Zeus

Zeus (/ˈzjuːs/ ZEWS;Ancient Greek: Ζεύς, Zeús, [zdeǔ̯s]; Modern Greek: Δίας, Días [ˈði.as]) was the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter.

Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.

He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" (Greek: Νεφεληγερέτα, Nephelēgereta) also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

Zeus of Otricoli

The Zeus of Otricoli is an Ancient Roman bust found in Otricoli in 1175 that is now in the Sala Rotonda of the Pio-Clementine Vatican Museum.

It is presumed to be a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. While some attributed the bust as a copy of the statue of Phidias at Olympia, numismatic reproductions of that famous statue would suggest otherwise. It appears to be more likely from subsequent centuries.

References

Zeus (Marvel Comics)

Zeus, full name Zeus Panhellenios, is a fictional character, a god appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The comic version of Zeus is based on the god of the same name from Greek mythology. Zeus first appears in Venus #5 (June 1949), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Fictional character biography

Åram

Åram is a village in Vanylven Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. The village is located on the mainland, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) straight north of the municipal centre of Fiskåbygd. The village has a ferry quay with regular connections to the nearby islands of Kvamsøya, Voksa, and Gurskøya. Åram Church is located in the village.

Åram and all of the mainland for about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) in all directions was formerly a part of Sande Municipality until 1 January 2002 when it was administratively transferred to Vanylven.

The local football club is Åram/Vankam FK.

References

RealAudio

RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is played at the same time as it is downloaded. In the past, many internet radio stations used RealAudio to stream their programming over the internet in real time. In recent years, however, the format has become less common and has given way to more popular audio formats. RealAudio was heavily used by the BBC websites until 2009, though it was discontinued due to its declining use. BBC World Service, the last of the BBC websites to use RealAudio, discontinued its usage in March 2011.

File extensions

RealAudio files were originally identified by a filename extension of .ra (for Real Audio). In 1997, RealNetworks also began offering a video format called RealVideo. The combination of the audio and video formats was called RealMedia and used the file extension .rm. However, the latest version of RealProducer, Real's flagship encoder, reverted to using .ra for audio-only files, and began using .rv for video files (with or without audio), and .rmvb for VBR video files. The .ram (Real Audio Metadata) and .smil (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) file formats are sometimes encountered as links from web pages (see Streaming Audio section below).

Goat (zodiac)

The Goat (Chinese: 羊; pinyin: yáng) is the eighth sign of the 12-year cycle of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The sign is also referred to as the Ram or Sheep sign, since the Chinese word yáng is more accurately translated as Caprinae, a taxonomic subfamily which includes both sheep and goats.

The Year of the Goat (alternatively, Year of the Ram or Year of the Sheep) is associated with the 8th Earthly Branch symbol, 未 (wèi).

Goat or Sheep

The Chinese word yáng refers both to goats and sheep, with shānyáng specifically goats and miányáng sheep. In English, the sign (originally based on a horned animal) may be called either. The interpretation of sheep or goat depends on culture. In Vietnamese, the sign is mùi, which is unambiguously goat. In Japan, on the other hand, the sign is hitsuji, sheep; while in Korea and Mongolia the sign is also sheep or ram. Within China, there may be a regional distinction with the zodiacal yáng more likely to be thought of as a goat in the south, while tending to be thought of as a sheep in the north.