Countdown

A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the term "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and even "E-minus" for events that involve spacecraft that are already in space, where the "T" could stand for "Test" or "Time", and the "E" stands for "Encounter", as with a comet or some other space object. Other events for which countdowns are commonly used include the detonation of an explosive, the start of a race, the start of the New Year, or any anxiously anticipated event. An early use of a countdown once signaled the start of a Cambridge University rowing race. The first known association with rockets was in the 1929 German science fiction movie Die Frau im Mond (English: Woman in the Moon) written by Thea von Harbou and directed by Fritz Lang in an attempt to increase the drama of the launch sequence of the story's lunar-bound rocket.

Rocketry

A countdown is a carefully devised set of procedures ending with the ignition of a rocket's engine. Depending on the type of vehicle used, countdowns can start from 72 to 96 hours before launch time.

Countdown (Hyde song)

"Countdown" is the sixth by Japanese singer Hyde, and the first single from his second solo album Faith.

It was released on 5 October 2005, and was Hyde's first solo single since 2003. This is the first single co-produced by Hyde and K.A.Z and charted at #1 on the Oricon ranking charts the week it was released.

The B-side to this single is "Evergreen (Dist.)", a rock version of Hyde's very first solo single that was also featured on his first solo album, Roentgen (released March 27, 2002). Countdown also featured in Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, a Nintendo DS game.

Track listing

Notes

External links

Countdown (disambiguation)

A countdown is the backward counting to indicate the remaining time before an event occurs.

Countdown may also refer to:

Television

Literature

Comics

Narrow gauge engines (Thomas & Friends)

In Thomas & Friends, the Island of Sodor is home to a narrow gauge railway in the hills. These lines and the engines who work on them are some of the oldest on the island. The narrow gauge railway has some contact with The Fat Controller's standard gauge engines, but the location of the railway leaves the little engines in relative isolation.

North Western Railway

Victor

Victor is a dark red Hispanic tank engine in charge of the Sodor Steamworks. He supervises all the engines who journey in and out of the workshops, as well as Kevin, the clumsy yard crane. Victor always has a helpful, constructive disposition and is good-humored with everyone he meets. He speaks with a Cuban accent and spoke Spanish when he first came to Sodor.

Victor was introduced in the feature-length special Hero of the Rails. The show's staff were researching real-life engine workshops as inspiration for the Steamworks when they learned that one had a self-contained narrow-gauge line, used to transport parts internally. The staff decided they wanted an engine with a cab, and chose as a prototype ALCo's #1173, which was specially built for a sugar plantation line in Cuba. Some artistic licence was taken, as the original #1173 is a standard gauge locomotive. Victor made multiple further appearances in the thirteenth series, and has appeared in every series and special since.

Proteus (2003 film)

Proteus is a film by Canadian director John Greyson. Although the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003, it did not have a general theatrical release until 2005.

Set in 18th-century South Africa, the film dramatizes the true story of Claas Blank (Rouxnet Brown) and Rijkhaart Jacobsz (Neil Sandilands), two prisoners on Robben Island who were executed for sodomy in 1735. Their relationship also had a racial component, as Jacobsz was a white Dutchman, while Blank was a black Khoi. The film also stars Shaun Smyth as Virgil Niven, a Scottish botanist who befriends Blank for his knowledge of South African flora, but may in fact have his own sexual interest in Blank.

The film also attempts to explore unanswered questions, such as why prison officials tolerated the relationship for a full decade before Blank and Jacobsz were executed. (In an interview packaged with the DVD release, John Greyson notes the real Blank and Jacobsz began their relationship when they were both teenagers - Blank having been imprisoned on Robben Island at age 16 - and were actually known to be a couple for twenty years before they were charged with sodomy and executed, when they were both nearly 40.) Intentional anachronisms - such as transistor radios, electric typewriters and jeeps - are also used in the film to illustrate Greyson's larger theme that homophobia and racism of the type that led to Blank's and Jacobsz' executions are still very much present in today's world. These twentieth-century objects, including modern (c. 1964) dress on many occasions, are invariably presented in juxtaposition with eighteenth-century items. The eighteenth-century prison commandant, for example, is replaced by a former subordinate, who wears a twentieth-century guard's uniform and is often accompanied by a fierce-looking Alsatian on a short lead.

Olm

The olm or proteus (Proteus anguinus) is an aquatic salamander in the family Proteidae, the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. In contrast to most amphibians, it is entirely aquatic; it eats, sleeps, and breeds underwater. Living in caves found in the Dinaric Alps, it is endemic to the waters that flow underground through extensive limestone of karst of Central and Southeastern Europe, specifically southern Slovenia, the Soča river basin near Trieste, Italy, southwestern Croatia, and Herzegovina.

It is also occasionally called the "human fish" by locals because of its skin color, similar to that of white people (translated literally from Slovene: človeška ribica and Croatian: čovječja ribica), as well as "cave salamander" or "white salamander". In Slovenia, it is also known by the name močeril, which translates as "the one that burrows into wetness". It was first mentioned in 1689 by the local naturalist Valvasor in his Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, who reported that, after heavy rains, the olms were washed up from the underground waters and made local people believe that they saw a cave dragon's offspring.