Constantine Samuel Rafinesque

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, as he is known in Europe (October 22, 1783 – September 18, 1840), was a nineteenth-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimately settling in Ohio in 1815, where he made notable contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. He also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics, in addition to work he had already completed in Europe.

Rafinesque was eccentric, and is often portrayed as an "erratic genius". He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. Today, scholars agree that he was far ahead of his time in many areas. Among his theories was that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America.

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's aerial warfare force. Formed toward the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world. Following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history, in particular, playing a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain.

The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed: to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government’s foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security." The RAF describe its mission statement as "... [to provide] An agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission." The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power, which guides its strategy. Air power is defined as: "The ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events."

RAF-977

The RAF-977 was a Soviet (now Latvian) van made by Riga Autobus Factory (RAF) based on components from the GAZ-21 Volga. It was introduced in 1958 and was manufactured in two main styles: a 10-seat minibus and an ambulance. In 1961, an updated version called the RAF-977D was put into production; this had a one-piece windshield, instead of the split, and Volga steering wheel among its other detail changes. Variants included the 977I ambulance and a special Intourist model, which had better seats, roof lights, and sunroof.

The RAF 983, based on the 977, was a fire department vehicle.

The shortened RAF 978, powered by the Moskvitch 407's 45 hp (34 kW; 46 PS) 1,360 cc (83 cu in) engine, was not a success, in part because the engine lacked torque, and ride quality suffered due to the shortened wheelbase.

In 1969, it was replaced by the improved RAF-677DM. This had a wider passenger door and fewer but longer side windows (three on driver's side and two on passenger's, rather than five and three before). The ambulance now had the same number of windows, rather than fewer; it was now the 977IM, and the tourist variant was the 977EM.

Friends (Swedish band)

Friends was a Swedish dansband or pop group formed in 1999 and made up of Stefan Brunzell, Tony Haglund, Kristian Hermanson, Nina Inhammar, Kim Kärnfalk and Peter Strandberg. They were put together from auditions on the reality television show Friends på turne (Friends on Tour), made by Bert Karlsson for TV4. The show was a success and Friends competed on Melodifestivalen 2000, reaching second place. They won Melodifestivalen 2001 with "Lyssna till ditt hjärta" and represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 with the English version of the song, "Listen To Your Heartbeat" wearing sexy, tight, leather fitted clothing. Prior to the Eurovision performance, the Swedish delegation was forced to pay royalties to the team behind "Liefde is een kaartspel", an earlier Belgian entry, making the song the first admitted case of plagiarism in Eurovision history.

The band split in 2002, with Inhammar and Kärnfalk forming their own duo Nina & Kim, which continued until 2006, after which Kärnfalk continued as a solo artist.

Gwibber

Gwibber /ˈɡwɪbər/ is a microblogging client for the GNOME desktop environment. It brings the most popular social networking services like Facebook, Twitter, etc. into a single window and gives ability to control communication through one single application. It was created by Ryan Paul, a writer for Ars Technica.

It only runs on Linux and is written in Python using PyGTK. It ships with Ubuntu 10.04 and above. Gwibber supports multiple social networking sites in a combined social stream with URL shortening, saved searches, and a multicolumn UI.

In 2013 it was renamed to Friends and the frontend was rewritten in QML.

Supported services

See also

References

External links

Music of Friends

This is a discography of music related to the American sitcom Friends.

Albums

Friends Original TV Soundtrack

Friends Original TV Soundtrack was an album released by WEA in 1995 featuring songs from the TV sitcom Friends. The songs were not originals written for the series but rather were tracks either used directly in the show or "inspired" by the show. The album also featured small samples of spoken dialogue from the show's first season.