Wyvern

A wyvern (/ˈwaɪvərn/ WEYE-vərn, sometimes spelled wivern), known as Viverna in Italian, is a legendary creature with a dragon's head and wings, a reptilian body, two legs, and a tail. A sea-dwelling variant dubbed the sea-wyvern has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail.

The wyvern in its various forms is important to heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States and United Kingdom). It is a popular creature in European and British literature, video games, and modern fantasy. The wyvern is often (but not always) associated with cold weather and ice, and it will sometimes possess a venomous bite and rarely have the ability to breathe fire.

Etymology

The usual spelling wyvern is not attested before the seventeenth century as "winged two-footed dragon". It is an alteration of Middle English (attested thirteenth century) wyver, from Old French wivre (cf. French guivre and vouivre), itself from Latin vīpera, meaning 'viper', 'adder', 'asp'.

Wyvern (film)

Wyvern is a 2009 Canadian-American made-for-television horror film produced by RHI Entertainment that premiered in the United States on the Syfy Channel on January 1, 2009. Written by Jason Bourque and directed by Steven R. Monroe, the film is the 15th of the Maneater Series produced under an agreement with Sci Fi Pictures. The film stars Nick Chinlund as Jake Suttner, a trucker who must stop a wyvern from eating the residents in the small town of Beaver Mills, Alaska. It was released in Region 1 on DVD on August 18, 2009. It was also released under the alternative title Dragon. In Japan, it is titled Jurassic Predator.

Plot

Wyvern (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, the wyvern (pronounced WIH-vern (as in "did learn") or WHY-vern) is a species of dragon.

Publication history

The wyvern was based upon the wyverns of legend.

Dungeons & Dragons (1974-1976)

The wyvern was one of the first monsters introduced in the earliest edition of the game, in the Dungeons & Dragons "white box" set (1974), where they were described as smaller relatives of dragons with a poisonous sting in their tails.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)

The wyvern appears in the first edition Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as being distantly related to dragons, stupid but very aggressive, and able to lash with a sting-equipped tail.

Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1999)

This edition of the D&D game included its own version of the wyvern, in the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set (1981 & 1983). The wyvern was also later featured in the Dungeons & Dragons Game set (1991), the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (1991), and the Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game set (1994).

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey is a 2005 documentary directed by Sam Dunn with Scot McFadyen and Jessica Wise. The film follows 31-year-old Dunn, a Canadian anthropologist, who has been a heavy metal fan since the age of 12. Dunn sets out across the world to uncover the various opinions on heavy metal music, including its origins, culture, controversy, and the reasons it is loved by so many people. The film made its debut at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released as a two-disc special edition DVD in the US on September 19, 2006.

A follow-up to the film titled Global Metal premiered at the Bergen International Film Festival on October 17, 2007, and saw limited release in theatres in June 2008. Dunn has also elaborated upon his "Heavy Metal Family Tree" in the VH1 series Metal Evolution, which focuses on one subgenre per episode.

Contents

The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal's many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres. The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture. Notable segments include Dunn taking a trip to the Wacken Open Air festival, an interview with Dee Snider providing an analysis of the PMRC attack on heavy metal music, and an interview with several Norwegian black metal bands.

Metal (API)

Metal is a low-level, low-overhead hardware-accelerated graphics and compute application programming interface (API) that debuted in iOS 8. It combines functionality similar to OpenGL and OpenCL under one API. It is intended to bring to iOS some of the performance benefits of similar APIs on other platforms, such as Khronos Group's cross-platform Vulkan and Microsoft's Direct3D 12 for Windows. Since June 8, 2015, Metal is available for iOS devices using the Apple A7 or later, as well as Macs (2012 models or later) running OS X El Capitan. Metal also further improves the capabilities of GPGPU programming by introducing compute shaders.

Metal uses a new shading language based on C++11; this is implemented using Clang and LLVM.

Support for Metal on OS X was announced at WWDC 2015.

Performance

Metal should have better performance than OpenGL, for several reasons:

Metal (Wu Xing)

Metal (Chinese: 金; pinyin: jīn), the fourth phase of the Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing, is the decline of the matter, or the matter's decline stage. Metal is yin in character, its motion is inwards and its energy is contracting. It is associated with the autumn, the west, old age, the planet Venus, the color white, dry weather, and the White Tiger (Bai Hu) in Four Symbols. The archetypal metals are silver and gold.

Attributes

In Chinese Taoist thought, Metal attributes are considered to be firmness, rigidity, persistence, strength, and determination. The metal person is controlling, ambitious, forceful, and set in their ways as metal is very strong. They are self-reliant and prefer to handle their problems alone. The metal person is also wise, business-oriented, and good at organization and stability. However, the metal person can also appreciate luxury and enjoy the good things in life. Just as metal can conduct electricity, the metal person has strong impulses and generative powers and can bring about changes and transformations for those who come into contact with them. The metal person is patient, as well as a good person with a strong will.