Butterfly

Butterflies are part of the class of insects in the order Lepidoptera, along with the moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, along with two smaller groups, the skippers (superfamily Hesperioidea) and the moth-butterflies (superfamily Hedyloidea). Butterfly fossils date to the Palaeocene, about 56 million years ago.

Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out and, after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their whole life cycle.

Papillons

Papillons, Op. 2, is a suite of piano pieces written in 1831 by Robert Schumann. The title means 'butterflies' in French. The work is meant to represent a masked ball and was inspired by the Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre.

The suite begins with a six-measure introduction before launching into a variety of dance-like movements. Each movement is unrelated to the preceding ones, except that the second, A major, theme of the sixth movement recurs in G major in the tenth movement and the theme of the first movement returns in the finale. Eric Jensen notes that the 11th movement is appropriately a polonaise as Vult and Wina speak in her native language, Polish (Jensen 2001, 92-93). This movement starts out by quoting the theme of the traditional Grossvater Tanz (Grandfather's Dance), which was always played at the end of a wedding or similar celebration. Repeated notes near the end of the piece suggest a clock striking, signifying the end of the ball.

Related works

Schumann quoted some themes from Papillons in his later work, Carnaval, Op. 9, but none of them appear in the section of that work titled "Papillons". The main waltz theme from the first movement in Papillons was quoted in the section "Florestan", with an explicit acknowledgment written in the score, and again in the final section, "Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins", but without acknowledgment. The Grandfather Dance also appears in the final section, with the inscription "Thème du XVIIème siècle".

Butterflies (TV series)

Butterflies was a British sitcom series written by Carla Lane broadcast on BBC2 from 1978 to 1983.

The situation is the day-to-day life of the Parkinson family in a bittersweet style. There are both traditional comedy sources (Ria's cooking, family squabbles) and more unusual sources such as Ria's unconsummated relationship with the outwardly-successful Leonard. Ria is still in love with her husband, Ben, and has raised two potentially fine sons, yet finds herself dissatisfied and in need of something more. Throughout the series Ria searches for that "something more" and finds some solace in her unconventional friendship with Leonard. In a 2002 interview, Carla Lane explained, "I wanted to write a comedy about a woman contemplating adultery."

In the first episode, an expository discussion between Ria and Leonard alludes to the significance of the series' title: "We are all kids chasing butterflies. You see it, you want it, you grab it, and there it is, all squashed in your hand." She adds, "I am one of the few lucky ones, I have a pleasant house, a pleasant man and two pleasant sons. My butterfly didn't get squashed." Ria's husband Ben collects and studies butterflies.

Tak (function)

In computer science, the Tak function is a recursive function, named after Ikuo Takeuchi (竹内郁雄). It is defined as follows:

This function is often used as a benchmark for languages with optimization for recursion.

tak() vs. tarai()

The original definition by Takeuchi was as follows:

tarai is short for tarai mawashi, "to pass around" in Japanese.

John McCarthy named this function tak() after Takeuchi.

However, in certain later references, the y somehow got turned into the z. This is a small, but significant difference because the original version benefits significantly by lazy evaluation. Though written in exactly the same manner as others, the Haskell code below runs much faster.

You can easily accelerate this function via memoization yet lazy evaluation still wins.

The best known way to optimize tarai is to use mutually recursive helper function as follows.

Here is an efficient implementation of tarai() in C:

Note the additional check for (x <= y) before z (the third argument) is evaluated, avoiding unnecessary recursive evaluation.

Tak (town)

Tak is a town (thesaban mueang) in north-west Thailand, capital of the Tak Province and the Tak district. As of 2005 the town had a population of 19,900 and an area of 7.27 km². It covers the tambon Rahaeng, Nong Luang, Chiang Ngoen, and Hua Diat. It is on the Ping River, 418 km north-north-west of Bangkok.

Geography

Tak is on the Ping River, which runs from north to south through the town. While the land to the east is fairly flat, the Tenasserim Hills and Dawna Range lie to the west.

Climate

Tak has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification Aw). Winters are dry and very warm. Temperatures rise until April, which is very hot with the average daily maximum at 38.5 °C (101.3 °F). The monsoon season runs from May through October, with heavy rain and somewhat cooler temperatures during the day, although nights remain warm.

Transportation

Route 105, through Mae Sot, forms one of two major transnational roads through the Tenasserim Hills to Burma. Route 1, also known as the Phahonyothin Road, passes through Tak. On the north side it leads to Lampang, Chiang Rai, and the border with Burma at Mae Sai. On the south side it leads to Kamphaeng Phet, Nakhon Sawan, and Bangkok. Route 12 leads east to Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, Chum Phae, Khon Kaen, Kalasin, and the border with Laos at Mukdahan.

Tak and the Power of Juju

Tak and the Power of Juju is a 2003 action-adventure platforming video game developed by Avalanche Software and published by THQ for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance. The game was released in North America on October 15, 2003 and in Europe on March 12, 2004. The Game Boy Advance version was also released on a Triple Pack cartridge bundled with SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge and Rugrats: I Gotta Go Party in 2005.

Gameplay

The gameplay mostly consists of obstacles, puzzles and is a colorful platformer. Like most action/adventure video games, the player can jump and attack, The player has a health-meter represented by the feather on Tak's head. One unique feature is the ability to interact with and get past obstacles with the help of animals.