Almquist shell

The Almquist shell (also known as A Shell, ash and sh) is a lightweight Unix shell originally written by Kenneth Almquist in the late 1980s. Initially a clone of the System V.4 variant of the Bourne shell, it replaced the original Bourne shell in the BSD versions of Unix released in the early 1990s. Derivative versions of ash are still installed as the default shell (/bin/sh) on FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, MINIX, and Android, and in some Linux distributions.

Debian and derived Linux distributions such as Ubuntu ship a version of ash, known as dash (Debian Almquist shell), as the default /bin/sh, although Bash is the default login shell for interactive use. The reason for using dash is faster shell script execution, especially during startup of the operating system, compared to previous versions of Debian and Ubuntu that used Bash for this purpose.

Ash is also fairly popular in embedded Linux systems; its code was incorporated into the BusyBox catch-all executable often employed in this area.

Ash (deity)

Ash was the ancient Egyptian god of oases, as well as the vineyards of the western Nile Delta and thus was viewed as a benign deity. Flinders Petrie in his 1923 expedition to the Saqqara (also spelt Sakkara) found several references to Ash in Old Kingdom wine jar seals: "I am refreshed by this Ash" was a common inscription.

In particular, he was identified by the Ancient Egyptians as the god of the Libu and Tinhu tribes, known as the "people of the oasis". Consequently Ash was known as the "lord of Libya", the western border areas occupied by the Libu and Tinhu tribes, corresponds roughly with the area of modern Libya. It is also possible that he was worshiped in Ombos, as their original chief deity.

In Egyptian mythology, as god of the oases, Ash was associated with Set, who was originally god of the desert, and was seen as protector of the Sahara. The first known reference to Ash dates to the Protodynastic Period, but by the late 2nd Dynasty, his importance had grown, and he was seen as protector of the royal estates, since the related god Set, in Lower Egypt, was regarded as the patron deity of royalty itself. Ash's importance was such that he was mentioned even until the 26th Dynasty.

Ash (Alien)

Ash is a fictional character in the movie Alien, who was portrayed by actor Ian Holm, who, although known in the U.K. as a stage actor, was at the time unknown to American audiences. Ash serves as the secondary antagonist of the first film. The character is the science officer of the Nostromo, who breaks quarantine by allowing Kane, a member of the crew, back on board after he has been infected by an alien life form. It is later discovered that Ash is not human at all, as he appears, but is in fact a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2android, who is acting upon secret orders to bring back the alien lifeform and to consider the crew "expendable".

Character development

At the beginning of the film, Ash is depicted as quiet and logical, greatly adherent to company regulations. However, he breaks quarantine protocol (disobeying Ripley, the ship's ranking officer, in the process) and allows the infected Kane aboard the ship, seemingly out of compassion, and is later seen marveling at the creature attached to him. At one point, Ash assaults Ripley, attempting to kill her by forcing a rolled-up pornographic magazine down her throat. But it is Ash himself who is killed, as two other crew members arrive and rescue Ripley. He is struck over the head twice with a canister, the first time causing him to malfunction and the second decapitating him. When even that fails to kill him, he's electrocuted with a cattle prod.

Meltdown (Vinnie Moore album)

Meltdown is the third studio album by guitarist Vinnie Moore, released in 1991 through Relativity Records.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Vinnie Moore. 

Personnel

References

Meltdown (Ash album)

Meltdown is the fourth studio album by Ash, which was initially released on 17 May 2004 through Infectious Records. On 8 March 2005 the album was released in the United States. It is a darker and heavier sounding record than Free All Angels.

International Releases

Meltdown (Image Comics)

Meltdown is a two-part comic book mini-series published in December 2006 (issue 1) and January 2007 (issue 2) by Image Comics. Written by David Schwartz and illustrated by Sean Wang.

Plot

Meltdown tells the story of Caliente, aka The Flare, a superhero with flame based powers that are killing him. He's only got 7 days left to put his life in order, and to make amends for all of his regrets. The story largely consists of flashbacks that show Caliente's trials and tribulations leading to his final days.

The series was collected into a trade paperback entitled "MELTDOWN: The Definitive Collection", which also featured 52 pages of new material.

References

External links