Locked Out of Heaven.’ It has a danceable beat like many of the British bad boys’ tracks, but is stripped down and raw enough to pass for Mars’ latest radio smash as well." Carl Williott of Idolator commended the song's chorus, but criticized its "liberal use of Auto-Tune" and compared Donnie Wahlberg's vocals to Chad Kroeger.

Remix (book)

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy is Lawrence Lessig's fifth book. It is available as a free download under a Creative Commons license. It details a hypothesis about the societal effect of the Internet, and how this will affect production and consumption of popular culture.

Summary

In Remix Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and a respected voice in what he deems the "copyright wars", describes the disjuncture between the availability and relative simplicity of remix technologies and copyright law. Lessig insists that copyright law as it stands now is antiquated for digital media since every "time you use a creative work in a digital context, the technology is making a copy" (98). Thus, amateur use and appropriation of digital technology is under unprecedented control that previously extended only to professional use.

Lessig insists that knowledge and manipulation of multi-media technologies is the current generation's form of "literacy"- what reading and writing was to the previous. It is the vernacular of today. The children growing up in a world where these technologies permeate their daily life are unable to comprehend why "remixing" is illegal. Lessig insists that amateur appropriation in the digital age cannot be stopped but only 'criminalized'. Thus most corrosive outcome of this tension is that generations of children are growing up doing what they know is "illegal" and that notion has societal implications that extend far beyond copyright wars. The book is now available as a free download under one of the Creative Commons' licenses.

Square (album)

Square is a studio album by Canadian hip hop musician Buck 65. It was released on WEA in 2002. Though it consists of four tracks, each track consists of multiple songs.

It was nominated for the 2003 Juno Awards for Alternative Album of the Year and Album Design of the Year.

Reception

Rollie Pemberton of Pitchfork Media gave Square a 7.0 out of 10 and called it "a melodic mix of folk rock sensibility, smooth early 90s style production, clever lyrical observations and a relatively enjoyable train ride into the mental station of Halifax's best-known emcee." Meanwhile, Clay Jarvis of Stylus Magazine gave the album a grade of B+, saying, "Square is built solely out of his strengths: hazy introspection, sparse snare-and-kick beats and simple, dismal instrumental refrains."

Track listing

References

External links

Square (sailing)

The term to square a yard is used when sailing a square-rigged ship.

To "square a yard" is to lay the yards at right angles to the line of the keel by trimming with the braces.

Explanation

"Squaring a yard" adjusts the position of the square sails so that they are perpendicular to the keel of the ship. This is done in order to "run before the wind', i.e., sail with the wind directly behind the vessel rather than tacking.

When a square-rigger is running downwind, and the yards are positioned perpendicular to the line of the keel, both sheets that control the yard (braces) are tied off aft (i.e., straight back), leading to the figurative phrase "Both sheets aft."

"Both sheets aft, The situation of a square-rigged ship that sails before the wind, or with the wind right astern. It is said also of a half-drunken sailor rolling along with his hands in his pockets and elbows square."

Further definition

"Square ... A term peculiarly appropriated to the yards and their sails. Thus, when the yards hang at right angles with the mast they are said to be 'square by the lifts;' when perpendicular to the ship's length, they are 'square by the braces;' but when they lie in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the keel, they arc 'square by the lifts and braces.' The yards are said to be very square when they are of extraordinary length, and the same epithet is applied to their sails with respect to their breadth."