Prism

In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. At least two of the flat surfaces must have an angle between them. The exact angles between the surfaces depend on the application. The traditional geometrical shape is that of a triangular prism with a triangular base and rectangular sides, and in colloquial use "prism" usually refers to this type. Some types of optical prism are not in fact in the shape of geometric prisms. Prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, plastic and fluorite.

A dispersive prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow). Furthermore, prisms can be used to reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations.

How prisms work

Light changes speed as it moves from one medium to another (for example, from air into the glass of the prism). This speed change causes the light to be refracted and to enter the new medium at a different angle (Huygens principle). The degree of bending of the light's path depends on the angle that the incident beam of light makes with the surface, and on the ratio between the refractive indices of the two media (Snell's law). The refractive index of many materials (such as glass) varies with the wavelength or color of the light used, a phenomenon known as dispersion. This causes light of different colors to be refracted differently and to leave the prism at different angles, creating an effect similar to a rainbow. This can be used to separate a beam of white light into its constituent spectrum of colors. Prisms will generally disperse light over a much larger frequency bandwidth than diffraction gratings, making them useful for broad-spectrum spectroscopy. Furthermore, prisms do not suffer from complications arising from overlapping spectral orders, which all gratings have.

List of Humanx Commonwealth planets

This is a list of the fictional planets in the Humanx Commonwealth series of novels by Alan Dean Foster.

Alaspin

Alaspin has large jungles surrounded by equally large savannas and river plains; its only notable celestial feature is two moons.

Currently the planet has no sentient race; the native race died out, possibly by racial suicide, over 75,000 years ago leaving behind hundreds of ancient, abandoned cities that have proved a source of fascination to modern xeno-archaeologists.

A variety of lifeforms currently live on Alaspin, most notably the Alaspinian minidrag.

Annubis

Annubis is most notable for the fictional Hyperion forests from which the fictional drug bloodhype is manufactured. In an attempt to eradicate the highly addictive and deadly drug, the trees were burned in 545 A.A. and are thought to be completely destroyed.

The planet first appeared in the novel Bloodhype.

Blasusarr

Blasusarr is the homeworld of the AAnn race and is often called the Imperial Home World. Climate is dry and hot, largely desert, the preferred atmospheric conditions of the AAnn. Beyond this, little is known about Blasusarr other than the fact that it is very well-protected by a detection and space defense network. Its capital city, also the capital of the AAnn Empire, is Krrassin.

Yoshida Brothers

The Yoshida Brothers (吉田兄弟, Yoshida Kyōdai) are Japanese musicians who have released several albums on the Domo Records label.

The two brothers are performers of the traditional Japanese music style of Tsugaru-jamisen which originated in northern Japan. They debuted in 1999 in Japan as a duo playing the shamisen. Their first album sold over 100,000 copies and made them minor celebrities in Japan, a fact that surprised the Yoshida Brothers themselves. They have since attracted an international audience.

Their music has been a fusion of the rapid and percussive Tsugaru-jamisen style along with Western and other regional musical influences. In addition to performing songs that are only on the shamisen, they also use instruments such as drums and synthesizers.

The commercials for the Nintendo's Wii video game console that began airing in North America in November 2006 featured the Yoshida Brothers song "Kodo (Inside the Sun Remix)".

Members

Ryōichirō Yoshida (吉田 良一郎, Yoshida Ryōichirō, born 26 July 1977) and Kenichi Yoshida (吉田 健一, Yoshida Ken'ichi, born 16 December 1979) were born in Noboribetsu in Hokkaido, Japan. The two brothers have played the shamisen from a very young age. They both began to study and play the shamisen from five years of age under Koka Adachi, learning the Minyō-shamisen style; from about 1989 they studied the Tsugaru-jamisen style under Takashi Sasaki.

Utopia

A utopia (/juːˈtoʊpiə/ yoo-TOH-pee-ə) is a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities. The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in Greek for his 1516 book Utopia (in Latin), describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to create ideal societies, and the imagined societies portrayed in fiction. Alternative views on structural and qualitative attributes of society have spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia.

Etymology

The term utopia was coined in Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean.

The word comes from the Greek: οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place") and means "no-place", and strictly describes any non-existent society 'described in considerable detail'. However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has narrowed and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society.Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), means "good place", and is strictly speaking the correct term to describe a positive utopia. In English, eutopia and utopia are homophonous, which may have given rise to the change in meaning.

Utopia (Gothminister album)

Utopia is the fifth studio album by industrial metal band Gothminister, released on 17 May 2013 on the label AFM Records. It is their first album following the signing with AFM in December 2012.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Bjørn Alexander Brem. 

Reception

The album got a mixed review by Ulf Kubanke for the website laut.de while Eric May of the New Noise Magazine gave it a rather positive review.

External links

References

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation is a strategy video game. It was developed by Celestial Software and published by Gremlin Graphics (later known as Gremlin Interactive), in 1991 for Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS. It was later released for the Super NES in 1993, by Jaleco in the USA. This release made use of Nintendo's SNES mouse.

Gameplay

The game, taking place in the future, on a new planet, is open-ended.

It is the player's task to colonize the new planet, manage the colony and raise the quality of life for the citizen in order to reach utopia.

Initially the player has a few colonists with a lot to do. The player needs to build everything from scratch. Building takes time and free colonists, in addition to money. Buildings under construction are depicted by scaffold.

However certain buildings require personnel (hospitals, labs, mines, factories, shipyards ...) and therefore the player has to engage in population management. The player also has to micromanage features such as tax rate, birth rate and trade.