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RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-24-2024
Fluorine is a chemical element; it has symbol F and atomic number 9. It is the lightest halogen and exists at standard conditions as a highly toxic, pale yellow diatomic gas. Fluorine is extremely reactive, as it reacts with all other elements except for the light inert gases.
Among the elements, fluorine ranks 24th in universal abundance and 13th in terrestrial abundance. Fluorite, the primary mineral source of fluorine which gave the element its name, was first described in 1529; as it was added to metal ores to lower their melting points for smelting, the Latin verb fluo meaning 'flow' gave the mineral its name. Proposed as an element in 1810, fluorine proved difficult and dangerous to separate from its compounds, and several early experimenters died or sustained injuries from their attempts. Only in 1886 did French chemist Henri Moissan isolate elemental fluorine using low-temperature electrolysis, a process still employed for modern production. Industrial production of fluorine gas for uranium enrichment, its largest application, began during the Manhattan Project in World War II.
Owing to the expense of refining pure fluorine, most commercial applications use fluorine compounds, with about half of mined fluorite used in steelmaking. The rest of the fluorite is converted into corrosive hydrogen fluoride en route to various organic fluorides, or into cryolite, which plays a key role in aluminium refining. Molecules containing a carbon–fluorine bond often have very high chemical and thermal stability; their major uses are as refrigerants, electrical insulation and cookware, and PTFE (Teflon). Pharmaceuticals such as atorvastatin and fluoxetine contain C−F bonds. The fluoride ion from dissolved fluoride salts inhibits dental cavities, and so finds use in toothpaste and water fluoridation. Global fluorochemical sales amount to more than US$69 billion a year.
Fluorocarbon gases are generally greenhouse gases with global-warming potentials 100 to 23,500 times that of carbon dioxide, and SF6 has the highest global warming potential of any known substance. Organofluorine compounds often persist in the environment due to the strength of the carbon–fluorine bond. Fluorine has no known metabolic role in mammals; a few plants and sea sponges synthesize organofluorine poisons (most often monofluoroacetates) that help deter predation.[15]
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-25-2024
William Somerset Maugham[n 2] CH (/mɔːm/ MAWM; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965)[n 1] was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.
Maugham's novels after Liza of Lambeth include Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted Veil (1925), Cakes and Ale (1930) and The Razor's Edge (1944). His short stories were published in collections such as The Casuarina Tree (1926) and The Mixture as Before (1940); many of them have been adapted for radio, cinema and television. His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. More recent assessments generally rank Of Human Bondage – a book with a large autobiographical element – as a masterpiece, and his short stories are widely held in high critical regard. Maugham's plain prose style became known for its lucidity, but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment.
During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service, later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day. After a three-year affair with Syrie Wellcome which produced their daughter, Liza, they married in 1917. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Seas and other destinations; Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. He died at the age of 91.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-26-2024
Space Invaders[b] is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and released by Taito in Japan, and licensed to Midway Manufacturing for overseas distribution. Commonly considered as one of the most influential video games of all time, Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.
Designer Tomohiro Nishikado drew inspiration from North American target shooting games like Breakout (1976) and Gun Fight (1975), as well as science fiction narratives such as the novel The War of the Worlds (1897), the anime Space Battleship Yamato (1974), and the film Star Wars (1977). To complete development, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. Upon release, Space Invaders was an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion ($13 billion in 2022-adjusted terms),[19] with a net profit of $450 million ($1.6 billion in 2022 terms). This made it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing entertainment product at the time, and the highest-grossing video game of all time.
Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games of all time. It ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. It was the inspiration for numerous video games and game designers across different genres, and has been ported and re-released in various forms. The 1980 Atari VCS version quadrupled sales of the VCS, thereby becoming the first killer app for video game consoles. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-27-2024
The Civil Service Rifles War Memorial is a First World War memorial located on the riverside terrace at Somerset House in central London, England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1924, the memorial commemorates the 1,240 members of the Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles regiment who were killed in the First World War. They were Territorial Force reservists, drawn largely from the British Civil Service, which at that time had many staff based at Somerset House.
Both battalions of the expanded Civil Service Rifles were disbanded shortly after the war; the regiment amalgamated with the Queen's Westminster Rifles, but former members established an Old Comrades Association to keep the regiment's traditions alive. The association began raising funds for a war memorial in 1920, and the Prince of Wales unveiled the memorial on 27 January 1924. It takes the form of a single rectangular column surmounted by a sculpture of an urn and flanked by painted stone flags, the Union Flag on one side and the regimental colour on the other. The base on which the column stands is inscribed with the regiment's battle honours, while an inscription on the column denotes that a scroll containing the names of the fallen was placed inside.
The memorial first stood in the quadrangle of Somerset House, which the Civil Service Rifles had used as a parade ground, but the civil service began to vacate Somerset House towards the end of the 20th century. As the building and its courtyard were re-purposed, the memorial was moved to the riverside terrace in the late 1990s. Members of the regiment continued to attend Remembrance Sunday ceremonies until at least the late 1980s, by which time many former members were in their nineties; the last known surviving member of the regiment attended a rededication ceremony in 2002. The memorial was designated a grade II listed building in 1987, which was upgraded to grade II* in November 2015 when it became part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-28-2024
Nicholas Caradoc Hoult (born 7 December 1989) is an English actor. His filmography includes supporting work in big-budget mainstream productions and starring roles in independent projects in the American and British film industries. He has received several accolades, including nominations for a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2012.
Hoult performed in local theatre productions as a child. He made his screen debut at age six in the 1996 film Intimate Relations and appeared in several television programmes. His breakthrough came with his role in the 2002 comedy-drama About a Boy. He achieved wider recognition for his performance as Tony Stonem in the E4 teen series Skins (2007–2008). His transition to adult roles began with the 2009 drama A Single Man, for which he earned a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination, and the fantasy film Clash of the Titans (2010). He played the mutant Beast / Hank McCoy in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he reprised in later instalments of the film series.
Hoult played the title role in the adventure film Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) and a zombie in the romantic comedy Warm Bodies (2013). He had a supporting role in the action film Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and starred in a number of independent films before portraying various historical figures such as Robert Harley in the black comedy The Favourite (2018), writer J. R. R. Tolkien in Tolkien (2019), and Peter III in the Hulu comedy-drama series The Great (2020–2023). His work on the latter earned him nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has since starred in the black comedy The Menu (2022).
Outside of film, Hoult voiced Elliot in the 2010 action role-playing game Fable III and appeared in the 2009 West End play New Boy. He supports the charitable organisations Teenage Cancer Trust and Christian Aid.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-29-2024
Angel Reese (born May 6, 2002) is an American college basketball player for the LSU Tigers of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Nicknamed the "Bayou Barbie", Reese attended Saint Frances Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was awarded McDonald's All-American honors in 2020 and was ranked the number two player in her class by ESPN.
Reese joined the Maryland Terrapins as the highest-ranked recruit in program history, but her freshman season in 2020–21 was interrupted by a fractured right foot. She was named a third-team All-American by the Associated Press as a sophomore. In her junior season, Reese transferred to LSU and was a unanimous first-team All-American selection. She led LSU to its first national championship, where she was Most Outstanding Player. Reese set the NCAA single-season record in double-doubles and the SEC single-season record in rebounds. At the international level, Reese helped the United States win a silver medal at the 2023 FIBA Women's AmeriCup. She is estimated to be one of the top earners among college athletes from name, image and likeness deals.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-30-2024
Ancient Egyptian literature was written in the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature.[1]
Writing in ancient Egypt—both hieroglyphic and hieratic—first appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase of predynastic Egypt. By the Old Kingdom (26th century BC to 22nd century BC), literary works included funerary texts, epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and commemorative autobiographical texts recounting the careers of prominent administrative officials. It was not until the early Middle Kingdom (21st century BC to 17th century BC) that a narrative Egyptian literature was created. This was a "media revolution" which, according to Richard B. Parkinson, was the result of the rise of an intellectual class of scribes, new cultural sensibilities about individuality, unprecedented levels of literacy, and mainstream access to written materials.[2] The creation of literature was thus an elite exercise, monopolized by a scribal class attached to government offices and the royal court of the ruling pharaoh. However, there is no full consensus among modern scholars concerning the dependence of ancient Egyptian literature on the sociopolitical order of the royal courts.
Middle Egyptian, the spoken language of the Middle Kingdom, became a classical language during the New Kingdom (16th century BC to 11th century BC), when the vernacular language known as Late Egyptian first appeared in writing. Scribes of the New Kingdom canonized and copied many literary texts written in Middle Egyptian, which remained the language used for oral readings of sacred hieroglyphic texts. Some genres of Middle Kingdom literature, such as "teachings" and fictional tales, remained popular in the New Kingdom, although the genre of prophetic texts was not revived until the Ptolemaic period (4th century BC to 1st century BC). Popular tales included the Story of Sinuhe and The Eloquent Peasant, while important teaching texts include the Instructions of Amenemhat and The Loyalist Teaching. By the New Kingdom period, the writing of commemorative graffiti on sacred temple and tomb walls flourished as a unique genre of literature, yet it employed formulaic phrases similar to other genres. The acknowledgment of rightful authorship remained important only in a few genres, while texts of the "teaching" genre were pseudonymous and falsely attributed to prominent historical figures.
Ancient Egyptian literature has been preserved on a wide variety of media. This includes papyrus scrolls and packets, limestone or ceramic ostraca, wooden writing boards, monumental stone edifices and coffins. Texts preserved and unearthed by modern archaeologists represent a small fraction of ancient Egyptian literary material. The area of the floodplain of the Nile is under-represented because the moist environment is unsuitable for the preservation of papyri and ink inscriptions. On the other hand, hidden caches of literature, buried for thousands of years, have been discovered in settlements on the dry desert margins of Egyptian civilization.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 01-31-2024
reat Myself is the third major-label studio album by the American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor. Epic Records released it on January 31, 2020, after delaying it for over a year from its originally scheduled release date. Trainor worked with producers including Mike Sabath, Tyler Johnson, Ojivolta, and Andrew Wells. Initially inspired by pop artists and her experiences with panic disorder, Trainor rewrote the album to adapt to changing trends in the music industry and the rising popularity of hip-hop. It features guest appearances by Sabath, Nicki Minaj, Lennon Stella, Sasha Sloan, the Pussycat Dolls, and AJ Mitchell.
Treat Myself is a pop, doo-wop, funk, and R&B album with hip-hop influences which explores themes such as body image, self-esteem issues, and relationships. Trainor promoted the album with public appearances and televised performances. Several tracks released in 2018 were scrapped from it after the delay. Treat Myself includes three singles: "No Excuses" (2018) and "Nice to Meet Ya" (2020), which respectively peaked at numbers 46 and 89 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and "Wave" (2019).
Some reviewers thought the quality of Treat Myself was worth the wait and effectively showcased Trainor's artistic range, while others commented on its production choices and criticized its lyrical themes. In the US, the album debuted at number 25 on the Billboard 200. It peaked within the top 40 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, and Switzerland.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 02-01-2024
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions.
Historically, many of the individual sciences, such as physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. However, they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term. Influential traditions in the history of philosophy include Western, Arabic–Persian, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece and covers a wide area of philosophical subfields. A central topic in Arabic–Persian philosophy is the relation between reason and revelation. Indian philosophy combines the spiritual problem of how to reach enlightenment with the exploration of the nature of reality and the ways of arriving at knowledge. Chinese philosophy focuses principally on practical issues in relation to right social conduct, government, and self-cultivation.
Major branches of philosophy are epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates moral principles and what constitutes right conduct. Logic is the study of correct reasoning and explores how good arguments can be distinguished from bad ones. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality, existence, objects, and properties. Other subfields are aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of history, and political philosophy. Within each branch, there are competing schools of philosophy that promote different principles, theories, or methods.
Philosophers use a great variety of methods to arrive at philosophical knowledge. They include conceptual analysis, reliance on common sense and intuitions, use of thought experiments, analysis of ordinary language, description of experience, and critical questioning. Philosophy is related to many other fields, including the sciences, mathematics, business, law, and journalism. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective and studies the scope and fundamental concepts of these fields. It also investigates their methods and ethical implications.
RE: Last to post wins - Creeperopolis - 02-02-2024
The snowy plover (Anarhynchus nivosus) is a small shorebird found in the Americas. It is a member of the bird family Charadriidae, which includes the plovers, dotterels, and lapwings. The snowy plover was originally described by John Cassin in 1858, but was classified as a subspecies of the Kentish plover in 1922. Since 2011, the snowy plover has been recognized as a distinct species based on genetic and anatomical differences from the Kentish plover. Two or three subspecies are recognized, distributed along the Pacific coast of North America, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, in several inland areas of the US and Mexico, along the Gulf Coast, and on Caribbean islands. The coastal populations consist of both residential and migratory birds, whereas the inland populations are mostly migratory. It is one of the best studied endemic shorebirds of the Americas, and one of the rarest.
Snowy plovers are pale brown above and white below, with a white band on the hind neck. During the breeding season, males have black patches behind the eye and on the side of the neck; the neck patches are separated from each other and do not form a continuous breast band as in many other plovers. Snowy plovers can also be distinguished from other plovers in having an all-black and slender bill, and gray to black legs. The typical call is a repeated "tu-wheet".
This plover inhabits open areas in which vegetation is absent or sparse, in particular coastal sand beaches and shores of salt or soda lakes, where it feeds on invertebrates such as crustaceans, worms, beetles, and flies. At the beginning of the breeding season, males excavate multiple nest scrapes that are advertised to females; one of these scrapes is later selected for breeding. Some females will desert their brood soon after the chicks hatch to re-mate with another male, while their first mate will continue to rear the chicks. Such polygamy is uncommon in birds, and is possibly a strategy to maximize breeding success. There are more males than females – 1.4 times as many in California – and the more pronounced this sex ratio is, the more females engage in polygamous behavior.
The snowy plover is listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The main threats are habitat destruction due to invasive beach grasses, urban development, as well as frequent disturbance due to recreational uses of beaches. Conservation measures on the US Pacific coast include roping-off beach areas that are used for breeding, the removal of invasive beach grasses, and protection against egg predators. While such measures have been successful locally, the global population is thought to be in decline.