"Blame It on the Rain" is a song by Milli Vanilli. It was released in summer 1989. The song was their third and last "Billboard" Hot 100 number one hit before their lip synching scandal. The club mix version of the song was on their album "All or Nothing". It hit number one in November 1989 and stayed there for two weeks.
Altrincham
Altrincham is a town in the borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England.
Altrincham has an ice-rink and a cinema.
Lin Biao
Lin Biao (5th December, 1907 – 13th September, 1971) was a Chinese communist military leader. Lin was a general in the Chinese Civil War of the People's Liberation Army.
After the war, Lin was key in creating Mao Zedong's personality cult. He wrote the introduction to "The Little Red Book". Lin was rewarded for his service to Mao by being named Mao's successor in the Ninth Party Congress, 1966. This he remained until his death in 1971.
Lin died in September 1971 when his aeroplane crashed in Mongolia. He was attempting to flee China with his son after what appeared to be a failed military coup. After Lin Biao's death, he was branded a traitor by the Communist Party of China. He, along with Jiang Qing (Mao's forth wife) and the Shanghai Radicals are still officially blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.
Ancient Greek sculpture
Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. There are three major stages. Sculpture was used to show the battles, mythology, and rulers of the area known as Ancient Greece.
The Greeks began again to carve in stone as they came out of their Dark Age. They were inspired by the large stone sculptures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Free-standing figures share the solidity and front-facing stance of their Eastern models. However, their style is more dynamic than those of Egyptian sculpture. This is clear in the "Lady of Auxerre" and the "Torso of Hera" (Early Archaic period, c. 660–580 BC. Both are in the Louvre, Paris). After about 575 BC, figures such as these, both male and female, began wearing the so-called 'archaic smile'. This may have been a device to give the figures a distinctive human appearance.
Three types of figures are common – the standing nude youth ("kouros", plural "kouroi"), the standing draped girl ("kore", plural "korai"), and the seated woman. All emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure and show an increasingly accurate understanding of human anatomy.
The (75 cm high) limestone Cretan sculpture called the Lady of Auxerre, at the Louvre is a Greek goddess of c. 650–625 BC. It is a "Kore" ("maiden") whose her right hand touches her solar plexus and her left is stiffly at her side (Basel 2001).
Maxime Collignon, a Louvre curator, found the sculpture in a storage vault in the Museum of Auxerre, a city east of Paris, in 1907. No-one knows how it got there, according to the Louvre monograph.
This archaic sculpture has traces of coloured paint. It dates from the 7th century BC, when Greece was emerging from its Dark Age. The Lady of Auxerre still has the narrow waist of a Minoan–Mycenaean goddess, and her stiff hair suggests Egyptian influence.
The Classical period saw better Greek sculpture. There was a big improvement in producing realistic human forms. Poses became more naturalistic, notably during the beginning of the period (see the Charioteer of Delphi for an example of the transition to more naturalistic sculpture).
From about 500 BC, Greek statues began increasingly to depict real people. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, set up in Athens mark the overthrow of the aristocratic tyranny, are said to be the first public monuments to show actual individuals.
Also, we begin to see references to the sculptors themselves in writings of the period. Examples include Phidias, known to have overseen the design and building of the Parthenon, and Praxiteles, whose nude female nude sculptures were the first to be considered artistically respectable.
The Classical period also saw an increase in the use of statues and sculptures as decorations of buildings. The temples of the Classical era included the Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. They had relief sculpture for decorative friezes, and sculpture in the round to fill the triangular fields of the pediments. Most of these works survive only in fragments, for example the Parthenon Marbles, roughly half of which are in the British Museum.
The Hellenistic period is from 323 BC to 146 BC. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and his Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
All these statues show classical themes, but their treatment is far more sensuous and emotional than the Classical period would have allowed. Hellenistic sculpture was also marked by an increase in size, which culminated in the Colossus of Rhodes (late 3rd century), thought to have been roughly the same size as the Statue of Liberty. The combined effect of earthquakes and looting have destroyed this.
Almost all forms of Greek and Roman art were coloured in the original. Most Greek sculptures were painted in strong and bright colours. The clothing and hair were painted, with the skin left in the natural colour of the stone. Some sculptures were entirely painted. The polychromy of stone statues was paralleled by the use of different materials to distinguish skin, clothing and other details, and by the use of different metals for lips, fingernails, etc. on high-quality bronzes like the Riace bronzes.
Slot machine
A slot machine (American English), called also fruit machine (British English), the slots (Canadian English), poker machine or "pokies" (slang) (Australian English and New Zealand English) or simply slot (American English), is a casino gambling machine with set of numbers or pictures that after putting money in it and pressing button will randomly spin. The game is popular in casinos as it is easy and hassle free way to gamble money. Display of a slot machine have a reels, which have symbols and when player go to play, build in random number generator generates result in different symbols. If same numbers or pictures will line up - player will win his bet or multiplier of it.
Slot machines include a currency detector that detects if coins and notes are real ones and what values they have. The machine pays the winning or issue a coupon that will entitle to collecting reward in cash or prizes.
In some countries where money gambling in casinos is illegal the slot machines can issue free prizes, coupons or vouchers. Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and are responsible for about 70 percent of the US casino's income.
The first slot machine was invented by Charles Fey of San Francisco, California, U.S in 1894. The following year Fey built the 4-11-44 in his basement; it proved so successful at a local saloon that he soon quit his job and opened a factory to produce more units. In 1898 Fey built the Card Bell, the first three-reel slot machine with automatic cash payouts. The Card Bell had a handle that set the reels in motion when it was pushed down and playing card suitmarks that lined up to form poker hands. His next slot machine, the Liberty Bell, was built in 1899 and used horseshoes and bells as well as playing card suitmarks on the reels. Three bells lined up in a row meant the top payout. Chiefly because of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, only 4 of more than 100 Liberty Bell machines built by Fey survive. The Liberty Bell proved immensely popular among saloon patrons in San Francisco and was quickly copied by Fey’s competitors, such as the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago.
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Freemium
Freemium is a business model, and a marketing term, used for digital products. It means that the base features of a product can be used without payment, but that more advanced features require payment.
Stamford
Stamford might mean:
Donald A. Glaser