Alvar Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Helsinki from 1916 to 1921. He returned to Jyväskylä, where he opened his first architectural office in 1923. Alvar Aalto died in May 11, 1976, in Helsinki.
Crook of Devon
The Crook of Devon is a Perthshire village about 6 miles south west of Kinross on the A977. It was famous in the 17th century for its witch burnings. Down the road at the side of the Institute (Village Hall) on the right hand side is a field called Lamblaires and in the north west corner is the place where the witches were strangled and then burned at the stake.
Opéra-comique
Opéra comique is a French opera tradition. Many French operas from the early 18th century to the early 20th century are opéras comiques. In this French tradition there is spoken dialogue as well as songs and dances. It developed from the popular vaudevilles.
In Paris there is a theatre called the Opéra-Comique where these operas were performed. Although “opéra comique” means “comic opera” it is not necessarily comedy. Bizet’s opera "Carmen" is probably the most famous opéra comique, and it is a tragedy. By the late 19th century the opéra-comique usually had no spoken dialogue. There was music all the way through (as there is in "Carmen").
Vaudeville
A Vaudeville was a French satirical poem or song in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was used a lot in French theatre where entertainments using such songs were called "comédie en vaudeville". Late in the 19th century, a type of variety show done in American theaters came to be called "vaudeville" which was popular from the early 1880s to the early 1930s. The typical American vaudeville performance was made up of a several different, unrelated performances which were grouped together into a single show. Entertainers typically traveled from town to town as arranged by a "vaudeville circuit". It became less popular after the rise of movies, cinema, and radio, which eventually took over as the main forms of public entertainment.
The earliest vaudeville was the "vau de vire", a Norman song of the 15th century, named after the valley of Vire. During the 16th century a style grew in the towns in France called the "voix de ville" ( "city voices"), whose name may have been a pun on "vau de vire". These were also satirical. The two styles came together and in the 17th and 18th century. The term 'vaudeville' came to be used for songs satirizing political and court events.
The comédie en vaudeville grew from the tradition of these simple songs. The Paris audiences in the late 17th and early 18th century enjoyed hearing the familiar vaudeville tunes to new words. These comedies then grew into opéra-comique.
Capelle aan den IJssel
Poppy
A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Paperveroideae.
The name is used especially for the bright red flowers which are common in this group. They are symbolic, and used to remember the Armistice Day of World War I, now known as Remembrance Day. Now it is celebrated in the Commonwealth for those who died in all wars.
Some types can be grown and used to make the drug opium. Ancient Egyptian doctors had their patients eat seeds from a poppy to relieve pain. Poppy seeds contain small quantities of both morphine and codeine. These are pain-relieving drugs that are still used today. The morphine practically disappears from the seeds twenty days after the flower has opened, so from then on poppy seeds and their oils are not narcotic.
There are a number of showy flowers, typically one per stem, in to the poppy family. They include a number of attractive wildflower species with showy flowers growing singularly or in large groups. Many species are grown in gardens. These include large plants used in a mixed herbaceous border and small plants that are grown in rock or alpine gardens.
The flower color of poppy species include: white, pink, yellow, orange, red and blue. Some have dark center markings. The cultivated species include many other colors ranging from dark solid colors to soft pastel shades. Before blooming, the petals are crumpled in bud, and as blooming finishes, the petals often lie flat before falling away.
The pollen of the oriental poppy, "Papaver orientale", is dark blue. The pollen of the field poppy or corn poppy ("Papaver rhoeas") is dark blue to grey. Bees use poppies for their pollen.
The opium poppy, "Papaver somniferum", is grown for opium, opiates or seeds to be used in cooking and baking.
Time signature
A time signature is a set of two numbers, one on top of the other one, written right after the key signature in a piece of music. The two numbers in a time signature tell you how many of one kind of note there are in each measure in the song. For example, formula_1 means that there are four beats in each measure and the quarter note gets one beat.
The number in the top of the time signature tells a player how many of a certain kind of note there are in each measure. The number in the bottom of the time signature tells what kind of note is used a certain number of times in each measure. The number on the bottom of the time signature can be any exponent of 2. So, 64 could be a number that is put in the bottom of the time signature, but 65 could not be one.
This table shows different numbers that could be the bottom of a time signature, and what they mean. Note that each note down lasts for one-half of the amount the note above it lasted. For example, one quarter note lasts one beat, and one-half note lasts one half of a beat, because one divided by two is one-half.
Really Simple Syndication
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish often updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites without having to check them manually. This flow of content between websites and users is called "web syndication".
RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader," "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that begins the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds often for new content, downloading any updates that it finds. This content is stored in an standard XML file that many different computers and programs can understand. This file tells the programs how to show the content to the user.
The letters "RSS" are used to refer to any of these formats:
RSS is used also on exchanges. An example of using RSS, is Carbon Place, which uses it to show orders to the public.
There were other similar formats before RSS that were not as popular. The first one was the Meta Content Framework made in 1995 by Ramanathan V. Guha and others at Apple Computers.
The first version of RSS was called RDF Site Summary. It was made by Dan Libby and Ramanathan V. Guha at Netscape and made public in March 1999. This became RSS 0.9. In July 1999, RSS 0.91 was created by Dan Libby, which got rid of some features that weren't useful. It also added elements from Dave Winer's news syndication format. Libby renamed the format from RDF to RSS Rich Site Summary and planned how it should be made better in the future.
In 2001, the company was restructured by their owner, AOL, and no longer supported RSS. After that, the format was being developed by the RSS-DEV Working Group and Dave Winer. Winer was the first to write programs that could read and write RSS and were not made by Netscape.