Cyrus is a male given name and the name of several Persian kings, particularly Cyrus the Great, but also Cyrus I of Anshan, King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus the Great, and Cyrus the Younger, brother to the Persian king Artaxerxes II of Persia.
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users are legally free to do what they want with their copies of a free software regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program. Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices.
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai, is a 1984 American adventure science fiction comedy film produced and directed by W. D. Richter and written by Earl Mac Rauch. It stars Peter Weller in the title role, with Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Lloyd. The supporting cast includes Lewis Smith, Rosalind Cash, Clancy Brown, Pepe Serna, Robert Ito, Vincent Schiavelli, Dan Hedaya, Jonathan Banks, John Ashton, Carl Lumbly and Ronald Lacey.
The Crying of Lot 49 is a novella by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was published on April 27, 1966, by J. B. Lippincott & Co. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies. One of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed, operating from 1490–1990, and was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's writing, The Crying of Lot 49 is often described as postmodernist literature. Time included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005".
Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by the American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the Schwarzgerät, which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".
Vineland is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection. Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived the sixties in their youth, the story accounts for the free spirit of rebellion of that decade, and describes the traits of the "fascistic Nixonian repression" and its War on Drugs that clashed with it; and it articulates the slide and transformation that occurred in U.S. society from the 1960s to the 1980s.
A crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, common corporate ownership or unofficial efforts by fans.
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to.
Sōkaiya (総会屋) are specialized racketeers unique to Japan, and often associated with the yakuza, who extort money from or blackmail companies by threatening to publicly humiliate companies and their management, usually in their annual meeting.
Seth W. Godin, also known as "F. X. Nine", is an American author and a former dot-com business executive.
"Aura Lea" is an American Civil War song about a maiden. It was written by W. W. Fosdick (lyrics) and George R. Poulton (music). The melody was used in Elvis Presley's 1956 hit song "Love Me Tender".
A fictional brand is a non-existing brand used in artistic or entertainment productions, such as paintings, books, comics, movies, TV serials, and music. The fictional brand may be designed to imitate, satirize or differentiate itself from a real corporate brand. Such a device may be required where real corporations are unwilling to license their brand names for use in the fictional work, particularly where the work holds the product in a negative light.
Wharfinger is an archaic term for a person who is the keeper or owner of a wharf. The wharfinger takes custody of and is responsible for goods delivered to the wharf, typically has an office on the wharf or dock, and is responsible for day-to-day activities including slipways, keeping tide tables and resolving disputes.
TAMALA 2010: A Punk Cat in Space is a 2002 Japanese Avant-Garde animated film written, directed and featuring music by the two-person team t.o.L, known individually as K. and kuno. The film features both 2D and 3D computer animation, and is mostly black-and-white. The characters, designed by t.o.L and Kentarō Konpon, are reminiscent of Sanrio's Hello Kitty and 1960s anime and manga such as Astro Boy.
Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project.
RCA is an American multinational trademark brand owned by Talisman Brands, Inc. which is used on products made by that company as well as Sony Music Entertainment, Voxx International and ON Corporation. RCA is an abbreviation for the Radio Corporation of America, founded in 1919. The company became known as the RCA Corporation in 1969. In late 1986, RCA was purchased by General Electric and over the next few years, GE sold or liquidated most of the corporation's various divisions and assets.
Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, freedoms refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, and scientific discoveries, and similar approaches have even been applied to certain patents.
The GNU General Public Licenses are a series of widely used free software licenses, or copyleft licenses, that guarantee end users the freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The GPL was the first copyleft license for general use. It was originally written by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. The licenses in the GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. It is more restrictive than the Lesser General Public License and even further distinct from the more widely-used permissive software licenses such as BSD, MIT, and Apache.
The bibliography of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon includes both fiction and nonfiction works.