Bronze sculpture is the most common form of cast metal sculptures due to a characteristic trait which is as unusual as it’s desirable. Commonly used bronze alloys will expand a little just before being set so that even the finest details of a mold are filled.

Bronze sculptures are also strong while ductile, or lacking in brittleness, allowing figures to be depicted in actions such as leaps and flights. Supports for bronze statues need smaller cross-sections due to such qualities, as may be seen in equestrian statues where only two hooves are on the base.

Today’s examples are generally created of ninety percent copper and ten percent tin, while in antiquity bronze works were occasionally made with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon. Interestingly, far more stone and ceramic works have come down to us through the ages than those made of bronze, as the metal was quite precious and often melted down to produce new sculptures or weapons and armor in times of war.

Thus, very few big examples in bronze are available from ancient times, and of these most aren’t in good condition. Indeed, most works exhibited in museums, while still full of the evidence of wear and tear, have been painstakingly restored to a quality suitable for display.

Working successfully with bronze typically requires a high level of skill, and a number of distinct casting processes may need to be employed, such as lost-wax casting as well as the related modern-day technique of investment casting. Other methods include sand casting and centrifugal casting.

After final polishing, corrosive materials may be applied to bronze works in order to form a patina or film produced by oxidation or some other chemical method and establish some control over the color and finish. For example, reactive chemicals might be applied to produce a novel marble-like appearance.

Camping supplies are a necessity even when simply hiking. This is due to the fact there’s always the possibility of mishap which will cause you to stay the night in the forest (mountain or desert or wherever else you might be trekking through).

Never underestimate the power of Mother Nature; the weather can change in a sudden flash in many places upon the earth. Indeed, our planet is really a living one, and the very ground upon which we walk can betray us. A rockslide, or worse, can present insurmountable obstacles in our way, necessitating some fieldcraft to maneuver around.

Thus it is usually a great idea to take along camping supplies, just in case. You don’t need to bring everything, but some things are absolutely required. At a minimum you’ll most likely need some kind of shelter, so a tent or sleeping bag must be the first thing on your list. Food and water is next, and it’s a good idea to bring at least one day’s worth, though three days’ is the standard recommended minimum.

Emergency supplies such as first-aid kits and flare signals should also be packed. Of course, much depends on your choice of venue, the time of year, and your own familiarity with the area as well as your general expertise in the field, but having the proper gear around should disaster or, even, just a relatively minor setback, strike won’t cost you too much in terms of weight.

Vital camping gear should be no more than thirty pounds or so, easily portable and convenient. Don’t skimp on common sense! Most serious hikers, campers, and outdoors types know that the possibility of danger is often present, however minimized. If you’re just a casual camper or hiker, then you truly will need to do things by the book and think a few steps ahead!

State tax forms are required to file state taxes – but exactly where is our tax money going? Taxes are used to support the government, but in a democracy the government is supposed to be “for the people,” as a popular rumor has it. All of the state tax forms filed year in, year out seem to have no effect on our local governments, which across the country are much more likely than not operating at a deficit. How is this possible with all of the money pouring into government coffers?

Most folks simply file their state tax forms and leave it at that, too busy with their lives and some even hoping not to attract any government attention. But a growing number of our fellow citizens and residents are deeply concerned over where “their money” is going. Virtually everybody agrees with paying for firefighters, sanitation workers, and other civil servants, but even then there can be a lot of controversy over the details.

Take teachers for example. Again, nearly everyone agrees that teachers are necessary. But how to compensate them with our tax dollars, exactly? Currently, numerous individuals across the country are up in arms over teacher perks and salaries.

It’s felt that educators have things much too comfortable, and there are individuals who would like to make the profession of teaching a job like any other, which in the United States means “hire and fire at will.”

These people want to, they say, hold teachers more “accountable” for student performance, which is usually proposed to be assessed by standardised test scores. But the other side of the argument believes that teaching isn’t just a job like any other, that the training of minds and the inspiration of hearts is not something which can be neatly measured on a quarterly or yearly basis like some corporate earnings report.

As legendary as the team is, it’s an open question whether Dallas Cowboys merchandise would’ve been as popular as they are without the equally famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. These ladies are not just any ol’ football cheerleading squad members, but make up a veritable franchise in themselves.

No less than two made-for-TV movies have appeared about them, not to mention any number of Dallas Cowboys merchandise bearing their likeness somewhere on the product! For when you think of Texas football, you think the Cowboys – and when you think Cowboys, you think of their cheerleaders.

Sure the die-hard fan may prefer his Dallas Cowboys flag “straight-up” but many others who aren’t so hard-core would most likely welcome a shot of the cheerleaders illustrating their fan merchandise! No other collection of young ladies so epitomize the American woman: young, fun, and fit; spirited; glamorous; intelligent.

Yes, despite the voyeurism involved these beauties know how to comport themselves and market themselves. Team try-outs obviously focus on athleticism and physical beauty but as spokesmodels for the team a great amount of social savvy and hence intelligence is necessary, too.

The only other set of girls that have left such a deep impression on popular culture worldwide would have to be Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Bunnies. Interestingly, the Cowboys’ cheerleading squad actually started out mixed, with both males and females, as was high school and collegiate football tradition.

And indeed, it was local high school students that actually made up the squad back in the 1960s. In 1969, however a deliberate attempt was made to improve in-game attendance by offering only female cheerleaders whose routines were unlike those prevalent at school games. By 1972, all cheerleaders were over the age of eighteen as their moves became increasingly more like sexy dance routines.

Data recovery is an essential part of our modern day world, with machines facilitating the vast majority of our lives on the internet and off. The loss of personal information and customer records would be catastrophic for any organization, and so data recovery software is a popular kind of insurance for many. But, more broadly speaking, data recovery or memory itself has been a favorite subject of science fiction, with many plots revolving around the uncanny sensation that we are nothing more than our memories – which, in a perfectly digitized world, would be nothing but easily copied bits of data!

Fascinating as these considerations are, for an even more explosive idea all you have to do is mix them with old-fashioned notions of clairvoyance and déjà vu. First coined by New Age spiritualist P.M.H. Atwater (née Phyllis Johnston), future memory is conceived of as the phenomenon whereby one can know the future.

With plain old prophetic foresight now repackaged in 21st Century techno-speak, science fiction writers are busy exploring the nexus between man and machine, self and other, reality and virtual reality. The gist of it all is pregnant with implication: if we are nothing but our memories; if our memories are but bits of information; if technological innovation can catch these bits the same way it manipulates all other information; then what does it mean to be oneself?

Philip K. Dick touched on these very questions in his short story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Adapted into a kind of futuristic movie noir under the title of Blade Runner, the concept centers on just what it means to be human in a world where very humanlike androids can be made.

Another movie adapted from a Dick short is Total Recall, involving a federal agent’s created memories. More recently, the Leonardo Dicaprio vehicle Deception also explored the same what-if scenarios: what if thoughts could be planted? Never mind data recovery; seems like technology will one day create the need for deliberate data loss! And indeed, there are any number of science fiction stories devoted to that topic, too…

As one of the most promising platforms to have appeared at the turn of the century, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was in the beginning greeted with widespread derision as a Johnny-Come-Lately to the nine billion-dollar videogaming market place (which is currently worth many multiples of billions more each year). Nowadays the Xbox is considered cutting-edge and competes directly with Sony’s just as exceptional Playstation, but recently the stakes were elevated with Microsoft’s introduction of its Kinect technology that promises to do away with game controllers completely, using the player’s own body movements to direct all onscreen activity. The highly state-of-the-art motion-detection technology makes it possible to scan even facial gestures!

Some of the most popular of museum replicas are those famous Italian marble statues every person knows: David, Augustus Caesar, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. They are some of the most prized examples of marble sculpture anywhere, with a fine smoothness and absolute realism.

No wonder everyone wants a copy! They truly lend an air of elegance and also authority – gravitas – to a setting. They are veritable objets d’art in themselves, though can also stylishly serve as bookends and even paperweights!

No, those are not ignominious fates for such masterpieces of Italian marble. After all, there is no shame in being practical in addition to being beautiful, and if anything making use of miniature versions of beloved marble statues in novel ways can only further cement their reputations. For what is the purpose of art if not to lift us above the everyday? And what better way to do that than to suffuse the everyday with art, in the manner of a deus ex machina!

Having replicas of museum works of art in your home or office can put you in a great mood all day long if you truly enjoy art. You’ll go through your day surrounded by some of the most inspirational works ever made by humankind, landmarks of human achievement and creativity. Who knows, they might even “rub off” on you and inspire creations of your own!

Ultimately, the point in owning such things is how they put us in touch with the cultural history of our species. We are reminded of where we came from and what we can accomplish. What they teach us is that the human capacity for imagination is boundless; they put us in a spiritual realm where we can all take pride in the legacy of the ancients. Sounds too good to be true? Get your own and see!

Surgical masks are most frequently worn by health professionals, but in many Asian countries they’re worn simply as a way of protecting oneself from the smog, a common problem in that part of the world. Asians also wear surgical masks when sick in order to not infect anybody else. Interestingly, such a simple everyday thing is involved in one of the most uncanny of popular legends in Japan.

Kuchisake Onna, or “slit-mouthed woman” in Japanese, was originally a extremely gorgeous woman whose jealous husband cut her mouth from ear to ear, taunting, “Who will think you are beautiful now!” Ever since then, on foggy nights, she can be seen roaming around in a surgical mask. When she encounters somebody, typically youth, she will shyly inquire whether the individual thinks she is beautiful.

If the answer is yes, Onna will take off her surgical mask and ask, “How about now?” Different versions of the legend give various outcomes if the answer remains affirmative, all bad: she will either cut the individual from ear to ear to resemble herself or kill the person – or both – or, inexplicably, give a large blood-soaked ruby and walk away.

Different versions of this tale offer for the same general set of choices even if the original answer had been negative – mutilation or murder. Basically, meeting Kuchisake Onna is bad luck. However, much more modern versions nowadays advise that responding “You’re average” or “So-so” or even asking her what she thinks of one’s own beauty will turn the tables on her and confuse her, providing an opportunity to escape.

And, in one of those only-in-Japan kind of things, there is even the tactic of simply informing her that you must be on your way, so as to embarrass her for forgetting her manners and making her excuse herself from your presence!

The all-important first date. The getting-to-know-you can be greatly helped along by an amusement ride, and the most exhilarating one of all must be the Skywalk by Zalman Silber. A serial entrepreneur who made his first big fortune with New York’s infamous Skyride, a much ballyhooed but modest thirty-minute movie of helicopter flyovers, Sydney, Australia’s Skywalk is a much more visceral affair – and for a first-date, visceral is where it’s got to be at!

No, get your mind out of the gutter – “visceral” here simply means heart-pounding thrills which, studies show, make dates more attracted to one another. Uh-huh, really: the more physically exciting the activities the more likely dates are to think of one another as being physically attractive. Scientists have paired up total strangers of the opposite sex and asked them to secretly rate one another’s attractiveness. Then each pair was put through a roller-coaster, sitting side-by-side, and asked again to rate one another’s attractiveness after the ride. The second set of responses were almost always substantially higher than than the first set!

So if you would like to make a great impression, make sure to get her (or him!) engaging in some kind of physically exhilarating activity with you – such as the aforementioned Skywalk from Zalman Silber. Set at the top of the Sydney Tower, the Skywalk is really a catwalk with glass flooring that provides visitors with a panoramic view of the city a thousand feet above street level. Being a catwalk, everything is out in the open, with no windows between guests and…nothingness. The Skywalk offers not only a bird’s-eye view of the Harbour City but all the visceral feelings to go with it as well!

And if the simple fact of being up so high doesn’t get your date’s heart throbbing, make sure she looks down! Visiting the Skywalk is a perfect first date because the Skywalk is the perfect ice-breaker. Don’t be surprised if she reflexively grabs your arm! Even though everyone is tethered by cable to sturdy metal support structures, the frequent gusts of wind can be strong enough to make one forget all the safety features built into the experience. Afterward, you and your date can retire to the conventional observation deck of the Sydney Tower to enjoy the romantic view while sharing fond memories of your Skywalk. Or better yet, purchase another set of tickets to really jack up the excitement and send her emotions through the roof!

Plastic water tanks are a far cry from the armored behemoths also known as tanks, but they do share a curious historical connection. Yes, that’s correct, modern plastics were invented after World War II, while tanks first made their debut in the waning years of the Great War, but there is something of a relationship.

Although not plastic water tanks, military tanks had been first so named by their British creators in an effort to disguise their research and development. It was hoped that by classifying these inventions simply as “tanks” on paper, any German spies who may have gotten a hold of the secret documents that referred to them could maybe be mislead. As it turned out, the label stuck and tanks have been known as just that ever since.

In English, anyway. In German, and many other languages, they’re known as only “armor,” a more appropriate term that’s a recognized synonym in the English-speaking world, particularly among military circles. A far cry from today’s plastic water tanks indeed, but the thought is never far away in the minds of military history buffs.

The connection is a little more than merely etymological, actually, as the earliest designs did look like nothing more than basic water tanks to those who had the security clearance to see them. Tanks have dominated the battlefield for over sixty years, and even these days they form the core of most conventional land warfare tactics.

The introduction of attack helicopters and guided missiles have significantly reduced their striking power, and the asymmetrical warfare prevalent in conflicts nowadays render them ill-suited for most missions, but nothing on the horizon can match the tank in its useful combination of firepower, maneuverability, and defensive capacity. Though less used, the tank still figures eminently in offensive tactics and grand strategy and should find a role for itself in the decades yet to come.