text:
Talk:Lorem ipsum

Is lorem ipsum always latinlike?
Are there lorem ipsa for strangers scripts such as Greek or Cyrillic, or even Chinese characters ? 81.185.159.85 (talk) 11:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you can get lorem ipsum style filler texts customized to fit the alphabet and common letter frequencies of most languages. The nell 87 (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Loren ipsum generators
If one generator is listed, this would be the best one: http://meettheipsums.com/ (Cat Ipsum, Samuel L Ipsum, Cheese Ipsum...)

For web development we have always used https://www.lipsum.com/ as it can generate paragraphs, words and lists — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unphazed2048 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

 * I found another:
 * Lorem ipsum at loremipsum.io
 * There is some interesting detail in the home page which, if verified, could be usefully merged into the article. Ditto for www.lipsum.com.
 * Enquire (talk) 22:33, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Not Mac alone
I don't have a citation, but I used Aldus PageMaker for many years, beginning in the 80s, on my PC.Jim Stinson (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The only proper version
I think it should be stated somewhere in the synopsis that there's no such thing as "lorem ipsum" and the term and the text are badly misused everywhere: there is only one true and proper version---the Latin original that starts with "Sed ut perspiciatis...", and that's the text people should use a a placeholder instead of the bogus "lorem ipsum." If you read the original, you'll even discover that there's no such word "lorem", it is but a part of the real word "dolorem" in the real text; and there are many other missing parts in what people erroneously call "lorem ipsum." Please remember: there is no lorem ipsum whatsoever, it is but a strange mangling of the real thing. Use the proper text, don't fall for bogus terms and incomplete text! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.195.194.100 (talk) 12:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

exactly. there is no reason to use fake latin whatsoever — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.170.86.132 (talk) 13:21, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

That misses the point of the text, which isn't stated in the article (but should be, if someone can find a source for it). It's modified from the original so that it looks more like English without actually being English, such as "adipiscing", with English's common -ing ending, and "exercitation", with English's -tion form. Part of the look is the whitespace between and around words, and actual Latin just wouldn't look right - "ing" at the end of English words is very common, but you don't find letters with descenders like "g" at the end of Latin words. PaulGS (talk)

 * All three of you are missing the other point of the text: it isn't supposed to make sense. It's only there to take up space to show how words would look in that space. A text with an actual meaning wouldn't be a placeholder, it would simply be a presentation of a particular text. --Khajidha (talk) 11:11, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

 * It would be if you don't understand the language - for those who don't know Latin, the original text makes just as much sense as the scrambled version. But you're correct - it's not supposed to make sense, since the whole point is to get the reader to focus on the design, not the content, and text in a language the reader doesn't understand does that. PaulGS (talk) 18:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The entry may have some major factual errors
According to the story of lorem ipsum, the origins of lorem ipsum are way back in the renaissance, and not the 1960s or before (though, technically, the renaissance IS before the 1960s). Also, according to my University Latin teacher, Dr. Ludlam, the book title is not “On the Extremes of Good and Evil”, but “On the Goals/Ends of Good and Bad Things”. Cicero had to have a long title, where Greek had a very short one (“On Goals”), because Greek ethics had well-established vocabulary. Ronbarak (talk) 21:53, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

 * Hi there, [User:Ronbarak|Ronbarak]]. Which book title are you talking about? I couldn't find any reference to a book called On the Extremes of Good and Evil in the article. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 09:31, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Visual presentation?
It obviously has no letters "k", "y", and "w" (which is mentioned in the 1st reference, but not in the article) and generally has almost no descenders and much less ascenders than a real English text, so the leading is perceived differently. Are there any studies how representative it actually is? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Lorem ipsum right location in Cicero's original
I was researching on this and the latin source seems to have the wrong numbers. I think it is supposed to be 1.32.10 or something similar, but never 1.10.32 (first number is book, second is section and third is verse number, I guess original editor inverted them). You can check here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Cic.+Fin.+1.32&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0036 http://latin.packhum.org/loc/474/48/10/490-501@1#10

If original editor sees this please provide source or update to reflect right numbers: "1.32" would suffice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.58.104.202 (talk) 03:06, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Non tantum te,
& Idk quid in anime sit? Djohn254 (talk) 12:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

History
I've seen numerous claims that the use of the lorem ipsum passage in typesetting samples dates back centuries, possibly as far back as the 1500s, but the article mentions its use only "since at least the 1960s" by LetraSet. The linked source "Lorem ipsum : nouvel état de la question" makes the claim (in French) that it doesn't have a long history at all but originates with LetraSet. The article should probably at least make a reference to the rumoured historicity, if not to refute it then at least to acknowledge its dubiousness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.168.138.126 (talk) 08:37, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Second paragraph of common text?
Hi, a second paragraph in "a common form of lorem ipsum reads" does not seem to be very common, compared to the first paragraph. The first 32 words of the paragraph in quotes on Google yielded 15300000 results, while the first 32 words of the second paragraph got 27700 results, which is 0.002 times the first paragraph. In addition, the source text section only shows the source for the first paragraph. This makes it seem that a random wikipedia editor used a lorem ipsum generator to make a new paragraph, or something similar. Thus, I shall be removing the second paragraph. If there is evidence that suggests otherwise, you can revert it and please inform me. Thanks! Ajlee2006 (talk) 11:10, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit: nvm it's in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Lorem_ipsum, which has a lot more paragraphs?????idk but i wil limit the text in the article to the first paragraph for now Ajlee2006 (talk) 11:12, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

"original research"
Highlighting the specific words of lipsum in the Cicero passage is not original research. I do not understand why this template would be placed there: it's literally the text. What possible citation could there be for the fact that "dolorem ipsum" does in fact contain the string "lorem ipsum"? Text formatting does not require citations. jp×g🗯 20:41, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

highlighting
I feel that the use of highlighting for the corresponding text is unwarranted in this article. Pages for this article in other languages use bolding as opposed to highlighting, and I believe this is more appropriate for the usage case. Personally I find its use here jarring and unnecessary. Given the fact that highlighting is rarely used on wikipedia I think this is the best solution to this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Symetrical (talk • contribs) 13:07, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lorem ipsum


text:
Talk:Hammered dulcimer

A point in time?
"The importance of the method of setting the strings in vibration by means of hammers, and its bearing on the acoustics of the instrument, were recognized only when the invention of the pianoforte had become a matter of history. It was then perceived that the psalterium in which the strings were plucked, and the dulcimer in which they were struck, when provided with keyboards, gave rise to two distinct families of instruments..."

I contend that that's nonsense. When, exactly, did the invention of the piano "become a matter of history"? Who "perceived" the giving rise to two families? (How did "psaltery" become replaced by "psalterium"?) It's as if instrument makers had no idea what they were doing! In the 20th century, the acoustics of struck and plucked strings was carefully analyzed, showing that the two methods of sounding the strings gave entirely distinct sounds, distinct also from those of bowed strings. Long before pianos were invented, there were clavichords and spinets, and nobody had any problems distinguishing them. Unfree (talk) 06:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Paul Gifford
Paul Gifford apparently didn't know that 17th century instrument makers drew their own wire. The "availability" of brass wire had nothing to do with the evolution of brass wire instruments back then. Unfree (talk) 06:39, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Paul Gifford's assertion (he was seconding Herbert Heyde) was that the dulcimer appeared roughly at the same time as the clavichord and virginal, and that Henri Arnaut of Zwolle used the term "dulce melos" to apply to three different instruments. He felt that this was related to technological developments in the drawing of brass wire, which led to experimentation. Heyde's argument that the application of metallic wires to the "string drum" is supported by iconographic evidence. Gifford's argument is that this metal-strung string drum was the Germanic Hackbrett. In France (and England), the doulcemer appears to have been developed from the existing psaltery. But this development took place about the same time, in areas not too far apart (Lorraine/Burgundy for the French-speaking version and perhaps Switzerland for the Germanic instrument). Whether or not 17th-century instrument makers drew their own wire has nothing to do with this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.5.250.205 (talk) 01:22, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Confusion
Apparently, confusion is real, rife, and documentable. At www.dolmetsch.com, the entry under "psaltery" has it that "scholars have tried to distinguish between psaltery and dulcimer, proposing that a 'psaltery' is plucked while a 'dulcimer' is hit, and that both belong to a generic 'zither' family (distinct from specific instruments called 'zither' by their players); but this usage is an abstraction and has no basis in the traditional use of these names: there are plenty of illustrations where psalteries are hit and traditions where dulcimers are plucked" Unfree (talk) 06:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Tiompan
I was directed to this page after searching for 'tiompan'. The dulcimer has been equated with the tiompan in Ireland only recently, by the late Derek Bell, after Galpin's theories. However, this stands in opposition to the research which indicates that the tiompan was a native Gaelic instrument similar to the Welsh crwth and not a hammered dulcimer. There is no mention on the Hammered Dulcimer page that the hammered dulcimer is probably not an actual tiompan. I suggest that search entries for 'tiompan' lead to a Tiompan page, rather than a highly disputable (on this point) Hammered Dulcimer page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.108.116 (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * An article needs to be written first. Once that's done, then we can redirect. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 15:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I found it impossible to create a page called 'Tiompán' as matters stood. Immediately after writing the above comment, I created a page called 'An Tiompan Gàidhealach' and placed some information on the tiompan there. Perhaps searches for 'tiompan' can be directed to the Tiompan Gàidhealach page and the page be renamed 'Tiompán'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.108.116 (talk) 17:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I have done the redirects, now I think that the page An Tiompan Gàidhealach should be retitled "tiompan". I dont know how to do that. StrumStrumAndBeHanged (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The Santur was NOT invented 3500 years ago in Mesopotamia-Babylon era???
As an amateur santur player,this article has major flaws,in fact there are Babylonian depictions of santur and santur players as old as 1500 bc during the reign of Akkadian king Ammi-Saduqa(honest uncle in semitic)or Akkadian king Shamshu-Ditana(Given by sun to us in Semitic). Here below one of the first depictions of santur playing Akkadians.

http://www.turksanturu.com/tarihce_clip_image002_0004.jpg

http://www.turksanturu.com/tarihce_clip_image002_0002.jpg

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4586/akkadiansanturharp.jpg

Persians came very late to middle east and were ver few,they only imposed their language by a phenomenon of military elite dominance over the much more numerous local middle easterner townsmen and farmers,but the bulk of Iran's population ians,as proven by genetical studies,is the continuation of the local autochtonous middle easterners and the Persian genetical input was very weak indeed.

Humanbyrace (talk) 17:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think these pictures show angle-harps, not hammered dulcimers, related to the instrument now called Çeng or Chang_(instrument), or kugo or jank. Also I think the sticks are more likely to be plectrums for strumming, rather than hammers, though this is not really conclusive from a stone carving. —Preceding unsigned comment added by StrumStrumAndBeHanged (talk • contribs) 11:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Telephone is a Greek word but its not a Greek invention even if Santur name is persian and not a mere lately invented folk etymology (which is the most likely as Greeks and other Mesoptamians played Santur well before arrival of Iranians) it is still a middle eastern musical instrument that was perhaps named in Iranian??? (as I know in middle Persian there was not words such as san and tur which are new Persian forms) because it was the language of the minority Iranian speaking ruling class.

Humanbyrace (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Bring over this table from Santur?
Santur has a rather full table of terms/type of HDs from around the world. I don't think it belongs at that page since this page is the more overarching "genre" page for the larger family of instruments. Should we replicate this chart here? MatthewVanitas (talk) 12:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

 * Austria – Hackbrett
 * Belarus – Цымбалы (tsymbaly)
 * Belgium – Hakkebord
 * Brazil – saltério
 * Cambodia – khim
 * China – 扬琴 (yangqin)
 * Croatian – cimbal, cimbale
 * Czech Republic – cimbál
 * Denmark – hakkebræt
 * France – tympanon
 * Germany – Hackbrett
 * Greece – santouri
 * Hungary – cimbalom
 * India – santoor

 * Iran – santur
 * Iraq - Iraqi Santur
 * Ireland – tiompan
 * Italy – salterio
 * Korea – yanggeum 양금
 * Laos – khim
 * Latgalia (Latvia) – cymbala
 * Latvia – cimbole
 * Lithuania – cimbalai, cimbolai
 * Mexico - salterio
 * Mongolia joochin
 * Netherlands – hakkebord
 * Norway - hakkebrett
 * Poland – cymbały
 * Portugal – saltério
 * Romania – ţambal

 * Russia – цимбалы tsimbaly, Дульцимер (dultsimer)
 * Serbia – цимбал (tsimbal)
 * Slovakia – cimbal
 * Slovenia – cimbale, oprekelj
 * Spain (and Spanish-speaking countries) – salterio, dulcémele
 * Sweden – hackbräde, hammarharpa
 * Switzerland – Hackbrett
 * Thailand – khim
 * Turkey – santur
 * Ukraine – Цимбали tsymbaly
 * United Kingdom – hammered dulcimer
 * United States – hammered dulcimer
 * Uzbekistan – chang
 * Vietnam – đàn tam thập lục (lit. "36 strings")
 * Yiddish – tsimbl

Wrong title, should be "Dulcimer"
The title of this article should be "Dulcimer" not "Hammered Dulcimer". "Hammered Dulcimer" makes as much sense as "plucked guitar".

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dulcimer is played with two sticks (hammers). The Grove Dictionary of Music says "Many scholars, however, reserve the term ‘Ċdulcimer’ for an instrument played with hammers, calling it a ‘psaltery’ when the plucking technique is used."

And it goes to say that in the USA, the term ‘hammer dulcimer’ or ‘hammered dulcimer’ has been introduced to avoid confusion with the "Appalachian" or "mountain" dulcimer. The so-called "Appalachian" or "mountain" dulcimer is not even a type of dulcimer, as it is in fact a plucked fretted zither. 92.20.103.151 (talk) 21:37, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

 * There is also the bowed dulcimer, of course, and a separate Wikipedia article about it. In America, at least, this form of the instrument is sufficiently well-known to have made the expression "hammered dulcimer" common enough to throw some doubt on whether WP:COMMONNAME would favour the current or the shorter title. If the title of this article were to be changed to just "Dulcimer", would it not make best sense to also merge that article into this one?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:15, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * But dulcimer is a disambig page, which I think makes sense here. The word "dulcimer" is used enough in various contexts that limiting it to just the hammered version doesn't seem appropriate. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 13:19, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There is nothing to prevent converting a disambiguation page to an article although, as I said, this would most likely imply merging all of the articles into a much larger one. However, I agree that the present use of a disambiguation page with separate articles for Appalacian dulcimer, banjo dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, and bowed dulcimer makes better sense than such a merger. There is also the possibility of changing the present article's title as suggested and changing the disambiguation-page name by adding "(disambiguation)" after "Dulcimer", but this would only be justifiable if the hammered form of the instrument was clearly the primary use of the single word "dulcimer". I don't think this is the case here, but opinions may differ.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Several dictionaries (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Miriam Webster) apply the name to both the Appalachian and Hammered dulcimers. So I agree that keeping the disambiguation page is best. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 20:36, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Any significant differences between hammered dulcimer & cymbalum?
A comprehensive explanation of this is conspicuously lacking from both articles. I'd say it's simply regional terminology differences. These two articles could well be merged. 195.187.108.4 (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Cymbaloms and dulcimers are closely related, but the names are not simply regional terminology differences: there are significant differences between the instruments.

 * Cymbaloms are large, heavy, usually ornate concert instruments with full chromatic tuning, a five octave range, dampers and a damper pedal, and are usually played with the performer seated. They stand on 3 or 4 legs and can be as heavy as a small piano.

 * Dulcimers tend to be smaller, lighter, simpler, portable instruments, often with diatonic or modal tuning, a typical range between 1-1/2 and 3 octaves, with no dampers or pedals, and often played with the player standing at the instrument. They often stand on a single peg, balanced by the performer, and can be carried easily by a single person.  Some dulcimers can even be hung from a strap, and played while walking -- trying to hang a cymbalom from a strap would by like trying to hang a small piano around your neck.

 * Of course modern makers are always experimenting, and there are hybrid instruments which aren't clearly in one group or the other. But that can be said of some instruments in most instrumental groups -- think "guitaleles", "banjitars", "Irish bouzoukis", "tarogatos", "basset horns", "valve trombones", "banjolins", "harp-guitars", etc., etc.

 * Hammered dulcimers and cymbaloms are the two ends of a continuum.  I don't support merging the articles, but I do agree that the distinctions should be mentioned in both articles.
 * 74.95.43.253 (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
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 * Painting santur.jpg

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

title: Talk:Hammered dulcimer


text:
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a 2003 British epic period war-drama film co-written, produced and directed by Peter Weir, set during the Napoleonic Wars. The film's plot and characters are adapted from three novels in author Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series, which includes 20 completed novels of Jack Aubrey's naval career. The film stars Russell Crowe as Aubrey, captain in the Royal Navy, and Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin, the ship's surgeon. This is the second onscreen collaboration for Crowe and Bettany, who previously co-starred in 2001’s A Beautiful Mind.

The film was a personal project of Fox executive Tom Rothman, who recruited Weir to helm the project. Filming took place on the open sea, on replica ships in the water tanks of Baja Studios, and on the Galápagos Islands. The film, which cost $150 million to make, was a co-production of 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films, Universal Pictures, and Samuel Goldwyn Films, and released on November 14, 2003. It was a moderate success at the box office, grossing $212 million worldwide.

The film was critically well received and garnered Weir the BAFTA Award for Best Direction. At the 76th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won Best Cinematography and Best Sound Editing. In June 2021, a prequel film was announced to be in development.

Plot
During the Napoleonic Wars, Captain Jack Aubrey of frigate HMS Surprise is ordered to intercept the heavy frigate Acheron, a French privateer. Acheron surprises Surprise off the coast of Brazil, causing heavy damage while easily withstanding Surprise's return fire. Jolly boats are used to tow Surprise into a fog bank, ending the battle. Aubrey's officers tell him that Surprise is no match for Acheron, and that they should abandon the chase. Aubrey responds that Acheron must not be allowed to plunder the British whaling fleet and orders Surprise refitted at sea, rather than a lengthy return to port for repairs. Shortly afterward, Acheron again ambushes Surprise, but Aubrey slips away in the night by using a decoy raft and ship's lamps.

Following the privateer south, Surprise rounds Cape Horn and heads to the Galápagos Islands, where the whaling fleet is concentrated. The ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, is interested in the islands' unique flora and fauna, and Aubrey promises his friend several days' exploration time. However, when Surprise reaches the Galápagos, they recover the survivors of a whaling ship, Albatross, burned by Acheron. Aubrey hastily pursues the privateer, dashing Maturin's expectation of more time to explore.

Surprise is becalmed for several days. The crew becomes restless and disorderly, and superstition begins to take hold among them. Midshipman Hollom, already unpopular with the crew, is named a "Jonah" by the sailors (someone who brings bad luck to a ship). As the tension rises, crew member Nagle deliberately bumps shoulders with Hollom as he passes him on the deck and is flogged for insubordination. That night, Hollom commits suicide by jumping overboard holding a cannonball; Aubrey holds a service for Hollom the next morning. The wind picks up again, and Surprise resumes the chase.

The next day, Royal Marine officer Captain Howard attempts to shoot an albatross but accidentally hits Maturin instead. The surgeon's mate informs Aubrey that unless the bullet and a piece of cloth it took with it are removed soon, they will fester. He also recommends the delicate operation be performed on land. Aubrey returns to the Galápagos, where Maturin performs surgery on himself using a mirror. Finally giving up the pursuit of the privateer, Aubrey grants Maturin the chance to explore the Galápagos Islands and gather specimens before they head for home. While looking for a species of flightless cormorant, the doctor discovers Acheron on the other side of the island. Maturin abandons most of his specimens and hurries to warn Aubrey.

Surprise readies for battle once more. Due to Acheron's stronger hull, the crew recognizes that they must be extremely close for their guns to have an effect. After observing the camouflage ability of one of Maturin's specimens, Aubrey disguises Surprise as a whaling ship; he hopes the French will be lured in to capture the valuable ship rather than destroy it. Acheron falls for the disguise, and Surprise launches her attack. With the back wheels of the cannons taken off, the cannons are angled upward and fire upon Acheron's mainmast while Captain Howard's Marine sharpshooters pick off the crew of Acheron from above. Acheron is disabled when the mainmast snaps and falls into the sea. Aubrey leads boarding parties, engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Upon capturing the ship, Aubrey is informed by the ship's doctor, Le Vigny, that the French captain is dead and is given the Captain's sword.

Acheron and Surprise are repaired and Surprise remains in the Galápagos. Lieutenant Pullings is promoted to captain and ordered to sail the captured Acheron to Valparaíso. As Acheron sails away, Maturin mentions that Le Vigny had died months ago. Realising that the French captain deceived him, Aubrey gives the order to change course to intercept Acheron and escort her to Valparaíso, and for the crew to assume battle stations. Maturin is once again denied the chance to explore the Galápagos, but Aubrey wryly notes that since the bird he seeks is flightless, "it's not going anywhere." The two then play Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid by Luigi Boccherini as Surprise turns in pursuit of Acheron once more.

Cast

 * Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey
 * Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, Surgeon
 * James D'Arcy as First Lieutenant Thomas Pullings
 * Edward Woodall as Second Lieutenant William Mowett
 * Chris Larkin as Captain Howard, Royal Marines
 * Robert Pugh as John Allen, Master
 * Max Benitz as Midshipman/Acting Third Lieutenant Peter Myles Calamy
 * Max Pirkis as Midshipman Lord William Blakeney
 * Lee Ingleby as Midshipman Hollom
 * Richard McCabe as Mr. Higgins, Surgeon's Mate
 * Ian Mercer as Mr. Hollar, Boatswain
 * Tony Dolan as Mr. Lamb, Carpenter
 * David Threlfall as Preserved Killick, Captain's Steward
 * Billy Boyd as Barrett Bonden, Coxswain
 * Bryan Dick as Joseph Nagle, Carpenter's Mate
 * Joseph Morgan as William Warley, Captain of the Mizzentop
 * George Innes as Joe Plaice, Able Seaman
 * Patrick Gallagher as Awkward Davies, Able Seaman
 * John DeSantis as Padeen Colman, Loblolly Boy
 * Mark Lewis Jones as Mr. Hogg, Master of the Whaler Albatross

In trying to find men who looked as though they were from the 19th century, Weir recruited many extras from Poland. Philip French noted that the casting of Crowe, an Australian, as a British naval hero followed a tradition in film (e.g. Errol Flynn as Geoffrey Thorpe in The Sea Hawk, Peter Finch as Lord Nelson in Bequest to the Nation, and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian in The Bounty).

Source material
The film is drawn from the Aubrey–Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian, but matches the events in no one novel. The author drew from real events in the Napoleonic Wars, as he describes in the introduction to the first novel, Master and Commander. Various opinions have been offered with regard to which Royal Navy captain most closely matches the fictional character of Aubrey; David Cordingly, writing for The Daily Telegraph, unabashedly suggests Captain Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, a view with which the Royal Navy Museum concurs, at least with regard to the inspiration for the captain's character in the first novel, Master and Commander.

While no one historic English captain is a complete match for Aubrey, the exploits of two naval captains are said to have inspired events in the novels, the forementioned Captain Lord Thomas Cochrane, and Captain William Wolseley. Cochrane used the ruse of placing a light on a floating barrel at night to avoid capture. Wolseley, aboard HMS Papillon, disguised a ship under his command as a commercial boat; on discovering information that a rogue ship was on the other side of a small island, he sailed around the island and captured the Spanish ship, on April 15, 1805.

The film combines elements from three different novels of Patrick O'Brian, but its principle source is his tenth novel, The Far Side of the World. In the film, however, the action takes place in 1805 (during the Napoleonic wars), rather than in 1812 (during the U.S.-U.K. conflict of that period); academic historian Cathy Schultz (University of St. Francis) confidently asserts that the "filmmakers thought American audiences might not want to see Americans as the villains", leading them to "switc[h] the events to 1805", an assertion strongly disputed by 20th Century Fox chief executive Tom Rothman, who initiated the film's development. With regard to further differences between source novel and film, the fictional opponent was changed from USS Norfolk to the French privateer frigate Acheron. As well, the film excludes scenes from the books that took place in ports, and, besides Brazilian women in a single scene, the novels' female characters were not adapted.

The episode in which Aubrey deceives the enemy by means of a raft bearing lanterns is taken from Master and Commander, while the episode in which Maturin directs surgery on himself, while gritting his teeth in pain, to remove a bullet is taken from HMS Surprise. The stern chase around Cape Horn is taken from the novel Desolation Island, although Acheron replaced the Dutch 74-gun warship Waakzaamheid, Surprise replaced Leopard, and in the book it is Aubrey who is being pursued around the Cape of Good Hope.

Development
20th Century Fox executive Tom Rothman had wished to adapt O'Brian's novels since first reading them, recognizing the potential for a film franchise. Becoming CEO, he recruited director Peter Weir to helm the project.

Filming
Great efforts were made to reproduce the authentic look and feel of life aboard an early nineteenth-century man-of-war. In addition to 2,000 hats and 1,900 pairs of shoes, some 400 pounds of hair were used on actors.

However, only ten days of the filming took place at sea aboard Rose (a reproduction of the 18th-century post ship HMS Rose). Other scenes were shot on a full-scale replica mounted on gimbals in a nearly 20-million-gallon tank at Baja Studios in Mexico, built for the filming of Titanic (1997).

There was a third HMS Surprise which was a scale model built by Weta Workshop. A storm sequence was enhanced using digitally composited footage of waves shot on board a modern replica of Cook's Endeavour rounding Cape Horn. All of the actors were given a thorough grounding in the naval life of the period in order to make their performances as authentic as possible. The ship's boats used in the film were Russian Naval six- and four-oared yawls supplied by Central Coast Charters and Boat Base Monterey. Their faithful 18th-century appearance complemented the historical accuracy of the rebuilt "Rose," whose own boat, the "Thorn", could be used only in the Brazilian scene.

Master and Commander was the first non-documentary film to shoot on-location in the Galápagos. Filming took place from June to November 2002.

Sound
Sound designer Richard King earned Master and Commander an Oscar for its sound effects by going to great lengths to record realistic sounds, particularly for the battle scenes and the storm scenes. King and director Peter Weir began by spending months reading the Patrick O'Brian novels in search of descriptions of the sounds that would have been heard on board the ship—for example, the "screeching bellow" of cannon fire and the "deep howl" of a cannonball passing overhead.

King worked with the film's Lead Historical Consultant Gordon Laco, who located collectors in Michigan who owned a 24-pounder and a 12-pounder cannon. King, Laco, and two assistants went to Michigan and recorded the sounds of the cannon firing at a nearby National Guard base. They placed microphones near the cannon to get the "crack" of the cannon fire, and also about 300 yd downrange to record the "shrieking" of the chain shot as it passed overhead. They also recorded the sounds of bar shot and grape shot passing overhead, and later mixed the sounds of all three types of shot for the battle scenes.

For the sounds of the shot hitting the ships, they set up wooden targets at the artillery range and blasted them with the cannon, but found the sonic results underwhelming. Instead, they returned to Los Angeles and there recorded sounds of wooden barrels being destroyed. King sometimes added the "crack" of a rifle shot to punctuate the sound of a cannonball hitting a ship's hull.

For the sound of wind in the storm as the ship rounds Cape Horn, King devised a wooden frame rigged with one thousand feet of line and set it in the back of a pickup truck. By driving the truck at 70 mph into a 30 - 40 knot wind, and modulating the wind with barbecue and refrigerator grills, King was able to create a range of sounds, from "shrieking" to "whistling" to "sighing", simulating the sounds of wind passing through the ship's rigging.

Richard Tognetti, who scored the film's music, taught Crowe how to play the violin, as Aubrey plays the violin with Maturin on his cello in the movie. Crowe purchased the violin personally as the budget did not allow for the expense. The violin was made in 1890 by the Italian violin maker Leandro Bisiach, and sold at auction in 2018 for US$104,000. Bettany learned how to play the cello for the role of Maturin, so the pair could be filmed playing with proper posture and technique instead of miming. The recording was dubbed in the final version of the film.

Music
Iva Davies, lead singer of the Australian band Icehouse, traveled to Los Angeles to record the soundtrack to the film with Christopher Gordon and Richard Tognetti. Together, they won the 2004 APRA/AGSC Screen Music Award in the "Best Soundtrack Album" category. The score includes an assortment of baroque and classical music, notably the first of Johann Sebastian Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007, played by Yo-Yo Ma; the Strassburg theme in the third movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3; the third (Adagio) movement of Corelli's Christmas Concerto (Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8); and a recurring rendition of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. The music played on violin and cello before the end is Luigi Boccherini's String Quintet (Quintettino) for 2 violins, viola & 2 cellos in C major ("Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid"), G. 324 Op. 30. The two arrangements of this cue contained in the CD differ significantly from the one heard in the movie.

The song sung in the wardroom is "Don't Forget Your Old Shipmates", a British Navy song written in the early 1800s and arranged in 1978 by Jim Mageean from his album Of Ships... and Men. The tunes sung and played by the crew on deck at night are "O'Sullivan's March", "Spanish Ladies" and "The British Tars" ("The shipwrecked tar"), which was set to tune of "Bonnie Ship the Diamond" and called "Raging Sea/Bonnie Ship the Diamond" on the soundtrack.

Theatrical release
On November 17, 2003, Master and Commander had its UK Premiere at the 57th Royal Film Performance, a fundraising event held in aid of The Film and TV Charity.

Box office
Hoping to draw adults during the film awards seasons, Master and Commander was slated for a release in mid-November 2003. However, the film failed to reach the No. 1 spot on its opening weekend. It opened #2 behind Christmas comedy Elf in the first weekend of North American release, November 14–16, 2003, earning $25,105,990. It dropped to the #4 position in the second weekend and #6 in the third, and finished the domestic run with $93,927,920 in gross receipts. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the film grossed $118,083,191, doing best in Italy (at $15,111,841). The film grossed $212 million globally, barely recouping its $150 million budget.

Critical response
On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, 85% of 222 critics gave the film an overall positive review, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Russell Crowe's rough charm is put to good use in this masterful adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's novel." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4, saying that "it achieves the epic without losing sight of the human". The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw praised the film and Crowe's performance. New York Times critic A. O. Scott described the film as "stupendously entertaining". However, Jason Epstein, also writing for The New York Times, criticized the film, taking issue with changes from the novel, Crowe's "one-dimensional action hero", and implausible events in the script.

Christopher Hitchens gave a mixed review: "Any cinematic adaptation of O'Brian must stand or fall by its success in representing this figure [Dr. Stephen Maturin]. On this the film doesn't even fall, let alone stand. It skips the whole project." (The film omits completely the fact that the doctor and naturalist is also a spy for England—a key plot element in the novels.) Hitchens nonetheless praised the action scenes, writing: "In one respect the action lives up to its fictional and actual inspiration. This was the age of Bligh and Cook and of voyages of discovery as well as conquest, and when HMS Surprise makes landfall in the Galapagos Islands we get a beautifully filmed sequence about how the dawn of scientific enlightenment might have felt."

San Francisco Chronicle film reviewer Mick LaSalle was generally downbeat and, after praising director Weir's handling of scenes with no dialogue, observed that "Weir is less surefooted as a screenwriter. Having not read any of O'Brian's novels, I can't say if the fault is in Weir's adaptation or in the source material, but halfway into 'Master and Commander,' the friendship of the captain and the doctor begins to seem schematic, as if all the positive traits that an individual could have were divided equally between these two guys, just so they can argue. Their interaction takes on a preening quality, reminiscent of the interaction of the 'Star Trek' characters four or five movies down the line. We come to realize that the specific adventure matters little except as a showcase for these personalities. Once that happens, the story involving the French ship loses much of its interest and all of its danger, and the movie starts taking on water. 'Master and Commander' stays afloat to the finish, but that's all that can be said."

Accolades
At the 76th Academy Awards in 2004, Master and Commander received ten nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects. It won the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Editing. The film also garnered Weir the BAFTA Award for Best Direction.

Legacy
Weir, asked in 2005 if he would make a sequel, stated he thought it "most unlikely", and after internet rumors to the contrary, stated "I think that while it did well...ish at the box office, it didn't generate that monstrous, rapid income that provokes a sequel." In 2007 the film was included on a list of "13 Failed Attempts To Start Film Franchises" by The A.V. Club, noting that "this surely stands as one of the most exciting opening salvos in nonexistent-series history, and the Aubrey–Maturin novels remain untapped cinematic ground."

In 2009 Crowe claimed in an interview with the Associated Press he was in negotiations for a sequel to the film based on the eleventh book from the Aubrey-Maturin series The Reverse of the Medal. In December 2010, Crowe launched an appeal on Twitter to get the sequel made: "If you want a Master and Commander sequel I suggest you e-mail Tom Rothman at Fox and let him know your thoughts".

Film critic Scott Tobias wrote a positive retrospective article about this film in 2019, begrudging the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, another sea-faring film also released in 2003, had led to a string of Pirates of the Caribbean fantasy films, but there was no demand for a sequel featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and deeply rooted in historical facts of the Napoleonic Wars, the Age of Sail and the Age of Discovery.

In summer 2020, Vulture noted that the "film is ripe for reappraisal." In January 2021, Crowe publicly defended the film from criticism. A March 2023 story in GQ noted the film's continued popularity among millennial men who were watching the film on streaming services. It theorized that this was in part due to the film's portrayal of "non-toxic masculinity" and strong male friendships, particularly the one between Aubrey and Maturin. "Overall, the masculinity of Master and Commander ... is overwhelmingly wholesome and positive," reporter Gabriella Paiella wrote. "Any nostalgia for the traditionalism in the movie is less reactionary and more about the healthy male bonding between the characters." That was contrasted with continued problems with male bonding among 2020s American men.

In a 2020 retrospective interview discussing both the Aubrey-Maturin books and the film, author Rachel McMillan discussed her opinion on the film as a longtime fan of the original books stating it "captured the essence of the 21 stories as well as the central relationship between Jack and Stephen" and praises Peter Weir's directing. McMillan notes though she finds the film to be "deprived of the women who make the series so exceptional" noting the absence of book characters such as Diana Villiers and Sophie Aubrey as significant omissions in the film along with the lack of Stephen's espionage career.

Prequel
In June 2021, it was reported that a second film is in development by 20th Century Studios, a prequel based on the first novel only, with Patrick Ness penning the script.


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Kansai Gaidai University

Kansai Gaidai University (関西外国語大学), almost always abbreviated Kansai Gaidai (関西外大), is located in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. It is a private university focusing on foreign language studies. Kansai is the proper name of the large region where it is located, which includes the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. Gaidai is a contraction of Gaikokugo Daigaku, which literally means "foreign language university". Gaidai is part of Kansai Science City, which is undergoing construction around the campus.

Kansai Gaidai is known for its large Asian Studies program for international exchange students as well as for its Intensive English Studies program for Japanese students planning to study abroad. There are currently two academic campuses: the Nakamiya Campus (中宮キャンパス) and the Hotani Campus (穂谷キャンパス). The original Katahoko campus (片鉾キャンパス) consisted of four dormitories and a gymnasium. Currently, there are about 15,000 students enrolled including two year and four year students from across all regions of Japan. Students from dozens of countries are also present for the majority of the year.

University Background
Tanimoto English School, the forerunner of Kansai Gaidai University, was established in 1945. The original Katahoko campus was founded in 1966 as a University of Foreign Studies. Today, the Katahoko campus has been converted into a public park and a municipal library. In 1972, the Asian Studies Program was formally established. The Hotani Campus was established in 1984 and currently houses the Department of International Communication and a Confucius Institute. The Nakamiya campus opened in April 2002, and now operates as the main campus of the university. In 2018, the Gakkentoshi campus moved to nearby Gotenyama, within walking distance of the main Nakamiya campus. Gotenyama Campus - Global Town officially opened on April 1, 2018 and had a dedication ceremony on June 9, 2018. New seminar houses are being planned as well to host both international and Japanese students alike. The university is also known for the collaborative effort in the formulation of the Genki Series, books used by dozens of schools to teach Japanese. Several Kansai Gaidai teachers contributed to its teaching methodology and publication.

Asian Studies Program
The Asian Studies Program is located in the Center for International Education at the Nakamiya Campus. Students from all over the world and with various majors participate in this program which is one of the largest in the area. An integral part of the program is the Speaking Partners Program which pairs incoming foreign exchange students with a local Kansai Gaidai student who helps with the adjustment of living in Japan. KGU itself sends about 1,500 students abroad every year to study abroad all over the globe.

Another part of the exchange program is the home stay program which places a limited number of students with local families to provide an immersive Japanese cultural and societal experience. For those students who were unable to get a spot in the home stay program, the school offers a home visit program which pairs a foreign exchange student with a family so that the student may visit them and participate in families activities usually weekly or as determined by the student and the family.

Accommodation for foreign exchange students are located in the Seminar Houses. Numbered 1 through 4, each house is located around the Katahoko Library and a 20-minute walk from the Nakamiya Campus. Seminar Houses 1, 2 and 4 are dormitory style with usually two students to a room with entire dormitory shared facilities. While Seminar House 3 is an apartment style dormitory with students sharing common living quarters and kitchens while sleeping in 4 separate rooms. Seminar House 4 is the newest and largest of the Seminar Houses and is the only one that is wheelchair accessible at this time. Seminar House 4 houses the most students and is the closest to the Nakamiya campus.

The newest dorm, built in 2018 on the Gotenyama campus, is called GLOBAL COMMONS 結 -YUI-. The dorm has 27 units, in which there are 23 or 27 single rooms. The facility is able to accommodate 650 students. Both international and local students live in this residence. The main concept of the dorm is inter-cultural communication and the diversity of cultures and countries represented.

There is a strict zero tolerance policy against alcohol consumption in Seminar Houses and YUI, although during fall 2008 semester, Seminar House 4 was the location of a pilot project for reasonable and controlled consumption of alcohol within the Seminar House. Results of the pilot project have not been announced nor published although this project did not continue to the spring 2009 semester. As of 2010, alcohol is banned in all seminar houses after an incident.

In 2023, a homecoming for alumni of the program was held for the first time on campus to celebrate the 50 years of its existence.

International Festival
Every year during the fall semester, Kansai Gaidai University authorizes local and international Gaidai students to organize a grandiose 2-day Gaidai Festival, held throughout the Nakamiya campus. The festival is usually held the week after the Halloween bash and is the largest event of the academic year. Various foods are prepared and student-led university clubs hold exhibitions.

Summer Program
For the first time in 2015, Kansai Gaidai held a six-week intensive summer program for 20 students, focusing on Japanese language and Japanese history with several cultural activities.

The program takes place at Kansai Gaidai’s Nakamiya campus and lasts from June to July. Each week the students receive 15 hours of Japanese lessons and three hours of Japanese history lessons. The current schedule also includes several cultural activities where students can get on-hand experience of what they have learned about in class.

This course is aimed at those who have no previous experience in Japanese. Students can also travel around the country during and after the program.

In 2020, due to COVID-19, the program was suspended altogether. Additionally in 2021, the program switched to an online format.

TEDxGaidai
TedxGaidai was founded in April 2012. It is an international community which comes together in Kansai Gaidai's ICC building once a month to discuss TED videos and how the ideas relate to all of us. Following the discussion time, facilitators will mix students with different members to recap what they have talked about. Finally, the seminar ends with any comments about what was discussed at any time during the evening. A short survey is administered at the end to hear student feedback.

Unions
Some staff at Kansai Gaidai University are represented by the General Union, a member of the National Union of General Workers (NUGW), which is itself a member of the National Trade Union Council (Zenrokyo).

Notable alumni

 * Jero (Class of 2002) - Enka and Hip-hop Singer
 * Masaaki Satake- Seidokaikan Karate and K-1 fighter
 * Takayuki Yasuda - basketball head coach

title: Kansai Gaidai University


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User:Deepshark

Name : Martin James La Grange | Citizenship : South African | Interests : SF, Science, Astronomy, Classical Music, Model Aircraft, Kiting, Sailplane Flying, History, Choral Singing, Electronics, Computational Flight Simulation.

title: User:Deepshark


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Prunus mume

Prunus mume is a Chinese tree species classified in the Armeniaca section of the genus Prunus subgenus Prunus. Its common names include Chinese plum, Japanese plum, and Japanese apricot. The flower, long a beloved subject in the traditional painting and poetry of Sinospheric countries (including China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan), is usually called plum blossom. This distinct tree species is related to both the plum and apricot trees. Although generally referred to as a plum in English, it is more closely related to the apricot. In East Asian cuisine (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese cuisine), the fruit of the tree is used in juices, as a flavouring for alcohol, as a pickle, and in sauces. It is also used in traditional medicine.

The tree's flowering in late winter and early spring is highly regarded as a seasonal symbol.

Prunus mume should not be confused with Prunus salicina, a related species also grown in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Another tree, Prunus japonica, is also a separate species despite having a Latin name similar to Prunus mume's common name.

Origin
Prunus mume originated in the region around the Yangtze River in southern China and was cultivated domestically for both its ornamental beauty and its fruit. It was later introduced to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It can be found in sparse forests, stream sides, forested slopes along trails, and mountains, sometimes at altitudes up to 1700 - 3100 m, and regions of cultivation.

Description
Prunus mume is a deciduous tree that starts to flower in mid-winter, typically around January until late February in East Asia. It can grow to 4 – tall. The flowers are 2 – in diameter and have a strong fragrant scent. They have colors in varying shades of white, pink, and red. The leaves appear shortly after the petals fall, are oval-shaped with a pointed tip, and are 4–8 cm long and 2.5–5 cm wide. The fruit ripens in early summer, around June and July in East Asia, and coincides with the East Asian rainy season, the meiyu (梅雨, "plum rain"). The drupe is 2 – in diameter with a groove running from the stalk to the tip. The skin turns yellow, sometimes with a red blush, as it ripens, and the flesh becomes yellow. The tree is cultivated for its fruit and flowers.

Names
The scientific name combines the Latin prūnus (“plum tree”) and the obsolete Japanese 梅 (mume, “plum”). The plant is known by a number of different names in English, including Chinese plum and Japanese apricot. An alternative name is ume or mume. Another alternative name is mei.

The flower is known as the meihua (梅花) in Chinese, which came to be translated as "plum blossom" or sometimes as "flowering plum". The term "winter plum" may be used too, specifically with regard to the depiction of the flower with its early blooming in Chinese painting.

In Chinese, it is called mei (梅) and the fruit is called meizi (梅子). The Japanese name is ume (kanji: 梅; hiragana: うめ), while the Korean name is maesil. The Japanese and Korean terms derive from Middle Chinese, in which the pronunciation is thought to have been muəi. The Vietnamese name is mai or mơ (although mai vàng refers to a different plant, Ochna integerrima, in southern Vietnam).

Varieties
Ornamental tree varieties and cultivars of P. mume have been cultivated for planting in various gardens throughout East Asia, and for cut blossoming branches used in flower arrangements.

Chinese varieties
In China, there are over 300 recorded cultivars of Prunus mume. These are classified by phylogenetics (P. mume and two hybrids) in branches, type of branches in groups, and characteristics of flowers in several forms:
 * Zhizhimei Lei (直枝梅類) [Upright Mei Group], Prunus mume var. typica
 * Pinzimei Xing (品字梅型) [Pleiocarpa Form]
 * Jiangmei Xing (江梅型) [Single Flowered Form]
 * Gongfen Xing (宮粉型) [Pink Double Form]
 * Yudie Xing (玉蝶型) [Alboplena Form]
 * Huangxiang Xing (黃香型) [Flavescens Form]
 * Lü'e Xing (綠萼型) [Green Calyx Form]
 * Sajin Xing (灑金型) [Versicolor Form]
 * Zhusha Xing (硃砂型) [Cinnabar Purple Form]
 * Chuizhimei Lei (垂枝梅類) [Pendulous Mei Group], Prunus mume var. pendula
 * Fenhua Chuizhi Xing (粉花垂枝型) [Pink Pendulous Form]
 * Wubao Chuizhi Xing (五寶垂枝型) [Versicolor Pendulous Form]
 * Canxue Chuizhi Xing (殘雪垂枝型) [Albiflora Pendulous Form]
 * Baibi Chuizhi Xing (白碧垂枝型) [Viridiflora Pendulous Form]
 * Guhong Chuizhi Xing (骨紅垂枝型) [Atropurpurea Pendulous Form]
 * Longyoumei Lei (龍游梅類) [Tortuous Dragon Group], Prunus mume var. tortuosa
 * Xingmei Lei (杏梅類) [Apricot Mei Group], Prunus mume var. bungo
 * Yinglimei Lei (櫻李梅類) [Blireiana Group], Prunus × blireana, Prunus cerasifera 'Pissardii' × Prunus mume Alphandii

It is disputed whether Prunus zhengheensis is a separate species or conspecific with Prunus mume. It is found in the Fujian province of China. It is only known from one county, Zhenghe. It is a tree 35 - 40 m tall, preferring to grow at 700 - 1000 m above sea level. The yellow fruit is delectable and aside from its height, it is indistinguishable from P. mume.

Japanese varieties
In Japan, ornamental Prunus mume cultivars are classified into yabai (wild), hibai (red), and bungo (Bungo Province) types. The bungo trees are also grown for fruit and are hybrids between Prunus mume and apricot. The hibai trees have red heartwood and most of them have red flowers. The yabai trees are also used as grafting stock. Among yabai trees, Nankoume is a very popular variety in Japan, and whose fruits are mainly used for making Umeboshi.

Beverage
In China, suanmeitang (酸梅湯; "sour plum juice") is made from smoked plums, called wumei (烏梅). The plum juice is extracted by boiling smoked plums in water and sweetened with sugar to make suanmeitang. It ranges from light pinkish-orange to purplish black in colour and often has a smoky and slightly salty taste. It is traditionally flavoured with sweet osmanthus flowers, and is enjoyed chilled, usually in summer.

In Korea, both the flowers and the fruits are used to make tea. Maehwa-cha (매화차, 梅花茶; "plum blossom tea") is made by infusing the flowers in hot water. Maesil-cha (매실차, 梅實茶; "plum tea") is made by mixing water with maesil-cheong (plum syrup) and is served either hot or cold.

In Japan, a similar drink is made from green plums and tastes sweet and tangy, is considered a cold, refreshing drink, and is often enjoyed in the summer.

Condiment
A thick, sweet Chinese sauce called meijiang (梅醬) or meizijiang (梅子醬), usually translated as "plum sauce", is also made from the plums, along with other ingredients such as sugar, vinegar, salt, ginger, chili, and garlic. Similar to duck sauce, it is used as a condiment for various Chinese dishes, including poultry dishes and egg rolls.

In Korea, maesil-cheong (매실청, 梅實淸, "plum syrup"), an anti-microbial syrup made by sugaring ripe plums, is used as a condiment and sugar substitute. It can be made by simply mixing plums and sugar together, and then leaving them for about 100 days. To make syrup, the ratio of sugar to plum should be at least 1:1 to prevent fermentation, by which the liquid may turn into plum wine. The plums can be removed after 100 days, and the syrup can be consumed right away, or mature for a year or more.

Flower pancake
In Korea, hwajeon (화전, 花煎; "flower pancake") can be made with plum blossoms. Called maehwa-jeon (매화전, 梅花煎; "plum blossom pancake"), the pancake dish is usually sweet, with honey as an ingredient.

Liquor
Plum liquor, also known as plum wine, is popular in both Japan and Korea, and is also produced in China. Umeshu (梅酒; "plum wine") is a Japanese alcoholic drink made by steeping green plums in shōchū (clear liquor). It is sweet and smooth. A similar liquor in Korea, called maesil-ju (매실주, 梅實酒; "plum wine"), is marketed under various brand names, including Mae hwa soo, Matchsoon, and Seoljungmae. Both the Japanese and Korean varieties of plum liquor are available with whole plum fruits contained in the bottle. In China, plum wine is called méijiǔ (梅酒).

In Taiwan, a popular 1950s innovation over the Japanese-style plum wine is the wumeijiu (烏梅酒; "smoked plum liquor"), which is made by mixing two types of plum liquor, meijiu (梅酒) made of P. mume and lijiu (李酒), made of P. salicina, and oolong tea liquor.

In Vietnam, ripe plums are macerated in sticky rice liquor. The resulting liquor is called rượu mơ. A brand selling plum liquor is Sơn Tinh.

Pickled and preserved plums
In Chinese cuisine, plums pickled with vinegar and salt are called suanmeizi (酸梅子; "sour plum fruits"), and have an intensely sour and salty flavour. They are generally made from unripe plum fruits. Huamei (話梅) are Chinese preserved plums and refer to Chinese plums pickled in sugar, salt, and herbs. There are two general varieties: a dried variety, and a wet (pickled) variety.

Umeboshi (梅干) are pickled and dried plums. They are a Japanese specialty. Pickled with coarse salt, they are quite salty and sour, and therefore eaten sparingly. They are often red in colour when purple shiso leaves are used. Plums used for making umeboshi are harvested in late May or early June, while they are ripe enough in yellow, and layered with much salt. They are weighed down with a heavy stone (or some more modern implement) until late August. They are then dried in the sun on bamboo mats for several days (they are returned to the salt at night). The flavonoid pigment in shiso leaves gives them their distinctive colour and a richer flavour. Umeboshi are generally eaten with rice as part of a bento (boxed lunch), although they may also be used in makizushi (rolled sushi). Umeboshi are also used as a popular filling for rice balls (onigiri) wrapped in nori. Makizushi made with plums may be made with either umeboshi or bainiku (umeboshi paste), often in conjunction with green shiso leaves. A byproduct of umeboshi production is umeboshi vinegar, a salty, sour condiment.

In Korea, there is 'maesil-jangajji' which is similar to 'Umeboshi'. It is a common side dish in Korea.

A very similar variety of pickled plum, xí muội or ô mai is used in Vietnamese cuisine. The best fruit for this are from the forest around the Hương Pagoda in Hà Tây Province.

Traditional medicine
Prunus mume is a common fruit in Asia and is used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Cultural significance
Plum blossoms have been well-loved and celebrated across the East Asian cultural sphere, which includes China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.

Chinese
The plum blossom, which is known as the meihua (梅花), is one of the most beloved flowers in China and has been frequently depicted in Chinese art and poetry for centuries. The plum blossom is seen as a symbol of winter and a harbinger of spring. The blossoms are so beloved because they are viewed as blooming most vibrantly amidst the winter snow, exuding an ethereal elegance, while their fragrance is noticed to still subtly pervade the air at even the coldest times of the year. Therefore, the plum blossom came to symbolize perseverance and hope, as well as beauty, purity, and the transitoriness of life. In Confucianism, the plum blossom stands for the principles and values of virtue. More recently, it has also been used as a metaphor to symbolize revolutionary struggle since the turn of the 20th century.

Because it blossoms in the cold winter, the plum blossom is regarded as one of the "Three Friends of Winter", along with pine, and bamboo. The plum blossom is also regarded as one of the "Four Gentlemen" of flowers in Chinese art, together with the orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo. It is one of the "Flowers of the Four Seasons", which consist of the orchid (spring), the lotus (summer), the chrysanthemum (autumn) and the plum blossom (winter). These groupings are seen repeatedly in the Chinese aesthetic of art, painting, literature, and garden design.

An example of the plum blossom's literary significance is found in the life and work of poet Lin Bu (林逋) of the Song dynasty (960–1279). For much of his later life, Lin Bu lived in quiet reclusion on a cottage by West Lake in Hangzhou, China. According to stories, he loved plum blossoms and cranes so much that he considered the plum blossom of Solitary Hill at West Lake as his wife and the cranes of the lake as his children, thus he could live peacefully in solitude. One of his most famous poems is "Little Plum Blossom of Hill Garden" (山園小梅). The Chinese text, as well as a translation, follows:

As with the literary culture amongst the educated of the time, Lin Bu's poems were discussed in several Song dynasty era commentaries on poetry. Wang Junqing remarked after quoting the third and fourth line: "This is from Lin Hejing's [Lin Bu's] plum blossom poem. Yet these lines might just as well be applied to the flowering apricot, peach, or pear."—a comparison of the flowers with the plum blossom to which the renowned Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo (蘇東坡) replied, "Well, yes, they might. But I'm afraid the flowers of those other trees wouldn't presume to accept such praise." Plum blossoms inspired many people of the era. Legend has it that once on the 7th day of the 1st lunar month, while Princess Shouyang (壽陽公主), daughter of Emperor Wu of Liu Song (劉宋武帝), was resting under the eaves of Hanzhang Palace near the plum trees after wandering in the gardens, a plum blossom drifted down onto her fair face, leaving a floral imprint on her forehead that enhanced her beauty further. The court ladies were said to be so impressed that they started decorating their own foreheads with a small delicate plum blossom design. This is also the mythical origin of the floral fashion, meihua chuang (梅花妝; literally "plum blossom makeup"), that originated in the Southern Dynasties (420–589) and became popular amongst ladies in the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) dynasties. The markings of plum blossom designs on the foreheads of court ladies were usually made with paintlike materials such as sorghum powder, gold powder, paper, jade, and other tint substances. Princess Shouyang is celebrated as the goddess of the plum blossom in Chinese culture.

During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the garden designer Ji Cheng wrote his definitive garden architecture monograph Yuanye and in it, he described the plum tree as the "beautiful woman of the forest and moon". The appreciation of nature at night plays an important role in Chinese gardens. For this reason, there are classical pavilions for the tradition of viewing plum blossoms by the moonlight. The flowers are viewed and enjoyed by many as annual plum blossom festivals take place in the blooming seasons of the meihua. The festivals take place throughout China (for example, West Lake in Hangzhou and scenic spots near Zijin Mountain in Nanjing, amongst other places). Plum blossoms are often used as decoration during the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and remain popular in the miniature gardening plants of the art of penjing. Branches of plum blossoms are often arranged in porcelain or ceramic vases, such as the meiping (literally "plum vase"). These vases can hold single branches of plum blossoms and have been traditionally used to display the blossoms in a home since the early Song dynasty (960–1279).

The Moy Yat lineage of Wing Chun kung fu uses a red plum flower blossom as its symbol. The plum blossoms are featured on one of the four flowers that appear on mahjong tile sets, where mei (梅) is usually simply translated as "plum" in English.

It has been suggested that the Japanese practice of hanami may have originated from the Chinese custom of enjoying poetry and wine underneath plum blossom trees while viewing their flowers, that was replicated by Japanese elites. This is supported by the fact that hanami started in urban areas rather than rural areas, that Japanese people initially admired plum blossoms like the Chinese rather than cherry blossoms, and that classic Japanese poetry does not associate cherry blossoms with merriness.

The National Flower of the Republic of China (Taiwan) was officially designated as the plum blossom (Prunus Mei; ) by the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China on July 21, 1964. The plum blossom is the symbol for resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity during the harsh winter. The triple grouping of stamens (three stamens per petal) on the national emblem represents Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, while the five petals symbolize the five branches of the government. It also serves as the logo of China Airlines, the national carrier of Taiwan (the Republic of China). The flower is featured on some New Taiwan dollar coins.

Korean
In Korea, the plum blossom is a symbol for spring. It is a popular flower motif, amongst other flowers, for Korean embroidery. Maebyong are plum vases derived from the Chinese meiping and are traditionally used to hold branches of plum blossoms in Korea. Korean ceramist Master Kim Se-yong incorporates the blossom into many of his openwork celadon vases.

Also, during Korean Empire period, the plum blossom became the imperial seal and royal official flower. Since ancient times, plum blossom has been filled with meaning and mystery. Plum blossoms bloom at the end of the winter, and because of this, they are called the herald of spring. They also symbolize perseverance because of how they can possibly bloom during the cold winter. Since they are considered the first flower of the year, they also represent purity and renewal. Plum flowers have five petals which are believed to carry 5 different blessings such as: wealth, health, virtue, peaceful and natural death.

Japanese
Plum blossoms are often mentioned in Japanese poetry as a symbol of spring, as well as elegance and purity. When used in haiku or renga, they are a kigo or season word for early spring. The blossoms are associated with the Japanese bush warbler and are depicted together on one of the twelve suits of hanafuda (Japanese playing cards). Plum blossoms were favored during the Nara period (710–794) until the emergence of the Heian period (794–1185), in which the cherry blossom was preferred.

Japanese tradition holds that the ume functions as a protective charm against evil, so the ume is traditionally planted in the northeast of the garden, the direction from which evil is believed to come. The eating of the pickled fruit for breakfast is also supposed to stave off misfortune.

The tradition of hanami was originally performed with plum blossoms rather than cherry blossoms as is common today. The specific custom of viewing plum blossoms in Japan is now called umemi (梅見, plum-viewing).

Vietnamese
In Vietnam, due to the beauty of the tree and its flowers, the word mai is used to name girls. The largest hospital in Hanoi is named Bạch Mai (white plum blossom), another hospital in Hanoi is named Mai Hương ("the scent of plum"), situated in Hồng Mai (pink plum blossom) street. Hoàng Mai (yellow plum blossom) is the name of a district in Hanoi. Bạch Mai is also a long and old street in Hanoi. All these places are located in the south part of Hanoi, where, in the past, many P. mume trees were grown.

title: Prunus mume


text:
Index of video-related articles

The following is a list of video-related topics.

Numbers

 * 3D
 * 4:3
 * 16:9

A-C

 * Academy Awards
 * Adobe Premiere—real time editing
 * Advanced Authoring Format AAF
 * alpha channel
 * Animation
 * Audio commentary
 * Avid—real time editing Avid video editing family
 * B-movie
 * B-roll
 * Betacam
 * Betamax
 * Blu-ray
 * bluescreen/chroma key
 * Bollywood
 * Camcorder
 * Camera
 * Canopus DVStorm2—real time editing
 * CCIR 601
 * CCD
 * Chroma subsampling—4:1:0, 4:1:1, 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4
 * Cinematography
 * Clapperboard
 * Closed-captioning
 * Comparison of video editing software
 * Component video signal
 * Composite video signal
 * Copy detection
 * Cult film

D-F

 * Digital audio
 * Digital cinema
 * Digital cinematography
 * Digital film
 * Digital video
 * DVd
 * DVD
 * D-VHS
 * Entertainment law
 * Film
 * Film colorization
 * Film criticism
 * Film distribution
 * Film festivals
 * Film gauges
 * Film genres
 * Film institutes
 * Filmmaking
 * Film preservation
 * Film production
 * Film rating systems
 * Film restoration
 * Film styles
 * Film technique
 * Film theory
 * Film trailer
 * Final Cut Pro—real time editing
 * filter
 * FORscene—video logging, editing, publishing and hosting
 * Full screen
 * FX

G-J

 * Hammer Horror
 * HDV
 * HDTV
 * History of cinema
 * Hollywood
 * IMAX
 * Independent film
 * Infrared filter
 * Interlace

K-M

 * Keyframe
 * Kollywood
 * Letterbox
 * Line (video)
 * Linear video editing
 * List of video editing software
 * Video logging
 * Lower thirds
 * Movie
 * MPEG-1
 * MPEG-2
 * Multiple-camera setup

N-Q

 * neutral density filter aka ND filter
 * NHK Twinscam
 * non-linear video editing
 * NTSC
 * PAL
 * Photography

R-T

 * Safe area
 * SECAM
 * Short film
 * Soundtrack
 * Special effects
 * Steadicam
 * Super-resolution
 * S-VHS
 * S-Video
 * Synchronization
 * Tamil Film Industry
 * Telecine
 * Television
 * time code
 * Troma

U-W

 * Ulead MediaStudio Pro
 * UV filter
 * Vectorscope
 * VHS
 * Video CD
 * Video clip
 * Videos by Year
 * Video editing
 * video game
 * Video production companies
 * Video sharing
 * Videography
 * Videotape
 * Waveform monitor
 * Windows Media Video
 * W-VHS

X-Z

 * YIQ
 * YUV

title: Index of video-related articles


text:
Talk:Abstandsprache

A note like this, if Abstandsprache is the standard English term and has no equivalent, makes more sense if it is built into an entry like linguistics, where people will find it. Wetman 04:13, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Abstandsprache


text:
Shintaro Abe

Shintaro Abe (安倍 晋太郎) was a Japanese politician from Yamaguchi Prefecture. He was a leading member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served as foreign minister from 1982 to 1986. He was the father of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Early life and education
Abe was born on April 29, 1924, in Tokyo, the only son of politician and member of Parliament Kan Abe. He was raised in his father's home prefecture of Yamaguchi from soon after his birth. His mother was an army general's daughter.

Abe married Yoko Kishi, daughter of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, in 1951. His second son, Shinzo Abe, served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2020. His third son, Nobuo Kishi, was adopted by his brother-in-law shortly after birth, won a House of Representatives seat in 2012 and was appointed Minister of Defense in 2020.

Career
After graduating from high school in 1944 during World War II, Abe entered a naval aviation school and volunteered to become a kamikaze pilot. The war ended before he could undergo the required training. In 1949 he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, Shintaro Abe began his career as a political reporter for Mainichi Shimbun. He became a politician in 1957, when he started working as a legislative aide of his father in-law, the then-prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. He won his father's seat in the House of Representatives in 1958.

He led a major LDP faction, the conservative Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyūkai, whose reins he took from former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda in July 1986, and held a variety of ministerial and party posts, the former of which included Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and Minister of International Trade and Industry. Abe was named as Minister of International Trade and Industry in the cabinet of the then prime minister Zenkō Suzuki on November 30, 1981. During this period, he was seen as a young leader groomed for the future prime ministry. In November 1982, he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of the then-prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, replacing Yoshio Sakurauchi. His term lasted until 1986.

Abe was a top contender to succeed Nakasone as prime minister in 1987, until he stepped aside for Noboru Takeshita, head of a powerful rival faction. Then, he was given the post of secretary general of the party in 1987. In 1988, his chances of becoming prime minister some time in the near future were again thwarted when his name became associated with the Recruit-Cosmos insider-trading stock scandal, which brought down Takeshita and forced Abe to resign as the party's secretary general in December 1988.

Death
Shintaro Abe was hospitalized in January 1991. He died at Tokyo's Juntendo University Hospital on May 15, 1991, aged 67. The cause of death was heart failure.

Honours
From the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia

 * Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Order of the Paulownia Flowers

title: Shintaro Abe


text:
Talk:Ooshima, Yamaguchi

Sister city of which city in Hawaii? RickK 04:15, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ooshima, Yamaguchi


text:
Meredith Vieira

Meredith Louise Vieira (born December 30, 1953) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. She is best known as the original moderator of the daytime talk show The View (1997–2006), the original host of the syndicated daytime version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2002–2013), and as co-host of the NBC morning news program Today (2006–2011). , she hosts the syndicated weekday game show 25 Words or Less.

Vieira has also been a contributor to Dateline NBC, Rock Center with Brian Williams, and NBC Nightly News, and hosted the Lifetime television series Intimate Portrait (1994–2005). From 2014 to 2016, she hosted her own syndicated daytime talk show, The Meredith Vieira Show.

Early life
Vieira was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and raised in nearby East Providence, the daughter of Mary Elsie (Rosa), a homemaker, and Edwin Vieira, a medical doctor, both first-generation Portuguese Americans. She is the youngest of four children, with three older brothers. All four of Vieira's grandparents came from the Azores—three from Faial Island, one of the nine islands in the archipelago. The family name Vieira means "scallop" in Portuguese. They emigrated to New England in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, settling around Providence, Rhode Island. Vieira was raised in the Roman Catholic faith, but she has stated in recent interviews that she has "spirituality, not a religion".

Vieira attended the Lincoln School, a Quaker all-girls school in Providence, graduating in 1971. She graduated with a degree in English from Tufts University in 1975.

Beginnings on radio and local TV (1975–1982)
Vieira began her broadcasting career in 1975 as a news announcer for WORC radio in Worcester, Massachusetts, doing afternoon drive news during the B. J. Dean Show. She began a career in television working as a local reporter and anchor at WJAR-TV in Providence, eventually making her way into the newsroom at WCBS-TV in New York City where she was an investigative reporter from 1979 to 1982.

CBS News (1982–1993)
Vieira first gained national recognition as a CBS reporter based in its Chicago bureau from 1982 to 1984. She later became a correspondent for nationwide news-magazine shows including West 57th (1985–89) and 60 Minutes (1989–91). Her final assignment at CBS was as co-anchor of the CBS Morning News (1992–93).

Move to ABC, Turning Point; Intimate Portrait; The View (1994–2006)
Vieira moved to ABC initially as one of six regular correspondents for the news-magazine show Turning Point (1994–99), and was also the host of the Lifetime Network's show Intimate Portrait, which debuted on January 3, 1995, and ran until August 28, 2004.

Vieira served as the original moderator and co-host of ABC's daytime talk show The View from its debut on August 11, 1997, until June 9, 2006. As moderator, she was responsible for opening and closing each of the show's live episodes, introducing "Hot Topics," guiding conversations, and breaking to commercials. On her final episode of The View, Vieira's co-hosts gave her a roast to commemorate her departure.

Vieira explained what led her to become The View's moderator in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, by making the following statement:

"Once I realized I was a reporter who didn't want to report because it required a tremendous amount of travel, nobody was too interested in having me work for them. I had to reinvent myself."

In August 2006, Vieira told Time that she hasn't watched The View since she left the show, except the episode when Star Jones announced she was leaving. She said it was "very sad" what's happened to it: "I'm proud of the work we did there, but it's not a good time in the history of the show... It's hard to watch. It sort of became a joke." On August 29, 2006, Vieira told the New York Post that she didn't mean that The View was a joke. She said the interview was taken out of context. "I felt that the media was turning [The View] into a joke, not that the show was a joke," she says. Time added a clarification to its website, saying "[Vieira] assures Time that in no way were her comments meant to be insensitive or derogatory..."

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (2002–2013)
Vieira became the first host of the American syndicated version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on September 16, 2002; prior to that, American audiences had known it as a primetime show on ABC hosted by Regis Philbin. Rosie O'Donnell (who would later succeed Vieira on The View) was originally offered to host the syndicated version, but rejected it almost immediately. Vieira won two Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Game Show Host for her hosting duties on Millionaire (one in 2005, the other in 2009); as such, she is the second woman ever to win an Emmy Award in this category (after Betty White for Just Men! in 1983), and the first to win multiple times. In addition to hosting the show, Vieira also served as its co-executive producer, a title that she would hold from 2005 until her departure from the show.

ABC originally offered Vieira hosting duties on the syndicated Millionaire to sweeten one of her re-negotiations for The View. When the show was honored by GSN on its 2007 Gameshow Hall of Fame special, one of the show's executive producers, Leigh Hampton, said that when the syndicated version was being developed, the production team felt that it was not feasible for Philbin to continue hosting, as the show recorded four episodes in a single day, and that the team was looking for qualities in a new host: it had to be somebody who would love the contestants and be willing to root for them. After O'Donnell declined the opportunity to host the syndicated version, Vieira was the one that the team settled on, because she had the above-mentioned qualities. On the special, Vieira herself gave the following explanation for why she decided to host the syndicated Millionaire:

"I did the show because I fell in love with the show, and really, first and foremost, as a parent, [I feel that] there aren't that many shows on television that you can watch as a family. And when [the U.S. version's executive producer] Michael Davies approached me and said, 'Would you be interested in hosting the syndicated version?', I said, 'Just point me toward the contract! I am so there!'"

Prior to hosting the syndicated version of Millionaire, Vieira was a celebrity contestant in a special tournament on the third season of the original primetime version, winning $250,000 for her selected charitable organization, the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund. Seven and three-quarter years later, she would even turn the tables on Philbin himself with her surprise appearance on the finale of the show's 10th anniversary primetime revival on August 23, 2009—hosting its final segment while giving him the opportunity to answer one question in order to win $50,000 for his selected organization, Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx.

On January 10, 2013, Vieira announced that after eleven seasons with the syndicated Millionaire, throughout which she had hosted more than 1,800 episodes and offered a vast multitude of contestants a combined total of over $70,000,000, she would be leaving the show as part of an effort to focus on other projects in her career. She finalized taping of her last episodes with the show in November 2012.

Today and The Meredith Vieira Show (2006–2016)
Vieira accepted an offer to succeed Katie Couric as co-anchor of Today on April 6, 2006, the day after Couric announced that she would depart the show to become anchor of the CBS Evening News. The following day, Vieira announced on The View that she would be leaving the show to be co-anchor of Today, a role that The View co-host and ABC News journalist Barbara Walters had filled nearly four decades earlier during her tenure at NBC during the 1960s and 1970s. Vieira was replaced as the moderator of The View by Rosie O'Donnell. Vieira hosted the show with Matt Lauer from September 13, 2006, through June 8, 2011, also becoming a contributing anchor for Dateline NBC.

Vieira continued as host of Millionaire while appearing on Today. As part of her contract with Millionaire, Vieira agreed not to appear on Today during hours that would conflict with the airing of the game show on competing stations. As a result, she rarely appeared on the third or fourth hours of Today. Her first appearance during the third hour came on June 25, 2008, for "Today Throws a Wedding". She also appeared during the entire third hour during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the Barack Obama inauguration on January 20, 2009.

Vieira announced on May 9, 2011, that she would depart as co-host in the following month, but would remain with Today in the role of special correspondent. Her last appearance as regular co-host was on June 8; she returned to the show for the Halloween broadcast on October 31, 2011, and again as special co-host with Matt Lauer in London, United Kingdom for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. She has remained with NBC in a minimized role and became a contributor to Dateline NBC and a correspondent on Rock Center with Brian Williams. In January 2013, she filled in for Kathie Lee Gifford on the fourth hour of Today, appearing alongside Hoda Kotb, and she reported the story Inconceivable on Dateline NBC.

Vieira was one of the hosts for NBC's coverage of the 2012 London Summer Olympics. She and co-host Matt Lauer were criticized for their NBC coverage of the opening ceremony. Vieira also provided some Today Olympics coverage during the games. Vieira co-hosted the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics with Matt Lauer, and was slated to provide coverage during the two weeks of the games. On February 14, 2014, she became the first woman to solo anchor NBC's Olympics prime time coverage, alternated with Lauer while covering for an ailing Bob Costas.

In July 2013, Vieira announced that she would begin hosting her own syndicated afternoon daytime talk show, The Meredith Vieira Show, starting in September 2014, produced by NBCUniversal Television Distribution. On January 4, 2016, it was announced that the show would be ending after two seasons. The talk show aired from September 8, 2014 to May 20, 2016 and ended with 290 episodes.

Vieira guest anchored Today with Hoda & Jenna for a few episodes in 2019, due to host Hoda Kotb being on maternity leave.

Other television work
In May 2018, Vieira co-hosted Royal Wedding Watch with Matt Baker, PBS's weeklong coverage of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

25 Words or Less (2019–present)
Vieira returned to daytime TV in the fall of 2019 as host of the syndicated game show 25 Words or Less from Fox Television Stations. Based on a board game, the show pairs contestants with celebrities in an effort to guess a list of five words using less than 25 words in total.

Personal life
Vieira married CBS News journalist Richard M. Cohen on June 14, 1986. They live in Irvington, Westchester County, New York. Cohen has had multiple sclerosis since he was 25 years old, and has had two bouts of colon cancer, one in 1999 and one a year later. Vieira and Cohen have three children; their younger son, Gabe Cohen, is a reporter for CNN based out of their Washington, D.C. bureau.

Balancing family and career
Vieira joined 60 Minutes in 1989, following the birth of her first child. Don Hewitt, executive producer of 60 Minutes, allowed her to work part-time for two seasons so she could care for her child. After that, it was arranged that she would work full-time. But after two years, she became pregnant again and asked to continue the part-time arrangement. Hewitt declined her request, firing her, and deciding instead to hire someone who would work full-time. Her departure from the show garnered headlines, as a national debate started to take place about whether women could balance both family and career. She turned down opportunities to co-host CBS's The Early Show and ABC's Good Morning America in the mid-1990s when her children were young.

Vieira discusses her family and career decisions in the book Divided Lives: The Public and Private Struggles of Three American Women by Elsa Walsh.

Career timeline

 * 1986–1993: CBS News
 * 1986–1989: West 57th
 * 1989–1992: 60 Minutes correspondent
 * 1992–1993: CBS Morning News co-anchor
 * 1994–2006, 2016: ABC
 * 1994–97: Turning Point correspondent
 * 1997–2006, 2016: The View moderator and guest moderator for one episode of the 20th season.
 * September 16, 2002 – May 31, 2013: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire host
 * 2006–present: NBC News
 * 2007–present: Dateline NBC contributing anchor
 * September 2006 – June 2011: Today co-anchor
 * June 2011–present: NBC News special correspondent
 * October 31, 2011 – June 21, 2013: Rock Center with Brian Williams correspondent
 * 2014: NBC reporter for the 2014 Winter Olympics
 * 2014–2016: The Meredith Vieira Show host & executive producer
 * 2019–present: Guest co-anchor of the fourth hour of Today, Today with Hoda & Jenna, with Jenna Bush Hager
 * 2019–present: Host of 25 Words or Less

Other notable appearances

 * 1998: Miss America 1999 host
 * 2000: Academy Awards pre-show host for ABC
 * 2003: A brief stint in the Broadway show Thoroughly Modern Millie, appearing in various scenes
 * 2003: Made appearance on General Hospital as Bree Flanders
 * 2003: Made appearance on The Practice (Season 7, Episode 17) as a Security Guard.
 * 2004 version of The Stepford Wives, a cameo as the host of a proposed game show
 * 2004: Vieira "hosts" a spoof of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, called Who Wants to Be King of the Jungle? on disc 2 of the Special Edition DVD of The Lion King 1½
 * 2005: Hosts a series of featurettes that are included on the first season DVDs of the ABC television show Desperate Housewives, interviewing cast members and the show's creators
 * 2006-10: Co-hosted NBC's live coverage of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade alongside the Today Show's Matt Lauer and Al Roker.
 * 2007: After her departure in 2006 from The View, Vieira returned to the show to make a guest appearance on the October 8, 2007 episode
 * 2007–10: Made guest appearances on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, in five episodes
 * 2008: In a cameo role as the voice of a news reporter in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
 * 2010: Appeared in the film Get Him to the Greek as herself in a scene where the main characters appear on Today
 * 2010: As the voice of Broomsy Witch in Shrek Forever After
 * 2010: Made an appearance on the "Chumdog Millionaire" episode of Pawn Stars, in which, in a dream sequence, she reads the million-dollar question to Chumlee
 * 2011: A guest investigator on the Ghost Hunters episode "Murdered Matron" when The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) investigated the Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island, New York
 * 2011: Made a cameo appearance in "The Wedding of River Song", the finale of the sixth season of the revived series of the British TV sci-fi drama Doctor Who
 * 2012: Made a guest appearance of the sixth season of the 2008 program, What Would You Do?.
 * 2015 and 2016: For two years, has been a guest narrator at the Candlelight Processional, held during the Christmas season at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort
 * 2016: Announcer and co-anchor of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics on NBC and The Today Show
 * 2017: A cameo role as herself on the Netflix show Orange is the New Black, season 5, episode 8.

title: Meredith Vieira


text:
Lévy flight

A Lévy flight is a random walk in which the step-lengths have a stable distribution, a probability distribution that is heavy-tailed. When defined as a walk in a space of dimension greater than one, the steps made are in isotropic random directions. Later researchers have extended the use of the term "Lévy flight" to also include cases where the random walk takes place on a discrete grid rather than on a continuous space.

The term "Lévy flight" was coined after Paul Lévy by Benoît Mandelbrot, who used this for one specific definition of the distribution of step sizes. He used the term Cauchy flight for the case where the distribution of step sizes is a Cauchy distribution, and Rayleigh flight for when the distribution is a normal distribution (which is not an example of a heavy-tailed probability distribution).

The particular case for which Mandelbrot used the term "Lévy flight" is defined by the survival function of the distribution of step-sizes, U, being

 * $$\Pr(U>u) = \begin{cases}

1 &:\ u < 1,\\ u^{-D} &:\ u \ge 1. \end{cases}$$

Here D is a parameter related to the fractal dimension and the distribution is a particular case of the Pareto distribution.

Properties
Lévy flights are, by construction, Markov processes. For general distributions of the step-size, satisfying the power-like condition, the distance from the origin of the random walk tends, after a large number of steps, to a stable distribution due to the generalized central limit theorem, enabling many processes to be modeled using Lévy flights.

The probability densities for particles undergoing a Levy flight can be modeled using a generalized version of the Fokker–Planck equation, which is usually used to model Brownian motion. The equation requires the use of fractional derivatives. For jump lengths which have a symmetric probability distribution, the equation takes a simple form in terms of the Riesz fractional derivative. In one dimension, the equation reads as

\frac{\partial \varphi(x,t)}{\partial t}=-\frac{\partial}{\partial x} f(x,t)\varphi(x,t) + \gamma \frac{\partial^\alpha \varphi(x,t)}{\partial |x|^\alpha} $$ where γ is a constant akin to the diffusion constant, α is the stability parameter and f(x,t) is the potential. The Riesz derivative can be understood in terms of its Fourier Transform.

F_k\left[\frac{\partial^\alpha \varphi(x,t)}{\partial |x|^\alpha}\right] = -|k|^\alpha F_k[\varphi(x,t)] $$ This can be easily extended to multiple dimensions.

Another important property of the Lévy flight is that of diverging variances in all cases except that of α = 2, i.e. Brownian motion. In general, the θ fractional moment of the distribution diverges if α ≤ θ. Also,

 * $$ \left\langle |x|^\theta \right\rangle \propto t^{\theta/\alpha} \quad\text{if } \theta < \alpha. $$

The exponential scaling of the step lengths gives Lévy flights a scale invariant property, and they are used to model data that exhibits clustering.

Applications
The definition of a Lévy flight stems from the mathematics related to chaos theory and is useful in stochastic measurement and simulations for random or pseudo-random natural phenomena. Examples include earthquake data analysis, financial mathematics, cryptography, signals analysis as well as many applications in astronomy, biology, and physics.

It has been found that jumping between climate states observed in the paleoclimatic record can be described as a Lévy flight or an alpha-stable process Another application is the Lévy flight foraging hypothesis. When sharks and other ocean predators cannot find food, they abandon Brownian motion, the random motion seen in swirling gas molecules, for Lévy flight — a mix of long trajectories and short, random movements found in turbulent fluids. Researchers analyzed over 12 million movements recorded over 5,700 days in 55 data-logger-tagged animals from 14 ocean predator species in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including silky sharks, yellowfin tuna, blue marlin and swordfish. The data showed that Lévy flights interspersed with Brownian motion can describe the animals' hunting patterns. Birds and other animals (including humans) follow paths that have been modeled using Lévy flight (e.g. when searching for food). An example of an animal, specifically a beetle, that uses Lévy flight patterns is Pterostichus melanarius. When the beetles are hungry and food is scarce, they avoid searching for prey in locations that other individuals of P. melanarius have visited. This behavior is optimal for widely dispersed prey that may not always be fully consumed at one time, such as slugs.

Additionally, biological flight can also apparently be mimicked by other models such as composite correlated random walks, which grow across scales to converge on optimal Lévy walks. Composite Brownian walks can be finely tuned to theoretically optimal Lévy walks but they are not as efficient as Lévy search across most landscapes types, suggesting selection pressure for Lévy walk characteristics is more likely than multi-scaled normal diffusive patterns.

Efficient routing in a network can be performed by links having a Levy flight length distribution with specific values of alpha.

title: Lévy flight


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Talk:Mothership Connection

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Indeed, this LP was released Feb 1976. Kingturtle 04:29, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * 1975 actually and yes, I own this album. Check Discogs.com or the album itself. 146.74.231.245 (talk) 00:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm nobody, but I'm pretty sure it's Jerome Brailey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.142.69.37 (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

 * You're right. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

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