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Talk:History of computing

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Name of this article
Removed redirect on this talk page to related talk page Talk:History_of_computing_hardware. Tempshill 00:35, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It sounds like the intention of this page is "History of computing methods" and I recommend it be renamed accordingly. "History of computing" will sound to 99% of our user base like it is the "History of computers" article. Tempshill 00:35, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Second that; like it or not, one has to acknowledge the reception of a term in the real world. "H. of C. methods", or perhaps "H. of calculation" would be a much better title, I think. --Wernher 05:46, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * So 99% of our user base are laboring under an error. We should correct it. Michael Hardy 21:18, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * No offence, but I was anticipating this argument. It is of course a valid one ("ten million flies can't be wrong, etc" is always a dangerous path), and ideally an encyclopedia should strive to educate it's readers, but I think we should rather be discussing the best article title (and, BTW, not all computer scientists/engineers are hopeless introverts with no extra-curricular interests and a general historical overview :-] ). --Wernher 21:35, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Guys, the phrase "History of Computing" is generally used as a broader alternative to "the history of computer hardware" to include the history of CS, software, the computer business, computer use in science, administration, engineering, etc. Computing is what you do with a computer. So that includes the history of mathematical applications, but a whole lot of other stuff as well. For example, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing has been published for more than 25 years now. As someone said above, you're really trying to swim against the tide here. Blame the people who continued to call the things "computers" back in the 1950s even after they started to do more than just compute with them. There should be a page of the history of automatic mathematical calculation, but to avoid confusion call that one "History of Computation" or "History of Scientific Computation" or "History of Scientific and Technical Computation."

 * I agree that this page should be moved to "History of Computation" and "history of computing" should redirect to "History of computer hardware". I think this because I just got to this page wanting an article on the history of the use of the Computer. Tomgreeny 00:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I find that I know next-to-nothing about this topic, and apparently neither do those who originated the history of computing hardware. Otherwise, I would have added a lot more information here. When were the algorithms taught in grammar school for addition and multiplication invented, and how was it done before that time? Archimedes and Euclid should both appear here -- the latter for Euclid's algorithm; the former for The Sand Reckoner. Probably Briggs should be mentioned here. And maybe Fibonacci for introducing Arabic numerals into Europe. Michael Hardy 21:44, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

... and it should mention the existence and nature of human computers and their work in the time what it was taken for granted that the word computer refers to a person who computes. Michael Hardy 21:49, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * The following book is superb on this subject matter (although slightly Franco-centric regarding inventions):

 * Georges Ifrah (1999). The Universal History of Numbers : From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0471375683.

 * --Wernher

Add navigation box
Hi, I added a navigation box on several articles in this series (similar to that used in several other histories (including the History of the United States articles), to help tie the articles together, I hope this will help readers to see the thread between the history of computing overall in the sense that Michael Hardy means and the more narrow and common use senses. I made this article the top-level.  I hope this is useful.   Perhaps some of the computing timelines could also be part of the navbox, but I thought I'd give people a chance to discuss what might be appropriate before hauling in a whole slew of new articles into the navbox. --Lexor 11:39, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Writing this article
So... who's interested in actually writing this article? Fredrik (talk) 20:57, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I would be, if I knew anything. It was actually this article that caused me to realize that I don't.  I know something of the history of mathematics, and I know that Euclid wrote about Euclid's algorithm, but I have no idea, e.g., how the ancient Greeks did multiplication, or when and how long division was introduced, etc. Michael Hardy 21:04, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Unless someone else does it before then, I may make it my project of the week end. I don't know a lot about the subject, but I can go to the library and study :-). Then someone can correct my mistakes. David Remahl 21:02, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Possible directions for enhancement
Michael Hardy's program for this article could be realized in several directions, but it seems as if the directions are actually articles in themselves:
 * the arithmetic operations, once we have a positional number system, could characterize multiplication of M by N as repeated addition of M, N times; likewise, division of M by N as repeated subtraction of a trial subtrahend from M and its succeeding minuends, N times, until we arrive at the Egyptian fraction, bringing us to continued fractions etc., in the cornucopia that is mathematics, but that would serve to cover up the relationship of the the arithmetic operations to computing with minutiae.
 * the algorithms, such as Newton's method, the Runge-Kutta methods, and dozens of similar specialized methods for each kind of mathematical structure, and again, we have a cornucopia to deal with.
 * the fact that there are usually limitations to the algorithms, meaning that they cannot be applied blindly, requiring judgement and the eventual resort to heuristics

So, does anyone have any suggestions? Ancheta Wis 00:10, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I think this would be a good project for WikiProject_Computer_science which could use more members and advisors. Also WikiProject_Mathematics. There is a lot of Computer and math stuff that could use better formatting and referencing. I'm just a learner in these topics, but I think you need a sense of History to gain some perspective. CQ 21:10, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Is anyone going to add how people managed to calculate trigonometric or logarithmetic functions using analog/digital devices? That could be a good historical fact to add. Rtthb (talk) 17:47, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Some "definition"
The lead section starts the definition (this is an Encyclopedia, remember, where things are defined) with these words: "The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology..." Has anyone ever read a more inept definition of a subject? --SciCorrector (talk) 22:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I would be more concerned by the fact that it says that this article is longer than [The history of computing hardware], when the latter is actually five times longer.

Thaum1el (talk) 09:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

list of books
I started the section "books for futher reading" and I duplicated the list in history of computing hardware. (Someone has kindly added to the lsit.) There are more books that I'd like to add, but I don't want us to have to maintain the list in more than one place. (There are probably other articles that could use this list too). So would it be a good idea to make an article with just the list of books that can be linked from the other places? Or is there a better way to do it and eliminate the duplication? Bubba73 00:11, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mention of people
In the history of computing, there are key people, John von Neumann, and Grace Murray Hopper, and Donald Knuth, just to mention a few. Could we have a brief section in this article mentioning and linking to bios of people like them? MathStatWoman 23:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Even more importantly, this article lacks mention of human computers and the rooms full of them each assigned parts of large computational tasks. Astronomy, geodesy, cartography, and navigation are, I'm sure, only a few of the areas that relied heavily on such activities. At the very least, there should be a link to the Wikipedia article "Human Computer." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpha cassiopeia (talk • contribs) 17:44, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Excluding hardware is absurd
Excluding computing hardware is absurd, simply because computing hardware can be used for...computing. I'm fine with a general page that lists both human and hardware computing history (keeping the additional page focused on hardware), but this page doesn't breakout any hardware history, and even the human history is very limited. Superm401 - Talk 22:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Many links to other langage are wrong.
Most of inter-wiki links to other langages talks about computer science but this article is not about computer science. I'm removing some I can understand but not all... 152.81.12.56 07:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

 * No wonder. Try taking some English Language lessons. You'll understand a lot more after that. --SciCorrector (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Still un happy with this article
As noted above, the title is misleading. Most sources consider the term "history of computing" to mean "the history of computer software and hardware." The misleading title has caused several serious problems: I have no problem with an article that discusses the history of mathematical algorithms used for "computing" but all the above problems need to fixed. I will fix each of these if there are no objections. I notice that the discussion of the problem seems to have petered out about three years ago. CharlesGillingham 18:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) It appears at the top of the nav box for the history of computer software and hardware, suggesting that it is the main article on this subject. (It isn't.)
 * 2) The category "history of computing" uses the term in the standard way, but it uses this article as the lead article. This article doesn't even belong in that category, but rather in the history of mathematics.
 * 3) It makes external links to a number of sites which use the term in the standard way, rather than the quirky way this article does.
 * 4) Inter-language links (as noted above) are often wrong.
 * 5) Links into this article are often intended for history of computer hardware or history of computer science

 * ✅ CharlesGillingham (talk) 02:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Computer programming in the punch card era
I have found the above article in the list of those that need wikifying, and I wondered whether people who edit here would have a view on whether it needs to be merged, renamed, rewritten or otherwise altered, or perhaps just brought into your article series. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Concrete devices?
Is this article really suggesting computing started out with concrete?! This is either poor use of language, or the materials industry are unaware of the ancient use of concrete! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.26.42 (talk) 08:23, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * See Abstract object --TedColes (talk) 09:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

HTML text in the header
All history of computing pages are showing the following code in the header:

This is being caused by the command, but I couldn't figure out how to solve it. DSchiavini (talk) 08:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

 * The "command" in question is actually a template; in particular, it's Template:History of computing, which puts the box in the sidebar of pages that use it.

 * This edit, with the edit comment "Hide sidebar if printing as a book.", wrapped the template in an instance of the template, i.e. Template:Hide in print.  That editor's next edit replaced that template with an explicit inclusion of  in the template, perhaps because the  template, as its documentation page says, doesn't work. Guy Harris (talk) 17:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140301151115/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjbaQl0ad8 to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjbaQl0ad8

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Looks like IEEE computer history timeline https://www.computer.org/cms/Publications/timeline.pdf needs to be archived as well (or updated if its moved - I had a quick look and couldn't see a new location) Cronky (talk) 10:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. Guy Harris (talk) 09:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Computer Hardware Added
I have included hardware history to the Digital Electronic Computers section with relevant history from the 1970s- 1990s.EFohsta-Lynch (talk) 06:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

 * What are the forms of computing and computers other than the "actual computing" and "actual computers" referred to in

 * "Late 1980s and beginning in the early 1990s we see more advances with actual computers to aid with actual computing."

 * What are some examples of "non-actual computing" and "non-actual computers"? Guy Harris (talk) 06:41, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Women in early computing
The claim that "computing was a female-dominated field" is sourced to Hicks (2017). Supportive passages begin on page 1 ("In the 1940s, computer operation and programming was viewed as women's work") and continue to the end, since this is the thesis of the book. Detailed statistics on the growth of women's clerical work including computer work can be found on pages 8-9. The prevalence of women's labor even in computer manufacturing, and even before World War 2, is discussed on page 21. An inline citation to this work was already clearly present; this claim is continuous with the subsequent claim that the condition continued until the 1960s. Citations should be provided for contrary views, not vague claims about probabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.38.90 (talk) 20:20, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for providing a more precise reference. It still doesn't support the very broad claim that "computing was historically a female-dominated field". That's a claim about the field of computing as a whole, whose history begins several thousand years before the 1940s. We could of course add the sourced claim that in the 1940s, computer operation and programming was viewed as women's work, or something about computer manufacturing, as you mentioned. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * In this edit summary, you said "this claim appears explicitly as early as page 1 of the work already cited inline". That's false. Page 1 of the cited book starts with "In 1959, a computer operator embarked on an extremely hectic year ..." and ends with "Usually, more machinery and...". Nowhere between these sentences is there anything that would support the very broad claim "computing was historically a female-dominated field". — Chrisahn (talk) 20:44, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * What do you make of "as computing gained prominence, men displaced the thousands of women who had been pioneers in a feminized field of endeavor" (same page); "When the gender makeup of a field flips ... in early computing" (same page); "computing's masculinization" (p.2); "women lost out on computing" (p.2)? It takes a truly stubborn reading to say this claim is not present from the beginning of the book. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It takes a truly creative reading to believe expressions like "feminized field of endeavor" or somewhat vague statements about the "gender makeup of a field" support an explicit and broad claim like "computing was historically a female-dominated field". — Chrisahn (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If it helps you see how these phrases fit together, the back cover of the book does some synthesis: "As computing experienced a gender flip, becoming male-identified in the 1960s and 1970s..." Again, this is the thesis of the book, not a subtle interpretation of ambiguous phrases. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The quote implies that computing was "female-identified" before the 1960s, but it doesn't make that claim explicitly. If that's the thesis of the book, it should be easy to find a clear, explicit statement to that effect, and adding it to the article would be fine. (Of course, "female-identified" is quite different from "female-dominated".) — Chrisahn (talk) 23:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Soon, women became synonymous with office machine operators" (9) "Their alginment with machine work in offices persisted through waves of equipment upgrades and eventually through the changeover from electromechanical to electronic systems (9) "Office managers did not see anything unusual about the association of women with increasingly complex machines, because the association of women with automation was nearly a century old by this point." (9) "The 'total war' style of combat included conscription of women's labor, resulting in a wartime intelligence establishment that was overwhelmingly female" (11) [eg, the Colossus operators were ten-to-one women] "Most computer work in government was still done by women" (15) "That the workers in this field were disproportionately white is no more a coincidence than the fact that they were overwhelmingly women" (16) -- all this from the introduction alone. For sources, Hicks cites (p. 16, not getting into the bibliography) "Government records and the records of the nationalized industries ... complemented by the records of British computing companies, staff association and labor union records, and media from both trade and popular publications" 67.189.38.90 (talk) 23:34, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quotes! We should try to condense these and other quotes into something we can add to the article. I'm a bit skeptical about the claim "the workers in this field [computing] ... were overwhelmingly women", since it's somewhat at odds with the other sources I mentioned below, which say there were about 30 to 50 percent female programmers in the US in the 1950s. Maybe there was a significant difference between the US and the UK? Or maybe that claim only applies to the 1940s? Does Programmed Inequality provide some numbers regarding these issues? — Chrisahn (talk) 00:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Hicks focuses on the UK case. I skimmed through for some claims that can be pinned to dates (skipping over the well documented ENIAC and Colossus operators): In 1948 the Treasury creates the machine operator class of jobs in the Civil Service, which is a women's class - "The duties of the class will cover all work on calculating, punch card, and accounting machines and will range from the simplest to the most complex work" (p. 70) A 1962 Trade Union Congress internal memo said "The use of computers and other electronic devices has increased in large engineering companies and nationalized industries since 1958 ... Experience has shown that most work fed into these machines is prepared by female labor." (p.86) In 1955 the Civil Service officially instituted equal pay, but only in mixed-gender pay grades, hence not for the women-only machine operator class. (p. 93) "In the flux of the mid-1960s, actual and perceived computer labor shortages first helped women stay in the field, then eventually removed them from it, by inflating the status and pay for computer work out of the realm of 'women's work'" (p. 102) A quote from Office Methods and Machines, 1967: "Most 'operative' jobs are performed by female staff" (p. 112) "Nearly all photographs used to sell and showcase computers in the early 1960s pictured a conservatively dressed, plain-looking female workforce" (p. 113) "India's punch operator labor force was not as feminized as Britain's. Sometimes, punching jobs were reserved for men only ... The punch room at Air India in 1961 contained both men and women punchers in roughly equal proportions." (p.120) Paraphrasing unless in quote marks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.38.90 (talk) 02:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your contributions in this edit. Very clear and balanced, and a good synopsis of the various quotes and sources we discussed here. Great job! Thanks! — Chrisahn (talk) 14:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

 * There is a sense in which it is true that computing is an ancient field, and the article partly adopts this framing. However, this section of the article adopts an equally if not more common focus on modern computing. See how "early decades of computing" is used in the block quotation following this paragraph - nothing about this is particularly ambiguous. That the claim including "until the 1960s" has not also been removed shows what a ridiculous and selective standard is being applied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.38.90 (talk) 20:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that the claim including "until the 1960s" doesn't make sense without more details. I deleted it. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:48, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course computing is an ancient field. See e.g. Computing: "The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables. ... The earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BC." History of computing hardware: "Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years..." Timeline of computing hardware before 1950 starts at c. 19,000 BC. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:52, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, people have performed computations since ancient times, and used various devices for the purpose. Nevertheless it is not ambiguous when "computing" is used to refer to modern computing. For instance, the founding statement of the Association for Computing Machinery restricted its scope to "the new machinery for computing, reasoning, and other handling of information," (emphasis mine) but it was not necessary to specify this in the name of the organization. Since the single word "modern" provides adequate context for both claims, I do not see why they shouldn't be restored with this small addition.67.189.38.90 (talk) 21:21, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Saying something like "modern computing" or "computing in the mid-20th century" instead of "computing" would be an improvement. But a broad claim like "computing in the mid-20th century was a female-dominated field" would still be unsupported by the given sources, and it would be wrong. (I guess if we asked historians of these areas the question "whose ideas dominated computing in the mid-20th century", they'd most often mention Alan Turing and John von Neumann.) We'd have to be more specific. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It is, like the preceding and following (now the surviving) sentences, a claim about proportional representation in the workforce, not about leading intellectuals. It is supported from the first page of the already given source and in several specific contexts listed above among many others. Speculation about hypothetical experts is not a source. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 21:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, Programmed Inequality doesn't claim that workforce in computing-related areas was "dominated" by women, and the book doesn't seem to provide data about gender proportions. I looked for other sources and found these: "In the 1950s, women comprised between 30 and 50 percent of programmers." "In 1960 [...] the proportion of women in computing and mathematical professions (which are grouped together in federal government data) was 27 percent. ... Raytheon, where the programmer work force 'was about 50 percent men and 50 percent women' ..."  — Chrisahn (talk) 23:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Same Atlantic article: "During the 1940s and 50s, it was primarily women, not men, who were developing code for the nation’s first computers, and the accompanying pay and prestige were both relatively low." Following through to the source on 30-50% (Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over, which seems to articulate a similar thesis to Hicks but in the US private sector) we find "In the first textbooks on computing published in the United States, for example, John von Neumann and Herman Goldstine ... distinguished between the headwork of the (male) scientist or "planner," and the handiwork of the (largely female) "coder." (15) "The first computer programmers were not scientists or mathematicians; they were low-status, female clerical workers and desktop calculator operators" (32) "early software workers were gendered female" (38). The 30-50% figures come from p.237, in a section titled "Where did all the women go?," and are in a paragraph describing the decline of women's participation in the 60s, continuing to 23% in the 70s. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 00:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * From the NYT article, the source on the Raytheon stats adds “And it really amazed me that these men were programmers, because I thought it was women’s work!” 67.189.38.90 (talk) 00:49, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * A bit more anecdotal evidence: Margaret Hamilton says: "When I began as a programmer in 1959, and continuing until now, in every software organization and in every software project I have been involved in, there were always many more men than women programmers. There were many more men than women in our profession, and this is still the case. Regarding my own experiences, women were always in the minority and men were always in the majority." — Chrisahn (talk) 23:26, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

 * "In the 1940s, computer operation and programming was viewed as women's work". Presumably this refers to the late 1940s, as the first programmable computers, in the modern sense, showed up in the late 1940's and early 1950's.  I'm not sure what Prof. Abbate was referring to when she said that "[Women] made up the majority of the first computer programmers during World War II" - even ENIAC (the first programmers listed by its article were all women) was "first put to work for practical purposes on December 10, 1945", after Japan's surrender.  Either she's referring to the setup of machines prior to ENIAC, such as the Harvard Mark I, or she's referring to work done after WW2. Guy Harris (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The first claim is from Hicks, not Abbate; Hicks (2017) describes types of electromechanical machines in use immediately before the war, and the genders of their operators, such as on p. 21. These devices were programmed using punch cards. See tabulating machine for more information, including historical classification of these devices as computers. Hicks also describes the women operators of Colossus computer machines (digital, electronic, and programmable) which were used in the first half of the decade, before ENIAC, and may be what Abbate refers to. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 22:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * So "programming" in a broader sense, not just stored-program computers. The tabulating machines generally used punch cards for data but used plugboards for programming (which I did a small amount of at my high school); the skill of doing that may be closer to that of high-level hardware design (routing data from component to component, routing control pulses to trigger operations) than to programming a stored-program computer.  Tabulating machine says "Many applications using unit record tabulators were migrated to computers such as the IBM 1401.", so it doesn't classify them as "computers" in the modern sense, but they're computing machines capable of some amount of decision making and changing the sequence of operations - and this article is "history of computing", not "history of stored-program computers", so they're relevant.  Abbate's writing about Colossus and ENIAC; ENIAC was also originally partially plugboard-programmed (along with function tables made up from an array of switches). Guy Harris (talk) 01:12, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep. What I meant about them being considered computers was in the language of the day, eg, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. Still, Hicks (p.67) describes some larger machines with card-based programmability on top of data entry, for limited instructions on sorting and data manipulation. Endnotes sadly don't specify which machines this refers to. 67.189.38.90 (talk) 02:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I have the Apple Books versions of both Hicks and Abbate, so the page numbers are different. Could you give me a quote from what Hicks said on page 67 of your edition, or indicate what subsection it's in?  I looked for "card" and "sorting", but the main thing I see is in the "Computer Labor before "Computers"" subsection - "The process of programming the electromechanical computers in punched card installations involved plugging up a board that either was attached to the machine or could be swapped in and out, allowing operators to quickly run programs they had set up on other boards."
 * BTW, are there any studies on women in computing in countries whose names don't begin with the word "United"? :-) Women in computing seems rather US/UK-centric. Guy Harris (talk) 06:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

With regards to the timeline of computing, why is Zuse's Z1 mischaracterized?
There seems to be an unnecessary amount of stress being placed on the development of purely electric vacuum computers. The Z1 while being motor driven, and unreliable after extended use, featured programability via punched film, and this was in 1936. And it could multiplay and divide, which also isn't mentioned in the article, so theres that.

The article seems to make little distinction between programmability via a labor intensive process of manually setting switches and plugs needed to run a program, and simply reading stored directions via a binary punched medium.

In terms of the Z1, Zuse's device was way ahead in terms of several important features and this article really doesn't want to talk about it.

With regards to the two other early modern computers which were ostensibly developed during the late 1930's: I am really struggling to find anything about Arthur Halsey Dickinson's (IBM) 1939 and Joseph Desch, NCR3566 (NCR) 1939. Does anyone here even know what these computers even looked like, or have images they can host? I sure don't.

Just a working citation to anything about either of these inventions and their creators. This is a pretty big hole in History if no one is able to locate any publicly available schematics or information here.

''I mean, provided these inventions actually do exist, and weren't simply gambits to secure patent rights on possible future inventions, and were later mischaracterized in the compilation of history. It would be excellent if my hunch turns out to be nothing more than a product of simple ignorance, which hopefully someone will be able to remedy.'' My biggest concern here is that neither of Arthur Dickinson or Joseph Desch have Wiki articles themselves, which is a little strange, considering the language of the article on the history of computing appears to suggest that these two would logically share the honor of being the sire figure to modern-day computing, which may not be an accurate characterization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:14a:c100:d:595c:b157:e389:5d84 (talk) 08:31, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

History of computation
Might this be an alternative title for this article? TedColes (talk) 18:00, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:History of computing


text:
André Bachand (Progressive Conservative MP)

André Bachand (born December 8, 1961) is a Canadian politician, who represented the riding of Richmond—Arthabaska as member of the Progressive Conservatives from 1997 to 2003.

When the PC Party was merged with the Canadian Alliance into the Conservative Party in December 2003, Bachand declined to join the CPC and sat as an "Independent Progressive Conservative" until the 2004 election, when he retired from the House of Commons.

Born in Quebec City, Quebec, Bachand has been an administrator, and a business executive. He was the mayor of Asbestos, Quebec, from 1986 to 1997, and was the Préfet of the MRC d'Asbestos from 1987 to 1997.

Young Turk
Bachand was first elected as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1997, one of five PC MPs elected that year in Quebec. Bachand was one of a handful of new "Young Turk" PC MPs (along with Scott Brison, John Herron and Peter MacKay) who were considered the future youthful leadership material that would restore the ailing Tories to their glory days. In 1998, Jean Charest stepped down as federal Progressive Conservative leader to move to Quebec provincial politics, becoming leader of the federalist Quebec Liberal Party (unaffiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada). Bachand was one of many who unsuccessfully tried to convince Charest to remain in federal politics for at least one more election. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark succeeded Charest as leader of the PC Party and Bachand was supportive of Clark's candidacy.

Difficult times
The Quebec-wing of the federal PC parliamentary caucus wrestled with several internal policy issues in the late 1990s after Charest's departure, including with respect to bilingualism policies and the autonomy of provinces relative to the federal government. Shortly after Joe Clark was elected leader of the federal Tory Party, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Stéphane Dion brought forward the Clarity Act on behalf of the government. The Clarity Act detailed specifically how the province of Quebec could separate and under what conditions a separation could be legal. Clark and seven other PC MPs chose to support Bachand and the Quebec PC MPs in opposing the Clarity Act, while the remaining PC MPs voted in favour of the Bill regardless of Clark's stance.

Quebec lieutenant
By 1999, Bachand had emerged as the nominal Quebec lieutenant of the Conservatives, attending most PC events in the province with Clark and acting as the party's chief spokesman for Quebec issues. Bachand was also the chief responder to the multiple defections of Quebec Tory party officials, MPs, and senators to the Liberal Party and Canadian Alliance during this period. In September 2000, three Quebec PC MPs, fearful of their re-election prospects under Clark's leadership, crossed the floor shortly before the federal election to sit as Liberal MPs, leaving Bachand as the only remaining PC MP in Quebec. He was subsequently re-elected in the 2000 election, as were all three of the MPs who crossed the floor. Twelve Tory MPs won election in 2000, just enough for the party to retain official party status.

Deputy leader
In February 2003, Bachand announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives. However, on May 12, he announced that he was dropping out of the race and supporting Peter MacKay. Bachand had been running fifth in the race, and had failed to gather support among party delegates and to raise enough money for his campaign. After MacKay's victory, Bachand briefly served as Deputy Leader of the Progressive Conservatives until early December 2003. Before becoming deputy leader, Bachand served as the deputy house leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, as well as its critic for the Intergovernmental Affairs, Industry, Science Research and Development, and the Deputy Prime Minister portfolios.

Lone independent
When the party merged with the Canadian Alliance at the end of 2003, Bachand announced that he would retire from politics. Bachand did not sit with the new Conservative Party of Canada Caucus, and became an independent MP until the June 2004 election. During the June 2004 election, Bachand endorsed the Liberal candidate in the Richmond—Arthabaska race over the Conservative and Bloc Québécois challengers. In the event, the BQ won fifty-four of Quebec's seventy-five seats, including Richmond—Arthabaska, where André Bellavance won.

Bachand's departure from federal politics has been lamented by many Tories hailing from Quebec. In a Maclean's article covering the March 2005 founding policy convention of the new Conservative Party, Senator Pierre Claude Nolin mused that if Bachand had remained elected and participatory in the new party, he may served as the new Conservative Party's chief Quebec lieutenant as part of Stephen Harper's attempts to woo Quebec voters.

Return to politics
In September 2008, Bachand announced that he would be the Conservative Party candidate for the district of Sherbrooke in the 40th Canadian feneral election. On election night, Bachand's comeback attempt was unsuccessful. He lost to Bloc Québécois incumbent Serge Cardin, finishing third with 16.4% of the vote.

Shortly after his election defeat, Bachand accepted an appointment from Harper as Canada's ambassador to UNESCO in Paris. As ambassador, Bachand's most high-profile activity was to oppose, on the Canadian government's behalf, the entry of the Palestinian Authority to membership in the organization.

In October 2011, Harper appointed Bachand as his senior advisor on Quebec issues. The post, which previously had been combined with responsibility for being Harper's communications advisor, was reportedly separated from other responsibilities in order to make space for Bachand.

In 2013, Maclean's included Bachand as one of the thirteen members of Harper's "inner circle," of most-trusted advisors, tasked "to try to improve Conservative fortunes in Quebec."

In September 2013, Bachand was hired by the Earnscliffe Strategy Group, an Ottawa public-affairs firm.

Provincial politics
Bachand ran for the Coalition Avenir Québec in the riding of Richmond, going on to win in the 2018 provincial election.

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


text:
John Churton Collins

John Churton Collins (26 March 1848 – 15 September 1908) was a British literary critic.

Biography
Churton Collins was born at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England. From King Edward's School, Birmingham, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1872, and at once devoted himself to a literary career, as journalist, essayist and lecturer. His first book was a study of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1874), and later he edited various classical English writers, and published volumes on Bolingbroke and Voltaire in England (1886), The Study of English Literature (1891), a study of Dean Swift (1893), Essays and Studies (1895), Ephemera Critica (1901), Essays in Poetry and Criticism (1905), and Rousseau and Voltaire (1908), his original essays being sharply controversial in tone, but full of knowledge.

In 1904 he became professor of English literature at Birmingham University. For many years he was a prominent University Extension lecturer, and a constant contributor to the principal reviews. On 15 September 1908 he was found dead in a ditch near Lowestoft, Suffolk, at which place he had been staying with a doctor for the benefit of his health. The circumstances necessitated the holding of an inquest, the verdict being that of accidental death.

Criticism
Lord Tennyson, a target of Collins' pen, referred to him as "a louse in the locks of literature".

Works

 * Bolingbroke: A Historical Study (1886).
 * Illustrations of Tennyson (1891).
 * The Study of English Literature (1891).
 * Essays and Studies (1895).
 * A Treasury of Minor British Poetry (1896).
 * The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1900).
 * Ephemera Critica (1901).
 * Jonathan Swift, a Biographical and Critical Study (1902).
 * Critical Essays and Literary Fragments (1903).
 * Studies in Shakespeare (1904).
 * Studies in Poetry and Criticism (1905).
 * 13 essays, most on 18th century poets, in Poets' Country, ed. Andrew Lang (1907).
 * Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau in England (1908).
 * Greek Influence on English Poetry (1910).
 * Life and Memoirs of John Churton Collins (1911).
 * The Posthumous Essays of John Churton Collins (1912).

title: John Churton Collins


text:
User:Slimshadye911

Important Message for You

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity/ To seize everything you ever wanted…One moment/ Would you capture it or just let it slip?/

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment/ You own it, you better never let it go/ You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow/ This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo/

title: User:Slimshadye911


text:
Kilroot

{{Infobox settlement
 * name                           = Kilroot
 * type                           = townland
 * native_name                    = {{lang-ga|Cill Ruaidh }}
 * translit_lang1                 = Irish
 * translit_lang1_type            = Derivation:
 * translit_lang1_info            = {{lang|ga|Cill Ruaidh}}
 * translit_lang1_type1           = Meaning:
 * translit_lang1_info1           = Church of the redhead
 * image_skyline                  = Kilroot Power.jpg
 * imagesize                      =
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 * image_caption                  = Looking in the direction of Kilroot from the promenade at Carrickfergus.
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 * pushpin_map                    = Northern Ireland#United Kingdom
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 * subdivision_type               = Sovereign state
 * subdivision_name               = United Kingdom
 * subdivision_type1              = Country
 * subdivision_name1              = Northern Ireland
 * subdivision_type2              = County
 * subdivision_name2              = Antrim
 * subdivision_type3              = Barony
 * subdivision_name3              = Belfast Lower
 * subdivision_type4              = Civil parish
 * subdivision_name4              = Kilroot
 * leader_title                   = Council
 * leader_name                    = Mid and East Antrim
 * leader_title1                  =
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 * established_title              = First recorded
 * established_date               = Before 1609
 * seat_type                      =
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 * p1                             = Kilroot
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 * area_total_ha                  = 262.21
 * area_total_acre                = 647.94

}} Kilroot is a townland, population centre and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It lies to the east of Eden, on the outskirts of Carrickfergus on the northern shore of Belfast Lough. It is within the Mid and East Antrim area.
 * population_footnotes           =
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History
According to Archbishop Usher, a church was built in Kilroot in 412 AD.

Places of interest
The Round House, known locally as Dean Swift's house, is likely to date from the eighteenth century fashion of Romantic cottages. Its diminutive appearance was deceiving as the ground floor contained a parlour 24 ft by 16 ft. It was a white limewashed thatched cottage unique in its construction without corners. The four straight sections of wall did not join at right angles but were joined by curved sections to form one continuous exterior wall. Swift was reputed by local lore to have said that the devil would never catch him in a corner. The building was demolished in 1959 after a fire, and the site as well as the adjacent Kilroot railway station has disappeared under the new power station.

Kilroot power station is owned by AES Corporation and is the only remaining coal-fired power station in Northern Ireland; it once provided about one third of electricity supplies for Northern Ireland. AES has recently announced plans to add on a gas fired generator which would approximately double the electricity output of Kilroot.

There is also a network of rock salt (halite) mines in Kilroot which stretch for approximately 30 mi underneath Kilroot, Eden and the Carrickfergus East Division. The salt mined here is used to grit Northern Ireland's road surfaces in the winter, as well as being sold to Scotland and England for the same purpose.

Kilroot is home to the 750000 sqft Kilroot Business Park, located adjacent to the power station.

People
Saint Colmán of Kilroot was a sixth-century Irish disciple of Saint Ailbe of Emly and was bishop of Kilroot, at the same time as being a Benedictine abbot. St. Colman's Church of Ireland parish church, located near Kilroot, is dedicated to Saint Colmán.

Jonathan Swift lived in Kilroot as a prebend for the local church, from March 1695 to May 1696. A ward in St Patrick's University Hospital is named after the village.

title: Kilroot


text:
Castlethorpe

Castlethorpe is a village and civil parish with a population of about 1000 in the unitary authority area of the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is about 3 mi north-east of Stony Stratford, 4 mi north-west of Newport Pagnell and 7 mi north of Central Milton Keynes. It is separated from the county of Northamptonshire by the River Tove.

History
The village is relatively more recent than those around it, and it started out in life as a castle belonging to the lord of the manor of nearby Hanslope. A settlement of servants and manual workers grew up around the castle and this became the village of Castlethorpe (thorpe is an Old Norse language (particularly Danish) word for homestead, and it is not unreasonable to assume that there may well have been a Danish settlement nearby as the area was, if not part of, certainly close to, the Danelaw). The castle was damaged in 1215 in a feud between Foulkes de Brent – who had been sent by King John –  and William Mauduit, the castle's owner. Mauduit was reputedly in rebellion against the King. Although Mauduit returned to claim his seat after the King's death, the castle was demolished shortly afterward. All that is left today are the grassy mounds of the former Motte-and-Bailey castle.

Listed buildings and structures
The parish has one scheduled ancient monument, one grade I listed building, and twenty grade II.

Ecclesiastic parish
Church of St Simon and St Jude, the parish church, is dedicated to St Simon and St Jude, and possibly dates back to Anglo-Saxon times: although no evidence of a pre-Norman building survives, its existence has been conjectured from the structure of the north arcade. In 1350, the nave was widened and the chancel rebuilt. The church at Castlethorpe was originally superior to that of Hanslope but Bishop Grosteste changed the precedence in about 1250. Castlethorpe has grown up around the church and some traditional old stone cottages at the centre of the village which is designated a conservation area.

Rail and canal
The West Coast Main Line runs alongside the west side of Castlethorpe, and the village had its own railway station until September 1964 when, to the outrage of the village, it was closed down.

The Grand Union Canal also runs by on the outskirts of the village, and it is a short walk along the towpath to the neighbouring village of Cosgrove in Northamptonshire.

title: Castlethorpe


text:
Omnibus spending bill

An omnibus spending bill is a type of bill in the United States that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill that can be passed with only one vote in each house of Congress. There are twelve different ordinary appropriations bills that need to be passed each year (one for each appropriations sub-committee) to fund the federal government and avoid a government shutdown. An omnibus spending bill combines two or more of those bills into a single bill.

Regular appropriations bills are typically written, debated, and passed by the House and the Senate during the summer. However, these versions can be different, especially if different parties control each chamber. The omnibus negotiating process takes place later in the year, and involves reconciling differences in the various bills so that an identical, combined appropriations bill can pass both chambers and avert a government shutdown.

Appropriations process
Every year, Congress must pass bills that appropriate money for all discretionary government spending. Generally, one bill is passed for each sub-committee of the twelve subcommittees in the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations and the matching 12 subcommittees in the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations.

When Congress does not or cannot produce separate bills in a timely fashion, it will roll many of the separate appropriations bills into one omnibus spending bill. The deadline could be the start of the next fiscal year, October 1, or it could be some other deadline when appropriations would otherwise run out (such as a deadline set by a continuing resolution). The fiscal year of the United States is the 12-month period beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next calendar year.

Some of the reasons that Congress might not complete all the separate bills include partisan disagreement, disagreement amongst members of the same political party, and too much work on other bills. According to Walter J. Oleszek, a political science professor and "senior specialist in American national government at the Congressional Research Service", omnibus bills have become more popular since the 1980s because "party and committee leaders can package or bury controversial provisions in one massive bill to be voted up or down."

Omnibus bills can also be used to "veto-proof" items, by including measures that the president is expected to veto if they were submitted for signature on their own, but who is willing or pressured into signing an omnibus bill that includes those measures.

Minibus
A "minibus" (short for "mini-omnibus") is a spending bill which provides funding for multiple sectors of the federal government, but not for all of them.

Cromnibus
A "cromnibus" (portmanteau of "CR" and "omnibus") is a bill setting new funding levels for certain sectors of the federal government, while renewing the previous fiscal year's ones for others.

Criticism
In Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process, Walter Oleszek describes omnibus measures as follows:

"Packaging all or a number of appropriation bills together creates what are called omnibus or minibus measures. These bills appropriate money to operate the federal government and make national policy in scores of areas. These omnibus bills grant large powers to a small number of people who put these packages together - party and committee leaders and top executive officials. Omnibus measures usually arouse the ire of the rank-and-file members of Congress because typically little time is available in the final days of a session to debate these massive measures or to know what is in them. Absent enactment of annual appropriation bills or a CR, federal agencies must shut down, furloughing their employees. Moreover, "uncertainty about final appropriations leads many [federal] managers to hoard funds; in some cases, hiring and purchasing stops."

Often, omnibus spending bills are criticized for being full of pork (unnecessary/wasteful spending that pleases constituents or special interest groups). The bills regularly stretch to more than 1,000 pages. Nevertheless, such bills have grown more common in recent years.

In December 2004, the 3,016-page $388 billion Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 became known for its size, its earmarks inserted in the final stages that represented 4% of the $388 billion, its non-appropriations provisions, its controversial content, and for being rushed through at the last minute. It was drafted by the House in less than 24 hours and then pushed through the Senate. It contained "complex and controversial matters" which included nine bills, only two of which had been debated in the Senate, and a conference report (a bill reconciled between the two chambers in a conference committee) with 32 unrelated provisions that the Senate had never considered.

In 2009, a $410 billion omnibus bill, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, became a point of controversy due to its $8 billion in earmarks. On March 11, the bill was signed by U.S. President Barack Obama into law as.

Examples

 * Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Appropriations Act, 1999
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008
 * Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012
 * Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014
 * Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, ,
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022
 * Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023

title: Omnibus spending bill


text:
George Dawson (preacher)

George Dawson (24 February 1821 – 30 November 1876) was an English nonconformist preacher, lecturer and activist. He was an influential voice in the calls for radical political and social reform in Birmingham, a philosophy that became known as the Civic Gospel.

Ministry
Dawson was born in Brunswick Square, London, in 1821. His father was headmaster of a Baptist school. He was educated at home, then at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and the University of Glasgow. Oxford and Cambridge seemed not an option as, owing to the Test Act, for centuries up to 1828 only Anglicans were allowed to matriculate (Oxford) or graduate (Cambridge).

In 1843 Dawson accepted a call to the pastorate of the Baptist church at Rickmansworth. He moved to the rapidly expanding industrial town of Birmingham in 1844 to become minister of the Mount Zion Baptist Chapel where the eloquence and beliefs that the young man expressed soon attracted a large following.

However, Dawson's views did not fit the orthodoxy of the Baptist church, so in 1845 he left, followed by much of his congregation, to become minister of the theologically liberal Church of the Saviour, a Unitarian church erected for him by his supporters, where "no pledge was required, of minister or congregation; no form of belief was implied by membership; no difference in creed was allowed to bar union in practical Christian work".

The key doctrine preached there was inscribed on a marble tablet above the entrance: "There is but one law – thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself."

Civic Gospel
In the Church of the Saviour, Dawson developed the concept of the Civic Gospel. He called upon his congregation to join him in the struggle "to improve conditions in the town and the quality of life enjoyed by its citizens". His sermons were unconventional for the time, it was said that Dawson "preached not as a dying man to dying men – that was the old idea of preaching – but as a living man to living men who found life no simple or easy matter". His sermons electrified the Birmingham public and influential members of his Church included Joseph Chamberlain (who took Sunday School and oversaw the accounts), Jesse Collings, George Dixon, J. A. Langford, Robert Martineau, Samuel Timmins, William Harris, A. F. Osler, and the Kenrick family, all of whom played an important part in local affairs and took on his ideals. Between 1847 and 1867, 17 members of his congregation were elected to the Town Council, six of whom were elected mayor.

From his pulpit and in public lectures and articles, Dawson advised Christians (particularly people experienced in business) to become councillors and help transform the City, a call which Joseph Chamberlain answered in his work first as Councillor, then as a visionary social reforming Mayor. His idea of the civic gospel and his advocacy of free education was strongly supported by the Congregational spokesman Dr. R. W. Dale, and by J. T. Bunce, influential editor of the Birmingham Daily Post. Both Dawson and Dale were disqualified as ministers from seats on the town council, but both served on the Birmingham school board. Dawson strongly advocated to the worshippers in his Church and in Birmingham the idea of service in politics as a civic duty and as service to God.

Dawson's radicalism did not meet with universal approval. A correspondent writing to Aris's Birmingham Gazette in 1847 described him as a person "whose views and proceedings are calculated to produce considerable mischief"; and as "a young man who ... has prided and plumed himself upon more than he possesses and has consequently fallen into great and grievous errors".

Views

Dawson did not consider himself to be a Unitarian, although modern Unitarians count him as one of their own (he is listed by the Midland Unitarian Union as a great nineteenth-century Unitarian). He left the Baptist Church to be free of any definite creed or doctrinal rigidity.

"True Religion", Dawson believed, was "social, unitive, and brotherly in its spirit: it produces the church as its social development". For him, Christianity was "a set of fruitful principles", not a code of laws or a theological dogma.

Other interests
Dawson was famous during his lifetime for lecturing on a wide range of subjects from Shakespeare to German poetry, Italian history to good etiquette. He became a national figure, in demand as a lecturer throughout the country. Charles Kingsley described him as "the greatest talker in England". Dawson was a friend of Carlyle and Emerson and did a great deal to popularize their teachings, especially in his demand for a high ethical standard in everyday life and his insistence that citizenship needed a specifically Christian approach.

Dawson also lectured on English literature at the Birmingham and Midland Institute and helped to found the Shakespeare Memorial Library in Birmingham. His address at the opening of the Birmingham Reference Library gives a flavour of what the civic gospel meant to the Victorian municipal activists:

"The opening of this glorious library, the first fruits of a clear understanding that a great town exists to discharge towards the people of that town the duties that a great nation exists to discharge towards the people of that nation – that a town exists here by the grace of God, that a great town is a solemn organism through which should flow, and in which should be shaped, all the highest, loftiest, and truest ends of man's intellectual and moral nature... We are a Corporation, who have undertaken the highest duty that is possible to us; we have made provision for our people – for all our people – and we have made a provision of God's greatest and best gifts unto Man."

Dawson died suddenly at Kings Norton on 30 November 1876 and was buried in Key Hill Cemetery.

Four volumes of Dawson's Sermons, two of Prayers and two of Biographical Lectures were published after his death.

Personal life
Dawson married Susan Fanny Crompton (1820–1878) in 1846. They had two children, Rachel Annie (1846–1873) and Bernard (1851–1900). Rachel, "from some inexplicable arrest in the bones of her skull at an early age ... was almost an imbecile". Her early death in May 1873 sent Dawson into a temporary fit of depression.

Published biography
Following Dawson's death in 1876, his friend Sam Timmins was asked to write his biography, with additional contributions to be provided by G. J. Johnson, J. D. Morell (a contemporary of Dawson at the University of Glasgow) and J. H. Chamberlain. Timmins began to gather materials, but "it was a long time before any part of his manuscript was sent to the printer's"; and, when it was, it was destroyed in a fire. Timmins lost enthusiasm – "all the eagerness with which he undertook the task had oozed away" – and the work remained unfinished at his death in 1902. The task and materials passed to Wright Wilson (son of Joseph Wilson, another of Dawson's friends) and was eventually published in 1905, including the contributions from Johnson, Morell and Chamberlain, another from Sebastian Evans, and a reprinted newspaper article by David Christie Murray.

Commemoration
A statue of Dawson formerly stood in Victoria Square, Birmingham; and later in Edmund Street, nearby. It is currently in store at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's Museum Collections Centre, awaiting restoration and repair.

A bust of Dawson is now on the ninth floor of the Library of Birmingham.

A room is named after him at The Birmingham & Midland Institute.

title: George Dawson (preacher)


text:
Socialist Standard

Socialist Standard is a monthly socialist magazine published without interruption since September 1904 by the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). The magazine is written in a simple, direct style and focuses mainly on socialist advocacy and Marxian analysis of current events, particularly those affecting the United Kingdom. Some articles have been published in party pamphlets.

History
The first editor was Robert Elrick. The Socialist Standard has also carried translations of continental writers. Under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, it was placed on a secret list of papers and magazines banned for export during World War I for its call for workers to refuse to fight for their countries and instead join the class war. In 1915, it published an article written by a member of the Bolshevik party calling for a socialist solution to the war. In 1918, the paper voiced the first doubts of the SPGB regarding the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

Edgar Hardcastle began a long period of contributions in the 1920s leading eventually to an over thirty-year editorship of the Socialist Standard. In the 1930s, it drew on the reports from Spain to produce articles on the looming menace of aerial warfare. During World War II, the magazine evaded the censor largely by producing a series of articles on the Peloponnesian and similar ancient wars as a cover for the SPGB's opposition to the current one.

Centenary
To celebrate the party's centenary in 2004, seventy articles were selected from over ten thousand from its history were compiled and published in May in a book called Socialism or Your Money Back. June 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard was a special issue to commemorate the party centenary and detail the party history. September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard was a special issue to commemorate the publication centenary of the Socialist Standard.

Present
The SPGB maintains that it is not a left-wing organisation nor the Socialist Standard a left-wing journal. "Left-wing", it contends, has simply become an umbrella designation for protest groups and organisations demanding amendments and reforms to capitalism. The SPGB and the World Socialist Movement (with which the SPGB is associated), contrary to the views and aspirations of these myriad groups and organisations that would claim to be left-wing, affirms that capitalism is incapable of meaningful reform and that quintessentially the basis of the exploitation of the working class is the wages/money system.

According to Richard Montague:
 * The SPGB holds that the limping democracy extant in most countries today, and certainly, in the developed countries, can be used as a weapon of social revolution; if the majority desired a socialist society, a wageless, classless, moneyless condition wherein goods and services were produced solely for need, there is no power capable of resisting its demand.

Former editors

 * Robert Elrick
 * Jack Fitzgerald
 * Albert E. Jacomb
 * Adolph Kohn
 * Edgar Hardcastle
 * Gilbert McLatchie (Gilmac)
 * Harry Waite
 * Ralph Critchfield
 * Stan Hampson
 * Eddie Critchfield
 * John Crump
 * Robert Barltrop
 * Gwynn Thomas
 * Alan D'Arcy
 * Pat Deutz
 * Melvin Tenner
 * Janie Percy-Smith
 * Judith Skinner
 * Paul Bennett

title: Socialist Standard


text:
MIT Media Lab

The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from technology, media, science, art, and design. , Media lab's research groups include neurobiology, biologically inspired fabrication, socially engaging robots, emotive computing, bionics, and hyperinstruments.

The media lab was founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner, and is housed in the Wiesner Building (designed by I. M. Pei), also known as Building E15. The lab has been written about in the popular press since 1988, when Stewart Brand published The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T., and its work was a regular feature of technology journals in the 1990s. In 2009, it expanded into a second building.

The media lab came under scrutiny in 2019 due to its acceptance of donations from convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This led to the resignation of its director, Joi Ito, and the launch of an "immediate, thorough and independent" investigation into the "extremely serious" and "deeply disturbing allegations about the engagement between individuals at the Media Lab and Jeffrey Epstein" by president of MIT.

In December 2020, Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA under Obama, was named the new director of the MIT Media Lab.

Administration
The founding director of the lab was Nicholas Negroponte, who directed it until 2000. Later directors were Walter Bender (2000–2006), Frank Moss (2006–2011), and Joi Ito (2011-2019) who resigned in connection with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Dava Newman took the position in July, 2021, the first woman to do so.

, the media lab had roughly 70 administrative and support staff members. Associate directors of the lab were Hiroshi Ishii and Andrew Lippman. Pattie Maes and Mitchel Resnick were co-heads of the program in media arts and sciences, and the lab's chief knowledge officer was Henry Holtzman.

The media lab has at times had regional branches in other parts of the world, such as Media Lab Europe and Media Lab Asia, each with their own staff and governing bodies.

Funding model
The lab's primary funding comes from corporate sponsorship. Rather than accepting funding on a per-project or per-group basis, the lab asks sponsors to fund general themes; sponsors can then connect with media lab research. Specific projects and researchers are also funded more traditionally through US government institutions including the NIH, NSF, and DARPA. Also, consortia with other schools or other departments at MIT are often able to have money that does not enter into the common pool.

MIT Media Lab has an approximately $75 million annual operating budget.

Intellectual property
Companies sponsoring the lab can share in the lab's intellectual property without paying license fees or royalties. Non-sponsors cannot make use of media lab developments for two years after technical disclosure is made to MIT and media lab sponsors. The media lab generates approximately 20 new patents every year.

Research at the lab
Some recurring themes of work at the media lab include human adaptability, human computer interaction, education and communication, artistic creation and visualization, and designing technology for the developing world. Other research focus includes machines with common sense, sociable robots, prosthetics, sensor networks, musical devices, city design, and public health. Research programs all include iterative development of prototypes which are tested and displayed for visitors.

Each of these areas of research may incorporate others. Interaction design research includes designing intelligent objects and environments. Educational research has also included integrating more computation into learning activities - including software for learning, programmable toys, and artistic or musical instruments. Examples include Lego Mindstorms, the PicoCricket, and One Laptop per Child.

The lab has over twenty research groups.

Academic program
The media arts and sciences program is a part of MIT's school of architecture and planning, and includes three levels of study: a doctoral program, a master's of science program, and a program that offers an alternative to the standard MIT freshman year as well as a set of undergraduate subjects that may form the basis for a future joint major. All graduate students are fully supported (tuition plus a stipend) from the outset, normally by appointments as research assistants at the media laboratory, where they work on research programs and faculty projects, including assisting with courses. These research activities typically take up about half of a student's time in the degree program.

The media arts and sciences academic program have a close relationship with the media lab. Most media lab faculty are professors of media arts and sciences. Students who earn a degree in media arts and sciences have been predominantly in residence at the media lab, taking classes and doing research. Some students from other programs at MIT, such as mechanical engineering, or electrical engineering and computer science, do their research at the media lab, working with a media lab/Media Arts and Sciences faculty advisor, but earn their degrees (such as MEng or an MS in EECS) from other departments. Over 1,000 students apply to the MAS program and the admission is less than 5% per year.

Buildings
In addition to the media lab, the combined original Wiesner building (E15) and new (E14) buildings also host the List Visual Arts Center, the School of Architecture and Planning's Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), and MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies.

In 2009, the media lab expanded into a new building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. The local architect of record was Leers Weinzapfel Associates, of Boston. The Maki building has predominantly glass walls, with long lines of sight through the building, making ongoing research visible and encouraging connections and collaboration.

Faculty and academic research staff
Media arts and sciences faculty and academic research staff are principal investigators/heads of the media lab's various research groups. They also advise media arts and sciences graduate students and mentor MIT undergraduates. "Most departments accept grad students based on their prospects for academic success; the media lab attempts to select ones that will best be able to help with some of the ongoing projects."

, there are more than 25 faculty and academic research staff members, including a dozen named professorships. A full list of media lab faculty and academic research staff, with bios and other information, is available via the media lab website.

, Alex Pentland is professor of media arts and sciences, Toshiba Professor and Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program Director.

Connections to Jeffrey Epstein
In August 2019, director Joi Ito said that the organization had received funding from multimillionaire convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein through foundations Epstein controlled; that Ito had visited several of Epstein's residences; and that Epstein had invested "in several of my funds which invest in tech startup companies outside of MIT". Ito later admitted to taking $525,000 in funding from Epstein for the lab. In 2019, media lab founder Nicholas Negroponte expressed support for Ito's decision to accept the funding from Epstein. Also in 2019, a federal court deposition was unsealed in which Virginia Giuffre stated that Epstein's associate directed her to have sex with former media lab professor Marvin Minsky.

In September 2019, it was revealed by emails leaked to Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker that Ito and Peter Cohen, the MIT Media Lab's director of development and strategy at the time, have worked for years to solicit anonymous donations from Epstein despite Epstein being marked as Disqualified by the university as a donor. Ito has referred to Epstein as "fascinating".

Ito resigned due to the scandal shortly after the New Yorker article and the President of M.I.T. announced an "immediate, thorough and independent" investigation to be led by an outside law firm into the "extremely serious" allegations.

On January 10, 2020, the executive committee of the MIT Corporation, the institute's governing board, released the results of Goodwin Procter's fact-finding regarding interactions between Jeffrey Epstein and the Institute. The report revealed that Epstein made 10 donations through various entities to MIT totaling $850,000, including nine donations, totaling $750,000, made after his 2008 conviction. In 2002, four years before Epstein's first arrest for a sex offense, Epstein made a $100,000 donation to MIT through a charitable foundation to support the research of Professor Marvin Minsky (former Toshiba Professor of media arts and sciences, media lab). Epstein's $100,000 donation in May 2013 was intended to be used at Joi Ito's discretion. His donations in November 2013 and in July and September 2014, totaling $300,000, were made to support research by Joscha Bach, a media lab research fellow from Germany whom Epstein introduced to Ito in 2013. Bach declined to be interviewed for Goodwin Procter's fact-finding. Epstein's other donations to the media lab between 2015 and 2017, totaling $350,000, were made to support Professor Seth Lloyd (Professor of Mechanical Engineering, $225,000), and Professor Neri Oxman (associate professor of media arts and sciences, $125,000).

Shortly after signing a petition in support of Ito, attorney and political activist Lawrence Lessig argued that the undesirable nature of donations to academic institutions from criminals like Epstein, whose fortune does not derive from their crimes, is partially mitigated if the donations are anonymous. He argues that it was "a mistake to take this money, even if anonymous," but that "if you take them, at least don't give the criminal a chance to publicly launder his reputation". "Everyone seems to treat it as if the anonymity and secrecy around Epstein's gift are a measure of some kind of moral failing," Lessig wrote. "I see it as exactly the opposite."

The Boston Globe reported it had seen emails indicating Bill Gates had donated $2.2 million to the media lab through Epstein.

Other funding controversies
On March 24, 2018, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited MIT and prompted protests. Salman's non-profit foundation MiSK was a member company of the lab until 2018. According to The New York Times, a sizable part of the annual budget of the lab comes from corporate patrons, who pay at least $250,000 each year. Prince Mohammed's personal foundation was among the roughly 90 members at their time of membership.

Selected publications
Books

Outputs and spin-offs
Some media lab-developed technologies made it into products or public software packages, such as the, the Benton hologram used in most credit cards, the Fisher-Price's Symphony Painter, the Nortel Wireless Mesh Network, the NTT Comware Sensetable, the Taito's Karaoke-on-Demand Machine. A 1994 device called the Sensor Chair used to control a musical orchestra was adapted by several car manufacturers into capacitive sensors to prevent dangerous airbag deployments.

The MPEG-4 SA project developed at the Media Lab made structured audio a practical reality and the Aspen Movie Map was the precursor to the ideas in Google Street View.

In 2001, two research centers were spun off: Media Lab Asia and Media Lab Europe. Media Lab Asia, based in India, was a result of cooperation with the Government of India but eventually broke off in 2003 after a disagreement. Media Lab Europe, based in Dublin, Ireland, was founded with a similar concept in association with Irish universities and government, and closed in January 2005.

Created collaboratively by the Computer Museum and the media lab, the Computer Clubhouse, a worldwide network of after-school learning centers, focuses on youth from underserved communities who would not otherwise have access to technological tools and activities.

Launched in 2003, Scratch is a block-based programming language and community developed for children 8–16, and used by people of all ages to learn programming. Millions of people have created Scratch projects in a wide variety of settings, including homes, schools, museums, libraries, and community centers.

In January 2005, the lab's chairman emeritus Nicholas Negroponte announced at the World Economic Forum a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop computer. A non-profit organization, One Laptop per Child, was created to oversee the actual deployment, MIT did not manufacture or distribute the device.

The Synthetic Neurobiology group created reagents and devices for the analysis of brain circuits are in use by hundreds of biology labs around the world.

In 2011, Ramesh Raskar's group published their femto-photography technique, that is able to image the movement of individual light pulses.

In 2013, the Media Lab launched E14 Fund as a program to support and invest in MIT Media Lab startups. In 2017, E14 Fund launched its first seed stage venture fund to invest in the MIT Media Lab startup community. It invested in companies like Formlabs, Affectiva, Tulip, Wise Systems, Figur8 and more.

Spin-offs
Media Lab industry spin-offs include:
 * Affectiva, commercializing software that detects emotions in pictures of faces
 * Ambient Devices, which produces glanceable information displays
 * Dimagi, a company that develops software for healthcare in the developing world.
 * E Ink, which makes electronic paper displays that power the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook.
 * Elance
 * EyeNetra, which makes eye tests as $2 clip-ons for mobile phones, including potential use to correct vision for virtual reality displays.
 * First Mile Solutions, bringing communications infrastructure to rural communities
 * Formlabs makes high-resolution, desktop 3D printers (spin out from Center for Bits and Atoms)
 * Groundhog Technologies, global leader in mobility intelligence and its applications on geo-analytics, geo-marketing, and network optimization.
 * Harmonix, game company creator of Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
 * Holosonics selling "audio spotlight" speakers using sound from ultrasound technology
 * Nanda, a company that markets the Clocky alarm clock
 * Oblong Industries, creators of the digital screen used by Tom Cruise in Minority Report
 * One Laptop per Child's XO laptop
 * Physiio International, merged with Empatica; manufacturer of wearable medical sensors
 * Potion Design, an interactive design firm
 * RadioSherpa, an online guide for HD Radio stations. acquired by Tune-in.
 * reQall, a memory aid company.
 * Salient Stills, a video resolution enhancement and video forensics company founded in 1996, acquired by DAC in 2013. The combined entity has been rebranded Salient Sciences.
 * Sifteo, a company that has developed a tabletop gaming platform that grew out of Siftables.
 * Squid Labs, engineering consulting company
 * Supermechanical, manufacturer of Twine, a wifi interface for various environmental sensors; and Range, a smartphone-connected thermometer
 * The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform
 * Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. (acquired in 2006), which developed the first hybrid search engine
 * Zebra Imaging, a digital holographic display company

title: MIT Media Lab


text:
Henry William Crosskey

Henry William Crosskey (7 December 1826 – 1 October 1893) was an English Unitarian minister and geologist.

Crosskey was born at Lewes, Sussex. After being trained for the ministry at Manchester New College (1843–1848), he became pastor of Friargate chapel, Derby, until 1852, when he accepted charge of a Unitarian congregation in Glasgow. In 1869 he moved to Birmingham, where he remained as pastor of the Church of the Messiah until his death.

While in Glasgow his interest was awakened in geology by the perusal of A. C. Ramsay's Geology of the Isle of Arran, and from 1855 onwards he devoted his leisure to the pursuit of this science. He became an authority on glacial geology, and wrote much, especially in conjunction with David Robertson, on the Quaternary fossiliferous beds of Scotland (Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow).

He also prepared for the British Association a valuable series of Reports (1873–1892) on the erratic Blocks of England, Wales and Ireland. In conjunction with David Robertson and George Stewardson Brady (1832–1921) he wrote the Monograph of the Post Tertiary Entomostraca of Scotland, etc. for the Palaeontographical Society (1874); and he edited Henry Carvill Lewis's Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland, issued posthumously (1894). He died at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 1 October 1893.

title: Henry William Crosskey


text:
USS Monaghan (DD-354)

USS Monaghan (DD-354) was the last ship built of the Farragut-class destroyer design. She was named for Ensign John R. Monaghan. Monaghan was laid down on November 21, 1933 at the Boston Navy Yard, and launched on January 9, 1935. She was sponsored by Miss Mary F. Monaghan, niece of Ensign Monaghan, and commissioned on 19 April 1935. During the next few years Monaghan operated primarily in the North Atlantic, training US Navy personnel who served in World War II. Monaghan was present during the Pearl Harbor raid on December 7, 1941. She participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway in 1942. Monaghan was sunk in Typhoon Cobra east of the Philippines in 1944.

Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, Monaghan was a ready duty destroyer in Pearl Harbor, and at 07:51 was ordered to join USS Ward (DD-139), who had just sunk an unidentified submarine off the entrance to Pearl Harbor an hour earlier. Four minutes later, before Monaghan could get underway, the Japanese air attack began. Monaghan opened fire, and at 08:27 was underway to join Ward when notified of the presence of a Ko-hyoteki class midget submarine in the harbor. Monaghan headed for the trespasser and the captain, LCdr. Burford, giving the order to ram. The submarine turned and fired its torpedo at the Monaghan. It missed, passing within 50 yards of the destroyer's starboard side. The Monaghan rammed the submarine glancingly, then sank it with two depth charges. Because of the shallowness of the harbor, when the depth charges detonated, the explosions lifted the Monaghan's stern out of the water. The destroyer then went out of control and smashed into a barge.

She headed on out of the harbor to patrol offshore for the next week, then joined USS Lexington (CV-2) in the attempt to relieve Wake Island, but Wake was captured by the Japanese before Lexington's force could bring aid. Homeward bound, Monaghan, with USS Dale (DD-353) and USS Aylwin (DD-355), made repeated attacks on an enemy submarine, causing it to broach and give off a large oil slick.

Patrol and scouting operations out of Pearl Harbor with the Lexington group were followed by convoy duty to the west coast and back before Task Force 11 (TF 11), with Monaghan screening Lexington, sortied from Pearl Harbor on April 15, 1942, bound for the South Pacific. With the Japanese threatening Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, sea lines of communication to Australia and New Zealand were in peril, and the Navy moved quickly and decisively to block so critical a threat. First action came 4 May when planes from USS Yorktown (CV-5) hit Japanese invasion shipping at Tulagi and Gavutu. The two carrier forces now combined upon word that an enemy carrier group had entered the Coral Sea. The opening action of the victory there came 7 May, when American search planes spotted the Japanese occupation force, several transports guarded by the light carrier JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER Shōhō. Lexington and Yorktown planes sank Shōhō. Next day, before the major engagement by aircraft from both American and Japanese fleet carriers, Monaghan was ordered away from formation to transmit important messages, thus preserving radio silence in the main body. She was then ordered on to search for survivors of USS Neosho (AO-23) and USS Sims (DD-409), sunk on the 7th by the Japanese. Since the position of the sinking had been erroneously reported, Monaghan was unable to carry out a rescue, and sailed on with messages for Nouméa before rejoining TF 16 in time to return to Pearl Harbor 26 May.

Battle of Midway
Two days later, Monaghan was underway for the decisive battle of the war, the Battle of Midway. The Japanese sailed for the capture of the Midway Atoll with a complex battle plan, but U.S. naval intelligence revealed the plan to American commanders, who thus knew when and where to find the Carrier Striking Task Force of the Japanese attackers. Although outnumbered, the Americans sank four enemy carriers in air actions beginning on the night of 3 June, along with a heavy cruiser. Through the first two days, Monaghan screened USS Enterprise (CV-6), then late on the morning of 5 June was ordered out to rescue men of a downed seaplane. At 1830 she reached the side of badly damaged Yorktown, joining the group of destroyers struggling to save the carrier and guard her from further damage. The JAPANESE SUBMARINE I-168 penetrated the destroyer screen the next day and sank both Yorktown and USS Hammann (DD-412), the carrier remaining afloat another 16 hours before she succumbed. Monaghan, USS Gwin (DD-433), and USS Hughes (DD-410) attacked and badly damaged the submarine.

Other Pacific operations
After the victory, the force returned to Pearl Harbor on 13 June. Monaghan was sent north to aid in countering the Japanese threat in the Aleutians. Damaged by collision in the heavy northern fog, Monaghan repaired at Dutch Harbor and Pearl Harbor, then escorted a convoy to the west coast en route to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, CA for a repair period. Monaghan returned to the South Pacific at Nandi, Fiji, 17 November. In the harbor of Nouméa she bent her propellers on an underwater obstruction, and had to return to Pearl Harbor on her hastily replaced port screw for permanent repairs, completed 21 February 1943.

Once more in the Aleutians, Monaghan joined TG 16.69 a scouting force built around cruisers USS Richmond (CL-9) and USS Salt Lake City (CA-25). On 26 March this group engaged the Japanese in the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. Although outnumbered, the Americans fired guns and torpedoes so effectively that the Japanese were driven away. Patrol and occasional shore bombardment missions throughout the Aleutians, along with escort missions, continued through the summer. Highlights were a radar-directed surface engagement with an unidentified target 20 June, and a chase of a Japanese submarine two days later that resulted with the submarine being driven up on rocks and abandoned. She was later identified as JAPANESE SUBMARINE I-7, engaged in evacuating troops from Kiska.

After escort duty to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco, Monaghan sailed to San Pedro, California, to escort three new escort carriers to the Gilbert Islands operation, for which they sailed from Espiritu Santo 13 November. The escort carriers launched their planes against shore targets and protected convoys offshore through the invasion of Tarawa.

Returning to the west coast on escort duty, Monaghan rejoined the escort carriers after extensive exercises out of San Diego, California, and prepared for the invasion of the Marshalls, during which she guarded the carriers northwest of Roi as they flew air support and strikes for the landings there. On 7 February 1944 she entered Majuro, then escorted USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) to Kwajalein, where she joined the transport screen for the capture of Eniwetok. On the night of 21/22 February, she joined in an all-night bombardment on Parry Island, then spent a month on patrol and escort duty in the Marshalls.

On 22 March Monaghan put to sea in the antisubmarine screen for the fast carriers, bound for strikes on Palau, Woleai, and Yap, returning to Majuro 6 April. The next sortie, 13 April to 4 May, was to cover the Hollandia landings, and strike at Satawan, Truk, and Ponape. After preparing at Majuro, the force now sailed for the invasion of Saipan, against which the first strikes were flown 11 June. While the fliers of TF 58 soundly defeated the Japanese in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Monaghan's group patrolled off Saipan guarding against a possible breakthrough by the enemy. They next steamed to Eniwetok to prepare for the assault on Guam, for which they sailed 14 July, Monaghan again in the antisubmarine screen protecting the carriers. Assigned to cover the work of underwater demolition teams off Agat on the night of 17/18 July, Monaghan furnished harassing fire until daylight, firing again on the island during the early morning of 19 June. She continued bombardment and screening missions until 25 July when she sailed for Pearl Harbor, and an overhaul at Puget Sound.

Loss in a typhoon
After training off California and Hawaii, Monaghan sailed for Ulithi 11 November. There she joined the escort for three fleet oilers bound for a rendezvous 17 December with TF 38, whose planes had been striking central Luzon in support of the Mindoro invasion. The ship was expecting to refuel and probably had reduced its ballast in order to take on fuel. Typhoon "Cobra" hit  before the Monaghan was ready to ride it out. Typhoon Cobra claimed 790 lives in the 3rd Fleet, and sank USS Spence (DD-512), USS Hull (DD-350), and Monaghan. Six men survived the Monaghan sinking, reportedly rescued by USS Brown (DD-546) and/or USS Tabberer (DE-418). After drifting on a raft for three days, the men reported that Monaghan took roll after roll to starboard, finally going over. The Typhoon Cobra tragedy, Admiral Chester Nimitz said, "represented a more crippling blow to the Third Fleet than it might be expected to suffer in anything less than a major action".

Monaghan received 12 battle stars for World War II service.

title: USS Monaghan (DD-354)


text:
Henry Carvill Lewis

Henry Carvill Lewis (November 16, 1853 – July 21, 1888) was an American geologist and mineralogist.

Career
Lewis was born in Philadelphia on November 16, 1853, and was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Masters of Arts Degree in 1876 and became attached to the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in 1879. He served for three years as a volunteer member, and during this term he became greatly interested in the study of glacial phenomena. In 1880 he was chosen professor of mineralogy in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and in 1883 he was appointed to the chair of geology in Haverford College, Pennsylvania. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1881.

During the winters of 1885 to 1887 he studied petrology under HF Rosenbusch at Heidelberg, and during the summers he investigated the glacial geology of northern Europe and the British Isles. His observations in North America, where he had studied under Professor G.F. Wright, Professor T.C. Chamberlin and Warren Upham, had demonstrated the former extension of land-ice, and the existence of great terminal moraines.

In 1884 his Report on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and Western New York was published: a work containing much information on the limits of the North American ice-sheet. In Britain he sought to trace in like manner the southern extent of the terminal moraines formed by British ice-sheets, but before his conclusions were matured, he died from typhoid fever at Manchester, England on July 21, 1888. He was buried at the churchyard of Christ Church, Walmsley.

The results of his observations were published in 1894, entitled Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Dr HW Crosskey.

Psychical research
Lewis took interest in investigating paranormal claims. In 1886, he attended séances of the medium William Eglinton and detected him in fraud. The exposure was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research in 1887.

Publications

 * Primitive Industry with Charles Conrad Abbott (1881)
 * Report on the Terminal Moraine in Pennsylvania and Western New York (1884)
 * Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and Ireland (1894)
 * The Alleged Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism: An Account of Two Séances (1887)
 * Papers and Notes on the Genesis and Matrix of the Diamond (1897)

title: Henry Carvill Lewis


text:
User talk:Sonict

Hi everybody! I'm New

Welcome! Secretlondon 22:11, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sonict


text:
Watermead, Buckinghamshire

Watermead is a village situated to the north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. It is a civil parish and forms part of the Aylesbury Urban Area.

Housing development
Plans for the village of Watermead were first drawn up in the 1980s. The idea was to create a self-contained executive area that would bring new sports facilities and a better quality of housing to the town. The village is built on green belt land. At the planning stage the designers were required to pay heed to the ecology of the local area to help protect the environment. Central to the plans therefore was an extensive lake that would become a haven for wildlife and many wild birds.

The water table in the Vale of Aylesbury is higher than the average in England, on account of extensive water reserves that are stored below the clay bed of the whole vale. The designers of the village took this into account by creating a lake in the centre to allow for rise in water levels. Construction went underway and the first houses were ready for sale in 1986

On the opposite side of the lake from the village was an artificial ski slope. Control over the local water table with flood defences installed and diversions for the River Thame to flood planes on specially dug lakes. The village has grown extensively and has a very active parish council. The ski slope site has been developed and is now Aylesbury Vale Crematorium. Watermead was voted one of the top villages of its type in the country in the early 1990s and won awards for its design and original ideas. The original Royco theme was designed by architects John Evennett Associates. Blocks of individual homes were built that made walking through each road (each named after a breed of bird) interesting, although this is something that has been lost since newer building designs were erected around Watermead, but predominantly the existing original Royco village are visible from the approach road, and from over the bridge and across the lake.

Transport
Watermead's closest station is Aylesbury with services to London Marylebone and High Wycombe. Several buses routes connect Watermead to Aylesbury town centre operated by Rainbow Routes, Redline Buses and Arriva.

Parish Council
Watermead parish was established in 2001 and had its first meeting on 18 June of that year.

Notable residents

 * Michael Shrimpton (former)

title: Watermead, Buckinghamshire