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Daniel J. Evans

Daniel Jackson Evans (born October 16, 1925) is an American politician from Washington. A member of the Republican Party, he served as governor of Washington from 1965 to 1977 and a member of the United States Senate from 1983 to 1989.

Following his service in the United States Navy, Evans was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 1956. He then served as Republican leader of the House before being elected governor in 1964. He was reelected twice more in 1968 and in 1972. Described as a moderate Republican, particularly on social and environmental issues, Evans supported Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican nomination for president in 1968 and refused to endorse Richard Nixon, despite giving the keynote address at that year's Republican National Convention.

Evans was considered for the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 1968 and in 1976, although he was passed over both times. In 1983, he was appointed to the United States Senate following the death of Henry M. Jackson, and was elected in a special election in November and served until 1989, declining to run again. Since the death of James L. Buckley in August 2023, he is the oldest living former senator and,, he is the only living former Republican governor or senator from Washington.

Early life and education
Evans was born in Seattle, Washington, descended from a family that had first arrived in the Washington Territory in 1859; his grandfather had served in one of Washington's first state senates. He grew up in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, and attended Roosevelt High School.

As a young man, Evans was an Eagle Scout, and served as a staff member and Hike Master at Camp Parsons, a well known Boy Scout camp in Washington State. As an adult, he was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America in 1973.

After high school, Evans served in the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. He first entered the V-12 Navy College Training Program, and was stationed at the University of Washington (UW), but was transferred eight months later to an Reserve Officers' Training Corps program at University of California, Berkeley. He did not see combat; he was deployed to the Pacific Ocean shortly after the end of World War II, as a commissioned ensign on a succession of aircraft carriers, before returning to UW in 1946.

Evans graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in civil engineering (BS, 1948; MS, 1949). The UW later (in 2007) gave him the distinction of Alumnus Summa Laude Dignitatus, the highest distinction the university confers on its graduates. He returned to the United States Navy (1951–1953) before working as a structural engineer (1953–1956); in the latter capacity, he helped draw up the plans for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Political career
Having attended Toastmasters to improve his initially abysmal public speaking style, Evans served in the Washington State House of Representatives from 1957 to 1965 before being elected governor.

Despite being a Republican and a self-styled conservative, Evans became known for his administration's liberal policies on environmentalism (he founded the country's first state-level Department of Ecology, which became Nixon's blueprint for the federal Environmental Protection Agency) and strong support of the state's higher education system, including founding Washington's system of community colleges. In addition, he signed a bill to legalize abortion in the first four months of a pregnancy and fought unsuccessfully for a state income tax, two additional liberal positions.

Governor of Washington 1965–1977
Evans announced his campaign for governor in December 1963. He was elected in 1964, defeating incumbent Democratic Governor Albert Rosellini, and served until 1977, one of three to be elected to three terms, after Arthur B. Langlie and later current governor Jay Inslee, in Washington state history. A 1981 University of Michigan study named him one of the ten outstanding American governors of the 20th century. He declined to run for a fourth term in 1976. governor Jay Inslee joined both Langlie and Evans, becoming the third Washington governor to serve three terms with his re-election victory in 2020. Serial killer Ted Bundy served as a campaign aide for Evans, and maintained a close relationship with the governor. During the 1972 campaign, Bundy followed Evans's Democratic opponent around the state, tape recording his speeches, and reporting back to Evans personally. A minor scandal later followed when the Democrats found out about Bundy, who had been posing as a college student.

From 1977 to 1983, Evans served as the second president of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, which Evans had created in 1967 by signing a legislative act authorizing the formation of the college. The largest building on the Evergreen campus is named the Daniel J. Evans Library, in his honor.

United States Senator 1983–1989
In 1983, Governor John Spellman appointed Evans to the United States Senate, to fill a seat left vacant by the death of long-time senator Henry M. Jackson. Evans won a special election later that year against Mike Lowry, and filled the remainder of Jackson's unexpired term, retiring from politics after the 1988 elections. He was unhappy during his term in the Senate, writing in a 1988 column in The New York Times Magazine that "debate has come to consist of set speeches read before a largely empty chamber" and adding that he felt demoralized by "bickering and protracted paralysis".

Evans voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override U.S. President Ronald Reagan's veto). Evans voted in favor of the failed Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States, which was rejected by the U.S. Senate.

Later life
After leaving the Senate in 1989, Evans founded his own consulting firm, Daniel J. Evans Associates. Governor Mike Lowry appointed him to the Board of Regents of the University of Washington in 1993; Evans served as the board's president from 1996 to 1997, and in 1999, the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington was named for him. Evans also went on to work in media, doing an editorial weekly on the KIRO-TV newscasts from the early- to mid-1990s. In 2012, Evans was listed as a director of the Initiative for Global Development. His autobiography was published in 2022. After the death of James L. Buckley in August 2023, he became the oldest living former U.S. senator. On January 26, 2024, his wife of 64 years, the former Nancy Bell, who he married in 1959, died at age 90.

Wilderness preservation efforts
Evans was a Boy Scout whose early experiences hiking in the Olympic Mountains nurtured a life-long love of wilderness.

Evans was a supporter when Congress created the North Cascades National Park in 1968. When governor, he persuaded President Gerald Ford to sign a 1976 legislation creating the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area, when the U.S. Forest Service was urging a veto.

As a U.S. senator, Evans sponsored the million-acre Washington Park Wilderness Act, and legislation creating the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area.

In 1989, Evans co-founded the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, with Mike Lowry.

In 2017, Olympic Wilderness was renamed to Daniel J. Evans Wilderness, in honor of Evans.

Statewide races in Washington
1983 U.S. Senate special election in Washington
 * Dan Evans (incumbent) - 672,326
 * Mike Lowry - 540,981

1972 Washington gubernatorial election
 * Dan Evans (incumbent) - 747,825
 * Albert Rosellini - 630,613

1968 Washington gubernatorial election
 * Dan Evans (incumbent) - 692,378
 * John J. O'Connell - 560,262

1964 Washington gubernatorial election
 * Dan Evans - 697,256
 * Albert Rosellini (incumbent) - 548,692

title: Daniel J. Evans


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User talk:Wing83

Greetings! If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include: Have fun! --Jiang 08:51 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Welcome, newcomers
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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Wing83


text:
User talk:Paul Franz

Greetings! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include: Have fun! --Jiang 08:54 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Welcome, newcomers
 * How does one edit a page
 * Manual of style
 * Naming conventions

title: User talk:Paul Franz


text:
John Goodman

John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He rose to prominence in television before becoming an acclaimed and popular film actor. Goodman has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Vanity Fair has called Goodman "among our very finest actors."

Goodman is known for his collaborations with the Coen brothers, acting in films such as Raising Arizona (1987), Barton Fink (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). He took on leading roles in King Ralph (1991), The Babe (1992), Matinee (1993), The Flintstones (1994), and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). Goodman also had supporting roles in Revenge of the Nerds (1984), True Stories (1986), Sea of Love (1989), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Storytelling (2001), Speed Racer (2008), The Artist (2011), Flight (2012), Argo (2012), The Hangover Part III (2013), and Atomic Blonde (2017). He has voiced roles in The Emperor's New Groove franchise (2000–2008), the Monsters, Inc. franchise (2001–present), The Jungle Book 2 (2003), and Bee Movie (2007).

On television, Goodman gained recognition playing the family patriarch Dan Conner in the ABC comedy series Roseanne (1988–1997; 2018), and The Conners (2018–present). Goodman had regular roles in the HBO drama series Treme (2010–2011), the legal drama series Damages (2011), the political comedy series Alpha House (2013–2014), and the HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones (2019–present). He has been a frequent host of Saturday Night Live (1989–2013), and has guest starred in The West Wing (2003–2004), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006), and Community (2011–2012).

Goodman started his career at The Public Theatre acting numerous productions including Henry IV, Part 1 (1981), The Skin of Our Teeth (1998), and The Seagull (2001). He made his Broadway debut Big River (1985), for which Goodman received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical nomination. He returned to Broadway in revivals of the Samuel Becket play Waiting for Godot (2009), and the newspaper comedy The Front Page (2016). Goodman made his West End debut in a revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo (2015).

Early life
Goodman was born in Affton, Missouri. His father, Leslie Francis Goodman, was a postal worker who died of a heart attack when John was only two years old. Goodman's mother, Virginia Roos (née Loosmore), was a waitress at Jack and Phil's Bar-B-Que, a retail store worker, and also took in laundry to support the family. Goodman has an older brother, Leslie, who is 14 years his senior, and a younger sister, Elisabeth, who was born six months after his father died. Goodman is of English, German, and Welsh ancestry and was raised Southern Baptist.

Goodman described his childhood as alone and withdrawn after his father had died so early and his brother had left to go to college. Goodman was bullied at school for being overweight. Until ninth grade, Goodman was in the Boy Scouts, which he said offered him the structure and camaraderie he missed; Goodman additionally looked to Boy Scout leaders, and later, acting coaches, as father figures. His brother later returned home to help raise Goodman and his sister. As a child, Goodman spent a lot of time listening to the radio and reading comic books, initially subscribing to DC's Green Lantern and The Atom, before turning to Marvel Comics. He also read his brother's copies of Mad and later confessed to shoplifting its paperback editions. Goodman credits his brother with introducing him to comedy and bebop.

Goodman went to Affton High School, where he played football (offensive guard and defensive tackle) and dabbled in theater. After graduating in 1970, Goodman took a gap year. He earned a football scholarship to Missouri State University (then called Southwest Missouri State University, or "SMSU") in Springfield but tore his ACL before ever suiting-up to go onto the field. Instead, Goodman channeled his energy into the school's theater program.

Goodman pledged Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, though he did not join until several years later. Goodman discovered the university's drama program and studied there with future Hollywood stars Kathleen Turner and Tess Harper. In December 2013, Goodman stated his school friends were his closest ones. Goodman graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975, and in 2013, the university presented him with an honorary doctorate degree in humane letters.

1980s
After graduating from SMSU, Goodman relocated to New York City. With a small bankroll from his brother, Goodman found an apartment in Hell's Kitchen near the Theater District and unsuccessfully tried to make money as a bartender and waiter. However, Goodman eventually found modest success in voice-overs, commercials, and plays. He was the person who slapped himself (uttering the tagline, "Thanks... I needed that!") in an iconic television ad for Skin Bracer by Mennen. Goodman also performed off-Broadway and in dinner theaters before landing character roles in film during the early 1980s.

In 1982, Goodman made his film debut with a small role in Eddie Macon's Run. During this period he continued to work on the stage, starring as Pap Finn in Big River from 1985 to 1987. For his role, he received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical; he is also featured on the Original Broadway Cast Recording. Before landing his big break into movies in 1986 with a significant comedic role in True Stories, he starred in the movie Revenge of the Nerds, and later had a brief cameo as Otis in Sweet Dreams. In the former film, his character Louis Fyne says "I'm 6' 3" and maintain a consistent panda bear shape", establishing his trademark size as an important part of many characters he later played on film and stage.

Goodman rose to fame in acting by playing the role of Dan Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1988 to 1997. He returned to the character in 2018 for the revived, 10th season, where he said "Roseanne and I just went back to having a ball", and then stayed on for the show's subsequent spin-off The Conners. Goodman had a long history of appearances on late night comedy shows and was the first guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which won him the series' "First Guest Medal" (Goodman joked he would pawn the medal for a bottle of cheap Scotch). Goodman has hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live 13 times, while also making seven cameo appearances as Linda Tripp during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, three appearances as Rex Tillerson, and cameoing on the season 28 finale hosted by former SNL cast member Dan Aykroyd. With little to no experience in TV comedy, Goodman auditioned to be a cast member for Jean Doumanian's tumultuous 1980–1981 SNL season and was rejected, along with up-and-coming comedians Jim Carrey, Paul Reubens, and Robert Townsend.

1990s
Goodman first worked with the Coen Brothers on Raising Arizona (1987). He went on to appear in their films Barton Fink (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Only Steve Buscemi has appeared in more Coen works (six films), though Frances McDormand and Jon Polito have also appeared in five of their films.

He worked with Steven Spielberg on Always (1989) and had a supporting role in Arachnophobia (1990). In 1993, he starred in Matinee opposite Cathy Moriarty, and in 1994 as Fred Flintstone in The Flintstones. Other films included King Ralph (1991), The Babe (1992), Fallen (1998), Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

2000s
Goodman had guest roles on the Aaron Sorkin television dramas The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. In the former, he appeared in four episodes, playing Speaker of the House and eventual acting president Glen Allen Walken. In the latter, Goodman appeared as Pahrump, Nevada Judge Robert Bebe, earning a 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series for his performance.

Goodman voiced Robot Santa in the character's first appearance on Futurama. Starting in 2007, he has been the voiceover in Dunkin' Donuts commercials. In 2000, Goodman provided the voice of Pacha in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and, a year later, the voice of James P. "Sulley" Sullivan in Pixar's Monsters, Inc. He returned to the character for the film's 2013 prequel Monsters University (2013), the 2021 Disney+ series Monsters at Work, and for a 2024 update of the video game Disney Dreamlight Valley. In 2007, Goodman voiced Layton T. Montgomery in Bee Movie. Two years later, he voiced "Big Daddy" La Bouff in The Princess and the Frog. Goodman's voice can also be heard on an automated message system at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. He was the original voice of the yellow M&M in 1995 before being replaced by J. K. Simmons the following year.

In theater, Goodman played the Ghost of Christmas Present in the 2008 Kodak Theatre production of A Christmas Carol, starring Christopher Lloyd as Ebenezer Scrooge. Goodman played the role of Pozzo in a Studio 54 revival of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, opposite Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane. John Heilpern of Vanity Fair called it "the greatest Pozzo I've ever seen." In 2009, Goodman reprised the role of Pozzo at the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Goodman was cast in In the Electric Mist (2009) as Julie "Baby Feet" Balboni. At one time, he was slated to play the role of Ignatius Reilly, the main character of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The story takes place almost entirely in New Orleans. However, the movie was never put into production. In The Princess and the Frog, Goodman lent his voice as Eli "Big Daddy" La Bouff also takes place in New Orleans. Goodman was also featured in Treme, a drama series focusing on a group of interconnected people trying to rebuild their lives in post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Goodman played Creighton Bernette, a Tulane English professor, in the show's first season. Other films during this time included The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), Coyote Ugly (2000), Storytelling (2001), Beyond the Sea (2004), Evan Almighty (2007), Speed Racer (2008), and Pope Joan (2009).

2010s
In 2011, Goodman was a guest star on the third season of Community. He also voiced a character in the video game Rage voicing Dan Hagar, and played movie studio chief Al Zimmer in the Academy Award–winning live action film The Artist, as well as Best Picture nominee Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close the same year. Also in 2011, Goodman starred in Kevin Smith's Red State playing ATF Agent Joseph Keenan. In February 2012, it was reported that Goodman would reunite with Roseanne Barr for a new NBC pilot titled Downwardly Mobile. The series would have had Goodman portray a bachelor mechanic who resides in a trailer park, and would have used the standard multiple-camera setup traditionally found in sitcoms; however, the series' option was not picked up by the network. Other prominent roles include performances in Flight (2012), The Hangover Part III (2013), The Monuments Men (2014), Trumbo (2015), 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), Patriots Day (2016) and Atomic Blonde (2017). Goodman also voiced Hound in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) and returned to the character in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017). With his well-received supporting roles in The Artist (2011) and Argo (2012), Goodman accomplished the rare feat of appearing in back-to-back winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture.

On August 10, 2013, Goodman was inducted as a Disney Legend. That same year, he received positive reviews for his performance as U.S. senator from North Carolina Gil John Biggs in Amazon's Alpha House, a political comedy written by Garry Trudeau. In the show, Goodman's character, a retired UNC basketball coach, and three other Republican senators share a house on Capitol Hill. The show ended after two seasons in 2014.

In April 2015, Goodman made his return to the stage, making his West End debut in the process while starring as Donny in American Buffalo at the Wyndham's Theatre alongside Damian Lewis and Tom Sturridge. Goodman went on to star as Sheriff Hartman in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Front Page, alongside Nathan Lane and John Slattery.

On March 10, 2017, Goodman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures, located at 6767 Hollywood Boulevard.

On April 28, 2017, it was announced that a revival of Roseanne was in the works and that Goodman along with most of the original cast and some of the producers would return for the limited series that was being shopped around with ABC and Netflix the frontrunners to land the show. On May 16, 2017, it was confirmed that eight episodes would air mid-season in 2018 on ABC. On May 29, 2018, in the wake of controversial remarks made by Barr on Twitter regarding Valerie Jarrett (an advisor of former president Barack Obama), ABC canceled the revival after a single season. The next month, ABC ordered a ten-episode Roseanne spin-off titled The Conners, which stars the Roseanne cast sans Roseanne Barr. The show's first season premiered on October 16, 2018.

In 2019, Goodman starred in the role of Southern megachurch preacher and family patriarch Eli Gemstone on the HBO comedy The Righteous Gemstones, created by and co-starring Danny McBride. Goodman accepted the role right after the revived Roseanne series had been cancelled and before its spin-off The Conners was announced, which led to Goodman doing both shows. The Righteous Gemstones was renewed for a second season in September 2019.

2020s
In 2023, Goodman appeared in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, as the older Bill Randa, reprising his role from Kong: Skull Island (2017).

Philanthropy
Since Hurricane Katrina, Goodman has appeared in several recovery commercials aired in Louisiana.

In 2010, Goodman appeared in a commercial to raise awareness for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Also starring in the commercial were Sandra Bullock, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Jack Del Rio, Drew Brees, Emeril Lagasse, James Carville, and Blake Lively.

Personal life
Goodman married Annabeth Hartzog, originally of Bogalusa, Louisiana, in 1989. They met at a Halloween party at Tipitina's when he was filming Everybody's All-American in New Orleans. They reside in the Garden District of New Orleans. Their daughter, Molly Evangeline Goodman (b. 1990), has worked as a production assistant in the film industry.

Goodman is a lifelong fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and narrated a 2020 MLB Network documentary about the Cardinals teams of the 1980s.

Health
In a 2009 interview, Goodman discussed his struggles with alcoholism:

In October 2012, Goodman stated: "If I'd picture in my mind a drink—usually straight out of the bottle—I couldn't not do it," noting that while acting in plays he would "have the shakes so bad I'd have to have a drink to get through the show. I'm lucky I never got fired." Sober since 2007, Goodman tries to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every morning.

Goodman was once known for his sizable frame, at one point weighing close to 400 lb. However, by August 2010, Goodman had lost 100 lb through a program of exercise and food journaling. His new figure attracted attention at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015 and the BFI London Film Festival in October 2015. By June 2024, it was reported that Goodman had lost over 200 pounds.

Goodman suffers from depression. He has attributed the severity of the condition to past alcohol consumption and treats his depression through physical exercise.

title: John Goodman


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Creflo Dollar

Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr., (born January 28, 1962) is an American pastor, televangelist, and the founder of the non-denominational Christian World Changers Church International based in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Dollar also heads the Creflo Dollar Ministerial Association (formerly called International Covenant Ministries), Creflo Dollar Ministries, and Arrow Records.

Career
Dollar began developing World Changers Ministries Christian Center in 1986. He held the church's first worship service in the cafeteria of Kathleen Mitchell Elementary School in College Park, with eight people in attendance. He later renamed the ministry World Changers Church International (WCCI), and the congregation moved from the cafeteria to a dedicated chapel. Four services were held each Sunday, and Creflo added a weekly radio broadcast and the television show Changing Your World.

On December 24, 1995, WCCI moved into its present location, the 8,500-seat facility known as the World Dome. The church has said that the nearly $20 million World Dome was built without any bank financing. , the congregation reported having around 30,000 members, and $70 million in revenue (gross cash collections) for 2006.

In October 2012, Creflo Dollar Ministries leased Loews Paradise Theater in The Bronx for a new church location in New York.

Dollar also speaks at conferences and writes about his gospel of wealth and his involvement in televangelism.

Personal life
Dollar and his wife Taffi have five children and reside in Atlanta, Georgia.

In June 2012, Dollar was arrested for an alleged attack on his fifteen-year-old daughter, according to the Fayette County, Georgia, Sheriff's Office. Dollar was accused of choking and punching the girl, a story corroborated by Dollar's older daughter, and Fayette County police released details of a subsequent 911 call. The charges were dropped in January 2013 after he attended anger management classes.

Finances and prosperity gospel teachings
Dollar is known for controversial teachings regarding prosperity theology. He has long been criticized for living a lavish lifestyle. He owns two Rolls-Royces, a private jet, and high-end real estate such as a million-dollar home in Atlanta, a $2.5 million home in Demarest, New Jersey, and a home in Manhattan that he bought for $2.5 million in 2006 (equivalent to $ million in ) and sold for $3.75 million in 2012 (equivalent to $ million in ). Dollar has refused to disclose his salary. For declining to disclose any financial information to independent audit, Creflo Dollar Ministries received a grade of "F" (failing) for financial transparency by the organization Ministry Watch.

Dollar was among six televangelists who were the subject of a 2007 investigation led by United States Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa as ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley asked for financial information to determine whether Dollar made any personal profit from financial donations and requested that Dollar's ministry make the information available by December 6, 2007. The investigation also asked for information from five other televangelists: Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie L. Long, Joyce Meyer, and Paula White. Dollar contested the probe, arguing that the proper governmental entity to examine religious groups is the IRS, not the Committee on Finance. Dollar and three others were not cooperative, and the probe concluded in 2011 without any charges.

Tithe retraction views
Over the years, Dollar has written books and made video recordings about the obligation for Christians to pay tithe in the churches. However, in July 2022, he publicly retracted his views on tithing confessing that he has misled people with these teachings, stating that it was not biblical to tithe but up to individuals to offer according to their heart and ability. Dollar received praise and criticism for these statements.

title: Creflo Dollar


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Talk:John Ralston Saul

Marriage?
It's really odd to me there is no mention of him having married Adrienne Clarkson and being the former consort to the Governor General. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.57.148 (talk) 17:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Horror writer?
Is this writer the same John Saul who writes horror stories such as The Unwanted, The Locket, etc?

(please answer in my talk page, otherwise Id forget I asked the question in the first place..LOL!) -- Antonio I am a Wiki administrator!! I am a wiki administrator!!! Martin

Ps: Im saying that to the rhythim of I am the Master of disguise!!..lol

 * No, they are not the same person. -- Montréalais 06:24, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Date for Harpers article
Can anybody find a date for that Harper's article instead of the ambiguous "recent"? Padraic 00:16, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * March 2004 issue. And, done :) mu5ti/talk July 8, 2005 04:12 (UTC)

Official portrait
I have added an official portrait of John Ralston Saul from the government of Canda website. This is crown copyright making it okay. User:Dowew March 28th 2005

Title after 27 Sept.
I assume he'll lose the style of His Excellency after his wife leaves office, but does he get a The (Right) Honourable before his name like her? (Alphaboi867 07:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC))

 * The style of Right Honourable is not extended to him; I assume after his wife leaves office, he will simply be "Dr. Ralston Saul, CC, PhD"

Removed section and request for clarification
Removed until this can be made more concrete/specific:

Due to Saul's role as Viceregal Consort, his publishing of On Equilibrium subsequent to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks raised political controversy due to what some perceived as 'anti-American themes' in the book's final chapter. Many saw these criticisms as risible and politically motivated.

On removing some Clarkson focus...
Does anyone else agree that upper of the two images (and respective captions) of Clarkson and Saul is primarily Clarkson-focussed and could be done away with? I'm referring to the one with the caption: ''Adrienne Clarkson was the subject of considerable criticism for how closely Saul worked alongside her. Particularly his co-laying of the wreath on behalf of the People of Canada during Remembrance Day ceremonies''. The criticism is actually directed at Clarkson, not Saul, and in my opinion there is sufficient image and written content on Clarkson in the article already. Thoughts? --Ds13 21:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

One of Saul's heuristics
In the question period after his 1998 Vancouver Institute lecture Saul noted that whenever he reads in the newspaper some statistic that is supposed to be significant for public policy debates, he mentally divides or multiplies it by two -- going in the opposite direction (that is, multiplying by two if the number is supposed to be noteworthy because it is so low, dividing by two if the number is supposed to be noteworthy because it is so high) and then seeing whether the statistic is still significant. I.e. many reported numbers are really accurate only to about a factor of two. I thought this interesting in light of the later reports of the deaths caused by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. For about a month or so after the attacks the reported number rose steadily to about 7,000 deaths, when one might have expected the number to be fairly accurate. (Obviously a sensible person would not trust estimates given the day after the attack, but this was a month after. I don't think there was a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the number of deaths.) But then over the next month or so the reported number fell to about the now-considered-accurate 2800 or so  -- a factor of about 2.5 difference. 137.82.188.68 01:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Another example of this factor-of-two heuristic that I found amusing is that apparently some polling group did a retroactive voters poll on the voting for the 1992 U.S. presidential election some years after the election (as I remember reading), a large enough poll that the effects of sampling error would reliably be expected to be small. The result was in this retroactive poll only 9 percent or so of the people polled said that they voted for H. Ross Perot in 1992, whereas we know that H. Ross Perot got 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992.  (He got about 9 percent in 1996.) 137.82.188.68 04:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

thesis
Since it is apparently his (informed) views on a selection of topics that makes him notable, would it be possible to summarise what his core theses (and supporting rationales) actually are on some of these topics? (Merely listing topics he has spoken on doesn't really say anything to distinguish him.) Cesiumfrog (talk) 23:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

as essayist?
I'm a bit puzzled why the section on his non-fiction is 'As an essayist' as most of these don't strike me as books of essays. (I haven't read them all) Is it an attempted translation of 'belles letres' or meaning "as man of letters'? 'Essay' or 'collection of essays' isn't the same as 'work of non-fiction'. It's kind of ironic to see this mislabelling on his page, since he addresses in his writing the decline of the essay since the 18th-19th C and the reasons why. Using 'essayist' like it means any non-fiction at all, papers over that whole phenomenon. I guess there is no good counterpart to 'novelist' - 'As a novelist', 'As an X' so the form of these headings should be changed. (to Fiction + Non-fiction I guess.) Yes, sometimes there's a fine line between an essay and a chapter of a non-fiction book. Yet, for example, Voltaire's Bastards and The Doubter's Companion (to name only the two I know best) don't seem to me books of essays. I've never seen 'essayist' as meaning 'writer of non-fiction prose'. Maybe it would be good if it did mean that, but then we would need another word for an essayist. 110.20.168.169 (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

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Roberta Williams

Roberta Lynn Williams (born February 16, 1953) is an American video game designer and writer, who co-founded Sierra On-Line with her husband, game developer Ken Williams. In 1980, her first game, Mystery House, became a modest commercial success; it is credited as the first graphic adventure game. She is also known for creating and maintaining the King's Quest series, as well as designing the full motion video game Phantasmagoria in 1995.

Sierra was acquired by CUC International in 1996, leading to layoffs and management changes. Williams took a brief sabbatical, and returned to the company in a game design role, but grew increasingly frustrated with CUC's creative and business decisions. After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in 1998, she left the game industry in 1999 and focused her retirement on traveling and writing historical fiction. In 2021 she released her historical novel, Farewell to Tara. Soon after, she returned to game development with the 3D remake of the classic adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure, released in January 2023 as Colossal Cave.

Several publications have named Roberta Williams as one of the best or most influential creators in the video game industry, for co-founding Sierra, pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, and creating the King's Quest series. Several publications have called her the "Queen of adventure games". She has received the Industry Icon Award from The Game Awards, and the Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Early life and career

Born in Los Angeles, Roberta Heuer grew up in rural Southern California as the daughter of an agricultural inspector. A shy child with a vivid imagination, she often created fairy-tale adventure stories to entertain her family. She would lie in bed and imagine fantastical situations, which she sometimes described as her "movies". She met her future husband Ken Williams when they were both teenagers, and the two began dating. After high school she became a clerk at the Los Angeles County Welfare Department, in part thanks to her father's connections working in local government. In late 1972 Roberta married Ken just a few days after his eighteenth birthday, and gave birth to their first son in November 1973. The couple briefly moved to Illinois, where she was employed as a computer operator, soon moving back to Los Angeles where she took a job at Lawry's Foods as a computer programmer working in COBOL.

By 1979 the couple had two children. Ken was employed as a computer programmer and consultant, working on large IBM mainframe machines. They wanted to leave Los Angeles to fulfill their dream of living in the woods. As Ken brainstormed ideas for a technology business that could become viable outside of a major city, Roberta purchased an Apple II computer for the family, which strained their expenses. Roberta's love of computers grew as she played several text adventure games.

Early graphic adventure games (1979–1983)

Around 1979, Roberta Williams was an avid player of text adventures on her teletype machine, particularly as a fan of Colossal Cave Adventure. She was inspired to speak to her husband Ken Williams about her vision for what a video game could be, drawing influence from Agatha Christie's story And Then There Were None, and the board game Clue. Roberta convinced Ken to provide the technical knowledge to program the game, while she contributed her experience with fiction and storytelling. Roberta drew the pictures using her Apple II and a Versawriter, a graphics tablet that could be used to hand-trace a piece of paper and input the image into a computer. Since no programs existed to read the Versawriter image, Ken had to write one, eventually compressing nearly seventy images onto a disk.

The result was Mystery House, an adventure game with black and white graphics for the Apple II computer. Released in 1980, the game was distributed by mail order, advertised in computer magazines under the name of Ken's consulting company, On-Line Systems. The game soon sold ten thousand copies, with Roberta personally packing the disks and supporting materials in Ziploc bags, and answering her home phone to provide hints for the game's puzzles. Ken began to personally distribute copies of the game to computer stores. He quit his consulting job, with hopes that it would allow the couple to eventually move out of the city.

They released the Wizard and the Princess later that year, improving on their previous title with color graphics and dithering. The game sold 60,000 copies, leading them to hire more employees for distribution and programming. Encouraged by the success of their first two games, On-Line Systems switched its focus from consulting to game development. Roberta's ambitions grew with the design of Time Zone, a time-travelling game spanning thousands of years, which was released on twelve disks in 1982. Around this time, Roberta's parents retired and moved to Oakhurst, California, and she hoped to move close by. With their company expanding, the couple was finally able to move On-Line Systems from Simi Valley, California to Coarsegold. They also changed their company name to Sierra On-Line, based on its location near the Sierra Nevada mountains.

After just two years Sierra had grown to nearly a hundred employees with $10   million in revenue. Sierra's success started to attract investors, including venture capitalists. Around this time, Jim Henson approached Ken Williams to create a game adaptation of The Dark Crystal, before the film's release. Roberta was excited by the project, believing video games to be a facet of entertainment as much as film. She designed much of the game adaptation on paper; it was finalized and released in 1983. The high-profile game caused the company to attract mainstream media attention, and Roberta hoped that the entertainment industry would not just recognize the value of games, but also the value of the artists who created them.

King's Quest breakthrough (1983–1994)
By 1983 Sierra's new investors pushed the company to diversify into video game cartridges for platforms such as the Atari. The video game industry soon experienced a crash, and Sierra's board of directors began to push a merger with Spinnaker Software, an educational software company. When Spinnaker presented their proposal to the Sierra board, Roberta proclaimed, "These guys are a joke. No one in the industry respects them. Can't we talk about something productive?" Although Ken Williams was amenable to the deal, Roberta strongly opposed it, and the merger did not proceed. Sierra was forced to downsize to 30 employees, and the Williams family mortgaged their home to pay their remaining employees.

Sierra had cultivated a strong relationship with IBM as the IBM PC was being developed, and Wizard and the Princess was one of the first games released for the computer under the title Adventure in Serenia. Around the time of Sierra's financial difficulties, IBM offered to invest in the struggling company, with hopes of creating a game that could showcase the technical capabilities of their upcoming IBM PCjr. Roberta had wanted to build on her experience with The Wizard and the Princess with a fully animated adventure game, in a pseudo-3D world. This led to the 1984 release of King's Quest, conceived as a blend of common fairy tales that could be directly experienced as a game. Although the PCjr was considered a failure, King's Quest was ported to many other platforms and quickly rose to bestseller status. The game was considered revolutionary for its pseudo-3D elements, becoming the first adventure game to allow the player character to move in front of, behind, or over other objects on the screen. It was also the first computer game to support the 16-color EGA standard, setting a new standard for future graphic adventure games.

Meanwhile, Roberta continued her role as designer of the King's Quest series, which earned a reputation for its unique style of storytelling, as well as its increasingly advanced graphics and technology. The 1986 release of King's Quest III: To Heir is Human was larger and longer than previous games in the series, and earned a ranking on Time's list of 50 Best Video Games of All Time. When King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella was released in 1988, it was one of the first games to receive sound card support, and one of the first adventure games to support a mouse. It was also one of the first games to feature a female protagonist, a creative decision that Williams seeded by introducing the character in the previous game. Some of her peers cautioned that this might deter men from playing the game, but it was even more commercially successful than previous installments. A post-release survey revealed that most men did not mind playing as a female protagonist, whereas many female players preferred the experience. Sierra received registration cards for the game with a near 40% female audience, leading journalists to credit Williams with expanding the player base for personal computer games. King's Quest IV has been considered one of the most influential video games of all time, impacting the design of games such as Maniac Mansion and other LucasArts adventure games.

Williams continued to design other titles, such as the educational title Mixed-Up Mother Goose. The game went on to sell more than 500,000 copies, and the CD-ROM version earned the Software Publishers Association Excellence in Software Award for Best Early Education Program. In 1989 Williams released another mystery adventure game called The Colonel's Bequest, which iterated on ideas from her original Mystery House game with more detailed graphics and improved text parsing. The game was still rare for featuring a female protagonist, and deviated from the traditional adventure game formula to become more of an interactive mystery, putting more onus on the player to discover the plot. The 1990 release of King's Quest V became the first game to use an icon-based interface, continuing the series' innovations in game design. The game was critically acclaimed, winning several awards upon release, with Computer Gaming World including it in their 1996 list of greatest games of all time.

By the early 1990s Sierra was a publicly traded company, generating $100   million per year in revenue. The company released The Dagger of Amon Ra in 1991, a sequel to The Colonel's Bequest based on characters and concepts created by Williams. Meanwhile, Williams worked with Jane Jensen to design ''King's Quest VI. '' Released in 1992, it was recognized by several publications as one of the best adventure games, if not one of the best games overall. By the mid 1990s, Williams was considered the company's most popular game designer, particularly for her success with the King's Quest series. The saga is still remembered as the only video game series created and maintained by a female designer.

Later games and career exit (1995–1999)
Williams branched out from her work on King's Quest by designing Phantasmagoria, a realistic horror adventure game. As a long time fan of the novels of Stephen King, she had often contemplated whether it was possible to create a terrifying video game. Because she believed it would be difficult to make a truly frightening game without live actors, the game was created entirely in full-motion video. The production ultimately cost $4   million, with a team of nearly two hundred people and a script of more than five hundred pages. Designed as a mature title for adults, the game was marketed as an interactive film, and published on seven CD-ROMs. Although Phantasmagoria received a mixed critical reception, it was one of the most commercially successful adventure games and Sierra's bestselling game, selling more than a million copies upon its release in 1995. Williams recalls the game as her favorite achievement.

In 1996 Sierra was sold to CUC International for more than a billion dollars in stock. Roberta had opposed the deal, and several other high-ranking Sierra employees had felt there was something suspicious about CUC's financials. Roberta ultimately acquiesced, recognizing that the terms of the deal were too favorable to refuse, and that she could be sued by their shareholders if she failed to maximize their value. The company's management and decision-making dramatically changed under CUC, leading Ken Williams to leave his role at Sierra and work directly for their new parent company. The CUC restructuring also led to lay-offs. Roberta Williams took a sabbatical from the game industry, as the company released The Roberta Williams Anthology, a compilation of 14 games.

Roberta Williams returned to game development in early 1997 to work on King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. She hoped to re-introduce some interactivity absent in Phantasmagoria, and to embrace the advances in 3D graphics technology. Sierra had changed significantly as a company, and its new management insisted on adding elements from popular role-playing games such as Diablo, while straying from the game's traditional adventure elements. When she removed certain role-playing elements, the team would re-add them, leading to a power struggle with management. Roberta's frustrations with her lack of control were coupled with suspicions of CUC, after allegations of financial fraud had surfaced about the company. Worried about the company's future, she talked to Ken about selling their stock. The couple soon divested from the company, Ken resigning at the end of 1997, and Roberta staying to finish Mask of Eternity. Released in 1998, the game was considered a commercial and critical disappointment, leading to further layoffs, and the sale of Sierra to Vivendi. That year, CUC was convicted of financial fraud, having exaggerated their revenues by more than half a billion dollars (equivalent to $   million in ). The decline of Sierra had an emotional impact on Roberta, who left the company in 1999. By the 2000s, Sierra's assets were held by Activision Blizzard, after a merger between Activision and Vivendi.

Retirement
After the release of King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, Roberta Williams described herself as taking a sabbatical from the game industry in 1999. In actuality, both she and Ken had signed a non-compete clause with CUC that prevented them from working in the game industry for five years. According to Ken, "By the time the five years were up, we had moved on to other ventures," thus ending Roberta's career in the game industry after 18 years and 20 games. At that time, she stayed away from the public eye and rarely spoke to the press. In a rare 2006 interview she said her greatest achievement was creating Phantasmagoria, though she expressed her love of the King's Quest series for its influence on her early career. Williams said that her role as a game designer was in the past, and that she was focused on writing a historical novel. She has also focused on travel, becoming an avid sailor with her husband.

In 2011 the video game website Gamezebo reported that she had returned from her sabbatical as a design consultant on the social network game Odd Manor, for Facebook. By 2012, Replay Games had recruited Sierra veterans Al Lowe and Paul Trowe to return to the Leisure Suit Larry adventure game series, which led Trowe to try to persuade the Williamses to return to the game industry. Activision hired Telltale Games to develop a new entry in the King's Quest series. Williams declined to work on the game, but did offer some advice. The game was later canceled in 2013. Activision attempted to revive the Sierra brand in 2014, leading developer The Odd Gentlemen to create King's Quest: A Knight to Remember. According to the studio, they consulted with Roberta Williams "to make a game like they would make if they had continued making adventure games".

In 2019 Vancouver Film School announced The Roberta Williams Women in Game Design Scholarship, in partnership with game studios The Coalition and Blackbird Interactive. In 2021, Williams self-published her first novel Farewell to Tara, set in mid-1800s Ireland during the time of the Great Famine.

Roberta and Ken announced plans to return to game development in June 2021, in collaboration with artist Marcus Maximus Mera. In an interview that same year, she expressed caution that a veteran game designer could successfully return to the industry after an extended break, saying there are merits to ending one's career at its peak. In 2022 the team revealed that their new studio Cygnus Entertainment was creating a remake of Colossal Cave Adventure titled Colossal Cave 3D Adventure. Roberta explained that this pioneering game from the 1970s had inspired her career, and she was excited to re-imagine it as an interactive 3D experience.

Legacy and accolades
In 1995, Next Generation included Roberta Williams among their list of 75 power players in the game industry. Computer Gaming World also ranked her as tenth on their 1997 list of the most influential people in computer gaming, praising her impact on the design of adventure games. GameSpot likewise ranked her number ten on their 1999 list of "the most influential people in computer gaming of all time" for "pushing the envelope of graphic adventures" and being "especially proactive in creating games from a woman's point of view and titles that appealed to the mainstream market, all the while integrating the latest technologies in graphics and sound wherever possible". In 2009, IGN included both her and Ken in the 23rd position on the list of top game creators of all time, highlighting their role in co-founding Sierra as "the company behind some of the best and most well known adventure games of the '80s and '90s".

Computer Gaming World inducted Roberta Williams into their Hall of Fame in 2011. Both Roberta and Ken were given an Industry Icon Award at The Game Awards in 2014. She also earned the Pioneer Award at the 20th Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2020, for her influential work in the graphical adventure game genre with Mystery House, as well as her role in creating the King's Quest series and co-founding Sierra.

Ken Williams has described her as a perfectionist, "extremely smart, intuitive and usually right. She can't be managed." Ars Technica has called her "one of the more iconic figures in adventure gaming", noting her as one of the first well-known female game designers, and praising her writing and design work on Phantasmagoria and the King's Quest series.  Smithsonian magazine has noted her as a pioneer of graphic adventure games, for creating the first home computer game to include graphics. Several publications have referred to her as "the Queen of adventure games".

Roberta Williams has personally inspired the characters and artwork of other games. She posed for the cover of the game Softporn Adventure by Chuck Benton, published by On-Line Systems. She posed much later with her children as Mother Goose for the cover photograph of Mixed-Up Mother Goose. She also makes a cameo appearance in Leisure Suit Larry 3, where Larry interrupts her while "directing" a scene for King's Quest   IV. Ellie Williams, protagonist of the 2013 video game series The Last of Us is named for Ken and Roberta. She was also a source of inspiration for the character of Cameron Howe in the AMC television drama Halt and Catch Fire. The Williams family donated a collection of design materials to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.

Games

 * Mystery House (1980)
 * Wizard and the Princess (1980)
 * Mission Asteroid (1981)
 * Time Zone (1982)
 * The Dark Crystal (1983)
 * King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown (1984)
 * Mickey's Space Adventure (1984)
 * King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne (1985)
 * King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human (1986)
 * Mixed-Up Mother Goose (1987)
 * King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (1988)
 * Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest (1989)
 * King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! (1990)
 * King's Quest 1: Quest for the Crown (Remake) (1990)
 * Mixed-Up Mother Goose Multimedia (1990)
 * Laura Bow in The Dagger of Amon Ra (1992)
 * King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (1992)
 * King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (1994)
 * Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe (1995)
 * Phantasmagoria (1995)
 * Shivers (1995)
 * King's Quest: Mask of Eternity (1998)
 * Odd Manor (2014)
 * Colossal Cave - Remake (2023)

Novels

 * Farewell to Tara (2021)

title: Roberta Williams


text:
Evolutionary computation

In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they are a family of population-based trial and error problem solvers with a metaheuristic or stochastic optimization character.

In evolutionary computation, an initial set of candidate solutions is generated and iteratively updated. Each new generation is produced by stochastically removing less desired solutions, and introducing small random changes as well as, depending on the method, mixing parental information. In biological terminology, a population of solutions is subjected to natural selection (or artificial selection), mutation and possibly recombination. As a result, the population will gradually evolve to increase in fitness, in this case the chosen fitness function of the algorithm.

Evolutionary computation techniques can produce highly optimized solutions in a wide range of problem settings, making them popular in computer science. Many variants and extensions exist, suited to more specific families of problems and data structures. Evolutionary computation is also sometimes used in evolutionary biology as an in silico experimental procedure to study common aspects of general evolutionary processes.

History
The concept of mimicking evolutionary processes to solve problems originates before the advent of computers, such as when Alan Turing proposed a method of genetic search in 1948. Turing's B-type u-machines resemble primitive neural networks, and connections between neurons were learnt via a sort of genetic algorithm. His P-type u-machines resemble a method for reinforcement learning, where pleasure and pain signals direct the machine to learn certain behaviors. However, Turing's paper went unpublished until 1968, and he died in 1954, so this early work had little to no effect on the field of evolutionary computation that was to develop.

Evolutionary computing as a field began in earnest in the 1950s and 1960s. There were several independent attempts to use the process of evolution in computing at this time, which developed separately for roughly 15 years. Three branches emerged in different places to attain this goal: evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, and genetic algorithms. A fourth branch, genetic programming, eventually emerged in the early 1990s. These approaches differ in the method of selection, the permitted mutations, and the representation of genetic data. By the 1990s, the distinctions between the historic branches had begun to blur, and the term 'evolutionary computing' was coined in 1991 to denote a field that exists over all four paradigms.

In 1962, Lawrence J. Fogel initiated the research of Evolutionary Programming in the United States, which was considered an artificial intelligence endeavor. In this system, finite state machines are used to solve a prediction problem: these machines would be mutated (adding or deleting states, or changing the state transition rules), and the best of these mutated machines would be evolved further in future generations. The final finite state machine may be used to generate predictions when needed. The evolutionary programming method was successfully applied to prediction problems, system identification, and automatic control. It was eventually extended to handle time series data and to model the evolution of gaming strategies.

In 1964, Ingo Rechenberg and Hans-Paul Schwefel introduce the paradigm of evolution strategies in Germany. Since traditional gradient descent techniques produce results that may get stuck in local minima, Rechenberg and Schwefel proposed that random mutations (applied to all parameters of some solution vector) may be used to escape these minima. Child solutions were generated from parent solutions, and the more successful of the two was kept for future generations. This technique was first used by the two to successfully solve optimization problems in fluid dynamics. Initially, this optimization technique was performed without computers, instead relying on dice to determine random mutations. By 1965, the calculations were performed wholly by machine.

John Henry Holland introduced genetic algorithms in the 1960s, and it was further developed at the University of Michigan in the 1970s. While the other approaches were focused on solving problems, Holland primarily aimed to use genetic algorithms to study adaptation and determine how it may be simulated. Populations of chromosomes, represented as bit strings, were transformed by an artificial selection process, selecting for specific 'allele' bits in the bit string. Among other mutation methods, interactions between chromosomes were used to simulate the recombination of DNA between different organisms. While previous methods only tracked a single optimal organism at a time (having children compete with parents), Holland's genetic algorithms tracked large populations (having many organisms compete each generation).

By the 1990s, a new approach to evolutionary computation that came to be called genetic programming emerged, advocated for by John Koza among others. In this class of algorithms, the subject of evolution was itself a program written in a high-level programming language (there had been some previous attempts as early as 1958 to use machine code, but they met with little success). For Koza, the programs were Lisp S-expressions, which can be thought of as trees of sub-expressions. This representation permits programs to swap subtrees, representing a sort of genetic mixing. Programs are scored based on how well they complete a certain task, and the score is used for artificial selection. Sequence induction, pattern recognition, and planning were all successful applications of the genetic programming paradigm.

Many other figures played a role in the history of evolutionary computing, although their work did not always fit into one of the major historical branches of the field. The earliest computational simulations of evolution using evolutionary algorithms and artificial life techniques were performed by Nils Aall Barricelli in 1953, with first results published in 1954. Another pioneer in the 1950s was Alex Fraser, who published a series of papers on simulation of artificial selection. As academic interest grew, dramatic increases in the power of computers allowed practical applications, including the automatic evolution of computer programs. Evolutionary algorithms are now used to solve multi-dimensional problems more efficiently than software produced by human designers, and also to optimize the design of systems.

Techniques
Evolutionary computing techniques mostly involve metaheuristic optimization algorithms. Broadly speaking, the field includes: A through catalogue with many other recently proposed algorithms has been published in the Evolutionary Computation Bestiary. It is important to note that many recent algorithms, however, have poor experimental validation.
 * Agent-based modeling
 * Ant colony optimization
 * Artificial immune systems
 * Artificial life (also see digital organism)
 * Cultural algorithms
 * Coevolutionary algorithm
 * Differential evolution
 * Dual-phase evolution
 * Estimation of distribution algorithm
 * Evolutionary algorithm
 * Evolutionary programming
 * Evolution strategy
 * Gene expression programming
 * Genetic algorithm
 * Genetic programming
 * Grammatical evolution
 * Learnable evolution model
 * Learning classifier system
 * Memetic algorithms
 * Neuroevolution
 * Particle swarm optimization
 * Beetle antennae search
 * Self-organization such as self-organizing maps, competitive learning
 * Swarm intelligence

Evolutionary algorithms
Evolutionary algorithms form a subset of evolutionary computation in that they generally only involve techniques implementing mechanisms inspired by biological evolution such as reproduction, mutation, recombination, natural selection and survival of the fittest. Candidate solutions to the optimization problem play the role of individuals in a population, and the cost function determines the environment within which the solutions "live" (see also fitness function). Evolution of the population then takes place after the repeated application of the above operators.

In this process, there are two main forces that form the basis of evolutionary systems: Recombination (e.g. crossover) and mutation create the necessary diversity and thereby facilitate novelty, while selection acts as a force increasing quality.

Many aspects of such an evolutionary process are stochastic. Changed pieces of information due to recombination and mutation are randomly chosen. On the other hand, selection operators can be either deterministic, or stochastic. In the latter case, individuals with a higher fitness have a higher chance to be selected than individuals with a lower fitness, but typically even the weak individuals have a chance to become a parent or to survive.

Evolutionary algorithms and biology
Genetic algorithms deliver methods to model biological systems and systems biology that are linked to the theory of dynamical systems, since they are used to predict the future states of the system. This is just a vivid (but perhaps misleading) way of drawing attention to the orderly, well-controlled and highly structured character of development in biology.

However, the use of algorithms and informatics, in particular of computational theory, beyond the analogy to dynamical systems, is also relevant to understand evolution itself.

This view has the merit of recognizing that there is no central control of development; organisms develop as a result of local interactions within and between cells. The most promising ideas about program-development parallels seem to us to be ones that point to an apparently close analogy between processes within cells, and the low-level operation of modern computers. Thus, biological systems are like computational machines that process input information to compute next states, such that biological systems are closer to a computation than classical dynamical system.

Furthermore, following concepts from computational theory, micro processes in biological organisms are fundamentally incomplete and undecidable (completeness (logic)), implying that “there is more than a crude metaphor behind the analogy between cells and computers.

The analogy to computation extends also to the relationship between inheritance systems and biological structure, which is often thought to reveal one of the most pressing problems in explaining the origins of life.

Evolutionary automata, a generalization of Evolutionary Turing machines, have been introduced in order to investigate more precisely properties of biological and evolutionary computation. In particular, they allow to obtain new results on expressiveness of evolutionary computation. This confirms the initial result about undecidability of natural evolution and evolutionary algorithms and processes. Evolutionary finite automata, the simplest subclass of Evolutionary automata working in terminal mode can accept arbitrary languages over a given alphabet, including non-recursively enumerable (e.g., diagonalization language) and recursively enumerable but not recursive languages (e.g., language of the universal Turing machine).

Notable practitioners
The list of active researchers is naturally dynamic and non-exhaustive. A network analysis of the community was published in 2007.

 * Kalyanmoy Deb
 * Kenneth A De Jong
 * Peter J. Fleming
 * David B. Fogel
 * Stephanie Forrest
 * David E. Goldberg
 * John Henry Holland
 * Theo Jansen
 * John Koza
 * Zbigniew Michalewicz
 * Melanie Mitchell
 * Peter Nordin
 * Riccardo Poli
 * Ingo Rechenberg
 * Hans-Paul Schwefel

Journals
While articles on or using evolutionary computation permeate the literature, several journals are dedicated to evolutionary computation:
 * Evolutionary Computation (journal) (founded 1993)
 * Artificial Life (journal) (founded 1993)
 * IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (founded 1997)
 * Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines (founded 2000)
 * Swarm Intelligence (founded 2007)
 * Evolutionary Intelligence (founded 2008)
 * Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications (2008-2010)
 * Memetic Computing (founded 2009)
 * International Journal of Applied Evolutionary Computation (founded 2010)
 * Swarm and Evolutionary Computation (founded 2011)
 * International Journal of Swarm Intelligence and Evolutionary Computation (founded 2012)

Conferences
The main conferences in the evolutionary computation area include
 * ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO),
 * IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC),
 * EvoStar, which comprises four conferences: EuroGP, EvoApplications, EvoCOP and EvoMUSART,
 * Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN).

title: Evolutionary computation


text:
Mariehamn

Mariehamn (, ; Maarianhamina ; Portus Mariae) is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city. It is mostly surrounded by Jomala, the second largest municipality in Åland in terms of population; to the east it is bordered by Lemland. Like all of Åland, Mariehamn is unilingually Swedish-speaking and around NaN of the inhabitants speak it as their native language.

The theme of the coat of arms of Mariehamn refers to the city's main livelihood, a maritime transport, and the city's parks, which are typically lined with linden trees. The coat of arms was designed by Nils Byman and confirmed in 1951.

Due to its central location in the Baltic Sea, Mariehamn has become a major summer resort town for global tourism; as many as 1.5 million tourists visit there annually.

History
The town was named after the Russian empress Maria Alexandrovna (1824–1880), literally meaning "Marie's Port". Mariehamn was founded on 21 February 1861 around the village of Övernäs, in what was at the time part of the municipality of Jomala. The city has since expanded and incorporated more of Jomala territory. Mariehamn was built according to a very regular scheme which is well-preserved. One of the oldest streets is Södragatan where many wooden houses dating from the 19th century can be seen.

Following the First World War, Mariehamn was home to the Mariehamn Grain Fleet.

On November 8, 1963, a devastating plane crash occurred in Mariehamn, in which 22 out of 25 people lost their lives, which made it the second-deadliest aviation accident in the history of Finland.

Harbours
The city is located on a peninsula. It has two important harbours, one located on the western shore and one on the eastern shore, which are ice-free for nearly the whole year, and have no tides. The Western Harbour is an important international harbour with daily traffic to Sweden, Estonia and mainland Finland. A powerful incentive for Baltic ferries to stop at Mariehamn is that, with respect to indirect taxation, Åland is not part of the EU customs zone and so duty-free goods can be sold aboard. Åland and Mariehamn have a reputable heritage in shipping. The Flying P-Liner Pommern museum ship (part of the Åland Maritime Museum) is anchored in the Western Harbour. The Eastern Harbour features one of the largest marinas in Scandinavia. The famous Dutch steamer Jan Nieveen (now called F.P. von Knorring, after Åland teacher and vicar Frans Peter von Knorring) can also be found here.

Airport
Mariehamn Airport serves the city; it has scheduled flights on two airlines including Finnair.

Roads
At three of Åland's four highways, Mariehamn serves as a starting point for Main Road 1 to Eckerö, Main Road 2 to Sund and Main Road 3 to Lumparland.

Culture
The city is an important centre for Åland media; both of the local newspapers (Ålandstidningen and Nya Åland), several radio stations and the local TV channels (TV Åland and Åland24) operate out of the city. The islanders are traditionally fond of reading, and had public libraries before 1920. A printing works was established in the town in 1891. The municipal library, which was built in 1989, is one of the most interesting modern buildings.

Museums

 * Åland Maritime Museum
 * Åland Museum
 * Pommern (ship)
 * Övernässtugan
 * Sjökvarteret

Architects
Mariehamn features several buildings drawn by Finnish architect Lars Sonck, who moved to Åland as a child. Buildings drawn by him include the church of Mariehamn (1927), the main building of the Åland Maritime College (1927) and the town hall (1939). Hilda Hongell also designed several buildings, although only a few are still standing.

The Church of St George
The main parish church of Mariehamn was opened in 1927 and has been expanded in 1959 and renovated in 1972. when the pews were painted blue. The visible decorations include painted wooden ceiling panels, one for each of the followers of Christ. The unnamed panel is that representing Judas Iscariot. The church paintings and decorations are the work of Finnish artist Bruno Tuukkanen. These include the golden mosaics behind the altar which show the life of Christ. Gifts to the church include the font and the ship that hangs from the ceiling. This is the Tjerimaj. The church houses a 37 stop organ built in stages (1969, 1982).

Climate
Mariehamn has a transitional climate between a humid continental climate (Dfb) and an oceanic climate (Cfb) as a result of the strong maritime moderation from being an island in the Baltic Sea. This causes summers to be cooler than both the Swedish and Finnish mainlands, with winters being similar in cold to the adjacent coastal part of Sweden but milder than Finland's mainland. The lowest temperature at Mariehamn airport was -32.9 C in February 1979, and the highest temperature on record was 31.3 C in July 2022 and July 1941.

Twin towns and sister cities
Mariehamn is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇸 Kópavogur, Iceland
 * 🇳🇴 Kragerø, Norway
 * 🇪🇪 Kuressaare, Estonia
 * 🇷🇺 Lomonosov, Russia (cooperation paused due to Russian invasion of Ukraine)
 * Slagelse, Denmark
 * 🇫🇴 Tórshavn, Faroe Islands
 * 🇫🇮 Valkeakoski, Finland
 * 🇸🇪 Visby, Sweden

Notable people

 * Gustaf Erikson (1872–1947), ship-owner, operated a fleet of windjammers
 * Maggie Gripenberg (1881–1976), dancer and choreographer
 * Georg Kåhre (1899–1969), a teacher and author; he wrote poetry and prose
 * Henrik Klingenberg (born 1978), keyboardist, keytarist and singer of Sonata Arctica
 * Stefan Lindfors (born 1962), an industrial & interior designer, film-maker and sculptor.
 * Ville Salminen (1908–1992), film actor and director

Sport

 * Adelina Engman (born 1984), footballer
 * Anders Överström (born 1985), professional footballer
 * Olivia Ulenius (born 2007), footballer
 * Tommy Wirtanen (born 1983), semi-professional footballer

title: Mariehamn


text:
Shantou (disambiguation)

Shantou (汕头) is a Prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, China.

Shantou may also refer to:

 * Shantou, Si County (山头镇), a township-level division in Anhui Province.
 * Shantou (horse), a racehorse

title: Shantou (disambiguation)