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Earth Made Of Glass
''Earth Made of Glass'' (1998) is a science fiction novel by American writer John Barnes, the second book of his ''Thousand Cultures'' series. The story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged special agent named Giraut. ''Earth Made of Glass'' examines religious extremism when two different cultures are forced into proximity. Plot summary Giraut and Margaret, now married, are sent on a diplomatic mission to the politically turbulent planet Briand, a distant Outer Sphere colony cut off from the rest of humanity for centuries until instantaneous travel became possible with the springer. Not only is Briand a very hot, high gravity planet, but the oppressive environment is matched by the increasing hatred between the two proud local cultures which have been forced to live in close proximity as a result of a volcano disaster—the Tamil Mandalam culture of New Tanjavur (based on an interpretation of Sangam literature) and the Maya culture that has been forced to live in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. It constitutes a crime against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention, even as ''ethnic cleansing'' has no legal definition under international criminal law. Many instances of ethnic cleansing have occurred throughout history; the term was first used by the perpetrators as a euphemism during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media's heightened use of the term in its generic meaning. Etymology An antecedent to the term is the Greek word (; lit. "enslavement"), which was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1998 American Novels
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles. * January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria. * January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning. * January 17 – The ''Drudge Report'' breaks the story about U.S. President Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky, which will lead to the House of Representatives' impeachment of him. February * February 3 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying EA-6B Prowler severs the cable of a cable-car. * February 4 – The 5.9 Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (''Very strong''). With up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gridlinked
''Gridlinked'' is a science fiction novel by British writer Neal Asher. His first novel, it was published by the Macmillan Publishers imprint Pan Books in 2001. It contains elements of the technological inventiveness of hard science-fiction with a more contemporary political plotline. The novel follows the exploits of Earth Central Security agent Ian Cormac, as he attempts to discover who or what is behind the destruction of the Runcible on a remote colony. Cormac drops an investigation into Polity separatists on Cheyne III, and takes the starship ''Hubris'' to the ruined world of Samarkand to directly oversee the investigation there. Having been directly "gridlinked" to the Polity A.I. network for too long, Cormac has been slowly losing his humanity, and takes the opportunity of this particular mission to disconnect and solve the mystery the old-fashioned way. Plot summary The book follows two main narrative threads: one which follows the exploits of Ian Cormac, a 007-like ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunnel In The Sky
''Tunnel in the Sky'' is a juvenile science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1955 by Scribner's as one of the Heinlein juveniles. The story describes a group of students sent on a survival test to an uninhabited planet, who soon realise they are stranded there. The themes of the work include the difficulties of growing up and the nature of man as a social animal. Plot summary The novel's setting involves a future when Malthusian overpopulation on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the "Ramsbotham jump", which can send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the technology mean that colony planets remain isolated from Earth until they can produce something to justify two-way trade. Because modern technology requires a supporting infrastructure, the colonists employ technology from the American frontier era (such as horses instead of tractors; American car-manufacturers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Teleporter
Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter and/or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction and fantasy literature, film, video games, and television. In some situations, teleporting is presented as time traveling across space. The use of matter transmitters in science fiction originated at least as early as the 19th century. An early example of scientific teleportation (as opposed to magical or spiritual teleportation) is found in the 1897 novel ''To Venus in Five Seconds'' by Fred T. Jane. Jane's protagonist is transported from a strange-machinery-containing gazebo on Earth to planet Venus. A common fictional device for teleportation is a "wormhole". In video games, the instant teleportation of a player character may be referred to as a warp. List of fiction containing teleportation Teleportation illusions in live performance Teleportation illusions have featured in live perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcturus
, - bgcolor="#FFFAFA" , Note (category: variability): , , H and K emission vary. Arcturus is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Boötes. With an apparent visual magnitude of −0.05, it is the third-brightest of the individual stars in the night sky, and the brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere. The name Arcturus originated from ancient Greece; it was then cataloged as α Boötis by Johann Bayer in 1603, which is Latinized to Alpha Boötis. Arcturus forms one corner of the Spring Triangle asterism. Located relatively close at 36.7 light-years from the Sun, Arcturus is a single red giant of spectral type K1.5III—an aging star around 7.1 billion years old that has used up its core hydrogen and evolved off the main sequence. It is about the same mass as the Sun, but has expanded to 25 times its size and is around 170 times as luminous. Its diameter is 35 million kilometres. Thus far no companion has been detected. Nomenclat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpha Trianguli
Alpha Trianguli (α Trianguli, abbreviated Alpha Tri, α Tri) is a spectroscopic binary star in the constellation of Triangulum. Based on parallax measurements obtained during the Hipparcos mission, it is approximately distant from the Sun. The brighter or primary component is named Mothallah . Nomenclature ''α Trianguli'' ( Latinised to ''Alpha Trianguli'') is the system's Bayer designation. The system bore the traditional names ''Ras al Muthallah'' or ''Mothallah'' and ''Caput Trianguli'' derived from the Arabic رأس المثلث' ''raʼs al-muthallath'' "the head of the triangle" and its Latin translation. The International Astronomical Union Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) has approved the name ''Mothallah'' for this star. For members of multiple star systems, and where a component letter (e.g. from the Washington Double Star Catalog) is not explicitly shown in the namelist, the WGSN says that the name should be understood to be attribute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sangam Landscape
The Sangam landscape (Tamil: அகத்திணை "inner classification") is the name given to a poetic device that was characteristic of love poetry in classical Tamil Sangam literature. The core of the device was the categorisation of poems into different ''tiṇai''s or modes, depending on the nature, location, mood and type of relationship represented by the poem. Each ''tiṇai'' was closely associated with a particular landscape, and imagery associated with that landscape—its flowers, trees, wildlife, people, climate and geography—was woven into the poem in such a way as to convey a mood, associated with one aspect of a romantic relationship. Symbolism Classical Tamil love poetry assigns the human experiences it describes, and in particular the subjective topics that those experiences relate to, to specific habitats. Every situation in the poems is described using themes in which the time, the place and the floral symbols of each episode are codified. These cod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trobadour
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread to the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, ''trovadorismo'' in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his ''De vulgari eloquentia'' defined the troubadour lyric as ''fictio rethorica musicaque poita'': rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and around the time of the Black Death (1348) it died out. The texts of troubado ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vellalar
Vellalar is a generic Tamil term used primarily to refer to various castes who traditionally pursued agriculture as a profession in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and northeastern parts of Sri Lanka. The Vellalar are members of several endogamous castes such as the numerically strong Arunattu Vellalar, Chozhia Vellalar, Karkarthar, Karkarthar Vellalar, Kongu Vellalar, Thuluva Vellalar and Sri Lankan Vellalar. Etymology The earliest occurrence of the term ''Velaalar'' (வேளாளர்) in Sangam literature is in Paripatal, Paripadal where it is used in the sense of a landowner. The term Velaalar (வேளாளர்) can be derived from the word Vel (வேள்), Vel being a title that was borne by the Velir chieftains of Sangam age among other things. The word ''Vellalar'' (வெள்ளாளர் ) may come from the root ''Vellam'' for flood, which gave rise to various rights of land; and it is because of the acquisition of land rights that the Vellalar g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Directed-energy Weapon
A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include weapons that target anti-personnel weapon, personnel, missile defense, missiles, vehicles, and optical devices."Daily Telegraph, 12th September 2013" ''Golden Eye-style energy beam is developed by Nato scientists'', Oct. 08, 2013"Milsat Magazine, Satnews Daily, June 24th 2009" ''U.S. Navy Laser Versus UAVs... Las ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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