Jack Vettriano The Cocktail Shaker

Jack Vettriano The Cocktail ShakerJack Vettriano The City CafeJack Vettriano The Cigar Divan
distaste at Marvin who was standing in an awkward hunched posture in the corner under a small palm tree. Zaphod glanced away from the mirror screens which presented a pa\-no\-ra\-mic view of the blighted landscape on which the Heart of Gold had now landed. "Oh, the Paranoid Android," he said. "Yeah, we'll take him." "But what are supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?" "You think you've got problems," said Marvin as if he was addressing a newly occupied coffin, "what are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't bother to answer that, I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level." Trillian burst in through the door from her cabin. "My white mice have escaped!" she said. An expression of deep worry and concern failed to cross either of

Lippi The Marriage of St Catherine2

Lippi The Marriage of St Catherine2Murillo The Infant Jesus Distributing Bread to PilgrimsParrish Air CastlesLippi Allegory of Music or Erato
microscopic capacitors that are topped up every few microseconds.
During the post-war years, the Americans also used phosphor dots to store data. Encouraged by the Institute for Advanced Study's computing pioneer John von Neumann, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began work on its Selectron tube in 1946.
This space age device was about the size of a child's forearm and, with a cathode running up the middle, was packed with electronics. Different models could store from 256 to 4,096 bits of data on individual phosphor dots. The 256-bit Selectron was projected to cost about $500 to build, and it was both faster and more reliable than the Williams Tube.
However, the Selectron was complex to make and expensive to produce, so engineers began to develop other weird and wonderful forms of memory. Delay lines –
The idea was to convert individual bits into mechanical vibrations and

Klimt Expectation (detail)

Klimt Expectation (detail)Klimt Donna con ventaglio (Woman with Fan)Klimt Death and Life (detail)
angry about, but it only gave a complaining sort of creak. "Go away!" he shouted at a young Vogon guard who entered the bridge at that moment. The guard vanished immediately, feeling rather relieved. He was glad it wouldn't now be him angry indeed about. Ford and Arthur stared about them. "Well, what do you think?" said Ford. "It's a bit squalid, isn't it?" Ford frowned at the grubby mattress, unwashed cups and unidentifiable bits of smelly alien underwear that lay around the cramped cabin. "Well, this is a working ship, you see," said Ford. "These are the Dentrassi sleeping quarters." "I thought you said they were called Vogons or something." "Yes," said Ford, "the Vogons run the ship, the Dentrassis are the cooks, they let us on board." "I'm confused," said Arthur.who delivered the report they'd just received. The report was an official release which said that a wonderful new form of spaceship drive was at this moment being unveiled at a government research base on Damogran which would henceforth make all hyperspatial express routes unnecessary. Another door slid open, but this time the Vogon captain didn't shout because it was the door from the galley quarters where the Dentrassis prepared his meals. A meal would be most welcome. A huge furry creature bounded through the door with his lunch tray. It was grinning like a maniac. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was delighted. He knew that when a Dentrassi looked that pleased with itself there was something going on somewhere on the ship that he could get very

Boucher Young Woman with a Bouquet of Roses

Boucher Young Woman with a Bouquet of RosesCorot The Quai des Paquis in GenevaBoucher Rinaldo and ArmidaBoucher Francois Boucher
seldom locked the doors to their private quarters other than when they were in residence.Good old dead Hokenberry, themovement or detectable body heat on the third floor.He surveyed the two subterranean levels. Nothing.[564] The figure on the second floor had reached the library. The blip had to be Ethan Truman. He must have gone up there by the back stairs in the west wing.Where was the boy? Undetected. Not moving. Not producing any heat within range of the sensors.The kid could be in his bedroom or a bathroom. No sensors in those areas.Or he might be hunkered in his hidey-hole in the conservatory.This hidey-hole was odd. Judging by Yorn’s message, the staff freak, proved to be as reliable as the blueprints. Corky entered the McBee apartment and closed the door behind him.Next to the front door, the Crestron panel brightened at his touch. He didn’t bother with a lamp.A quick motion-detector scan through the ground floor showed no blip except Corky’s, here in the McBee living room.On the second floor, someone turned out of the west hall into the long north wing, proceeding in the direction of the library. Perhaps Truman. Perhaps the young Manheim. Whichever, he appeared to be hurrying.No

Kimble Engine No. 9

Kimble Engine No. 9Kimble Drake LodgeKimble Double RoostersKimble Colonial Flag
learn if Stinky Cheese Man was dead and to give him a scare if he wasn’t.He took with him the 9-mm pistol and a fresh sound suppressor.At the door to the dark room, the stench of the incapacitated captive could be detected even in the hallway. Past the threshold, what had been a mere stink became a miasma that even Corky, an ardent suitor of the weapon against Dalton’s cracked lips.Instead of turning his head away, the lover of Dickens and Twain and Dickinson boldly opened his mouth and bit the barrel, though this act had the flair of Hemingway. His eyes were fiery with defiance. Behind the wheel of the sedan, parked across the street from the Laputa house, trying to get a grip on himself, Hazard thought of his Granny Rose, his dad’s mother, who believed in mojo though she didn’t practice it, believed in poltergeists though none had ever dared to trash her well-of chaos, found less than charming.He switched on the lamp and went to the bed.As stubborn as he was stinky,his wife and daughter had been tortured, raped, and murdered.“What kind of selfish bastard are you?” Corky asked, his voice thick with contempt.Weak, having for so long received all liquid by intravenous drip, kept perilously close to mortal dehydration, Maxwell Dalton could not have replied except in a fragile voice so full of rasp and squeak as to be comical. He answered, therefore, only with his hate-filled stare.Corky pressed the muzzle

Francois Boucher Adoration of the Shepherds painting

Francois Boucher Adoration of the Shepherds paintingGustave Courbet The Origin of the World paintingGustave Courbet Plage de Normandie painting
between the apex and nadir of each pattern increasing radically, until it was reminiscent of the patterns produced on a seismograph during a major earthquake.“At some points you might accurately say he appears ‘disturbed,’ at others ‘excited,’ and in this passage you’re watching now, I’d say without any concern about being melodramatic, anxiety.”The serpent-voiced wind, singing in a language of hiss-shriek-moan, and the claw-tap of rain on accompany the jagged images on the screen.[362] “Although the overall pattern remains one of conscious anxiety,” Dr. O’Brien continued, “within it are these irregular subsets of higher spikes, each followed by a subset of lower spikes.”He pointed at the screen, calling examples to Ethan’s attention.“I see them,” Ethan said. “What do they mean?”“They’re indicative of conversation.”that these are the brain waves of a terrified individual.”“Terrified?”“Thoroughly.”“Nightmare?” Ethan suggested.“A nightmare is just a dream of a darker variety. It can produce radical wave patterns, but they’re nevertheless recognizable as those of a dream. Nothing like this.”O’Brien speeded the flow of data again, forwarding through eight minutes’ worth in a few seconds.When the screen returned to real-time display, Ethan said, “This looks the same ... yet different.”“These are still the beta waves of a conscious person, and I would say this guy is still frightened, although the terror may have declined here to high

Pierre Auguste Renoir Two Sisters (On the Terrace) painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir Two Sisters (On the Terrace) paintingThomas Kinkade The Garden of Prayer paintingThomas Kinkade Lombard Street painting
HAVING EATEN TOO MUCH CHINESE TAKEOUT, having refreshed his knowledge of the more obscure corners of Palazzo Rospo, having fed .Corky called him Stinky Cheese Man because after many weeks abed, unbathed, he had acquired a stench reminiscent of many things objectionable, including certain particularly strong cheeses.A long time had passed since Stinky had produced any solid waste. Odors associated with the bowel had therefore ceased to be an issue.Upon first taking the man captive, Corky had catheterized him, with the consequence that urine-soaked bedclothes had never been a problem. The catheter line served a one-gallon glass collection jug beside the bed, which was currently only a quarter full.the leftovers to the garbage disposal, Corky Laputa prepared a second martini and returned upstairs to the guest bedroom at the back of the house, where Stinky Cheese Man lay in a state of such emaciation that even ravenously hungry vultures would have considered him to be slim pickings and would have declined to sit deathwatch

Thomas Kinkade San Francisco Lombard Street painting

Thomas Kinkade San Francisco Lombard Street paintingThomas Kinkade NASCAR THUNDER paintingThomas Kinkade Make a Wish Cottage painting
the bar beside his glass of Scotch. He might as well try to deny the existence of Big Foot with a Sasquatch sitting on his face.So he had no choice but to dwell on what had happened, which led him immediately into an intellectual dead end. He not only didn’t know what to think about these weird events, he also didn’t know how to think about them.you see?”Ethan’s mouth cracked into a smile that he hoped looked less demented than it felt. “Just one. Don’t worry. I’m not going to be a danger on the highway.”“Really? Then you’re unique.”Yeah, Ethan thought, I’m nothing if not unique. I’ve died twice today, but I’m still able to handle my booze, and he wondered how quickly the bartender would snatch the drink from him if Obviously he had not been shot in the gut by Rolf Reynerd. Yet he intuitively knew the lab report would confirm that the blood under his fingernails was his own.The experience of being run down in traffic and broken beyond repair remained so vivid, his memory of paralysis so horrifically detailed, that he could not believe he had merely imagined all of it under the influence of a drug administered without his knowledge.Ethan asked the bartender for another round, and as the Scotch splashed over fresh ice into a clean glass, he pointed to the bells and said, “You see these?”“I love that old song,” the bartender said.“What song?”“ ‘Silver Bells.’ ”“So you see them?”The bartender cocked one eyebrow. “Yeah. A set of three little bells. How many sets do

Salvador Dali Venus and Sailor painting

Salvador Dali Venus and Sailor paintingSalvador Dali The Temptation of St. Anthony paintingSalvador Dali Persistence of Memory paintingSalvador Dali Maelstrom painting
every thousand gunmen, Corky thought, I’d rather have one hate-filled teacher subtly propagandizing in a schoolroom, one day-care worker with an unslakable thirst for cruelty, one atheist priest hiding in cassock and alb and chasuble.By a circuitous route, he came within sight of the BMW where he had parked it an hour phone rang.[71] He was still half a block from his car. He would miss the call if he waited to answer it in the BMW.He slipped his right arm out of its sleeve, under his slicker, and un-clipped the phone from his belt.Arm in sleeve again, phone to ear, toddling along as buttercup-yellow and as smile-and a half earlier. Right on schedule.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. The wise anarchist keeps moving because entropy favors the rambler, and motion foils the law.The dirty-milk clouds had churned lower during his stroll, coagulating into sooty curds. In the storm gloom, in the wet shade of the oak tree, his silver sedan waited as dark as iron.Trailers of bougainvillea lashed the air, casting off scarlet petals, raking thorny nails against the stucco wall of a house, making sgraffito sounds: scratch-scratch, screek-screek.Wind threw sheets, lashed whips, spun funnels of rain. Rain hissed, sizzled, chuckled, splashed.Corky’s

Thomas Kinkade Seaside Hideaway painting

Thomas Kinkade Seaside Hideaway paintingThomas Kinkade Pools of Serenity painting
night they camped on a small eyot close to the western bank. Sam lay rolled in blankets beside Frodo. `I had a funny dream an hour or behind Gimli's boat; but I didn't give much heed to it. Then it seemed as if the log was slowly catching us up. And that was peculiar, as you might say, seeing as we were all floating on the stream together. Just then I saw the eyes: two pale sort of points, shiny-like, on a hump at the near end of the log. What's more, it wasn't a log, for it had paddle-feet, like a swan's almost, only they seemed bigger, and kept dipping in and out of the water.'That's when I sat right up and rubbed my eyes, meaning to give a shout, if it was still there
Thomas Kinkade Peaceful Time paintingThomas Kinkade Home For Christmas painting
two before we stopped, Mr. Frodo,' he said. `Or maybe it wasn't a dream. Funny it was anyway.'`Well, what was it? ' said Frodo, knowing that Sam would not settle down until he had told his tale, whatever it was. 'I haven't seen or thought of anything to make me smile since we left Lothlórien.'`It wasn't funny that way, Mr. Frodo. It was queer. All wrong, if it wasn't a dream. And you had best hear it. It was like this: I saw a log with eyes! '`The log's all right,' said Frodo. `There are many in the River. But leave out the eyes! '`That I won't,' said Sam. ` 'Twas the eyes as made me sit up, so to speak. I saw what I took to be a log floating along in the half-light

Vincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night painting

Vincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night paintingVincent van Gogh The Bedroom painting
almost called aloud the wizard's name, and then he saw that the figure was clothed not in grey but in white, in a white that shone faintly in the dusk; and in its hand there was a white staff. The head was so bowed that he could see no face, and presently the figure turned aside round a bend in the road and went out of the Mirror's view. Doubt came into Frodo's mind: was this a vision of Gandalf on one of his many lonely journeys long ago, or
Vincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows paintingVincent van Gogh The Starry Night painting
both good and perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for the venture, or I would not have brought you here. Do as you will! '`I will look,' said Frodo, and he climbed on the pedestal and bent over the dark water. At once the Mirror cleared and he saw a twilit land. Mountains loomed dark in the distance against a pale sky. A long grey road wound back out of sight. Far away a figure came slowly down the road, faint and small at first, but growing larger and clearer as it approached. Suddenly Frodo realized that it reminded him of Gandalf. He was it Saruman?The vision now changed. Brief and small but very vivid he caught a glimpse of Bilbo walking restlessly about his room. The table was littered with disordered papers; rain was beating on the windows.Then there was a pause, and after it many swift scenes followed that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved. The mist cleared and he saw a sight which he had never seen before but knew at once: the Sea. Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great

Gustav Klimt Death and Life painting

Gustav Klimt Death and Life paintingGustav Klimt Danae (detail) painting
any dawn can pierce these clouds,' said Gimli.Boromir stepped out of the circle and stared up into the blackness. 'The snow is growing less,' he said, `and the wind is quieter.'Frodo gazed wearily at the flakes still falling out of the dark to be we go back and down the better.'To this all agreed, but their retreat was now difficult. It might well prove impossible. Only a few paces from the ashes of their fire the snow lay many feet deep, higher than the heads of the hobbits; in places it had been scooped and piled by the wind into great drifts against the cliff.
Salvador Dali The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory paintingSalvador Dali The Crucifixion painting
revealed white for a moment in the light of the dying fire; but for a long time he could see no sign of their slackening. Then suddenly, as sleep was beginning to creep over him again, he was aware that the wind had indeed fallen, and the flakes were becoming larger and fewer. Very slowly a dim light began to grow. At last the snow stopped altogether.As the light grew stronger it showed a silent shrouded world. Below their refuge were white humps and domes and shapeless deeps beneath which the path that they had trodden was altogether lost; but the heights above were hidden in great clouds still heavy with the threat of snow.Gimli looked up and shook his head. `Caradhras has not forgiven us.' he said. `He has more snow yet to fling at us, if we go on. The sooner

Moran Sunset in Mid-Ocean

Moran Sunset in Mid-OceanMoran Slaves Escaping Through the SwampMoran Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, VirginiaMoran Old Windmill, East Hampton, Long Island, New York
wall in time (as they say in Bree). But there are few left in Middle-earth like Aragorn son of Arathorn. The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end. It may be that this War of the Ring will be their last adventure.''Do you really mean that Strider is one of the people of the old Kings?' said Frodo in wonder. `I be the twenty-first. We must have reached the Ford by the twentieth.''You have talked and reckoned more than is good for you,' said Gandalf. `How do the side and shoulder feel now?''I don't know.' Frodo answered. 'They don't feel at all: which is an improvement, but'–he made an effort–'I can move my arm again a little. not cold,' he added, touching his left hand with his right.`Good!' said Gandalf. `It is mending fast. You will soon be sound again. Elrond has cured you: he has tended you for days, ever since you were brought in.'thought they had all vanished long ago. I thought he was only a Ranger.''Only a Ranger!' cried Gandalf. `My dear Frodo, that is just what the Rangers are: the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West. They have helped me before; and I shall need their help in the days to come; for we have reached Rivendell, but the Ring is not yet at rest.''I suppose not,' said Frodo. 'But so far my only thought has been to get here; and I hope I shan't have to go any further. It is very pleasant just to rest. I have had a month of exile and adventure, and I find that has been as much as I want.'He fell silent and shut his eyes. After a while he spoke again. 'I have been reckoning,' he said, `and I can't bring the total up to October the twenty-fourth. It ought to

Neiman Homage to Boucher

Neiman Homage to BoucherNeiman Homage to AliNeiman High Seas Sailing IINeiman High Altitude Skiing
Their way wound along the floor of the hollow, and round the green feet of a steep hill into another deeper and broader valley, and then over the shoulder of further hills, and down their long limbs, and up their smooth sides again, up on to new hill-tops and down into new valleys. There was no tree nor any visible water: it was a country of grass and short springy turf, silent except for the whisper of the air over the edges of the land, and mounded rim. Inside there was no air stirring, and the sky seemed near their heads. They rode across and looked northwards. Then their hearts rose, for it seemed plain that they had come further already than they had expected. Certainly the distances had now all become hazy and deceptive, but there could be no doubt that the Downs were coming to an end. A long valley lay below them winding away high lonely cries of strange birds. As they journeyed the sun mounted, and grew hot. Each time they climbed a ridge the breeze seemed to have grown less. When they caught a glimpse of the country westward the distant Forest seemed to be smoking, as if the fallen rain was steaming up again from leaf and root and mould. A shadow now lay round the edge of sight, a dark haze above which the upper sky was like a blue cap, hot and heavy.About mid-day they came to a hill whose top was wide and flattened, like a shallow saucer with a green

Neiman Olympic Jumper

Neiman Olympic JumperNeiman Olympic HurdlerNeiman Olympic GymnastNeiman Olympic Fencers
walls rose. There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a beyond the Forest had been heard. But it was not a tale that any hobbit liked to listen to, even by a comfortable fireside far away. These four now suddenly remembered what the joy of this house had driven from their minds: the house of Tom Bombadil nestled under the very shoulder of those dreaded hills. They lost the thread of his tale and shifted uneasily, looking aside at one another.When they caught his words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into limes when the world was wider, and the seas while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind.’ Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.The hobbits shuddered. Even in the Shire the rumour of the Barrow-wights of the Barrow-downs

Mary Magdalene in the Desert

Mary Magdalene in the DesertMary Magdalene in the Desert Honore DaumierMary Magdalene By PerugioMary Magdalene By Murillo
more than chance; but the purpose is not clear to me, and I fear to say too much.’‘I am deeply grateful,’ said Frodo; ‘but I wish you would tell me plainly what the Black Riders are. If I take your advice I may not see Gandalf for a long while, and I ought to know what is the danger that pursues me.’‘Is it not enough to know that they are servants of the Enemy?’ answered Gildor. ‘Flee them! Speak no words to them! They are deadly. Ask no more of me! But my heart forbodes that, ere all is ended, you, Frodo son of Drogo, will know more of these fell things than Gildor Inglorion. May Elbereth protect you!’‘But where shall I find courage?’ asked Frodo. ‘That is what I chiefly need.’‘Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope! Sleep now! In the morning we shall have gone; but we will send our messages through the lands. The Wandering Companies shall know of your journey, and those that have power for good shall be on