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Stephen J. Cannell

Stephen Joseph Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010) was an American television producer, writer, novelist, occasional actor, and founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and The Cannell Studios.

After starting his career as a television screenwriter, Cannell created or co-created several dozen successful TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, often with his creative partner Frank Lupo. Cannell's creations include The Rockford Files, The A-Team, Renegade, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish. He also wrote novels, notably the Shane Scully mystery series.

Early life
Cannell was born in Los Angeles and raised in nearby Pasadena. He was the son of Carolyn (née Baker) and Joseph Knapp Cannell. Joseph owned the highly-successful interior decorating company Cannell and Chaffin. Cannell struggled with dyslexia in school, but did graduate from the University of Oregon in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism. At UO, he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity.

The 2009 documentary Dislecksia: The Movie features an interview with Cannell, in which he discusses his struggles with dyslexia and how he managed to be such a successful writer despite his difficulties reading. During the interview, he mentions how he used to hire typists to overcome his spelling problem, as he refers to his dyslexia, but also describes how he feels his condition has enriched his life.

Career
After college Cannell spent four years working with the family business before selling his first script to the Universal series It Takes a Thief in 1968. He was quickly hired by Universal Television, the television production branch of Universal Studios and was soon freelance writing for such other crime shows as Ironside (1970–1971) and Columbo (1973).

In 1971, he received a telephone call from friend Herman Saunders who was the producer on Jack Webb's police series Adam-12. They needed a script right away and Saunders asked if Cannell would be interested in writing it. He delivered what they wanted in one day, his first full-time gig, and was soon hired as story editor of the series, then in its fourth season, until 1973.

For Universal Television, Cannell created or co-created Chase (1973–1974), The Rockford Files (1974–1980), Baretta (1975–1978), City of Angels (1976), and Baa Baa Black Sheep (1976–1978). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1978 for The Rockford Files.

In a 2002 interview, Cannell described his early financial arrangements, saying that at Universal,

"I signed a deal as a head writer to make $600 a week. I was the cheapest writer on the lot. It was the lowest deal you could do by Writers Guild standards. But I'd been working for my dad for $7000 a year. I was at Universal for eight years and I never renegotiated my deal but once. It was late in my arrangement with Universal. There was one thing in my deal that my agent had managed to get in there—I had good fees for my pilots. The reason they did it is that they never thought I was going to write a pilot. So they'd give me $70,000 to write a two-hour pilot and a $100,000 production bonus if it ever got made. Then I became the hottest pilot writer at Universal. I was writing two or three pilots a season. I was making $400,000 a year in pilot fees."

In 1979, Cannell left Universal and formed his own company, Stephen J. Cannell Productions. For the first few years, Cannell's office was located on the lot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, though his earlier work at Universal was still distributed by MCA-Universal. His first series under his new banner was Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980), and was soon followed by The Greatest American Hero (1981–1983), The Quest (1982), The A-Team (1983–1987), Hardcastle and McCormick (1983–1986), Riptide (1984–1986), and Hunter (1984–1991). Cannell's offices relocated to larger facilities on Hollywood Boulevard in 1983.

In 1986, Cannell was co-founder, along with Tri-Star Pictures and Witt/Thomas Productions, of the syndication distributor TeleVentures. In late 1988, Witt/Thomas Productions exited the TeleVentures venture and entered a distribution deal with Walt Disney Television, selling its share to Cannell. On July 11, 1990, both Tri-Star and Cannell dissolved the TeleVentures joint venture, and Tri-Star sold its shares to Stephen J. Cannell Productions. TeleVentures thus became Cannell Distribution Co.

Also in 1986 the favorable exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars being a win/win for US producers, Cannell decided to shoot his new series Stingray (1985–1987) in Toronto. However, so many producers were shooting in Toronto that no crews were available to staff any additional productions. Consequently, Cannell shot the first seven episodes of Stingray's second season in Calgary with the remaining eight episodes being shot in Vancouver. His first series to entirely be shot in Vancouver was 21 Jump Street (1987–1991), the highest-rated show of the new Fox network's first season.

With more and more series being shot in Vancouver, Cannell said, "We were fighting with everybody for locations and stage space". His solution was to build a new, state-of-the-art facility, "The North Shore Studios" on 13 acres with one hundred thousand square feet of office space and seven sound stages. The series 21 Jump Street was soon followed by J.J. Starbuck (1987–1988), Wiseguy (1987–1990), Unsub (1989), Top of the Hill (1989), Booker (1989–1990), Broken Badges  (1990–1991), Palace Guard (1991), Scene of the Crime (1991–1992), The Commish (1991–1996), Street Justice (1991–1993), Silk Stalkings (1991–1999), The Hat Squad (1992–1993), Renegade (1992–1997), Cobra (1993–1994), and Hawkeye (1994–1995). A number of television films were also shot in Vancouver by Cannell's production company.

On July 31, 1995, New World Communications acquired his Cannell Entertainment production company. Cannell then founded The Cannell Studios. One of the first shows produced by the newly established Cannell Studios was the short-lived but critically acclaimed corporate drama Profit (1996).

Cannell created or co-created nearly 40 television series, mostly crime dramas. In the process, he had by his own count, scripted more than 450 episodes, and produced or executive produced over 1,500 episodes.

In May 1988, Cannell was a panelist in the John Davidson edition of Hollywood Squares. He also served as the host of the 1991–92 series Scene of the Crime, a mystery anthology series with a repertory cast, and of the 1995–1996 syndicated documentary series U.S. Customs Classified, focusing on the work of the U.S Customs Service.

Cannell also acted occasionally, including a recurring role as main antagonist "Dutch" Dixon on his series Renegade. He also took a turn in an episode of Silk Stalkings, in which the script called for one character to tell him, "You look just like that writer on TV," to which Cannell's character responds, "I get that all the time." Cannell appeared as himself in the 2009 pilot of the ABC show Castle and again in two episodes of season two. Along with James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly, he was one of Castle's poker buddies. In season three following Cannell's death, an empty seat at the poker table is described as Cannell's, and remains empty for a full year in tribute to him.

Beginning in 1995 Cannell turned his attention to writing novels. His first novel, The Plan, was released in 1997 by Avon. As of 2010, he had written 18, 11 of which featured the character of detective Shane Scully of the Los Angeles Police Department. Seven are stand-alone novels. The last in the series, Vigilante, was released December 2011 by St. Martin's Press.

Cannell's TV series The A-Team was remade into a 2010 feature-length film. Cannell served as a producer and creative consultant for the project. His other series 21 Jump Street was made into a 2012 feature by Columbia Pictures and Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and into the sequel 22 Jump Street which was released in June 2014.

Personal life
Cannell married his high school sweetheart, Marcia, in 1964. He "asked her to go steady (with him) in the eighth grade". They had two daughters, Tawnia and Chelsea, and two sons, Cody and Derek. Derek died in 1981 at age 15 when a sand castle he was building at the beach collapsed and suffocated him. The tragedy occurred during the filming of the "Captain Bellybuster" episode of The Greatest American Hero. Actor William Katt, who is an expert musician, wrote a song for Cannell titled "Cody the Cowboy". Cannell was so touched by this gift that he named his next son Cody in honor of the song.

Cannell was dyslexic and was a spokesman on the subject. According to an episode of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, Cannell frequently had to dictate ideas or even complete scripts with the help of his personal secretary Grace Curcio, an employee of 20 years. Following Curcio's retirement in 2003, Kathy Ezso became his editor and executive assistant. He discusses his experiences as a dyslexic in the 2009 documentary Dislecksia: The Movie.

Cannell wrote on a typewriter, an IBM Selectric, when not dictating to an assistant, and only used a computer for research purposes.

Cannell died on September 30, 2010, from complications of melanoma. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. In tribute to his memory, the producers of Castle ended their third-season episode "Punked" with a new version of Cannell's production company logo, which featured video of Cannell at his typewriter tossing out a typed sheet, over a caption reading, "Stephen J. Cannell. Colleague. Mentor. Friend. We'll miss you, pal." The episode aired October 11, 2010 on ABC.

Selected filmography

 * Ironside (1970) (writer)
 * The D.A. (1971)
 * Adam-12 (1971–1973) (story editor)
 * Chase (1973) (creator)
 * Columbo (1973) (writer)
 * Toma (1973)
 * The Rockford Files (1974–1980) (co-creator, with Roy Huggins)
 * Switch (1975) (writer)
 * Baretta (1975) (creator)
 * City of Angels (1976) (co-creator, with Roy Huggins)
 * Richie Brockelman, Private Eye (co-creator, with Steven Bochco) (1976)
 * Baa Baa Black Sheep (a.k.a. Black Sheep Squadron) (1976–1978) (creator)
 * The Duke (1979)
 * Stone (1980) (co-creator, with Richard Levinson and William Link)
 * Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980) (creator; first series as an independent)
 * The Greatest American Hero (1981–1983) (creator)
 * Midnight Offerings (1981) (TV movie; executive producer only)
 * The Quest (1982) (co-executive producer; series created by Juanita Bartlett)
 * The Rousters (1983) (creator)
 * The A-Team (1983–1987) (co-creator, with Frank Lupo)
 * Hardcastle and McCormick (1983–1986) (co-creator, with Patrick Hasburgh)
 * Hunter (1984–1991) (series created by Frank Lupo)
 * Riptide (1984–1986) (co-creator, with Frank Lupo)
 * The Last Precinct (1986) (co-creator, with Frank Lupo)
 * Stingray (1986–1987) (creator)
 * J.J. Starbuck (1987) (creator)
 * Wiseguy (1987–1990) (co-creator, with Frank Lupo)
 * 21 Jump Street (1987–1991) (co-creator, with Patrick Hasburgh)
 * Sonny Spoon (1988) (co-creator, with Michael Daly, Diana Prince and Randall Wallace)
 * Unsub (1989) (developer; series created by Stephen Kronish and David J. Burke)
 * Top of the Hill (1989) (co-creator with Art Monterastelli)
 * Booker (1989–1990) (co-creator, with Eric Blakeney)
 * Broken Badges (1990) (co-creator, with Randall Wallace)
 * Always Remember I Love You (1990) (TV movie)
 * The Great Pretender (1991) (writer; unsold pilot)
 * Street Justice (1991–1993) (series created by David Levinson, Mark Lisson and David H. Balkan)
 * Silk Stalkings (1991–1999) (creator; also guest starred in two episodes)
 * A Place for Annie (1994) (Hallmark Hall of Fame film)
 * The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage (1991) (co-creator, with James Wong and Glen Morgan)
 * The Commish (1991–1996) (co-creator, with Stephen Kronish)
 * Palace Guard (1991) (creator)
 * Personals (1991-1992)
 * Renegade (1992–1997) (creator)
 * The Hat Squad (1992–1993) (co-creator, with Bill Nuss)
 * Missing Persons (1993–1994) (series created by Peter Lance and Gary Sherman)
 * Cobra (1993–1994) (co-creator, with Craig W. Van Sickle and Steven Long Mitchell)
 * Caesars Challenge (1993-1994)
 * Traps (1994) (creator)
 * Hawkeye (1994–1995) (series created by Kim LeMasters)
 * Marker (1995) (creator)
 * Profit (1996) (series created by David Greenwalt and John McNamara)
 * Wheels and the Legman (2007) (creator)

Distribution
Cannell sold his company in March 1995 to New World Communications for $30 million and News Corporation acquired New World in 1996. However, two of Cannell's series, The A-Team and Hunter are controlled by two other studios: Universal Television for the former and Sony Pictures Television for the latter and weren't part of the deal. Also part of the deal, Cannell would pay Fox for international and domestic sales for his series. On May 4, 1998, Cannell reacquired his library from Fox.

On January 24, 2006, The Carsey-Werner Company acquired distribution rights to Cannell's library.

In March 2020, the Cannell estate signed a worldwide distribution deal with Shout! Factory.

Notable acting credits

 * All My Children (1985) TV series, as Himself (guest role).
 * Magnum, P.I. (1986) TV series, as Hotel Detective / Security Chief Ray Lemon (guest role).
 * Renegade (1992–1997) as Donald "Dutch" Dixon (Series regular). Also show's creator.
 * Diagnosis: Murder (1997–1999) TV series, as Jackson Burley (guest role)
 * Pacific Blue (1999–2000) TV series, as Judge J. Gunnar Halloran (guest role)
 * Half Past Dead (2002) Steven Seagal film, as Frank Hubbard
 * Ice Spiders (2007) made-for-TV movie, as Frank Stone
 * Castle (2009) TV series, recurring guest role as Himself

title: Stephen J. Cannell


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Hibernia National Bank

Hibernia National Bank was a bank headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bank was the primary subsidiary of Hibernia Corporation, a bank holding company. In November 2005, the bank was acquired by Capital One.

Hibernia is the classical Latin name for Ireland. The logo of the bank included a harp, the national symbol of Ireland.

History
In April 1870, three Irish-American businessmen co-founded the Hibernia Bank & Trust Company in New Orleans. Patrick Irwin was named the first President, Hugh McCloskey, the first Vice-President, and Thomas Fitzwilliam, first Secretary. In September 1870, the bank began operations.

In 1973, the board of directors hired 38-year-old Martin C. Miler, formerly an executive at First Union, to be the bank's president and chairman. In 1975, the Louisiana legislature approved multi-parish banking. By 1983, Hibernia grew to be the largest bank in the state in terms of assets. Despite its operations in Louisiana, the bank never lent heavily to the petroleum industry.

In 1989, the bank entered Texas via the acquisition of First State Bank of Pflugerville, which was shut down by regulators as a result of bank failure.

In 1990, the bank acquired BancTexas after it also failed.

The bank had positive growth every quarter from 1973 to 1990; however, in 1990, as a result of the savings and loan crisis, the bank reported a loss, eliminated its dividend and needed capital.

In 1991, Martin Miler retired.

In 1992, the company sold its operations in Texas to Comerica for $63.1 million in cash. The company also recapitalized by giving Chase Manhattan Bank a majority ownership stake in the company in exchange for debt forgiveness.

In 2000, the company entered the insurance business with the acquisition of The Rosenthal Agency.

In 2003, the company re-entered the Texas market with the acquisition of Coastal Bancorp. The company also announced plans to open additional branches in Texas.

In November 2005, Capital One acquired the company. The acquisition price was re-negotiated downward after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hibernia National Bank


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MBNA

MBNA Corporation was a bank holding company and parent company of wholly owned subsidiary MBNA America Bank, N.A., headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, prior to being acquired by Bank of America in 2006.

History
The former Maryland National Bank, once the largest banking chain in Maryland, originated as the Baltimore Trust Company in the early 1900s. It later was challenged by the expenses and problems from the building of its landmark red brick, masonry, and limestone art deco-style skyscraper in downtown Baltimore at 10 Light Street between East Redwood (known as German Street before World War I) and East Baltimore Streets. Construction began on the new BTC Building in 1924. Upon completion in 1929, it became the tallest building in Baltimore (and Maryland), surpassing the neighboring Citizens National Bank to the south. It opened just before the avalanche of economic disaster and unemployment following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. After a series of reorganizations during the "New Deal" administration of 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt (and his bank holiday shortly after taking office in March 1933), the bank was reorganized as the Maryland National Bank.

Maryland National's parent, bank holding company MNC Financial, began offering credit cards in the 1960s.

In the early 1980s, Maryland banks lobbied the Maryland General Assembly for legislation to permit higher interest rates on credit-card charges, but lawmakers refused. The neighboring state of Delaware, by contrast, had removed interest-rate restrictions in 1981. When Maryland failed to do the same, MNC Financial moved its credit-card business across the state line. MBNA was founded in 1982 as Maryland Bank, N.A.

Led by Charles Cawley, MBNA opened its first office in a converted A&P (Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company) food supermarket in Ogletown, Delaware. An early driver of MBNA's growth was the creation of "affinity cards" in 1983. Cawley convinced the alumni association at his alma mater, Georgetown University, to allow MBNA to issue credit cards branded with the university's name. This proved to be a successful business, and other affinity affiliations with universities, organizations, and sports teams followed; by 2004, MBNA had more than 5,400 partnerships, making up about 85% of the affinity-card market.

In 1989, Maryland Bank was renamed MBNA America Bank. In 1991, MBNA Corp. spun off from Maryland National and became an independent company. Businessman Al Lerner, a major investor and chairman of Maryland National since 1989, was the new MBNA's largest stockholder and chairman. Lerner became a multi-billionaire and purchased the Cleveland Browns franchise of the National Football League in 1998. He served as chairman of MBNA until his death in 2002.

Maryland National was acquired by NationsBank in 1993.

As MBNA grew, it became one of the most profitable companies in the United States, the world's largest independent credit card issuer, and the largest private-sector employer in Delaware.

In 1995, MBNA moved its headquarters from a suburban location to Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. This investment was credited with helping to revive Wilmington's downtown real estate market.

Historically, many MBNA executives were former employees of the FBI.

Mergers and acquisitions
On June 30, 2005, MBNA announced that it was being acquired by Bank of America for stock and cash totaling more than $35 billion, and the deal was closed on January 1, 2006. The acquisition resulted in MBNA being renamed to "Bank of America Card Services" while still based in Delaware. For the first part of 2006, MBNA still issued credit cards under its own name associated with Mastercard, VISA, and American Express, but by the second half of 2006, all credit card products were re-branded as Bank of America rather than MBNA.

At the same time in June 2005, MBNA bought Loans.co.uk (LCUK), then the United Kingdom's leading finance broker. Although figures were never released, various media outlets including newspapers in Watford, where Loans.co.uk was based, reported the deal made founders David Cowham and Steve Hayes worth £100m. MBNA/Bank of America later decided to close Loans.co.uk.

On January 1, 2006, MBNA merged with and into Bank of America. MBNA America Bank, National Association, (MBNA) then became a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America. On June 10, 2006, MBNA changed its name to FIA Card Services, National Association (FIA), which is not an acronym. On October 20, 2006, Bank of America, National Association (USA), a subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, merged with and into FIA.

This purchase was a reunion of sorts. In 1993, NationsBank (formerly NCNB, and originally North Carolina National Bank) bought MNC Financial (whose credit card division was spun off years earlier to become MBNA). Five years later, the Bank of America that exists today was the result of the merger between the San Francisco-based Bank of America and the Charlotte-based NationsBank. When Bank of America bought MBNA, it was in effect reuniting MNC Financial's credit card portfolio to its original banking assets and combining the Bank of America credit card portfolio with MBNA's.

Employing more than 25,800 people around the world at the time of the merger with Bank of America, MBNA owned or managed more than $122.5 billion in outstanding consumer credit loans. Most of this loan debt was held in securitized portfolios that had been sold to other entities such as insurance companies and pension funds. MBNA virtually invented the process for securitizing credit card debt and this process contributed significantly to the fast growth of the company. It allowed for increasing the amount loaned without having to acquire matching assets to offset the loans.

In Canada and Europe, the MBNA name was retained. MBNA Europe headquarters is in Chester, England, United Kingdom. MBNA Canada's headquarters is located in Ottawa, Ontario. In 2007, the Canadian division was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers.

On August 15, 2011, MBNA announced that the Toronto-Dominion Bank would be purchasing MBNA's Canadian MasterCard portfolio. The acquisition of MBNA Canada by TD, which was completed on December 1, 2011, saw TD become a dual credit issuer (both Visa and MasterCard), become Canada's largest MasterCard issuer, and one of Canada's largest credit issuing banks.

In January 2013, Virgin Money agreed to buy £1 billion of assets from MBNA, namely the Virgin Credit Card assets which MBNA had serviced and managed in partnership with Virgin Money since 2002. The former Vice Chairman of MBNA Corporation, Lance Weaver, became Virgin Money's President of Virgin Money Cards.

On December 20, 2016, Lloyds Banking Group announced that it would purchase MBNA's UK portfolio from Bank of America for £1.9 billion, its first acquisition after the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The deal was completed on June 1, 2017 and since that time, in the United Kingdom, MBNA is a trading style of Lloyds Bank plc and is regulated in the United Kingdom by the FCA.

Controversies
MBNA hired Hunter Biden (then 26 years old and a recent law school graduate) during the years when his father, then-Senator Joe Biden, was pushing for bankruptcy reform legislation supported by the company, which became law and makes it more difficult to acquire bankruptcy protection. Because of the close relationship between Biden and MBNA, Byron York called Biden the "Senator from MBNA" in a 1998 article for conservative magazine The American Spectator.

MBNA was one of the companies mentioned on a 2004 Frontline WGBH Boston PBS special about unfair business practices by credit card companies. Some practices that Frontline claimed MBNA has engaged in included doubling or tripling of interest rates, shifting billing due dates/payment cycles monthly and raising rates for customers whose payments were a day or two late. MBNA has been found to be one of the leading implementors of rate-jacking. For further information and links, see credit card.

In Ireland, MBNA was accused of calling consumers up to eight times a day who were behind in making payments, which prompted the state debt advisory service to publicly state that harassment is outlawed. Affected people were advised to complain to the relevant authorities. The company in December 2009 admitted overcharging 500,000 Irish consumers up to €18 million.

In the UK, circa September 2010, MBNA came under fire for its interpretation of new UK legislation, under which credit card providers must allocate payments to the debt with the highest interest rate first: one consumer site called MBNA's interpretation of these rules a "disingenuous money-making tactic".

title: MBNA


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LOL

LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud,   and a popular element of Internet slang, which can be used to indicate amusement, irony, or double meanings. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ("laughing my ass off") and ROFL  or ROTFL  ("rolling on the floor laughing").

In 2003, the list of acronyms was said to "grow by the month", and they were collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries that are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication. These initialisms are controversial, and several authors   recommend against their use, either in general or in specific contexts such as business communications. The Oxford English Dictionary first listed LOL in March 2011.

History
In the 1980s, Wayne Pearson was reportedly the first person to have used LOL while responding to a friend's joke in a pre-Internet digital chat room called Viewline. Instead of writing "hahaha," as he had done before when he found something humorous, Pearson instead typed "LOL" to symbolize extreme laughter.

A 2003 study of college students by Naomi Baron found that the use of these initialisms in computer-mediated communication (CMC), specifically in instant messaging, was actually lower than she had expected. The students "used few abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons". Out of 2,185 transmissions, there were 90 initialisms in total; 76 were occurrences of LOL. On March 24, 2011, LOL, along with other acronyms, was formally recognized in an update of the Oxford English Dictionary. In their research, it was determined that the earliest recorded use of LOL as an initialism was for "little old lady" in the 1960s. They also discovered that the oldest written record of the use of LOL in the contemporary meaning of "Laughing Out Loud" was from a message typed by Wayne Pearson in the 1980s, from the archives of Usenet.

Gabriella Coleman references "lulz" extensively in her anthropological studies of Anonymous.

LOL, ROFL, and other initialisms have crossed from computer-mediated communication to face-to-face communication. David Crystal – likening the introduction of LOL, ROFL, and others into spoken language in magnitude to the revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type in the 15th century – states that this is "a brand new variety of language evolving", invented by young people within five years, that "extend[s] the range of the language, the expressiveness [and] the richness of the language". However Geoffrey K. Pullum argues that even if interjections such as LOL and ROFL were to become very common in spoken English, their "total effect on language" would be "utterly trivial".

While LOL originally meant "laughing out loud," modern usage is different, and it is commonly used for irony, as an indicator of second meanings, and as a way to soften statements.

Analysis
Silvio Laccetti (professor of humanities at Stevens Institute of Technology) and Scott Molski, in their essay entitled The Lost Art of Writing, are critical of the terms, predicting reduced chances of employment for students who use such slang, stating that, "Unfortunately for these students, their bosses will not be 'lol' when they read a report that lacks proper punctuation and grammar, has numerous misspellings, various made-up words, and silly acronyms." Fondiller and Nerone in their style manual assert that "professional or business communication should never be careless or poorly constructed" whether one is writing an electronic mail message or an article for publication, and warn against the use of smileys and abbreviations, stating that they are "no more than e-mail slang and have no place in business communication".

Linguist John McWhorter stated, "Lol is being used in a particular way. It's a marker of empathy. It's a marker of accommodation. We linguists call things like that pragmatic particles..." Pragmatic particles are the words and phrases utilized to alleviate the awkward areas in casual conversation, such as oh in "Oh, I don't know" and uh when someone is thinking of something to say. McWhorter stated that lol is utilized less as a reaction to something that is hilarious, but rather as a way to lighten the conversation.

Frank Yunker and Stephen Barry, in a study of online courses and how they can be improved through podcasting, have found that these slang terms, and emoticons as well, are "often misunderstood" by students and are "difficult to decipher" unless their meanings are explained in advance. They single out the example of "ROFL" as not obviously being the abbreviation of "rolling on the floor laughing" (emphasis added). Matt Haig singles out LOL as one of the three most popular initialisms in Internet slang, alongside BFN ("bye for now") and IMHO ("in my honest/humble opinion"). He describes the various initialisms of Internet slang as convenient, but warns that "as ever more obscure acronyms emerge they can also be rather confusing". Hossein Bidgoli likewise states that these initialisms "save keystrokes for the sender but [...] might make comprehension of the message more difficult for the receiver" and that "[s]lang may hold different meanings and lead to misunderstandings especially in international settings"; he advises that they be used "only when you are sure that the other person knows the meaning".

Tim Shortis observes that ROFL is a means of "annotating text with stage directions". Peter Hershock, in discussing these terms in the context of performative utterances, points out the difference between telling someone that one is laughing out loud and actually laughing out loud: "The latter response is a straightforward action. The former is a self-reflexive representation of an action: I not only do something but also show you that I am doing it. Or indeed, I may not actually laugh out loud but may use the locution 'LOL' to communicate my appreciation of your attempt at humor."

David Crystal notes that use of LOL is not necessarily genuine, just as the use of smiley faces or grins is not necessarily genuine, posing the rhetorical question "How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?". Louis Franzini concurs, stating that there is as yet no research that has determined the percentage of people who are actually laughing out loud when they write LOL.

Victoria Clarke, in her analysis of telnet talkers, states that capitalization is important when people write LOL, and that "a user who types LOL may well be laughing louder than one who types lol", and opines that "these standard expressions of laughter are losing force through overuse". Michael Egan describes LOL, ROFL, and other initialisms as helpful so long as they are not overused. He recommends against their use in business correspondence because the recipient may not be aware of their meanings, and because in general neither they nor emoticons are in his view appropriate in such correspondence. June Hines Moore shares that view. So, too, does Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts, who gives the same advice of not using them in business correspondence, "or you won't be LOL".

Variants

 * lul: phonetic spelling of LOL. "LUL" is also commonly used in the gaming community, due to it being an emote on Twitch, which depicts game critic TotalBiscuit laughing.
 * lolz: Occasionally used in place of LOL.
 * lulz: Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victim of a prank, or a reason for performing an action. Its use originated with Internet trolls. According to a New York Times article about Internet trolling, "lulz means the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium." Can be used as a noun – e.g. "do it for the lulz.", shortened into "ftlulz" (to distinguish it from "ftl" – "for the loss"). See also LulzSec.
 * LOLOLOL...: For added emphasis, LOL can be appended with any number of additional iterations of "OL". In cases such as these, the abbreviation is not to be read literally (i.e., "Laughing out loud out loud out loud out loud"), but is meant to suggest several LOLs in a row.
 * OMEGALUL and LULW: variants of "LUL" used as a Twitch emote.
 * trolololol or trollololol: A blend of troll and LOL iterated, likely meant to mimick Eduard Khil's 1976 song Mr. Trololo song, which became an internet meme in 2010. Indicates that the prank or joke was made by internet trolls, or the user thinks the prank or joke qualifies as internet trolling.

Derivations

 * (to) LOL: Used as a verb ("to laugh out loud") and is meant to be conjugated in the appropriate tense. When the past tense is meant, it is written as "LOL(e)d" or "LOL'd".
 * lolwut (sometimes "lulwut"): lol + wut, used to indicate bemused laughter, or confusion.
 * lawl, lawlz, or lal: Pseudo-pronunciation of LOL. Saying "lawl" is sometimes meant in mockery of those who use the term LOL and is not meant to express laughter.
 * Lel or LEL is a "playful or ironic" variation of LOL. It is sometimes thought to be an initialism, standing for "laughing extremely loud" or "laughing extra loud", but this has been disputed.
 * lolcat, an image macro of a cat

Related

 * *G* or *g*: For "grins". Like "lulz" it is used in the initialism "J4G" ("just for grins").
 * kek: A term for laughter that originated in online games, possibly either World of Warcraft or StarCraft, the latter in which Korean players would type "kekeke" as onomatopoeia for laughter. It later became associated with alt-right politics, in the form of a parody religion surrounding the character Pepe the Frog by analogy with the frog-headed ancient Egyptian god Kek.
 * LMAO: For "laughing my arse/ass off". Variants: LMBO ("Laughing my butt off"), LMFAO ("Laughing my fucking ass off").
 * lqtm: For "Laughing quietly to myself".
 * ROFL: For "rolling on the floor laughing". It is often combined with LMAO for added emphasis as ROFLMAO ("Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off") or ROFLMFAO (Rolling on the floor laughing my fucking ass off).
 * roflcopter: A portmanteau of ROFL and helicopter. A popular glitch in the Microsoft Sam text-to-speech engine enables the voice to make a sound akin to the rotation of rotor blades when 'SOI' or 'SOY' is entered, and the phrase 'My ROFLcopter goes soi soi soi..." is often associated with the term as a result.
 * PMSL: For "pissing myself laughing".

Commonly used equivalents in other languages
Pre-dating the Internet and phone texting by a century, the way to express laughter in morse code is "hi hi". The sound of this in morse ('di-di-di-dit di-dit, di-di-di-dit di-dit') is thought to represent chuckling.
 * 555: the Thai variation of LOL. "5" in Thai is pronounced "ha", three of them being "hahaha".
 * asg: Swedish abbreviation of the term asgarv, meaning intense laughter.
 * g: Danish abbreviation of the word griner, which means "laughing" in Danish.
 * jajajá: in Spanish, the letter "j" is pronounced /x/.
 * jejeje: in the Philippines is used to represent "hehehe". "j" in Filipino languages is pronounced as /h/, derived from the Spanish /x/. Its origins can be traced to SMS language. It is widely used in a Filipino youth subculture known as Jejemons.
 * mdr: Esperanto version, from the initials of multe da ridoj, which translates to "lot of laughs" in English.
 * mdr: French version, from the initials of "mort de rire" which roughly translated means "died of laughter", although many French people also use LOL instead as it is the most widely used on the internet.
 * mkm: in Afghanistan "mkm" (being an abbreviation of the phrase "ma khanda mikonom"). This is a Dari phrase that means "I am laughing".
 * ptdr: French variant from pété de rire – literally meaning "broken with laughter"
 * rs: in Brazil "rs" (being an abbreviation of "risos", the plural of "laugh") is often used in text based communications in situations where in English LOL would be used, repeating it ("rsrsrsrsrs") is often done to express longer laughter or laughing harder. Also popular is "kkk" (which can also be repeated indefinitely), due to the pronunciation of the letter k in Portuguese sounding similar to the ca in card, and therefore representing the laugh "cacacacaca" (also similar to the Hebrew version below).
 * חחח/ההה: Hebrew version of LOL. The letter ח is pronounced [/x/ /x/] and ה is pronounced [/h/ /h/]. Putting them together (usually three or more in a row) makes the word khakhakha or hahaha (since vowels in Hebrew are generally not written), which is in many languages regarded as the sound of laughter.
 * ㅋㅋㅋ ("kkk" or "kekeke") and ㅎㅎㅎ ("hhh") are usually used to indicate laughter in Korean. 'ㅋ', is a Korean Jamo consonant representing a "k" sound, and 'ㅎ' represents an "h" sound. Both "ㅋㅋㅋ" and "ㅎㅎㅎ" represent laughter which is not very loud. However, if a vowel symbol is written, louder laughter is implied: 하하 "haha" 호호, "hoho."
 * (笑): in Japanese, the kanji for laugh, is used in the same way as lol. It can be read as kakko warai (literally "parentheses laugh") or just . w is also used as an abbreviation, and it is common for multiple w to be chained together. The resulting shape formed from multiple w leads to the usage of 草 (read as ), due to its resemblance to the shape of grass.

The word "lol" in other languages

 * In Dutch, lol is a word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny").
 * In Welsh, lol means "nonsense" or "ridiculous" – e.g., if a person wanted to say "utter nonsense" in Welsh, they would say "lol wirion" or "rwtsh lol".

title: LOL


text:
Morzine

Morzine (Morzena), alternatively known as Morzine-Avoriaz, is an alpine commune on the Swiss border in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France.

It is located in the French-Swiss Chablais historical area, south-southeast of Évian-les-Bains and just west of Champéry in Valais. As of 2020, it had a population of 2,690. The town of Morzine is situated in the French Alps' Vallée d'Aulps (Aulps Valley), which stretches from Morzine to La Vernaz in the northwest. A traditional market town in the heart of the Portes du Soleil, Morzine is dominated by chalets spread across a river gorge, bordered by partially wooded slopes allowing skiing in poor weather conditions. Situated at an altitude of about 1,000 m, it is one of the most northerly of the French Alpine resorts, weatherwise benefiting from the Mont Blanc microclimate. The locality enjoys panoramic mountain views and modern ski facilities, as well as hotels and restaurants in the town itself. The ski resort of Avoriaz is located on the territory of the commune.

History
In 1181, Morzine (Morgenes, or "border area") was a grange of Aulps Abbey, a Cistercian monastery 7 km away. In the Middle Ages, granges were agricultural centres from which the monks exploited their landscape and co-ordinated farming and industrial work. The grange was fundamental to the Cistercians' successful expansion and management of their mountain land. The granges supplied the monastery's food, clothing, utensils and building materials. The granges were manned by lay-brothers, who cultivated the lands and reared livestock.

From the 18th to the early 20th century, the exploitation of slate quarries was an important economic activity of Morzine, before winter tourism took over around in 1930. Between 1857 and 1870, the commune received national attention for an unusually high number of women claiming to be possessed. In 2015 only a few quarries were still being exploited.

Climate
Morzine has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) closely bordering on a subarctic climate (Dfc).

Summer sports
Morzine also hosts summer activities such as mountain biking, golfing, walking and caving. The resort also boasts an Olympic sized swimming pool.

Mountain biking
Local trails are generally single track and with varying levels of difficulty available from steep, rooty and technical to fast open downhill tracks. There is also a small amount of Northshore available in the Chatel Bike Park area.

Morzine is also within easy reach of other resorts including Avoriaz, Morgins, Châtel and Les Gets. The resorts of Pila, Verbier and Les Arcs lie within easy reach by car thus giving access to several places to ride.

A single lift pass can be purchased to cover the whole of the Portes du Soleil area and costs much less than during the winter months.

Tour de France
Morzine has hosted Tour de France stage finishes on several occasions, thanks in part to the proximity of the notoriously steep Col de Joux-Plane climb.

Morzine was the finale of the first mountain stage in the 2003 Tour de France. Stage seven's yellow jersey (for the leader of the general classification) and polka dot jersey (for the leader of the mountains classification) were awarded to Richard Virenque of France's Quick-Step–Davitamon team. Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France ended in Morzine, where Floyd Landis did the impossible and gutted out one of the most memorable stage wins in Tour history during the height of the 1992–2012 doping-era. The town was also the starting point for Stage 18. In the 2010 Tour de France Morzine was the finishing location for stage 8.

Morzine again featured in the 2016 Tour de France as the finish for stage 20 – Megève to Morzine.

From July 10–12 the 2022 Tour de France was scheduled to be in Morzine with a stage finish held nearby, the second rest day and also a stage depart.

Football
Morzine is home to the annual French Mountain Villages Football Tournament (Tournoi des Montagnes) where the best junior teams compete for a much coveted trophy each June.

Ice hockey
The town is home to the Morzine-Avoriaz Penguins, an ice hockey team which reached the Ligue Magnus final in 2006, but nowadays plays in the country's minor leagues.

Skiing and snowboarding
The intermediate terrain makes the area well suited to beginners and less-seasoned skiers and snowboarders, which has led to the resort being especially popular with families. However more challenging slopes can be found at nearby Avoriaz.

Morzine is closely linked to its neighbours Avoriaz and Les Gets in that they function as linked skiing centres during the winter season. The two resorts are included in the Portes du Soleil ski area, which includes both French and Swiss villages.

Other events
Since 2013, the town has hosted the Morzine Harley Days, a major motorcycle and music rally sponsored by Harley-Davidson and organized by its Harley Owners Group. The event reportedly drew 20,000 vehicles and 60,000 fans in 2019.

Local transport
The closest airport to Morzine is Geneva Cointrin International Airport, Switzerland. Although there is no rail service directly to Morzine the two closest stations are at Thonon-les-Bains and Cluses, and from these stations local buses are available to the town.

title: Morzine


text:
Talk:Wigtown Wanderers

What is a butlet? RickK 03:01, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Wigtown Wanderers


text:
Wikipedia:School and university projects/Vienna 2002-2003

A small writing project was conducted at the University of Vienna, Austria in the winter term of 2002/03 (October 1, 2002 - January 31, 2003).

The vast majority of students enrolling at the Department of English speak German as their first language. Some speak one of the languages of neighbouring countries (Czech, Slovak, etc.) or other languages (Croatian, Turkish, Polish, Chinese, etc.). Only a very small percentage have English as their mother tongue or have been brought up bilingually with English as one of the two languages.

The Department of English offers an extensive programme in literary studies (both British/Irish and American/Canadian literature), linguistics, regional and cultural studies, and methodology (for those students planning to become teachers at a gymnasium). As far as language skills are concerned, courses at the Department of English are not designed to accommodate beginners or intermediate learners of English. Rather, to quote from the official Annotated Lecture List, the language courses are

 * based on the assumption that you have already done English up to Austrian Matura level or the equivalent. In other words, you are already more or less "Independent Users" of English. By the end of Part I (i.e. after four semesters = two years) you should be approaching a level that has been described as "Effective Operational Proficiency". This means that you should have relatively little difficulty in using the English language for most personal, public or educational purposes. You will be able to use the language both receptively and productively, in speech and in writing, with due regard for relevant features of context, situation and addressor / addressee. In addition, you will have a good grasp of the nature and structure of the language and its systems. Finally you should have attained a level of learner autonomy which will enable you to continue to develop your language and communication skills independently in the future.

The project described here was started in a second-year language class (4th semester) entitled Language in Use (two hours per week), a course based on texts of various types and designed to enable students "to understand and produce a range of spoken and written text-types relevant to the personal, educational and future occupational needs of Arts students". Assessment in language classes as described above typically includes attendance, active participation, class work, homework assignments and one or two written tests on the material covered, so the Wikipedia project was just part of the whole course. However, in the final test at the end of January students were also asked to "write an article" for Wikipedia (this was just a simulation of course) complete with wiki links etc.

Students were introduced to Wikipedia shortly after the beginning of the term and, in the course of several weeks, encouraged (rather than forced -- see "learner autonomy" above), by browsing Wikipedia, to find additional material to the texts handed out and discussed in class. In the course of the term they were regularly reminded to make themselves familiar with how Wikipedia works and to tentatively start editing articles -- correcting spelling mistakes, adding a sentence here and there, creating a link, italicizing book and film titles, and so on. There were also one or two classes during which they were invited to give oral "progress reports" on what they had already learned about, and achieved in, Wikipedia. One participant had already created the article on Alsergrund.

Then, in mid-November, they were asked to choose a topic -- any topic not yet covered in Wikipedia -- to write about. The deadline was January 6, 2003: All articles had to be posted by 23:59 that day. Immediately after saving their article students had to send an e-mail to an address they had been given beforehand confirming that they had just posted their text and giving its exact title.

A number of "hidden" tasks were included in this assignment, some of which the students only realized they had failed to complete when it was too late:

 * First of all, reflecting what encyclopaedic knowledge means at the beginning of the 21st century. In other words, students basically had to decide whether the topic they had in mind was worth writing about or not.

 * Conforming to a given style, basically by imitating it. This does not only refer to Wikipedia's NPOV policy and of course to grammatical correctness but also to formal matters (naming conventions, paragraph structure, subheadings, bold type, italicized booktitles, hypertext markup in general, etc.).

 * Realizing that plagiarism and cheating in general are not honourable. Of course none of the members of the Department interfered with these articles. However, as Wikipedia is based on peer review, a handful of students were shocked to find out that the articles they had just posted were almost immediately deleted by some other user and replaced by a notice saying "Copyright violation. This text has been taken from …". Among others, Zoe was very active at the time. On the other hand, the Jack Hodgins article remained undetected till August 2, 2003.

 * Writing an encyclopaedia entry which attracts the attention of other users. Many people stumble across Wikipedia during a Google search, so it is important to ask oneself questions such as: What exactly is it that might be of interest to other users? One participant wrote a medical article full of unintelligible jargon which was promptly rejected by another contributor -- see Autonomic nervous system (original comment from the talk page, posted only ten minutes after the article by a graduate student in biology: "This page is totally useless. Can we remove the jargon? What the fuck is the splanchnic nerve? Also, is this an original article? Can someone translate this mess? If not, we should just delete it -- it'd be easier to do it from scratch.")

 * Getting organized, dividing up one's time wisely and, eventually, meeting a deadline. January 6 is a holiday in Austria (Epiphany) and traditionally the last day of the Christmas break. As might have been expected, the majority of entries were posted between 9 p.m. and midnight that day, i. e. during the last few hours of a six-week period. E-mailed comments such as "This is the article that has messed up my whole Christmas vacation" were not infrequent.

Generally, the results were not always satisfactory. For example, a participant who still had no idea what they were doing and who, on top of that, had missed the deadline, vandalised the already existing Oscar Wilde article beyond recognition. But now for some examples of the Meisterwerke published that fateful day:

 * Dawson's Creek
 * Dragon Boat
 * Ethan Hawke
 * Harald Schmidt
 * History of Ice Hockey in Slovakia
 * LyX
 * Oesophageal voice
 * Peter Rosegger
 * Reiki
 * Riddim
 * Rovaniemi
 * Schönbrunn
 * Shark attack (which has survived as an orphan for seven months now in spite of / because of the uncapitalized "attack" in the title)
 * Studying in Vienna
 * Thomas Muster
 * Übermensch

Bad technical performance of Wikipedia resulting, among other things, in students' inability to save their articles in time was the major point of criticism on the participants' part. True, meeting a deadline is especially difficult for those with limited access to computers, i.e. students who are dependent on the opening hours of the computer rooms at the university.

Sadly, the little project does not seem to have produced any long-term contributors, but, as it was up to each individual student to decide whether they wanted to log in or remain anonymous, this is generally difficult to tell. Anyway, plans are underway to launch a similar project next term.


text:
Webby Awards

The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include websites, advertising and media, online film and video, mobile sites and apps, and social.

Two winners are selected in each category, one by members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and one by the public who cast their votes during Webby People's Voice voting. Each winner presents a five-word acceptance speech, a trademark of the annual awards show.

In its early years, the award was hailed as the "Internet’s highest honor" and was associated with the phrase "The Oscars of the Internet." More recently, the organizers have been criticized for their pay-to-win policies, and the awards have been called a money-making scam.

History

In its early years, the organization was one of several vying to be the premiere internet awards show. Both shows would compare themselves to the Oscars, as did media outlets such as The New York Times to Canada's Globe & Mail.

The winners of the First Annual Webby Awards in 1995 were presented by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, writers for Columbia Pictures. It was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The televised Webby Awards were sponsored by the Academy of Web Design and Cool Site of the Day. The first Webby Awards were produced by Kay Dangaard at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel as a nod to the first site of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars). That first year, they were called "Webbie" Awards. The first "Site of the Year" winner was the pioneer webisodic serial The Spot.

The modern Webby Awards were co-founded by Tiffany Shlain, a filmmaker, when she was hired by The Web Magazine to re-establish them, and were first held in San Francisco in 1997. They quickly became known for its requirement that winners give their acceptance speeches in five words. After this, the awards became more successful than the magazine and IDG closed the publication. Shlain and co-founder Maya Draisin Farrah continued to run The Webby Awards until 2004.

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which selects the winners of The Webby Awards, was established in 1998 by co-founders Tiffany Shlain, Spencer Ante and Maya Draisin. Members of the Academy include Kevin Spacey, Grimes, Questlove, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, Instagram’s Head of Fashion Partnerships Eva Chen, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, Twitter founder Biz Stone, Vice Media co-founder and CEO Shane Smith, Tumblr’s David Karp, Director of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Susan P. Crawford, Refinery29’s Executive Creative Director Piera Gelardi, and CEO and co-founder of Gimlet Media Alex Blumberg.

The Webby Awards is owned and operated by the Webby Media Group, a division of Recognition Media, which also owns and produces the Lovie Awards in Europe and Netted by the Webbys, a daily email publication launched in 2009. David-Michel Davies, CEO of Webby Media Group, current Executive Director of the Webby Awards and co-founder of Internet Week New York, was named Executive Director of the Webby Awards in 2005.

In 2009, the 13th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 US states and over 60 countries. That same year, more than 500,000 votes were cast in The Webby People's Voice Awards. In 2012, the 16th Annual Webby awards received 1.5 million votes from more than 200 countries for the People's Voice awards. In 2015, the 19th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from all 50 U.S. states and over 60 countries worldwide.

Nomination process
The 2000 awards began the transition to nominee submissions. Previously, nominees had been selected by an internal committee.

As early as 2017, organizations wanting to nominate themselves were charged $395 for a single entry. An "ad campaign entry" would cost $595. By 2024, those fees had risen to $495 and $675, respectively.

Executive Academy Members with category-specific expertise evaluate the shortlisted entries based on the appropriate Website, Advertising & Media, Online Film & Video, Mobile Sites & Apps, and Social category criteria, and cast ballots to determine Webby Honorees, Nominees and Webby Winners. Deloitte provides vote tabulation consulting for the Webby Awards.

In addition to the award given in each category by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, another winner is selected in each category as determined by the general public during People's Voice voting. Winners of both the Academy-selected and People's Voice-selected awards are invited to the Webbys.

Awards granted
The Webby Awards are presented in over a hundred categories among all four types of entries. A website can be entered in multiple categories and receive multiple awards. In each category, two awards are handed out: a Webby Award selected by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, and a People's Voice Award selected by the general public.

Ceremony
Between 2005 and 2019, the Webby Awards were presented in New York City. Many of the ceremony hosts are comedians and comedic actors. Comedian Rob Corddry hosted the ceremony from 2005 to 2007. Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live hosted in 2008 and 2009, B.J. Novak of the sitcom The Office in 2010, and Lisa Kudrow in 2011. Comedian, actor, and writer Patton Oswalt hosted from 2012 to 2014. Comedian Hannibal Buress hosted in 2015.

The Webbys are famous for limiting recipients to five-word speeches, which are often humorous, although some exceed the limit. In 2005 when accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award, former Vice President Al Gore's speech was "Please don't recount this vote." He was introduced by Vint Cerf who used the same format to state, "We all invented the Internet." In 2013, the creator of the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Steve Wilhite, accepted his Webby and delivered his now famous five-word speech, "It's pronounced 'Jif' not 'Gif'."

Criticism
The Webbys have been criticized for their pay-to-enter and pay-to-attend policy (winners and nominees also have to pay to attend the award ceremony), and thus for not taking most websites into consideration before distributing their awards. Gawker, its Valleywag column, and others, have called the awards a scam, with Valleywag saying, "...somewhere along the way, the organizers figured out that this goofy charade could be milked for profit."

In response, Webby Awards executive director David-Michel Davies told the Wall Street Journal that entry fees “provide the best and most sustainable model for ensuring that our judging process remains consistent and rigorous and is not dependent on things like sponsorships that can fluctuate from year to year.”

Anthem Awards
In 2021, the Webby organization started a new line of awards, the Anthem Awards, to honor the purpose and mission-driven work of people, companies and organizations worldwide. The finalists and winners are selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

title: Webby Awards


text:
Niue Constitution Act

The Schedules of the Niue Constitution Act 1974 form the Constitution of Niue. It stipulates the make-up of the executive branch of the government, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. The Niue Constitution Act 1974 is the supreme law of Niue; any other Niue law that is inconsistent with the Niue Constitution Act 1974 will be deemed to be invalid.

Its granting by the New Zealand Parliament in 1974 is celebrated yearly as Niue's independence on "Constitution Day" on 19 October. The road towards self-government for Niue started with the UN Decolonisation Committee putting pressure on New Zealand for Niue to decide what form of status Niue wanted. The people of Niue voted in 1974 choosing the self-government option as the best direction for Niue. The Niue Constitution is the legal doctrine that put the wishes of the Niue people for self-government into practice. Self-government allows for Niueans to lead and take charge of their own affairs; this has reduced the number of New Zealand expats working in key Government positions from around 20 in 1974 to none at the moment.

The Niue Constitution requires 2/3 majority in the three readings in the Legislative Assembly and also requires 2/3 support from the electors before it can be amended. There is a select committee that have been working on reviewing the constitution but have made little progress, which is normal when dealing with a complex document like this.

title: Niue Constitution Act


text:
Order (business)

In business or commerce, an order is a stated intention, either spoken or written, to engage in a commercial transaction for specific products or services. From a buyer's point of view it expresses the intention to buy and is called a purchase order. From a seller's point of view it expresses the intention to sell and is referred to as a sales order. When the purchase order of the buyer and the sales order of the seller agree, the orders become a contract between the buyer and seller.

Within an organization, it may be a work order for manufacturing, a preventive maintenance order, or an order to make repairs to a facility.

In many businesses, orders are used to collect and report costs and revenues according to well-defined purposes. Then it is possible to show for what purposes costs have been incurred.

Spoken orders
Businesses such as retail stores, restaurants and filling stations conduct business with their customers by accepting orders that are spoken or implied by the buyer's actions. Taking a shopping cart of merchandise to a check-out counter is an implied intent to buy the merchandise. Placing a take-out or eat-in order at a restaurant is a spoken purchase order. Putting gasoline in one's tank at a filling station is an implied order. The seller usually expects immediate payment by cash, check or credit card for these purchases, and the seller provides the buyer with a receipt for the payment. In legal terms, this form of business order is an "implied in fact contract".

Steps in commercial orders
In commerce, various business documents are used to record the negotiation of an agreement to buy and sell, record the agreement itself, and record compliance with the agreement and closure of the contract. An agreement to buy and sell is a form of contract.

There are five basic requirements for a contract to exist between two parties: agreement, voluntary, consideration, capacity, and legality. A sixth requirement of "in writing" sometimes applies.

The main concern for commercial orders is that there must be agreement (offer and acceptance) for the order to be a contract. Prior to this, businesses often record the details of negotiations by using a request for quotation, request for bid, sales quotation, or sales bid. Quotations are non-binding and part of the negotiation process. A request for bid can be binding or non-binding, depending on the terms of the bid.

Once an agreement or contract is in place, businesses record these as confirmed purchase orders and confirmed sales orders.

Uniform Commercial Code
In the US, Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code covers commercial contracts, and section 2-103 gives definitions of terms under this code. Section 2-106 describes the difference between a present sale (recorded as a sales order) and a sale (recorded as a transfer of title to the buyer).

"(1) In this Article unless the context otherwise requires 'contract' and 'agreement' are limited to those relating to the present or future sale of goods. 'Contract for sale' includes both a present sale of goods and a contract to sell goods at a future time. A 'sale' consists in the passing of title from the seller to the buyer for a price (Section 2-401).  A 'present sale' means a sale which is accomplished by the making of the contract."

Aggregate level of orders
In their "Advance Monthly Sales for Retail Trade and Food Services", the US Census Bureau publishes estimates of US retail and food services sales. These "sales" are orders that have been filled; payment has been made or is an account receivable. In their "Preliminary Report on Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders", the US Census Bureau publishes statistics for "new orders", shipments, "unfilled orders" and inventories for manufactured durable goods. This gives an indication whether trade is increasing or decreasing for manufactured durable goods in the US.

title: Order (business)


text:
Spider (disambiguation)

A spider is a type of arthropod.

Spider, Spiders or The Spider may also refer to:

Fictional entities

 * Spider (DC Comics), a character introduced in 1940
 * The Spider (magazine), a 1933–1943 pulp magazine
 * Spider (pulp fiction character), the hero of the 1933–1943 pulp magazine
 * Phantom Troupe, also known as the Spiders, characters in the Hunter × Hunter manga series
 * Spider, a character in Mega Man X: Command Mission
 * Spider, a cartoon character in Osamu Tezuka's Star System
 * Spider Jerusalem, the protagonist of the comic book Transmetropolitan
 * Spiderlegs, a ghost in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters
 * The Spider (British comics), a 1965–1969 British comic book character, later reprinted in Vulcan
 * The Spider, the eunuch Varys in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and its TV adaptation, Game of Thrones

Films

 * The Spider (1916 film), by Robert G. Vignola
 * The Spiders (film), 1919, by Fritz Lang
 * The Spider (1931 film), by MacKenna and Menzies
 * The Spider (1940 film), by Maurice Elvey
 * The Spider (1945 film), by Robert D. Webb
 * Spiders (film), a 2000 American science fiction horror film
 * Spider (1992 film), by Vasily Mass
 * Spider (2002 film), by David Cronenberg
 * Spider (2007 film), by Nash Edgerton
 * Spiders 3D, 2013, by Tibor Takács
 * The Spider, or Earth vs. the Spider
 * The Spider, 2012 film by Robert Sigl
 * Spider (2019 film), Chile

Gaming

 * Spider (solitaire), a card game
 * Spiders (company), a French video game developer
 * Spiders (video game), a 1981 arcade game
 * Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, a 2009 iPhone game
 * Spider: The Video Game, a 1997 video game developed by Boss Game Studios

Literature

 * "The Spider" (Edderkoppen), a 1901 short story by Carl Ewald, collected in his 1907 book of short stories The Spider, and Other Tales
 * The Spider, a 1910 novel by Fergus Hume
 * "Spider", a 1929 short story by Eden Phillpotts, from his short story anthology The Torch and Other Tales (1929)
 * "Spider", a 2000 short story by John Pelan
 * Spider (novel), a 1990 novel by Patrick McGrath
 * Al-Ankabut ("The Spider"), the 29th sura of the Qur'an

Groups

 * Spider (American band), a 1980s American rock band
 * Spider (British band), a UK rock band formed in 1976
 * Spiders (British band), a 2010s British indie band
 * Spiders (Swedish band), a 2010s Swedish rock band
 * The Spiders (American band), a 1950s R&B group
 * The Spiders (American rock band), a 1960s American rock band, later known as Alice Cooper
 * The Spiders (Japanese band), a 1960s Japanese Group Sounds band

Albums

 * Spiders (album), a 1996 album by Space

Songs

 * "Spider", a song by Bo Burnham from the 2022 The Inside Outtakes
 * "Spider", a song by Oingo Boingo on the 1994 album Boingo
 * "Spider", a single by Spitz
 * "Spider", a song by The Vapors on the 1981 album Magnets
 * "Spider", a song by They Might Be Giants on the 1992 album Apollo 18
 * "Spiders" (Destine song), 2010
 * "Spiders" (Moby song), 2005
 * "Spiders" (System of a Down song), 1999
 * "Spiders", a song by Slipknot on the 2019 album We Are Not Your Kind
 * "Spiders", a song by Editors on the 2007 album An End Has a Start
 * "Spiders (Kidsmoke)", a song by Wilco on the 2004 album A Ghost Is Born
 * "The Spider", a song by Kansas on the 1997 album Point of Know Return
 * "The Spider", a song by Scottish musician Momus on the 2015 album Turpsycore

Periodicals

 * Spider (computer magazine), a monthly magazine in Karachi, Pakistan
 * Spider (magazine), a children's literary magazine
 * The Spider (magazine), a pulp magazine published from 1933 to 1943

Other uses in arts, entertainment and media

 * Spider (Bourgeois), a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois
 * Spider! (TV series), a 1991 musical children's television mini series
 * The Spiders (comic), a webcomic by Patrick S. Farley
 * "Spider", a 2005 episode of the animated television series 12 oz. Mouse

Military

 * 4th Guards Brigade "Spiders", a former Croatian army unit
 * Light Strike Vehicle (Singapore), or Spider New Generation
 * SS-23 Spider, a ballistic missile

People

 * Spider (nickname), a list of people
 * John Koerner (born 1938), American blues/folk musician known as Spider
 * Spider Robinson (born 1948), American-Canadian science-fiction writer
 * Ben Spider (born 1970), Franco-Swiss artist.
 * Spider (musician) (born 1999/2000), Irish musician
 * The Spider, ring name for professional wrestler Randy Savage (1952–2011)
 * The Spider, professional wrestler from United States Wrestling Association

Places

 * Spider, Kentucky, U.S.
 * Spider crater, Western Australia
 * The Spider (Colorado), a mountain in the Gore Range
 * "The Spider", another name for the Pantheon Fossae surface formation on Mercury
 * ¨Las Arañas, lit. "The Spiders":
 * Las Arañas, Santiago Metropolitan Region
 * Las Arañas, O'Higgins Region

Science and technology

 * Spider (polarimeter), an experiment to study the cosmic microwave background radiation
 * Spider, the callsign of the Apollo 9 lunar module
 * Spider, a support for the secondary mirror of a reflecting telescope
 * Spider, a component of a loudspeaker
 * AMD Spider, a computer platform
 * 45 rpm adapter, called the spider, for a phonograph record
 * Web spider, another name for a web crawler—an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web for purposes of web indexing—typically employed by search engines
 * Spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction, an ultrashort pulse measurement technique
 * Spider wrench, a x-shaped Lug wrench
 * Tubing spider, a heavy duty gripping tool used in oil drilling for securing the drill pipe to the drill floor
 * SPIDER, a prototype negative ion source for the ITER Heating Neutral Beams
 * Spider arm, a weak spot of front-loading washing machines

Sports

 * Spider, a piece of snooker equipment
 * Cleveland Spiders, an 1887–1899 American baseball team
 * Richmond Spiders, the sports teams of the University of Richmond
 * San Francisco Spiders, a 1996 American hockey team
 * The Spiders, an early ring name for professional wrestling tag-team The Headbangers
 * The Spiders, nickname of Queen's Park F.C., Glasgow

Transportation

 * Spider (locomotive), a 1890 locomotive on the Marrawah Tramway, Tasmania, Australia
 * Spider, part of a bicycle crankset
 * Various Alfa Romeo models:
 * Alfa Roemo Spider, a roadster version of the Alfa Romeo Brera produced from 2006 to 2010
 * Alfa Romeo Spider, a roadster sports car produced from 1993 to 2004
 * Alfa Romeo Spider, a sports car introduced in 1966
 * Aston Martin Valkyrie Spider, a convertible version of the Aston Martin Valkyrie sports car
 * Fiat 124 Sport Spider, also known as the Pininfarina Spider, a sports car produced 1966–1980
 * Fiat 124 Spider (2016), a sports car introduced in 2016
 * McLaren MP4-12C Spider, a convertible version of the McLaren MP4-12C sports car
 * Pipistrel Spider, a Slovenian ultralight trike aircraft design
 * Renault Sport Spider, a sports car produced 1996–1999

Other uses

 * Spider (portal) (Strathclyde Personal Interactive Development and Educational Resource)
 * SPDR, pronounced "spider", a family of investment funds
 * Spider (utensil), a basket with a long handle
 * Spider, a type of frying pan with legs
 * Spider, a type of ice cream float (a beverage)

title: Spider (disambiguation)


text:
Wikipedia talk:Testimonies

Shouldn't this page be titled Testimonials? Testimony generally just means a statement of evidence, without implying pro or con. Steven G. Johnson

 * Hmm, perhaps this should be merged with Anti-testimonies and then be kept under the current title? —Eloquence 03:26, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

 * I think it's useful to have a "Testimonials" page, and to keep the criticisms on a separate page. For one thing, if the point of the page is good PR it is good to keep a page for that purpose.  For another thing, it would be too cluttered, especially if you include rebuttals to the criticisms.  Also, from the description at the top of the current "Testimonies" page I believe that the current title was clearly a mistake—why should we alter the page to fit the malapropism?  --Steven G. Johnson

title: Wikipedia talk:Testimonies