Feint

Feint is a French term that entered English via the discipline of swordsmanship and fencing. Feints are maneuvers designed to distract or mislead, done by giving the impression that a certain maneuver will take place, while in fact another, or even none, will. In military tactics and many types of combat, there are two types of feints: feint attacks and feint retreats.

Attacks

A feint attack is designed to draw defensive action towards the point under assault. It is usually used as a diversion to force the enemy to concentrate more manpower in a given area, to weaken the opposing force in another area. Unlike a related diversionary maneuver, the demonstration, a feint involves actual contact with the enemy.

Retreats

A feint retreat is performed by briefly engaging the enemy, then retreating. It is intended to draw the enemy pursuit into a prepared ambush, or to cause disarray. For example, the Battle of Hastings was lost when Saxons pursued the Norman cavalry. This forfeited the advantage of height and the line was broken, providing the opportunity to fight in single handed combat on a neutral vantage point, a battle for which the Saxons were not ready. The Parthian shot is another example of a feint retreat, where mounted Parthian archers would retreat from a battle and then, while still riding, turn their bodies back to shoot at the pursuing enemy.

The Phantom Agony

The Phantom Agony is the first full-length studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica. It was released in 2003 by the Dutch label Transmission Records. It is the first album recorded by guitarist Mark Jansen after his departure from the band After Forever. On this album, Mark Jansen continues with the collection of songs that make up "The Embrace That Smothers". The first three parts can be found on Prison of Desire (2000), After Forever's debut album, and the following three parts can be found on The Divine Conspiracy (2007), Epica's third album. These songs deal with the dangers of organized religion.

The album was re-released on 23 March 2013, which coincided with Epica’s 10th anniversary Retrospect show, as a 2-disc expanded edition by Epica’s former record label Transmission Records.

Track listings

Personnel

Singles

The Phantom Agony

"The Phantom Agony" was the first single of the eponymous album. It was released in October 2003.

Track listing

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are New World birds that constitute the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in) range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm bee hummingbird, weighing less than a U.S. penny (2.5 g).

They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wings which flap at high frequencies audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, typically around 50 times per second, allowing them also to fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph), backwards.

Hummingbirds have the highest metabolism of any homeothermic animal. To conserve energy when food is scarce, and nightly when not foraging, they go into torpor, a state similar to hibernation, slowing metabolic rate to 1/15th of its normal rate.

Evolution

A map of the hummingbird family tree—reconstructed from analysis of 284 of the world's 338 known species—shows rapid diversification from 22 million years ago. Hummingbirds fall into nine main clades, the Topazes, Hermits, Mangoes, Brilliants, Coquettes, Patagona, Mountain Gems, Bees, and Emeralds, defining their relationship to nectar-bearing flowering plants and the birds' continued spread into new geographic areas.

Hummingbird (film)

Hummingbird (released as Redemption in the U.S.) is a 2013 British action drama film written and directed by Steven Knight and starring Jason Statham.

Plot

Joseph Smith (Jason Statham) is an ex-Special Forces veteran who went AWOL from his unit in Afghanistan, and now lives as a homeless drunk in London. One night while fleeing thugs who were shaking down the homeless, he breaks into an apartment and discovers the owner, a photographer named Damon, will be in New York for several months until the first of October. He begins to assume the life of the owner, driving his car and living in the apartment, calling himself Joey Jones, and spends his time looking for his homeless friend Isabel (Victoria Bewick), from whom he was separated in the streets. He finds Damon's new debit card in the apartment mail, and begins a regimen of self-improvement. Meanwhile Isabel has been coerced into becoming a prostitute by the same thug that hassled her and Joey.

Hummingbird (comics)

Hummingbird is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in Marvel Comics. She made her first debut in the 2012 Scarlet Spider comic book series written by Christopher Yost.

Publication history

Created by artist Ryan Stegman and writer Christopher Yost, she first appeared in Scarlet Spider vol. 2 #1. She took on the superhero identity of Hummingbird during Scarlet Spider vol. 2 #17.

Along with Kaine, the Scarlet Spider, she joined the New Warriors on the 2014 Volume 5 version of the team.

Fictional character biography

Born as María Aracely Josefina Penalba de las Heras, she is originally from an unspecified location in Mexico. However, she may be the reincarnation of the Aztec God of War Huitzilopochtli and has been labeled as a demigod by the High Evolutionary.

She has no recollection of her life previous to her arrival to Houston, Texas with the exception of the event that took her there: her forced trafficking at the hands of the Lobo Cartel and the singular circumstances of it.