Bill (weapon)

The bill is a polearm weapon used by infantry in medieval Europe. The bill is similar in size, function and appearance to the halberd, differing mainly in the hooked blade form. Other terms for the bill include English bill, bill hook or bill-guisarme.

Design

Derived originally from the agricultural billhook, the bill consisted of a hooked chopping blade with several pointed projections mounted on a staff. The end of the cutting blade curves forward to form a hook, which is the bill's distinguishing characteristic. In addition, the blade almost universally had one pronounced spike straight off the top like a spear head, and also a hook or spike mounted on the 'reverse' side of the blade. There were many types of bill. English bills tended to be relatively short, with broad chopping heads, while Italian bills (ronche) often had very long thrusting points. The English distinguished between several varieties of bill, including the black, brown and forest bills, but the differences between them are currently not fully understood.

Character design of Final Fantasy

Although each installment of the Final Fantasy series is generally set in a different fictional world with separate storylines, there are several commonalities when it comes to character design, as certain design themes repeat themselves, as well as specific character names and classes. Within the main series, Yoshitaka Amano was the character designer for Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIII, Yoshitaka Amano created and did the concept art for the characters while Toshiyuki Itahana was the final character designer for Final Fantasy IX, and Akihiko Yoshida was the character designer for Final Fantasy XII.

Visual character design

The series has often featured male characters with slightly effeminate characteristics, as well as female characters with slightly tomboyish, but still feminine, characteristics. This trend has generally increased as the series evolved. These characters are usually teenagers, which some critics have interpreted as an effort on the part of the designers to ensure the players identify with them. At the same time, some female characters have been increasingly designed to wear very revealing outfits. Square Enix has stated that a more rugged looking hero had been considered for Final Fantasy XII but had ultimately been scrapped in favor of Vaan, another effeminate protagonist. The developers cited scenaristic reasons and target demographic considerations to explain their choice. For Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix settled on a female main character, described as a "female version of Cloud from FFVII." This aspect of Final Fantasy can also be seen in Sora, the protagonist of Kingdom Hearts, a crossover series featuring Final Fantasy and Disney characters.

Weapon (novel)

Weapon is a 1989 science fiction novel by Robert Mason. The book was Mason's first novel; he had previously written a memoir about his experiences in Vietnam titled Chickenhawk. The book is about an android, designed to kill, which experiences a crisis of conscience and runs away from its government masters to live in a Nicaraguan village.

Plot

The novel describes a new weapon system being developed for the US military, named Solo. A robot, Solo is designed to replace human soldiers in battle. It is humanoid in shape, in order to allow it to use all the military vehicles and equipment human soldiers do. Solo is capable of feats of great speed, strength and endurance.

Most importantly, Solo is governed by a neural network computer which is able to learn and think much as a human brain does. The robot's designer recognises that this could potentially make Solo as unpredictable and difficult to control as any human is; the military therefore insist that Solo be told a carefully edited version of world history and politics in which the United States are in all cases the unambiguously "good guys" and winners of all conflicts - for example Solo is told that the US won a clear victory in the Vietnam War.

Weapons (album)

Weapons is the fifth and final studio album by the Welsh alternative rock band Lostprophets, released through Epic on 2 April 2012. It's the first and only record featuring Luke Johnson on drums, after being with two other drummers previously, Mike Chiplin and Ilan Rubin (the latter of whom features in archive recordings included on the "deluxe edition" of Weapons, as well as the hidden track "Weapon" on all versions of the album).

Just like their third studio album it features Latin on the front, which reads deus velox nex. When translated it reads Gods swift violent death. This has been confirmed by guitarist, Mike Lewis.

Writing and recording history

The band started writing new material after finishing The Betrayed Tour. The album is produced by Ken Andrews at Hollywood. Several songs were debuted before it official release date. "Bring Em' Down" was played live in the warm up shows for the 2011 V Festival, and was aired as the first single from Weapons on Zane Lowe's Hottest Record on 6 February 2012. "We Bring an Arsenal" made its debut on 25 February 2012. The song "Better Off Dead" received its first radio play by BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe as his "Hottest Record in the World". As of 6 January 2012 it was made available for download from the band's official website.

List of Kill Bill characters

The following is a list of characters from the film Kill Bill. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, the film was released in two separate parts, Kill Bill: Volume 1 in 2003 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 in 2004. The film takes place after a massacre that killed the fiancé and friends of the main character, The Bride, at the chapel in which she was to be married; she was also thought to have been killed by being shot in the head. However, The Bride survived, but was put into a coma for four years as a result of the attack. Upon finally awakening she plots her vengeance against the killers.

Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

Beatrix Kiddo (Black Mamba, also known as The Bride)

Beatrix Kiddo, a.k.a. The Bride (portrayed by Uma Thurman), is the protagonist of the film. She abandons her life as a hired assassin for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DVAS) upon realizing she is pregnant with Bill's child, denying him the right of fatherhood to preserve her unborn's future. This action provokes the attacks on her and her loved ones and its ensuing revenge, which is the entire basis of the film. Her code name while working for DVAS was Black Mamba.

List of unidentified decedents in the United States

An unidentified decedent, or UID, is a deceased person whose legal identity is unable to be determined by law enforcement. Although the majority of UIDs are identified soon after their bodies are recovered, it is not uncommon for bodies to remain unidentified for years or even decades. There are approximately 40,000 unidentified decedents in the United States at any given time.

A deceased body can be identified in several different ways. Most commonly, a relative of the deceased identifies the body by sight. However, if a body is heavily decomposed, skeletal, or unrecognizable due to severe facial trauma at the time of recovery, other methods must be used. Some other common modes of identification include fingerprints, dental records, chest x-rays, and as a last resort, comparing the deceased's DNA to the DNA sequence of a genetically close relative such as a parent or sibling. In some cases, circumstantial evidence can be used to formally identify a body; for example, if the deceased has a driver's license on their person, or is found deceased on their own property after going missing, those context clues can be used to make an identification. Since identification of a deceased individual is a legal matter, officials require a high degree of certainty in order to make a formal identification.

Bill (Bill Cosby album)

Bill (1973) is a compilation album of previously released material by Bill Cosby. All the routines are edited down compared to their original appearances on previous albums, some slightly, some considerably.

Track listing

References