614th Space Intelligence Squadron

The United States Air Force's 614th Space Intelligence Squadron was a unit located at Vandenberg AFB, California. It was inactivated on June 18, 2007 when the 614th Space Operations Group was redesignated the 614 Air and Space Operations Center.

Mission

The 614th Space Intelligence Squadron is the first squadron in the USAF that has been designed to protect satellites belonging to the military. This squadron is stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom the US was using ten times the satellite capability it had in 1991. Before the second invasion of Iraq, the space shuttle Endeavour used its radar to make a map of Iraq; this map was used to make targets for the invasion. Satellites have provided and still do provide reliable pictures and information to the US and its allies. Satellites not only provide photographs, but are crucial when it comes to launching and guiding missiles. The US is not the only country that uses satellites for a military advantage, Australia and Great Britain are two countries that put them to use as well.

SiS 6326

The SiS 6326 was a graphics processing unit (GPU) manufactured by Silicon Integrated Systems. It was introduced in June 1997 and became available to the consumer market in the end of that year. Although its performance was low compared to the GPUs of its age, eventually it became very successful, specially integrated in many motherboards designed to the corporate market, where the low cost is prioritized over 3D performance. SiS shipped over seven million units of the SiS 6326 in 1998.

Architecture

The SiS was available as a discrete card, with an AGP 2x or PCI bus, and as an integrated GPU. It had a 64-bit 2D/3D graphics accelerator, a DVD decoder, a TV decoder. It was available with 4 MB or 8 MB of memory.

Performance

Since the model aimed for low cost over high performance, it capabilities were low compared to contemporary products. According to a test conducted by Tom's Hardware on January 21, 1998, it could possessed roughly a third of the performance of an NVidia RIVA 128 or 40% less than an ATI Rage Pro in terms of frames per second in Direct3D benchmarks, and simply could not play Quake 2 due its lack of OpenGL support. Yet the same article says that even the "slow and unknown graphic chip" could still produce "quite nice image quality".

Ice

Ice is water frozen into a solid state. Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color.

In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far as the Oort cloud. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth's surface – particularly in the polar regions and above the snow line – and, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes.

Ice molecules can exhibit up to sixteen different phases (packing geometries) that depend on temperature and pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three different types of amorphous ice can form depending on the history of its pressure and temperature. When cooled slowly correlated proton tunneling occurs below 20 K giving rise to macroscopic quantum phenomena. Virtually all the ice on Earth's surface and in its atmosphere is of a hexagonal crystalline structure denoted as ice Ih (spoken as "ice one h") with minute traces of cubic ice denoted as ice Ic. The most common phase transition to ice Ih occurs when liquid water is cooled below 0°C (273.15K, 32°F) at standard atmospheric pressure. It may also be deposited directly by water vapor, as happens in the formation of frost. The transition from ice to water is melting and from ice directly to water vapor is sublimation.

Ice (1998 film)

Ice is a 1998 television disaster film starring Grant Show, Udo Kier, and Eva La Rue. The film has a similar premise as The Day After Tomorrow, a science fiction disaster film released six years later. Though completely in English, it first premiered in Germany in 1998 before being aired on ABC in the United States in 2000.

Plot

A small meteor hits the sun, causing disastrous consequences for the Earth. Los Angeles is, just as the rest of the world, covered with a layer of ice and snow. The government has collapsed and everyone is on their own. Chaos and crime prevails. Together with scientist Dr. Kistler and a small group of survivors, L.A. cop Robert Drake leaves in the direction of Long Beach Harbor to meet with a government ship which will take them to Guam, where it is warmer.

Cast

Ice (band)

Ice is an industrial music band formed by guitarist Justin Broadrick and saxophonist/vocalist Kevin Martin.

History

Keeping to a similar vein as their other musical project Techno Animal, Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin opted for Ice to be a studio-based project. Drummer John Jobaggy and bassist Dave Cochrane were recruited to aid them in the recording process. Their debut album, Under the Skin, is comparable to Pure-era Godflesh and Martin's free jazz and dub work with God. The group went on hiatus for several years and Jobaggy was replaced by Laika drummer Lou Ciccotelli. By their second album, Bad Blood, the band had absorbed hip hop influences and nearly all the songs featured contributions from recognizable names in the underground rap scene. Blixa Bargeld, of Einsturzende Neubauten, also contributed his vocals to the music.

Band members

Discography