Killer whale

The killer whale (Orcinus orca), also referred to as the orca whale or orca, and less commonly as the blackfish or grampus, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas. Killer whales have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals like pinnipeds, and even large whales. They have been known to attack baleen whale calves. Killer whales are regarded as apex predators, lacking natural predators.

Killer whales are highly social; some populations are composed of matrilineal family groups which are the most stable of any animal species. Their sophisticated hunting techniques and vocal behaviours, which are often specific to a particular group and passed across generations, have been anthropomorphically described as manifestations of culture.

Orca (novel)

Orca is the seventh book in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, set in the fantasy world of Dragaera. Originally published in 1996 by Ace Books, it was republished in 2003 along with Athyra in the omnibus The Book of Athyra. Following the trend of the Vlad Taltos books, it is named after one of the Great Houses and features that House as an important element to its plot.

Plot introduction

Vlad and his friend Kiera the Thief investigate a financial cover-up following the mysterious death of an Orca tycoon.

Plot summary

Reunions

Kiera the Thief sends a letter to Vlad's estranged wife Cawti, offering to meet and tell her of Vlad's most recent adventures. In return for not telling Vlad some of Cawti's secrets, Kiera insists on making some omissions from her story. The rest of the novel is Kiera's story, seemingly without the omissions she makes to Cawti.

Vlad contacts Kiera from the city of Northport and asks her a favor: break into the mansion of the late Orca businessman Fyres and take any documents she can find. She agrees if he will explain why. He tells her that he went to Northport to find a healer for Savn, a Teckla boy whose mind was damaged during the events of Athyra. A local healer, whom Vlad calls "Mother" because he cannot pronounce her name, agrees to help Savn if Vlad will help fix her problem: she's being evicted from her cottage. Vlad navigates through a labyrinth of business records to discover that Mother's land is ultimately owned by Fyres, who only a week ago died on his yacht.

Jaws (film)

Jaws is a 1975 American film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. The film stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as Larry Vaughn, the mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen. The screenplay is credited to both Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.

Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the film had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks suffered many malfunctions, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the animal's presence, employing an ominous, minimalistic theme created by composer John Williams to indicate the shark's impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of classic thriller director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.

Syntax-Brillian Corporation

Syntax-Brillian Corporation was an American corporation formed on November 30, 2005, by the merger of Syntax (seller of widescreen HDTV-ready LCD televisions) with Brillian Corporation (seller of Brillian brand televisions). The company sold HDTVs under the brand name of Ölevia and its stock was previously listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol BRLC. It was based in Tempe, Arizona. In 2009, it resolved a bankruptcy proceeding by selling all its assets to Emerson Radio Corp.

Bankruptcy and delisting

On July 8, 2008, Syntax-Brillian filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. On July 21, 2008 the company reported that its stock was to be delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market due to listing violations and its filing for protection under Chapter 11. Syntax-Brillian sees no value for its common stock after Chapter 11.

The company entered into an asset purchase agreement to sell all of its assets besides those of its Vivitar unit to newly created Olevia International Group, LLC, which is owned by TCV Group, provider of plastic injection molded parts for the Olevia branded widescreen HDTVs. In exchange for the purchased assets, Olevia International Group agreed to assume $60.0 million of Syntax-Brillian's secured debt. The proposed sale was anticipated to close by August 31, 2008. However, the transaction with TCV Group never closed. Instead, in May 2009, Emerson Radio Corp. purchased the assets of Syntax-Brillian including the Olevia brand name.

Syntax (disambiguation)

Syntax, in linguistics, is a set of rules governing how words combine to form grammatical meanings. Syntax may also refer to the following:

Syntax (typeface)

Syntax comprises a family of fonts designed by Swiss typeface designer Hans Eduard Meier. Originally just a sans-serif font, it was extended with additional serif designs.

Syntax

Syntax is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Meier in 1968, and released in 1969 by the D. Stempel Schriftgießerei (type foundry) of Frankfurt am Main. It is believed to be the final face designed and released by D. Stempel for foundry casting.

The original drawings were done in 1954; first by writing the letters with a brush, then redrawing their essential linear forms, and finally adding balanced amounts of weight to the skeletons to produce optically monoline letterforms. In the period 1968–1972, Meier worked on additional weights and variations to the Syntax typeface. In 1989, the original foundry metal design was digitized by Adobe, which also expanded the family to include bold and ultrabold weights, resulting in a font family of 4 romans and 1 italic (in lightest weight) fonts.

Meier described Syntax as being a sans-serif face modeled on the Renaissance serif typeface, similar to Bembo. The uppercase has a wide proportion, and the terminals not being parallel to the baseline provide a sense of animation. The lowercase a and g follow the old style model of having two storeys. The italics are a combination of humanist italic forms, seen in the lowercase italic q, and realist obliques, seen in the lowercase italic a, which retains two storeys, unlike in other humanist sans-serif typefaces like FF Scala Sans and Gill Sans, where the a has a single storey italic.