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November 4

Exit 2 of Marina Bay MRT station

Marina Bay MRT station is a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station on the North–South (NSL), Circle (CCL) and Thomson–East Coast (TEL) lines in Singapore. Located in the Downtown Core district near Marina Bay, it serves the Marina One Residences, Marina Bay Suites and the Marina Bay Financial Centre. It was one of the last stations to be completed in the early phases of the MRT network, opening on 4 November 1989. The station was the terminus of the NSL until the line's extension in 2014. It became an interchange station with the CCL when the two-station branch extension from Promenade station was completed in January 2012. The TEL station platforms were completed in November 2022, becoming a triple-line interchange on the MRT network. The station features art as part of the MRT network's Art-in-Transit programme. The sculpture Flowers in Blossom II is over the CCL mezzanine. The CCL platforms feature photographs by Nah Yong En and the TEL station features murals by Tang Ling Nah. (Full article...)

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April 4

The Bank of China (Hong Kong) (BOCHK) is the second largest commercial banking group in Hong Kong in terms of assets and customer deposits, with more than 300 branches in Hong Kong. It was established on October 1, 2001 from a merger of 12 subsidiaries and associates of the Bank of China in Hong Kong, and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 2002. As of the end of 2003, the bank had HK$763 billion in assets and earned net profit of HK$8 billion in 2003. BOCHK is one of the three banks which issue banknotes for Hong Kong, the biggest member and a founder of the JETCO ATM and payment system, and the designated clearing bank in Hong Kong for transactions involving the renminbi, Mainland China's currency. It is legally separate from its parent, Bank of China (BOC), although they maintain close relations in management and administration and cooperate in several areas including reselling BOC's insurance and securities services. It also shares its Hong Kong headquarters, the Bank of China Tower, with its parent; completed in 1988, this was the first building outside of the United States to exceed 1,000 feet in height. (more...)

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March 4

Hilda Doolittle, better known by the pen name H.D., was an American poet, novelist and memoirist. She is best known for her association with the key early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets, although her later writing represents a move away from the Imagist model and towards a distinctly feminine version of modernist poetry and prose. Doolittle was one of the leading figures in the bohemian culture of London in the early decades of the century. Her work is noted for its use of classical models and its exploration of the conflict between lesbian and heterosexual attraction and love that closely resembled her own life. Her later poetry also explores traditional epic themes, such as violence and war, from a feminist perspective. H.D. was the first woman to be granted the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal. (more...)

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February 4

The King James Version is an English translation of the Holy Bible, commissioned for the benefit of the Church of England at the behest of King James I of England. First published in 1611, it has had a profound impact on not only most English translations that have followed it, but also on English literature as a whole. The works of famous authors such as John Bunyan, John Milton, Herman Melville, John Dryden, and William Wordsworth are replete with inspiration apparently derived from the King James Version. Bibles from the English Revised Version to the New American Standard Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and the New King James Version are revisions of its text; it has deeply influenced Bibles such as the New International Version that do not claim to be revisions of its text. It is no longer in copyright in most parts of the world but is under perpetual Crown copyright in the United Kingdom. It is considered to be an instrumental founding block of modern English, and remains one of the most widely-read literary works from its time, surpassed only by the works of playwright William Shakespeare. (more...)

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January 4

The orca is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. It is the second-most widely distributed mammal on Earth (after humans) and is found in all the world's oceans. It is also a versatile predator, eating fish, turtles, birds, seals, sharks and even other juvenile and small cetaceans. This puts the orca at the pinnacle of the marine food chain. The orca is also commonly known as the "killer whale"—a name which reflects the animal's reputation as a magnificent and fearsome sea mammal whose existence was first recorded by Pliny the Elder. Today it is recognized that the orca is neither a whale nor a danger to humans; no attack on a human by an orca in the wild has ever been recorded. (more...)

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December 4

The Marginated Tortoise is the largest European tortoise, reaching a weight of up to 5 kg (11 pounds) and a length of 35 cm (14 inches). Its shell is oblong and has a notable thickness around the middle of the body. The posterior end of the shell has a saw-like formation, flanged outward like a bell. The carapace of adult specimens is almost completely black, with yellow highlights. The ventral shell is lighter coloured and has pairs of triangular markings with the points facing the rear of the animal. The front sides of the limbs are covered with large scales. In old female specimens, the rear flaps of the underside of the plastron are somewhat moveable. The tail is notable for a lengthwise marking and for an undivided carapace over the tail. Males have a longer tail, which is thicker at the base than the females. Their underside is more strongly indented. Males are also often larger than the females. The females lay their hard-shelled spherical eggs in the soil in May and June. (more...)

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November 4

Baroque was a cultural movement and style in European art, originating around 1600 in Rome. The Council of Trent (1545–63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed. This turn toward a populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many art historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and the Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for commissions) in Rome around 1600. The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and theatrical. Baroque art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in Annibale Caracci and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists like Correggio and Caravaggio and Federico Barocci, nowadays sometimes termed "proto-Baroque". Germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. (more...)

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October 4

Emacs is a text editor with a comprehensive set of features that is particularly popular with programmers and other technical computer users. The original Emacs was written in 1976 by Richard Stallman, as a set of Editor MACroS for the TECO editor. It has evolved from its dumb terminal origins into something resembling a full blown word processor sporting a complete graphical user interface. A large number of extensions are available which can turn Emacs into anything from a web browser to a tool for writing and compiling computer programs. (more...)

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September 4

The Pax logo

In computer security, PaX is a patch for the Linux kernel that implements least privilege protections for memory pages. This approach allows computer programs to do only what they have to be able to do to execute properly, and nothing more. PaX flags data memory as non-executable and program memory as non-writable; and randomly arranges the program memory. This effectively prevents many security exploits, such as those stemming from buffer overflows. The former prevents direct code injection absolutely; while the latter makes so-called return-to-libc (ret2libc) attacks indeterminate, relying on luck to succeed. PaX was first released in the year 2000. (more...)

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September 6

The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...)

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August 4

Father Damien

Father Damien was a Roman Catholic missionary of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who is revered primarily by Christians and residents of Hawaii for having dedicated his life in service to the lepers of Molokai in the Kingdom of Hawaii. In Catholicism, Father Damien is the spiritual patron of lepers, outcasts, those with HIV/AIDS and the State of Hawaii. Father Damien Day is celebrated each year in Hawaii on April 15. (more...)

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July 4

The Olympic Flame is a symbol of the Olympic Games. Its origins lie in ancient Greece, when a fire was kept burning throughout the celebration of the ancient Olympics. The fire was reintroduced at the Olympics in 1928, and it has been part of the modern Olympic Games ever since. The Olympic Flame is nowadays ignited several months before the opening celebration of the Olympic Games at the site of the ancient Olympics, Olympia, Greece. Eleven priestesses (played by actresses) light the fire with a parabolic mirror which concentrates rays from the Sun. The torch is then transported to the host city of the upcoming Olympics by means of a torch relay. Traditionally, the fire is carried on foot, but other means of transportation have been used as well. (more...)

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June 4

Belgium is a country located in Western Europe, bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France, and the North Sea. Geographically and culturally, Belgium is at the crossroads of Europe, and during the past 2,000 years has witnessed a constant ebb and flow of different races and cultures. Consequently, Belgium is one of Europe's true melting pots with Celtic, Roman, Germanic, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Austrian cultures having made an imprint. The country is well known for its art, its great architecture, its beer, its food, and its chocolate. (more...)

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May 4

A horizontally-oriented cladogram

Cladistics is a branch of biology that determines the evolutionary relationships between living things based on derived similarity. Cladistics differs from phenetics, which groups organisms based on overall similarity, and from more traditional approaches based on "key characters". Willi Hennig is widely regarded as the founder of cladistics. (more...)

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April 4

The Platypus is a small, semi-aquatic mammal endemic to the eastern part of Australia, and one of the four monotremes (mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young). The Platypus looks rather like a beaver: the body and broad, flat tail are covered with brown fur, but it has webbed feet and a large, rubbery snout that led to its being known for a time as the "Duckbilled Platypus". The Platypus is a carnivore. It feeds on worms, insect larvae, freshwater shrimp, and yabbies (freshwater crayfish) that it digs out of river beds with its snout or catches while swimming. (more...)

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March 4

"All your base are belong to us" is a stock phrase arising from an erroneous translation used in the Sega Genesis version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing. In 2001, the phrase swept over the Internet – fueled in part by the use of the phrase in an online music video by the gabber group The Laziest Men on Mars. It is one of the most commonly quoted examples of Engrish, which is the use of English poorly translated from another language. (more...)

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