Death

Death is the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging (senescence), predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Death has commonly been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the termination of social and familial bonds with the deceased or affection for the being that has died. Other concerns include fear of death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade.

Etymology

The word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauthuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "Process, act, condition of dying".

Associated terms

The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of "cremation" and "remains".

Death discography

The discography of Death, a metal band, consists of seven studio albums and four live albums. Death was an American metal band founded in 1983. The band's founder, Chuck Schuldiner, is considered "a pioneering force in death metal and grindcore". The band ceased to exist after Schuldiner died of brain cancer in 2001, though it remains an enduring metal brand.

As of 2008, Death had sold over 2 million albums worldwide, with over 500,000 copies sold by December 2009 in the U.S. alone (excluding the numerous sales before the SoundScan era) making them the top-selling death metal band worldwide, and only topped in the U.S. by Cannibal Corpse.

Studio albums

Live albums

Compilation albums

Demo albums

Prior to the release of the band's debut album in 1987, Death released several demos and rehearsal tapes. Below is a list of the band's seven official demos according to its website.

Nostradamus (album)

Nostradamus is the sixteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest, focusing on the 16th-century writer Nostradamus. It is a double album. The band's first concept album, it was originally intended to be released in late 2006 before being pushed back to a 2007 release, and was finally released in June 2008 on Epic Records. It is the band's final album to feature K. K. Downing, before his retirement.

Judas Priest toured with Motörhead, Heaven & Hell, and Testament on the Metal Masters Tour to promote Nostradamus. The band also performed a world tour in 2008 and 2009 in support of the album.

Development

The Nostradamus concept idea originated from manager Bill Curbishley and was pitched to the band while on tour in Estonia in 2005. Guitarist K. K. Downing revealed in a February 2007 interview with Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles that 18 tracks had been recorded with a total length of more than 90 minutes and that there was not much he would like to cut down. Musically, the album contains symphonic orchestrations, including the use of keyboards and choirs, which is unlike anything the band has previously attempted. In November 2007, the band began mixing the album.

Magma (Jonathan Darque)

Magma (Jonathan Darque) is a fictional character, a supervillain from Marvel Comics. He first appeared in Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #110, as an enemy of Spider-Man and Iron Man.

Fictional character biography

Jonathan Darque was the chief executive officer of a mining company investigating new and cheap sources of energy. His investigations were opposed by environmental activists, who held demonstrations at his trial bore sites. His wife died in a car crash when attempting to evade the activists' blockade. Darque used his engineering skills to design a battle suit allowing him to become Magma. He then developed an underground crime organization.

Darque/Magma created a device he called the Long Range Sonic Stata Scanner (LRSSS), which enabled him to discover the epicentres of earthquakes before they erupted. He also used the machine to generate waves causing earthquakes; this enabled him to blackmail the Mayor of New York City. (At the publication time of this story, the historical Mayor was Ed Koch). Magma held a press conference to reveal his plans. Spider-Man and Iron Man joined forces to drill down vertically to reach the source of the earthquake, where they discovered his hidden base. After Magma was defeated by Spider-Man and Iron Man in a battle on the surface, he escaped in a pod into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Spider-Man aimed the LRSSS at this location and Magma was engulfed by the resultant waves and he disappeared into the depths of the ocean.

Gorath

Gorath, released in Japan as Calamity Star Gorath (妖星ゴラス, Yōsei Gorasu), is a Japanese science fiction tokusatsu film produced by Toho in 1962. The story for Gorath was by Jojiro Okami.

Plot

The year is 1980, and the film opens with the launch of the JX-1 Hayabusa spaceship into outer space. The ship, originally sent to collect data on Saturn, has its course diverted to investigate the mysterious star Gorath, reported as being 6000 times the size of the Earth. It is feared that the star's path could come dangerously close to Earth. The JX-1 reaches locates Gorath and it's much smaller than earth but with 6000 times the gravity. The JX-1 radio's back any data about the star but gets sucked into the star's gravitational field which drags the ship into Gorath, incinerating it.

Japan and the rest of the world are stunned by the discovery and, after some reluctance, send up the JX-2 Ootori spaceship for a voyage to investigate Gorath. The United Nations band together to discover a solution to the problem, and decide that their only solutions are to either destroy Gorath or move the planet out of the way.

Magma (band)

Magma is a French progressive rock band founded in Paris in 1969 by classically trained drummer Christian Vander, who claimed as his inspiration a "vision of humanity's spiritual and ecological future" that profoundly disturbed him. In the course of their first album, the band tells the story of a group of people fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the planet Kobaïa. Later, conflict arises when the Kobaïans—descendants of the original colonists—encounter other Earth refugees.

Vander invented a constructed language, Kobaïan, in which most lyrics are sung. In a 1977 interview with Vander and long-time Magma vocalist Klaus Blasquiz, Blasquiz said that Kobaïan is a "phonetic language made by elements of the Slavonic and Germanic languages to be able to express some things musically. The language has of course a content, but not word by word." Vander himself has said that, "When I wrote, the sounds [of Kobaïan] came naturally with it—I didn’t intellectualise the process by saying 'Ok, now I’m going to write some words in a particular language', it was really sounds that were coming at the same time as the music." Later albums tell different stories set in more ancient times; however, the Kobaïan language remains an integral part of the music.

Con (TV series)

Con is a television series on Comedy Central in which con artist Skyler Stone revealed the secrets of his profession by performing confidence tricks, scams, and hoaxes of various degrees of complexity on camera. These could range from simply claiming that an order for food was botched, to claiming to be a certain profession, which required training (received through cons). In one episode Stone showed how he received free soft drinks at fast food restaurants by retaining paper cups from various fast food restaurants and then refilling them at soda fountains. Most of his cons revolved around him claiming that he is filming a television show or movie of some sort, and that the product or service he wished to acquire would be advertised in the film or show. The products did wind up getting free advertisement – but on Con, not where they were told.

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