Black gold

Black gold or Black Gold may refer to:

Commodities

Film

Music

Petroleum

Petroleum (L. petroleum, from early 15c. "petroleum, rock oil" (mid-14c. in Anglo-French), from Medieval Latin petroleum, from Latin: petra: "rock" + oleum: "oil".) is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earth's surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels.

It consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to intense heat and pressure.

Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling (natural petroleum springs are rare). This comes after the studies of structural geology (at the reservoir scale), sedimentary basin analysis, reservoir characterization (mainly in terms of the porosity and permeability of geologic reservoir structures). It is refined and separated, most easily by distillation, into a large number of consumer products, from gasoline (petrol) and kerosene to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 90 million barrels each day.

Black gold (politics)

Black gold (Chinese: 黑金; pinyin: hēi jīn) is a term used in the Republic of China (Taiwan) to refer to political corruption. The term refers to the obtaining of money (the "gold") through a dark, secretive, and corrupt method (the "black").

The Kuomintang (KMT) has frequently been criticized in Taiwan for its connections to gangsters and black gold. The party has had a long association with underground societies, and its founder Sun Yat-sen had joined the Triads to gain support for the Republican Revolution. In its early years, the KMT relied on support from organized crime, gangs, and unions and clan organizations with criminal ties in its efforts to consolidate power in war-torn post-imperial China. As a result, the party made concessions to local "crime bosses", such as the notorious Du Yuesheng in Shanghai, who were well-connected with its longtime leader, Chiang Kai-shek. During the Shanghai massacre of 1927, the KMT employed the Green Gang to exterminate suspected communists; the Green Gang also happened to be a major financial supporter of Chiang Kai-shek. The KMT's relationships with such organizations are believed to persist. KMT fled to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War. As Minister of Justice from 1993 to 1996, former Taipei mayor and KMT Party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou is credited with attempts to fight black gold corruption and bring KMT out of corruption, and his removal from office by the KMT was widely attributed to him being too effective at fighting black gold.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction-family film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Spielberg and Melissa Mathison, featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi and Dennis Muren, and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore and Peter Coyote. It tells the story of Elliott (Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. He and his siblings help it return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.

The concept for the film was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night Skies. It was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, it was shot in rough chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast.

Leet

Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for many languages that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters. For example, leet spellings of the word leet include 1337 and l33t; eleet may be spelled 31337 or 3l33t.

The term leet is derived from the word elite. The leet alphabet is a specialized form of symbolic writing. Leet may also be considered a substitution cipher, although many dialects or linguistic varieties exist in different online communities. The term leet is also used as an adjective to describe formidable prowess or accomplishment, especially in the fields of online gaming and in its original usage – computer hacking.

History

Engineering & Technology

Engineering & Technology (E&T) is a science, engineering and technology magazine published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in the United Kingdom. The magazine is issued 12 times per year, and is distributed to the 150,000 plus membership of the IET.

The magazine was launched in April 2008 as a result of the merger between the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers on 31 March 2006. Prior to the merger, both organisations had their own membership magazine, the IEE's monthly IEE Review and the IIE's Engineering Technology.Engineering & Technology is an amalgamation of the two, and was initially published twelve times per year. Alongside this, members also received one of seven other monthly magazines published by the IET relating to a field of the subject of their choice, with the option to purchase any of the other titles. In January 2008, the IET merged these seven titles into E&T to make a nearly fortnightly magazine with a larger pagination, providing all members with one magazine covering all topics. In January 2011 the frequency was reduced to 12 times per year.