A capstan is a vertical-axled rotating machine developed for use on sailing ships to multiply the pulling force of seamen when hauling ropes and hawsers. The principle is similar to that of the windlass; the word, connected with the Old French capestan or cabestan, from Old Provençal cabestan, from capestre "pulley cord," from Latin capistrum, -a halter, from capere, to take hold of, seems to have come into English from Portuguese or Spanish shipmen at the time of the Crusades. Both device and word are considered Spanish inventions. In its earliest form, the capstan consisted of a timber mounted vertically through a vessel's structure, free to rotate. Levers, known as bars, were inserted through holes at the top of the timber and used to turn the capstan. A rope wrapped. A rudimentary ratchet was provided to hold the tension; the ropes were always wound in a clockwise direction. Capstans evolved to consist of a wooden barrel mounted on an iron axle. Two barrels on a common axle were used to allow men on two decks to apply force to the bars.

Capstans were made of iron, with gearing in the head providing a mechanical advantage when the bars were pushed counterclockwise. One form of capstan was connected by gears to an anchor windlass on the deck below. On riverine vessels, the capstan was sometimes cranked by steam power; as ships and their anchors grew in size, the anchor cable or chain would be too big to go around the capstan. A wet cable or chain would be difficult to manage. A messenger would be used as an intermediate device; this was a continuous loop of chain which would go around the capstan. The main anchor cable or chain would be attached to the messenger for hauling using some temporary connection such as ropes called nippers; these would be attached and detached as the anchor was weighed and, by doing this adroitly, a continuous hoist could be done, without any need for stopping or surging. Modern capstans are powered electrically, pneumatically, or via an internal combustion engine. A gearbox is used which trades reduced speed, relative to the prime mover, for increased torque.

In yachting terminology, a winch functions on the same principle as a capstan. However, in industrial applications, the term "winch" implies a machine which stores the rope on a drum. Hydraulically powered capstans were sometimes used in railway goods yards for shunting, or shifting railcars short distances. One example was Broad Street goods station in London; the yard was on a deck above some warehouses, the deck was not strong enough to carry a locomotive, so ropes and capstans were used instead. Capstan equation EtymologyOnLine

Dirty Martini is a New York City-based Burlesque dancer, pin-up model and dance teacher. She is best known for her over-the-top performance acts, which incorporate various classic burlesque styles such as the fan dance, balloon strip tease, the Dance of Several Veils, shadow stripping, as well as her 50s styled pin-up images. Martini performs in New York City and extensively throughout North America and Europe in a wide range of venues from Carnegie Hall to weekly burlesque venues to gay leather bars, she was crowned Miss Exotic World 2004. Dirty Martini, born to an opera singer/visual artist mother and a band director father, had grown up in New Jersey, she studied dance. Martini honed her choreography skills when she attended SUNY-Purchase, where she graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance. Martini moved to New York City and started out working in collaborative theater and modern dance groups, she viewed some old burlesque reels when she was searching for a style, conducive to performing solo and showcasing her voluptuous figure.

Martini started with performing a fan dancing act. In May 2001, Martini performed in the first new burlesque convention, "Tease-o-rama", in New Orleans; that year, at the Miss Exotic World 2001, she won the Sally Rand Award for Fan Dance. She was the first runner-up at Miss Exotic World 2003 and was awarded the main title as well as the Jennie Lee award for tassel twirling at Miss Exotic World in 2004. Martini has worked with comedian and drag king personality, Murray Hill, playwright/performer Taylor Mac in Red Tide Blooming, follow burlesque performer Julie Atlas Muz, Penny Arcade in Bad Reputation and New York Values, she performed in Margaret Cho's 2007 burlesque-style variety show, The Sensuous Woman. Martini has appeared on the AMC TV series, "Into Character", in the 2004 documentary The Velvet Hammer Burlesque, in John Cameron Mitchell's 2006 film Shortbus, in Mitchell's video for "Filthy/Gorgeous" by the Scissor Sisters, she has been the featured subject in two documentaries. One is the 2009 short film Dirty Martini by Iban Del Campo, which won the best documentary film award at the 2010 FreeNetWorld International Film Fest held in Serbia.

The other is the 2010 feature length Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque by Gary Beeber, about Martini and her colleagues in the Neo-Burlesque scene. Martini appears in the Burlesque Undressed documentary with Immodesty Blaize, Catherine D'lish, Satan's Angel, Michelle L'amour, in Exotic World & the Burlesque Revival, which focuses on the history of Dixie Evans' Burlesque Hall of Fame Museum. Martini along with burlesque performers Mimi Le Meaux, Kitten on the Keys, Julie Atlas Muz, Evie Lovelle and Roky Roulette were featured in Mathieu Amalric's 2010 Cannes-award winning film, Tournee. A drawing of her is used for the film's poster. Martini has been featured in the books, "Striptease, from Gaslight to Spotlight" by Jessica Glasscock, "Burlesque, The New Bump and Grind" by Michelle Baldwin and Katherina Bosse's "New Burlesque". For the Spring 2010 edition of V Magazine, she was featured in a fashion spread shot by Karl Lagerfeld at the House of Chanel. Dirty Martini's Official Website Dirty Martini on IMDb Dirty Martini on MySpace Dirty Martini profile on Jac Bowie's website

Elbridge Trask known as Eldridge Trask was an American fur trapper and mountain man in the Oregon Country. Immortalized by a series of modern historical novels by Don Berry, he is best known as an early white settler along Tillamook Bay on the coast of the U. S. state of Oregon. The Trask River and Trask Mountain along the Northern Oregon Coast Range are named after him. Elbridge Trask was born on July 1815 in Beverly, Massachusetts, he was the son of Bethiah Trask. In 1835, Elbridge Trask joined the employ of the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company of Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. In December he arrived at Fort Hall in present-day Idaho and joined his first trapping expedition with experienced mountain men the following December. Much of what is known about this portion of his life comes from the journals of his traveling companion Osborne Russell. In January 1838 he camped at Jackson Hole with Jim Bridger and spent the next year acquiring a large number of beaver pelts in the Yellowstone area.

In August 1839, he became separated from his party, which waited for him for several days until threat of an attack from the Blackfoot forced his party to return to Fort Hall. The following month he returned to Fort Hall by himself unharmed. On August 22, 1842, while in the Snake River valley, he and Osborne Russell joined a wagon train led by the missionary Dr Elijah White headed the Willamette Valley. While serving as a guide for the wagon train, Elbridge Trask met Hannah Able, a young widow from Indiana with a baby daughter traveling with the William T. Perry wagon. On arriving at Willamette Falls at present-day Oregon City, the two were married on October 20, 1842. Elbridge Trask and his wife Hannah set up a homestead in Clatsop Plains near Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1852, they left the Clatsop Plains to settle near Tillamook Bay south along the coast, they were the first white family to settle in the bay, establishing a homestead along the Trask River, named for him. Trask Mountain 3,412 feet in the Northern Oregon Coast Range is named after him.

As conflict between the white colonizers and the natives of the Tillamook region grew, Trask met with the last free leaders of the Tillamook people, Chief Kilchis and Chief Illga, to negotiate a peace agreement, but conflicts continued intermittently. Elbridge Trask died on June 23, 1863 near Tillamook in Oregon, he was buried on his own property. Elbridge Trask is further survived by a number of his great-grandchildren, including Jaycee Miller and Leif Schueler. In 1960 Elbridge Trask was popularized in the historical novel Trask by Don Berry; the novel, as well as its two sequels, are collectively known as the "Trask novels." "Elbridge Trask". The Oregon Encyclopedia. Elbridge Trask at Find a Grave

Gmina Gródek is a rural gmina in Białystok County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, on the border with Belarus. Its seat is the village of Gródek, which lies 33 kilometres east of the regional capital Białystok; the gmina covers an area of 430.6 square kilometres, as of 2006 its total population is 5,740. The gmina contains part of the protected area called Knyszyń Forest Landscape Park. Gmina Gródek contains the villages and settlements of Bagno, Bobrowniki, Chomontowce, Dzierniakowo, Gobiaty, Gródek, Gródek-Kolonia, Jakubin, Jaryłówka, Józefowo, Kołodno, Kozi Las, Królowe Stojło, Królowy Most, Kuberka, Łużany, Mieleszki-Kolonia, Narejki, Nowosiółki, Pałatki, Pieszczaniki, Piłatowszczyzna, Podzałuki, Radunin, Skroblaki, Słuczanka, Straszewo, Stryjenszczyzna, Świsłoczany, Waliły, Waliły-Dwór, Waliły-Stacja, Wierobie, Wyżary, Załuki, Zasady, Zielona and Zubry. Gmina Gródek is bordered by the gminas of Michałowo, Supraśl, Szudziałowo and Zabłudów, it borders Belarus. Kastuś Kalinoŭski - a writer, lawyer, one of the leaders of Belarusian and Lithuanian national revival.

Aliaksei Karpiuk - Belarusian writer and public activist. Leon Tarasewicz - Polish artist of Belarusian origin Basovišča – the festival of Belarusian alternative and rock music, annually conducted by Belarusian Association of Students since 1990. Polish official population figures 2006

Adventure is a 1945 American romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Clark Gable and Greer Garson. Based on the 1937 novel The Anointed by Clyde Brion Davis, the film is about a sailor who falls in love with a librarian. Adventure was Gable's first postwar film and the tagline repeated in the movie's famous trailer was "Gable's back and Garson's got him!" Gable had suggested "He put the arson in Garson," while Garson proposed "She put the able in Gable." When his ship is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, Harry Patterson, a World War II merchant marine boatswain, is cast adrift on a launch with a few of his shipmates. While Harry remains calm in the face of disaster, his friend Mudgin prays promising to avoid women and fighting and to donate money to the church if they are saved. Harry finds Mudgin's pleas ridiculous, but no sooner does Mudgin complete his pact with God than a rescue plane appears on the horizon and the men are saved, they are deposited in San Francisco where they engage in "R&R" care, grooming and fun to celebrate their rescue.

Mudgin breaks all his promises to God soon after and becomes depressed, certain that he has "lost his immortal soul." Mudgin's shipmates laugh off his concerns, but Harry realizes that Mudgin is wracked with guilt and they take a walk, arriving at the city library, because Mudgin and Harry think there may be some helpful information on the subject of the human soul there. Here and Mudgin meet the attractive, strait-laced librarian Emily Sears. Although intrigued by Emily, Harry angers her with his wiseguy remarks and inappropriate behavior; however his attention turns swiftly to her outgoing roommate, Helen Melohn, who has stopped in to walk her home. Harry and Helen decide to convince a reluctant Emily to join them. At the restaurant, Emily stuns Harry when she joins a bar fight. Astounded, Harry decides to pursue Emily's affections and arranges to meet the two women the following day to visit Emily's farm outside the city. Charmed by Emily and her family farmhouse which includes the big bed in which she was born and Emily soon fall in love and get married in Reno in a wild expression of love of life.

However, upon their return to her farm, he tells Emily that he will be shipping out in a few days, which comes as a shock to Emily, who promptly asks for a divorce, insisting that she is just being a free spirit and giving Harry his freedom, as the best expression of love. Harry sails away, Emily and pals go back to Reno for the quick divorce, but in Reno, with "the girls", Emily faints - the doctor called declares that she is pregnant with Harry's child. While docked in a South American port city, Mudgin falls off the ship and claims, before dying in Harry's arms, that his soul has been returned to him. A wise elderly gentleman, a friend, gives Harry a good talking to when Harry complains about his relationship with Emily. Nine months after his departure, now ready to commit to love and marriage, Harry comes back to San Francisco and finds out from Helen that Emily has long since given up on him and went to her farm to give birth to his child - insisting the baby born in the same bed she was.

Harry follows and arrives just as Emily goes into labor, so the meeting and reunion are brief - there is just time to give Emily reason to hope in improvements in Harry's character. Waiting, Harry paces outdoors with Emily upstairs in labor, until Helen calls him in saying that Emily is fine and that he has a little boy, but there is trouble. Harry races upstairs to the room across the bedroom set up to see to the baby; the child is stillborn, in spite of the efforts of Doctor and aide and Harry positions himself at the Doctor's side and won't be moved. The Doctor gives up trying to get the baby to breathe, sadly turning away, but Harry moves in and crying, calls to the baby to breathe, breathe - for him, for his Mother - whatever - but breathe, and we have the miracle as the little chest rises and the child's triumphant howl is astoundingly heard. In the hall, happy tearful Helen hugs Harry as he races back across to Emily's side, thrilled to hear their baby, but she says she is just as moved to have heard Harry and his passion to save the child - honest caring sentiment.

They decide to call the baby Mudgin, after their lost friend, the film closes as Harry and Emily share a tender kiss, with baby's joyful cries in the background. Clark Gable as Harry Patterson Greer Garson as Emily Sears Joan Blondell as Helen Melohn Thomas Mitchell as Mudgin Tom Tully as Gus John Qualen as Model T Richard Haydn as Limo Lina Romay as Maria Philip Merivale as "Old" Ramon Estado Harry Davenport as Dr. Ashlon Tito Renaldo as "Young" Ramon Estado Pierre Watkin as Mr. Buckley Betty Blythe as Mrs. Buckley According to MGM records the film earned $4,236,000 in the US and Canada and $1,848,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $478,000. Adventure at the American Film Institute Catalog Adventure on IMDb Adventure at the TCM Movie Database Adventure at AllMovie

Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, woodchips, recycled food waste, etc. Bioplastic can be made from agricultural by-products and from used plastic bottles and other containers using microorganisms. Common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics are derived from natural gas. Not all bioplastics are biodegradable nor biodegrade more than commodity fossil-fuel derived plastics. Bioplastics are derived from sugar derivatives, including starch and lactic acid; as of 2014, bioplastics represented 0.2% of the global polymer market. Bioplastics are used for disposable items, such as packaging, cutlery, pots and straws. Few commercial applications exist for bioplastics. In principle they could replace many applications for petroleum-derived plastics, however cost and performance remain problematic; as a matter of fact, their usage is financially favourable only if supported by specific regulations limiting the usage of conventional plastics.

Typical is the example of Italy, where biodegradable plastic bags and shoppers are compulsory since 2011 with the introduction of a specific law. Beyond structural materials, electroactive bioplastics are being developed that promise to be used to carry electric current. Biopolymers are available as coatings for paper rather than the more common petrochemical coatings. Thermoplastic starch represents the most used bioplastic, constituting about 50 percent of the bioplastics market. Simple starch bioplastic can be made at home. Pure starch is able to absorb humidity, is thus a suitable material for the production of drug capsules by the pharmaceutical sector. Flexibiliser and plasticiser such as sorbitol and glycerine can be added so the starch can be processed thermo-plastically; the characteristics of the resulting bioplastic can be tailored to specific needs by adjusting the amounts of these additives. Starch-based bioplastics are blended with biodegradable polyesters to produce starch/polylactic acid, starch/polycaprolactone or starch/Ecoflex.

Blends. These blends are used for industrial applications and are compostable. Other producers, such as Roquette, have developed other starch/polyolefin blends; these blends are not biodegradable, but have a lower carbon footprint than petroleum-based plastics used for the same applications. Due to the origin of its raw material, starch is cheap and renewable. Starch based plastics are complex blends of starch with compostable plastics such as Polylactic acid, Polybutylene Adipate Terephthalate, Polybutylene Succinate and Polyhydroxyalkanoates; these complex blends improve water resistance as well as processing and mechanical properties. Starch-based films are made from starch blended with thermoplastic polyesters to form biodegradable and compostable products; these films are seen in consumer goods packaging of magazine wrappings and bubble films. In food packaging, these films are seen as fruit and vegetable bags. Composting bags with this films are used in selective collecting of organic waste.

Further, a new starch-based film was developed by Agricultural Research Service scientists can be used as a paper. Cellulose bioplastics are the cellulose esters, their derivatives, including celluloid. Cellulose can become thermoplastic. An example of this is cellulose acetate, expensive and therefore used for packaging. However, cellulosic fibers added to starches can improve mechanical properties, permeability to gas, water resistance due to being less hydrophilic than starch. A group at Shanghai University was able to construct a novel green plastic based on cellulose through a method called hot pressing. Bioplastics can be made from proteins from different sources. For example, wheat gluten and casein show promising properties as a raw material for different biodegradable polymers. Additionally, soy protein is being considered as another source of bioplastic. Soy proteins have been used in plastic production for over one hundred years. For example, body panels of an original Ford automobile were made of soy-based plastic.

There are difficulties with using soy protein-based plastics due to their water sensitivity and high cost. Therefore, producing blends of soy protein with some already-available biodegradable polyesters improves the water sensitivity and cost; the aliphatic biopolyesters are polyhydroxyalkanoates like the poly-3-hydroxybutyrate, polyhydroxyvalerate and polyhydroxyhexanoate. Polylactic acid is a transparent plastic produced from dextrose. Superficially, it is similar to conventional petrochemical-based mass plastics like PS, it has the distinct advantage of degrading to nontoxic products. It exhibits inferior impact strength, thermal robustness, barrier properties. PLA and PLA blends come in the form of granulates with various properties, are used in the plastic processing industry for the production of films, plastic containers and bottles. PLA is the most common type of plastic filament used for home fused deposition modeling; the biopolymer poly-3-hydroxybutyrate is a polyester produced by certain bacteria processing glucose, corn starch or wastewater.

Its characteristics are similar to those of the petroplastic polypropylene. PHB production is increasing; the South American