Onyx is a banded variety of the oxide mineral chalcedony. Agate and onyx are both varieties of layered chalcedony that differ only in the form of the bands: agate has curved bands and onyx has parallel bands. The colors of its bands range from white to almost every color (save some shades, such as purple or blue). Commonly, specimens of onyx contain bands of black and/or white.
Onyx comes through Latin (of the same spelling), from the Greek ὄνυξ, meaning "claw" or "fingernail". With its fleshtone color, onyx can be said to resemble a fingernail. The English word "nail" is cognate with the Greek word.
Onyx is formed of bands of chalcedony in alternating colors. It is cryptocrystalline, consisting of fine intergrowths of the silica minerals quartz and moganite. Its bands are parallel to one another, as opposed to the more chaotic banding that often occurs in agates.
Sardonyx is a variant in which the colored bands are sard (shades of red) rather than black. Black onyx is perhaps the most famous variety, but is not as common as onyx with colored bands. Artificial treatments have been used since ancient times to produce both the black color in "black onyx" and the reds and yellows in sardonyx. Most "black onyx" on the market is artificially colored.
Onyx is a rock opera and the fourth studio album by Pop Evil. It was released on May 14, 2013. The first single, "Trenches", was released February 28, 2013. The album was available for streaming a day before its official release date. It was produced by Johnny K, mixed by Jay Ruston, and mastered by Paul Logus. Additional vocal production was performed by Dave Bassett. Additional programming was done by Bassett and Matt Doughtery.
The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 39, No. 9 on the Independent Albums chart, with 10,000 copies sold in its first week. It has sold 122,000 copies in the United States as of July 2015.
USS Onyx (PYc-5), was a diesel coastal patrol yacht of the United States Navy during World War II.
The ship was built in 1924 as Janey III by Consolidated Shipbuilding Corp. of Morris Heights, New York, and was subsequently renamed Rene and Pegasus.
Purchased by the Navy on 3 December 1940 from Clifford C. Hemphill, of New York City, converted to Navy use and named Onyx, she was classified as a coastal yacht on 13 December 1940, and commissioned on 27 February 1941.
After conversion she departed New York for Norfolk, arriving on 22 March. Sailing again, she reached New Orleans on 5 April to report for duty to Commandant 8th Naval District. Onyx performed services for ComEight as a coastal patrol vessel around the Gulf area until January 1942. On 22 January she departed Key West, Florida to return to New York and arrived there on 31 January.
Onyx was again ordered to report to the 8th Naval District at New Orleans and was underway by 13 March, arriving on 27 March. She resumed services and continued in this capacity until February 1944 when she was extensively damaged in a collision. Beyond economic repair, her ordnance was removed and she was placed out of commission, in service, retaining her name and designation, on 15 May 1944. She was designated a target vessel on 31 May, the same year, and made available for disposition on 31 October.
Oxford spelling (or Oxford English Dictionary spelling) is the spelling used by the Oxford University Press (OUP), including in its Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and by other publishers who are "etymology conscious", according to Merriam-Webster.
Oxford spelling is best known for its preference of the suffix -ize in words like organize and recognize, versus the -ise endings that are more common in current British English usage. The spelling affects about 200 verbs and is favoured because -ize corresponds more closely to the Greek root, -izo, of most -ize verbs. In addition to the OUP, British dictionary publishers that use Oxford spelling include Cassell, Collins and Longman. It is also used by the London-based scientific journal Nature, The Times Literary Supplement, and by the style guides of international organizations belonging to the United Nations System and various other international organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In digital documents, Oxford spelling may be indicated by the IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict (or, historically, by en-GB-oed).
Izé is a commune in the Mayenne department in north-western France.
The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes spelled out as "pi" (/paɪ/).
Being an irrational number, π cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction (equivalently, its decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern). Still, fractions such as 22/7 and other rational numbers are commonly used to approximate π. The digits appear to be randomly distributed; however, to date, no proof of this has been discovered. Also, π is a transcendental number – a number that is not the root of any non-zero polynomial having rational coefficients. This transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge.
Ancient civilizations needed the value of π to be computed accurately for practical reasons. It was calculated to seven digits, using geometrical techniques, in Chinese mathematics and to about five in Indian mathematics in the 5th century CE. The historically first exact formula for π, based on infinite series, was not available until a millennium later, when in the 14th century the Madhava–Leibniz series was discovered in Indian mathematics. In the 20th and 21st centuries, mathematicians and computer scientists discovered new approaches that, when combined with increasing computational power, extended the decimal representation of π to, as of 2015, over 13.3 trillion (1013) digits. Practically all scientific applications require no more than a few hundred digits of π, and many substantially fewer, so the primary motivation for these computations is the human desire to break records. However, the extensive calculations involved have been used to test supercomputers and high-precision multiplication algorithms.
Entourage is an American comedy-drama television series created for HBO by Doug Ellin, who also serves as an executive producer along with Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, Dennis Biggs, Rob Weiss and Ally Musika. The series, loosely based on Wahlberg's own experiences of the film industry, follows Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), a New York born actor living in Los Angeles as he struggles with the ups and downs of a career in Hollywood. He is aided, and often hindered, by his entourage, which consists of his half-brother and struggling actor Johnny "Drama" Chase (Kevin Dillon), his childhood friend and manager Eric "E" Murphy (Kevin Connolly), his ruthless agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) and his other long-time friend Turtle (Jerry Ferrara). Entourage premiered on HBO on July 18, 2004 and aired its final episode on September 11, 2011. A total of 96 episodes were aired over eight seasons.