Indica (Finnish band)

Indica is a Finnish pop rock group founded in 2001. Jani Jalonen of Sony Music became interested in the group, and a recording contract was signed 2003. Indica's first album, Ikuinen virta was released in 2004. It has since sold platinum in Finland.

Indica supported Nightwish during their Scandinavian tour 2007 in which they performed English versions of their songs. Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish produced their next album, Valoissa, while many of the songs employed the orchestral talents of Pip Williams and the literary talents of their lyrics collaborator Rory Winston. The band was also added to the line-up for Nightwish's 2nd half of the Dark Passion Play Tour with Pain.

History

Johanna Salomaa (vocals, violin), Heini Säisä (bass), Sirkku Karvonen (keyboards), Jenny Julia (guitar) and Laura Häkkänen (drums) founded Indica in 2001. Before this the girls had already spent their entire childhood surrounded by classical music and had also played in a few different band line-ups. In the Christmas of 2002 Indica signed a management contract with Peter Kokljuschin and in 2003 a record deal with SonyMusic, leading to Indica starting work on their debut album.

Indica (Ctesias)

Indica (Greek: Ἰνδικά Indika), is the name of a book by the classical Greek physician Ctesias purporting to describe India. Written in the fifth century BC, it is the first known Greek reference to that distant land. Ctesias was the court physician to king Artaxerxes II of Persia, and the book is not based on his own experiences, but on stories brought to Persia by traders, along the Silk Road from Serica, a land north of China and India where domesticated silk originated.

Contents

The book contains the first known reference to the unicorn, ostensibly an ass in India that had a single 1.5 cubit (27 inch) horn on its head, and introduces the European world to the talking parrot, and falconry, which was not yet practiced in Europe.

Among the information apparently conveyed in the book (mostly according to second-hand accounts of its contents):

Megasthenes

Megasthenes (/mᵻˈɡæsθᵻniːz/ mi-GAS-thi-neez; Ancient Greek: Μεγασθένης, ca. 350 – 290 BC) was a Greek ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indika. He was born in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of the Seleucid dynasty possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain. Scholars place it before 298 BC, the date of Chandragupta's death.

Travel

Arrian explains that Megasthenes lived in Arachosia, with the satrap Sibyrtius, from where he visited India:

"Megasthenes lived with Sibyrtius, satrap of Arachosia, and often speaks of his visiting Sandracottus, the king of the Indians." Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri

We have more definite information regarding the parts of India Megasthenes visited. He entered the subcontinent through the district of the Pentapotamia (modern day Punjab region), providing a full account of the rivers found there (thought to be the five affluents of the Indus that form the Punjab region), and proceeded from there by the royal road to Pataliputra. There are accounts of Megasthenes having visited Mathura (Muttra), in Bihar, but he appears not to have visited any other parts of India.

Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos, which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden.

Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants sparsely or not at all. Xeriscape gardens use local native plants that do not require irrigation or extensive use of other resources while still providing the benefits of a garden environment. Gardens may exhibit structural enhancements, sometimes called follies, including water features such as fountains, ponds (with or without fish), waterfalls or creeks, dry creek beds, statuary, arbors, trellises and more.

History of gardening

The history of ornamental gardening may be considered as aesthetic expressions of beauty through art and nature, a display of taste or style in civilized life, an expression of an individual's or culture's philosophy, and sometimes as a display of private status or national pride—in private and public landscapes.

Introduction

Forest gardening, a plant-based food pro-system, is the world's oldest form of gardening. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually foreign species were also selected and incorporated into the gardens.

The enclosure of outdoor space began in 10,000 BC. Though no one knows the specific details of the first garden, historians imagine the first enclosure was a type of barrier for the purpose of keeping out animals and marauders. Garden-making and design was a key precursor to landscape architecture, and it began in West Asia, eventually spreading westward into Greece, Spain, Germany, France, Britain, etc. Modern words of “garden” and “yard” are descendants of the Old English term “geard,” which means fence or enclosure.

Eden, Wisconsin (disambiguation)

Eden is the name of some places in the U.S. state of Wisconsin:

Eden (Lem novel)

Eden is a 1959 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem. It was first published in English in 1989 (ISBN 0-15-127580-7).

Plot

A starship crew—Captain (in the original, Coordinator), Doctor, Engineer, Chemist, Physicist and Cyberneticist (robotics expert)—crash land on an alien world they call Eden. After escaping their wrecked ship they set out to explore the planet, first traveling through an unsettling wilderness and coming upon an abandoned automated factory. There they find a constant cycle of materials being produced and then destroyed and recycled. Perplexed, they return to their ship. At the crash site they find a local creature has entered their vessel. They name these large creatures, with small torsos retractable into their large bodies, doublers (from "double-bodied", in original (Polish): dubelty).

The next day, setting out to find a source of water, the expedition begins to come into contact with the local civilization, and their strange, top-like vehicles. Eventually they come into conflict with a vehicle's pilot, who is a doubler. Killing the pilot and fleeing in his vehicle, they return to the ship and prepare defenses. After an attack never comes, they assemble their jeep and half the team sets out to explore further, the other half remaining behind to repair the ship.