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Crossfade (American band)

Crossfade is an American rock band formed in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1991. Before settling on the Crossfade name in 2002, the band had previously existed under the names The Nothing and Sugardaddy Superstar. Their current lineup includes lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ed Sloan, bassist and backing vocalist Mitch James and lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist Les Hall. Since their formation, Crossfade has released three studio albums – their self-titled debut album in 2004, Falling Away in 2006, and We All Bleed in 2011.

Early years, Crossfade and Falling Away (1991–2007)
Crossfade was formed in 1991, originally under the name The Nothing. The band consisted of Ed Sloan on lead guitar and vocals, Mitch James on bass and backing vocals, and Brian Geiger on drums. They released two records, The Nothing (1994) and Numb (1998). The song "Breathing Slowly", originally from Numb, was re-recorded eight years later on Falling Away. By 2000, The Nothing had changed their name to Sugardaddy Superstar, after vocalist and DJ Tony Byroads joined the band. The band recorded songs in the "Sugardaddy Studio", a studio that lead singer Ed Sloan had built in his garage. The songs eventually attracted the interest of the Los Angeles A&R company Taxi (Independent A&R), and HitPredictor co-founder and FG Records/Earshot head Doug Ford which ultimately led to the signing of a record deal with the FG Records/Earshot division of Columbia Records.

In 2002, they changed their name once again, this time to Crossfade. That year the band entered the studio to record two more songs to add to the eight they had recorded in the "Sugardaddy Studio" for their debut album. Brian Geiger left the band before the album was released, and was replaced by James Branham. They released their first album, Crossfade, on April 13, 2004. The first single off the album, "Cold", gave the band significant mainstream exposure. Two singles followed afterward in 2005: "So Far Away" and "Colors". In February 2005, their Crossfade album was certified Gold by the RIAA and was later certified Platinum in August 2005. Crossfade had with "So Far Away" their debut radio broadcast on 94.5 the Buzz (Houston, Texas) Cage Match at 10 o'clock p.m. where it competed with a new song every night and won out over the competition for over three weeks. At the time, Crossfade's single had been the longest lasting song on the Cage Match since its founding. That year, Tony Byroads left the band to start a family and was not replaced.

After coming off the success of their first album, the band began to write a follow-up. In 2006,. Crossfade's second album, Falling Away, was released on August 29, 2006. The album spawned three singles: "Invincible", "Drown You Out", and "Already Gone". After releasing the album, they needed another guitarist for their upcoming tour. Les Hall, an old friend of Ed Sloan, filled the position. After touring, Hall wanted to become an official member of the band and he asked if he could take part in the songwriting. Sloan accepted and Les Hall became Crossfade's lead guitarist and keyboardist. Though their debut album sold over one million copies, Falling Away only sold 200,000.

New label, switching drummers, We All Bleed and hiatus (2008–present)
In 2008, the band was dropped from Columbia Records. The band signed with Eleven Seven Music. After drummer James Branham left and formed a new band, A Fall From Down, he was replaced by temporary member Will Hunt for the recording of the album.

On January 2, 2009, Crossfade released a demo track entitled "We All Bleed". It was announced that they would be releasing a new album later that year. According to the band, the new album would have a darker, and possibly different, sound than their previous releases.

In June 2010, the track listing for We All Bleed was revealed, and the first single, "Killing Me Inside", was released along with a music video. The release date for We All Bleed was originally October 26, 2010, but was pushed back first to January 2011, then April 12, 2011, before being pushed back a third time to June 21, 2011. The album closer track "Make Me A Believer" was made available for download for free in the meantime, which is the longest song the band has ever recorded. Around that time after the album was finished recording, studio drummer Will Hunt became the drummer of American rock band, Evanescence, with whom he toured in 2007.

In November 2010, Crossfade announced on their YouTube channel, CrossfadeMusicTV, that Mark Castillo from the metalcore band Bury Your Dead would be the band's new drummer.

The same day that the first single "Killing Me Inside" was officially released to digital retailers, the band announced on their Twitter that the album would finally be released on June 21, 2011. In November, the band also released the second single, "Prove You Wrong", and released the music video for the song in December.

In 2011, Crossfade headlined Rockapalooza in Jackson, Michigan.

Crossfade supported Papa Roach and Buckcherry on the Rock Allegiance Tour in 2011 with Puddle of Mudd, P.O.D., Red, and Drive A.

In January 2012, drummer Mark Castillo announced on his Facebook that he had left Crossfade to pursue a career in the metalcore band Emmure.

Despite a lengthy period of inactivity, the band had not broken up as of August 2016. Sloan took to Facebook to address rumors of the band's demise in the meantime.

In October 2017, Ed Sloan stated on Facebook that an upcoming solo album was underway and that its debut single "Surrender", would be released on November 10. An acoustic version of "Surrender" was later released. On February 2, 2018, Ed released his second solo single titled "Alive". An official music video was released a month later. On March 30, 2018, Ed released his third solo single titled "Without You". Sloan hasn’t posted to social media since 2019, and as of 2024, there have been no updates on Ed Sloan's solo album or Crossfade's future.

Band members
Current members
 * Ed Sloan – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1991–present), lead guitar (1991–2006)
 * Mitch James – bass, backing vocals (1991–present)
 * Les Hall – lead guitar, keyboards, sampling, backing vocals (2006–present)

Former members
 * Brian Geiger – drums (1991–2004)
 * Tony Byroads – turntables, vocals, sampling (1999–2005)
 * James Branham – drums (2004–2008)
 * Mark Castillo – drums (2010–2012)

Former touring members
 * Will Hunt – drums (2008–2010)

Timeline

Music videos

 * "Cold" (2004)
 * "Colors" (2005)
 * "Invincible" (2006)
 * "Drown You Out" (2006)
 * "Killing Me Inside" (2011)
 * "Prove You Wrong" (2011)
 * "Dear Cocaine" (2012)

title: Crossfade (American band)


text:
Talk:Cuban Revolution

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2021 and 27 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Leadfern. Peer reviewers: Eschimia, Jshelton22.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Incomplete?
This article (as of 5/11/2006 anyway) jumps from Castro's forces barely surviving in the mountains to post-revolution trials and purges. Surely something happened between these two events.

Gun shot Wounds
I changed "gun shoot wounds" to "gun shot wounds". I hit submit by accident before I could finish my edit summary.

Living Standards After the Revolution
Since a major goal of the revolution was to improve the living standards of the poorer classes in Cuba, there should be a discussion of how living standards changed in post-revolutionary Cuba. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.246.6 (talk) 17:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

"Cuban reolution" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_reolution&redirect=no Cuban reolution] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:37, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Cuban Revolution


text:
User:Family Olofsson

The family Olofsson lives in Staffanstorp in Scania.

title: User:Family Olofsson


text:
Upper Sorbian language

Upper Sorbian (hornjoserbšćina), occasionally referred to as Wendish, is a minority language spoken by Sorbs, in the historical province of Upper Lusatia, which is today part of Saxony, Germany. It is grouped in the West Slavic language branch, together with Lower Sorbian, Czech, Polish, Silesian, Slovak, and Kashubian.

History
The history of the Upper Sorbian language in Germany began with the Slavic migrations during the 6th century AD. Beginning in the 12th century, there was a massive influx of rural Germanic settlers from Flanders, Saxony, Thuringia and Franconia. This so-called "Ostsiedlung" (eastern settlement or expansion) led to a slow but steady decline in use of the Sorbian language. In addition, in the Saxony region, the Sorbian language was legally subordinated to the German language. Language prohibitions were later added: In 1293, the Sorbian language was forbidden in Berne castle before the courts; in 1327 it was forbidden in Zwickau and Leipzig, and from 1424 on it was forbidden in Meissen. Further, there was the condition in many guilds of the cities of the area to accept only members of German-language origin.

However, the central areas of the Milzener and Lusitzer, in the area of today's Lusatia, were relatively unaffected by the new German language settlements and legal restrictions. The language therefore flourished there. By the 17th century, the number of Sorbian speakers in that area grew to over 300,000. The oldest evidence of written Upper Sorbian is the Burger Eydt Wendisch document, which was discovered in the city of Bautzen and dates to the year 1532.

Upper Sorbian in Germany
There are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 speakers of Upper Sorbian. Almost all of these live in the state of Saxony, chiefly in the district of Bautzen (Budyšin). The stronghold of the language is the village of Crostwitz (Chrósćicy) and the surrounding municipalities, especially to the west of it. In this core area, Upper Sorbian remains the predominant vernacular.

Vowels
The vowel inventory of Upper Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Lower Sorbian.

 * Word-initial vowels are rare, and are often preceded by a non-phonemic glottal stop, or sometimes . appear in word-initial position only in recent borrowings, whereas the diphthongs never occur in this position.
 * The near-close can also be analyzed as diphthongs . Here, they are analyzed as monophthongs.
 * The diphthongal allophones of are falling: .  occurs only under strong sentence stress in monosyllabic words. Conversely,  is a more common realization of  than.
 * has three allophones:
 * Open-mid between hard consonants and after a hard consonant;
 * Mid between soft consonants and after a soft consonant (excluding  in both cases);
 * Diphthong with a mid onset before.
 * has two allophones:
 * Diphthong with a mid onset before labial consonants;
 * Open-mid in all other cases.
 * Additional diphthongs arise from r-vocalization, as in German. For instance, uniwersita 'University' may be pronounced.
 * The distinction between on the one hand and  on the other is weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.
 * is phonetically central . It is somewhat higher after soft consonants.

Consonants

 * are bilabial, whereas are labiodental.
 * are strongly palatalized.
 * is a somewhat velarized bilabial approximant, whereas is a strongly palatalized bilabial approximant.
 * is very rare. Apart from loanwords, it occurs only in two Slavonic words: zełharny 'deceitful' and zełharnosć  'deceitfulness', both of which are derivatives of łhać  'to lie'. Usage of these words is typically restricted to the Bautzen dialect, as speakers of the Catholic dialect use łžeć  and its derivatives.
 * are alveolar, is alveolo-palatal , whereas  are dental.
 * before (in the case of  also before ) are weakly palatalized .  also reports palatalized  as allophones of . Among these, the labiodental  are extremely rare.
 * are velar in front of velar consonants.
 * is very rare. In many cases, it merges with into.
 * are very rare. According to, the phonemic status of is controversial.
 * In most dialects, are palato-alveolar. This is unlike Lower Sorbian, where these consonants are laminal retroflex (flat postalveolar)  (Lower Sorbian  does not have a voiced counterpart). Laminal retroflex realizations of  also occur in Upper Sorbian dialects spoken in some villages north of Hoyerswerda.
 * are velar, whereas are uvular.
 * An aspirated is a morpheme-initial allophone of  in some cases, as well as a possible word-initial allophone of.
 * is typically accompanied with trilling of the uvula, so that brach 'fault' is typically pronounced.
 * does not occur word-initially, whereas does not occur word-finally.
 * are typically realized as fricatives or approximants . They can be trilled  in clear and careful pronunciation. Furthermore,  can also be realized as a voiceless fricative . It can also be vocalized in the syllable coda, as in uniwersita  'University'. They are never alveolar, which is an archaic pronunciation.
 * Soft is strongly palatalized.
 * An epenthetic is inserted before a post-vocalic soft consonant, yielding a diphthong. If the soft consonant occurs before  or, it is often realized as hard, and the vowels merge to.
 * In literary language, the contrast between hard and soft consonants is neutralized in word-final position. For instance, the letter $\langleń\rangle$ represents the sequence in this position (as in dźeń  'day'), not a single phoneme.

Final devoicing and assimilation
Upper Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation, both word-internal and across word boundaries. In the latter context, is voiced to. Regressive voicing assimilation does not occur before sonorants and.

Stress

 * Words consisting of up to three syllables are stressed on the first syllable.
 * Foreign words, such as student 'student', preserve their original accent.

Samples
The Lord's Prayer in Upper Sorbian:

 * Wótče naš, kiž sy w njebjesach. Swjeć so Twoje mjeno. Přińdź Twoje kralestwo. Stań so Twoja wola, kaž na njebju, tak na zemi. Wšědny chlěb naš daj nam dźens. Wodaj nam naše winy, jako my tež wodawamy swojim winikam. A njewjedź nas do spytowanja, ale wumóž nas wot złeho. Amen.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Upper Sorbian:

 * Wšitcy čłowjekojo su wot naroda swobodni a su jenacy po dostojnosći a prawach. Woni su z rozumom a swědomjom wobdarjeni a maja mjezsobu w duchu bratrowstwa wobchadźeć.

(All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.)

Dictionaries

 * Upper Sorbian dictionary with common phrases
 * Upper Sorbian phraseology dictionary
 * SorbWord
 * Sorbian 'language practice' page at Leipzig University
 * Sorbian information page at Leipzig University
 * Wortschatz.de

Czech-Sorbian and Sorbian-Czech

 * at slovnik.vancl.eu
 * Mudra 2.0

German-Sorbian

 * at sibz.whyi.org
 * at Boehmak.de

Sorbian-German

 * at Boehmak.de
 * at sibz.whyi.org

title: Upper Sorbian language


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DMX (disambiguation)

DMX (born Earl Simmons; 1970–2021) was an American rapper.

DMX may also refer to:

People

 * DMX Krew (born Ed Upton), British electronic music artist
 * Davy DMX (born David Reeves; born 1960) American hip hop music pioneer

Science

 * 5-Dehydro-m-xylylene, the first organic molecule known to violate Hund's rule
 * Depressive mixed state, a psychological disorder
 * DmX gene, an extremely large WD-protein coding gene found in eukaryotes

Technology

 * DMX512, a communications protocol that is most commonly used to control stage lighting and effects
 * Symmetrix DMX, a series of enterprise storage arrays by EMC Corporation
 * Data Mining Extensions, a query language for data mining models
 * DMX, a protocol for fracture modeling in geoscience

Other uses

 * DMX (music service), a retail environment company
 * Oberheim DMX, a drum machine manufactured by Oberheim
 * National Weather Service Des Moines, Iowa, whose office identification code is DMX

title: DMX (disambiguation)


text:
Lower Sorbian language

Lower Sorbian (dolnoserbšćina) is a West Slavic minority language spoken in eastern Germany in the historical province of Lower Lusatia, today part of Brandenburg.

Standard Lower Sorbian is one of the two literary Sorbian languages, the other being the more widely spoken Upper Sorbian. The Lower Sorbian literary standard was developed in the 18th century, based on a southern form of the Cottbus dialect. The standard variety of Lower Sorbian has received structural influence from Upper Sorbian.

Lower Sorbian is spoken in and around the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg. Signs in this region are typically bilingual, and Cottbus has a Lower Sorbian Gymnasium where one language of instruction is Lower Sorbian. It is a heavily endangered language. Most native speakers today belong to the older generations.

Phonology

The phonology of Lower Sorbian has been greatly influenced by contact with German, especially in Cottbus and larger towns. For example, German-influenced pronunciation tends to have a voiced uvular fricative instead of the alveolar trill. In villages and rural areas, German influence is less marked, and the pronunciation is more "typically Slavic".

Consonants

 * are bilabial, whereas are labiodental,  are labiovelar, although the latter may be a labial–palatal approximant.
 * Consonants in parentheses are allophones of another consonant before another consonant or vowel, for example may palatalize to  before front vowels or, and  may assimilate to  before velar consonants.
 * The Proto-Slavic contrasts between and their palatalized counterparts has been lost phonetically in Lower Sorbian, with the marginal phonemes occurring only before certain vowels. The contrasts between  and their palatalized counterparts has evolved into a contrast between  and . The contrast between  and its palatalized counterpart has evolved into a contrast between  while the contrasts between  and their palatalized counterparts has remained intact and the contrasts between  and their palatalized counterparts no longer exists.
 * are alveolar, whereas are dental.
 * have been variously transcribed with ⟨t͡ʃ, ʃ, ʒ⟩ and ⟨t͡ʂ, ʂ, ʐ⟩. Their actual phonetic realization is flat postalveolar in all of the Lower Sorbian-speaking area. This is unlike in standard Upper Sorbian, where these are palato-alveolar.

Final devoicing and assimilation
Lower Sorbian has both final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation:
 * dub "oak" is pronounced
 * susedka "(female) neighbor" is pronounced
 * licba "number" is pronounced

The hard postalveolar fricative is assimilated to  before :
 * šćit "protection" is pronounced

Vowels
The vowel inventory of Lower Sorbian is exactly the same as that of Upper Sorbian. It is also very similar to the vowel inventory of Slovene.

 * is retracted to after hard consonants.
 * are diphthongized to in slow speech.
 * The and  distinctions are weakened or lost in unstressed syllables.
 * is phonetically central.

Stress
Stress in Lower Sorbian normally falls on the first syllable of the word:

 * Łužyca "Lusatia"
 * pśijaśel "friend"
 * Chóśebuz "Cottbus"

In loanwords, stress may fall on any of the last three syllables:

 * internat "boarding school"
 * kontrola "control"
 * september "September"
 * policija "police"
 * organizacija "organization"

Most one-syllable prepositions attract the stress to themselves when they precede a noun or pronoun of one or two syllables:

 * na dwórje "on the courtyard"
 * pśi mnjo "near me"
 * do města "into the city" (the  of město  becomes  when unstressed)

However, nouns of three or more syllables retain their stress:

 * pśed wucabnikom "in front of the teacher"
 * na drogowanju "on a journey"

Orthography
The Sorbian alphabet is based on the Latin script but uses diacritics such as the acute accent and caron.

Sample
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lower Sorbian:

Wšykne luźe su lichotne roźone a jadnake po dostojnosći a pšawach. Woni maju rozym a wědobnosć a maju ze sobu w duchu bratšojstwa wobchadaś.

(All people are born free and equal in their dignity and rights. They are given reason and conscience and they shall create their relationships to one another according to the spirit of brotherhood.)

Czech-Lower Sorbian and Lower Sorbian-Czech

 * Slovník DolnoLužická Srbština <=> Čeština

German–Lower Sorbian

 * Deutsch-Niedersorbisches Wörterbuch at dolnoserbski.de
 * Korpus GENIE – GEsprochenes NIEdersorbisch/Wendisch

Lower Sorbian–German

 * Dolnoserbsko-nimske słowniki at dolnoserbski.de]
 * Lexikalische Übungen und Terminologie at the Universität Leipzig

title: Lower Sorbian language


text:
Placer mining

Placer mining is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.

Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly gold) and gemstones, both of which are often found in alluvial deposits—deposits of sand and gravel in modern or ancient stream beds, or occasionally glacial deposits. The metal or gemstones, having been moved by stream flow from an original source such as a vein, are typically only a minuscule portion of the total deposit. Since gems and heavy metals like gold are considerably denser than sand, they tend to accumulate at the base of placer deposits.

Placer deposits can be as young as a few years old, such as the Canadian Queen Charlotte beach gold placer deposits, or billions of years old like the Elliot Lake uranium paleoplacer within the Huronian Supergroup in Canada.

The containing material in an alluvial placer mine may be too loose to safely mine by tunnelling, though it is possible where the ground is permanently frozen. Where water under pressure is available, it may be used to mine, move, and separate the precious material from the deposit, a method known as hydraulic mining, hydraulic sluicing or hydraulicking.

Etymology
The word placer derives from the Spanish placer, meaning shoal or alluvial/sand deposit, from plassa (place) from Medieval Latin placea (place) the origin word for "place" and "plaza" in English. The word in Spanish is thus derived from placea and refers directly to an alluvial or glacial deposit of sand or gravel. An alternative etymology derives the English word from American Spanish placer (placer, sandbank), from earlier placel, apparently from obsolete Portuguese placel (placer, sandbank).

History
Placers supplied most of the gold for a large part of the ancient world. Hydraulic mining methods such as hushing were used widely by the Romans across their empire, but especially in the gold fields of northern Spain after its conquest by Augustus in 25 BC. One of the largest sites was at Las Médulas, where seven 30 mile long aqueducts were used to work the alluvial gold deposits through the first century AD.

In North America, placer mining was famous in the context of several gold rushes, particularly the California Gold Rush and the Colorado Gold Rush, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush and the Klondike Gold Rush.

Placer mining continues in many areas of the world as a source of diamonds, industrial minerals and metals, gems (in Myanmar and Sri Lanka), platinum, and of gold (in Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia).

Deposits
An area well protected from the flow of water is a great location to find gold. Gold is very dense and is often found in a stream bed. Many different gold deposits are dealt with in different ways. Placer deposits attract many prospectors because their costs are very low. There are many different places gold could be placed, such as a residual, alluvial, and a bench deposit.

Residual
Residual deposits are more common where there has been weathering on rocks and where there hasn't been water. They are deposits which have not been washed away yet or been moved. The residual usually lies at the site of the lode. This type of deposit undergoes rock weathering.

Alluvial
Alluvial or eluvial deposits are the most common type of placer gold, and are often the richest. They contain pieces of gold that have been washed away from the lode by the force of water, and have been deposited in sediment in or near watercourses or former watercourses. Therefore, they are mostly found in valleys or flood plains.

Bench
Bench deposits are created when gold reaches a stream bed. Gold accumulations in an old stream bed that are high are called bench deposits. They can be found on higher slopes that drain into valleys. Dry stream beds (benches) can be situated far from other water sources and can sometimes be found on mountaintops. Today, many miners focus their activities on bench deposits.

Deep leads
Deep leads are created when a former stream bed is covered over by later sediments or by igneous rock from a volcanic eruption. Examples existed in the goldfields of Gulgong and Creswick in Australia. The gold bearing gravel is accessed by shafts and drives similar to underground mining techniques but is typically processed as if alluvial gold. The heat associated with an igneous lava flow, in some cases, altered the gold bearing gravel so that it needed to be crushed first to extract the gold; an example of this kind of deep lead was found at Forest Reefs, also in Australia. If vegetation was buried along with the old stream, by a volcanic eruption, the effect of heat and decay upon that buried vegetation can result in the presence of harmful amounts of carbonic acid gas (H2CO3), as occurred in the deep lead deposit at Creswick.

Methods
A number of methods are used to mine placer gold and gems, both in terms of extracting the minerals from the ground, and separating it from the non-gold or non-gems.

Panning
The simplest technique to extract gold from placer ore is panning. This technique has been dated back to at least the Roman Empire. In panning, some mined ore is placed in a large metal or plastic pan, combined with a generous amount of water, and agitated so that the gold particles, being of higher density than the other material, settle to the bottom of the pan. The lighter gangue material such as sand, mud and gravel are then washed over the side of the pan, leaving the gold behind. Once a placer deposit is located by gold panning, the miner usually shifts to equipment that can treat volumes of sand and gravel more quickly and efficiently. Gold panning was commonly used on its own during the California gold rush; however, it is now rarely used for profit since even an expert gold prospector can only process approximately one cubic yard of material for every 10 hours of work.

Rocker
A rocker box (or "cradle") is capable of greater volume than a gold pan; however, its production is still limited when compared to other methods of placer mining. It is only capable of processing about 3 or 4 yards of gravel a day. It is more portable and requires less infrastructure than a sluice box, being fed not by a sluice but by hand. The box sits on rockers, which when rocked separates out the gold, and the practice was referred to as "rocking the golden baby". A typical rocker box is approximately 42 inches long, 16 inches wide and 12 inches deep with a removable tray towards the top, where gold is placed. The rocker was commonly used throughout North America during the early gold rush, but its popularity diminished as other methods that could handle a larger volume became more common.

Sluice box

The same principle may be employed on a larger scale by constructing a short sluice box, with barriers along the bottom called riffles to trap the heavier gold particles as water washes them and the other material along the box. This method better suits excavation with shovels or similar implements to feed ore into the device. Sluice boxes can be as short as a few feet, or more than ten feet (a common term for one that is over six feet +/- is a "Long Tom"). While they are capable of handling a larger volume of material than simpler methods such as the rocker box or gold panning, this can come at the cost of efficiency, since conventional sluice boxes have been found to recover only about 40% of the gold that they process. The sluice box was used extensively during the California gold rush for larger scale operations. When streams became increasingly depleted, the grizzly and undercurrent variants of the sluice box were developed. The grizzly is a set of parallel bars placed at a 45-degree angle over the main sluice box, which filter out larger material. The undercurrent variety includes additional, auxiliary sluice boxes where material is initially filtered. It then travels through a trough into the primary sluice box where it is filtered again. Both the grizzly and undercurrent are designed to increase efficiency, and were often used in combination.

Dry washing
Sluicing is only effective in areas where there is a sufficient water supply, and is impractical in arid areas. Alternative methods developed that used the blowing of air to separate out gold from sand. One of the more common methods of dry washing is the Mexican dry wash. This method involves placing gravel on a riffle board with a bellows placed underneath it. The bellows is then used to blow air through the board in order to remove the lighter material from the heavier gold. The amount of gravel that can be processed using the Mexican dry wash technique varies from 1 1/2 to 4 cubic yards per day, and can be processed at a maximum efficiency of 80%. Another form of dry washing is "winnowing". This method was most commonly used by Spanish miners in America, and only requires a blanket and a box with a screen on the bottom. The material is first filtered through the box so only the finer material is placed onto the blanket. The material on the blanket is then flung into the air so that any breeze can blow away the lighter material and leave the gold behind. While this method is extremely simple and requires very few materials, it is also slow and inefficient.

Trommel
A trommel is composed of a slightly inclined rotating metal tube (the 'scrubber section') with a screen at its discharge end. Lifter bars, sometimes in the form of bolted in angle iron, are attached to the interior of the scrubber section. The ore is fed into the elevated end of the trommel. Water, often under pressure, is provided to the scrubber and screen sections and the combination of water and mechanical action frees the valuable minerals from the ore. The mineral bearing ore that passes through the screen is then further concentrated in smaller devices such as sluices and jigs. The larger pieces of ore that do not pass through the screen can be carried to a waste stack by a conveyor.

Gold dredge
Large-scale sifting of placer gold from large volumes of alluvial deposits can be done by use of mechanical dredges. These dredges were originally very large boats capable of processing massive amounts of material; however, as the gold has become increasingly depleted in the most easily accessible areas, smaller and more maneuverable dredges have become much more common. These smaller dredges commonly operate by sucking water and gravel up through long hoses using a pump, where the gold can then be separated using more traditional methods such as a sluice box.

Underground mining

In areas where the ground is permanently frozen, such as in Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon, placer deposits may be mined underground. As the frozen ground is otherwise too hard and firm to mine by hand, historically fires were built so as to thaw the ground before digging it. Later methods involve blasting jets of steam ("points") into the frozen deposits.

Deep leads are accessed by techniques similar to conventional underground mining.

Environmental effects
Although this procedure is not required, the process water may be continuously recycled and the ore from which the sought-after minerals have been extracted ("the tailings") can be reclaimed. While these recycling and reclamation processes are more common in modern placer mining operations they are still not universally done.

In earlier times the process water was not generally recycled and the spent ore was not reclaimed. The remains of a Roman alluvial gold mine at Las Médulas are so spectacular as to justify the site being designated UNESCO World Heritage status. The methods used by the Roman miners are described by Pliny the Elder in his work Naturalis Historia published in about 77 AD. The author was a Procurator in the region and so probably witnessed large-scale hydraulic mining of the placer deposits there. He also added that the local lake Carucedo had been heavily silted by the mining methods.

Environmental activists describe the hydraulic mining form of placer mining as environmentally destructive because of the large amounts of silt that it adds to previously clear running streams (also known as the "Dahlonega Method"). Most placer mines today use settling ponds, if only to ensure that they have sufficient water to run their sluicing operations.

In California, from 1853 to 1884, "hydraulicking" of placers removed an enormous amount of material from the gold fields, material that was carried downstream and raised the level of portions of the Central Valley by some seven feet in affected areas and settled in long bars up to 20 feet thick in parts of San Francisco Bay. The process raised an opposition calling themselves the "Anti-Debris Association". In January 1884, the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company case banned the flushing of debris into streams, and the hydraulic mining mania in California's gold country came to an end.

Examples

 * The Witwatersrand Basin in South Africa is an example of a placer deposit, as it is a 3 billion-year-old, alluvial sedimentary basin containing at least 70 ore minerals.
 * The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush prompted in 1858 the incorporation of Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866).
 * The Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896 when nuggets of gold were found in the Klondike region of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon Territory. The nuggets were found in running water, making the Klondike Gold deposit an alluvial placer mining deposit, which it soon became when 30,000 gold-seekers trekked the region.

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Video game remake

A video game remake is a video game closely adapted from an earlier title, usually for the purpose of modernizing a game with updated graphics for newer hardware and gameplay for contemporary audiences. Typically, a remake of such game software shares essentially the same title, fundamental gameplay concepts, and core story elements of the original game, although some aspects of the original game may have been changed for the remake.

Remakes are often made by the original developer or copyright holder, and sometimes by the fan community. If created by the community, video game remakes are sometimes also called fangames and can be seen as part of the retro gaming phenomenon.

Definition
A remake offers a newer interpretation of an older work, characterized by updated or changed assets. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D for the Nintendo 3DS are considered remakes of their original versions for the Nintendo 64, and not a remaster or a port, since there are new character models and texture packs. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD for Wii U would be considered a remaster, since it retains the same, albeit updated upscaled aesthetics of the original.

A remake typically maintains the same story, genre, and fundamental gameplay ideas of the original work. The intent of a remake is usually to take an older game that has become outdated and update it for a new platform and audience. A remake will not necessarily preserve the original gameplay especially if it is dated, instead remaking the gameplay to conform to the conventions of contemporary games or later titles in the same series in order to make a game marketable to a new audience.

For example, for Sierra's 1991 remake of Space Quest, the developers used the engine, point-and-click interface, and graphical style of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and The Time Rippers, replacing the original graphics and text parser interface of the original. However, other elements, like the narrative, puzzles and sets, were largely preserved. Another example is Black Mesa, a remake built entirely from the ground up in the Source Engine that remakes in-game textures, assets, models, and facial animations, while taking place in the events of the original Half-Life game. Resident Evil 2 (2019) is a remake of the 1998 game Resident Evil 2; while the original uses tank controls and fixed camera angles, the remake features "over-the-shoulder" third-person shooter gameplay similar to Resident Evil 4 and more recent games in the series that allows players the option to move while using their weapons similar to Resident Evil 6.

Ports
A port is a conversion of a game to a new platform that relies heavily on existing work and assets. A port may include various enhancements like improved performance, resolution, and sometimes even additional content, but differs from a remake in that it still relies heavily on the original assets and engine of the source game. Sometimes, ports even remove content that was present in the original version. For example, the handheld console ports of Mortal Kombat II had fewer characters than the original arcade game and other console ports due to system storage limitations but otherwise were still faithful to the original in terms of gameplay.

Compared to the intentional video game remake or remaster which is often done years or decades after the original came out, ports or conversions are typically released during the same generation as the original (the exception being mobile gaming versions of PC games, such as Grand Theft Auto III, since mobile gaming platforms did not exist until the 2010s going forward ). Home console ports usually came out less than a year after the original arcade game, such as the distribution of Mortal Kombat for home consoles by Acclaim Entertainment. Since the 2000s as arcade releases are no longer the original launch platform for a video game, publishers tend to release the video game simultaneously on several consoles first and then ported to the PC later.

Remaster
A port that contains a great deal of remade assets may sometimes be considered a remaster or a partial remake, although video game publishers are not always clear on the distinction. DuckTales: Remastered for example uses the term "Remastered" to distinguish itself from the original NES game it was based on, even though it is a clean-slate remake with a different engine and assets. Compared to a port which is typically released in the same era as the original, a remaster is done years or decades after the original in order to take advantage of generation technological improvements (the latter which a port avoids doing). Unlike a remake which often changes the now-dated gameplay, a remaster is very faithful to the original in that aspect (in order to appeal to that nostalgic audience) while permitting only a limited number of gameplay tweaks for the sake of convenience.

Reboots
Games that use an existing brand but are conceptually very different from the original, such as Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) or Tomb Raider (1996) and Tomb Raider (2013) are usually regarded as reboots rather than remakes.

History
In the early history of video games, remakes were generally regarded as "conversions" and seldom associated with nostalgia. Due to limited and often highly divergent hardware, games appearing on multiple platforms usually had to be entirely remade. These conversions often included considerable changes to the graphics and gameplay, and could be regarded retroactively as remakes, but are distinguished from later remakes largely by intent. A conversion is created with the primary goal of tailoring a game to a specific piece of hardware, usually contemporaneous or nearly contemporaneous with the original release. An early example was Gun Fight, Midway's 1975 reprogrammed version of Taito's arcade game Western Gun, with the main difference being the use of a microprocessor in the reprogrammed version, which allowed improved graphics and smoother animation than the discrete logic of the original. In 1980, Warren Robinett created Adventure for the Atari 2600, a graphical version of the 1970s text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure. Also in 1980, Atari released the first officially licensed home console game conversion of an arcade title, Taito's 1978 hit Space Invaders, for the Atari 2600. The game became the first "killer app" for a video game console by quadrupling the system's sales. Since then, it became a common trend to port arcade games to home systems since the second console generation, though at the time they were often more limited than the original arcade games due to the technical limitations of home consoles.

In 1985, Sega released a pair of arcade remakes of older home video games. Pitfall II: Lost Caverns was effectively a remake of both the original Pitfall! and its sequel with new level layouts and colorful, detailed graphics. That same year, Sega adapted the 1982 computer game Choplifter for the arcades, taking the fundamental gameplay of the original and greatly expanding it, adding new environments, enemies, and gameplay elements. This version was very successful, and later adapted to the Master System and Famicom. Both of these games were distinguished from most earlier conversions in that they took major liberties with the source material, attempting to modernize both the gameplay as well as the graphics.

Some of the earliest remakes to be recognized as such were attempts to modernize games to the standards of later games in the series. Some were even on the same platforms as the original, for example Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, a 1986 remake of the original that appeared on multiple platforms, including the Apple II, the system the game originated on. Other early remakes of this type include Sierra's early-1990s releases of King's Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. These games used the technology and interface of the most recent games in Sierra's series, and original assets in a dramatically different style. The intent was not simply to bring the game to a new platform, but to modernize older games which had in various ways become dated.

With the birth of the retrogaming phenomenon, remakes became a way for companies to revive nostalgic brands. Galaga '88 and Super Space Invaders '91 were both attempts to revitalize aging arcade franchises with modernized graphics and new gameplay elements, while preserving many signature aspects of the original games. The 16-bit generation of console games was marked by greatly enhanced graphics compared to the previous generation, but often relatively similar gameplay, which led to an increased interest in remakes of games from the previous generation. Super Mario All-Stars remade the entire NES Mario series, and was met with great commercial success. Remake compilations of the Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man series followed. As RPGs increased in popularity, Dragon Quest, Ys and Kyūyaku Megami Tensei were also remade. In the mid-'90s, Atari released a series of remakes with the 2000 brand, including Tempest 2000, Battlezone 2000, and Defender 2000. After Atari's demise, Hasbro continued the tradition, with 3D remakes of Pong, Centipede, and Asteroids.

By 1994 the popularity of CD-ROM led to many remakes with digitized voices and, sometimes, better graphics, although Computer Gaming World noted the "amateur acting" in many new and remade games on CD. Emulation also made perfect ports of older games possible, with compilations becoming a popular way for publishers to capitalize on older properties.

Budget pricing gave publishers the opportunity to match their game's price with the perceived lower value proposition of an older game, opening the door for newer remakes. In 2003, Sega launched the Sega Ages line for PlayStation 2, initially conceived as a series of modernized remakes of classic games, though the series later diversified to include emulated compilations. The series concluded with a release that combined the two approaches, and included a remake of Fantasy Zone II that ran, via emulation, on hardware dating to the time of the original release, one of the few attempts at an enhanced remake to make no attempts at modernization. The advent of downloadable game services like Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network has further fueled the expanded market for remakes, as the platform allows companies to sell their games at a lower price, seen as more appropriate for the smaller size typical of retro games. Some XBLA and PSN remakes include Bionic Commando Rearmed, Jetpac Refuelled, Wipeout HD (a remake not of the original Wipeout but of the two PSP games), Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

Some remakes may include the original game as a bonus feature. The 2009 remake of The Secret of Monkey Island took this a step further by allowing players to switch between the original and remade versions on the fly with a single button press. This trend was continued in the sequel, and is also a feature in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and later in Halo 2 Anniversary as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Remasters and remakes on the Nintendo DS include Super Mario 64 DS, Kirby Super Star Ultra, Diddy Kong Racing DS, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Final Fantasy III and IV, Dragon Quest IV through VI, and Kingdom Hearts Re:coded. The Nintendo 3DS's lineup also had numerous remasters and remakes, including The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Metroid: Samus Returns, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions, Luigi's Mansion, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey. Remasters on both the DS and 3DS include Cave Story, Myst and Rayman 2: The Great Escape.

Community-driven remakes
Games unsupported by the rights-holders often spark remakes created by hobbyists and game communities. An example is OpenRA, which is a modernized remake of the classic Command & Conquer real-time-strategy games. Beyond cross-platform support, it adds comfort functions and gameplay functionality inspired by successors of the original games. Another notable examples are Pioneers, a remake and sequel in spirit to Frontier: Elite II; CSBWin, a remake of the dungeon crawler classic Dungeon Master; and Privateer Gemini Gold, a remake of Wing Commander: Privateer.

Skywind is a fan remake of Morrowind (2002) running on Bethesda's Creation Engine, utilising the source code, assets and gameplay mechanics of Skyrim (2011). The original game developers, Bethesda Softworks, have given project volunteers their approval. The remake team includes over 70 volunteers in artist, composer, designer, developer, and voice-actor roles. In November 2014, the team reported to have finished half of the remake's environment, over 10,000 new dialogue lines, and three hours of series-inspired soundtrack. The same open-development project is also working on Skyblivion, a remake of Oblivion (the game between Morrowind and Skyrim) in the Skyrim engine, and Morroblivion, a remake of Morrowind in the Oblivion engine (which still has a significant userbase on older PCs).

Demakes
The term demake may refer to games created deliberately with an artstyle inspired by older games of a previous video game generation. The action platformer Mega Man 9 is an example of such a game. Although remakes typically aim to adapt a game from a more limited platform to a more advanced one, a rising interest in older platforms has inspired some to do the opposite, remaking or adapting modern games to the technical standards of older platforms, usually going so far as to implement them on obsolete hardware platforms, hence the term "Demake". Such games are either physical or emulated.

Modern demakes often change the 3D gameplay to a 2D one. Popular demakes include Quest: Brian's Journey, an official Game Boy Color port of Quest 64; Super Smash Land, an unofficial Game Boy-style demake of Super Smash Bros.; D-Pad Hero, a NES-esque demake of Guitar Hero; Rockman 7 FC and Rockman 8 FC, NES-styled demakes of Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8, respectively; Gang Garrison 2, a pixelated demake of Team Fortress 2; Bloodborne PSX, a PS1 demake of Bloodborne; and Halo 2600, an Atari 2600-style demake of Microsoft's Halo series. There is also a NES-style demake of Touhou Project game Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Some demakes are created to showcase and push the abilities of older generation systems such as the Atari 2600. An example of this is the 2012 game Princess Rescue, which is a demake of the NES title Super Mario Bros.

While most demakes are homebrew efforts from passionate fans, some are officially endorsed by the original creators such as Pac-Man Championship Edition's Famicom/NES demake being printed onto Japanese physical editions of the Namcot Collection as an original bonus game.

For much of the 1990s in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, black market developers created unauthorized adaptations of then-modern games such as Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy VII or Tekken for the NES, which enjoyed considerable popularity in the regions because of the availability of low-cost compatible systems.

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Actuator

An actuator is a component of a machine that produces force, torque, or displacement, usually in a controlled way, when an electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic input is supplied to it in a system (called an actuating system). An actuator converts such an input signal into the required form of mechanical energy. It is a type of transducer. In simple terms, it is a "mover".

An actuator requires a control device (controlled by control signal) and a source of energy. The control signal is relatively low energy and may be electric voltage or current, pneumatic, or hydraulic fluid pressure, or even human power. In the electric, hydraulic, and pneumatic sense, it is a form of automation or automatic control.

The displacement achieved is commonly linear or rotational, as exemplified by linear motors and rotary motors, respectively. Rotary motion is more natural for small machines making large displacements. By means of a leadscrew, rotary motion can be adapted to function as a linear actuator (a linear motion, but not a linear motor).

Another broad classification of actuators separates them into two types: incremental-drive actuators and continuous-drive actuators. Stepper motors are one type of incremental-drive actuators. Examples of continuous-drive actuators include DC torque motors, induction motors, hydraulic and pneumatic motors, and piston-cylinder drives (rams).

Soft actuator
A soft actuator is one that changes its shape in response to stimuli including mechanical, thermal, magnetic, and electrical. Soft actuators mainly deal with the robotics of humans rather than industry which is what most of the actuators are used for. For most actuators they are mechanically durable yet do not have an ability to adapt compared to soft actuators. The soft actuators apply to mainly safety and healthcare for humans which is why they are able to adapt to environments by disassembling their parts. This is why the driven energy behind soft actuators deal with flexible materials like certain polymers and liquids that are harmless to humans.

Hydraulic
The hydraulic actuator consists of cylinder or fluid motor that uses hydraulic power to facilitate mechanical operation. The mechanical motion gives an output in terms of linear, rotatory or oscillatory motion. As liquids are nearly impossible to compress, a hydraulic actuator can exert a large force. The drawback of this approach is its limited acceleration.

The hydraulic cylinder consists of a hollow cylindrical tube along which a piston can slide. The term single acting is used when the fluid pressure is applied to just one side of the piston. The piston can move in only one direction, a spring being frequently used to give the piston a return stroke. The term double acting is used when pressure is applied on each side of the piston; any difference in force between the two sides of the piston moves the piston to one side or the other.

Pneumatic
Pneumatic actuators enable considerable forces to be produced from relatively small pressure changes. Pneumatic energy is desirable for main engine controls because it can quickly respond in starting and stopping as the power source does not need to be stored in reserve for operation. Moreover, pneumatic actuators are cheaper, and often more powerful than other actuators. These forces are often used with valves to move diaphragms to affect the flow of air through the valve.

The advantage of pneumatic actuators consists exactly in the high level of force available in a relatively small volume. While the main drawback of the technology consists in the need for a compressed air network composed of several components such as compressors, reservoirs, filters, dryers, air treatment subsystems, valves, tubes, etc. which makes the technology energy inefficient with energy losses that can sum up to 95%

Electric
Since 1960, several actuator technologies have been developed. Electric actuators can be classified in the following groups:

Electromechanical actuator (EMA)
It converts the rotational force of an electric rotary motor into a linear movement to generate the requested linear movement through a mechanism; either a belt (Belt Drive axis with stepper or servo), or a screw (either a ball or a lead screw or planetary roller screw).

The main advantages of electromechanical actuators are their relatively good level of accuracy with respect to pneumatics, their possible long lifecycle and the little maintenance effort required (might require grease). It is possible to reach relatively high force, on the order of 100 kN.

The main limitation of these actuators are the reachable speed, the important dimensions and weight they require. The main application of such actuators is mainly seen in health care devices and factory automation.

Electrohydraulic actuator
Another approach is an electrohydraulic actuator, where the electric motor remains the prime mover but provides torque to operate a hydraulic accumulator that is then used to transmit actuation force in much the same way that diesel engine/hydraulics are typically used in heavy equipment.

Electrical energy is used to actuate equipment such as multi-turn valves, or electric-powered construction and excavation equipment.

When used to control the flow of fluid through a valve, a brake is typically installed above the motor to prevent the fluid pressure from forcing open the valve. If no brake is installed, the actuator gets activated to reclose the valve, which is slowly forced open again. This sets up an oscillation (open, close, open ...) and the motor and actuator will eventually become damaged.

Linear motor
Linear motors are different from electromechanical actuators, they work with the same principle as electric rotary motors, in effect it can be thought as a rotary motor which has been cut and unrolled. Thus, instead of producing a rotational movement, they produce a linear force along their length. Because linear motors cause lower friction losses than other devices, some linear motor products can last over a hundred million cycles.

Linear motors are divided in 3 basic categories: flat linear motor (classic), U-Channel linear motors and Tubular linear motors.

Linear motor technology is the best solution in the context of a low load (up to 30Kgs) because it provides the highest level of speed, control and accuracy.

In fact, it represents the most desired and versatile technology. Due to the limitations of pneumatics, the current electric actuator technology is a viable solution for specific industry applications and it has been successfully introduced in market segments such as the watchmaking, semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries (as high as 60% of the applications. The growing interest for this technology, can be explained by the following characteristics:

 * High precision (equal or less than 0,1 mm);
 * High cycling rate (greater than 100 cycles/min);
 * Possible usage in clean and highly-regulated environments (no leakages of air, humidity or lubricants allowed);
 * Need for programmable motion in the situation of complex operations

The main disadvantages of linear motors are:

 * They are expensive respect to pneumatics and other electric technologies.
 * They are not easy to integrate in standard machineries due to their important size and high weight.
 * They have a low force density respect to pneumatic and electromechanical actuators.

Rotary motor
Rotary motors are actuators that use a piece of energy to form an oscillatory motion at a certain angle of movement. Rotary actuators can have up to a rotation of 360 degrees. This allows it to differ from a linear motor as the linear is bound to a set distance compared to the rotary motor. Rotary motors have the ability to be set at any given degree in a field making the device easier to set up still with durability and a set torque.

Rotary motors can be powered by 3 different techniques such as Electric, Fluid, or Manual. However, Fluid powered rotary actuators have 5 sub-sections of actuators such as Scotch Yoke, Vane, Rack-and-Pinion, Helical, and Electrohydraulic. All forms have their own specific design and use allowing the ability to choose multiple angles of degree.

Applications for the rotary actuators are just about endless but, will more than likely be found dealing with mostly hydraulic pressured devices and industries. Rotary actuators are even used in the robotics field when seeing robotic arms in industry lines. Anything you see that deals with motion control systems to perform a task in technology is a good chance to be a rotary actuator.

Thermal or magnetic
Actuators which can be actuated by applying thermal or magnetic energy to a solid-state material have been used in commercial applications. Thermal actuators can be triggered by temperature or heating through the Joule effect and tend to be compact, lightweight, economical and with high power density. These actuators use shape memory materials such as shape-memory alloys (SMAs) or magnetic shape-memory alloys (MSMAs).

Mechanical
A mechanical actuator functions to execute movement by converting one kind of motion, such as rotary motion, into another kind, such as linear motion. An example is a rack and pinion. The operation of mechanical actuators is based on combinations of structural components, such as gears and rails, or pulleys and chains.

3D printed soft actuators
The majority of the existing soft actuators are fabricated using multistep low yield processes such as micro-moulding, solid freeform fabrication, and mask lithography. However, these methods require manual fabrication of devices, post processing/assembly, and lengthy iterations until maturity in the fabrication is achieved. To avoid the tedious and time-consuming aspects of the current fabrication processes, researchers are exploring an appropriate manufacturing approach for effective fabrication of soft actuators. Therefore, special soft systems that can be fabricated in a single step by rapid prototyping methods, such as 3D printing, are utilized to narrow the gap between the design and implementation of soft actuators, making the process faster, less expensive, and simpler. They also enable incorporation of all actuator components into a single structure eliminating the need to use external joints, adhesives, and fasteners.

Shape memory polymer (SMP) actuators are the most similar to our muscles, providing a response to a range of stimuli such as light, electrical, magnetic, heat, pH, and moisture changes. They have some deficiencies including fatigue and high response time that have been improved through the introduction of smart materials and combination of different materials by means of advanced fabrication technology. The advent of 3D printers has made a new pathway for fabricating low-cost and fast response SMP actuators. The process of receiving external stimuli like heat, moisture, electrical input, light or magnetic field by SMP is referred to as shape memory effect (SME). SMP exhibits some rewarding features such a low density, high strain recovery, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.

Photopolymers or light activated polymers (LAP) are another type of SMP that are activated by light stimuli. The LAP actuators can be controlled remotely with instant response and, without any physical contact, only with the variation of light frequency or intensity.

A need for soft, lightweight and biocompatible soft actuators in soft robotics has influenced researchers for devising pneumatic soft actuators because of their intrinsic compliance nature and ability to produce muscle tension.

Polymers such as dielectric elastomers (DE), ionic polymer–metal composites (IPMC), ionic electroactive polymers, polyelectrolyte gels, and gel-metal composites are common materials to form 3D layered structures that can be tailored to work as soft actuators. EAP actuators are categorized as 3D printed soft actuators that respond to electrical excitation as deformation in their shape.

Examples and applications
In engineering, actuators are frequently used as mechanisms to introduce motion, or to clamp an object so as to prevent motion. In electronic engineering, actuators are a subdivision of transducers. They are devices which transform an input signal (mainly an electrical signal) into some form of motion.

Examples of actuators

 * Comb drive
 * Digital micromirror device
 * Electric motor
 * Electroactive polymer
 * Hydraulic cylinder
 * Piezoelectric actuator
 * Plasma actuator
 * Pneumatic actuator
 * Screw jack
 * Servomechanism
 * Solenoid
 * Stepper motor
 * Shape-memory alloy
 * Thermal bimorph
 * Hydraulic actuators
 * Trim actuator, in aircraft design

Circular to linear conversion
Motors are mostly used when circular motions are needed, but can also be used for linear applications by transforming circular to linear motion with a lead screw or similar mechanism. On the other hand, some actuators are intrinsically linear, such as piezoelectric actuators. Conversion between circular and linear motion is commonly made via a few simple types of mechanism including:
 * Screw: Screw jack, ball screw and roller screw actuators all operate on the principle of the simple machine known as the screw. By rotating the actuator's nut, the screw shaft moves in a line. By moving the screw shaft, the nut rotates.
 * Wheel and axle: Hoist, winch, rack and pinion, chain drive, belt drive, rigid chain and rigid belt actuators operate on the principle of the wheel and axle. By rotating a wheel/axle (e.g. drum, gear, pulley or shaft) a linear member (e.g. cable, rack, chain or belt) moves. By moving the linear member, the wheel/axle rotates.

Virtual instrumentation
In virtual instrumentation, actuators and sensors are the hardware complements of virtual instruments.

Performance metrics
Performance metrics for actuators include speed, acceleration, and force (alternatively, angular speed, angular acceleration, and torque), as well as energy efficiency and considerations such as mass, volume, operating conditions, and durability, among others.

Force
When considering force in actuators for applications, two main metrics should be considered. These two are static and dynamic loads. Static load is the force capability of the actuator while not in motion. Conversely, the dynamic load of the actuator is the force capability while in motion.

Speed
Speed should be considered primarily at a no-load pace, since the speed will invariably decrease as the load amount increases. The rate the speed will decrease will directly correlate with the amount of force and the initial speed.

Operating conditions
Actuators are commonly rated using the standard IP Code rating system. Those that are rated for dangerous environments will have a higher IP rating than those for personal or common industrial use.

Durability
This will be determined by each individual manufacturer, depending on usage and quality.

title: Actuator


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Lilya Brik

Lilya Yuryevna Brik (alternatively spelled Lili or Lily; Ли́ля Ю́рьевна Брик; née Kagan; November 11 1891 – August 4, 1978) was a Russian author and socialite, connected to many leading figures in the Russian avant-garde between 1914 and 1930. She was the lover and muse of Vladimir Mayakovsky, even while she was married to poet, editor and literary critic Osip Brik (1888–1945). Pablo Neruda called Lilya the "muse of Russian avant-garde". Her name was frequently abbreviated by her contemporaries as "Л.Ю." or "Л.Ю.Б." which are the first letters of the Russian word "любовь" lyubov, "love".

Early life
She was born Lilya Yuryevna Kagan (Лиля Юрьевна Каган) into a wealthy Jewish family of Yuri Alexandrovich Kagan, a lawyer and Yelena Youlevna Berman, a music teacher in Moscow. Both she and her sister Ella "Elsa" received excellent education and were able to speak fluent German and French, and to play the piano. Lilya graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture.

As teenagers, the sisters were famous for their beauty. Their portraits were done by Alexander Rodchenko, Alexander Tyshler, David Shterenberg, David Burlyuk, Fernand Léger and later by Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. When she was twenty years old, Lilya married poet-futurist and poetry critic Osip Brik whom she had met when she was 14 and he was 17; they were married March 26, 1912. (Her sister Elsa married Louis Aragon, a French writer). The daughter of a prosperous Jewish jurist, the handsome, erotically obsessed, highly cultivated Lili grew up with an overwhelming ambition prevalent among women of the Russian intelligentsia: to be perpetuated in human memory by being the muse of a famous poet. ... The two made a pact to love each other "in the Chernyshevsky manner" – a reference to one of nineteenth-century Russia's most famous radical thinkers, who was an early advocate of "open marriages." Living at the heart of an artistic bohemia and receiving the intelligentsia in the salon of his delectable wife, Osip Brik, true to his promise, calmly accepted his wife's infidelities from the start. In fact, upon hearing his wife confess that she had gone to bed with the famous young poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Brik exclaimed "How could you refuse anything to that man?" ... In 1918, when Mayakovsky and the Briks became inseparable, he simply moved in with them. Throughout the rest of his life, he made his home at a succession of flats that the Briks occupied. Mayakovsky's sexual relationship with Lili lasted from 1917 to 1923, and afterwards he continued to have a close friendship with the couple: "For the rest of his life, Osip Brik, Lilya's husband, remained the poet's most trusted adviser, his most fervent proselytizer, and also a co-founder with him of the most dynamic avant-garde journal of the early Soviet era, Left Front of Art."

With Mayakovsky

In 1915, Lilya's sister Elsa befriended aspiring futurist poet and graphic artist Vladimir Mayakovsky and invited him home, but he fell in love with Lilya. Despite the calamities of World War I, Russian Civil War and throughout the 1920s, their love affair caught and stayed in public attention, possibly because she did not divorce her husband.

After June 1915, Mayakovsky's lyrical poetry was almost exclusively devoted to Lilya (with notable exception of late 1920s to Tatyana Yakovleva). He frequently explicitly dedicated his poems or referred in them to Lilya by name, for example in his "Облако в штанах" ("A Cloud in Trousers", 1915), "Флейта-позвоночник" ("The Backbone Flute", 1916), "Про это" ("About This", 1922), "Лилечка! Вместо письма" ("Lilechka! Instead of a Letter").

In 1918, Mayakovsky wrote the scenario for the movie "Закованная фильмой" (Chained by the Film), in which he and Lilya starred. The movie Neptune – produced by a private movie company – has been lost, with the exception of a few trial shots. Gianni Toti used them in his 1980s movie.

In 1926, after visiting Jewish kolkhozes in Crimea, she produced a documentary, "Еврей и земля" (The Jew and the Land), about Jewish communal farming in the USSR, with the script co-written by Mayakovsky and Victor Shklovsky. In 1928–1929, Lilya turned to directing a half-fiction-half-documentary motion picture "Стеклянный глаз" (The Glass Eye), a parody on "bourgeois cinematography".

Some authors consider that his passion for Lilya was one of the motives that drove Mayakovsky to suicide in 1930 at his Moscow apartment immediately after his breakup with Veronika Polonskaya. Lilya, who at the time was in Berlin, denied this and wrote that earlier she saved him twice from committing suicide.

After Mayakovsky's death
Later in 1930, after divorcing Osip earlier that year, she married Soviet General Vitaly Primakov. Primakov was arrested in 1936 and executed in 1937 in relation to the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, a part of the Moscow Trials. The charges were dropped and he was rehabilitated posthumously in 1957.

In her 1935 letter to Joseph Stalin, Lilya Brik complained that Mayakovsky's poetic heritage was getting neglected. Stalin made a famous remark to Nikolai Yezhov: "Comrade Yezhov, please take charge of Brik's letter. Mayakovsky is still the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch. Indifference to his cultural heritage is a crime. Brik's complaints are, in my opinion, justified..."

In 1938, she married writer Vasily Abgarovich Katanyan and they spent forty years together.

Lilya Brik died by suicide at the age of 86 when she was terminally ill. She left sculptures and writings. Recently published letters between the sisters in the course of more than five decades (except six years of World War II) reveal insights into life and cultural exchange across the Iron Curtain.

NKVD agent
Speculations about Lilya's and Osip's involvement with the NKVD and State Political Directorate started during their lifetime. According to the Swedish critic and Mayakovsky's biographer, Boris Pasternak once told Roman Jakobson that Lilya Brik "frightened" him by saying that her guests would start supper "right after Osya returns from Cheka", and that he later called their apartment "Moscow police department". There's also a well-known story how someone – supposedly Sergei Yesenin – wrote a joke poem on Briks' doors with chalk that read "You think that Brik lives here, a language specialist? A fink lives here and a сhekist". Anna Akhmatova also called the house of Briks "a saloon where writers met with chekists" according to Lydia Chukovskaya.

In her memoirs the artist Elizaveta Lavinskaya, a friend of Briks and Mayakovsky, mentions that at some point new persons started visiting the LEF meetings, including Yakov Agranov, Zakhar Volovich and some other people later identified as high-ranking NKVD officers. A number of people also speculated about the sexual relationships between Lylia and Agranov, including the acclaimed Soviet ballet dancer Maya Plisetskaya in her book. However, film director, the son of Lylia's third husband Vasily Katanyan, said Brik personally denied those "fantasies" that "started circulating after Agranov's execution".

In 1990, when closed archives became available, an investigative journalist Valentin Skoryatin published an article in No. 5 titled ''Who, me, shot myself? You don't say!'' where he talked about the mysterious death of Mayakovsky and the inheritance Lilya received after he died. He also made public the NKVD serial numbers of both Osip and Lilya Brik (No. 24541 and No. 15073 respectively). Osip received his ID of the 7th secret department in 1920, while his wife was granted it in 1922. The article was later published as part of the book ''The Mystery of Vladimir Mayakovsky's Death. New Version of the Tragic Events Based on the Late Archive Findings''.

Influence
There were attempts to present her as greedy and manipulative femme fatale, but those who knew her noted her altruism and intelligence. She helped many aspiring talents and was acquainted with many leading figures of Russian and international culture, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Boris Pasternak, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Kazimir Malevich, Sergei Paradjanov, Maya Plisetskaya, Rodion Shchedrin, Andrei Voznesensky, Yves St. Laurent and Pablo Picasso.

Lilya Brik's idiomatically posed portrait appeared on the cover of LEF magazine (Leftist Front of Arts) in the 1920s, a magazine concerning Dada and Constructivist art. The portrait, designed by Alexander Rodchenko, has been reworked into other designs, including as cover art for Franz Ferdinand (album You Could Have It So Much Better, 2004), Beyoncé and Robyn.

Works

 * "Щен" (The Pup)
 * "С Маяковским" (With Mayakovsky)
 * "Пристрастные рассказы" (Passionate Stories)
 * Letters between Lilya and Elsa, 1920s–1970

title: Lilya Brik


text:
Osip Brik

Osip Maksimovich Brik (Осип Максимович Брик; 28 January 1888 – 22 February 1945) was a Russian avant garde writer and literary critic, who was one of the most important members of the Russian formalist school, though he also identified himself as one of the Futurists.

Life and career
Brik was born and grew up in Moscow, the son of a wealthy Jewish jeweler. In the university, Brik studied law; his friend Roman Jakobson wrote: "For his doctoral thesis he wanted to write about the sociology and juridical status of prostitutes and would frequent the boulevards. All the prostitutes there knew him, and he always defended them, for free, in all their affairs, in their confrontations with the police and so on." But he soon found himself far more interested in poetry and poetics and devoted all his time to it, becoming one of the founders of OPOJAZ and writing one of the first important formalist studies of sounds in poetry, Zvukovye povtory ("Sound repetitions," 1917). He had a strongly anti-author stance, once going so far as to say that if Pushkin had not written Eugene Onegin, somebody else would have; he wrote that "there are no poets or literary figures, there is poetry and literature." He was also interested in photography and film: "In 1918, Brik was a member of IZO Narkompros (Visual Arts Section of the People's Committee for Education). ... Brik was especially close to Alexander Rodchenko and did much to make his photographic work known." He was also active in films and wrote several screenplays, including one for Potomok Cingis-khana (The Descendant of Genghis Khan) (with Ivan Novokshonov ), directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin (1928).

He met his future wife, Lilya Kagan, when he was 17 and she 14; they were married on 26 March 1912. (Her sister Elsa was a notable French writer and married to Louis Aragon) The daughter of a prosperous Jewish jurist, the handsome, erotically obsessed, highly cultivated Lili grew up with an overwhelming ambition prevalent among women of the Russian intelligentsia: to be perpetuated in human memory by being the muse of a famous poet. ... The two made a pact to love each other "in the Chernyshevsky manner" – a reference to one of nineteenth-century Russia's most famous radical thinkers, who was an early advocate of "open marriages." Living at the heart of an artistic bohemia and receiving the intelligentsia in the salon of his delectable wife, Osip Brik, true to his promise, calmly accepted his wife's infidelities from the start. In fact, upon hearing his wife confess that she had gone to bed with the famous young poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Brik exclaimed "How could you refuse anything to that man?" ... In 1918, when Mayakovsky and the Briks became inseparable, he simply moved in with them. Throughout the rest of his life, he made his home at a succession of flats that the Briks occupied. Mayakovsky's sexual relationship with Lili lasted from 1917 to 1923, and afterwards he continued to have a close friendship with the couple: "For the rest of his life, 'Osia' Brik remained the poet's most trusted adviser, his most fervent proselytizer, and also a co-founder with him of the most dynamic avant-garde journal of the early Soviet era, Left Front of Art," or LEF, which was also an official publication for the group with the same name, and a platform for Russian Constructivist art.

Brik was not only a literary modernist, he was strongly left-wing in politics. In December 1918 Brik was involved with Mayakovsky in discussions with the Vyborg District party school of the Russian Communist Party (RKP(b)) to set up a Futurist organisation affiliated to the party. Named Komfut the organisation was formally founded in January 1919, but was swiftly dissolved following the intervention of Anatoly Lunacharsky.

Later, on 8 June 1920, he joined the Cheka. Jakobson wrote of this period: It was from Bogatyrev, who visited me in Prague in December 1921, that I learned Brik was in the Cheka. And he told me that Pasternak, who often visited the Briks, had said to him: "Still, it's become rather terrifying. You come in, and Lili says: 'Wait a while, we'll have dinner as soon as Osja comes back from the Cheka.'" At the end of 1922 I met the Briks in Berlin. Osja said to me: "Now there's an institution where a man loses his sentimentality," and began relating to me several rather bloody episodes. This was the first time he made a rather repulsive impression on me. Working in the Cheka had ruined him.

After Joseph Stalin's rise to power, the Communist regime openly encouraged exclusively socialist realism methods and initiated a campaign to stamp out all culture the Communist Party perceived as dangerous. Most avant garde artists and thinkers suffered persecution, and Brik did not escape this fate. In the 1930s he eked out a living writing articles on Mayakovsky and book reviews; he died in 1945 of a heart attack while climbing the stairs to his Moscow apartment. His works were not republished in Russia until the mid-1990s. Edward J. Brown summed his career up thus: "He wrote little, but his articles on poetic form ... are brilliant formalist analyses of poetic language... and he was probably the most articulate exponent in Lef of the theories of 'social demand' and 'literature of fact.' A man of surpassing intelligence, he was apparently not strong either in performance or in principle."

title: Osip Brik


text:
Talk:Osip Brik

Old talk
Is it Ossip or Osip? I've seen both spellings used equally. I've redirected Ossip to Osip for the moment. Dysprosia 06:51, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Osip Brik


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Chester-le-Street

Chester-le-Street  is a market town in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is located around 6 mi north of Durham and is also close to Newcastle upon Tyne. The town holds markets on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. In 2021, it had a population of 23,555.

The town's history is ancient; records date to a Roman-built fort called Concangis. The Roman fort is the Chester (from the Latin castra) of the town's name; the Street refers to the paved Roman road that ran north–south through the town,. The parish church of St Mary and St Cuthbert is where the body of St Cuthbert remained for 112 years, before being transferred to Durham Cathedral. An Old English translation of the Gospels was made in the 10th century: a word-for-word gloss of the Latin Vulgate text, inserted between the lines by Aldred the Scribe, who was Provost of Chester-le-Street.

Toponymy
The Romans founded a fort named Concangis or Concagium, which was a Latinisation of the original Celtic name for the area, which also gave name to the waterway through the town, Cong Burn. The precise name is uncertain as it does not appear in Roman records, but Concangis is the name most cited today. Although a meaning "Place of the horse people" has been given, scholarly authorities consider the meaning of the name obscure.

Old English forms of the name include Cuneceastra and Conceastre, which takes its first two syllables from the Roman name, with the addition of the Old English word ceaster 'Roman fortification'. The Universal Etymological English Dictionary of 1749 gives the town as Chester upon Street (and describes it as "a Village in the Bishoprick of Durham"). At some point this was shortened to the modern form.

Town biography
There is evidence of Iron Age use of the River Wear near the town, but the history of Chester-le-Street starts with the Roman fort of Concangis. This was built alongside the Roman road Cade's Road (now Front Street) and close to the River Wear, around 100 A.D., and was occupied until the Romans left Britain in 410 A.D. At the time, the Wear was navigable to at least Concangis and may also have provided food for the garrisons stationed there.

After the Romans left, there is no record of who lived there, until 883, when a group of monks, driven out of Lindisfarne seven years earlier, stopped there to build a wooden shrine and church to St Cuthbert, whose body they had borne with them. It became the seat of the Bishop of Lindisfarne, making the church a cathedral. There, the monks translated the Lindisfarne Gospels into English. They stayed for 112 years, leaving in 995 for a safer home in Durham. The title has been revived as the Roman Catholic titular see of Cuncacestre.

The church was rebuilt in stone in 1054 and, despite the loss of its bishopric, seems to have retained a degree of wealth and influence. In 1080, most of the huts in the town were burned and many people killed in retaliation for the death of Walcher, the first prince-bishop, at the hands of an English mob. After this devastation wrought by the Normans the region was left out of the Domesday Book of 1086; there was little left to record and the region was by then being run from Durham by the prince-bishops, so held little interest for London.

Cade's Road did not fall out of use but was hidden beneath later roads which became the Great North Road, the main route from London and the south to Newcastle and Edinburgh. The town's location on the road played a significant role in its development, as well as its name, as inns sprang up to cater for the travelling trade: both riders and horses needed to rest on journeys usually taking days to complete. This trade reached a peak in the early 19th century as more and more people and new mail services were carried by stagecoach, before falling off with the coming of the railways. The town was bypassed when the A167 road was routed around the town and this was later supplanted by the A1(M) motorway.

The coal industry also left its mark on the town. From the late 17th century onwards, coal was dug in increasing quantities in the region. Mining was centred around the rivers, for transportation by sea to other parts of the country, and Chester-le-Street was at the centre of the coal being dug and shipped away down the Wear, so a centre of coal related communication and commerce. At the same time, the growth of the mines and the influx of miners supported local businesses, not just the many inns but new shops and services, themselves bringing in more people to work in them. These people would later work in new industries established in the town to take advantage of its good communications and access to raw materials.

One of the most tragic episodes in the town's history and that of the coal industry in NE England occurred during a miners' strike during the winter of 1811/12. Collieries owned by the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral were brought to a standstill by the strike, causing much hardship amongst the people of the town. The strike was broken on New Year's Day, 1 January 1812, when the Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, sent a detachment of troops from Durham Castle to force a return to work. It is thought that this uncharacteristic act by Barrington was due to pressure from the national government in Westminster who were concerned that the strike was affecting industrial output of essential armaments for the Napoleonic Wars.

On the evening of 5 October 1936, the Jarrow Marchers stopped at the town centre after their first day's walk. The church hall was used to house them before they continued onward the following day.

Governance
From 1894 until 2009, local government districts were governed from the town. From 1894 to 1974, it had a rural district, which covered the town and outlying villages. In 1909, the inner rural district formed an urban district, which covered the town as it was at that time.

By 1974, the town expanded out of the urban district, during that year's reforms the urban and rural districts, as well as other areas formed a non-metropolitan district. It was abolished in 2009 reforms when the non-metropolitan county became a unitary authority.

Climate

The town has a mild climate and gets well below average rainfall relative to the UK. It does though experience occasional floods. To the east of the town lies the Riverside cricket ground and Riverside Park. They were built on the flood plains of the River Wear, and are often flooded when the river bursts its banks. The town centre is subject to occasional flash flooding, usually after very heavy rain over the town and surrounding areas, if the rain falls too quickly for it to be drained away by Cong Burn. The flooding occurs at the bottom of Front Street where the Cong Burn passes under the street, after it was enclosed in concrete in 1932.

Landmarks
John Leland described Chester-le-Street in the 1530s as "Chiefly one main street of very mean building in height.", a sentiment echoed by Daniel Defoe.

Chester Burn viaduct
The viaduct to the northwest of the town centre was completed in 1868 for the North Eastern Railway, to enable trains to travel at high speed on a more direct route between Newcastle and Durham. It is over 230m long with 11 arches, now spanning a road and supermarket car-park, and is a Grade II listed structure.

Lumley Castle
Lumley Castle was built in 1389. It is on the eastern bank of the River Wear and overlooks the town and the Riverside Park.

The Queens Head Hotel
The Queens Head Hotel is located in the central area of the Front Street. It was built over 250 years ago when Front Street formed part of the main route from Edinburgh and Newcastle to London and the south of England. A Grade II listed building, it is set back from the street and is still one of the largest buildings in the town centre.

The Post Office
Chester-le-Street Post Office at 137 Front Street is in Art Deco style and replaced a smaller building located on the corner of Relton Terrace and Ivanhoe Terrace. It opened in 1936 and is unusual in that it is one of a handful of post offices that display the royal cypher from the brief reign of Edward VIII.

St Mary and St Cuthbert church

St Mary and St Cuthbert church possesses a rare surviving anchorage, one of the best-preserved in the country. It was built for an anchorite, an extreme form of hermit. His or her walled-up cell had only a slit to observe the altar and an opening for food, while outside was an open grave for when the occupant died. It was occupied by six anchorites from 1383 to c. 1538, and is now a museum known as the Anker's House. The north aisle is occupied by a line of Lumley family effigies, only five genuine, assembled circa 1590. Some have been chopped off to fit and resemble a casualty station at Agincourt, according to Sir Simon Jenkins in his England's Thousand Best Churches. This and Lumley Castle are Chester-le-Street's only Grade I listed buildings.

Bethel United Reformed Church
The small United Reformed Church on Low Chare, just off the main Front Street, was built in 1814 as the Bethel Congregational Chapel and remodelled in 1860. It is still in use and is a Grade II listed building.

Cricket
The Riverside Ground, known for sponsorship reasons as the Seat Unique Riverside, is home to Durham County Cricket Club which became a first class county in 1992. Since 1999, the ground has hosted many international fixtures, usually involving the England cricket team. The ground was also host to two fixtures at the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and three fixtures at the 2019 Cricket World Cup. The town also has its own cricket club, Chester-le-Street Cricket Club based at the Ropery Lane ground. They are the current Champions of the North East Premier League, won the national ECB 45 over tournament in 2009 and reached the quarter-final of the national 20/20 club championship in 2009.

Rowing

Chester-le-Street Amateur Rowing Club is based on the River Wear near the Riverside cricket ground and has been there for over 100 years. During the summer months the club operate mainly on the river, but in the winter move to indoor sessions during the evenings and use the river at weekends.

The club has over 160 members of which 90 are junior members, with numbers increasing annually. The club are well thought of by British Rowing as a lead club for junior development with many juniors now competing at GB level, and some competing for GB at international events.

Football
Medieval football was once played in the town. The game was played annually on Shrove Tuesday between the "Upstreeters" and "Downstreeters". Play started at 1 pm and finished at 6 pm. To start the game, the ball was thrown from a window in the centre of the town and in one game more than 400 players took part. The centre of the street was the dividing line and the winner was the side where the ball was (Up or Down) at 6 pm. It was played from the Middle Ages until 1932, when it was outlawed by the police and people trying to carry on the tradition were arrested. Chester-le-Street United F.C. were founded in 2020 and compete in the Northern Football League Division Two. In the 2022/23 season they finished above their local rivals Chester-le-Street Town F.C. who were founded in 1972 and compete in the Northern Football League Division Two and based just outside Chester-le-street in Chester Moor.

Railway
Chester-le-Street railway station is a stop on the East Coast Main Line of the National Rail network between Newcastle and Durham; it opened in 1868. The station is served by two train operating companies:

 * TransPennine Express provides services between Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, York, Durham and Newcastle;
 * Northern Trains runs a limited service in early mornings and evenings; destinations include Newcastle, Carlisle and Darlington.

The station is managed by Northern Trains.

The town is mentioned in the 1963 song "Slow Train" by Flanders and Swann: '' No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat, At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street. ''

Buses
Chester-le-Street's bus services are operated primarily by Go North East and Arriva North East; routes connect the town with Newcastle, Durham, Middlesbrough and Seaham.

The town is the original home of The Northern General Transport Company, which has since grown into Go North East; it operated from the Picktree Lane Depot until 2023 when it was demolished. It also pioneered the use of Minilink bus services in the North East in 1985.

Roads
Front Street first carried the A1 road, between London and Edinburgh, through the town. A bypass was built in the 1950s, which still exists today as the A167. The bypass road itself was partly bypassed by, and partly incorporated in, the A1(M) motorway in the 1970s.

The northern end of Front Street was once the start of the A6127, which is the road that would continue through Birtley, Gateshead and eventually over the Tyne Bridge; it become the A6127(M) central motorway in Newcastle upon Tyne. However, when the Gateshead-Newcastle Western Bypass of the A1(M) was opened, many roads in this area were renumbered; they followed the convention that roads originating between single digit A roads take their first digit from the single digit A road in an anticlockwise direction from their point of origin. Newcastle Road, which was formerly designated A1, is now unclassified. The A6127 was renamed the A167. Car traffic is now banned from the northern part of Front Street and it is restricted to buses, cyclists and delivery vehicles.

Primary schools

 * Cestria Primary School
 * Bullion Lane Primary School
 * Woodlea Primary School
 * Lumley Junior and Infant School
 * Newker Primary School
 * Red Rose Primary School
 * Chester-le-Street CE Primary School
 * St Cuthbert's RCVA Primary School

Secondary schools

 * Park View School
 * Hermitage Academy

Notable people

 * Michael Barron, footballer
 * Aidan Chambers, children's author, Carnegie Medal and Hans Christian Andersen Award winner
 * William Browell Charlton, trade union leader, Durham County Colliery Enginemen's Association, National Federation of Colliery Enginemen and Boiler Firemen
 * Ellie Crisell, journalist and television presenter
 * Ronnie Dodd, footballer
 * Danny Graham, footballer
 * Andrew Hayden-Smith, actor and presenter
 * Grant Leadbitter, footballer
 * Sheila Mackie, artist
 * Jock Purdon, folk singer and poet
 * Adam Reach, footballer
 * Bryan Robson, former England football captain, and his brothers Justin and Gary, also footballers
 * Gavin Sutherland, conductor and pianist
 * Colin Todd, football manager and former England international player
 * Olga and Betty Turnbull, child entertainers of the 1930s who performed for royalty
 * Kevin "Geordie" Walker, guitarist of post-punk group Killing Joke
 * Peter Ward, footballer
 * Bruce Welch of pop group The Shadows

Twin Town
It is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Kamp-Lintfort in Germany.

title: Chester-le-Street


text:
Kaitoke

Kaitoke (sometimes called Pakuratahi), part of Upper Hutt City, is a locality in the southern North Island of New Zealand. It is located at the northern end of the Hutt Valley, 45 kilometres northeast of Wellington City and six kilometres from the northern end of the Upper Hutt urban area. It also lies at the southern end of the Tararua Ranges.

The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "eat worms" for Kaitoke.

The "Puffer" tramping track providing access into the Tararua Forest Park climbs from Kaitoke onto and along the Marchant Ridge. This ridge is the part of the Tararuas that is prominently visible from Wellington. The Marchant Track has a side track leading to the Tauherenikau Valley. The end of the Marchant Ridge (after four hours of 'up hill, all the way, both ways') leads to Mount Alpha, and onto The Southern Crossing. The entire track to Alpha skirts the Hutt Water Collection Area.

The first Youth Hostel in the North Island was established in the old Ministry of Works barracks at Kaitoke, which were behind the Post Office and alongside the Kaitoke Hall. The Post Office, the Hall, and the Youth Hostel were the only buildings of the settlement. Other facilities include a small airstrip operated by the Upper Valley Gliding Club for the purposes of gliding the area's thermals.

The Pakuratahi River flows through the eastern Kaitoke Basin from its source in the Remutaka Ranges. The old route of the Wairarapa Line railway, which closed with the opening of the Rimutaka Tunnel in November 1955, ran from Upper Hutt via Maymorn to Kaitoke and around Goat Rock up the Pakuratahi to the Summit, and from there, because of excessive steepness, the Fell mountain railway system was used to aid trains on the Rimutaka Incline between Summit and Cross Creek. This railway is now the Remutaka Rail Trail. The Hutt River has its source to the north of Kaitoke, and much of the land in the vicinity is used as a water supply reserve. Filming, rafting, swimming and other human activity all take place downstream of the water intake.

The nearby Kaitoke Regional Park was the filming location for exterior shots of Rivendell for the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

title: Kaitoke