Farm

A farm is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used for specialised units such as arable farms, vegetable farms, fruit farms, dairy, pig and poultry farms, and land used for the production of natural fibres, biofuel and other commodities. It includes ranches, feedlots, orchards, plantations and estates, smallholdings and hobby farms, and includes the farmhouse and agricultural buildings as well as the land. In modern times the term has been extended so as to include such industrial operations as wind farms and fish farms, both of which can operate on land or sea.

Farming originated independently in different parts of the world as hunter gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than food capture. It may have started about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock in the Fertile Crescent in western Asia, soon to be followed by the cultivation of crops. Modern units tend to specialise in the crops or livestock best suited to the region, with their finished products being sold for the retail market or for further processing, with farm products being traded around the world.

Generic top-level domain

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last label of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historic reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.

The core group of generic top-level domains consists of the com, info, net, and org domains. In addition, the domains biz, name, and pro are also considered generic; however, these are designated as restricted, because registrations within them require proof of eligibility within the guidelines set for each.

Historically, the group of generic top-level domains included domains, created in the early development of the domain name system, that are now sponsored by designated agencies or organizations and are restricted to specific types of registrants. Thus, domains edu, gov, int, and mil are now considered sponsored top-level domains, much like the themed top-level domains (e.g., jobs). The entire group of domains that do not have a geographic or country designation (see country-code top-level domain) is still often referred to by the term generic TLDs.

Farm (revenue leasing)

Farming is a technique of financial management, namely the process of commuting (changing), by its assignment by legal contract to a third party, a future uncertain revenue stream into fixed and certain periodic rents, in consideration for which commutation a discount in value received is suffered. It is most commonly used in the field of public finance where the state wishes to gain some certainty about its future taxation revenue for the purposes of medium-term budgetting of expenditure. The tax collection process requires considerable expenditure on administration and the yield is uncertain both as to amount and timing, as taxpayers delay or default on their assessed obligations, often the result of unforeseen external forces such as bad weather affecting harvests. Governments (the lessors) have thus frequently over history resorted to the services of an entrepreneurial financier (the tenant) to whom they lease or assign the right to collect and retain the whole of the tax revenue due to the state in return for his payment into the treasury of fixed sums (rent) in exchange.

Melange (fictional drug)

Melange (/meɪˈlɑːndʒ/ or /meɪˈlɑːnʒ/), often referred to as simply "the spice", is the name of the fictional drug central to the Dune series of science fiction novels by Frank Herbert, and derivative works.

In the series, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe is melange, a drug that gives the user a longer life span, greater vitality, and heightened awareness; it can also unlock prescience in some humans, depending upon the dosage and the consumer's physiology. This prescience-enhancing property makes safe and accurate interstellar travel possible. Melange comes with a steep price, however: it is addictive, and withdrawal is fatal.

Carol Hart analyzes the concept in the essay "Melange" in The Science of Dune (2008). According to Paul Stamets, Herbert's creation of the drug was related in part to his own personal experiences with psilocybin mushrooms.

Description

Herbert is vague in describing the appearance of the spice. He hints at its color in Dune Messiah (1969) when he notes that Guild Navigator Edric "swam in a container of orange gas ... His tank's vents emitted a pale orange cloud rich with the smell of the geriatric spice, melange." Later in Heretics of Dune (1984), a discovered hoard of melange appears as "mounds of dark reddish brown." Herbert also indicates fluorescence in God Emperor of Dune (1981) when the character Moneo notes, "Great bins of melange lay all around in a gigantic room cut from native rock and illuminated by glowglobes ... The spice had glowed radiant blue in the dim silver light. And the smell—bitter cinnamon, unmistakable." Herbert writes repeatedly, starting in Dune (1965), that melange possesses the odor of cinnamon.

Spice (Perfume song)

"Spice" (スパイス, Supaisu) is the nineteenth single of Japanese girl group Perfume. It was released on November 2, 2011, as the lead single to the group's third studio album, JPN. It was also the group's last single to be released under Tokuma Japan Communications as the group moved to Universal Music Japan (as announced February 28, 2012) for their future releases.

Background

The B-side song, "Glitter", was first used in the commercial for Kirin. Then on September 5, 2011, the group released information on their website about a new single and album, both slated for release for November. The new single will be released on November 2 and will contain two songs including "Glitter" which was featured as a “Kirin Chu-Hi Hyouketsu” CM song. The group also announced that their third studio album will be released on November 30.

The name of the single was finally announced on September 26. It was also chosen as the theme song for the upcoming TBS drama “Sengyo Shufu Tantei ~Watashi wa Shadow“, starring actress Kyoko Fukada making it the group’s first single to tie-in with a drama series. The group's producer Yasutaka Nakata was heavily influenced by the image of the drama when he wrote “Spice”. It’s also the first time that he produced a soundtrack for them.

Spice (bomb)

The "SPICE" (Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective) is an Israeli-developed, EO/GPS-guided guidance kit for converting air-droppable unguided bombs into precision guided bombs.

A derivative of the "Popeye" (AGM-142 Have Nap) air-to-surface missile, the "Spice" is a product of Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It achieved initial operational capability during 2003, in Israeli Air Force F-16 squadrons.

Introduction

The "Spice" munition is more advanced than most EO-guided bombs (GBU-15, for example), since it combines the advantages of satellite guidance (such as the ability to engage camouflaged and hidden targets; to provide a "drop-and-forget" option for several such targets simultaneously; and to operate in all weather and lighting conditions) and those of electro-optical guidance (such as the ability to provide "man-in-the-loop" guidance for extremely high precision; the ability to engage relocatable targets; lower CEP than that of satellite-guided munitions; and independence from external information sources like satellites) into one bomb – reducing the amount of munitions (and hence, payload) that an aircraft has to carry for a given strike mission, increasing its combat radius and maneuverability. This multiple guidance methods selectability is especially important in an "information warfare" battlefield, where an aircraft might approach a surface target while it is, for example, masked with smoke (in which case satellite guidance would be required) or moving around (in which case electro-optical guidance would be required).