Seconds (song)

"Seconds" is the second track on U2's 1983 album, War. The track, with its recurring lyric of "it takes a second to say goodbye", refers to nuclear proliferation. It is the first song in the band's history not sung solely by Bono, as the Edge sings the first two stanzas.

There is a break of approximately 11 seconds in the song at 2:10 featuring a sample of a 1982 TV documentary titled “Soldier Girls”. Bono said that he was watching this documentary while he was waiting in the green room in Windmill Lane Studios and he recorded it. The band felt it would fit well into the song as unsettling evidence of soldiers training for an atomic bomb explosion.

Writing and inspiration

"'Seconds' is particularly pertinent today because it's about the idea that at some point someone, somewhere, would get their hands on nuclear material and build a suitcase bomb in an apartment in western capital. It was twenty years early but I wouldn't call it prophetic, I'd just call it obvious."

During his writer's block period in 1982, Bono felt it was lonely writing lyrics, so he asked the Edge to assist in writing, but the guitarist wasn't interested in such a goal. The Edge finally wrote the line It takes a second to say goodbye. Bono wrote the remainder of the lyrics. On the recording, the Edge sings the first verse of the song. Lyrics in the song about dancing to the atomic bomb is a reference to "Drop the Bomb," a song by Go-go group Trouble Funk, who were U2's labelmates on Island Records.

Minute and second of arc

A minute of arc (MOA), arcminute (arcmin) or minute arc is a unit of angular measurement equal to one-sixtieth (1/60) of one degree. As one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle (or, in radians, π/10800). It is used in fields that involve very small angles, such as astronomy, optometry, ophthalmology, optics, navigation, land surveying and marksmanship.

The number of square arcminutes in a complete sphere is approximately 148,510,660 square arcminutes.

A second of arc (arcsecond, arcsec) is 1/60 of an arcminute, 1/3,600 of a degree, 1/1,296,000 of a circle, and π/648,000 (about 1/206,265) of a radian. This is approximately the angle subtended by a U.S. dime coin (18mm) at a distance of 4 kilometres (about 2.5 mi).

To express even smaller angles, standard SI prefixes can be employed; the milliarcsecond (mas), for instance, is commonly used in astronomy.

Symbols and abbreviations

The standard symbol for marking the arcminute is the prime (′) (U+2032), though a single quote (') (U+0027) is commonly used where only ASCII characters are permitted. One arcminute is thus written 1′. It is also abbreviated as arcmin or amin or, less commonly, the prime with a circumflex over it ().

Seconds (2014 film)

Seconds is a Malayalam thriller film directed by Aneesh Upasana. The film stars Jayasurya, Aparna Nair, Vinay Forrt, Ajay Nataraj, Ambika Mohan, Riyaz Khan, Anusree Nair, Salim Kumar, Shankar Ramakrishnan and Vinayakan in prominent roles. It was released on December 5, 2014.

The film is a multi narrative, told in a non linear format, which revolves around a murder that happens in the elevator of a city apartment. Four unrelated persons of which one was a ruffian were in the lift; two were left seriously injured and one dead. The police officer on investigation, Bimal Vaas, asks for the whereabouts of the persons who were in the lift and their lives on the day leading up to the incident is shown.

Cast

Jack (1996 film)

Jack is a 1996 American comedy-drama film starring Robin Williams, Diane Lane, Jennifer Lopez, Fran Drescher, Bill Cosby, and Brian Kerwin. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Williams plays the role of Jack Powell, a boy who ages four times faster than normal as a result of a disease, Werner syndrome, a form of progeria.

Plot

The movie begins with Karen Powell (Diane Lane) going into labor during a costume party and being rushed to the hospital by her husband Brian (Brian Kerwin) and their friends. Although the delivery is successful, the baby is premature, born after only ten weeks of pregnancy, and is diagnosed with an exaggerated form of Werner syndrome (an aging disease) as stated by Dr. Benfante (Allan Rich) and Dr. Lin (Keone Young). According to them, as this very rare autosomal recessive disorder progresses, Jack Powell will age at a rate four times as fast as normal children due to his internal clock that seems to be developing faster.

Ten years later, Jack (Robin Williams) is next seen as a 10-year-old boy in the body of a 40-year-old man, with a group of four boys telling possible stories of a "monstrosity" of a boy their age that cannot go to school. He scares them away by dipping a fake eye into slime and throwing it at them from his window. He is extremely childish as a consequence of his secluded life. He has only had contact with his parents and tutor, Lawrence Woodruff (Bill Cosby), who introduces the idea that he should go to public school. His parents initially balk at the idea of their son going there because he could be emotionally hurt.

Jack (chacma baboon)

Jack (died 1890) was a chacma baboon, who attained a measure of fame for acting as an assistant to a disabled railroad signalman in South Africa.

History

Jack was the pet and assistant of paraplegic signalman James Wide, who worked for the Cape Town-Port Elizabeth Railway service. James "Jumper" Wide had been known for jumping between railcars prior to an accident where he fell and lost both of his legs. To assist in performing his duties, Wide purchased the baboon named "Jack" and trained him to push his wheelchair and to operate the railways signals under supervision.

An official investigation was initiated after a concerned member of the public reported that a baboon was observed changing railway signals at Uitenhage near Port Elizabeth.

After initial skepticism, the railway decided to officially employ Jack once his job competency was verified. The baboon was paid twenty cents a day, and a half-bottle of beer each week. It is widely reported that in his nine years of employment with the railroad, Jack never made a mistake.

Jack Shephard

Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and the protagonist of the ABC television series Lost, played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader island history they are a part of. The character was originally conceived by creator J. J. Abrams, though the direction of storylines owes more to co-creator Damon Lindelof and fellow showrunner Carlton Cuse. J.J. Abrams, the creator of Lost, once told Entertainment Weekly, "Jack Shephard may be the greatest leader in any television series." Actor Matthew Fox would have some influence on the character during the course of the series' production. For example, Fox's own tattoos were incorporated into the character's backstory. Although at an early stage in the show's development, the character was originally intended to die in the pilot, the writers soon changed this plan, and Jack became the show's main character from its pilot episode onwards.