Dungeon

A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette is a form of dungeon which is accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling.

Etymology

The word dungeon comes from Old French donjon (also spelled dongeon), which in its earliest usage meant a "keep", the main tower of a castle. The first recorded instance of the word in English was near the beginning of the 14th century when it held the same meaning as donjon. Though it is uncertain, both dungeon and donjon are thought to derive from the Middle Latin word dominio, meaning "lord" or "master".

In French, the term donjon still refers to a "keep", and the term oubliette is a more appropriate translation of English dungeon. Donjon is therefore a false friend to dungeon (for instance, the game Dungeons & Dragons is titled Donjons et Dragons in its French editions).

Dungeon (band)

Dungeon was a melodic power metal/thrash metal band based in Sydney, Australia, considered by some as one of Australia's leading metal bands. The group existed from 1989 to 2005, released six full-length albums, and toured heavily both throughout Australia and internationally.

History

(1989–1996) Formation and early period

The band was formed in the New South Wales outback mining town of Broken Hill in 1989 by guitarist Tim Grose featuring himself, bassist Eddie Tresize and drummer Ian DeBono. According to an extensive bio at the band's official website, Grose took on the singing role due to an inability to find a suitable vocalist. The band played popular rock and metal covers and shortly expanded to a five piece with the addition of Tim's niece Carolyn Boon on keyboards and Jason Hansen on guitar. Randall Hocking replaced Tresize and by the end of 1990 the group's line up featured Grose, Boon, Jamie Baldwin (bass), Dale Fletcher (guitar) and Darryl Riess (drums). By February 1991 however, only Tim Grose remained but a short time later guitarist Dale Corney joined him and the pair wrote and played as a duo for about a year before relocating to Sydney in 1992. A demo was recorded and Grose and Corney decided to rebuild a complete band line-up.

Dungeon crawl

A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find. Because of its simplicity, a dungeon crawl can be easier for a gamemaster to run than more complex adventures, and the "hack and slash" style of play is appreciated by players who focus on action and combat. The term can be used in a pejorative sense, since dungeon crawls often lack meaningful plot or logical consistency. For example, the parody game Munchkin is about "the essence of the dungeon experience… Kill the monsters, steal the treasure, stab your buddy."

The first computer-based dungeon crawl was pedit5, developed in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford on the PLATO interactive education system based in Urbana, Illinois. Although this game was quickly deleted from the system, several more like it appeared, including dnd and Moria.

Some distinguish "dungeon crawlers" from rogue-likes and RPGs with stories and character-interaction, while others use the term to describe any game which features ample amounts of dungeon exploration (including Zork, Zelda and tabletop RPGs). More recently the term has come to mean 1st person RPGs, particularly ones which are aligned to a grid system and can be mapped on graph paper.

Sol (given name)

Sol is a given name, usually a form of "Solomon". Notable people with the name include:

Sol (computer)

The SOL is a rugged, waterproof solar-powered laptop computer intended for use in African schools that do not have access to an electrical network. Sol was created by London, Ontario-based WeWi Telecommunications.

The laptop is preloaded with the Ubuntu variant of Linux.

Design and features

The SOL is available in two editions, a standard edition and the Marine edition which uses hydrophobic coating to provide water repletion instead of waterproofing the laptop. The laptop has a reinforced polymer-based clam shell casing that houses the solar panels and makes the laptop more durable. The device uses four detachable monocrystalline photovoltaic panels which fold into the unit.

Developer

WeWi Telecommunications was founded by David M. Snir in 2009 as an Internet service provider and then shifted to research and development. The company does ad hoc disaster recovery and connectivity services.

References

External links

Sol (newspaper)

Sol (Portuguese for Sun) is a Portuguese language weekly national newspaper published every Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal.

History and profile

Sol was first published on 16 September 2006. The paper was founded by José António Saraiva with the premise to compete with the long-established Expresso.

Sol is directly or indirectly owned by Angolan businessman Álvaro Sobrinho through Newshold, the controlling society of the newspaper, which also owns a 12,21% stake in Cofina.

The circulation of Sol was 49,000 copies in 2008. The paper had a circulation of 33,089 copies in 2011.

Sol appeared in the Portuguese market as a competitor of Expresso which until now (2015) maintains a clearly leading position.

References

External links