Odyssey (launch platform)

L/P Odyssey is a self-propelled semi-submersible mobile spacecraft launch platform converted from a mobile drilling rig in 1997.

The vessel is currently used by Sea Launch for equatorial Pacific Ocean launches. She works in concert with the assembly and control ship Sea Launch Commander. Her home port is the Port of Long Beach in the United States.

In her current form, Odyssey is 436 feet (133 m) long and about 220 feet (67 m) wide, with an empty draft displacement of 30,000 short tons (27,000 t), and a submerged draft displacement of 50,600 short tons (45,900 t). The vessel has accommodations for 68 crew and launch system personnel, including living, dining, medical and recreation facilities. A large, environmentally-controlled hangar stores the rocket during transit and then rolls it out and erects it prior to fueling and launch.

History

The platform was built in 1982 for Ocean Drilling & Exploration Company (ODECO) by Sumitomo Heavy Industries. It drilled its first exploratory hole about 40 miles (64 km) south of Yakutat for ARCO Alaska, Inc. The rig cost about US$110 million to build during the early eighties oil "boom".

Odyssey (James Blood Ulmer album)

Odyssey is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer, recorded in 1983 and released on the Columbia label. It was Ulmer's final of three albums recorded for a major label. The musicians on this album later re-united as The Odyssey Band and Odyssey The Band.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Steve Huey awarded the album 5 stars and stated "Odyssey stands as James Blood Ulmer's signature masterpiece, the purest and most accessible showcase for his bold, genre-clashing guitar vision... All the pieces come together to produce not only Ulmer's finest album, but a certified classic of the modern jazz avant-garde". The album was listed as part of a suggested "core collection" by the Penguin Guide to Jazz.

Track listing

Godhead in Judaism

Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God), and its nature has been the subject of long debate in every major religion.

Terminology

The closest corresponding term in the classical and modern languages of Jewish scholarship is אלוהות (elohút), meaning deity (essential nature of a god) or divinity. Max Kadushin notes that "The plural 'Elohot, gods, must not be confused with 'Elohut, Godhead. The latter is used with reference to God".

Conceptions

Neoplatonic

The leading Jewish Neoplatonic writer was Solomon ibn Gabirol. In his Fons Vitae, Gabirol's position is that everything that exists may be reduced to three categories: the first substance (God), matter and form (the world), with the will as intermediary. Gabirol derives matter and form from absolute being. In the Godhead he seems to differentiate essentia (being) from proprietas (attribute), designating by proprietas the will, wisdom, creative word ("voluntas, sapientia, verbum agens"). He thinks of the Godhead as being and as will or wisdom, regarding the will as identical with the divine nature. This position is implicit in the doctrine of Gabirol, who teaches that God's existence is knowable, but not His being or constitution, no attribute being predicable of God save that of existence.

Godhead (album)

Godhead was Lowlife's third album, released in 1990 in Scotland on Nightshift Records, an independent music record label. The LP had been recorded at Pet Sounds Studios in Glasgow, Scotland. Prior to the recording of the album, original guitarist Stuart Everest had been asked to leave the group by the other bandmembers, and was replaced by Hamish McIntosh. LTM Recordings reissued much of the band's entire back catalogue on CD, and released Godhead in August 2006, with five bonus tracks taken from the band's unreleased "Black Sessions" demo album.

The album received critical acclaim, but not a significant amount of mainstream attention. Martin Aston, of Music Week said of the album: "Lowlife's Godhead takes us back to that classic case of a band who never reap enough acclaim because they won't play the game, but they deserve serious attention" The Catalogue gave the album 4 stars, stating: "Lowlife cast aside past references and perceptions with the most evocatively impressive music. It would be unforgivable if this album remains totally unnoticed"