Portal (architecture)

A portal is an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, especially a grand entrance to an important structure.doors, metal gates or portcullis in the opening can be used to control entry or exit. The surface surrounding the opening may be made of simple building materials or decorated with ornamentation. The elements of a portal can include the voussoir, tympanum, an ornamented mullion or trumeau between doors, and columns with carvings of saints in the westwork of a church.

Examples

Baroque portal of a private Palace in Brescia

Baroque portal of a private Palace in Brescia

Portal of the Church of São Martinho de Cedofeita, with nested arches

Portal of the Church of São Martinho de Cedofeita, with nested arches

Gothic portal of the cathedral of Metz

Gothic portal of the cathedral of Metz

Portal of the church in Hronský Beňadik

Portal of the church in Hronský Beňadik

Other uses

The term portal is also applied to the ends of a tunnel.

Portal (video game)

Portal is a 2007 first-person puzzle-platform video game developed by Valve Corporation. The game was released in a bundle package called The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007, and for the PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007. The Windows version of the game is available for download separately through Valve's content delivery system Steam and was released as a standalone retail product on April 9, 2008. A standalone version called Portal: Still Alive was released on the Xbox Live Arcade service on October 22, 2008; this version includes an additional 14 puzzles. An OS X version was released as part of the Mac-compatible Steam platform on May 12, 2010. A Linux version was released on Steam as a beta on May 2, 2013, and came out of beta on June 24, 2013. An Android port for the Nvidia Shield was released on May 12, 2014.

The game primarily comprises a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and simple objects using "the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", a device that can create inter-spatial portals between two flat planes. The player-character, Chell, is challenged by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The game's unique physics allows momentum to be retained through portals, requiring creative use of portals to maneuver through the test chambers. This gameplay element is based on a similar concept from the game Narbacular Drop; many of the team members from the DigiPen Institute of Technology who worked on Narbacular Drop were hired by Valve for the creation of Portal.

Portal (Magic: The Gathering)

Portal is the name given to the three Magic: The Gathering starter level sets. The original Portal. was released on May 1, 1997, followed by Portal Second Age on June 24, 1998 and Portal Three Kingdoms on July 6, 1999. The Portal set was inspired by Chinese mythology; Three Kingdoms in particular by Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.

Set history

Portal was Wizards of the Coast's first major attempt at a set that new players could come into the game and understand. Back before the major rules changes brought forth by 6th Edition, Magic rules were more complicated; today, they are simplified with the addition of the stack. The three Portal sets attempted to mitigate the complexity.

As of October 2005, all cards Portal, Portal Second Age, and Portal Three Kingdoms are legal in Vintage and Legacy tournaments.

Three Kingdoms

On October 20, 2005, the DCI legalized cards from the Portal expansions. Now, almost all cards in the Portal block are legal in Vintage and Legacy tournaments. Allowing this set to be played in tournaments had the effect of making many cards from this set very expensive, such as Zodiac Dragon, Capture of Jingzhou, Loyal Retainers and Ravages of War. The value of those cards now often exceeds 250USD a piece, with its most sought-after card, Imperial Seal commanding well over 600USD. Many cards from this set are now worth more than 5USD, making the sealed booster box from this set one of the most expensive along with Alpha, Beta and Unlimited. In a tournament context, Three Kingdoms, like all other Portal sets, can only be used in Vintage and Legacy formats where many decks function with limited or no creature base. Three Kingdoms is also legal in the Commander format.

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.