Word: brass
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...English Mathematician Charles Babbage had an idea for a machine that would perform mathematical calculations rapidly and infallibly. This was long before the age of electrical circuitry, so Babbage's plan called for the machine to be executed in brass and steel and powered by a hand crank. If it had been completed, his Difference Engine would have been a magnificent beast, requiring 25,000 parts and weighing about 15 tons. But he ran out of money and patience and had to abandon it unfinished...
Holding nothing back, Luisi moved to all corners of the podium as he gestured for biting brass punches to give way to penetrating piccolo runs and rumbling timpani rolls, all of which punctuated violin parts frenetic enough to break a few strings along the way. The brass section was assertive and bold, but never shrill in its approach, inserting sarcastic staccatos in the most traditionally irreverent of places. Luisi urged the ensemble to a pleasantly deafening climax, raising questions as to why the BSO doesn’t program entertaining pieces like these more often...
...European Union have stayed away, other countries have poured money into Burma - most notably its neighbors China, Thailand and India, who are hungry for the country's plentiful natural resources. The sting of western sanctions has been lessened by such investment forays, leaving the Burmese military brass with plenty of money to prop up their regime. (See pictures of what lies behind the discontent in Burma...
...General Santos is not the only place dependent on tuna. At 6 a.m., an auctioneer in Tokyo reaches up to ring a brass bell, alerting a group of blue-capped, rubber-booted men perusing rows of gray frozen tuna that the bidding is about to begin. He starts to chant out the tuna's serial numbers, written on squares of paper stuck to their bellies. One bidder raises his hand with an offer that the auctioneer weaves into his mantra: "4-5, 4-5, 4-5." That's 4,500 yen - about $50 - one of many offers made for every...
Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, flew into the Gulf of Aden on Nov. 7 to celebrate the first exports of liquefied natural gas from a sprawling $4.5 billion plant - the biggest ever investment in his otherwise impoverished desert country. A brass band played and politicians applauded the gas tanker as it set sail for South Korea, but Saleh's attention was elsewhere - on the attacks that Saudi Arabia's military forces were waging against antigovernment Shi'ite rebels in the north of Yemen. The rebels "are trying to demolish the economy," Saleh tells TIME, vowing, "We will crush them...