Nil

Nil is a word commonly used to mean not in list or zero; it is one of several names for the number 0.

Nil may also refer to:

Given names

Surname

Places

NIL (programming language)

NIL was a 32-bit implementation of Lisp developed at MIT and intended to be the successor to Maclisp. NIL stood for "New Implementation of LISP", and was in part a response to DECs VAX computer. The project was headed by Jon L White, with a stated goal of maintaining compatibility with MacLisp whilst fixing many of the problems with the language.

History

The Lisp language was invented in 1958 by John McCarthy while he was at MIT. From its inception, Lisp was closely connected with the artificial intelligence research community, especially on PDP-10 systems. Lisp was used as the implementation of the programming language Micro Planner that was the foundation for the famous AI system SHRDLU. Lisp, in particular Maclisp (so called because it originated at MIT's project MAC) was also used to implement the Macsyma computer algebra system. In the 1970s, as AI research spawned commercial offshoots, the performance of existing Lisp systems became a growing issue.

Partly because of garbage collection (Lisp would use stop-and-copy garbage collection of its single heap for memory allocation) and partly because of its representation of internal structures, Lisp became difficult to run on the memory-limited stock hardware of the day. This led to the creation of LISP machines: dedicated hardware for running Lisp environments and programs. An alternative was to use the more powerful commodity hardware which was becoming available, in particular the DEC VAX.

Liero

Liero is a video game for MS-DOS, first released by Finnish programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game has been described as a real-time version of Worms (a turn-based Artillery game). It has many weapons and sounds from its precursor, MoleZ. 'Liero' is Finnish for earthworm and is pronounced [liero]. Later on, this game provided inspiration for the game Soldat.

Gameplay

In Liero, two worms fight each other to death for score (or frags) using a choice of five weapons from a total of 40 in a two-dimensional map. Most of the terrain, except for indestructible rocks, may be dug or destroyed by explosions. In addition to the weaponry, each player has a ninja rope which can be used to move faster through the map. This grappling hook-like device substitutes for jetpacks and can even latch onto the enemy worm to drag him closer to his foe.

While playing, there are health power-ups to heal your worm. It is also possible to replace one of your five weapons by picking up bonuses. Before playing, you can select certain weapons to be available only in bonuses, in the entire game, or completely disabled.

List of Jo Stafford compilation albums

The following articles contain lists of Jo Stafford compilation albums:

Candy (Southern and Hoffenberg novel)

Candy is a 1958 novel written by Maxwell Kenton, the pseudonym of Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, who wrote it in collaboration for the "dirty book" publisher Olympia Press, which published the novel as part of its "Traveller's Companion" series. According to Hoffenberg,

Southern had a different take on the novel's genesis, claiming it was based on a short story he had written about a girl living in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood, a Good Samaritan-type, who became involved with a hunchback. After he read Southern's story in manuscript form, Hoffenberg suggested the character should have more adventures. Southern suggested that Hoffenberg write a story about the girl, and he came up with the chapter in which Candy meets Dr. Krankheit at the hospital.

They finished the book in the commune of Tourrettes-sur-Loup France, in a cottage that Southern's friend Mordecai Richler rented for them.

Southern and Hoffenberg battled Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias over the copyright after the book was published in North America by Putnam under the authors' own names and became a best-seller.

Candy (unit)

The candy or candee (Marathi: खंडी, khaṇḍī;Tamil: கண்டி, kṇṭi;Malayalam: kaṇḍi,kaṇṭi), also known as the maunee, was a traditional South Asian unit of mass, equal to 20 maunds and roughly equivalent to 500 pounds avoirdupois (227 kilograms). It was most used in southern India, to the south of Akbar's empire, but has been recorded elsewhere in South Asia. In Marathi, the same word was also used for a unit of area of 120 bighas (25 hectares, very approximately), and it is also recorded as a unit of dry volume.

The candy was generally one of the largest (if not the largest) unit in a given system of measurement. The name is thought to be derived from the Sanskrit खण्डन (root खुड्) khaṇḍ, "to divide, break into pieces", which has also been suggested as the root of the term (sugar-)candy. The word was adopted into several South Asian languages before the compilation of dictionaries, presumably through trade as several Dravidian languages have local synonyms: for example ఖండి kaṇḍi and పుట్టి puṭṭi in Telugu.