The Vic Firth Company began when Firth, who had been performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 12 years, was asked to perform pieces which he felt required a higher quality drumstick than those that were currently being manufactured. Firth decided to design a set of his own sticks.

Firth hand-whittled the first sticks himself from bulkier sticks and sent these prototypes to a wood turner in Montreal. The two prototypes that he sent would become the SD1 and SD2, the first two models of sticks ever manufactured by the Vic Firth, Inc..

Today, the Vic Firth Company product line has grown from the SD1 and SD2 to approximately 300 products in its catalog, and the company manufactures 12 million sticks a year. The company's current range of products also includes a line of pepper mills, salt grinders, and rolling pins sold under the Vic Firth Gourmet brand.

Dissociated Vertical Deviation (DVD) is an ocular condition which occurs in association with a squint, typically Infantile Esotropia.

Hering's and Sherrington's laws of innervation. A DVD is a slow upward and sometimes temporal movement of one eye, with cortical suppression of the eye while it is deviated. On returning downward and possibly inward to take up fixation, the DVD slow movement will be reversed.

The dissociative movement seen 'objectively' should not be confused with the dissociation that occurs 'subjectively' - as when the brain begins to not visualise both images simultaneously (by ignoring or suppressing vision in that eye).

Bagpuss is a 1974 UK children's television series, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate through their company Smallfilms. The title character is "an old, saggy cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams". Although only 13 episodes of the show were made, it remains fondly remembered, and has often been repeated in the UK.

Most of the stories and songs used in the series are based on folk songs and fairy tales from around the world. The round sung by the mice (starting with the words "We will fix it...") is to the tune of "Sumer is icumen in", dating from the Middle Ages.

Animal Face-Off is a television program that aired on Discovery Channel and Animal Planet in 2004, and centered on a hypothetical battle between two animals that could possibly meet in the wild. CGI replicas and models were used to collect data (such as strength, bite force, etc.) about the animals. Then, in a virtual arena, a brief computer-animated fight scene reveals the results.

The "Beep" (also referred to as the SWBLW) is a one-of-a-kind switcher locomotive built in 1970 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at its Cleburne, Texas workshops. Technically a rebuild, the Beep (a portmanteau of "Baldwin Geep," whose official designation was derived from "SWitcher, Baldwin Locomotive Works") originally entered service on the Santa Fe as a Baldwin Model VO-1000. As of end of 2008 per Train Magazine March 2009, this locomotive was retired and stored operational at Topeka, KS. In May 2009 the unit was donated to the Western America Railroad Museum in Barstow, Calif.

Rhythmicon - also known as the Polyrhythmophone - was the world's first electronic drum machine (or "rhythm machine," the original term for devices of the type).

In 1930, the avant-garde American composer and musical theorist Henry Cowell commissioned Russian inventor Léon Theremin to create the remarkably innovative Rhythmicon. Cowell wanted an instrument with which to play compositions involving multiple rhythmic patterns impossible for one person to perform simultaneously on acoustic keyboard or percussion instruments. The invention, completed by Theremin in 1931, can produce up to sixteen different rhythms - a periodic base rhythm on a selected fundamental pitch and fifteen progressively more rapid rhythms, each associated with one of the ascending notes of the fundamental pitch's overtone series. Like the overtone series itself, the rhythms follow an arithmetic progression, so that for every single beat of the fundamental, the first overtone (if played) beats twice, the second overtone beats three times, and so forth. Using the device's keyboard, each of the sixteen rhythms can be produced individually or in any combination. A seventeenth key permits optional syncopation. The instrument produces its percussion-like sound using a system, proposed by Cowell, that involves light being passed through radially indexed holes in a series of spinning 'cogwheel' discs before arriving at electric photoreceptors.

Like many a futuristic contraption, the Rhythmicon was wonderful in every respect, except that it did not work. It was not until forty years later that an electronic instrument with similar specifications was constructed at Stanford University. It could do everything that Cowell and Theremin had wanted it to do and more, but it lacked the emotional quality essential to music. It sounded sterile, antiseptic, lifeless - like a robot with a synthetic voice.

The Swiss Army knife ( French: Couteau suisse, German: Schweizer Offiziersmesser: "Swiss officer's knife", Italian: Coltellino svizzero) is a brand of pocket knife or multi-tool manufactured by Victorinox AG and Wenger SA. The term "Swiss Army knife" was coined by US soldiers after World War II due to the difficulty they had in pronouncing the German name.

The Swiss Army knife generally has a blade as well as various tools, such as screwdrivers and can openers. These attachments are stowed inside the handle of the knife through a pivot point mechanism. The handle is usually red, and features a Victorinox or Wenger "cross" logo or, for military issue knives, the coat of arms of Switzerland.

The Great Blue Hole is a large submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 metres (984 ft) across and 124 metres (407 ft) deep.

The site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world.

HMS Radiant was one of the "R-class" of 62 destroyers built between 1916 and 1917 for the Royal Navy as an improvement of the earlier M-class destroyers. The R-class could be distinguished from its predecessors by having the after 4-inch gun mounted in a bandstand. All but two were scrapped in the 1920s and 1930s. HMS Skate survived to see service in World War II as a convoy escort. HMS Radiant was transferred to the Royal Siamese Navy as "Phra Ruang" in September 1920 and survives to this day as a hulk.

Kidderminster is a town, in the Wyre Forest district of Worcestershire, England. It is located approximately seventeen miles south-west of Birmingham city centre and approximately fifteen miles north of Worcester city centre. The 2001 census recorded a population of 55,182 in the town.

The land around Kidderminster was was granted to Cynebehrt by Ethelbald of Mercia and became the settlement of Stour-in-Usmere, later the subject of a territorial dispute settled by Offa of Mercia in 781. The earliest written form of the name Kidderminster (Chedeminstre) was not seen until it appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086. Various spellings were in use – Kedeleministre or Kideministre (in the 12th and 13th centuries), Kidereministre (13th–15th centuries) – until the name of the town was settled as Kidderminster by the 16th century.

Thomas "Tom" Cat is a fictional character and half of the academy-award winning Tom and Jerry cartoon cat-and-mouse duo. He is a blue/grey anthropomorphic cat who first appeared in the 1940 animated short Puss Gets the Boot. Tom was originally known as "Jasper" during his debut in that short, however, beginning from his next appearance in The Midnight Snack and onwards, he is known as "Tom" or "Thomas".

With more than 100,000 plants available in the UK alone, how can you tell which plants are the best for all-round garden value? The Royal Horticultural Socieity Award of Garden Merit (AGM) exists to help gardeners make that choice.

The AGM is intended to be of practical value to the home gardener. It is awarded therefore only to a plant that meets the following criteria:

• It must be of outstanding excellence for ordinary garden decoration or use
• It must be available
• It must be of good constitution
• It must not require highly specialist growing conditions or care
• It must not be particularly susceptible to any pest or disease
• It must not be subject to an unreasonable degree of reversion in its vegetative or floral characteristics

Plants of all kinds can be considered for the AGM, including fruit and vegetables. An AGM plant may be cultivated for use or decoration. It can be hardy throughout the British Isles, or suitable only for cultivation under heated glass. It can range in size from Sequoiadendron giganteum to Cornus canadensis.

There is no grading system within the AGM, and no attempt is made to distinguish the good from the very good. No limit has been placed on the number of plants that may hold the award at any one time, but in groups that include many cultivars, standards have to be set especially high if the AGM is to offer helpful guidance to the gardener.

An alcohol hangover is associated with a variety of symptoms that may include dehydration, fatigue, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea, flatulence, weakness, elevated body temperature and heart rate, hypersalivation, difficulty concentrating, sweating, anxiety, dysphoria, irritability, sensitivity to light and noise, erratic motor functions (including tremor), trouble sleeping, severe hunger, halitosis, and lack of depth perception. Many people will also be repulsed by the thought, taste or smell of alcohol during a hangover. The symptoms vary significantly from person to person, and it is not clear whether hangovers directly affect cognogonitive abilitities.

BASE jumping is an activity that employs an initially packed parachute to jump from fixed objects. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans ( bridges), and earth ( cliffs).

While BASE jumping itself is generally not illegal the covert nature of accessing objects usually necessitates trespassing on an object. Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, is an example of a man-made structure in the United States where BASE jumping is allowed year-round without a permit.

Other US public land, including land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, does not ban air delivery, and there are numerous jumpable objects on BLM(!) land.

The legal position is better at other sites and in other countries. For example, in Norway's Lysefjord (from the mountain Kjerag), BASE jumpers are made welcome. Some other Norwegian places, like the Troll Wall, are banned because of dangerous rescue missions in the past.

The National Toy Hall of Fame is an American hall of fame that recognises the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years. Criteria for induction include: icon-status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered); longevity (more than a passing fad); discovery (fosters learning, creativity, or discovery); and innovation (profoundly changed play or toy design). Established in 1998 under the direction of Ed Sobey, the National Toy Hall of Fame was originally housed at A. C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon, United States, but was moved to the Strong National Museum of Play (now The Strong) in Rochester, New York, in 2002 after it outgrew its original home.

The original inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame were announced in November 1999. Students from nearby Willamette University protested (good naturedly) when they learned that Mr. Potato Head and Barbie’s friend Ken were not included.^[2]

Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 - March 21, 1947) and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 - March 1947), known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely seen men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders.

Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived, surrounded by over 140 tons of collected items that they had amassed over several decades. Langley died when one of his own booby traps crushed him as he was fetching food for his blind and paralysed brother Homer, who then died of starvation.

In chess, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble, overconfidence or carelessness. While a blunder may seem like a stroke of luck for the opposing player, some chess players give their opponent plenty of opportunities to blunder.

What qualifies as a "blunder" rather than a normal mistake is somewhat subjective. A weak move from a novice player might be explained by the player's lack of skill, while the same move from a master might be called a blunder. In chess annotation, blunders are typically marked with a double question mark, " ??", after the move.

Especially among amateur and novice players, blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves. In particular, checks, captures, and threats need to be considered at each move. Neglecting these possibilities leaves a player vulnerable to simple tactical errors.

"Duplicate bridge" is the most widely used variation of contract bridge in club and tournament play. It is called duplicate because the same bridge deal (i.e. the specific arrangement of the 52 cards into the four hands) is played at each table and scoring is based on relative performance. Bridge boards, simple four-way card holders, are used to enable each player's hand to be passed intact to the next table.

In duplicate bridge, a player normally plays with the same partner throughout an event and the two are known as a "pair". The tournament consists of a number of rounds, which each present between 2 and 5 boards to be played against the same opponents. After each round, some or all of the players move to a different table according to a prescribed movement.

The "Mitchell movement" is the most common. The North-South pairs remain stationary after each round while the East-West pairs move to the next higher table and the boards move to the next lower table. The "perfect" Mitchell consists of seven, nine, or thirteen tables, with four, three, or two boards per round respectively. It will come as no surprise to Prog fans that the numbers 7/4, 9/3 and 13/2 are significant in the perfect Mitchell.

Glo...o..o..orious Godfrey is a DC Comics villain created by Jack Kirby, originally as part of The Fourth World series of comic books in the early 1970s. He first appeared in Forever People vol. 1 #3 (June 1971), in which the evil Darkseid attempts to deprive the world of its heroes, not only so that they would be ineffective against Darkseid, but also in the hope that the people of Earth would more willingly surrender to his rule.

The plan consists simply of persuading the public to resent the heroes in their midst, and therefore Darkseid sends the master manipulator Glorious Godfrey to Earth to start a hate-campaign toward the superheroes. The heroes are able to defeat the campaign and Godfrey makes one last ploy by putting on the helmet of Doctor Fate in hopes of obtaining his awesome might. Instead, the helmet mindwipes Godfrey, leaving him nothing more than an empty shell that is sent to Belle Reve sanitarium, where he would later be broken out of by the Female Furies under the order of Darkseid.

A jigsaw puzzle is a puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces. Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture.

Jigsaw puzzles were originally created by painting a picture on a flat, rectangular piece of wood, and then cutting that picture into small pieces with a jigsaw, hence the name. John Spilsbury, a London mapmaker and engraver, is credited with commercialising jigsaw puzzles around 1760. Jigsaw puzzles have since come to be made primarily on cardboard.

According to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, doing jigsaw puzzles is one of many activities that can help keep the brain active and may contribute to reducing the risk of developing...erm, you know...thing.

Frost is a lunar crater that is attached to the southern rim of the walled plain Landau, and lies on the far side of the Moon. Just to the east is Petropavlovskiy, and to the northeast along the edge of Landau is Razumov. The crater Douglass is located less than a crater diameter to the west-southwest.

The outer rim of Frost is eroded(!), but is overlaid by only one small craterlet along the northeast side. The inner wall is wider and heavier along the northern side where it has been reinforced by the former rim of Landau. The northern part of the interior floor is occupied by two smaller craters, with the larger of the two along the northwest inner wall. The southern part of the floor is relatively level and featureless.