Fin

A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluid media. Fins are also used to increase surface areas for heat transfer purposes, or simply as ornamentation.

Fins first evolved on fish as a means of locomotion. Fish fins are used to generate thrust and control the subsequent motion. Fish, and other aquatic animals such as cetaceans, actively propel and steer themselves with pectoral and tail fins. As they swim, they use other fins, such as dorsal and anal fins to achieve stability and refine their maneuvering.

Generating thrust

Foil shaped fins generate thrust when moved, the lift of the fin sets water or air in motion and pushes the fin in the opposite direction. Aquatic animals get significant thrust by moving fins back and forth in water. Often the tail fin is used, but some aquatic animals generate thrust from pectoral fins. Fins can also generate thrust if they are rotated in air or water. Turbines and propellers (and sometimes fans and pumps) use a number of rotating fins, also called foils, wings, arms or blades. Propellers use the fins to translate torquing force to lateral thrust, thus propelling an aircraft or ship. Turbines work in reverse, using the lift of the blades to generate torque and power from moving gases or water.

Cities (Anberlin album)

Cities is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Anberlin, released on February 20, 2007. The songs "Godspeed" and "The Unwinding Cable Car" were released as singles with accompanying music videos. The album debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200.

Production

The band spent more than 40 days in the studio recording Cities and went back on tour on September 14 after listening to the finished work on the morning of September 13. Lead singer Stephen Christian kept fans posted on progress in the studio through the band's online forums. Anberlin asked fans to message their phone numbers to the band through their message board so they could call the fans and ask for advice on the album. The album was produced by Aaron Sprinkle, who also produced Anberlin's first two albums Blueprints for the Black Market and Never Take Friendship Personal.

Promotion and pre-release

In late 2006, the band started previewing content for the album in various ways. The song "Godspeed" was released as a single on December 28, 2006. The band started playing "Hello Alone" at concerts under its working title, "The Lesser Thans." Anberlin also posted individual song previews on MySpace and PureVolume.

Fin (song)

"Fin" is a song from British rock band Supergrass' 2005 album, Road to Rouen. It was released on 2 January 2006 as the third single from the album (see 2006 in music). It was only available as a 7" and digital download, and only charted in the UK at #111.

The song is a very slow and gentle ballad, with 'watery' effects over the vocals.

Track listings

LTD. ED. 7" R6682

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References

Mind (The Culture)

In Iain M. Banks' Culture series, most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sentient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators.

These Minds have become an indispensable part of the Culture, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating society (controlling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power). The main feature of these Minds—in comparison to extremely powerful artificial intelligences in other fiction—is that the Minds are (by design and by extension of their rational, but "humanistic" thought processes) generally a very benevolent presence, and show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators. Though this is commonly viewed in a utopian light, a view where the human members of the Culture amount to little more than pets is not unsupportable.

MinD

The MinD protein is one of three proteins encoded by the minB operon and also a part of the ParA family of ATPases. It is required to generate pole to pole oscillations prior to bacterial cell division as a means of specifying the midzone of the cell. It is a peripheral membrane ATPase involved in plasmid partitioning.

History

When first discovered in E.coli, MinD was thought to associate with MinC and form a stable cap at each bacterial pole, thereby specifying the mid-zone of the cell by alleviating inhibitory pressures in that region. Through the use of live-cell imaging with GFP fusion proteins, Raskin and de Boer revealed a dynamic interaction of the Min proteins, demonstrating that MinC and MinD instead rapidly oscillate between the two poles in a non-static manner.

Function

The ATPase activity of MinD is activated by MinE while in the presence of phospholipids, suggesting that the binding to the membrane induces a conformational change allowing it to become susceptible to MinE activation. MinD activity is dependent on local MinD concentration, suggesting an oligomerization process and cooperativity.

Mind42

Mind42 is an online mind mapping application that allows users to visualize their thinking using the provenmind mapping method. The name refers to the collaborative features of the product, and is intended to be pronounced like "mind for two." It has been recommended by Freelance Weekly as one of their favorite time-management and organization tools.

Features

The developer provides the full feature set of Mind42 free of charge, including:

Criticisms

Criticisms of Mind42 include the lack of offline editing ability, the lack of a mobile version and the limitation that only creators of mind maps, but not collaborators, can view and restore previous revisions of a mind map.