Micromégas is a 1752 novella by the French philosopher and satirist Voltaire. Along with his story "Plato's Dream", it is an early example in the literary genre of science fiction, is a significant development in the history of literature; the tale recounts the visit to Earth of a being from a planet circling the star Sirius, of his companion from the planet Saturn. The technique of using an outsider to comment on aspects of Western culture was popular in this period. Montesquieu, applied it in Persian Letters, as did José Cadalso in Cartas marruecas and Tomás Antônio Gonzaga in Cartas Chilenas; the story is organized into seven brief chapters. The first describes an inhabitant of one of the planets that orbits Sirius, his home world is 21.6 million times greater in circumference than Earth. Micromégas stands 120,000 feet tall; when he is 450 years old, approaching the end of his infancy, Micromégas writes a scientific book examining the insects on his planet, which at 100 feet are too small to be detected by ordinary microscopes.

This book is considered heresy, after a 200-year trial, he is banished from the court for a term of 800 years. Micromégas takes this as an incentive to travel around the Universe in a quest to develop his intellect and his spirit. After extensive celestial travels he arrives on Saturn, where he befriends the secretary of the Academy of Saturn, a man less than a twentieth of his size, they discuss the differences between their planets. The Saturnian has 72 senses while the Sirian has 1,000; the Saturnian lives for 15,000 Earth years. At the end of their conversation, they decide to take a philosophical journey together, they arrive on Earth and circumnavigate it in 36 hours, with the Saturnian only getting his lower legs wet in the deepest ocean and the Sirian wetting his ankles. They decide that the planet must be devoid of life, since it is too small for them to see with the naked eye. In the Baltic Sea, the Saturnian happens to spot a tiny speck swimming about, he picks it up to discover that it is a whale.

As they examine it, a boatful of philosophers returning from an Arctic voyage happens to run aground nearby. The space travellers examine the boat and, upon discovering the lifeforms inside it, they conclude that the tiny beings are too small to be of any intelligence or spirit, yet they realize the beings are speaking to each other, they devise a hearing tube with the clippings of their fingernails in order to hear the tiny voices. After listening for a while, they learn the human language and begin a conversation, wherein they are shocked to discover the breadth of the human intellect; the final chapter sees the humans testing the philosophies of Aristotle, Malebranche and Locke against the travellers' wisdom. When the travellers hear the theory of Aquinas that the universe was made uniquely for mankind, they fall into an enormous fit of laughter. Taking pity on the humans, the Sirian decides to write them a book that will explain the point of everything to them; when the volume is presented to the French Academy of Sciences, the secretary opens the book only to find blank pages.

Gutenberg Project Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas Gutenberg Project Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas An English translation of Micromegas Analysis, Plot overview Micromégas, audio version Le Micromégas De M. de Voltaire, A Londres. Micromegas public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Horse Rock Ridge is a ridgetop located on the western edge of the Cascade Range near Crawfordsville, Oregon. The site is recognized for its considerable diversity of plant species that includes both Willamette Valley plants as well as plants more found in the mountain zone of the Cascade Range. There are several plant species more found east of the Cascade Range; the Horse Rock Ridge Research Natural Area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It is designated by the BLM as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. Elevations within the RNA vary from 1,550 feet to 2,864 feet. A hiking trail on Horse Rock Ridge includes views of the Three Sisters, Mount Jefferson and other Cascade peaks. "Horse Rock". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey

James Alfred Caine, known as "Jim the Jazz," was a Manx jazz pianist, radio presenter and raconteur whose career, in various parts, spanned over 70 years. The eldest of four sons, Jim Caine was raised in Douglas, Isle of Man, he was educated at Douglas High School and Sheffield University, although he left prior to graduation. After leaving university he took a position in the family-run business, an established drapery of which he was to become a director. Jim Caine married Edna Heaps on Thursday 28 September 1950, the wedding ceremony taking place at St George's Church, with his brother Allan officiating as best man. Caine's career as a musician saw him appear as a support pianist in various reviews and performances. In 1946 he joined a group formed by Hugh Gibb, father of Barry, Robin and Andy Gibb, which played at the Douglas Bay and Alexandra hotels. In addition to Caine, the line-up consisted of Hugh Gibb, Arthur Crawford, Tommy Cowley, Albert Metcalfe and John Knight. During the early 1950s, Caine formed part of the minstrel troupe appearing as Ebony in support of the Mississippi Minstrels at the Gaiety Theatre.

He appeared in support of the Conister Quartette and as member of Harold Moorhouse and his Augmented Old Time Orchestra, featuring in a charity concert in order to raise money for victims of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Recalling his father, his son Howard claimed he developed his playing style from Carroll Gibbons, including adopting medleys where he would fuse two or three tunes together reminiscent of the style of Gibbons. Caine went on to form the Jim Caine Trio, it was their appearances at the Arragon which enabled the trio to establish their reputation and from where a New Year's Eve outside broadcast was transmitted, one of the first in the history of Manx Radio. Under the ownership of the former World Motorcycle Champion Geoff Duke, the Arragon Hotel was at the time considered to be one of the finest venues on the Isle of Man. Arriving with his wife one Saturday night in 1963, Caine was informed by Pat Duke that the band, booked to provide music at a wedding reception had failed to turn up, it was asked of Caine if he could oblige by providing entertainment for the wedding party.

Luckily the Ballroom happened to have a fine grand piano. The appearances of the Jim Caine Trio at the Arragon Hotel led to the release of Saturday Night at the Arragon, a compilation in the form of a compact disc featuring reel-to-reel recordings from the years 1963–1968, which in turn raised over £1,000 for Isle of Man charities. Certain extracts from the Saturday Night at the Arragon compilations featured during the Autumn series of Sweet & Swing in 2018. Jim Caine was the secretary of the Manx Jazz Club for more than 30 years. Caine was a regular presenter of a range of programmes on Manx Radio, his appearances began in the 1960s and consisted of him playing a varied repertoire as well as requests from listeners on his piano at his home. Other programmes which he devised included Music Miscellany, a programme featuring light classical music, Jim's Jazz Hour which in turn evolved into Sweet & Swing, he continued to present well into his 80s, joined in a co-presentation of Sweet & Swing by his son Howard.

Latterly this would take the form of recollections conducted by interview at his home, until he retired from broadcasting in 2016. Referred to as "The Maestro" due to his encyclopedic knowledge of the artists and bands of the Swing and Big Band eras, Caine's presentational style was relaxed and light-hearted, on occasion he would recall various meetings with band leaders and solo artists, including Joe Loss, Ivy Benson, Bud Freeman and Humphrey Lyttleton. Jim Caine passed away at Noble's Hospital on Wednesday, 11 April 2018, his body was cremated at a private ceremony, following which there was a Service of Celebration of his life at St Peter's Church, Isle of Man. Sweet & Swing Jumpin' In Hugh Gibb

The Confederation of Tamil Nadu Malayalee Associations, abbreviated CTMA, was formed on 12 November 1989 to bring all registered organisations of Malayalis in Tamil Nadu under a single roof so that a collective entity could be formed. The purpose of the organisation is to work out solutions to problems faced by Malayalis and to project and popularize the cultural and social identity of their native flavours in a different geographical area. CTMA is a conglomerate comprising over 100 Malayali associations across Tamil Nadu, it is involved in social activism, social support mediation and interventions on behalf of Malayalis, educational support services, advisory and counselling services to the needy and the poor irrespective of their religious affinities or their economic/social status and look after the interests of the members as to interact and culturally with the local population. CTMA appealed for the Government of Tamil Nadu government to declare Onam as a public holiday and was successful: it is now declared as a public holiday in four districts of the state.

World Malayalee Council

A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following the invention of the transistor, the first commercial transistor radio was released in 1954; the mass-market success of the smaller and cheaper Sony TR-63, released in 1957, led to the transistor radio becoming the most popular electronic communication device of the 1960s and 1970s. Transistor radios are still used as car radios. Billions of transistor radios are estimated to have been sold worldwide between the 1950s and 2012; the pocket size of transistor radios sparked a change in popular music listening habits, allowing people to listen to music anywhere they went. Beginning in the 1980s, cheap AM transistor radios were superseded by devices with higher audio quality such as portable CD players, personal audio players and smartphones, some of which contain radios themselves. Before the transistor was invented, radios used vacuum tubes. Although portable vacuum tube radios were produced, they were bulky and heavy.

The need for a low voltage high current source to power the filaments of the tubes and high voltage for the anode potential required two batteries. Vacuum tubes were inefficient and fragile compared to transistors, had a limited lifetime. Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first transistor on December 23, 1947; the scientific team at Bell Laboratories responsible for the solid-state amplifier included William Shockley, Walter Houser Brattain, John Bardeen. After obtaining patent protection, the company held a news conference on June 30, 1948, at which a prototype transistor radio was demonstrated. There are many claimants to the title of the first company to produce practical transistor radios incorrectly attributed to Sony. Texas Instruments had demonstrated all-transistor AM radios as early as May 25, 1954, but their performance was well below that of equivalent vacuum tube models. A workable all-transistor radio was demonstrated in August 1953 at the Düsseldorf Radio Fair by the German firm Intermetall.

It was built with four of Intermetall's hand-made transistors, based upon the 1948 invention of the "Transistron"-germanium point-contact transistor by Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker. However, as with the early Texas Instruments units only prototypes were built. RCA had demonstrated a prototype transistor radio as early as 1952, it is that they and the other radio makers were planning transistor radios of their own, but Texas Instruments and Regency Division of I. D. E. A. Were the first to offer a production model starting in October 1954; the use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes as the amplifier elements meant that the device was much smaller, required far less power to operate than a tube radio, was more shock-resistant. Since the transistor base draws current, its input impedance is low in contrast to the high input impedance of the vacuum tubes, it allowed "instant-on" operation, since there were no filaments to heat up. The typical portable tube radio of the fifties was about the size and weight of a lunchbox, contained several heavy, non-rechargeable batteries— one or more so-called "A" batteries to heat the tube filaments and a large 45- to 90-volt "B" battery to power the signal circuits.

By comparison, the transistor radio could fit in a pocket and weighed half a pound or less, was powered by standard flashlight batteries or a single compact 9-volt battery. The now-familiar 9-volt battery was introduced for powering transistor radios. Listeners sometimes held an entire transistor radio directly against the side of the head, with the speaker against the ear, to minimize the "tinny" sound caused by the high resonant frequency of its small speaker. Most radios included earphone jacks and came with single earphones that provided only mediocre-quality sound reproduction. To consumers familiar with the earphone-listening experience of the transistor radio, the first Sony Walkman cassette player, with a pair of high-fidelity stereo earphones, would provide a contrasting display of audio fidelity. Two companies working together, Texas Instruments of Dallas and Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, were behind the unveiling of the Regency TR-1, the world's first commercially produced transistor radio.

Texas Instruments was producing instrumentation for the oil industry and locating devices for the U. S. Navy and I. D. E. A. Built home television antenna boosters; the two companies worked together on the TR-1, looking to grow revenues for their respective companies by breaking into this new product area. In May 1954, Texas Instruments had designed and built a prototype and was looking for an established radio manufacturer to develop and market a radio using their transistors. None of the major radio makers including RCA, Emerson were interested; the President of I. D. E. A. at the time, Ed Tudor, jumped at the opportunity to manufacture the TR-1, predicting sales of the transistor radios at "20 million radios in three years". The Regency TR-1 was announced on October 18, 1954 by the Regency Division of I. D. E. A. was put on sale in November 1954, was the first practical transistor radio made in any significant numbers. Billboard reported in 1954. One acts as a combination mixer-oscillator, one as an

The 2005–06 Detroit Pistons season was the 65th season of the franchise, the 58th in the National Basketball Association, the 49th in the Detroit area. They Pistons began the season hoping to improve upon their 54–28 output from the previous season and have another chance of going to the NBA Finals after losing to the San Antonio Spurs in last season's NBA Finals in seven games, they bested it by ten games, finishing 64–18—their best record in franchise history—and qualifying for the playoffs for the fifth straight season. The Pistons defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in five games in the first round, the Cleveland Cavaliers in a tough, hard-fought seven-game series to reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the fourth consecutive year before losing to the eventual NBA champions Miami Heat, whom they had beaten in a seven-game playoff series the year before. Detroit's offseason was soon marked by the departure of star defensive player Ben Wallace, who signed a free-agent deal with the Chicago Bulls.

For the season, the Pistons had a new logo, though they kept the uniforms, the horse logo was replaced by the letter'P' on the left side of the shorts. Ben Wallace won his fourth and final Defensive Player of the Year award and he along with Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups were selected as reserves for the 2006 NBA All-Star Game. Detroit Pistons vs. Milwaukee Bucks Last Playoffs meeting: 2004 Eastern Conference First Round Detroit Pistons vs. Cleveland Cavaliers Last Playoffs meeting: This is the first meeting between the Pistons and Cavaliers. Detroit Pistons vs. Miami Heat Last Playoffs meeting: 2005 Eastern Conference Finals Ben Wallace, NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award Ben Wallace, All-NBA Second Team Chauncey Billups, All-NBA Second Team Ben Wallace, NBA All-Defensive First Team Chauncey Billups, NBA All-Defensive Second Team Tayshaun Prince, NBA All-Defensive Second Team Ben Wallace, Allstar reserve Chauncey Billups, Allstar reserve Richard Hamilton, Allstar reserve Rasheed Wallace, Allstar reserve