Tool

A tool is any physical item that can be used to achieve a goal, especially if the item is not consumed in the process. Tool use by humans dates back millions of years, and other animals are also known to employ simple tools.

Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such as "instrument", "utensil", "implement", "machine", "device," or "apparatus". The set of tools needed to achieve a goal is "equipment". The knowledge of constructing, obtaining and using tools is technology.

History

Anthropologists believe that the use of tools was an important step in the evolution of mankind. Because tools are used extensively by both humans and wild chimpanzees, it is widely assumed that the first routine use of tools took place prior to the divergence between the two species. These early tools, however, were likely made of perishable materials such as sticks, or consisted of unmodified stones that cannot be distinguished from other stones as tools.

Stone artifacts only date back to about 2.5 million years ago. However, a 2010 study suggests the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis ate meat by carving animal carcasses with stone implements. This finding pushes back the earliest known use of stone tools among hominins to about 3.4 million years ago.

Programming tool

A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might use multiple hand tools to fix a physical object. The ability to use a variety of tools productively is one hallmark of a skilled software engineer.

The most basic tools are a source code editor and a compiler or interpreter, which are used ubiquitously and continuously. Other tools are used more or less depending on the language, development methodology, and individual engineer, and are often used for a discrete task, like a debugger or profiler. Tools may be discrete programs, executed separately – often from the command line – or may be parts of a single large program, called an integrated development environment (IDE). In many cases, particularly for simpler use, simple ad hoc techniques are used instead of a tool, such as print debugging instead of using a debugger, manual timing (of overall program or section of code) instead of a profiler, or tracking bugs in a text file or spreadsheet instead of a bug tracking system.

Tool (song)

"Tool" is a 7" single by Baboon that was released in 1993 on Silver Girl Records. Side A is 33rpm while side B is 45rpm.

The song "Tool" also appears on the band's first album, Face Down in Turpentine, though the album version is a different recording. The recording of "Tool" from this single also appears on the Get It Through Your Thick Skull compilation.

This version of the first b-side ("Why'd You Say Die?") is also on Face Down in Turpentine and Baboon's 1996 The Numb E.P..

Track listing

All songs by Baboon.

Personnel

Bit (disambiguation)

A bit is a unit of information storage on a computer.

Bit or BIT may also refer to:

Tools and engineering

Arts and entertainment

Organisations

Education

Bit (money)

The word bit is a colloquial expression referring to specific coins in various coinages throughout the world.

United States

In the United States, the bit is equal to one eighth of a dollar or 12 ¹⁄₂ cents. In the U.S., the "bit" as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. One eighth of a dollar or one silver real was one "bit".

With the adoption of the decimal U.S. currency in 1794, there was no longer a U.S. coin worth ¹⁄₈ of a dollar but "two bits" remained in the language with the meaning of one quarter dollar, "four bits" half dollar, etc. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. (The picayune, which was originally ¹⁄₂ real or ¹⁄₂ bit (6 ¹⁄₄¢), was similarly transferred to the US 5¢-piece.)

In addition, Spanish coinage, like other foreign coins, continued to be widely used and allowed as legal tender by Chapter XXII of the Act of April 10, 1806 until the Coinage Act of 1857 discontinued the practice.

List of Tron characters

This article covers notable characters of Tron franchise, including all of its various cinematic, literary, video game adaptations and sequels.

Development

For the first film, Richard Rickitt explains that to "produce the characters who inhabit the computer world, actors were dressed in costumes that were covered in black-and-white computer circuitry designs....With coloured light shining through the white areas of their costumes, the resulting characters appeared to glow as if lit from within....optical processes were used to create all of the film's computerized characters..." Frederick S. Clarke reports that "Tron: Legacy will combine live action with CGI," adding that "several characters...will be completely digital..."

Tron

Kevin Flynn

Kevin Flynn is a former employee at the fictional software company ENCOM and the protagonist of the first film. He is played by Jeff Bridges.

At the start of the first film, he is manager of "Flynn's", a video arcade where he impresses his patrons with his skills at games that (unknown to them) he designed at ENCOM, but remains determined to find evidence that CEO Ed Dillinger plagiarised Flynn's work to advance his position within the company. Throughout most of the film, Flynn travels around the digital world, accompanying the eponymous character Tron; but later discovers that as a User, he commands the physical laws of the digital world, enabling him beyond the abilities of an ordinary program. Eventually, he enables Tron to destroy the Master Control Program shown to oppress the digital world, and upon return to the material world obtains the evidence necessary to expose Dillinger, and becomes ENCOM's CEO himself.