Vikings

Vikings (Norwegian and Danish: Vikinger; Swedish and Nynorsk: Vikingar; Icelandic: Víkingar), from Old Norse víkingr, were Germanic Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern and central Europe, as well as European Russia, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries. The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. This period of Norse military, mercantile and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Ireland, France, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.

Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and polities were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America. This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while simultaneously introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions.

Viking (comics)

Viking is a creator-owned comic book series published by Image Comics. It is written by its creator, Ivan Brandon, with art by Nic Klein.

Publication history

The first issue appeared April 22, 2009 but had sold out before it went on sale.

The fifth issue appeared in January 2010, and finished the first arc. No more issues were published afterwards.

Characters

Plot synopsis

Issue 1

Date of Publication: 22 April 2009

Egil and Finn kill a group of Vikings led by a man named Knut, stealing their cache of weapons for their own purporses, leaving one messenger alive to tout their bravado. Upon reception of his message, this messenger is put to death by Aki and King Bram.

Viking (satellite)

Viking was Sweden's first satellite. It was launched on an Ariane 1 rocket as a piggyback payload together with the French satellite SPOT 1, on February 22, 1986. Operations ended on May 12, 1987. Viking was used to explore plasma processes in the magnetosphere and the ionosphere.

Spacecraft

Space was limited underneath the SPOT 1 satellite, and Viking had to be quite sturdy in order to withstand the stress of launch. The basic shape of the Swedish satellite was a flat octagonal disc, 0.5 metres thick and 1.9 metres across. The mechanical interface of the payload adapter from the Ariane rocket was duplicated on top of Viking. This enabled it to be added to the launch with a minimum of redesign of the SPOT satellite. After SPOT had been released, Viking fired its own rocket engine and was sent into its proper polar orbit.

Mission

Once in orbit, 4 wire segments of 40 metre length each were spooled out in a radial direction from the edge of the spinning satellite disc. Also, 2 stiff rods of 4 metre length were extended in the axial direction. A sensor pod was stationed at the end of each of these, forming three orthogonal pairs. Together they could measure the electric field of the earth in all three dimensions. Stiff booms were also extended for other types of sensors and antennas.

Direct (Tower of Power album)

Direct is a 1981 live in-studio album by Tower of Power. It was their only album for the direct-to-disc record label Sheffield Lab. It also marked the return of original guitarist Willie James Fulton, not heard from since 1972's Bump City, and the last album to feature saxophonist Lenny Pickett. Mark Sanders plays drums on this album. Between this album and their 1987 comeback album Power they would record the sessions that later became the Dinosaur Tracks CD. Besides that, save for the original single release of "Simple As That" (from the same Dinosaur Tracks sessions), this would be their last new release until 1987. It contained mostly songs from their previous albums but included new stuff as well.

Direct would later be released with alternate takes on CD as Direct PLUS in 1997.

Track listing

Side One

DIRECT

DIRECT was a late-2000s proposed alternative heavy lift launch vehicle architecture supporting NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, which would replace the space agency's planned Ares I and Ares V rockets with a family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles named "Jupiter".

DIRECT was advocated by a group of space enthusiasts who asserted that they represented a broader team of dozens of NASA and space industry engineers who actively worked on the proposal on an anonymous, voluntary basis in their spare time. September 2008, the DIRECT Team was said to consist of 69 members, 62 of whom were NASA engineers, NASA-contractor engineers, and managers from the Constellation Program. A small number of non-NASA members of the team publicly represented the group.

The project name "DIRECT" referred to a philosophy of maximizing the re-use of hardware and facilities already in place for the Space Shuttle program (STS), hence a "direct" transition. The DIRECT Team asserted that using this approach to develop and operate a family of high-commonality rockets would reduce costs and the gap between retirement of the Space Shuttle and the first launch of Orion, shorten schedules, and simplify technical requirements for future US human space efforts.

Direct 8

Direct 8 was a national French TV channel, owned by Vincent Bolloré. It was available through digital terrestrial television network "TNT" and the Astra 1H satellite position.

As the name suggests ('direct' is French for 'live'), Direct 8 was originally intended to broadcast live shows only (except during night times and holiday seasons). This is no longer the case.

Following its purchase by Canal Group, the channel closed down on 7 October 2012 and relaunched as D8.

See also

Television portal

References

External links