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Taarak Mehta – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Video


Taarak Mehta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Frankenstein – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Volume I, first edition

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley about eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque but sentient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Shelley had travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17km (10mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where two centuries before an alchemist was engaged in experiments.[1][2][3] Later, she traveled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)where much of the story takes placeand the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the story within the novel.

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results.[4] It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films, and plays.

Since publication of the novel, the name "Frankenstein" is often used to refer to the monster itself, as is done in the stage adaptation by Peggy Webling. This usage is sometimes considered erroneous, but usage commentators regard the monster sense of "Frankenstein" as well-established and an acceptable usage.[5][6][7] In the novel, the monster is identified via words such as "creature", "monster", "fiend", "wretch", "vile insect", "daemon", "being", and "it". Speaking to Victor Frankenstein, the monster refers to himself as "the Adam of your labours", and elsewhere as someone who "would have" been "your Adam", but is instead "your fallen angel."

Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. It takes place during an unspecified time in the 18th Century, as the letters' dates are shown as "17".

The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later, the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts a story of his life's miseries to Walton as a warning.

Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born into a wealthy Geneva family, Victor and his brothers, Ernest and William, are encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world through science. As a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories that focus on simulating natural wonders. When Victor is five years old, his parents adopt an orphan, Elizabeth Lavenza, with whom Victor later falls in love.

Witnessing a lightning strike on an oak tree inspires Victor to harness its power for his experiments. Weeks before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt in Germany, his mother dies of scarlet fever, creating further impetus towards his experiments. At university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, soon developing a secret technique to impart life to non-living matter, which eventually leads to his creation of the Monster.

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Sodomy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sodomy (//) is generally anal or oral sex between people or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal (bestiality), but may also include any non-procreative sexual activity.[1][2][3] Originally the term sodomy, which is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in chapters 18 and 19 of the Book of Genesis in the Bible,[4] was commonly restricted to anal sex.[5][6]Sodomy laws in many countries criminalized not only these behaviors, but other disfavored sexual activities as well.[6][7] In the Western world, however, many of these laws have been overturned or are not routinely enforced.

The term, from the Ecclesiastical Latin: peccatum Sodomiticum or "sin of Sodom", is derived from the Greek word Sdoma.[8]Genesis (chapters 18-20) tells how God wished to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two angels (literally "messengers") are invited by Lot to take refuge with his family for the night. The men of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand that he bring the messengers out so that they may "know" them. Lot protests that the "messengers" are his guests and offers the Sodomites his virgin daughters instead, but then they threaten to "do worse" with Lot than they would with his guests. Then the angels strike the Sodomites blind, "so that they wearied themselves to find the door." (Genesis 19:4-11, KJV)

In current usage, the term is particularly used in law. Laws prohibiting sodomy were seen frequently in past Jewish, Christian, and Islamic civilizations, but the term has little modern usage outside Africa, Islamic countries, and the United States.[9] In the various criminal codes of the U.S., the term sodomy has generally been replaced by the term deviant sexual intercourse, which is described as any form of penetrative intercourse or cunnilingus between unmarried persons.[10] These laws have been challenged and have sometimes been found unconstitutional or been replaced with different legislation.[11] Elsewhere, the legal use of the term sodomy is restricted to rape cases where anal penetration has taken place.[12]

Many cognates in other languages, such as French sodomie (verb sodomiser), Spanish sodoma (verb sodomizar), and Portuguese sodomia (verb sodomizar), are used exclusively for penetrative anal sex, at least since the early nineteenth century. In those languages, the term is also often current vernacular (not just legal, unlike in other cultures) and a formal way of referring to any practice of anal penetration; the word sex is commonly associated with consent and pleasure with regard to all involved parties and often avoids directly mentioning two common aspects of social taboo human sexuality and the anus without a shunning or archaic connotation to its use.

In modern German, the word Sodomie has no connotation of anal or oral sex and specifically refers to bestiality. (See Paragraph 175 StGB, version of June 28, 1935.) The same goes for the Polish sodomia. The Norwegian word sodomi carries both senses.

In Arabic and Persian, the word for sodomy, (Arabic pronunciation: liw; Persian pronunciation lavt), is derived from the same source as in Western culture, with much the same connotations as English (referring to most sexual acts prohibited by the Qur'an). Its direct reference is to Lot ( L in Arabic) and a more literal interpretation of the word is "the practice of Lot", but more accurately it means "the practice of Lot's people" (the Sodomites) rather than Lot himself.

The word sod, a noun or verb (to "sod off") used as an insult, is derived from sodomite.[13][14] It is a general purpose insult term for anyone the speaker dislikes without specific reference to their sexual behaviour. Sod is used as slang in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth and is mildly offensive.

While religion and the law have had a fundamental role in the historical definition and punishment of sodomy, sodomitical texts present considerable opportunities for ambiguity and interpretation. Sodomy is both a real occurrence and an imagined category. In the course of the eighteenth century, what is identifiable as sodomy often becomes identified with effeminacy, for example, or in opposition to a discourse of manliness. In this regard, Ian McCormick has argued that "an adequate and imaginative reading involves a series of intertextual interventions in which histories becomes stories, fabrications and reconstructions in lively debate with, and around, 'dominant' heterosexualities ... Deconstructing what we think we see may well involve reconstructing ourselves in surprising and unanticipated ways."[15]

In the Hebrew Bible, Sodom was a city destroyed by God because of the evil of its inhabitants. No specific sin is given as the reason for God's great wrath. The story of the Sodom's destruction and of Abraham's failed attempt to intercede with God and prevent that destruction appears in Genesis 18-19.

The connection between Sodom and homosexuality is derived from the depicted attempt of a mob of city people to rape Lot's male guests. Some suggest the sinfulness of that, for the original writers of the Biblical account, might have consisted mainly in the violation of the obligations of hospitality.[16] This view does not take into account that, before the "guests" arrived in the city Genesis 18:17 and any "hospitality" could have been rendered, its destruction was already planned. (In Judges 19-21, there is an account, similar in many ways, where Gibeah, a city of the Benjamin tribe, is destroyed by the other tribes of Israel in revenge for a mob of its inhabitants raping and killing a woman.)

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Sodomy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia usenothing to be ashamed about

21 hours ago Credit: Thinkstock/Monash University

Academics and students alike should be making better use of Wikipedia, a major study of digital technology use in Higher Education has recommended.

The Australia-UK collaboration led by Professor Neil Selwyn from Monash University's Faculty of Education found that while Wikipedia was is a popular background resource with students, it had not supplanted traditional sources of intellectual scholarship and authority.

The study of more than 1600 students found that while Wikipedia was used by seven in eight students, the world's sixth most visited website wasn't seen as the most useful education resource. Google and other internet search engines, library websites, learning management systems and Facebook all ranked higher. Most students used Wikipedia for background research.

The researchers suggest that given the important but relatively background role Wikipedia plays in student life, universities should continue to consider ways of better integrating Wikipedia into their accepted modes of teaching and learning provision.

"There are clearly many ways in which universities need to engage more directly in supporting and enhancing the role that Wikipedia is now playing in students' scholarship," Professor Selwyn said.

"The early alarmist fears that Wikipedia would lead to a dumbing down of university study was not apparent. But neither is Wikipedia ushering in a new dawn of enlightenment and students and teachers creating their own knowledge.

"Lecturers should be encouraging their classes to edit and improve Wikipedia pages. At the very least, more academics should become Wikipedia editors - writing on their areas of expertise."

"Wikipedia is here to stay, and universities should be getting more engaged with it rather than just trying to deny its existence."

The study was one of a series on Technology Enabled Learning funded by the Australian Office of Learning and Teaching. Articles have been accepted for publication in theJournal of Higher Education Policy & Management andStudies in Higher Education.

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Super Bowl XLIX – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Video


Super Bowl XLIX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Super Bowl 2015: Why does Marshawn Lynch like Skittles? Syracuse.com- 6 Is it possible that Lynch will retire after the Super Bowl? ... Super Bowl 20...

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