Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (July 2014) |
The Maya Embedded Language (MEL) is a scripting language used to simplify tasks in the 3D graphics software Autodesk Maya. Most tasks that can be achieved through Maya's GUI can be achieved with MEL, as well as certain tasks that are not available from the GUI. MEL offers a method of speeding up complicated or repetitive tasks, as well as allowing users to redistribute a specific set of commands to others that may find it useful.
MEL is syntactically similar to Perl and Tcl. It provides some memory management and dynamic array-allocation, and offers direct access to functions specific to Maya. The majority of standard Maya commands are default MEL scripts, saved in the Maya Program Files directory.
MEL is fairly limited compared to mainstream scripting languages. It is primarily a language meant to journal the Maya session,[citation needed] so it lacks many advanced features such as associative arrays. Python was added to Maya as an alternative to MEL in Maya 8.5. Still MEL offers some advantages to Python:
MEL is often criticized for its lack of programming features, and object orientation. In practice, however, MEL is used as a metaprogramming language where MEL just instructs Maya's node architecture to solve the problem. Since nodes form the actual computational core of Maya using a more robust readily apparent programming method would be a very inefficient approach. In many ways MEL complements the Maya API, with somewhat clear boundaries between allocated tasks. This makes MEL harder to learn and fully understand.
The tools designed using MEL scripts generally come under the following categories:
This is an example of a script which copies a selected object through its path:
// animated duplicates/instances script
proc animatedDuplication (int $rangeStart, int $rangeEnd, int $numOfDuplicates, int $duplicateOrInstance)
{
int $range_start = $rangeStart;
int $range_end = $rangeEnd;
int $num_of_duplicates = $numOfDuplicates;
int $step_size = ($range_end - $range_start) / $num_of_duplicates;
int $i = 0;
int $temp;
currentTime $range_start; // set to range start
string $selectedObjects[]; // to store selected objects
$selectedObjects = `ls -sl`; // store selected objects
select $selectedObjects;
while ($i <= $num_of_duplicates)
{
$temp = $range_start + ($step_size * $i);
currentTime ($temp);
// selected the objects to duplicate or instance
select $selectedObjects;
if ($duplicateOrInstance == 0)
{
duplicate;
}
else
{
instance;
}
$i++;
}
}
// Usage example:
// duplicate the current selection 5 times --
// evenly distributed between frame 1 and 240
animatedDuplication(1, 240, 5, 0);
Maya also offers an expression language that is a superset of MEL, and results in nodes that are executed as part of Maya's dependency graph. Expressions are developed with Maya's expression editor, and allow scripts to trigger while Maya evaluates the scene file at each change in time, to simulate complex behaviors or perform other useful tasks.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Maya Embedded Language (MEL) is a scripting language used to simplify tasks in the 3D graphics software Autodesk Maya. Most tasks that can be achieved through Maya's GUI can be achieved with MEL, as well as certain tasks that are not available from the GUI. MEL offers a method of speeding up complicated or repetitive tasks, as well as allowing users to redistribute a specific set of commands to others that may find it useful.
A macuahuitl is a Mesoamerican weapon consisting of a wooden sword with several embedded obsidian blades. The name is derived from the Nahuatl language and means "hand-wood". Its sides are embedded with prismatic blades traditionally made from obsidian, which is capable of producing an edge sharper than high quality steel razor blades. The macuahuitl was a standard close-combat weapon. Use of the macuahuitl as a weapon is attested from the first millennium CE, although specimens can be found in art dating to at least pre-classic times. By the time of the Spanish conquest, the macuahuitl was widely distributed in Mesoamerica. The weapon was used by different civilizations, including the Aztec (Mexicas), Olmec, Maya, Mixtec, Toltec, and Tarascans. At least two examples of this weapon, allegedly three, survived the conquest of the Aztec Empire and are documented in modern literature: one was part of the Royal Armoury of Madrid until it was destroyed by a fire in 1884. Another two were excavated within Mexico City in the 20th century, though only one has subsequently been displayed to the public and is well-documented. The oldest replica is a macuahuitl created by the medievalist Achille Jubinal in the 19th century. As a result of their scarcity, most of what is known about the macahuitl comes from contemporaneous accounts and illustrations that date to the 16th century and earlier.
A Mayan language is one of a group of languages spoken by the Mayan people of Mesoamerica. Mayan language may also refer to:
The Books of Chilam Balam (Mayan pronunciation: [t͡ʃilam ɓahlam]) are handwritten, chiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Maya and early Spanish traditions have coalesced. They compile knowledge on history, prophecy, religion, ritual, literature, the calendar, astronomy, and medicine. Written in the Yucatec Maya language and using the Latin alphabet, the manuscripts are attributed to a legendary author called Chilam Balam, a chilam being a priest who gives prophecies and balam a common surname meaning ʼjaguarʼ. Chilam Balam was notable for correctly predicting the coming of the Spaniards to Yucatán. Nine Books of Chilam Balam are known, most importantly those from Chumayel, Maní, and Tizimín, but more have existed. Both language and content show that parts of the books date back to the time of the Spanish conquest of the Yucatec kingdoms (1527–1546). In some cases, where the language is particularly terse, the books appear to render hieroglyphic script, and thus to hark back to the pre-conquest period.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.