A Ton of Crap (35 page)

Tornadoes
The most common and dangerous tornadoes form from a supercell thunderstorm, meaning it lasts longer than an hour and feeds off of a rising current of air that is rotating and tilted. Non-supercell tornadoes form without the updraft of air. A gustnado is a form of a non-supercell tornado that forms near the ground from dust or debris, and a landspout is a non-supercell tornado that forms near the ground, doesn’t have a rotating updraft, and forms a funnel when the thunderstorm cloud is growing. Waterspouts are like landspouts, but they form over water.

PORTUGUESE

Related Languages
Portuguese is a West Iberian Romance language, and is closely related to Spanish, Galician, Fala, Leonese, and Mirandese. Galician and Fala are the closest languages to Portuguese. Galician and Portuguese used to be one language called Galician-Portuguese, and the vocabulary of Galician is still very similar to Portuguese. Fala is a descendant of Galician-Portuguese, and is spoken in several small towns in Spain.

THE RENAISSANCE

High Renaissance
The artwork of the High Renaissance, which was from 1490 to 1530, made advances on the techniques of artists of the Early Renaissance. The center of the High Renaissance was Rome, and artwork was now being commissioned by the popes. It is during the High Renaissance that the best-known works of Renaissance painters appeared. The most well-known artists to come out of the High Renaissance are Leonardo da Vinci (
Last Supper
), Michelangelo Buonarroti (
The Creation of Adam
), and Raphael (
Sistine Madonna
).

VISUAL LITERACY

Typography
The size, arrangement, and style of letters can give different meanings, and also determine an image’s legibility. This is especially important in understanding advertising, websites, or media pieces. Typography does not just rely on what font looks the best, but rather what font will convey the message you want to get across to the viewer. Typography also gives value. Not all words are given the same meaning or value, and use of typography allows for distinctions and emphasis to be made.

PI

Pi Gets More Accurate
At first, pi was believed to have less than ten digits. Aryabhata, an Indian mathematician and astronomer from the fifth century, came to the realization that pi is in fact an irrational number; that is, the decimals go on forever without repeating. Around 1600, Ludolph van Ceulen, a German mathematician, correctly identified the first 35 decimals in pi. In 1789, a Slovene mathematician calculated to the first 140, though only the first 126 numbers were correct. In 1873, the first 527 numbers were calculated correctly. And in 2005, with the use of a supercomputer, the first 1.24 trillion places were claimed to have been calculated correctly.

NATURAL DISASTERS

Avalanches
Avalanches occur because of gravity’s pull on the snow on a mountainside. In mild weather, water vapor can slide down the snow, flake, and refreeze at the center, creating a cohesive and solid mass. When it is cold, the water vapor goes to the bottom of the snow on the ground, and forms angular crystals, which weaken snow. Sunlight and light rain produce a thin surface crust, and that makes bonding of new snow more difficult. Instability of the snowpack can be triggered by a storm, wind, temperature, and even a person’s weight. Sluffs are avalanches of loose snow, and slab avalanches occur when a strong layer is on top of a weak layer. Sluffs are the more deadlier type of avalanche.

PORTUGUESE

The Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990
In 1990, an international treaty was made to unify the writing system of Portuguese that would be used by all Portuguese-speaking countries. The treaty made changes in the spelling of both European and Brazilian Portuguese. Some letters were removed, the letters
k
,
w
, and
y
were added to the Portuguese alphabet, and guidelines were made for the use of the hyphen and capitalization.

THE RENAISSANCE

Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance was from 1500 to 1600, and it took place outside of Italy. The ideas of the Renaissance quickly spread throughout Europe, and some of the most notable artwork of the time came from the Netherlands and Germany. This artwork is distinctively different than the work produced in Italy, due to the increasing disenchantment with the Church. The figures appeared less classical, and more realistic. The most well-known artists to come out of the Northern Renaissance are the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck (
The Arnolfini Portrait
), the German painter Albrecht Durer (
The Knight, Death, and the Devil
), and the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (
The Garden of Earthly Delights
).

VISUAL LITERACY

Color
Color shapes emotions and perceptions of a visual image. In terms of visual literacy, an important distinction needs to be understood when it comes to colors, and that is the difference between warm and cool colors. Hues can express mood. Red, a warm color, will evoke anger or passion, while blue, a cool color, is more passive and is often used to represent truth. Color saturation and contrast of light and dark also play a key role in understanding the role of color.

PI