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Talk:United States/Archive 1

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See WikiProject_Countries for information about the organization of this page.

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All the content of this pages seemed to be dumped directly from the CIA World Factbook. I moved it to OldPage just in case there was added content. -- Stephen Gilbert

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Paul Drye,

It's a known fact that USA has participated in various wars. To name a few: Spanish War, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and recently War against Terrorism. So, I think it's okay to specify about war. --Ramesh
 * Ramesh, I dont think the "War against terrorism" is an official war. However, it might be relevant to recognise the war conducted in Afganistan, and Iraq

 * A number of wars in U.S. history have been undeclared wars: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Quasi-War, the Civil War, the Persian War, etc. but they are recognized as wars nevertheless. Given that the War against Terrorism is a multi-country action involving U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Phillipines, and probably some other places we don't know about, it seems reasonable to believe it will be regarded as a "real war" in the future.  I'm not sure if we want to list it now, though.  Daniel Quinlan 04:01, Oct 15, 2003 (UTC)

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Version 2 of this page claimed a similar deleterious effect from the September 11 terrorist attacks as the Great Depression and the US Civil War. I suspect that's an exaggeration - either way, it's too early to tell. I'm not claiming that September 11 wasn't a very important event, and I mean no disrespect to the thousands who died. It's just that the other events are even more important. --Robert Merkel

- I added some content to this otherwise links page. There really should be more info on this page to cover the highlights of US history, military, people, economy etc. The "subpages" should be reserved for the detailed stuff only, oh well. --maveric149, Thursday, April 18, 2002

 * I did some editing on the policital/government stuff, as I agree this is should not merely be a link site, especially since many of the linked pages only contain lists. jheijmans

I see you re-added Russia as a bordering country ("it's only 2.5 miles away from the Aleuts"). However close, it is not a border of course. We might as well start stating that Spain and Africa border, or England and France, Sweden and Denmark, or Yemen and Somalia. If you wish to say that Russia is close, that's ok, but it doesn't border.

Also, you might want to add Cuba, since that country actually borders the US (!), in Guantanamo Bay.

jheijmans

 * Like I said in the edit history, its not a big deal. However, the territorial limit of any nation is 12 natical miles with an exclusive economic zone going out to 200. Territorial waters are legally treated as the same as terra firma territory -- all laws are the same. 2.5 miles is well within the territorial waters of both Russia and the United States -- they therefore share a common border. The same is true for two bordering nations or states that are separated by a wide river or lake -- a border line is drawn in the exact middle of the body of water. Cuba and France are well beyond this 12 mile limit. Military bases and embassies are treated differently in these discussions, and the example of Guantanamo Bay is incorrect -- the land is in fact Cuban territory, we simply have a long term lease to the property that we enforce by our military presence (this was, of course, negotiated pre-Castro and we simply held it despite his protests. This legal distinction is also why we have our "detainees" there -- so that the US Constitution does not become a problem) --maveric149, Thursday, April 18, 2002

I think you are technically correct here, but that would also mean France and Britain border (Dover Strait is about 21 miles from coast to coast), and then I don't even count the Channel Islands. (Same would go for Denmark and Sweden, f.e.) However, the common idea of a border is that a land border. So, should we state that Russia has a nautical border (or whatever that is called) with US?

As for Guantanamo Bay, I mentioned this border, because it is also mentioned in the CIA World Factbook. I didn't know the dirty details of it - it's quite like the Canal Zone in Panama then? jheijmans

From New York to Wisconsin, over 700 miles, the US and Canada are separated by water, often more than 12 miles but everyone thinks of this as a border. And yes Guatanamo is like the Canal Zone was - we rented it while pointing a gun. --rmhermen
 * Guantanamo Bay is a very technical issue as it is Cuban soverignty but U.S. control (rented by U.S.). So I think it is not precisely true to say the U.S. has a land border with Cuba. --user:Daniel C. Boyer

America was populated after God changed all the peoples languages. They fled to new countries. The Indians fled to America. This happened about 5,000 years ago. Considering the earth is only about 7 to 8 thousand years old itself. The "Democratic Republic" of the United States of America. Is it part (with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of the "axis of evil"? --user:Daniel C. Boyer
 * This problem is still unresolved. "Democratic republic" has a different meaning than (and a meaning perhaps the opposite of) what the words mean separately. --user:Daniel C. Boyer

"After the European discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492..." -- This is highly debatable as it ignores Viking visits almost 500 years prior. This should be clarified/expanded. user:Daniel C. Boyer

 * Those don't really count; knowledge of the new continent did not spread much at that time, and the settlements were very short-lived. In other words, an isolated incident that shares little or no continuity with the widely-known, (so far) permanent awareness and exploitation of the continent by Europeans sparked by Columbus's failed voyage to India. Since the context is the colonization from which the United States directly grew, there's no point in mentioning the Vikings there; certainly not in a general overview section. --Brion VIBBER

 * Maybe putting "discovery" in the text would help clarifying that it wasn't really a discovery? I otherwise agree with Brion. Jeronimo 01:03 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

The following was formerly in Talk:United States of America/Temp:

Brion, are you sure there's no official language in the USA? I think all government writing is in English and that English has to be taught at schools. Or is that really only "de facto", as you say? That's kind of surprising to me then, and I've never seen it like that in any encyclopedia or other source. Can you clarify? Jheijmans 00:08 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Yep, there is no official language of the US -- just as you say a de facto one. --mav 00:13 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Correct; it's a little weird, but there is no de jure official language of the United States. (Pay no heed to the rumor that German missed becoming the official language by one vote.) --Brion VIBBER 00:24 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

 * OK, so I can learn something from Wikipedia as well :-) This should then be explained in the upcoming "demography" section, where of course the rise of the Spanish language should also be mentioned, I suppose.

 * However, maybe it's convenient then to drop the "official" from the table, or add a footnote, or else it may be strange for other "ignorant people" (like me). OR is an explanation in the article enough? Jheijmans

Well, there's no sense in leaving the information out; English is the language that laws are passed in, that government services are always provided in (though service in other languages is often provided additionally -- if I spoke only Spanish I'd do just fine at the Social Security office), and that most education is in. Buuut, it's not really the official language, so we need the "de facto" disclaimer.

Actually, we probably should have an article on the official language issue and the English-only movement, which could be conveniently linked from the table. --Brion VIBBER

Just a curious question about this then: is it possible to go to a school in the US, and not learn English (in theory, not in practice, I hope)? Jheijmans

 * Well, go to school yeah. Graduate, I'm not so sure. ;) Generally if you don't speak English you'll get dumped into some kind of bilingual education system, of which there are a huge variety ranging from heavy immersion into English to keep-the-kids-in-their-safe-native-language-environment-as-long-as-possible. The site I linked above should have a lot of info on this if you're really interested. --Brion VIBBER

Absolutely. Particularly in California, at least until a few years ago, there were quite a few public schools that taught classes in Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. California voters decided they didn't much like that and got rid of it. But there are still many private schools. It's not uncommon at all for residents of, say, East Los Angeles or San Francisco's Chinatown to live their whole lives without speaking enough English for basic conversation. Several individual states have passed resolutions declaring English the "official" language of the state, but even in most of those you can get voter registration forms and such in Spanish. And there is no federal law. In fact, such a law would probably be ruled unconstitutional. --LDC

Wow, this country never ceases to amaze me (not always in a positive sense, mind you) - even more so when I was there earlier this month. But to get back on Wikipedia issues: Brion, I think an article on the legal status of English in the US of A would indeed be very useful (the text you linked would be a great starter if it were uncopyrighted) and easy to link to from the table. Jheijmans 00:48 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

 * I've linked it to a stub page at Languages in the United States (if that title's too awkward, suggestions are welcome). Feel free to use the aforementioned Language Policy site as a source of information, but it's not even vaguely NPOV so you wouldn't want to copy stuff directly out of it even if it weren't copyrighted. --Brion VIBBER 00:36 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)

(end of the former Talk:United States of America/Temp)

Naming of Entry
Great job to everyone who labored on the new version of the USofA article. It looks great! --mav 00:16 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)
 * Thanks, though I hope some actual Americans will step in to add to my texts, some of it is pretty lame, I think. This leaves the problem of the naming of the article though - should it be at United States or not? Jeronimo
 * Yes it should -- There is no reason why the USofA gets to be at its full name when every other country is listed at its conventional short form. I will make the move it nobody objects. However, this will require me to first delete the redirect page United States so nobody freak out. --mav
 * Just to remind: the links to all the "subpages" and CIA stuff should also be changed if you do make the change. I promise I won't freak out (c: Jeronimo 00:27 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

I haven't yet moved the CIA intro or gov / pages because I don't know what to name these. How do the gov CIA pages relate to the "politics of" sub articles? --mav

 * I would imagine that the "Government" and "Transnational Issues" sections would sort of fit under "Politics of". --Brion VIBBER

 * As for the introduction page, this is what was usually put on the main country page. Since - I think - we have a good replacement for that, there's no need to keep it. As for the government; this should be covered at Politics of the United States I think.

 * I myself am not sure about the former "Transnational Issues", now, "Foreign relations". Isn't this something to put at History and/or Politics? Jeronimo 00:59 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

Can somebody fix this page? It spans the entire page and fills the right margin so you can't get to the links on the right column. -- Zoe

 * Seems okay to me. I'm using Mozilla 1.1beta at 800X600 on Windows 98SE, what browser, OS and resolution are you using? Bryan Derksen

 * I'm using IE 6.0.2 and Windows Me. It fills the entire page.  How do I do a screen shot?  -- Zoe

 * Same problem with W98/MSIE6/800x600/Cologne Blue skin.
 * Links are floating over the text because of both the picture width and the data table, but I believe that if the first sentences could be closed into a new table of fixed width (thinner and higher), normal wide text (as large as the picture) could follow readably below the end of right links.
 * Now, what width should this table have to be readable in every configuration? Would it be better to move the picture to a separate page?gianfranco

The issue here is that the table is way I mean way too fat. We shouldn't try to fix this by HTMLing the text -- we need to fix the table. --mav
 * I tried to remove the picture, and it works now. IMHO, that image should be reduced in width or moved to a separate page. --Gianfranco

 * I tried to replace the original picture with a .png one large 580 (136kb), and I hope it works well with a 640x480 resolution too (please, let us know), then I tried a .jpg one, still large 580 but 110kb less (19kb). Of course, the .jpg one is evidently less precise. In case this width is agreed, which format would it be better to use? --Gianfranco

 * If a jpeg has text in it, or other sharp lines, the quality factor should be at least 88 to prevent sand. (If your jpeg editor uses quantization tables directly, ask me.) -phma

 * the following was compressed at 60/255 ratio: see. How is it now? --Gianfranco

I restored the cellpadding of the table, since that makes the table readable, I also made the table width smaller again by improving the size of the cells that hold the images. The width is not determined by the national motto row, maybe it can be put in two rows (using )? Jeronimo 04:04 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)

I've restored it somewhat since most of the article was now in italic and the table looked chaotic. I don't know how it looks now on the problematic browser, but please let's not save changes that are obviously just tests. -Scipius

 * It looks fine now. Thank you all very much! -- Zoe

Minor nit; I find it more natural in general to proceed from west to east (as north to south, left to right, top to bottom), so I would prefer listing the time zones, which are inherently related to physical areas on the Earth's surface, as "UTC-10 to UTC-5" rather than "UTC-5 to UTC-10". Am I a crazy person for this? --Brion VIBBER

Hey, I don't really care if you want to make the table less clear. But Demographics is much better than Demography. It's great that's what the template has, but the template should be changed. Consistency isn't as important as quality. --The Cunctator

And you are the final arbitrator of quality? I don't recall electing you to that position. I do recall that several of us voted on this very issue and decided to go with "demography". I'm a native English speaker too and to my ears there is nothing wrong with "demography" at all. You are more than welcome to put this to another vote but please stop changing these types of things unilaterally. --mav

 * I agree with The Conctator in this matter -- not that he is the final arbitrator of quality, but that this issue should be revisited and reconsidered. "Demography" is the study of demographics; the information currently listed under "Demography" is not about demography at all, it is demographics.  The only reason I can imagine for the current mistake is that "Demography" rhymes with "Economy" (sort of).  It is interesting that these words are not really parallel -- Dempography is the study of demographics, and Economics is the study of the economy.  It makes sense to head a section "economy," but the real parallel would be to follow this with "demographics," not "Demography."  We might as well change "Economy" to "Economics" -- that wouldn't make sense, nor does "Demography."

 * I was not involved in the past discussion. But my understanding is that Wikipedia is an ongoing process.  I do not think this means that we should constantly be changing conventions, but I do think it is reasonable to revisit this one. Slrubenstein

Well reasoned and stated. You have convinced me with a few brief words that could not otherwise be done by unilateral changes. I second the call for a revote on this issue. --mav

 * I discussed my actions on Talk:WikiProject Countries. Voting is a bad way of handling things--it's only necessary in the real world because there aren't better ways of dealing with things, as there is with a Wiki, which is simply editing. --The Cunctator

While Cunctator is right about "simply editing" in many cases, I must point out that discussing and gaining consensus also has a value. People are more willing to do heavy lifting when they opinion has been heard and considered. For large projects, we need many hands.

Now, for Tolkien's stuff I did not seek consensus. I just decided on a plan and spent several hours editing everything into the way I wanted it. I could do that because (a) I know something about the topic and (b) I type fast. But I don't know enough about geography.

So I'd like a consensus to emerge, yielding a set of formulas I can follow whenever I get time to help. --Ed Poor

"Consistency" is not a goal in its own right. It helps serve real goals like readability and accuracy, because it helps to ensure that all the topics are covered for each subject, and that they are presented in an order that is proven to be helpful. But individual articles will have differences, and that's OK. If countries with a long and detailed history have a slightly different-looking history section from new small countries, that's fine. Authors should do whatever makes a good article for that subject. As for "demographics", I have to go with correctness over consensus. Again, consensus is a useful thing that helps serve our goals sometimes, but it is not a goal in itself. Correctness is. --LDC
 * Yeh, I (KQ) cast my vote to follow the format at WikiProject Countries, but I think LDC is right on this one. (I should have looked them up earlier):  here's this from dictionary.com:
 * demography n. The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.
 * demographics n. (used with a plural verb) The characteristics of human populations and population segments, especially when used to identify consumer markets: The demographics of the Southwest indicate a growing population of older consumers.

Headings
And what about the headings? I really, really liked the previous method better. It's just a matter of taste of course, and it looks like we're linking to history instead of history of the United States here. Jeronimo

I'm a bit confused. How does History of the United States look like a link to history? --The Cunctator

 * I'm sorry, I looked wrongly. However, I do now have the objection that "History of the United States" as a section heading is pretty redundant. There's no "External links for (Topic X)" heading either. A "History" only title indeed suggests it's a link to History. Also, it is not clear that the text there is only a summary - people may be urged to add lots of stuff to it, while that is not the intention. The previous form was much clearer in that aspect. Although it's mostly cosmetic, I think it's a good thing to try and use one consistent "look-and-feel" for all country pages, and I'm for putting back the old form of section headings. Jeronimo

Also Cunc please stop changing the headings -- having the heading titles also as links is not an improvement. We want to emphasize that what is contained on this page is a mere summary of what is at the link -- thus the format that was agreed on. --mav

 * Having "Main article:" is not an improvement either. There are better ways of indicating a summary. And the policy of even having summaries at all, instead of just links to the appropriate entries, is somewhat counter to the general Wikipedia approach. I'm working on a discussion of it at Talk:WikiProject_Countries right now. And it's "Cunc". --The Cunctator

Mav, I prefer the separate heading and link as well, but I'm not sure about the usage "Main" article. This article is the "main" one, in the sense of being central and most comprehensive. Those others I would called "Detailed article" or "Expanded article", I think. --LDC

 * Good point. I will think of a better way to do this. --mav

I think The Cunctator is on the right track with having the headings remain unlinked and having a See: [X of United States] link at the end of each section summary. I will experiment with this general format later to see if it can be improved. I would also like to thank The Cunctator for turning the history summary into a real summary -- people were adding to that section as if it were the history of article. --mav

I just want you to know I think the linked headings are better (see Spetember 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack for an example), and think the See is a fallback to something necessary in paper but not here (Wiki is not paper). But I also try to compromise. --The Cunctator

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Are you sure the motto of the US is "In God We Trust"? I thought it was "E Pluribus Unum." - Montréalais

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The national motto is "In God We Trust", by Act of Congress July 30, 1956. "E Pluribus Unum" is the motto on the Great Seal, which involves a link with heraldry.

The fourth verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner" includes "Then conquer we must/When our cause it is just/And this be our motto, 'In God is our trust'. And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave/O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

--GABaker -- Someone please move this article back to its correct location. There is no country called the United States. The country in question is called the United States of America. If you persist in this ridiculousness, I insist you move the Netherlands to Holland (I grew up in a community of Dutch immigrants and no one ever refered to the country as the Netherlands always Holland so obviously it is the conventional form of the name) and Mexico to the United States or to United States of Mexico, and the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland etc. all back to England where they belong. This is anti-American bias again. In short the name of the country is America, the form of government is United States, just as Germany is a Federal Republic and Mexico a United States. Rmhermen 16:49 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

 * Of course there's a country called the United States. It is located immediately south of Canada, as you will find out if you ask any English-speaking Canadian, practically none of whom call it "America" or anything else but the United States or US. Besides, the CIA World Factbook gives the name United States as the title of its article on the country in question. I think that's a pretty ostentatious way for a country to be called something.
 * Furthermore, your other examples are incoherent. Holland and England are poor choices not because they are not common use, but because "Holland" is factually not identical to the Netherlands, and "England" is not identical to the United Kingdom, as any Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish person will tell you. However, there is no English-language account under which "United States" is different from the United States of America. - Montréalais

Charlie Chaplin is English. -- Zoe

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The US article is not entirely in accordance to the template of WikiProject Countries. For instance, there is no "Holidays" section. I know that Holidays in the US is a somewhat vague matter, but there does in fact exist a list of federal holidays, which is the closest parallell to offical holidays of other countries. There is a clearly defined list in the culture pages, but that obvisouly seems to serve another, more cultural purpose. It even lists April Fool's Day as a holiday(!) Finally, someone going to the US looking for a list of holidays, expecting to see one (as (s)he would expect from the Wikipedia template), will be disappointed. -- Egil 08:41 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

 * Egil, I took a look at the guidelines and it does appear that holidays has its own section. I believe that the current holiday list is too long to be included in its entirety. How about:
 * add a new section to the United States page called Holidays. List the top 10 holidays.
 * Have a main article called Holidays in the United States, containing the more extensive list.
 * Remove the existing list from the Culture of the United States.

 * I'd like to avoid having duplicate lists of the same thing. I'm still not sure how best to split the list, but as I said earlier, I believe its current form is too long for the main page. Sfmontyo

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My edit of April 17 is intended to include more or less neutral factual information regarding capitalism, social class and its effect on politics. I got sidetracked a bit on European immigration and on writing an essay on support of political parties. There is a typo supprort which can be corrected when someone makes a new edit. Fred Bauder 13:07 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC) -

Territories
Can someone add information about actual or fomer territories not included in a state that belongs or has belonged to the USA ?? (apart of what appears in the page ):

 * The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
 * Outer Continental Shelf Lands defined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
 * Canal Zone
 * The only part of the Trust still a territory is already on the list. The outer continental shelf lands are underwater and I think the Canal Zone went back to Panama with the Canal in 1999. This isn't the page to list former territories; that should go on the history page. Rmhermen 23:30 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

 * So, I suggest include this information in a section of History_of_the_United_States, like proposed in Talk:History_of_the_United_States. This History of Territory Composition of the U.S.A. it´s very interesting (i.e., some Acts have references to nowadays or historical territories).

Why is this page at United States rather than United States of America? Wouldn't the latter make more sense? Looking at What Links Here, it seems most pages link to United States of America anyway. -- Timwi 00:40 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * For the same reason why our article on the former US president is at Bill Clinton and not the pompous William Jefferson Clinton. See Naming conventions (common names). Oh and look at at "What links here" again - the vast majority of links to this page link via United States and the "What links here" function craps out after the first couple thousand links so that page does not have all the links in it. --mav

 * If this is the case, the article should reside at the ultimately lazy U.S. (note the lack of periods in the abbr.). It is a problem that the article does not reside at United States of America, because while the former is a valid redirect, if I am lazy and type "united states of america" (lowercase as here) in the search field and hit "Go" I do not reach this, the primary article, but rather Demographics of the United States.  Hmm. Ed Cormany 00:01 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * Not anymore now :) -- Timwi 22:22 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * ? What are you talking about? It works for me fine. And US is too ambiguous for a page title so that example is a straw man. IMO, it shouldn't even be a redirect but that would break too many links. Page titles are always a compromise between formality, ambiguity and common usage. Oh and "United States" is more common than just "US" just as "United Kingdom" is more common than "UK" in anything but the most informal of writing. Wikipedia is neither formal or informal and our page titles should reflect this. --mav

E Pluribus Unum is still a national motto
"On July 30, 1956 a law was passed stating that "the national motto of the United States is hereby declared to be 'In God we trust'." (70 Stat. 732. 36 U.S. Code 186). The House Judiciary Committee recognized that the phrase E Pluribus Unum had also received wide usage in the United States, and the joint resolution did not repeal or prohibit its use as a national motto. In 1963 the Department of State took the following position: "'In God we trust'" is the motto of the United States. It seems to the Department, nevertheless, that there is ample basis both in history and I law for calling 'E Pluribus Unum' a motto of the United States." The Congress has used both." http://www.usscouts.org/flag/sealmotto.html --Jiang 23:23 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

--[Mike] National Economy The U.S, lost 2.6 million jobs since March 2001, 26 months ago, and the U.S. needs 100,000 new jobs per month -just to keep up with the population. There is now a deficit of five million jobs. Yet, consumer spending continues. One explanation may be Jobless benefits, for up to a year and people, savings and home refinancing. But, home refinancing may have ended since interest rates have reached a near minimum. --

Should Education in the United States be added to list of topics? -- Steinsky 01:34, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why is this protected? - To be added.
Why is this protected?

To be added: link to County (United States). - Patrick 11:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * Repeated vandalism by the same person. The person seems to have given up against his repeated ban, so I will unprotect. Andre Engels 11:51, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * Some other admin apparently beat me to it :-0 Andre Engels 11:52, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * Thanks, both of you. - Patrick 12:03, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Missing the point a bit
Since the late 20th century it has eclipsed all other nations in terms of relative economic, political, and military power as well as cultural influence.

I think that's missing the point a bit. Maybe since the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has been the sole hyperpower, but it's not like this is 100% new status. The US has been a superpower for the entire 20th century, I don't think any other country could really be considered a superpower throughout the century (the Soviet Union was one from end of WWII through the 80s, perhaps). Finding a succinct way to say that might be better than picking an exact point at which the US became a hyperpower (which seems to be the way that sentence has headed). — Daniel Quinlan 21:28, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Besides, eclipsed is not the appropriate word - it would imply that only the US is visible now, which is false. Furthermore, the US certainly hasn't overcome all other nations as a collective, but rather as individuals. David.Monniaux 10:00, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Should we still describe the US as having "low unemployment"? Tuf-Kat 02:24, Sep 18, 2003 (UTC)
 * This is a description of the characteristics of the US economy over the long term and not a description of current statistics I think. Even so, the average unemployment rate for the US from 1960-1995 was around 6% and we are not that far off of that number right now coming out of a cyclical downturn.  I would say its a little early to be saying that this characteristic of the US economy has changed drastically enough to re-characterize our overall description of the US economy.ark30inf 02:41, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * 6% is low in terms of both US history and the world at large (it was 14.6% as late as 1940, 8.5% in 1975, 9.7% in 1982, and the recent low point was only 4.0% in 2000 during the boom, the all time low was 1.2% in 1944 — it was last above 6% (6.1%) in 1994, only 9 years ago). 6% is below the historical average and only seems high relative to the 2000 low point (or if you've been listening to politicians too much lately) . Daniel Quinlan 03:11, Sep 18, 2003 (UTC)

Maveric149 wrote no, the nation was formed when the declaration; just like every other one

 * i think you misunderstood me. i absolutely agree with you that the colonies became independent at the moment they signed the declaration in 1776.  but the entitity that currently exists at the "united states of america" didn't exist until the constitution was signed in 1789.  between 1776 and 1789, the colonies existed in several configurations, but not under the one now known as the "united states of america"

 * I'm well aware that the Constitution was not ratified until 1789, but you are confusing that with the formation of the nation - whatever that name or configuation. --mav

 * but then you would have the article read "the united states...is a federal republic...created in 1776", when the federal republic we now know wasn't created until 1789...

 * Is a federal republic. Was created. --mav

"It was established upon the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 as a union between 13 colonies which had broke away from their mother nation, the Britain, in 1776."

No. This is not the widely held conception. The DOI does state "united States of America" but with the u in lower case. It is true that the republic was not created until 1789 (or some may argue the civil war or even never), but the US as a political entity was. It was just a confederation. --Jiang 23:30, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * The DOI also uses the language "United Colonies"...

 * The DOI is stating that these united colonies are now free and independent states, implying that they are no longer colonies. It wouldn't make sense for them to remain as "colonies", would it? --Jiang 00:33, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * It was established as a federal republic .... Better? --mav

Its status as a republic was not apparent until the South lost the Civil War. (Some states' rights supporters continue to dispute this.) If secession and nullification were legal, it would be considered a confederation. Let's just leave that out and state that it was established in 1776. --Jiang 23:43, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * If the "United States of America" existed prior to 1789, who was the President? Who was the Chief Justice? Who was the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate? The problem comes when you try to specify a single date for the "creation" of the USA, when it happened it fits and starts. 7/4/1776 and 3/5/1789 were both key dates for different reasons. Compare with how presented at . Saying it was founded in 1776 is too simplistic and technically incorrect.

 * That's what I wanted to begin with! :) Please, go ahead. --mav

 * No! No, no, no!  It is incorrect to say that!

 * Also of interest is how Encarta handles it, a series of historical events, but no single date of founding...

Take a look at the Articles of Confederation:

ARTICLE I The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America".

--Jiang 00:33, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * Oh yes, I completely agree with that. But that "United States of America" is not the current "United States of America".  That confederation had a different structure, and ceased to exist when the new structure came into existence, despite claiming to be perpetual.

Reddi, it was never certain whether nullification or secession would be legal. The Consitution is a compact among sovereign states - the states gave the federal government power, insead of the other way around. As a result, it was not certain whether states would be able to pull out of this contract. (This is how the South seceded!) It was also believed by some that laws could be nullified. Virginia and Kentucky resolutions? So no, it is/was not necessarily a republic. --Jiang 06:12, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)~

Remember confederation and federation are not the same. A federation is a single unit made up of sub-units that have come together to form it, it being greater than the sum of the parts. A confederation is in effect a club of independent units who share powers together and in a limited way act in unison. The original confederate United States of America was replaced by the federal United States of America; same name, different meaning. The difference can be highlighted in the different emphasis in the words. The confederation was in effect the United States of America (ie, the states were the basic units, the unity a case of some shared areas of interest) while the federation was in effect the United States of America, ie, emphasis on the central united unit with the states as sub-units. It is the same in the European Union (not the European Community, which is a different entity and not merely the old name for the EU as most people think), which is in effect a confederation of independent states like the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, etc etc. What are called Euro-federalists want the European Union to become the singular dominant unit with the UK, France et al as sub-units. The USA conferation failed because it was too ramshakle and lacked a unity. The federation created a central entity, the USA, with the states as sub-units rather than co-equal independent members of a club, the case in 1776. Remember also, 1776 marked UDI (a Unilateral Declaration of Independence), a UDI that unlike Rhodesia in the 1960s or the Irish Republic (1919-1922) worked and produced a real state. FearÉIREANN 06:40, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * To put it more simply:
 * USA started with United States Declaration of Independence in 1776
 * then Articles of Confederation (a Confederation) in 1777
 * then United States Constitution (a Federal Republic) in 1789
 * All three were the same country with the same name, but the form of government changed. Daniel Quinlan 07:38, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

The entire debate about whether states can leave the union legally is silly. It is 100% illegal. At least not without an act of congress, I suppose... Article I, Section 10:

 * No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

 * No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

 * No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Finally, the 10th amendment is pretty good proof that the Federal government is the primary power, not the states.

Daniel Quinlan 07:38, Oct 4, 2003 (UTC)

 * What you list is just what states are forbidden to do when they are part of the Union. there is nothing there stating that they may not leave. Once they leave, they may do all that.

 * The 10th Amendment reserves all rights not explicitly forbidden or delegated to the national government to the states. So? --Jiang 08:13, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:United States/Archive 1


text:
Red-billed gull

The red-billed gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae scopulinus), also known as tarāpunga and once also known as the mackerel gull, is a native of New Zealand, being found throughout the country and on outlying islands including the Chatham Islands and subantarctic islands. It was formerly considered a separate species but is now usually treated as a subspecies of the silver gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae).

The Māori name of this species is tarāpunga or akiaki. Its vernacular name is sometimes also used for the dolphin gull, a somewhat similar-looking but unrelated species that is found in coastal southern Chile, Argentina and the Falkland Islands. As is the case with many gulls, the red-billed gull has traditionally been placed in the genus Larus.

A national survey of breeding red-billed gulls carried out in 2014–2016 recorded 27,831 pairs nesting in New Zealand. The authors of the study based on the survey and published in 2018 said that the accuracy of previous estimates was questionable, but that the species nevertheless appeared to have declined nationally since the mid-1960s. The study also discussed the possible reasons for the decline and made a proposal for future monitoring.

Description
The red-billed gull is a fairly small gull with an all-red bill, red eye ring, red legs and feet, pale grey wings with black wingtips. The rest of the body and tail are white. There is virtually no visual difference between the male and female birds. Juvenile gulls have a dark brown bill with only hints of red, making them difficult to distinguish from the black-billed gull. The legs are also brown and there are brown spots on the grey wings.

Distribution
It is the smallest gull commonly seen in New Zealand. The population is estimated at 500,000. It was formerly considered a distinctive species, but looks similar to the silver gull found in Australia, and is now considered to be a subspecies.

Behaviour
Behaviourally, the red-billed gull is a typical gull. It is an aggressive scavenger and kleptoparasite. Since European settlement its numbers have increased, especially around coastal towns and cities where it can scavenge from urban waste. It normally feeds on small fish, shell fish and worms (from pastures), and sometimes berries, lizards and insects.

Life cycle
They nest from October to December in colonies on the coast, either on islands or rocky headlands, cliffs and beaches. The birds form pair bonds which endure across seasons, but there is a certain amount of extra-pair copulation. Courtship feeding is an important part of the preparation for mating. Nests are well formed and may be constructed of seaweed, grasses, leaves and ice plants. Generally two to three eggs are laid, their colour ranges from brown to grey with light and dark brown spots all over. The bird generally lives up to 12 years, although individuals have also been found living up to 30 years.

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

title: Red-billed gull


text:
Fano plane

In finite geometry, the Fano plane (after Gino Fano) is a finite projective plane with the smallest possible number of points and lines: 7 points and 7 lines, with 3 points on every line and 3 lines through every point. These points and lines cannot exist with this pattern of incidences in Euclidean geometry, but they can be given coordinates using the finite field with two elements. The standard notation for this plane, as a member of a family of projective spaces, is PG(2, 2). Here, PG stands for "projective geometry", the first parameter is the geometric dimension (it is a plane, of dimension 2) and the second parameter is the order (the number of points per line, minus one).

The Fano plane is an example of a finite incidence structure, so many of its properties can be established using combinatorial techniques and other tools used in the study of incidence geometries. Since it is a projective space, algebraic techniques can also be effective tools in its study.

In a separate usage, a Fano plane is a projective plane that never satisfies Fano's axiom; in other words, the diagonal points of a complete quadrangle are always collinear. "The" Fano plane of 7 points and lines is "a" Fano plane.

Homogeneous coordinates
The Fano plane can be constructed via linear algebra as the projective plane over the finite field with two elements. One can similarly construct projective planes over any other finite field, with the Fano plane being the smallest.

Using the standard construction of projective spaces via homogeneous coordinates, the seven points of the Fano plane may be labeled with the seven non-zero ordered triples of binary digits 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. This can be done in such a way that for every two points p and q, the third point on line pq has the label formed by adding the labels of p and q modulo 2 digit by digit (e.g., 010 and 111 resulting in 101). In other words, the points of the Fano plane correspond to the non-zero points of the finite vector space of dimension 3 over the finite field of order 2.

Due to this construction, the Fano plane is considered to be a Desarguesian plane, even though the plane is too small to contain a non-degenerate Desargues configuration (which requires 10 points and 10 lines).

The lines of the Fano plane may also be given homogeneous coordinates, again using non-zero triples of binary digits. With this system of coordinates, a point is incident to a line if the coordinate for the point and the coordinate for the line have an even number of positions at which they both have nonzero bits: for instance, the point 101 belongs to the line 111, because they have nonzero bits at two common positions. In terms of the underlying linear algebra, a point belongs to a line if the inner product of the vectors representing the point and line is zero.

The lines can be classified into three types.
 * On three of the lines the binary triples for the points have the 0 in a constant position: the line 100 (containing the points 001, 010, and 011) has 0 in the first position, and the lines 010 and 001 are formed in the same way.
 * On three of the lines, two of the positions in the binary triples of each point have the same value: in the line 110 (containing the points 001, 110, and 111) the first and second positions are always equal to each other, and the lines 101 and 011 are formed in the same way.
 * In the remaining line 111 (containing the points 011, 101, and 110), each binary triple has exactly two nonzero bits.

Group-theoretic construction
Alternatively, the 7 points of the plane correspond to the 7 non-identity elements of the group (Z2)3 = Z2 × Z2 × Z2. The lines of the plane correspond to the subgroups of order 4, isomorphic to Z2 × Z2. The automorphism group GL(3, 2) of the group (Z2)3 is that of the Fano plane, and has order 168.

Levi graph
As with any incidence structure, the Levi graph of the Fano plane is a bipartite graph, the vertices of one part representing the points and the other representing the lines, with two vertices joined if the corresponding point and line are incident. This particular graph is a connected cubic graph (regular of degree 3), has girth 6 and each part contains 7 vertices. It is the Heawood graph, the unique 6-cage.

Collineations
A collineation, automorphism, or symmetry of the Fano plane is a permutation of the 7 points that preserves collinearity: that is, it carries collinear points (on the same line) to collinear points. By the Fundamental theorem of projective geometry, the full collineation group (or automorphism group, or symmetry group) is the projective linear group PGL(3, 2),

This is a well-known group of order 168 = 23·3·7, the next non-abelian simple group after A5 of order 60 (ordered by size).

As a permutation group acting on the 7 points of the plane, the collineation group is doubly transitive meaning that any ordered pair of points can be mapped by at least one collineation to any other ordered pair of points. (See below.)

Collineations may also be viewed as the color-preserving automorphisms of the Heawood graph (see figure).

F8 is a degree-three field extension of F2, so the points of the Fano plane may be identified with F8 ∖ $\{0\}$. The symmetry group may be written PGL(3, 2) = Aut(P2F2). Similarly, PSL(2, 7) = Aut(P1F7). There is a relation between the underlying objects, P2F2 and P1F7 called the Cat's Cradle map. Color the seven lines of the Fano plane ROYGBIV, place your fingers into the two dimensional projective space in ambient 3-space, and stretch your fingers out like the children's game Cat's Cradle. You will obtain a complete graph on seven vertices with seven colored triangles (projective lines). The missing origin of F8 will be at the center of the septagon inside. Now label this point as ∞, and pull it backwards to the origin. One can write down a bijection from F7 ∪ $\{∞\}$ to F8. Set x∞ = 0 and send the slope k ↦ x∞ + xk ∈ F8 ≅ F2[x] / (x3 + x + 1), where now xk labels the vertices of K7 with edge coloring, noting that F$× 8$ is a cyclic group of order 7. The symmetries of P1F7 are Möbius transformations, and the basic transformations are reflections (order 2, k ↦ −1/k), translations (order 7, k ↦ k + 1), and doubling (order 3 since 23 = 1, k ↦ 2k). The corresponding symmetries on the Fano plane are respectively swapping vertices, rotating the graph, and rotating triangles.

Dualities
A bijection between the point set and the line set that preserves incidence is called a duality and a duality of order two is called a polarity.

Dualities can be viewed in the context of the Heawood graph as color reversing automorphisms. An example of a polarity is given by reflection through a vertical line that bisects the Heawood graph representation given on the right. The existence of this polarity shows that the Fano plane is self-dual. This is also an immediate consequence of the symmetry between points and lines in the definition of the incidence relation in terms of homogeneous coordinates, as detailed in an earlier section.

Cycle structure
The permutation group of the 7 points has 6 conjugacy classes.

These four cycle structures each define a single conjugacy class:
 * Walsh permutation 124 Fano.svg The identity permutation
 * Walsh permutation 421 Fano red.svg 21 permutations with two 2-cycles
 * Walsh permutation 461 Fano red.svg 42 permutations with a 4-cycle and a 2-cycle
 * Walsh permutation 425 Fano red.svg 56 permutations with two 3-cycles

The 48 permutations with a complete 7-cycle form two distinct conjugacy classes with 24 elements:
 * Walsh permutation 436 Fano red.svg A maps to B, B to C, C to D. Then D is on the same line as A and B.
 * Walsh permutation 751 Fano red.svg A maps to B, B to C, C to D. Then D is on the same line as A and C.

(See here for a complete list.)

Hence, by the Pólya enumeration theorem, the number of inequivalent colorings of the Fano plane with n colors is ${{n^7 + 21 n^5 + 98 n^3 + 48 n} \over 168}$ .

Complete quadrangles and Fano subplanes
In any projective plane a set of four points, no three of which are collinear, and the six lines joining pairs of these points is a configuration known as a complete quadrangle. The lines are called sides and pairs of sides that do not meet at one of the four points are called opposite sides. The points at which opposite sides meet are called diagonal points and there are three of them.

If this configuration lies in a projective plane and the three diagonal points are collinear, then the seven points and seven lines of the expanded configuration form a subplane of the projective plane that is isomorphic to the Fano plane and is called a Fano subplane.

A famous result, due to Andrew M. Gleason states that if every complete quadrangle in a finite projective plane extends to a Fano subplane (that is, has collinear diagonal points) then the plane is Desarguesian. Gleason called any projective plane satisfying this condition a Fano plane thus creating some confusion with modern terminology. To compound the confusion, Fano's axiom states that the diagonal points of a complete quadrangle are never collinear, a condition that holds in the Euclidean and real projective planes. Thus, what Gleason called Fano planes do not satisfy Fano's axiom.

Configurations
The Fano plane contains the following numbers of configurations of points and lines of different types. For each type of configuration, the number of copies of configuration multiplied by the number of symmetries of the plane that keep the configuration unchanged is equal to 168, the size of the entire collineation group, provided each copy can be mapped to any other copy (see Orbit-stabiliser theorem). Since the Fano plane is self-dual, these configurations come in dual pairs and it can be shown that the number of collineations fixing a configuration equals the number of collineations that fix its dual configuration.
 * There are 7 points with 24 symmetries fixing any point and dually, there are 7 lines with 24 symmetries fixing any line. The number of symmetries follows from the 2-transitivity of the collineation group, which implies the group acts transitively on the points.
 * There are 42 ordered pairs of points, and each may be mapped by a symmetry onto any other ordered pair. For any ordered pair there are 4 symmetries fixing it. Correspondingly, there are 21 unordered pairs of points, each of which may be mapped by a symmetry onto any other unordered pair. For any unordered pair there are 8 symmetries fixing it.
 * There are 21 flags consisting of a line and a point on that line. Each flag corresponds to the unordered pair of the other two points on the same line. For each flag, 8 different symmetries keep it fixed.
 * There are 7 ways of selecting a quadrangle of four (unordered) points no three of which are collinear. These four points form the complement of a line, which is the diagonal line of the quadrangle and a collineation fixes the quadrangle if and only if it fixes the diagonal line. Thus, there are 24 symmetries that fix any such quadrangle. The dual configuration is a quadrilateral consisting of four lines no three of which meet at a point and their six points of intersection, it is the complement of a point in the Fano plane.
 * There are $\tbinom{7}{3}$ = 35 triples of points, seven of which are collinear triples, leaving 28 non-collinear triples or triangles. The configuration consisting of the three points of a triangle and the three lines joining pairs of these points is represented by a 6-cycle in the Heawood graph. A color-preserving automorphism of the Heawood graph that fixes each vertex of a 6-cycle must be the identity automorphism. This means that there are 168 labeled triangles fixed only by the identity collineation and only six collineations that stabilize an unlabeled triangle, one for each permutation of the points. These 28 triangles may be viewed as corresponding to the 28 bitangents of a quartic. There are 84 ways of specifying a triangle together with one distinguished point on that triangle and two symmetries fixing this configuration. The dual of the triangle configuration is also a triangle.
 * There are 28 ways of selecting a point and a line that are not incident to each other (an anti-flag), and six ways of permuting the Fano plane while keeping an anti-flag fixed. For every non-incident point-line pair (p, l), the three points that are unequal to p and that do not belong to l form a triangle, and for every triangle there is a unique way of grouping the remaining four points into an anti-flag.
 * There are 28 ways of specifying a hexagon in which no three consecutive vertices lie on a line, and six symmetries fixing any such hexagon.
 * There are 84 ways of specifying a pentagon in which no three consecutive vertices lie on a line, and two symmetries fixing any pentagon.

The Fano plane is an example of an (n3)-configuration, that is, a set of n points and n lines with three points on each line and three lines through each point. The Fano plane, a (73)-configuration, is unique and is the smallest such configuration. According to a theorem by Steinitz configurations of this type can be realized in the Euclidean plane having at most one curved line (all other lines lying on Euclidean lines).

Block design theory
The Fano plane is a small symmetric block design, specifically a 2-(7, 3, 1)-design. The points of the design are the points of the plane, and the blocks of the design are the lines of the plane. As such it is a valuable example in (block) design theory.

With the points labelled 0, 1, 2, ..., 6 the lines (as point sets) are the translates of the (7, 3, 1) planar difference set given by $\{0, 1, 3\}$ in the group Z / 7Z. With the lines labeled ℓ0, ..., ℓ6 the incidence matrix (table) is given by:

 * {| class="wikitable"

! |0||1||2||3||4||5||6 !ℓ0 |bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||0||0 !ℓ1 |0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||0 !ℓ2 |0||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0 !ℓ3 |0||0||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1 !ℓ4 |bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||0||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0 !ℓ5 |0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||0||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||bgcolor="#9cf"|1 !ℓ6 |bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1||0||0||0||bgcolor="#9cf"|1
 * }
 * }

Steiner system
The Fano plane, as a block design, is a Steiner triple system. As such, it can be given the structure of a quasigroup. This quasigroup coincides with the multiplicative structure defined by the unit octonions e1, e2, ..., e7 (omitting 1) if the signs of the octonion products are ignored.

Matroid theory
The Fano matroid F7 is formed by taking the Fano plane's points as the ground set, and the three-element noncollinear subsets as bases.

The Fano plane is one of the important examples in the structure theory of matroids. Excluding the Fano plane as a matroid minor is necessary to characterize several important classes of matroids, such as regular, graphic, and cographic ones.

If you break one line apart into three 2-point lines you obtain the "non-Fano configuration", which can be embedded in the real plane. It is another important example in matroid theory, as it must be excluded for many theorems to hold.

PG(3, 2)
The Fano plane can be extended in a third dimension to form a three-dimensional projective space, denoted by PG(3, 2). It has 15 points, 35 lines, and 15 planes and is the smallest three-dimensional projective space. It also has the following properties:
 * Each point is contained in 7 lines and 7 planes.
 * Each line is contained in 3 planes and contains 3 points.
 * Each plane contains 7 points and 7 lines.
 * Each plane is isomorphic to the Fano plane.
 * Every pair of distinct planes intersect in a line.
 * A line and a plane not containing the line intersect in exactly one point.

title: Fano plane


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GPL linking exception

A GPL linking exception modifies the GNU General Public License (GPL) in a way that enables software projects which provide library code to be "linked to" the programs that use them, without applying the full terms of the GPL to the using program. Linking is the technical process of connecting code in a library to the using code, to produce a single executable file. It is performed either at compile time or run-time in order to produce functional machine-readable code. The Free Software Foundation states that, without applying the linking exception, a program linked to GPL library code may only be distributed under a GPL-compatible license. This has not been explicitly tested in court, but linking violations have resulted in settlement. The license of the GNU Classpath project explicitly includes a statement to that effect.

Many free software libraries which are distributed under the GPL use an equivalent exception, although the wording of the exception varies. Notable projects include ERIKA Enterprise, GNU Guile, the run-time libraries of GNAT, GNU Classpath and the GCC Runtime Library Exception.

Compiler runtime libraries also often use this license modification or an equivalent one, e.g. the  library in the GNU Compiler Collection, as well as all libraries of the Free Pascal project.

In 2007, Sun Microsystems released most of the source code to the class libraries for the Java SE and Java EE projects under version 2 of the GPL license plus the Classpath linking exception, and used the same license as one possible license for their enterprise server GlassFish and for their NetBeans Java IDE.

Version 3 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is likewise constructed as an exception to the GPL.

The Classpath exception
The GNU Classpath project provides an example of the use of such a GPL linking exception. The GNU Classpath library uses the following license:

"Classpath is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License with the following clarification and special exception.

Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole combination.

As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but you are not obliged to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version."

As such, it can be used to run, create and distribute a large class of applications and applets. When GNU Classpath is used unmodified as the core class library for a virtual machine, compiler for the Java language, or for a program written in the Java programming language, it does not affect the licensing for distributing those programs directly.

The GNU Lesser General Public License
While version 2.1 of the LGPL was a standalone licence, the current LGPL version 3 is based on a reference to the GPL.

Compared to the GNU Classpath license above, the LGPL formulates more requirements to the linking exception: licensees must allow modification of the portions of the library they use and reverse engineering (of their software and the library) for debugging such modifications.

title: GPL linking exception


text:
Bluegrass region

The Bluegrass region is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It makes up the central and northern part of the state, roughly bounded by the cities of Frankfort, Paris, Richmond and Stanford. It is part of the Interior Low Plateaus ecoregion.

"Bluegrass" is a common name given in the United States for grass of the Poa genus, the most famous being the Kentucky bluegrass. Despite its name, Kentucky Bluegrass is native to Europe and was likely introduced around 1600.

Geology
The Bluegrass region is characterized by underlying fossiliferous limestone, dolomite, and shale of the Ordovician geological age. Hills are generally rolling, and the soil is highly fertile for growing pasture.

The Kentucky Bluegrass is bounded on the east by the Cumberland Plateau, with the Pottsville Escarpment forming the boundary. On the south and west, it borders the Pennyroyal Plateau, (also called the Pennyrile),  with  Muldraugh Hill, another escarpment, forming the boundary. Much of the region is drained by the Kentucky River and its tributaries. The river cuts a deep canyon called the Kentucky River Palisades through the region, preserving meanders that indicate that the river was once a mature low valley that was suddenly uplifted. Particularly near the Kentucky River, the region exhibits Karst topography, with sinkholes, caves, and disappearing streams that drain underground to the river.

Prehistory
Before European-American settlement, various cultures of Indigenous peoples of the Americas lived in the region. The pre-colonization state of the Bluegrass is poorly known, but it is thought to have been a type of savannah known as oak savanna, with open grassland containing clover, giant river cane (a type of bamboo), and scattered enormous trees, primarily bur oak, blue ash, Shumard's oak, chinkapin oak, and kingnut hickory. Some of these trees, which are hundreds of years old, still stand in old pastures in the Bluegrass. The thickets of giant river cane, known as canebrakes, created a dense undergrowth that made it impossible to find 10 uncleared acres that were not full of cane. The local indigenous peoples hunted its large herds of bison and other game, especially near mineral licks. The name "Kentucky" likely comes from the word for "meadow lands" in Iroquoian, but has several other possible origins. Europeans adopted the name to apply to the state. "Bluegrass" is a common name given in the United States for grass of the Poa genus, the most famous being the Kentucky bluegrass.

Post-colonial
During the decades which followed the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Americans settled in great numbers in the region. They migrated mostly from Virginia. By 1800 these planters noticed that horses grazed in the Bluegrass region were more hardy than those from other regions; this is due to the soil's high calcium content. Within decades of increased settlement, the remaining herds of bison had moved west. The breeding of Thoroughbred horses was developed in the region, as well as of other quality livestock. Kentucky livestock was driven to Tennessee and other areas of the Ohio River valley for sale.

Planters, supported by slave labor, also cultivated major commodity crops on plantations, such as tobacco, hemp (see Hemp in Kentucky), and grapes (see Kentucky wine). The first commercial winery in the United States was opened in the Bluegrass region in 1801, in present-day Jessamine County by a group of Swiss immigrants. It was authorized by the Kentucky General Assembly.

20th century to present
Since the antebellum years, the region has been a center for breeding quality livestock, especially thoroughbred race horses. Since the late 20th century, the area has become increasingly developed with residential and commercial properties, particularly around Lexington, the business center. Farms are losing ground to development and slowly disappearing. In 2006, the World Monuments Fund included the Bluegrass region on its global list of 100 most endangered sites.

Although Bluegrass music is popular throughout the region, the genre is named after the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, which in turn took their name from the state nickname of Kentucky.

title: Bluegrass region


text:
Salt pan (geology)

Natural salt pans or salt flats are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts and are natural formations (unlike salt evaporation ponds, which are artificial).

A salt pan forms by evaporation of a water pool, such as a lake or pond. This happens in climates where the rate of water evaporation exceeds the rate of precipitation—that is, in a desert. If the water cannot drain into the ground, it remains on the surface until it evaporates, leaving behind minerals precipitated from the salt ions dissolved in the water. Over thousands of years, the minerals (usually salts) accumulate on the surface. These minerals reflect the sun's rays and often appear as white areas.

Salt pans can be dangerous. The crust of salt can conceal a quagmire of mud that can engulf a truck. The Qattara Depression in the eastern Sahara Desert contains many such traps which served as strategic barriers during World War II.

Examples
The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where many land speed records have been set, are a well-known salt pan in the arid regions of the western United States.

The Etosha pan, in the Etosha National Park in Namibia, is another prominent example of a salt pan.

The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest salt pan in the world. As of 2024, with an estimated 23 million tons, Bolivia holds about 22% of the world's known lithium resources (105 million tons); most of those are in the Salar de Uyuni. The large area, clear skies, and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites.

Parts of Rann of Kutch (India) are salt marsh in the wet season and salt pan in the dry season.

title: Salt pan (geology)


text:
Overloading

The term overloading may refer to:
 * Function overloading, a software engineering process whereby multiple functions of different types are defined with the same name
 * Operator overloading, a software engineering process whereby operators (e.g.  or  ) are treated as polymorphic functions having different behaviors depending on the types of arguments used
 * Overloading (chess), a tactical theme arising out of an opponent piece performing more than one defensive task in the game
 * Overloading, in weight training, refers to performing exercises with higher resistance than the muscles can handle, causing microtrauma which leads to hypertrophy or muscle growth

title: Overloading


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Type introspection

In computing, type introspection is the ability of a program to examine the type or properties of an object at runtime. Some programming languages possess this capability.

Introspection should not be confused with reflection, which goes a step further and is the ability for a program to manipulate the metadata, properties, and functions of an object at runtime. Some programming languages also possess that capability (e.g., Java, Python, Julia, and Go).

Objective-C
In Objective-C, for example, both the generic Object and NSObject (in Cocoa/OpenStep) provide the method isMemberOfClass: which returns true if the argument to the method is an instance of the specified class. The method isKindOfClass: analogously returns true if the argument inherits from the specified class.

For example, say we have an Apple and an Orange class inheriting from Fruit.

Now, in the eat method we can write

Now, when eat is called with a generic object (an id), the function will behave correctly depending on the type of the generic object.

C++
C++ supports type introspection via the run-time type information (RTTI) typeid and dynamic_cast keywords. The dynamic_cast expression can be used to determine whether a particular object is of a particular derived class. For instance: The typeid operator retrieves a std::type_info object describing the most derived type of an object:

Object Pascal
Type introspection has been a part of Object Pascal since the original release of Delphi, which uses RTTI heavily for visual form design. In Object Pascal, all classes descend from the base TObject class, which implements basic RTTI functionality. Every class's name can be referenced in code for RTTI purposes; the class name identifier is implemented as a pointer to the class's metadata, which can be declared and used as a variable of type TClass. The language includes an is operator, to determine if an object is or descends from a given class, an as operator, providing a type-checked typecast, and several TObject methods. Deeper introspection (enumerating fields and methods) is traditionally only supported for objects declared in the $M+ (a pragma) state, typically TPersistent, and only for symbols defined in the published section. Delphi 2010 increased this to nearly all symbols.

Java
The simplest example of type introspection in Java is the instanceof operator. The instanceof operator determines whether a particular object belongs to a particular class (or a subclass of that class, or a class that implements that interface). For instance:

The java.lang.Class class is the basis of more advanced introspection.

For instance, if it is desirable to determine the actual class of an object (rather than whether it is a member of a particular class), Object.getClass and Class.getName can be used:

PHP
In PHP introspection can be done using instanceof operator. For instance:

Perl
Introspection can be achieved using the ref and isa functions in Perl.

We can introspect the following classes and their corresponding instances: using:

Meta-Object Protocol
Much more powerful introspection in Perl can be achieved using the Moose object system and the Class::MOP meta-object protocol; for example, you can check if a given object does a role X:

This is how you can list fully qualified names of all of the methods that can be invoked on the object, together with the classes in which they were defined:

Python
The most common method of introspection in Python is using the dir function to detail the attributes of an object. For example:

Also, the built-in functions type and isinstance can be used to determine what an object is while hasattr can determine what an object does. For example:

Ruby
Type introspection is a core feature of Ruby. In Ruby, the Object class (ancestor of every class) provides Object#instance_of? and Object#kind_of? methods for checking the instance's class. The latter returns true when the particular instance the message was sent to is an instance of a descendant of the class in question. For example, consider the following example code (you can immediately try this with the Interactive Ruby Shell): In the example above, the Class class is used as any other class in Ruby. Two classes are created, A and B, the former is being a superclass of the latter, then one instance of each class is checked. The last expression gives true because A is a superclass of the class of b.

Further, you can directly ask for the class of any object, and "compare" them (code below assumes having executed the code above):

ActionScript
In ActionScript (as3), the function  can be used to retrieve the class/type name of an arbitrary object.

Alternatively, the operator  can be used to determine if an object is of a specific type:

This second function can be used to test class inheritance parents as well:

Meta-type introspection
Like Perl, ActionScript can go further than getting the class name, but all the metadata, functions and other elements that make up an object using the  function; this is used when implementing reflection in ActionScript.

title: Type introspection


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St Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava

St Martin's Cathedral (Katedrála svätého Martina or Dóm svätého Martina, Szent Márton-dóm or Koronázó templom, Kathedrale des Heiligen Martin) is a church in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Bratislava.

It is situated at the western border of the historical city center below Bratislava Castle. It is the largest and one of the oldest churches in Bratislava, known especially for being the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1563 and 1830.

Together with the castle on the hill adjacent, and somewhat similar in its striking, but fairly stark Gothic lines and colouring, St Martin's tower and spire, at 85 m, dominates Old Town's skyline. The tower virtually formed a part of the town's fortifications, built as it was into the city's defensive walls.

As with the castle, the surroundings of St Martin's are as memorable as the structure itself. In the cathedral's case, this includes the picturesque remains of outbuildings in a spacious staired courtyard, and a working seminary with robed students on a cobblestone side-street.

A small but significant neighbour of the cathedral is a monument to the synagogue, which stood next door for centuries until the Communist government demolished it around 1970 to make room for a new bridge, Nový Most. The cathedral contains the remains of Saint John the Merciful who died in the early 7th century.

Structure, shape and characteristics
The nave of the structure consists of three aisles divided by two rows of eight columns. The nave is 69.37 m by 22.85 m with a maximum height of 16.02 m. The tower is 85 m high and at one time was part of the medieval city fortifications. The cathedral is constructed as traditional cruciform basilica.

Together with the castle on the hill adjacent, and somewhat similar in its striking but fairly stark Gothic lines and colouring, St Martin's spire dominates Old Town's skyline.

As with the castle, the surroundings of St Martin's are as memorable as the structure itself. The cathedral sits amid picturesque remains of outbuildings in a spacious stepped courtyard, and a working seminary with robed students on a cobblestoned side-street. The spire is capped by a replica of the Hungarian Crown resting on a gilded pillow.

The altar is dominated by an equestrian statue group depicting St Martin in a typical Hungarian hussar dress. The saint is dividing his cloak to give part to a beggar as protection from the cold.

Construction history
Long before the construction of the cathedral, the site had been the crossroads and contained the former centre of the town, a market and probably also a chapel. Worship services were held at Bratislava Castle, where the chapter and provost's office had their seat. As the visits became less bearable and the castle's safety was threatened, King Emeric of Hungary requested the Pope Innocent III for permission to relocate the provost's office into forecastle, and the pope assented in 1204. The church was relocated in 1221, and was originally built in Romanesque style and dedicated to the Holy Saviour.

As the town grew into a city and received additional privileges in 1291, the sanctuary became insufficient for its needs. Construction of a new Gothic cathedral began in 1311 on the site of the earlier church and an adjacent cemetery.

Construction continued until 1452 due to the difficulty of construction and lack of funding. For a period in the early fifteenth century, construction halted due to the Hussite Wars. In 1452, the church was finally completed and consecrated, however, work continued until the sixteenth century. During this period, a new long presbytery and the Gothic chapels of Czech Queen Sofia and of Saint Anne were added in the 15th century.

Eighteenth century additions to the sanctuary include the Baroque Chapel of John the Merciful, and serves as a mausoleum. It was constructed at the price of 2000 pieces of gold at the expense of Cardinal Emeric Esterházy and the famous Baroque equestrian sculpture of St Martin was added in 1744. Both works were designed by Georg Rafael Donner

In 1760, the top of the Gothic tower was struck by lightning and later replaced by a Baroque one, which was subsequently destroyed by fire in 1835 and reconstructed in 1847 (with some modifications), and topped by the crown of St Stephen (see below).

The church attained its present-day appearance during the period 1869 to 1877, when it was re-Gothicised after suffering damage by fire, war, earthquake and other disasters.

Coronations

The cathedral became the coronation church of the sovereigns of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1563, succeeding the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár, after the Ottoman Empire conquered that city. On 8 September 1563, the Crown of St Stephen was placed on the head of Maximilian II, son of Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg. In total, the coronations of eleven kings and queens, plus eight of their consorts occurred here between 1563 and 1830, including Maria Theresa of Austria.

List of crowned kings/queens and of their consorts, with dates in parentheses:

Crown of St Stephen

The tower is topped by a gold-plated replica of the Crown of St Stephen. It was placed in 1847 following restoration of the damaged tower, to commemorate the cathedral's importance as a coronation church. It weighs 150 kg, measures over 1 m in diameter, and rests on a 1.2 m by 1.2 m gold-plated pillow and stands 1.64 m high. The pillow and crown contain a total of 8 kg of gold and were restored in August 2010.

Catacombs, crypts and sepulchres
Since the cathedral was built over a cemetery, it contains catacombs of unknown length and crypts holding the sepulchres of many significant historical figures, up to 6 m below the church. To date, three crypts are known:
 * Pálffy family crypt (A Pálffy család kriptája) is located under the main altar (sanctuary) and is accessed from the exterior. Entrance to this crypt is at the northern side of the cathedral and is covered by a white marble slab bearing the coat of arms of the Pálffy family. Above is a funeral sculpture by Ján Draškovch from the year 1613, depicting a knight in armour and a sea shell. The Pálffy family was notable in Bratislava as they were the hereditary owners of the Bratislava Castle.
 * Jesuit crypt (A jezsuiták kriptája) is accessible from chapel of Saint Anne and is located under the road between the cathedral and the adjacent seminary.
 * Archbishop's crypt (Érseki kripta) is accessible from the chapel of Saint Anne and is the only crypt open to the public. It branches into four hallways under the nave in the direction of Kapitulská Street and contains over 90 graves.

Over the centuries, the cathedral's sepulchres filled with many significant figures, such as ecclesiastic dignitaries, presidents of the historic Pozsony county as well as Jozef Ignác Bajza, the author of the first novel in Slovak, but also with dozens of bishops, canons, French priests fleeing the French Revolution and many people outside the Catholic Church.

Present
Today, the church is deteriorating due to vibrations caused by heavy traffic on the access ramp to the nearby Nový Most. Restoration efforts began in 1997 and the cathedral has been a national cultural monument since 11 November 2002.

Since 2003, it has hosted the Korunovačné slávnosti (Coronation Feasts) festival which re-enacts the coronation of one of the monarchs crowned in the cathedral. From 1995 to February 2008 it was the co-cathedral of the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava.

Additional information
Video and Photo of reconstruction of gold-plated representation of the Crown of St Stephen (in Slovak).

title: St Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava


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Ad hoc polymorphism

In programming languages, ad hoc polymorphism is a kind of polymorphism in which polymorphic functions can be applied to arguments of different types, because a polymorphic function can denote a number of distinct and potentially heterogeneous implementations depending on the type of argument(s) to which it is applied. When applied to object-oriented or procedural concepts, it is also known as function overloading or operator overloading. The term ad hoc in this context is not intended to be pejorative; it refers simply to the fact that this type of polymorphism is not a fundamental feature of the type system. This is in contrast to parametric polymorphism, in which polymorphic functions are written without mention of any specific type, and can thus apply a single abstract implementation to any number of types in a transparent way. This classification was introduced by Christopher Strachey in 1967.

Early binding
Ad hoc polymorphism is a dispatch mechanism: control moving through one named function is dispatched to various other functions without having to specify the exact function being called. Overloading allows multiple functions taking different types to be defined with the same name; the compiler or interpreter automatically ensures that the right function is called. This way, functions appending lists of integers, lists of strings, lists of real numbers, and so on could be written, and all be called append—and the right append function would be called based on the type of lists being appended. This differs from parametric polymorphism, in which the function would need to be written generically, to work with any kind of list. Using overloading, it is possible to have a function perform two completely different things based on the type of input passed to it; this is not possible with parametric polymorphism (but would have to be achieved with switching on the type inside the generic function). Another way to look at overloading is that a routine is uniquely identified not by its name, but by the combination of its name and the number, order and types of its parameters.

This type of polymorphism is common in object-oriented programming languages, many of which allow operators to be overloaded in a manner similar to functions (see operator overloading). Some languages that are not dynamically typed and lack ad hoc polymorphism (including type classes) have longer function names such as ,  , etc. This can be seen as advantage (more descriptive) or a disadvantage (overly verbose) depending on one's point of view.

An advantage that is sometimes gained from overloading is the appearance of specialization, e.g., a function with the same name can be implemented in multiple different ways, each optimized for the particular data types that it operates on. This can provide a convenient interface for code that needs to be specialized to multiple situations for performance reasons. The downside is that the type system cannot guarantee the consistency of the different implementations.

Since overloading is done at compile time, it is not a substitute for late binding as found in subtyping polymorphism.

Late binding
The previous section notwithstanding, there are other ways in which ad hoc polymorphism can work out. Consider for example the Smalltalk language. In Smalltalk, the overloading is done at run time, as the methods ("function implementation") for each overloaded message ("overloaded function") are resolved when they are about to be executed. This happens at run time, after the program is compiled. Therefore, polymorphism is given by subtyping polymorphism as in other languages, and it is also extended in functionality by ad hoc polymorphism at run time.

A closer look will also reveal that Smalltalk provides a slightly different variety of ad hoc polymorphism. Since Smalltalk has a late bound execution model, and since it provides objects the ability to handle messages that are not understood, it is possible to implement functionality using polymorphism without explicitly overloading a particular message. This may not be generally recommended practice for everyday programming, but it can be quite useful when implementing proxies.

Also, while in general terms common class method and constructor overloading is not considered polymorphism, there are more uniform languages in which classes are regular objects. In Smalltalk, for instance, classes are regular objects. In turn, this means messages sent to classes can be overloaded, and it is also possible to create objects that behave like classes without their classes inheriting from the hierarchy of classes. These are effective techniques that can be used to take advantage of Smalltalk's powerful reflection capabilities. Similar arrangements are also possible in languages such as Self and Newspeak.

Example
Imagine an operator  that may be used in the following ways: To handle these six function calls, four different pieces of code are needed (or three, if strings are considered to be lists of characters): Thus, the name  actually refers to three or four completely different functions. This is an example of overloading or more specifically, operator overloading.
 * In the first case, integer addition must be invoked.
 * In the second and third cases, floating-point addition must be invoked (with type promotion, or type coercion, in the third case).
 * In the fourth and fifth cases, list concatenation must be invoked.
 * In the last case, string concatenation must be invoked.

Note the ambiguity in the string types used in the last case. Consider  in which the programmer might naturally assume addition rather than concatenation. They may expect  instead of. Overloading can therefore provide different meaning, or semantics, for an operation, as well as differing implementations.

title: Ad hoc polymorphism


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GNU Classpath

GNU Classpath is a free software implementation of the standard class library for the Java programming language. Most classes from J2SE 1.4 and 5.0 are implemented. Classpath can thus be used to run Java-based applications. GNU Classpath is a part of the GNU Project. It was originally developed in parallel with libgcj due to license incompatibilities, but later the two projects merged.

GNU Classpath was deemed a high priority project by the Free Software Foundation. When the Classpath project began, the license for the official Java implementation from Sun Microsystems did not allow distribution of any alterations. Since the inception of the Classpath project, the OpenJDK was released under the GPL and now serves as the official reference implementation for the Java platform.

License
GNU Classpath is licensed under the GNU General Public License with a linking exception. This is a free software license. All code is formally owned by the Free Software Foundation, and this owner is bound by its own contractual obligations to the developers.

Uses
GNU Classpath is used by many free Java runtimes (like Kaffe, SableVM, JamVM, Jikes RVM, and VMKit) because every full-featured Java virtual machine must provide an implementation of the standard class libraries.

Some other uses include:
 * The GNU Compiler for Java, which is capable of compiling Java code into native standalone executables.
 * GCJAppletViewer for launching Java applets from command line if they are not supported by the browser in use.
 * IKVM.NET, which integrates Java with the .NET Framework
 * JNode, an operating system for running Java applications. This system is written in Java and assembler only.
 * Specialised virtual machines such as Jaos for integration with the Oberon programming language, and JamaicaVM for embedded systems with real-time guarantees.
 * Virtual machines for distributed computing with clusters, having up to 128 processors on Myrinet.
 * The IcedTea project used GNU Classpath as a replacement for proprietary elements of OpenJDK, prior to their replacement upstream.

History
GNU Classpath development started in 1998 with five developers. During the history, it merged several times with other projects having similar goals (Kaffe, libgcj). In the past, GNU Classpath supplied its own virtual machine (Japhar). As Classpath was becoming a base library, shared with a lot of different projects, this virtual machine received less and less attention and is now no longer supported.

After implementing the majority of the official Java 1.4 API, the work in the project became more bug oriented rather than API coverage oriented. On October 24, 2006, the implementation of the last missing 1.4 class, HTMLWriter, was committed. The development speed (computed mathematically as the average number of the new lines of code per day) reached its highest ever in 2006.

The name GNU Classpath was originally suggested by Bradley M. Kuhn to one of the first developers, Paul Fisher. At the time, there was great concern in the Free Java implementations community about enforcement of Sun's trademark on Java against free implementations. Kuhn suggested the name $CLASSPATH, which is the environment variable used by most Java systems to indicate where the Java libraries reside on the computer. Since $CLASSPATH often expanded to a path name that included the word java (such as ), it was a way to evoke the name Java without actually saying it. Fisher and other developers didn't like the unsightly use of the $ and all capital letters and settled on Classpath.

Development team
The maintainer takes care of the legal side of the project, prepares the regular project releases and does some quality management. The maintainer also grants the CVS access permissions.

GNU Classpath has no formal hierarchy. The work is done by the most technically capable, and there is no strict work division either. All code changes are first posted to the discussion list as patches where they can be opposed if needed. The project typically receives between five and eight patches per day.

The GNU Classpath library code coverage progress can be tracked against OpenJDK6 and OpenJDK7.

Virtual machine integration
GNU Classpath contains classes from the official Java API namespace. Where calls to native code are necessary or highly desired, this is done from a small number of "VM" classes. The name of such a VM class matches the name of the class requiring native methods, plus the additional VM prefix: VMObject, VMString and so on. VM classes, stored separately from the rest of code, are package private and final. The methods of these classes contain the keyword native, indicating the necessity of the supporting native library. Such libraries are provided by the authors of a Java virtual machine, hence GNU Classpath can be connected to nearly any Java virtual machine if the sources of such virtual machine are available and can be modified.

Support for the new language features in Java 1.5
Before version 0.95, each GNU Classpath release consisted of two separate release tarballs; one that represented the state of the main development branch and another that contained the contents of a more experimental branch, supporting the additions, such as generics, enumerations and annotations, present in Java 1.5.

Since version 0.95, Java 1.5 additions like generics have been fully integrated into the main branch. The branch can be built by using the Eclipse compiler, ecj, to compile Java 1.5 source code to bytecode. In the case of GCJ, it uses ecj to perform this initial stage, then converts the bytecode to native code. From 0.95 onwards, GNU Classpath also supports compiling and running the newly GPLed open-source javac compiler using GNU Classpath and also allows the GNU Classpath class library, tools and examples to be compiled with javac itself.

Classes from the omg.org domain
GNU Classpath does not accept any code that has a non-free license, or that was automatically generated from code with a non-free license. The standard Java API contains numerous classes from the omg.org domain that are normally generated from the IDL files, released by the Object Management Group. The "use, but no modify" license of these files counts as non-free. For this reason, the mentioned classes in the GNU Classpath project were written from scratch, using only the official printed OMG specifications. Hence this part of GNU Classpath is as free as any other code in the project.

title: GNU Classpath


text:
Talk:St Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava

Stray comments
It was added to the culture monument list in 1963, not 2002 http://www.pamiatky.sk/po/po/Details?id=261

Where is the cathedral? How old is it? Who built it? Wetman 09:02, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Coronations were held in Székesfehérvár (Stolicny Belehrad in Slovak) and not in Belgrade (Belehrad in Slovak). I corrected it. Tankred 21:05, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The great "concathedral" mystery
What is a "concathedral" (and how is it different from a "cathedral")? I can't find "concathedral" in any dictionary. --Math2000 23:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure whether it is the same thing (you would have to ask some Catholicism expert), but see co-cathedral Juro 23:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

concathedral == Minster (cathedral)?? MikeGogulski 21:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

 * You can find a proper definition here: Co-cathedral. Adelshaus (talk) 19:40, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Hungary
I accidentally did not realize that this tag was put on in an earlier version so I removed it but i think this is a very important historical Hungarian building because it is the Hungarian coronation church, so the WikiProject Hungary tag would be rightful here.

I can not accept Tulkolahten' opinion that ":this is a long time consensus. WikiProjects of other countries don't belong to other countries" Nmate (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:St Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava


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User:Kewpid

» articles i have significantly contributed to

Carmel Tebbutt, Compulsory Superannuation in Australia, Don Watson, Goods and Services Tax (Australia), Human rights in Australia, James Ruse Agricultural High School, Miranda Devine

» law-related articles i have started

There is a strong possibility that some of the information in these case articles is inaccurate or just wrong. I am not the best law student in the world. If you arrived here from Google, please keep that in mind.

 * Murphyores Inc Pty Ltd v Commonwealth (1976) 136 CLR 1
 * R v Burgess; Ex parte Henry (1936) 55 CLR 608
 * Swift Australian Co (Pty) Ltd v Boyd Parkinson (1962) 108 CLR 189
 * Redfern v Dunlop Rubber Australia Ltd (1964) 110 CLR 194
 * Commonwealth v Bank of New South Wales [1950] AC 235
 * Cole v Whitfield (1988) 165 CLR 360
 * R v Barger (1908) 6 CLR 41
 * Fairfax v Commissioner of Taxation (1965) 114 CLR 1
 * Northern Suburbs General Cemetery Reserve Trust v Commonwealth (1993) 176 CLR 555
 * Air Caledonie v Commonwealth (1988) 165 CLR 462
 * Australian Tape Manufacturers Association Ltd v Commonwealth (1993) 176 CLR 480
 * Luton v Lessels (2002) 165 CLR 462
 * Airservices Australia v Canadian Airlines International Ltd (2000) 202 CLR 133
 * South Australia v Commonwealth (1942) 65 CLR 373 ("the First Uniform Tax Case")
 * Victoria v Commonwealth (1957) (1957) 99 CLR 575 ("the Second Uniform Tax case")
 * Austin v Commonwealth (2003) 215 CLR 185
 * Coleman v Power (2004) 220 CLR 1
 * Kable v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (1996) 189 CLR 51
 * Victoria v Commonwealth (1971) (1971) 122 CLR 353
 * Fardon v Attorney-General (Qld) (2004) 210 CLR 50
 * Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh (1995) 183 CLR 273

title: User:Kewpid


text:
Little shag

Little shag may refer to:

 * Little pied cormorant, or little [pied] shag (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos)
 * Little black cormorant, or little black shag (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris)
 * Little cormorant (Phalacrocorax niger)

title: Little shag