Axum or Aksum (Tigrinya: ኣኽሱም^?/'aq͡χʼsum/, Amharic: አክሱም^?/'aksum/) is a city in the northern part of Ethiopia, its first former royal capital, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. The town has a population of 56,500 residents (2010), and is governed as an urban wäräda.

The original capital of the Kingdom of Aksum, it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Africa. Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from about 400 BCE into the 10th century. In 1980 UNESCO added Aksum's archaeological sites to its list of World Heritage Sites due to their historic value.

Located in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the Tigray Region near the base of the Adwa mountains, Axum has an elevation of 2,131 metres (6,991 ft). Axum is surrounded by La'ilay Maychew wäräda.

History

Axum was the center of the marine trading power known as the Aksumite Kingdom, which predated the earliest mentions in Roman era writings. Around 356 CE, its ruler was converted to Christianity by Frumentius. Later, under the reign of Kaleb, Axum was a quasi-ally of Byzantium against the Persian Empire. The historical record is unclear, with ancient church records the primary contemporary sources.

Axum (previously codenamed Maestro) is a domain specific concurrent programming language, based on the Actor model, that was under active development by Microsoft between 2009 and 2011. It is an object-oriented language based on the .NET Common Language Runtime using a C-like syntax which, being a domain-specific language, is intended for development of portions of a software application that is well-suited to concurrency. But it contains enough general-purpose constructs that one need not switch to a general-purpose programming language (like C#) for the sequential parts of the concurrent components.

The main idiom of programming in Axum is an Agent (or an Actor), which is an isolated entity that executes in parallel with other Agents. In Axum parlance, this is referred to as the agents executing in separate isolation domains; objects instantiated within a domain cannot be directly accessed from another. Agents are loosely coupled (i.e., the number of dependencies between agents is minimal) and do not share resources like memory (unlike the shared memory model of C# and similar languages); instead a message passing model is used. To co-ordinate agents or having an agent request the resources of another, an explicit message must be sent to the agent. Axum provides Channels to facilitate this.

Axum is a solo album by American jazz flautist and composer James Newton recorded in 1981 and released on the ECM label.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 3 stars stating "James Newton's set of unaccompanied flute solos is generally more intriguing and diverse than one might expect. An expert at multiphonics (often humming through his flute in order to get more than one note at a time), Newton is also very strong at constructing logical yet utterly unpredictable improvisations. His playing on nine of his originals covers a fair amount of ground, and he alternates between three different types of flutes (his regular horn, alto flute and bass flute). Still, the results are more for specialized tastes".

Track listing

"S.O.S. (Too Bad)" is a song by American hard rock band Aerosmith. It was released in 1974 as their third single from their second album Get Your Wings.

Background

Written by Steven Tyler, it is a hard rocking song focusing on sex and sleaze, with a chorus of "I'm a bad, lonely school boy, and I'm a rat, and it's too bad, can't get me none of that." The song starts off with a fast drum beat and basic guitar riff, then slows down, and builds up once again, with Steven Tyler's rapid-fire, fierce lyrics accompanying. The song's lyrical content and musical styles are in the vein of "blooze", a grittier hard rock version of blues music, often with lyrics focused on sex, drugs, and urban life.

The song has remained a fan favorite and has been a staple in the setlists on Aerosmith's most recent tours, the Rockin' the Joint Tour and the Route of All Evil Tour.

S.O.S. stands for "Same Old Shit".

Track listing

References

External links

The Chronicles of Life and Death is the third full-length studio album by Good Charlotte, released on October 5, 2004, through Daylight Records. The album was released with two different versions: a "Life" and a "Death" version which came with different cover art (designed by guitarist Billy Martin) and a special bonus track. There is also a Japanese version that has a different cover art as well as the special bonus tracks from both the "Life" and "Death" versions, including the hidden track "Wounded" at the end of the album. The Chronicles of Life and Death is the first and only album to feature Chris Wilson on drums.

Composition

The album has been widely considered a departure from their previous two albums, mixing new elements such as lyrical topics into Good Charlotte's youthful sound. Some sources have referred to the album as "emo". The album has different music styles. The opener track "Once Upon A Time: The Battle of Life and Death" is an instrumental opener with strings, a Japanese choir and an organ. "The Truth" is a piano ballad, and "I Just Wanna Live" has a hip hop beat with synthesized strings. Lyrically, the album also focuses on darker and more serious subject matter. "The World Is Black" is about apathy, "S.O.S" is about suicide, and "In This World (Murder) is about corporate greed.

"S.O.S." is a song Yū Aku and Shunichi Tokura wrote for Japanese idol duo Pink Lady. It was released as the group's second single in November 1976, and became their first number-one hit on the Japanese Oricon singles chart in the following year.

"S.O.S." features Morse code which stands for the song title at the opening of the song. Because its sound effect might be mistaken for genuine Morse code, intro of the track has been omitted occasionally when the song has played on the radio. The song has been one of favorites for both the duo and the fans, and it is also one of the essential songs performed in their concerts.

Reception

Led by commercial success of its predecessor "Pepper Keibu" which reached the number-4 on the Japanese Oricon chart, "S.O.S" climbed the top of the country's hit parade three months after its release. A single remained on the chart for 38 weeks, selling approximately 650,000 copies. According to the record label Victor, "S.O.S." has sold in excess of 1.2 million units to date.