Glass

Glass is a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usage in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optoelectronics. Scientifically, the term "glass" is often defined in a broader sense, encompassing every solid that possesses a non-crystalline (that is, amorphous) structure at the atomic scale and that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid state.

The most familiar, and historically the oldest, types of glass are based on the chemical compound silica (silicon dioxide), the primary constituent of sand. The term glass, in popular usage, is often used to refer only to this type of material, which is familiar from use as window glass and in glass bottles. Of the many silica-based glasses that exist, ordinary glazing and container glass is formed from a specific type called soda-lime glass, composed of approximately 75% silicon dioxide (SiO₂), sodium oxide (Na₂O) from sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃), calcium oxide, also called lime (CaO), and several minor additives. A very clear and durable quartz glass can be made from pure silica which is very tough and resistant to thermal shock, being able to survive immersion in water while red hot. However, quartz must be heated to well over 3,000 °F (1,650 °C) (white hot) before it begins to melt, and it has a very narrow glass transition, making glassblowing and hot working difficult. In glasses like soda lime, the other compounds are used to lower the melting temperature and improve the temperature workability of the product at a cost in the toughness, thermal stability, and optical transmittance.

Glass (film)

Glass (Dutch: Glas) is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The film is about the glass industry in the Netherlands. It contrasts the handmade crystal from the Royal Leerdam Glass Factory with automated bottle making machines. The accompanying music ranges from jazz to techno. Short segments of artisans making various glass goods by hand are joined with those of mass production. It is often acclaimed to be the perfect short documentary.

References

External links

Glass (Index Case album)

Glass is the second indie album by Index Case, released in 2002.

Track listing

Suikoden IV

Suikoden IV (Japanese: 幻想水滸伝IV, Hepburn: Gensō Suikoden Fō,  (listen) ) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Konami for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console and is the fourth installment of the Suikoden video game series. It was released in August 2004 in Japan, and early 2005 in North America and Europe.

Suikoden IV takes place approximately 150 years before the events of the first Suikoden game, and relates the story of a young boy living on the island of Razril and the Rune of Punishment, one of the 27 True Runes. The Rune of Punishment governs both atonement and forgiveness, and is unusual in that it consumes the life of the bearer with use; once the previous bearer dies, it immediately jumps to someone nearby. Meanwhile, the Kooluk Empire seeks to expand into the nearby Island Nations.

Konami later produced Suikoden Tactics, a spinoff that serves as a direct prequel, side-story, and sequel to Suikoden IV.

Gameplay

Konrad der Pfaffe

Konrad der Pfaffe, 'Conrad the Priest', was a German Roman Catholic epic poet of the twelfth century, author of the "Rolandslied", a German version of the famous "Chanson de Roland".

We know almost nothing concerning his life. In the epilogue of the Heidelberg manuscript, the poet calls himself "der Pfaffe Kuonrat", and informs us that he translated from the French, first into Latin, and then into German, without adding or omitting. We learn further that the French original was procured for him by Duke Henry, at whose request he composed his lay. Formerly it was supposed that this duke was Henry the Lion (1156-80), and that the poem was composed between 1173 and 1177. But if the duke in question was Henry the Proud, who ruled Bavaria from 1126 to 1139, the date of the composition of the poem would then be about 1131, in which year Henry is known to have made a journey to Paris, where he presumably procured the French manuscript. The lay itself was written in Bavaria, probably at Ratisbon, as is indicated also by the frequent mention of Bavarian names and places.

Konrad Wallenrod

Konrad Wallenrod is an 1828 narrative poem, in Polish, by Adam Mickiewicz, set in the 14th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Mickiewicz wrote it, while living in St. Petersburg, Russia, in protest against the late-18th-century partitioning of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Austria.

Mickiewicz had been exiled to St. Petersburg for his participation in the Philomaths organization at Wilno University.

The poem helped inspire the Polish November 1830 Uprising against Russian rule. Though its subversive theme was apparent to most readers, the poem escaped censorship due to conflicts among the censors and, in the second edition, a prefatory homage to Tsar Nicholas I. Though Mickiewicz later disparaged the work, its cultural influence in Poland persists.

Plot

In a preface, Mickiewicz briefly outlines the history of the region, describing the interactions among the Lithuanians, Prussians, Poles, and Russians. The following six cantos tell the story of Wallenrod, a fictional Lithuanian pagan captured and reared as a Christian by his people's long-standing enemies, the Order of Teutonic Knights. He rises to the position of Grand Master, but is awakened to his heritage by a mysterious minstrel singing at an entertainment. He then seeks vengeance by deliberately leading the Knights into a major military defeat. It transpires that Wallenrod has a wife, Aldona, who has been living in seclusion. The Knights discover his treason and sentence him to death; Aldona refuses to flee with him. He then commits suicide.