Showing posts with label wikipedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wikipedia. Show all posts
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for June 6, 2018 is Fantasy Book.
Fantasy Book was a semi-professional American science fiction magazine that published eight issues between 1947 and 1951. The listed editor, "Garret Ford", was a pseudonym for William L. Crawford and his wife, Margaret; the publisher was Crawford's Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. Crawford had problems distributing the magazine, and his budget limited the quality of the paper he could afford and the artwork he was able to buy, but he attracted submissions from some well-known writers, including Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, A. E. van Vogt, Robert Bloch, and L. Ron Hubbard. Cordwainer Smith's first sale, "Scanners Live in Vain", appeared in the magazine, and was later included in the first Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology; it is now regarded as one of Smith's finest works. Jack Gaughan, later an award-winning science fiction artist, made his first professional sale to Fantasy Book, for the cover illustrating Smith's story (pictured).
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for May 27, 2018 is USS Orizaba.
USS Orizaba was a transport ship for the U.S. Navy in World War I and World War II, first commissioned on 27 May 1918. Orizaba made 15 transatlantic voyages for the Navy carrying troops to and from Europe in World War I with the second-shortest average in-port turnaround time of all Navy transports. The ship was turned over to the War Department in 1919 for use as Army transport USAT Orizaba. After the war, the troopship reverted to the Ward Line, her previous owners. In World War II the ship was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and again assigned to the War Department, but was soon transferred to the U.S. Navy as USS Orizaba (AP-24). The ship made several transatlantic runs, was damaged in an air attack in the Allied invasion of Sicily, made trips to South America, and served in the Pacific Theatre. In June 1945 the ship was transferred under Lend-Lease to the Brazilian Navy, where she served as Duque de Caxias (U-11). Permanently transferred to Brazil in 1953, the ship was decommissioned in 1959 and scrapped in 1963.
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for May 24, 2018 is Wonder Stories.
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback after he lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. In 1936 he sold Wonder Stories to Ned Pines at Beacon Publications; retitled Thrilling Wonder Stories, it continued for nearly 20 years. The editors under Gernsback's ownership were David Lasser, who worked hard to improve the quality of the fiction, and later Charles Hornig. They published some well-received fiction, such as Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey", but were overshadowed by the success of their chief competitor Astounding Stories. For a period in the early 1940s the magazine was aimed at younger readers, with a juvenile editorial tone and covers that depicted beautiful women in implausibly revealing spacesuits. By the end of the 1940s, in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, the magazine briefly rivaled Astounding.
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for May 13, 2018 is Banksia aculeata.
Banksia aculeata, the prickly banksia, is a plant of the family Proteaceae native to the Stirling Range in the southwest of Western Australia. A bushy shrub up to 2 m (7 ft) tall, it has fissured grey bark on its trunk and branches, and dense foliage and leaves with very prickly serrated margins. Its unusual pinkish, pendent (hanging) flower spikes, known as inflorescences, are generally hidden in the foliage and appear during the early summer. Unlike many other banksia species, it does not have a woody base, or lignotuber. Although it was collected in the 1840s by the naturalist James Drummond, it was not formally described until 1981, in Alex George's monograph of the genus. A rare plant, B. aculeata is found in gravelly soils in elevated areas. Native to a habitat burnt by periodic bushfires, it is killed by fire and regenerates from seed afterwards. In contrast to other Western Australian banksias, it appears to have some resistance to Phytophthora cinnamomi, a soil-borne water mould.
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for May 10, 2018 is Russian battleship Pobeda.
Pobeda was the last of the three Peresvet-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth century. Launched on 10 May 1900, the ship was assigned to the Pacific Squadron upon completion, and in 1903 was based at Port Arthur. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, she participated in the battles of Port Arthur and the Yellow Sea. Having escaped serious damage in these engagements, Pobeda was sunk by gunfire during the Siege of Port Arthur, and then salvaged by the Japanese and placed into service under the name Suwo. Rearmed and re-boilered by the Japanese, Suwo was classified by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a coastal defense ship in 1908 and served as a training ship for several years. She was the flagship of the Japanese squadron at the Battle of Tsingtao at the beginning of World War I and continued in that role until she became a gunnery training ship in 1917. The ship was disarmed in 1922 to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and probably scrapped around that time.
Hey pal, You must know what's the featured article on Wikipedia, anon : The Wikipedia article of the day for May 7, 2018 is The Fountainhead.
The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand. The protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who designs modernist buildings and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Roark embodies what Rand believed to be the ideal man, and his struggle reflects Rand's belief that individualism is superior to collectivism. Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript before an editor at the Bobbs-Merrill Company risked his job to get it published. Contemporary reviewers' opinions were mixed. Some praised the novel as a powerful paean to individualism, while others thought it overlong and lacking sympathetic characters. Initial sales were slow, but the book gained a following by word of mouth. It became a bestseller, and more than 6.5 million copies have been sold worldwide. The novel was Rand's first major literary success and has had a lasting influence, especially among architects and right-libertarians.