1.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
2.
Concept design
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Concept art is a form of illustration used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product. Concept art is referred to as visual development and/or concept design. This term can also be applied to retail, set, fashion, architectural, Concept art is developed in several iterations. Artists try several designs to achieve the result for the work. Designs are filtered and refined in stages to narrow down the options, Concept art is not only used to develop the work, but also to show the projects progress to directors, clients and investors. Once the development of the work is complete, advertising materials often resemble concept art, although these are made specifically for this purpose. It may have come about as part of automotive design for concept cars. A concept artist is an individual who generates a design for an item, character. This includes, but is not limited to, film, animation, a concept artist may be required for nothing more than preliminary artwork, or may be part of a creative team until a project reaches fruition. While it is necessary to have the skills of a fine artist, some concept artists may start as fine artists, industrial designers, animators, or even special effects artists. Interpretation of ideas and how they are realized is where the artists individual creativity is most evident. Many concept artists work in a studio or from home via freelance, a lot more concept artists are switching to freelance because of the job security of having multiple clients. There is a salary to working for a large studio. The average salary for a concept artist is 60-$70,000 a year, Concept art has embraced the use of digital technology. Raster graphics editors for digital painting have become more available, as well as hardware such as graphics tablets. Prior to this any number of mediums such as oil paints, acrylic paints, markers. Popular programs for artists include PhotoShop and Corel Painter. Others include manga studio, Art rage, and other well known programs
3.
New Orleans
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New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U. S. Census, the New Orleans metropolitan area had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502. The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and it is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music, and its celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is referred to as the most unique in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River, the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was the most populous parish in Louisiana. As of 2015, it ranks third in population, trailing neighboring Jefferson Parish, La Nouvelle-Orléans was founded May 7,1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time and his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris, during the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French oversight, nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians, Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and established the republic in the Western Hemisphere. It had occurred several years in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue
4.
Portmanteau
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In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph that represents two or more morphemes. A portmanteau also differs from a compound, which not involve the truncation of parts of the stems of the blended words. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a portmanteau, of star and fish, whereas a hypothetical portmanteau of star and fish might be stish. Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice, for instance, take the two words fuming and furious. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first … if you have the rarest of gifts, in then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. The etymology of the word is the French porte-manteau, from porter, to carry, in modern French, a porte-manteau is a clothes valet, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like. It has also used especially in Europe as a formal description for hat racks from the French words porter. An occasional synonym for portmanteau word is frankenword, an autological word exemplifying the phenomenon it describes, blending Frankenstein, many neologisms are examples of blends, but many blends have become part of the lexicon. In Punch in 1896, the word brunch was introduced as a portmanteau word, in 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name. Similarly Eurasia is a portmanteau of Europe and Asia, a scientific example is a liger, which is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. Jeoportmanteau. is a category on the American television quiz show Jeopardy. The categorys name is itself a portmanteau of the words Jeopardy, responses in the category are portmanteaus constructed by fitting two words together. The term gerrymander has itself contributed to portmanteau terms bjelkemander and playmander, oxbridge is a common portmanteau for the UKs two oldest universities, those of Oxford and Cambridge. Many portmanteau words receive some use but do not appear in all dictionaries, for example, a spork is an eating utensil that is a combination of a spoon and a fork, and a skort is an item of clothing that is part skirt, part shorts. On the other hand, turducken, a made by inserting a chicken into a duck. Similarly, the word refudiate was first used by Sarah Palin when she misspoke, though initially a gaffe, the word was recognized as the New Oxford American Dictionarys Word of the Year in 2010. The business lexicon is replete with newly coined portmanteau words like permalance, advertainment, advertorial, infotainment, a company name may also be portmanteau as well as a product name. By contrast, the public, including the media, use portmanteaux to refer to their favorite pairings as a way to. giv people an essence of who they are within the same name and this is particularly seen in cases of fictional and real-life supercouples
5.
Architecture
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Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architectural works, in the form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements, Architecture can mean, A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures. The art and science of designing buildings and nonbuilding structures, the style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures. A unifying or coherent form or structure Knowledge of art, science, technology, the design activity of the architect, from the macro-level to the micro-level. The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering services in connection with the design and construction of buildings. The earliest surviving work on the subject of architecture is De architectura. According to Vitruvius, a building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity. An equivalent in modern English would be, Durability – a building should stand up robustly, utility – it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used. Beauty – it should be aesthetically pleasing, according to Vitruvius, the architect should strive to fulfill each of these three attributes as well as possible. Leon Battista Alberti, who elaborates on the ideas of Vitruvius in his treatise, De Re Aedificatoria, saw beauty primarily as a matter of proportion, for Alberti, the rules of proportion were those that governed the idealised human figure, the Golden mean. The most important aspect of beauty was, therefore, an inherent part of an object, rather than something applied superficially, Gothic architecture, Pugin believed, was the only true Christian form of architecture. The 19th-century English art critic, John Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, Architecture was the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by men. That the sight of them contributes to his health, power. For Ruskin, the aesthetic was of overriding significance and his work goes on to state that a building is not truly a work of architecture unless it is in some way adorned. For Ruskin, a well-constructed, well-proportioned, functional building needed string courses or rustication, but suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, This is beautiful, le Corbusiers contemporary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. The notable 19th-century architect of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan, promoted an overriding precept to architectural design, function came to be seen as encompassing all criteria of the use, perception and enjoyment of a building, not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural
6.
Ecology
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Ecology is the scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment. It is a field that includes biology, geography. Ecology includes the study of interactions that organisms have with other, other organisms. Ecosystems are composed of dynamically interacting parts including organisms, the communities make up. Ecosystem processes, such as production, pedogenesis, nutrient cycling. These processes are sustained by organisms with specific life history traits, biodiversity, which refers to the varieties of species, genes, and ecosystems, enhances certain ecosystem services. Ecology is not synonymous with environment, environmentalism, natural history and it is closely related to evolutionary biology, genetics, and ethology. An important focus for ecologists is to improve the understanding of how biodiversity affects ecological function, Ecology is a human science as well. For example, the Circles of Sustainability approach treats ecology as more than the environment out there and it is not treated as separate from humans. Organisms and resources compose ecosystems which, in turn, maintain biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living and non-living components of the planet, the word ecology was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel. Ecological thought is derivative of established currents in philosophy, particularly from ethics and politics, ancient Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle laid the foundations of ecology in their studies on natural history. Modern ecology became a more rigorous science in the late 19th century. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection became the cornerstones of modern ecological theory, the scope of ecology contains a wide array of interacting levels of organization spanning micro-level to a planetary scale phenomena. Ecosystems, for example, contain abiotic resources and interacting life forms, an ecosystems area can vary greatly, from tiny to vast. A single tree is of consequence to the classification of a forest ecosystem. Several generations of a population can exist over the lifespan of a single leaf. Each of those aphids, in turn, support diverse bacterial communities, biodiversity describes the diversity of life from genes to ecosystems and spans every level of biological organization. The term has several interpretations, and there are ways to index, measure, characterize
7.
Paolo Soleri
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Paolo Soleri was an Italian architect. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti, Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National Design Award recipient in 2006. He died at home of natural causes on 9 April 2013 at the age of 93, Soleri authored six books, including The Omega Seed, Arcology - City In the Image of Man, and numerous essays and monographs. Soleri was born in Turin, Italy and he was awarded his laurea in architecture from the Politecnico di Torino in 1946. He visited the United States in December 1946 and spent a year and a half in fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West in Arizona, during this time, he gained international recognition for a bridge design displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1950 Soleri, with his wife Colly, returned to Italy where he was commissioned to build a ceramics factory, Ceramica Artistica Solimene. He adapted ceramics industry processes learned at time to use in his award-winning designs and production of ceramic and bronze windbells. For more than 40 years, proceeds from sales of the wind-bells have provided funds for construction to test his theoretical work, ceramic and bronze bells are still produced and sold at Arcosanti and Cosanti in Arizona. In 1956 he settled in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Colly and he built Arcosanti with the help of generations of architectural students, as a community and place to test urban design theories. This urban laboratory became internationally renowned, Paolo and Colly Soleri made a lifelong commitment to research and experimentation in urban planning. They established the Cosanti Foundation, an educational foundation. Soleris philosophy and works were influenced by the Jesuit paleontologist. Soleri died on 9 April 2013 and was buried at Arcosanti, the Cosanti Foundations major project is Arcosanti, a community planned for 5,000 people, designed by Soleri, Arcosanti has been in construction since 1970. Arcosanti is a prototype of a desert arcology, Soleris other arcology designs envisioned sites such as the ocean, et al. Since 1970, well over 6000 people have participated in Arcosantis construction and their international affiliation group is called the Arcosanti Alumni Network. As of 2010, construction is underway to complete Arcosantis Greenhouse Apron, the International Architecture Symposium Mensch und Raum at the Vienna University of Technology in 1984 received international attention. Paolo Soleri participated with, among others, Justus Dahinden, Dennis Sharp, Bruno Zevi, Jorge Glusberg, Otto Kapfinger, Frei Otto, Pierre Vago, Soleri was a distinguished lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a member of the Lindisfarne Association. In 1966, Paolo Soleri began working on the design for the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe and it was built for the IAIA on what is now the campus of the Santa Fe Indian School using large silt cast forms
8.
Environmental impact
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Environmental issues are harmful effects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment on individual, organizational or governmental levels. Environmentalism, a social and environmental movement, addresses environmental issues through advocacy, education, the carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has already exceeded 400 parts per million. This level is considered a tipping point, the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change. We are already at risk of many areas of pollution. Its not next year or next decade, its now. Report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Environment destruction caused by humans is a problem. By year 2050, the human population is expected to grow by 2 billion people. The human effects on Earth can be seen in different ways. A main one is the rise, and according to the report ”Our Changing Climate”. Since 1895, the U. S. average temperature has increased from 1.3 °F to 1.9 °F, major current environmental issues may include climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource depletion etc. The conservation movement lobbies for protection of endangered species and protection of any ecologically valuable areas, genetically modified foods. The level of understanding of Earth has increased markebly in recent times through science especially with the application of the scientific method, environmental science is now a multi-disciplinary academic study taught and researched at many universities. This is used as a basis for addressing environmental issues, large amounts of data have been gathered and these are collated into reports, of which a common type is the State of the Environment publications. Environmental issues are addressed at a regional, national or international level by government organizations, the largest international agency, set up in 1972, is the United Nations Environment Programme. International non-governmental organizations include Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and World Wide Fund for Nature, governments enact environmental policy and enforce environmental law and this is done to differing degrees around the world. Sustainability is the key to prevent or reduce the effect of environmental issues, for humans to live sustainably, the Earths natural resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. Concerns for the environment have prompted the formation of green parties, initially these were formed in Australia, New Zealand and Germany but are now present in many other countries. There are a number of films being produced on environmental issues, especially on climate change
9.
Science fiction
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Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
10.
Peter F. Hamilton
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Peter F. Hamilton is a British author. He is best known for writing space opera, as of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide. Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland, England on 2 March 1960 and he said in an interview, I did science at school up to age eighteen, I stopped doing English, English literature, writing at sixteen, I just wasnt interested in those days. After he started writing in 1987 he sold his first short story to Fear Magazine in 1988 and his first novel, Mindstar Rising, was published in 1993, followed by A Quantum Murder and The Nano Flower. After this he wrote a space opera, called The Nights Dawn Trilogy. As of 2008 he still lives in Rutland, near Rutland Water, with his wife Kate, daughter Sophie and he is currently working on a new trilogy of books set in a new universe collectively titled Salvation. Official website The Unisphere | A Peter F. Hamilton Fan Site Peter F. Hamilton at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
