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Reboilers are heat exchangers typically used to provide heat to the bottom of industrial distillation columns. They boil the liquid from the bottom of a distillation column to generate vapors which are returned to the column to drive the distillation separation. The heat supplied to the column by the reboiler at the bottom of the column is removed by the condenser at the top of the column.
Proper reboiler operation is vital to effective distillation. In a typical classical distillation column, all the vapor driving the separation comes from the reboiler. The reboiler receives a liquid stream from the column bottom and may partially or completely vaporize that stream. Steam usually provides the heat required for the vaporization.
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MODOK (also written as M.O.D.O.K.; an acronym for Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) is the name of different fictional supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
The first MODOK is a former employee of Advanced Idea Mechanics, an arms dealing organization specializing in futuristic weaponry, who undergoes substantial mutagenic medical experimentation originally designed to increase his intelligence. While successful, this experimentation results in a freakishly overdeveloped head, causing the character's signature look and use of a flying chair for mobility. After the experiments, he rebels against his masters and takes control of AIM. Debuting in the Silver Age of Comic Books, MODOK has appeared in over four decades of Marvel continuity, and starred in the miniseries Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK's 11 #1–5 (cover-dated September–December 2008) and a self-titled one-shot issue MODOK: Reign Delay #1 (Nov. 2009).
MODOK has featured in other Marvel-endorsed products such as video games and animated television series and merchandise such as trading cards and toys. IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time ranked MODOK as #100.
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The Battle of New Orleans was a series of engagements fought between December 14, 1814 and January 18, 1815, constituting the last major battle of the War of 1812. American combatants, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, prevented a much larger British force, commanded by Admiral Alexander Cochrane and General Edward Pakenham, from seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the Louisiana Purchase.
The Treaty of Ghent had been signed on December 24, 1814 (but was not ratified by the US Government until February 1815), and hostilities continued without the involved parties knowing about the Treaty,until January 18 by which time all of the British forces had retreated, finally putting an end to the Battle of New Orleans.
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Kyocera Corporation is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as Kyoto Ceramic Company, Limited in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. The company has diversified its founding technology in ceramic materials through internal development as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunications equipment, office document imaging equipment, electronic components, semiconductor packages, cutting tools, and components for medical and dental implant systems.
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In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests.
In systems engineering it may involve black-box testing performed on a system (for example: a piece of software, lots of manufactured mechanical parts, or batches of chemical products) prior to its delivery.
In software testing the ISTQB defines acceptance as: formal testing with respect to user needs, requirements, and business processes conducted to determine whether a system satisfies the acceptance criteria and to enable the user, customers or other authorized entity to determine whether or not to accept the system. Acceptance testing is also known as user acceptance testing (UAT), end-user testing, operational acceptance testing (OAT) or field (acceptance) testing.
A smoke test may be used as an acceptance test prior to introducing a build of software to the main testing process.
In 1985, Canadian actor Angus MacInnes (b. 1947) opened Mamma's Pizzeria in Edinburgh, Scotland, which offered Scotland's first-ever pizza delivery service. MacInnes is best known for his roles in the films Strange Brew (1983) and Witness (1985), as well as perhaps his most famous role, that of ace pilot Jon "Dutch" Vander [Gold Leader] in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).
STOP THE DAMN POLITICAL POSTS, IHIYC.
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Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), also known as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, is an arc welding process that uses a non-consumable tungsten electrode to produce the weld. The weld area and electrode is protected from oxidation or other atmospheric contamination by an inert shielding gas (argon or helium), and a filler metal is normally used, though some welds, known as autogenous welds, do not require it. A constant-current welding power supply produces electrical energy, which is conducted across the arc through a column of highly ionized gas and metal vapors known as a plasma.
GTAW is most commonly used to weld thin sections of stainless steel and non-ferrous metals such as aluminum, magnesium, and copper alloys. The process grants the operator greater control over the weld than competing processes such as shielded metal arc welding and gas metal arc welding, allowing for stronger, higher quality welds. However, GTAW is comparatively more complex and difficult to master, and furthermore, it is significantly slower than most other welding techniques. A related process, plasma arc welding, uses a slightly different welding torch to create a more focused welding arc and as a result is often automated.
Of the twelve statues in London's Parliament Square (United Kingdom), four depict significant non-British historical figures:
- Jan Smuts (1870-1950), 2nd Prime Minister of South Africa
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States of America
- Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), 1st President of South Africa
- Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of the Indian independence movement
There's a very subtle but amusing gag buried in the German language dub of Rian Johnson's 2017 film Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi:
In the German dub, Luke's line is translated as "...billiger Trick," which, while being an accurate translation meaning "cheap move," can also be read as "cheap special effect."
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The crew of the film Jurassic Park had to have safety meetings about the T-Rex; it weighed 12,000 pounds, and was extremely powerful. They used flashing lights to announce when it was about to come on, to alert the crew, because if you stood next to it, and the head went by at speed, it felt like a bus going by.
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Duke Nukem is a video game series named for its protagonist Duke Nukem. Created by the company Apogee Software Ltd. (now 3D Realms) as a series of video games for IBM-compatible personal computers, the series expanded to games released for various consoles by third-party developers. The first two games in the series were 2D platformers and the rest have been 3D first-person shooters.
During 2010 the rights of the series were acquired by the company Gearbox Software, who completed the development of Duke Nukem Forever and released it on 10 June 2011 in Europe and Australia and on 14 June 2011 in North America.
The voice actor for Duke Nukem is Jon St. John.
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I'm just watching The Right Stuff (1983) for the first time in about 15 or 20 years, and I never quite wrapped my head around the number of "before they were famous" stars and other small but important parts that appeared in the film:
- The two NASA recruiters who present the Sputnik film to President Eisenhower are played by Harry Shearer (1943-, The Simpsons, This Is Spinal Tap) and Jeff Goldblum (1952-, The Fly, Jurassic Park).
- Scott Wilson (1942-, The Walking Dead), played pioneering test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound.
- Annie Glenn, wife of astronaut John Glenn, was played by Mary Jo Deschanel (1945-), best known as the mother of actresses Emily (1976-) and Zooey (1980-) Deschanel.
- Colonel Jack Ridley, engineer and test pilot, as well as the designer of the Bell X-1 and X-1A, the first supersonic aircraft, was played by musician Levon Helm (1940-2012).
- The real-life Brigadier General Chuck Yeager (1923-, played in the film by actor Sam Shepard (1943-2017) appears in a few scenes as a bartender. He is also one of a handful of real-life figures that has outlived the actors who played them in major motion pictures.
- Putting the conspiracy theory to rest, actors Scott Glenn (1941-, Daredevil, The Silence of the Lambs) and Lance Henriksen (1940-, Aliens, Mass Effect) appear together, proving once and for all that they are, in fact, not the same person.
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Putting the conspiracy theory to rest, actors Scott Glenn (1941-, Daredevil, The Silence of the Lambs) and Lance Henriksen (1940-, Aliens, Mass Effect) appear together, proving once and for all that they are, in fact, not the same person.
In a cruel twist of fate, astronaut Admiral Alan Shepard, namesake of Mass Effect's Commander John/Jane Shepard, was played by Scott Glenn, not his doppelganger Lance Henriksen, who provided the voice for Admiral Steven Hackett in the Mass Effect series.
On the subject of doppelgangers, to all of the tongue-in-cheek and/or crackpot fan theorists on Facebook and Reddit:
Yes, real-life entrepreneur Elon Musk (1971-) has been seen in the same room as the fictional entrepreneur (and part-time Avenger) Tony Stark (played by actor Robert Downey, Jr. (1965-)).
Proof positive can be found in one of the opening scenes of the 2010 film Iron Man 2.
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The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. First conceived during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-man Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon.
Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the major setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 landing was prevented by an oxygen tank explosion in transit to the Moon, which destroyed the Service Module's capability to provide electrical power, crippling the CSM's propulsion and life support systems. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat" for these functions. Apollo used Saturn family rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program, which consisted of Skylab, a space station that supported three manned missions in 1973–74, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint US-Soviet Union Earth-orbit mission in 1975.
Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability, and funded construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers.
Channellock is an American company that produces hand tools. It is best known for its pliers (the company manufactures more than 140 types), particularly its eponymous style of tongue-and-groove, slip-joint pliers. Its pliers have distinctive handle grips in a distinctive shade of sky-blue, which has been in use since 1956.
The company also produces cutting pliers, linemen's pliers, long nose pliers, adjustable wrenches, screwdrivers, nut drivers and special-purpose pliers, as well as multi-function tools for the fire service and other first responders. According to the company, as of 2009, all of its pliers were manufactured at one of its two facilities in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
The company was founded in 1886 when George B. DeArment, a blacksmith from Evansburg, Pennsylvania, began hand-forging farrier's tools and selling them from town to town out of the back of a wagon. The business eventually became known as the Champion Bolt and Clipper Company.
In 1904, the company moved to a 12,000-square-foot facility in Meadville, Pennsylvania and added nippers, pinchers and open-end wrenches to its product line. George B. DeArment’s two sons, Almon W. and J. Howard DeArment, became partners in the company in 1911 and expanded the product line again to include hammers. In 1923, the company moved again to a 33,000-square-foot facility at its current location in Meadville. Four years later, the name of the company was changed to the Champion–DeArment Tool Company.
In 1933, Chief Engineer Howard Manning developed the tongue-and-groove, slip-joint pliers for which the company is known. In 1934, a patent for this design was granted, and in 1949, a trademark for the name "Channellock" was granted, with a first-use date of May 1, 1932.
From this point through the 1960s, the company began to focus more on the fast-growing pliers side of its business, developing improvements to the original design. The word “Channellock” eventually became so synonymous with their product that the company changed its name to Channellock, Inc. in 1963 to capitalize on the popularity of its product.
Actor Bruce McGill was in the first episode (as Weird Ernie) and last episode (as Al the Bartender) of the series "Quantum Leap". They were the only two episodes he guested on.
McGill also played Major Ed Ryan in the Babylon 5 episode "Severed Dreams." Babylon 5 producer J. Michael Straczynski originally intended for Everett McGill (Dune, Twin Peaks) to play the role. However he did not know McGill's first name, so when he asked to have "McGill" contacted, Straczynski was asked if he meant Bruce McGill, to which he replied yes. Even though it became apparent to Straczynski when Bruce McGill met him to discuss the role that this wasn't the McGill Straczynski had in mind, Straczynski decided to use him instead.
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Early in 1787, two English frigates led by Commodore (later Vice Admiral) Horatio Nelson* encountered two Spanish frigates led by Don Jacobo Stuart (a direct descendant of James II Stuart (1633-1701), the exiled King of England). Upon meeting, Nelson hailed his opposite number:
Nelson: "This is an English frigate. If you do not surrender, I will open fire."
Stuart: "This is a Spanish frigate, and you may begin as soon as you please."
After a lengthy and evenly-matched encounter, Stuart surrendered, presenting his sword to Nelson, who formally accepted and then returned the sword in respect for Stuart. After Stuart's surrender, a number of Spanish ships were sighted, and Nelson was forced to withdraw, abandoning his prize and prize crew. Stuart was later sent back to Spain under a flag of truce, and the British prize crew was exchanged for Spanish and French prisoners held in England.
Ch'arki (Quechua "dried meat," Spanish: charquí) is dried and salted meat common in South America, originally llama, now mostly horse and beef (though llama is still widely used in Bolivia). Due to the cold, dry climate of the Inca homeland, ch'arki was a very popular way to preserve meat during the time of the Inca Empire. In the United States and other English-speaking regions, ch'arki was Anglicised as "jerky."
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Back to the subject of British naval officers during the French Revolutionary Wars, few were more respected (or more quotable) than Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent, GCB, PC (1735-1823). The son of an upper-middle-class lawyer, Jervis ran away from home at the age of 13 to join the Navy. After being sponsored by Lady Jane Hamilton (mother of the famed diplomat and archeologist Sir William Hamilton), Jervis was admitted at the rank of able seaman.
Over the next several decades, Jervis was commissioned as a midshipman, and rose through the ranks, being promoted to rear admiral in the 1780s. In 1795, Jervis was promoted to full admiral and appointed to command the Mediterranean Fleet (thereby becoming commanding officer of then-Commodore Nelson), serving during the first of the Anglo-Spanish Wars (1796-1802; part of the greater Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars).
During one battle (the Battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797)), Jervis provided what are possibly his three most memorable quotes:
At the battle's opening, Spanish ships began to appear out of an early morning fog. As they appeared, Jervis's flag captain, Captain (later Admiral) Robert Calder counted the ships.
Calder: "There are eight sail of the line, Sir John"
Jervis: "Very well, sir"
Calder: "There are twenty sail of the line, Sir John"
Jervis: "Very well, sir"
Calder: "There are twenty five sail of the line, Sir John"
Jervis: "Very well, sir"
Calder: "There are twenty seven sail of the line, Sir John"
Jervis: "Enough, sir, no more of that; the die is cast, and if there are fifty sail I will go through them."
During the battle (at which the British were outnumbered two to one, but possessing vastly more experienced sailors and officers), a the head of a marine standing next to Admiral Jervis was shot off by a cannonball, spraying the admiral's torso and face with gore. Fearing that the admiral was wounded, and aide quickly attended Jervis, who, wiping the blood from his face with a handkerchief, coolly responded:
"I am not at all hurt, but do, George, try if you can to get me an orange."
In the final hours of the battle, Commodore Nelson left his ship's assigned station and led several ships around the flank of the Spanish line, breaking it, and, boarding several ships, put the inexperienced Spanish crews to rout & surrender. After the battle had ended, Nelson was summoned to Jervis's flagship, at which point he was commended by Jervis for his actions in the battle.
After Nelson had left, Captain Calder noted that though Nelson had not defied orders per se, he had defied established naval doctrine as per the Fighting Instructions for His Majesty's Fleet. Angrily, Admiral Jervis replied:
"It certainly was so, and if you ever commit such a breach of your orders I will forgive you also."
Another Admiral Jervis anecdote:
On one occasion, while the fleet was becalmed the men of the flagship were ordered to bathe. The men leapt over the side to swim in a sail that had been lowered over the side. One of the men, a senior able seaman, jumped in wearing his trousers, in one of the pockets of which he had £70 in prize money and back pay that he had been saving for several years. The bank notes were destroyed by the water and when the man came aboard and discovered what had happened he began to weep.
The Admiral saw the man and asked the problem. One of his officers told him and Jervis returned to his cabin, after which he returned and had the crew mustered. Calling the man forward, he addressed the sailor:
"Roger O'Dell, you are convicted, Sir, by your own appearance of tarnishing the British oak with tears. What have you to say in your defence why you should not receive what you deserve?"
The man told him what had happened and the Admiral replied, "Roger O'Dell, you are one of the best men in this ship [and] you are moreover a captain of a top, and in my life I never saw a man behave himself better in battle than you did in the Victory in the action with the Spanish fleet. To show therefore that your Commander-in-chief will never pass over merit wheresoever he may find it, there is your money Sir."
The Admiral produced £70 of his own money and presented it to the surprised sailor, cautioning "But no more tears, mind, no more tears Sir."
American actor Laurence Fishburne (b. 1961) was only fourteen years old when he was cast as 17-year-old Gunner's Mate Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, as Fishburne had lied about his age in order to get the part. The film, which began filming in 1976, took so long to finish that Fishburne was the same age as his character by the time of its release in 1979.
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An earplug is a device that is meant to be inserted in the ear canal to protect the user's ears from loud noises or the intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind.
There are mainly four types of earplugs for hearing protection:
-Foam earplugs, mainly made from either polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PU) (memory foam), which are compressed (rolled) and put into the ear canal, where they expand to plug it
-Silicone earplugs, which are rolled into a ball and carefully molded to fit over the external portion of the ear canal
-Flanged earplugs, including most types of musicians' or 'Hi-Fi' earplugs.
-Custom molded earplugs, made from a mold of the wearer's ear and designed to precisely fit all ear canal shapes. Custom molded is further divided into laboratory-made and "formed in place"
Though the origins of the Star Wars universe's Jedi Code can be traced back to early drafts of the screenplay for the 1980 film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (written by Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, and George Lucas), its first appearance was in 1987's Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, published by West End Games. The Code in its entirety reads:
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.
In the new canon universe, the Code in its earlier Star Wars Legends form first appeared in Christie Golden's 2015 novel Dark Disciple, and has since appeared (at least in part) in Marvel's new Star Wars comic (2015-) and Greg Rucka's 2017 novel Guardians of the Whills, as well as the 2017 film Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, among others.
In contrast, the Sith Code represents an inversion of the principles of the Jedi Code, and was not introduced into the Star Wars Expanded Universe (now Star Wars Legends) until the release of BioWare's 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The Sith Code reads:
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
The Code of the Sith appeared earlier in the new canon universe (albeit in fragmentary form) than the Jedi Code, being quoted in part in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series (2008-2014). It also appeared in its full form alongside the Jedi Code in Greg Rucka's 2017 novel Guardians of the Whills.
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The Savage Land is a hidden fictional prehistoric land appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is a tropical preserve hidden in Antarctica. Throughout time, it has served as a basis for many story arcs in Uncanny X-Men as well as in related books.
It's also a place Wolverine keeps ending up in and killing more dinos than the meteor that hit the Earth...
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The Pontiac Firebird is an American automobile built by Pontiac from the 1967 to the 2002 model years. Designed as a pony car to compete with the Ford Mustang, it was introduced February 23, 1967, the same model year as GM's Chevrolet division platform-sharing Camaro. This also coincided with the release of the 1967 Mercury Cougar, Ford's upscale, platform-sharing version of the Mustang.
The name "Firebird" was also previously used by GM for the General Motors Firebird 1950s and early-1960s concept cars.
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Life, The Universe, and Everything, The third book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy six-part trilogy, was adapted from an unused Dr. Who script entitled Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. Douglas Adams simply took out the Doctor Who characters and replaced them with the characters from THGTTG. This is why the book is notably different from the rest, in that it has a clear, self-contained storyline, rather than being a mish-mash of absurd happenings.
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Tremors is a 1990 American monster film directed by Ron Underwood, produced by Gale Anne Hurd, Brent Maddock, and S. S. Wilson, and written by Maddock, Wilson, and Underwood. Tremors was released by Universal Pictures and stars Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.
The film is the first installment of the Tremors franchise, and was followed by three direct-to-video sequels: Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) and Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015) and a direct-to-video prequel, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004). A television series titled Tremors: The Series, aired from March through August 2003. A sixth film, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, was released in May 2018.