*Lisp

The *Lisp (aka StarLisp) programming language was conceived of in 1985 by Cliff Lasser and Steve Omohundro (employees of the Thinking Machines Corporation) as a way of providing an efficient yet high-level language for programming the nascent Connection Machine.

History

Prelude

At the time the Connection Machine was being designed and built, the only language being actively developed for it was an Assembly-level language known as PARIS (Parallel Instruction Set). It became evident that a better way to program the machine was needed and needed quickly. Waiting for the completion of CM Lisp, or "Connection Machine Lisp" (an implementation of the very high-level programming language Lisp with parallel programming extensions) was not an option. CM Lisp had been proposed by Danny Hillis, and development was expected to continue for several more years.

Development

A *Lisp interpreter was initially developed. It quickly became apparent that a *Lisp compiler, translating *Lisp into Lisp and PARIS, would be needed to attain the gigaflop speeds that were theoretically attainable by a Connection Machine. The *Lisp compiler was written by Jeff Mincy and was first released in 1986. (An application achieving more than two gigaflops, a helicopter wake simulator, was developed by Alan Egolf, then an employee of United Technologies, and J. P. Massar, a Thinking Machines employee, in 1987; see "Helicopter Free Wake Implementation On Advanced Computer Architectures", International Conference on Basic Rotorcraft Research, 1988)

Lisp

A lisp, also known as "sigmatism" is a speech impediment in which a person misarticulates sibilants ([s], [z], [ts], [dz]), ([ʒ], [ʃ], [tʃ], [dʒ]). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.

Types

Lisp (band)

Lisp was an English trip hop band from East London. Formed in 1995, they were signed to Mind Horizon Recordings, a subsidiary of London Records, on which they released their first and only album, Cycles (2000), which saw radio success from its singles "Flatspin" and "Long Way to Climb".

History

Lisp was formed in East London in 1995, with the lineup including former Disco Inferno bassist Paul Willmott on keyboard, vocalist Johnnie Gordon, guitarist Brad Rubinstein, bassist Jason Hall, and drummer Adam Rich.

The band was signed to the London Records subsidiary Mind Horizon Recordings in 1999 by Pete Tong, through which they released their first single, "Flatspin", in September of that year. Their second single, "Long Way to Climb", was even more popular, getting airplay on XFM. In November, the band played a show at the club Scala in King's Cross, London. The full album, Cycles, was released on 17 April 2000.

The group disbanded in 2001, in part because Rubinstein's then-nascent return to Orthodox Jewish faith made it difficult for him to attend shows that fell on religious holidays. Following the breakup, Rubinstein moved to Israel, where he co-founded with rapper Ori Murray the Jewish hip hop/rock group Shtar.

Vedas

The Vedas (/ˈveɪdəz, ˈviː-/;Sanskrit: वेद véda, "knowledge") are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruṣeya, which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless".

Vedas are also called śruti ("what is heard") literature, distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called smṛti ("what is remembered"). The Veda, for orthodox Indian theologians, are considered revelations seen by ancient sages after intense meditation, and texts that have been more carefully preserved since ancient times. In the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata, the creation of Vedas is credited to Brahma. The Vedic hymns themselves assert that they were skillfully created by Rishis (sages), after inspired creativity, just as a carpenter builds a chariot.

There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge). Some scholars add a fifth category – the Upasanas (worship).

Vedic (disambiguation)

Vedic may refer to:

Differential interference contrast microscopy

Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast (NIC) or Nomarski microscopy, is an optical microscopy technique used to enhance the contrast in unstained, transparent samples. DIC works on the principle of interferometry to gain information about the optical path length of the sample, to see otherwise invisible features. A relatively complex optical system produces an image with the object appearing black to white on a grey background. This image is similar to that obtained by phase contrast microscopy but without the bright diffraction halo. The technique was developed by Georges Nomarski.

DIC works by separating a polarized light source into two orthogonally polarized mutually coherent parts which are spatially displaced (sheared) at the sample plane, and recombined before observation. The interference of the two parts at recombination is sensitive to their optical path difference (i.e. the product of refractive index and geometric path length). Adding an adjustable offset phase determining the interference at zero optical path difference in the sample, the contrast is proportional to the path length gradient along the shear direction, giving the appearance of a three-dimensional physical relief corresponding to the variation of optical density of the sample, emphasising lines and edges though not providing a topographically accurate image.