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Astrological sign

In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30-degree sectors that make up Earth's 360-degree orbit around the Sun. The signs enumerate from the first day of spring, known as the First Point of Aries, which is the vernal equinox. The astrological signs are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. The Western zodiac originated in Babylonian astrology, and was later influenced by the Hellenistic culture. Each sign was named after a constellation the sun annually moved through while crossing the sky. This observation is emphasized in the simplified and popular sun sign astrology. Over the centuries, Western astrology's zodiacal divisions have shifted out of alignment with the constellations they were named after by axial precession of the Earth while Hindu astrology measurements correct for this shifting. Astrology (i.e. a system of omina based on celestial appearances) was developed in Chinese and Tibetan cultures as well but these astrologies are not based upon the zodiac but deal with the whole sky.

Astrology is a pseudoscience. Scientific investigations of the theoretical basis and experimental verification of claims have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power. More plausible explanations for the apparent correlation between personality traits and birth months exist, such as the influence of seasonal birth in humans.

According to astrology, celestial phenomena relate to human activity on the principle of "as above, so below", so that the signs are held to represent characteristic modes of expression. Scientific astronomy used the same sectors of the ecliptic as Western astrology until the 19th century.

Various approaches to measuring and dividing the sky are currently used by differing systems of astrology, although the tradition of the Zodiac's names and symbols remain mostly consistent. Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points (points relating to equal, longest, and shortest days of the tropical year), while Hindu astrology measures along the equatorial plane (sidereal year).

History
Western astrology is a direct continuation of Hellenistic astrology as recorded in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos in the 2nd century. Hellenistic astrology in turn was partly based on concepts from Babylonian tradition. Specifically, the division of the ecliptic in twelve equal sectors is a Babylonian conceptual construction. This division of the ecliptic originated in the Babylonian "ideal calendar" found in the old compendium MUL.APIN and its combination with the Babylonian lunar calendar, represented as the "path of the moon" in MUL.APIN. In a way, the zodiac is the idealisation of an ideal lunar calendar.

By the 4th century BC, Babylonian astronomy and its system of celestial omens influenced the culture of ancient Greece, as did the astronomy of Egypt by late 2nd century BC. This resulted, unlike the Mesopotamian tradition, in a strong focus on the birth chart of the individual and the creation of Horoscopic astrology, employing the use of the Ascendant (the rising degree of the ecliptic, at the time of birth), and of the twelve houses. Association of the astrological signs with Empedocles' four classical elements was another important development in the characterization of the twelve signs.

The body of the Hellenistic astrological tradition as it stood by the 2nd century is described in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. This is the seminal work for later astronomical tradition not only in the West but also in India and the Islamic sphere and has remained a reference for almost seventeen centuries as later traditions made few substantial changes to its core teachings.

Western astrological correspondence chart
The following table shows the approximate dates of the twelve astrological signs, along with the classical and modern rulerships of each sign. By definition, Aries starts at the First Point of Aries which is the location of the Sun at the March equinox. The precise date of the Equinox varies from year to year but is always between 19 March and 21 March. The consequence is the start date of Aries and therefore the start date of all the other signs can change slightly from year to year. The following Western astrology table enumerates the twelve divisions of celestial longitude with the Latin names. The longitude intervals, are treated as closed for the first endpoint (a) and open for the second (b) – for instance, 30° of longitude is the first point of Taurus, not part of Aries. The signs are occasionally numbered 0 through 11 in place of symbols in astronomical works.

The twelve signs are positioned in a circular pattern, creating a pattern of oppositions related to different philosophically polarized attributes. Fire and air elements are generally 180 degrees opposed in Western astrology, as well as earth and water elements. Not all systems of astrology have four elements,   notably the Sepher Yetzirah describes only three elements emanating from a central divine source. Spring signs are opposite to autumn ones, winter signs are opposite to summer ones and vice versa.
 * Aries is opposite to Libra
 * Taurus is opposite to Scorpio
 * Gemini is opposite to Sagittarius
 * Cancer is opposite to Capricorn
 * Leo is opposite to Aquarius
 * Virgo is opposite to Pisces

Polarity
In Western astrology, the polarity divides the zodiac in half and refers to the alignment of a sign's energy as either positive or negative, with various attributes associated to them as a result. Positive polarity signs, also called active, yang, expressive, or masculine signs, are the six odd-numbered signs of the zodiac: Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius. Positive signs make up the fire and air triplicities. Negative polarity signs, also called passive, yin, receptive, or feminine signs, are the six even-numbered signs of the zodiac: Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces. Negative signs make up the earth and water triplicities.

The three modalities
The modality or mode of a given sign refers to its position in the season it is found in. Each of the four elements manifests in three modalities: cardinal, fixed, and mutable. Since each modality comprehends four signs, they are also known as Quadruplicities. For example, the sign Aries is found in the first month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, so practitioners of astrology describe it as having a cardinal modality. The combination of element and modality provides the signs with their unique characterizations. For instance, Capricorn is the cardinal earth sign, impressing its association with action (cardinal modality) in the material world (earth element).

Triplicities of the four elements

The Greek philosopher Empedocles identified fire, earth, air, and water as elements in the fifth-century BC. He explained the nature of the universe as an interaction of two opposing principles, love and strife, which manipulate the elements into different mixtures that produce the different natures of things. He stated all the elements are equal, the same age, rule their own provinces, and possess their own individual character. Empedocles said that those born with nearly equal proportions of the elements are more intelligent and have the most exact perceptions.

The elemental categories are called triplicities because each classical element is associated with three signs The four astrological elements are also considered as a direct equivalent to Hippocrates' personality types (sanguine = air; choleric = fire; melancholic = earth; phlegmatic = water). A modern approach looks at elements as "the energy substance of experience" and the next table tries to summarize their description through keywords. The elements have grown in importance and some astrologers begin natal chart interpretations by studying the balance of elements in the location of planets (especially the Sun's and Moon's ascendant signs) and the position of angles in the chart.

Celestial body rulerships

Rulership is the connection between planet and correlated sign and house. The conventional rulerships are as follows:
 * Aries: Mars
 * Taurus: Venus
 * Gemini: Mercury
 * Cancer: Moon
 * Leo: Sun
 * Virgo: Mercury
 * Libra: Venus
 * Scorpio: classically Mars, Pluto starting in the 20th century
 * Sagittarius: Jupiter
 * Capricorn: Saturn
 * Aquarius: classically Saturn, Uranus starting in the 20th century
 * Pisces: classically Jupiter, Neptune starting in the 20th century

Dignity and detriment, exaltation and fall
A traditional belief of astrology, known as essential dignity, is the idea that the Sun, Moon, and planets are more powerful and effective in some signs than others because the basic nature of both is held to be in harmony. By contrast, they are held to find some signs to be weak or difficult to operate in because their natures are thought to be in conflict. These categories are Dignity, Detriment, Exaltation, and Fall.

 * Dignity and Detriment: A planet is strengthened or dignified if it falls within the sign that it rules. In other words, it is said to exercise Rulership of the sign. For example, the Moon in Cancer is considered "strong" (well-dignified). If a planet is in the sign opposite which it rules (or is dignified in), it is said to be weakened or in Detriment (for example, the Moon in Capricorn). This may also be termed a "debility".

In traditional astrology, other levels of Dignity are recognised in addition to Rulership. These are known as Exaltation, Triplicity, Terms or bounds, and Face or Decan, which together are known as describing a planet's Essential dignity, the quality or ability of one's true nature.

 * Exaltation and Fall: A planet is also strengthened when it is in its sign of exaltation. In traditional horary astrology, this denotes a dignity just less than rulership. Exaltation was considered to give the planet's significance(s) the dignity of an honoured guest: the centre of attention but constrained in power. Examples of planets in their Exaltation are: Saturn (Libra), Sun (Aries), Venus (Pisces), Moon (Taurus), Mercury (Virgo, although some disagree with this classification), Mars (Capricorn), Jupiter (Cancer). A planet in the opposite sign of this is in its fall, and thus weakened, perhaps more than Detriment. There is discord as to the signs in which the two extra-Saturnian planets may be considered to be exalted.

In addition to essential dignity, the traditional astrologer considers Accidental dignity of planets. This is placement by house in the chart under examination. Accidental dignity is the planet's "ability to act". So we might have, for example, Moon in Cancer, dignified by rulership, is placed in the 12th house it would have little scope to express its good nature. The twelfth is a cadent house as are the third, sixth and ninth and planets in these houses are considered weak or afflicted. On the other hand, Moon in the first, fourth, seventh, or 10th would be more able to act as these are Angular houses. Planets in Succedent houses of the chart (second, fifth, eighth, eleventh) are generally considered to be of medium ability to act. Besides Accidental Dignity, there are a range of Accidental Debilities, such as retrogradation, Under the Sun's Beams, Combust, and so forth.

Additional classifications
Each sign can be divided into three 10° sectors known as decans or decanates, though these have fallen into disuse. The first decanate is said to be most emphatically of its own nature and is ruled by the sign ruler. The next decanate is sub-ruled by the planet ruling the next sign in the same triplicity. The last decanate is sub-ruled by the next in order in the same triplicity.

While the element and modality of a sign are together sufficient to define it, they can be grouped to indicate their symbolism. The first four signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer, form the group of personal signs. The next four signs, Leo, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio form the group of interpersonal signs. The last four signs of the zodiac, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, form the group of transpersonal signs.

Dane Rudhyar presented the tropical zodiac primary factors, used in the curriculum of the RASA School of Astrology. The tropical zodiac is the zodiac of seasonal factors as opposed to the sidereal zodiac (constellation factors). The primary seasonal factors are based on the changing ratio of sunlight and darkness across the year. The first factor is whether the chosen time falls in the half of the year when daylight is increasing, or the half of the year when darkness is increasing. The second factor is whether the chosen time falls in the half of the year when there is more daylight than darkness, or the half when there is more darkness than daylight. The third factor is which of the four seasons the chosen time falls in, defined by the first two factors. Thus
 * The spring season is when daylight is increasing and there is more daylight than darkness.
 * The summer season is when darkness is increasing and there is more daylight than darkness.
 * The autumn season is when darkness is increasing and there is more darkness than daylight.
 * The winter season is when daylight is increasing and there is more darkness than daylight.

Indian astrology
In Indian astrology, there are five elements: fire, earth(Land), air, water, and ether. The master of fire is Mars, while Mercury is of land, Saturn of air, Venus of water, and Jupiter of ether.

Jyotisha recognises twelve zodiac signs (Rāśi), that correspond to those in Western astrology. The relation of the signs to the elements is the same in the two systems.

Nakshatras
A nakshatra (Devanagari: नक्षत्र, Sanskrit ', a metaphorical compound of ' 'map/chart', and ' 'guard'), or lunar mansion''', is one of the 27 divisions of the sky identified by prominent star(s), as used in Hindu astronomy and astrology (Jyotisha). "Nakshatra" in Sanskrit, Kannada, Tulu and Tamil and Prakrit also, thus, it refers to stars themselves.

Chinese zodiac signs
Chinese astrological signs operate on cycles of years, lunar months, and two-hour periods of the day (also known as shichen). A particular feature of the Chinese zodiac is its operation in a 60-year cycle in combination with the Five Phases of Chinese astrology (Wood, Fire, Metal, Water and Earth). Nevertheless, some researches say that there is an obvious relationship between the Chinese 12-year cycle and zodiac constellations: each year of the cycle corresponds to a certain disposal of Jupiter. For example, in the year of Snake Jupiter is in the Sign of Gemini, in the year of Horse Jupiter is in the Sign of Cancer and so on. So the Chinese 12-year calendar is a solar-lunar-jovian calendar.

Zodiac symbolism
The following table shows the twelve signs and their attributes.

The twelve signs

In Chinese astrology, the zodiac of twelve animal signs represents twelve different types of personality. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and there are many stories about the Origins of the Chinese Zodiac which explain why this is so. When the twelve zodiac signs are part of the 60-year calendar in combination with the four elements, they are traditionally called the twelve Earthly Branches. The Chinese zodiac follows the lunisolar Chinese calendar and thus the "changeover" days in a month (when one sign changes to another sign) vary each year. The following are the twelve zodiac signs in order.

 * 1) 子 Rat (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Water): Rat years include 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020, 2032. The Rat also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Rat are 11pm – 1am.
 * 2) 丑 Ox (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Earth: Ox years include 1901, 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021, 2033. The Ox also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Ox are 1am – 3am.
 * 3) 寅 Tiger (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Wood): Tiger years include 1902, 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022, 2034. The Tiger also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Tiger are 3am – 5am.
 * 4) 卯 Rabbit (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Wood): Rabbit Years include 1903, 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035. The Rabbit also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Rabbit are 5am – 7am.
 * 5) 辰 Dragon (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Earth ): Dragon years include 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024, 2036. The Dragon also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Dragon are 7am – 9am.
 * 6) 巳 Snake (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Fire): Snake years include 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025, 2037. The Snake also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Snake are 9am – 11am.
 * 7) 午 Horse (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Fire): Horse years include 1906, 1918, 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026, 2038. The Horse also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Horse are 11am – 1pm.
 * 8) 未 Goat (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Earth ): Goat years include 1907, 1919, 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015, 2027, 2039. The Goat also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Goat are 1pm – 3pm.
 * 9) 申 Monkey (Yang, 1st Trine, Fixed Element Metal): Monkey years include 1908, 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016, 2028, 2040. The Monkey also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Monkey are 3pm – 5pm.
 * 10) 酉 Rooster (Yin, 2nd Trine, Fixed Element Metal): Rooster years include 1909, 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, 2029, 2041. The Rooster also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Rooster are 5pm – 7pm.
 * 11) 戌 Dog (Yang, 3rd Trine, Fixed Element Earth ): Dog years include 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030, 2042. The Dog also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Dog are 7pm – 9pm.
 * 12) 亥 Pig (Yin, 4th Trine, Fixed Element Water): Pig years include 1911, 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031, 2043. The Pig also corresponds to a particular month in the year. The hours of the Pig are 9pm – 11pm.

The five elements

 * Wood: The wood person has high morals, is self-confident, expansive and co-operative, with wide and varied interests and idealistic goals. The direction associated with Wood is East, and the season is spring, which makes it the fixed element for the animal signs Tiger and Rabbit.
 * Fire: The fire person has leadership qualities, dynamic passion, and is decisive, self-confident, positive, and assertive. The direction associated with Fire is South, and the season is summer, which makes it the fixed element for the animal signs Snake and Horse.
 * Earth: The earth person is serious, logical and methodical, intelligent, objective and good at planning. The direction associated with Earth is Center. The season for Earth is the changeover point of the four seasons.  It is the fixed element for the animal signs Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog.
 * Metal: The metal person is sincere, has fixed values and opinions, is strong of will, and has eloquence of speech. The direction associated with Metal is West.  The season for Metal is Autumn.  It is the fixed element for the animal signs Monkey and Rooster.
 * Water: The water person is persuasive, intuitive, and empathetic. The water person is objective and often sought out for their counsel.  The direction associated with water is North.  The season for Water is Winter.  It is the fixed element for the animal signs Rat and Pig.

The five elements operate together with the twelve animal signs in a 60-year calendar. The five elements appear in the calendar in both their yin and yang forms and are known as the ten Celestial stems. The yin/yang split seen in the Gregorian calendar means years that end in an even number are Yang (representing masculine, active, and light), those that end with an odd number are Yin (representing feminine, passive and darkness), subject to Chinese New Year having passed.

title: Astrological sign


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USS Walke (DD-416)

USS Walke (DD-416) was a World War II-era Sims-class destroyer in the service of the United States Navy, named after Rear Admiral Henry A. Walke USN (1809–1896). Walke operated with the Neutrality Patrol in the Caribbean before World War II and fought in the Pacific Theater during the war before being sunk in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

Walke was laid down by the Naval Shipyard at Boston in Massachusetts on 31 May 1938, launched on 20 October 1939 by Mrs. Clarence Dillon, grandniece of Rear Admiral Walke and commissioned on 27 April 1940.

Inter-War period
Following fitting-out and engineering trials, Walke took on board torpedoes, warheads, and exercise warheads at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island, on 25 June and sailed for Norfolk, Virginia, on the following day. She reached Norfolk on 27 June and there embarked Second Lieutenant Donald B. Cooley, USMC, and 47 enlisted marines for transportation to USS Wichita (CA-45), then in South American waters. Later that same day, in company with USS Wainwright (DD-419), Walke got underway for Cuba.

After fueling at Guantanamo on 4 July, Walke got underway for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at 0658 on 6 July, again in company with Wainwright, En route, the destroyers were diverted to the mouth of the Surinam River, where Walke took on board an appendicitis patient from Wainwright for passage to Paramaribo for medical attention. After transferring the patient, Pvt. Lawrence P. Coghlan, USMC, ashore, Walke got underway for Pará, Brazil, where she fueled before pushing on for Rio de Janeiro.

Walke and Wainwright reached Rio on 19 July. Walke then transferred her marine passengers, half of the heavy cruiser's marine detachment, to Wichita while Wainwright transferred hers to USS Quincy (CA-39). Due to unsettled conditions in the area, the two cruisers were in South American waters, "showing the flag" and evidencing strong American interest in the "good neighbors" south of the border.

Still operating in company with her sister ship, Walke visited Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santos and Bahia, Brazil, and made a return call to Buenos Aires before rendezvousing with Quincy and Wichita on 15 August. Walke took on board mail, freight, and embarked passengers from Wichita before getting underway and steaming via Bahia and Guantanamo Bay to the Boston Navy Yard where she arrived on the morning of 4 September. Walke underwent post-shakedown repairs for the rest of that month and all of October before she joined the United States Fleet as a unit of Destroyer Division 4, Destroyer Squadron 2, Patrol Force. In mid-November, she served as the vehicle for degaussing tests under the auspices of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at Solomons Island, Maryland. Returning to Norfolk upon the conclusion of those tests, Walke set her course southward on 2 December, bound once more for Guantanamo Bay.

Walke's active service had begun in the spring of 1940, when Germany was unleashing her military might in Norway and the lowlands of western Europe to turn the so-called Phony War into the blitzkrieg which swept across northern France, driving British troops off the continent and knocking France out of the war. The resulting establishment of a new government in that country, more favorable to Germany, aroused fear in Allied and neutral circles that French fighting forces, particularly French warships, might be placed in German hands. Walke would have a role in seeing that this unfortunate development would never take place.

After fueling at San Juan on 6 December, the destroyer got underway on the afternoon of the following day on "Caribbean Patrol" in company with USS O'Brien (DD-415). Rendezvousing with USS Moffett (DD-362) and USS Sims (DD-409) off Fort-de-France, Martinique, Walke and O’Brien patrolled the approaches to that port, keeping an eye on the movements of Vichy French warships FRENCH SHIP Barfleur, FRENCH SHIP Quercy, and FRENCH AIRCRAFT CARRIER Béarn, through 14 December. Walke then visited Castries, British West Indies, on 15 December and embarked Comdr. Lyman K. Swenson, Commander, Destroyer Division 17, who hoisted his pennant in her that day.

Walke put into Guantanamo Bay on 19 December 1940, and remained there into the new year, moored in a nest with USS Prairie (AD-15), undergoing upkeep. In ensuing weeks, Walke operated in the Guantanamo Bay-Gonaïves, Haiti, areas, conducting battle and torpedo practices, engaging in a full slate of the training exercises assigned such ships in those areas. She then shifted to Fajardo, Puerto Rico, and operated from there through mid-March.

Walke then sailed north and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, on 20 March 1941 for a period of repairs and alterations that lasted into May. She touched briefly at Norfolk between 10 and 13 May before reaching Newport, her base for the better part of the year, on the following day.

Walke then patrolled off the Atlantic coast between Norfolk and Newport well into June 1941 as the Atlantic Fleet's neutrality patrols were steadily extended eastward, closer to the European war zone. She departed Newport on 27 July and screened a convoy to Iceland, reaching Reykjavík on 6 August and turning toward Norfolk the same day, her charges safely delivered.

The destroyer subsequently returned to those northern climes in mid-September, after local operations in the Newport-Boston area — reaching Hvalfjörður on 14 September. She operated in Icelandic waters into late September, before she put into NS Argentia, Newfoundland, on 11 October, en route to Casco Bay, Maine.

World War II
Walke began an overhaul at the Boston Navy Yard on 25 November 1941 and completed it on 7 December 1941, the "day of infamy" on which Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and thrust the United States into war in the Pacific. Departing the yard on that day, Walke reached Norfolk on 12 December, via Casco Bay, and remained there until 16 December when she sailed for the Panama Canal and the Pacific

After reaching San Diego, California, on 30 December, Walke sailed with the newly formed Task Force 17 (TF17), bound for the South Pacific, on 6 January 1942, screening USS Yorktown (CV-5) as she covered the movement of reinforcements for the Marine garrison on American Samoa. The convoy subsequently arrived at Tutuila on 24 January. However, TF 17 remained in Samoan waters for only a short time, for it soon sailed north for the Marshall–Gilbert Islands area to deliver the first offensive blow to the enemy, only eight weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Walke served in the antisubmarine screen and plane-guarded for the Yorktown as that carrier launched air strikes on suspected Japanese installations on the atolls of Jaluit, Makin, and Mili Atolls. Although Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPAC), considered the raids "well-conceived, well-planned, and brilliantly executed", the damage they actually caused was not as great as reported; and, outside the boost they gave to American morale, the attacks were only a minor nuisance to the Japanese. Nevertheless, the American Fleet had finally taken the war to the enemy.

Returning to Hawaiian waters on 7 February 1942, Walke trained in the Hawaiian area until 27 February, when she sailed for the Ellice Islands. She later exercised with TF 17 off New Caledonia in early March before she sailed, again screening Yorktown, for the New Guinea area, as part of the force put together to check Japanese expansion in that area.

By that time, the enemy advance to the southward, in the New Guinea-New Britain area, had gained considerable momentum with the occupation of Rabaul and Gasmata, New Britain; Kavieng, New Ireland; and on sites on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands and in the Louisiades. By the end of February 1942, it seemed probable that the Japanese were planning to mount an offensive in early March. TFs 11 and 17 were dispatched to the area. Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, in overall charge of the operation, initially selected Rabaul and Gasmata, in New Britain, and Kavieng, in New Ireland, as targets for the operation.

Walke then screened Yorktown as she launched air strikes on Tulagi in the Solomons on 4 May 1942 and later separated from that carrier with the "Support Force" (HMAS Australia (1927), HMAS Hobart (1939), USS Farragut (DD-348) and USS Perkins (DD-377)) to protect the southern mouth of the Jomard Passage. On the afternoon of 7 May, Japanese Aichi D3A Val dive bombers attacked the formation, but the heavy antiaircraft fire thrown up by the ships caused the enemy to retire without scoring any hits.

An hour after the Vals departed, however, Japanese twin-engined bombers appeared and made a torpedo attack from dead ahead. Again, a heavy volume of antiaircraft fire from Walke and the other destroyers peppered the skies. Five bombers splashed into the sea, and no torpedoes found their mark on the Allied ships. Later, 19 high altitude bombers passed over, dropping sticks of bombs that splashed harmlessly into the water. Antiaircraft fire proved ineffective, due to the high altitude maintained by the planes. However, the last group of planes were apparently American planes. The force commander, the Australian Rear Admiral John Crace, swore that the planes were B-26 Marauders; Walke's commander, Commander Thomas E. Fraser, subsequently reported them to be B-17 Flying Fortresses. In any event, it was fortunate that the bombardiers were not too accurate.

On 7 March, Allied intelligence learned that a Japanese surface force, including transports, lay off Buna, Papua New Guinea. On the following day, Japanese troops went ashore at Lae and Salamaua, New Guinea, and secured those places by noon.

Three days later, Yorktown and USS Lexington (CV-2) launched air strikes against the newly established Japanese beachheads at Lae and Salamaua. The attack took the enemy by surprise. The planes from the two American flattops came in from over the Owen Stanley Mountains and inflicted damage on ships, small craft, and shore installations, before they retired.

Walke remained at sea with the Yorktown task force into April. Detached to escort USS Ramsay (DM-16) and USS Sumner (AG-32), the destroyer reached Suva, in Fiji, on 19 April and got underway the next day, bound for the Tonga Islands. Reaching Tongatapu on 22 April, Walke fueled from USS Kaskaskia (AO-27) before she underwent boiler repairs and loaded depth charges prior to her return to TF 17.

Detached from the group because of a damaged starboard reduction gear, Walke headed to Australia for repairs and reached Brisbane on 12 May. Upon completion of the work on 29 May, the destroyer ran trials in the Brisbane River before being pronounced fit for service and sailed for New Caledonia on 9 June.

Arriving at Nouméa on 13 June, Walke fueled there before proceeding via Tongatapu to Pago Pago, American Samoa, Samoa. Assigned to Task Group 12.1 (TG 12.1), the destroyer sailed on 26 June for Bora Bora in the Society Islands. With the dissolution of TG 12.1 on 11 July, Walke then reported for duty to Commander, TG 6.7, the commanding officer of USS Castor (AKS-1). She then escorted Castor to San Francisco, California, arriving there on 2 August.

On 7 August, while Walke was undergoing repairs and alterations at the nearby Mare Island Navy Yard, the United States Navy wrested the initiative in the war from Japan by landing marines on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. In ensuing months, the armed forces of the two nations struggled mightily for control of that island chain. The contest soon developed into a logistics race as each side tried to frustrate its opponent's efforts to reinforce and supply his forces fighting on Guadalcanal while doing all in his power to strengthen his own. Walke's future was to be inextricably tied to the almost daily, and nightly, American air and naval attempts to best the Japanese in their thrusts down New Georgia Sound the strategic body of water which stretches between the two lines of islands which make up the Solomons chain and lead to Guadalcanal.

Completing the yard work on 25 August, Walke ran her trials in San Francisco Bay and that day received orders to proceed to San Pedro, California, to rendezvous with the oiler USS Kankakee (AO-39) and escorted her from the west coast of the United States, via Nouméa, New Caledonia, to Tongatapu, arriving there on 9 September. The destroyer later escorted a convoy consisting of Kankakee, USS Navajo (AT-64), and USS Arctic (AF-7) from Tongatapu to Nouméa, where she prepared for action in the Solomons.

Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
About sunset on 13 November 1942, the day after the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal began, Walke sortied with TF 64 which was built around USS Washington (BB-56) and USS South Dakota (BB-57) and, besides Walke, was screened by USS Preston (DD-379), USS Gwin (DD-433), and USS Benham (DD-397). By late in the forenoon on 14 November, TF 64 had reached a point some 50 nmi south-by-west from Guadalcanal.

Sighted by the enemy, who reported them as one battleship, one cruiser, and four destroyers, the American warships spent most of the day on 14 November avoiding contact with enemy planes. From the information available in dispatches, the commander of the American task force, Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee, knew of the presence of three groups of enemy ships in the area, one of which was formed around at least two battleships.

Proceeding through the flat calm sea and disposed in column formation with Walke leading, the American ships approached on a northerly course about nine miles (17 km) west of Guadalcanal.

Lee's ships continued making their passage, picking up Japanese voice transmissions on the radio while the ships' radar "eyes" scanned the darkness. At 0006 on 15 November, Washington received a report that indicated the presence of three ships, rounding the north end of Savo Island, headed westward. Almost simultaneously the flagship's radar picked up two ships on the same bearing.

Ten minutes later, Washington opened fire with her 16 in guns; and, within seconds, South Dakota followed suit. Walke opened fire at 0026, maintaining a rapid barrage at what probably was JAPANESE CRUISER Nagara. After checking fire within a few minutes, the lead destroyer opened up again at a Japanese destroyer 7500 yd to starboard (likely either Ayanami or JAPANESE DESTROYER Uranami) and, later, at gunflashes off her port side near Guadalcanal.

Sinking
Report of Action USS Walke (DD-416) November 15, 1942 (dated November 30, 1942 from Senior Officer Present - W.J Collum, Jr., Lieut. USN)

1.   Task Force 64 engaged the enemy off Savo Island on the night of November 14th-15th. US Forces formed in a column in the following order: WALKE, BENHAM, PRESTON, GWIN, WASHINGTON, SOUTH DAKOTA, under the command of USS WASHINGTON.

2. The wind was slight. Conditions of visibility were in general poor due to the enemy position close against shorelines of Salvo and Guadalcanal Islands. Radar ranges accurately obtainable only when enemy drew away from close island backgrounds.

3. Estimated order of events follows as all logs and records went down with the ship. The formations as described steamed on course 150 True between Florida and Savo Islands until approximately 00:20, reducing speed from 23 to 17 knots in search of the reported enemy. At 00:20 turned to course 270 True.

At 00:30 following action of WASHINGTON and South DAKOTA, WALKE opened fire to starboard on visible target believed to be a cruiser with a single raked stack. WALKE continued rapid fire on this target for two minutes with FOX DOG Radar range 11,000 yards. The target appeared to blow up under heavily concentrated fire. Our formation increased speed to 26 knots.

At 00:32 checked fired and shifted target to apparent enemy destroyer bearing one point on the starboard bow. Resumed rapid fire at the rage of 7,500 yards by Radar. Apparent straddled clearly visible followed by heavy black smoke. Flames were reported on the target as she disappeared behind the northwest point of Savo Island.

At 00:37 checked fire to shift target to port hand flashes of gunfire off Guadalcanal. Resumed rapid fire., Numerous gun flashes visible on starboard hand.

At 00:37 USS PRESTON blew up astern of WALKE.

At 00:39 attempted to shift torpedo battery from Curved Fire Ahead setup to Broadside Fire to Starboard when a heavy explosion occurred in the vicinity of frame 45 to starboard. WALKE had been straddled twice by gunfire immediately prior to this explosion caused by torpedo whose wake was observed. Following initial explosion, WALKE was struck by an apparent cruiser salvo. Shell hits were reported in the Radio Room, on the foremast, below the gig davits and in the vicinity of gun three. The explosion blew the forecastle and a section of the superstructure desk completely off as far aft as the bridge. Fires broke out throughout the forward section and the forward 20mm magazine exploded. The bulkhead of the forward fireroom was buckled, as was the main deck amidships. All engines were ordered to stop immediately and the commanding officer gave the order to abandon ship, which was sinking fast by the head. Only two life rafts were left in a condition to be freed. Depth charges were double checked and reported set on safe.

At 00:42 the ship disappeared stern last. The bow, detached, remained afloat.

At 00:43, an unknown number of WALKE's depth charges exploded, killing and seriously injuring many of the men in the water. The crew was organized in the water and seriously injured being placed on the rafts.

At approximately 02:00 an enemy submarine surfaced close to the rafts and illuminated all survivors for several minutes, but proceeded without incident. An enemy destroyer later illuminated survivors on the detached bow. There was much shouting from this vessel, but she also proceeded without taking action. Survivors were sighted and signaled at dawn by friendly aircraft. The USS MEADE was observed throughout the morning of November 15th firing on beached enemy transports. USS MEADE commenced picking up survivors with the aid of boats and cruiser aircraft at 14:00. 151 survivors were landed on Tulagi, where six died of wounds received in action. Total killed or missing in action were six officers and seventy-six enlisted.

4. During the action, the USS WALKE expended approximately 300 5inch anti-aircraft common projectiles. Gun three stood by throughout the action for illumination by star shells.

5.  The courage and coolness of the entire crew was excellent throughout the action and the difficult period in the water. Morale and cooperation was so high on the part of all the officers and men that is it impossible to cite any individual above the group for exceptional heroism. //signed WJ Collum Jr., Lt. USN//

Japanese shells straddled Walke twice, and then a "Long Lance" torpedo slammed into her starboard side at a point almost directly below mount 52. Almost simultaneously, a salvo of shells from Nagara, Ayanami, and Uranami hurtled down upon the hapless destroyer, a deluge of steel that struck home with devastating effect in the radio room, the foremast, below the gig davits, and in the vicinity of mount 53, on the after deckhouse. Meanwhile, the torpedo had blown off the bow of the ship; and fire broke out as the forward 20-millimeter magazine blew up.

With the situation hopeless, Commander Thomas E. Fraser, Walke's commanding officer, ordered the ship abandoned. As the destroyer sank rapidly by the bow, only two life rafts could be launched. The others had been damaged irreparably. After the crew made sure that the depth charges were set on safe, they went over the side just before the ship slipped swiftly under the surface.

As Washington, dueling with JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Kirishima and smaller ships, swept through the flotsam and jetsam of battle, she briefly noted Walke's plight and that of Preston, which had also gone down under in a deluge of shells. At 0041, just a minute or so before Walke sank, life rafts from the battleship splashed into the sea for the benefit of the survivors. Although the destroyer's depth charges had apparently been set to "safe", some depth charges went off, killing a number of swimming survivors and seriously injuring others. As the battle went on ahead of them, the able-bodied survivors placed their more seriously wounded comrades on rafts.

Walke's survivors were, at one point, in two groups; some clinging to the still-floating bow section and others clustered around the two rafts that ship had been able to launch. During the harrowing night, they were twice illuminated by enemy warships but not molested, before the enemy switched off his searchlights and moved on.

At dawn, however, Walke's survivors, and those from Preston, witnessed the end of a quartet of Japanese transports beached during the night. Bombed and strafed by Army, Marine, and Navy planes, including aircraft from USS Enterprise (CV-6), the four Japanese ships received the coup de grâce from the USS Meade (DD-602) that morning, just before the destroyer altered course and picked up the destroyermen from Walke and Preston.

Meade rescued 151 men from Walke, six of whom later died after they were brought ashore at Tulagi. Six officers, including Commander Fraser, and 76 men had died in the ship's fiery end off Savo Island. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 13 January 1943.

Awards
Walke received three battle stars for her World War II service.

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

title: USS Walke (DD-416)


text:
Prepress

Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress process includes the preparation of artwork for press, media selection, proofing, quality control checks and the production of printing plates if required. The artwork is quite often provided by the customer as a print-ready PDF file created in desktop publishing.

Processes

 * 1) Binding selection gives the customer multiple options for the spine of the publication such as Saddle-stitched, Perfect Bound or Case Bound, also Spiral, Wire and Comb binding are possible. Each has its merits and suits a particular number of pages.
 * 2) Preparing artwork involves setting color profiles, bleed, registration and crop marks as specified by the printers, use spot colors, trapping and overprint as needed. Check transparency flattening results and allow for creep.
 * 3) Pre-flight is an automatic scan of the document using the printers pre-defined profile to find errors before submitting.
 * 4) Raster Image Processor (RIP) is the software/hardware that processes the print-ready files into a rasterized format that the printer can understand.
 * 5) Proofing involves creating an accurate copy of the artwork before beginning production runs. This serves as a bond between the printer and their customer that the final product meets an agreed-upon standard. Proofs in general can be done for all parts (images, illustrations, text and colors) of the print product. In this part, three types of proofing should be checked and printed out: the print-ready PDF files, the printer's proof and the imposition proof. Print-ready PDF files should be made after the layout using preflight at the printing house. The printer's proof should be printed out in high resolution and checked by the customer. The imposition proof, which is usually done by the printers, should also be printed out to check and adjust the printing press.
 * 6) Soft proofs are digital proofs that simulate accurately how the finished publication will look, intended to highlight any future issues.
 * 7) Hard proofs are physically printed proofs that simulate accurately how the finished publication will look, intended to highlight any future issues.
 * 8) A Contract Proof serves as the agreement between a customer and a printer which is signed-off before the printing can begin. This can be digitally signed as a digital contract using services like Acrobat Sign.
 * 9) Quality control is performed throughout the prepress process but especially after the proofs are produced.
 * 10) Imposition is the arrangement of the printed product’s pages on the printer’s sheet, in order to obtain faster printing, simplify binding and reduce paper waste.
 * 11) Computer to plate (CTP) uses a laser to burn the image from a computer file onto a printing plate. Plates are made of different materials, depending on the needs of the printing method, usually Thermal, Photopolymer or Silver-Halogen (violet) plates are used. They usually have a processing stage in chemicals or liquid although process free plates are available.

In most modern publishing environments, the tasks related to content generation and refinement are carried out separately from other prepress tasks, and are commonly characterized as part of graphic design.

Digital printing
Digital printing allows printing a lower volume or individually customised publications; this is also known as Variable Data Printing (VDP). Variable Data Printing starts with a static piece of artwork and has an element that changes which can be fed from a database, such as a customer's name. Conventional offset printing uses 4 printing plates for CMYK color publications making it only cost effective to print thousands of copies of each version. Digital printing is also cost effective for an individual publication with a fast turnaround. Toner cartridges or Inkjet Cartridges are used making them easy to operate and maintain. Advanced machines have options for additional spot colors with special inks such as metallic, fluorescent and white.

Color management
Managing color across the process involves having the right equipment and taking regular measurements. You need wide color gamut monitors that can best replicate a CMYK color space and have been calibrated. Pantone swatch guides are needed for color matching. A professional color profiling system like the ones listed at the International Color Consortium (ICC) and using ICC color profiles are required. Spectrophotometers to validate the color of the CMYK ink and spot colors are also important in prepress.

Quality control
Images in a print-ready PDF should be uploaded at 300dpi resolution. Any vector artwork or text should stay vector including clipping paths embedded in images for cutouts, as the RIP will rasterize them at 2400dpi, it can take about 10gb of data to create the rasterized image for the printing plates. Text and vector can print at 2400dpi if it only uses one solid color as there will be no halftone dithering, that's why magazine text is so sharp. Images can only print at the equivalent of 300dpi because of the dithering needed for the gradients and mixed colors, although the dithering of the image is printed at 2400dpi (300dpi for images, and 2400dpi for text and vector are typical values stated by printers).

All artwork should be checked for imperfections in resolution, embedded fonts, color profiles, printers marks and any obvious mistakes that were missed during the writing, design, editing or proofreading stages, although prepress are not accountable as the artwork should already be agreed as print-ready.

Digital workflow
Key prepress digital workflow software products include: Agfa Apogee, Fujifilm XMF, Heidelberg Prinect, Kodak Prinergy and Fiery Workflow Suite. Important features when choosing digital workflow software or cloud submission and proofing software include: A version control system that helps you keep track of who is changing what and when. A secure system that lets different people check in and check out files and records when they do so. A method to lock down files currently in use to prevent simultaneous modifications by others. A way to lock out files so that only particular people can open them and change them, but anyone can view them.

History
During the 1980s and 1990s, computer-aided prepress techniques began to supplant the traditional dark room and light table processes, and by the early 2000s the word prepress became, in some ways, synonymous with digital pre-press. Immediately before the mainstream introduction of computers to the process, much of the industry was using large format cameras to make emulsion-based (film) copies of text and images. This film was then assembled (planning (UK) or stripping) and used to expose another layer of emulsion on a plate, thus copying images from one emulsion to another. This method is still used; however, as digital pre-press technology has become less cost intensive, more efficient and reliable, and as the knowledge and skill required to use the new hardware and especially software have become more widespread within the labor force, digital automation has been introduced to almost every part of the process. Some topics related to digital but not analog prepress include preflighting (verifying the presence, quality and format of each digital component), color management, and RIPing.

PDF workflows also became predominant. Vendors of Prepress systems, in addition to the offset printing industry, embraced a subset of the PDF format referred to as PDF/X1-a. This industry specific subset is one version of the PDF/X (PDF for eXchange) set of standards.

In more recent years, prepress software has been developed which is designed to find as many efficiencies in prepress workflow as possible. These tools are accessed online, and allow different workers to work on one project at the same time, often from different locations. Key functionality automates common steps to reduce errors, reinforce quality standards and speed up production. Examples include automatically re-folioing pages, digital dummies for soft proofs, live linking with Adobe InDesign and pre-flight checking. These tools revolve around a Flatplan and are used in all sorts of prepress including book, magazine and catalog production.

title: Prepress


text:
USS Jonas Ingram

USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938), named for Admiral Jonas H. Ingram USN (1886–1952), awarded the Medal of Honor when a Lieutenant (junior grade) for his actions during the engagement of Vera Cruz on 22 April 1914, was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer laid down by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Quincy in Massachusetts on 15 June 1955, launched on 7 August 1956 by Mrs. Lawrence Hays, Jr., daughter of Admiral Ingram and commissioned on 19 July 1957 at Boston Naval Shipyard. USS Jonas Ingram was decommissioned on 4 March 1983, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 June 1983 and sunk as a target on 23 July 1988.

History
Following shakedown in the Caribbean and along the western coast of South America, Jonas Ingram departed Boston 26 February 1958 for patrols in the West Indies. She sailed from Newport, Rhode Island, 2 September for the Mediterranean to join the 6th Fleet and participate in NATO exercises.

She returned to Newport 12 March 1959 and sailed 16 June for Mayport, Florida, her new home port. She acted as recovery ship for an experimental Project Mercury nose-cone which splashed off the Florida coast 25 June.

The destroyer, as flagship for Rear Admiral E. C. Stephen, Commander South Atlantic Forces, sailed for the South Atlantic 24 August and conducted joint exercises with the French and South African navies visiting nine African countries from Tanganyika before returning May-port 15 November.

Highlights of the next 16 months of operations out of Mayport were duty providing air-sea rescue cover for President Eisenhower's flights to and from the abortive Paris Summit Conference in May 1960 and a role in another Project Mercury space test late in the year. The hardy destroyer departed 15 March 1961 for the African coast to support United Nations peace-keeping efforts in the Congo. Richard York, who was known for his contributions to the vessel, was commissioned on the ship September 1973, and decommissioned in 1975.

Returning home 8 September, she sailed 18 October for NATO exercises in Northern European waters and returned 21 December. For the next two years Jonas Ingram alternated Mediterranean deployments with operations out of Mayport. On 21 September 1964 she was one of our representatives at Malta during ceremonies at which Great Britain granted independence to the island. During this cruise she embarked four Turkish naval officers for a 4-week visit under the NATO exchange program. She returned from the Mediterranean in time to serve as one of the recovery ships for the unmanned Gemini space shot GT-2 in December. Atlantic Fleet ASW exercises in the North Atlantic during February 1965 were followed by Operation "Springboard" in the Caribbean in March. In the summer Jonas Ingram got underway on a people-to-people cruise in Middle Eastern waters and visited such parts as Djibouti, French Somaliland; Berbera, Somalia; Aden, Yemen; Karachi, Pakistan; and Beirut, Lebanon.

The destroyer returned to Mayport in the fall to become a recovery ship for Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford's Gemini 6 spacecraft in December. After operations in the Atlantic and Caribbean early in 1966 Jonas Ingram returned to the Mediterranean for service with the 6th Fleet. In September 1966 she accompanied Stribling (DD-867) to Port Said, the first U.S. warships to visit Egypt in almost 15 years.

Jonas Ingram returned home 20 October where she prepared for Exercise "Lantflex 66-2." The fleet exercise took the destroyer to the Caribbean late in November and lasted through mid-December. Jonas Ingram operated out of Mayport until sailing for the Mediterranean 17 July 1967. She reach Gibraltar 29 July and steamed with the 6th Fleet into the fall.

The Jonas Ingram was decommissioned and modernized during an overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. One of the three five inch gunmounts was removed and an ASROC (anti-submarine rocket weapons system) was installed. The propulsion system was also upgraded to run on JP5 (jet fuel) rather than "bunker C". The ship was recommissioned in Philadelphia in 1970 before returning to homeport in Mayport, Florida.

On 25 June 1973 USS Jonas Ingram received an SOS from the Indian vessel merchantman and freighter Saudi, which had capsized in heavy seas off the coast of Somalia. Steaming through the night Jonas Ingram, at dawn, came upon the survivors of the Saudi clinging to debris. Jonas Ingram rescued the 58 surviving passengers and crew, and nine bodies were recovered, with 31 missing. The survivors and bodies were put to shore at Djibouti. The crew of the Jonas Ingram received a Meritous Unit Citation.

On 4 October 1976 USS Jonas Ingram rescued seven survivors of a Finnish motor craft that sank in the Baltic Sea. The survivors were put ashore at Karlskrona, Sweden.

Fate
The first live fire test of the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo resulting in the sinking of ex-Jonas Ingram on 23 July 1988.

title: USS Jonas Ingram


text:
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. Concurrent with its publication by Tor Books, Doctorow released the entire text of the novel under a Creative Commons noncommercial license on his website, allowing the whole text of the book to be freely read and distributed without needing any further permission from him or his publisher.

The novel was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2004.

Plot summary
This future history book takes place in the 22nd century, mostly in Walt Disney World. Disney World is run by rival adhocracies, each dedicated to providing the best experience to the park's visitors and competing for the Whuffie the guests offer. In the post-scarcity world of the novel, Whuffie is a currency-like system that primarily measures the esteem of others, or in the case of extremely low Whuffie, their disdain. The story is told in first person by Julius, whose old college buddy Dan used to be one of the most popular people in the country (as measured by Whuffie). Julius and girlfriend Lil are working with the committee (called an ad hoc) that oversees the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Square. Dan, who has hit rock bottom and lost all his Whuffie, doesn't believe in rejuvenation and wishes to die, but not while he's at rock bottom. He moves in with Julius and Lil in order to rebuild his life. At the park, Julius is murdered and soon refreshed. By the time he wakes up, Debra's ad hoc group has taken control of the Hall of Presidents, and is planning to replace its old-fashioned animatronic robots with the synthetic memory imprinting of the experience of being the president for a moment. Julius believes that this rival committee had him killed as a distraction so that they could seize the Hall in the interim.

Fearing that they will next try to revamp his favorite ride, the Haunted Mansion, he resolves to take a stand against the virtualization of the park, endangering his relationship with both Lil and Dan; eventually Lil leaves Julius for Dan. Julius finally "cracks" when he sees his dreams turned to dust and he bashes up the attractions in the Hall of Presidents, in the process also damaging his own cranial interface to the point that he can no longer back himself up. This pushes his Whuffie to ground level when he is caught and gives Debra and her colleagues enough "sympathy Whuffie" to take over the Haunted Mansion, by invitation of the same fans that Julius had recruited to work in the Mansion.

Dan leaves Lil, Julius is kicked out of the ad hoc and his Whuffie hits rock bottom — low enough that others take his possessions with impunity and elevators don't stop for him. Then comes the revelation: a few days before Dan's planned suicide by lethal injection, Dan reveals that it was in fact he who had arranged to kill Julius, in collusion with Debra, in exchange for the Whuffie that her team could give him. Dan had asked one of his converts from his missionary days, a young girl, to do the dirty work. Debra then had herself restored from a backup made before this plan, so that she would honestly believe that she wasn't involved. He makes this public; Debra is thrown out, Julius gets sympathy Whuffie and develops a friendly affection for his sweet young murderer. He never restores himself, because doing so would erase his memories of that entire year, his last with Dan, but lives with his damaged interface. The book is his attempt to manually document the happenings of the previous year so that, when this incarnation is eventually killed by age or accident, his restored backup will have a partial record of the transpiring events. Dan decides not to take a lethal injection, but to deadhead (putting oneself into a voluntary coma) till the heat death of the Universe.

Characters

 * Julius (also known as Jules), the narrator of the book, is more than a century old. His childhood dream is living at Disney World (also known as "The Magic Kingdom").
 * Lil, age 23, with long red hair and freckles, is Jules' girlfriend. She is 15 percent of Jules' age, but outwardly the same age. She was raised in Walt Disney World.
 * Dan is Jules' best male friend. He is a former missionary for the Bitchun utopia who has lost the will to live now that there are no technophobes left to convert.
 * Debra is one of the old guard of Disney World and was a comrade of Lil's parents before they went deadhead. She spent a decade in Disneyland Beijing, coding sim-rides.
 * Tim is a programmer of synthetic memories.
 * Tom and Rita are Lil's parents who were "members of the original ad hoc that had seized power in Walt Disney World, wresting control from a gang of wealthy former shareholders who had been operating it as their private preserve".
 * Zed (also known as Zoya) is a transhuman who was married to Julius for 18 months, went crazy, and reverted to a backup from before she met Julius.

Cultural cross references

 * Chapter five includes a description of a "Snow Crash Spectacular parade" based on Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash.
 * The book contains references to the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon". Julius' girlfriend leaves him for his friend Dan, just as Lil leaves Rocky Raccoon for a man named Dan in the song. At the beginning of the book, Jules and Lil sing some lyrics from the song.
 * "Rangy Lil" is a character from the science fiction classic "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein. The character Dan in this book says: "Lil, you are one rangy cowgirl."
 * Doctorow's short story "Truncat" is also set in the Bitchun Society, sometime after the events of Down and Out.
 * Doctorow's short story "I, Row Boat", a play on words of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, also appears to be set in the same universe (though more distantly future), with references to artificial uploading and downloading of intelligence, but no explicit mention of the Bitchun Society or Whuffie.
 * The title is a reference to George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.

Licensing
On February 12, 2004, Doctorow re-licensed his book under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (by-nc-sa) license. Under the new license, one can now make derivative works from the book without permission, provided the license and attribution is retained with each new work and the derivatives are not used commercially. Already, fans of the book have begun Russian and Spanish translations, an audio book version, and several amusing re-arrangements of the text. Doctorow has noted that he is pleased that people are building on his work, and that he hopes that further innovations will follow.

Despite these measures, in 2007 invalid DMCA takedown notices were sent by Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) with regard to this novel. Cory Doctorow said "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was the first novel released under a Creative Commons license, and I've spent the past four years exhorting fans to copy my work and share it. Now I've started to hear from readers who've seen this notice and concluded that I am a hypocrite who uses SFWA to send out legal threats to people who heeded my exhortation."

title: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom


text:
USS Manley (DD-940)

USS Manley (DD-940), named for Captain John Manley (c.1733–1793), was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer built by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath in Maine. The keel was laid down on 10 February 1955. Manley was commissioned on 1 February 1957 and sponsored by Mrs. Arleigh A. Burke, wife of then Chief of Naval Operations, the principal speaker at the commissioning ceremonies.

History
Manley departed Newport, Rhode Island, on 11 April for shakedown in the Caribbean. On 7 June, Manley got underway from San Juan, Puerto Rico for a goodwill tour that took her to Lisbon, Amsterdam, Kiel, and Copenhagen. The destroyer returned to the Boston Naval Shipyard on 12 July for repairs and alterations.

Manley left Boston on 22 August 1957 and sortied with an attack carrier strike force destined for a large scale NATO Fleet Exercise "Strike Back." She arrived in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, on 14 September for a liberty stop. Three days later, she was underway conducting simulated war tactics as it steamed off the coast of Norway north of the Arctic Circle. After exercises with the carrier force, Manley returned to Norfolk on 24 October 1957. Later, assigned to DesDiv 41, she became the flagship for DesRon 4.

On 4 December 1957, Manley set sail for a tour with the Sixth Fleet accompanied by the Gearing, McCard, and Vogelsang. Manley practiced simulated antisubmarine warfare attacks with the squadron while en route but was diverted on 11 December through heavy seas toward the Azores where an aircraft had been reported down, Manley took her position in a futile search. In the early morning hours of 12 December, the destroyer was broadsided by a tremendous wave, killing two, injuring several others, and impacting heavy damage to the galley, radio and radar rooms when she suffered flooding. Enduring northwesterly gusts up to 80 knots, Manley battled through heavy rain squalls and mountainous seas toward Lisbon to arrive at night on 13 December for emergency treatment of the injured and repairs to the vessel. She moved to Gibraltar on the 18th and underwent voyage repairs in the Royal Dockyard of Gibraltar until 4 January 1958, then headed via Bermuda for Norfolk arriving on the 15th. Eventually, she entered the Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia for more permanent repairs. Four months later on 29 April, Manley returned to Norfolk and resumed her role as the flagship of DesRon 4.

On 6 June 1958, Manley set sail with the squadron for an Atlantic Fleet operation that included midshipmen training, implementation of the President's people-to-people programs, and visits to foreign ports of call. She visited among other ports, Kiel, Germany and Copenhagen, Denmark, and Antwerp, Belgium while escorting the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain (CV-39).

Returning to Norfolk on 2 October, she was soon underway with the USS Intrepid (CVA-11) to join the Second Fleet in maneuvers off the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Following those operations, she took her position as plane guard for the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) during operations up the eastern seaboard to the Virginia Capes.

The first half of 1959 saw Manley with the Surface Antisubmarine Development Detachment at Guantanamo Bay. On 1 March, Manley's and DesRon's Four homeport was officially changed to Charleston, South Carolina. After six months of upkeep and maintenance, the squadron was underway for the Mediterranean and anti-submarine deployment. She participated alongside her British counterparts in "Long Haul," and with the French in operation "Boomerang."

After an extensive overhaul in the Charleston shipyard, Manley was again underway on 21 July 1960 for firing exercises off Culebra Island in the Caribbean. On 27 July she took her position at station number five on the Atlantic Missile Range for the test firing of a Mercury space capsule. Then, she headed eastward to Cardiff, Wales, and participated in experimental antisubmarine warfare patrols and attack team exercises en route to stateside. After completing a short stint of operations off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, Manley turned for Pollensa Bay, Majorca. Joining the USS Forrestal (CVA-59) task force at Beirut, Lebanon, she joined in Sixth Fleet maneuvers.

In November, she rendezvoused with the Franklin D. Roosevelt to take part in patrols south of Hispaniola. Early in 1962, the destroyer spent a fortnight on Project Mercury operations followed up a week later underway in support of the Independence in night operations in the North Atlantic. Twice within three days her crew rescued downed pilots at night. One of those pilots, now retired Captain Bill Brandel of Fairfax, Virginia, appeared at the Capitol 2001 Reunion on Sunday, 28 October 2001, nearly thirty years later, to extend his gratitude to several of those who participated in his rescue.

On 28 September 1962, Manley headed for Guantanamo Bay for refresher training and rescued a downed helicopter pilot. She spent most of October and November operating in the waters of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While returning home, the destroyer again came to the rescue of three men of yacht, Avian, adrift in the Atlantic.

Late in January 1963, she sailed to the Caribbean for operation "Springboard '63." After ASW exercises with the aircraft carrier USS Essex (CVS-9), joint Canadian-American ASW exercises took her to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In October, Manley again departed for a Mediterranean deployment. She was honored to be selected as SIXTH Fleet's flagship during a three-day visit to Tunis. In December, she saw operations with the Middle East Force. On 13 January 1964, Manley dispatched her then Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander Joseph E. Murray, Jr. to negotiate with armed rebels in Zanzibar. Along with a small band of sailors, Murray successfully walked away with 91 American citizens held hostages by the guerrillas.

Following routine upkeep in Charleston, she resumed operations off the Atlantic coast in May and on 6 January 1965 returned to the Mediterranean, representing the United States during the tenth anniversary celebrations of CENTO in Iskenderum, Turkey. During her homeward voyage, Manley spotted the collision of Kaskaskia and the Liberian tanker SS World Bond near St. Helena. Manley rescued 23 World Bond passengers and crew from the murky waters. Her emergency teams fought on board fires and flooding and saved the ship.

On 9 August, Manley took her recovery station for the space flight of Gemini V. For the next year, she operated in various combat scenarios off the Carolina coasts in preparation for then unknown operations in Southeast Asia. Departing Charleston on 5 October 1966, she joined DesRon 20 at Gitmo, and soon afterwards set her bow for Vietnam. En route, she assisted the ill captain of the Greek merchant ship, Marcetta. On 21 November, Manley relieved USS Hull (DD-945) in Da Nang as a unit of TU 70.8.9, a gunfire support group of the Seventh Fleet. Manley provided distinguished support of the ground forces until 7 December when a powder case ignited in the breech of mount 51, her forward gun mount. The resulting fire and explosion tore the mount apart and endangered the magazines. Damage control snuffed out the blaze before extensive damage occurred. The casualties were evacuated by helicopter and the destroyer steamed to Da Nang to disembark the visiting Senator Henry M. Jackson.

After Subic Bay repairs, Manley joined up with USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) in the Gulf of Tonkin and operated there until assigned to TG 77.4 for ASW work with USS Bennington (CVS-20). Awarded the Navy Unit Commendation for sustained meritorious service in operations against the enemy during her deployment in Southeast Asia, Manley returned to Charleston in May 1967.

After a brief stay in her homeport, Manley again departed for the Western Pacific and combat duty in September. Her second Vietnam engagement was to last eight and one-half months until she returned to Charleston in June 1968.

The destroyer was decommissioned on 31 January 1970 to undergo prolong antisubmarine warfare modernization at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Extensive improvements to sensors, weaponry, communications, and crew habitability were accomplished and on 19 April 1971, she was recommissioned and joined CruDesFlot 4 in Norfolk. Following her shakedown deployment in Guantanamo in the spring of '72, Manley joined DesRon 12 and took part in the program to forward deploy ships in overseas homeports. DesRon 12 and Manley entered their new homeport, Athens, Greece, on 1 September 1972. During the next thirty months, she was called upon frequently to participate in speed contingency exercises: the October 1973 Arab-Israeli and Cyprus crisis of 1974. Manley became the first United States warship to visit İzmir, Turkey in December 1973. On 22 July 1975, the destroyer headed for a scheduled upkeep and maintenance in Philadelphia and in December 1976, was home ported to Mayport, Florida.

After finishing refresher training in March 1977, she commenced operations as a unit of the Second Fleet followed by a Sixth Fleet deployment from November 1977 until July 1978. Her operating cycle was continued with another Med and Northern Europe run.

On 8 April 1979	while at Mayport, a fire broke out in the forward boiler room during preparation to get underway. Twelve men were injured of which one later died. The repair cost was estimated at $75 million. On 1 October 1979, the crew became designated "Blue Noses" when they crossed the Arctic Circle.

With an increasing naval presence in the Caribbean Sea, the destroyer operated throughout the area visiting Curaçao, Antilles, Limón, Costa Rica, and Santo Tomas de Castilla. In 1980, she departed Mayport for overhaul in Boston. Following a successful refit and sea trials, Manley was assigned to Newport, Rhode Island, and conducted workup ops in the Narragansett area preparing for REFTRA in Guantanamo Bay.

Fate
From 3 April to 3 May, she conducted FEDEX(?) operations in and around Puerto Rico. On 8 June 1982, the USS Manley departed for what was to be her last cruise. She visited all of the Med ports, assisted in evacuation of civilians from Beirut, Lebanon, during terrorist activities, and transited the Indian Ocean arriving after fifty days at sea in Karachi, Pakistan. From 16 October until 24 November, she joined in MidEastFor exercises. At long last, the Lady headed home arriving on 22 December in Newport to commence decommissioning. On 4 March 1983, the USS Manley (DD-940) was struck for the Navy's active rolls.

When the Fore River Shipyard and Iron Works went bankrupt in the early nineties she was resold to N. R. Acquisition Incorporated of New York City by the Massachusetts Bankruptcy Court and scrapped by Wilmington Resources of Wilmington in North Carolina.

title: USS Manley (DD-940)


text:
A Drug Against War

"A Drug Against War" is a song by industrial rock band KMFDM, taken from their 1993 album Angst. It was released as a single prior to the album. A music video, featuring animated depictions of the band's previous album covers and singles, was made for the single, and was subsequently shown on the MTV cartoon Beavis and Butt-head on 11 July 1994. It was re-released as a 7" in 2009. On 16 December 2010 it was made available as a downloadable song for the game Rock Band. In late 2011, the band released a new version of the song called "A Drug Against Wall Street", with lyrics in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and made it available for free download from their site.

Song
The song includes several militaristic samples. The primary one, in which someone calls for the bombing of enemy troops, comes from a live news broadcast about the Gulf War that Konietzko taped. The lyrics mix social criticism with regular reference to war, and the instruments simulate the sounds of missiles and gunfire. Eventually, the martial symbolism becomes so overt and over-the-top that academic S. Alexander Reed identifies this as a sign that it is meant satirically. Reed compares these militaristic themes to the "war on drugs", which is ironically referenced in the song's title and turned into an anti-war motto. According to Reed, the song's ironic use of militarism marks it as yet another social ill to be criticized.

Critical reception
Andy Hinds, in the 2002 book All Music Guide to Rock, called the song KMFDM's most over the top moment to date. Ten years after its release, Brad Filicky of CMJ New Music Report said "A Drug Against War" was one of the most potent speed metal songs ever. Joshua Landau of Allmusic said that while the song was "one of the best introductions to KMFDM's antagonistic guitars and viewpoints", the four track single was "only of interest to serious fans".

"A Drug Against War" was ranked No. 47 on COMA Music Magazine's 101 Greatest Industrial Songs of All Time.

Personnel

 * Sascha Konietzko – vocals (1-4), programming (1-4), drum sequences and arrangement (3, 4), production
 * En Esch – drum sequences and arrangement (1, 2)
 * Mark Durante – guitars (1-3)
 * Svet Am – guitars (1-4)
 * Christine Siewert – backing vocals (4)

title: A Drug Against War


text:
USS Du Pont (DD-941)

USS Du Pont (DD-941), named for Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont USN (1803–1865), was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer built by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath in Maine and launched by Mrs. H. B. Du Pont, great-great-grandniece of Rear Admiral Du Pont; and commissioned 1 July 1957, Commander W. J. Maddocks in command.

History
From 6 to 31 July 1958 Du Pont served on a midshipman cruise and antisubmarine exercises in the Atlantic, duty broken by a visit to New York. Du Pont sailed 2 September for a tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, during which she participated in highly realistic air defense and antisubmarine warfare problems. She returned to Norfolk 12 March 1959, to prepare for Operation "Inland Seas," the historic first passage of a naval task force into the Great Lakes through the Saint Lawrence Seaway. She escorted the royal yacht HMY Britannia with Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom embarked during the dedicatory ceremonies on 26 June.

Du Pont crossed the Atlantic in August and September 1959, visiting Southampton, England, after serving as plane guard for the transatlantic flight of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. On 28 January 1960 Du Pont sailed from Norfolk for a second tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, returning on 31 August for an overhaul in the Naval Shipyard where she remained through the end of 1960.

Fleet exercises in the Caribbean Sea, operations along the Atlantic Coast, and enforcing the quarantine during the Cuban Missile Crisis carried Du Pont to April 1963 when she served as the command ship during the search for the submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) that foundered off Boston on 10 April. She finished 1963 as the only destroyer in the Atlantic Fleet to win four successive "E"s in Engineering. Her fifth Mediterranean cruise began in November and continued into 1964.

After another Mediterranean deployment, she was the first ship to reach the Gemini 5 space capsule after it landed, and her crew stood by to ensure that both astronauts and capsule were recovered safely. She was also the first vessel ever to recover the booster section of a space shot launch rocket, which she carried back to Norfolk lashed to her fantail. While in Santo Domingo during the Dominican Republic crisis, Du Pont earned a golden "E" to commemorate her sixth consecutive Engineering 'E'. Operations with the Sixth Fleet and NATO forces took up the first half of 1966, followed by a Caribbean cruise and the award of her seventh Engineering 'E', an unprecedented feat.

Du Pont's first Vietnam deployment began in August 1967 on the gun line in support of U.S. Marines fighting at the Demilitarized Zone. Under constant threat from enemy shore batteries, her gunners shelled enemy positions day and night. On 28 August, the enemy fired on the destroyer USS Robison (DDG-12), which was between Du Pont and the beach. As Robison maneuvered to seaward, Du Pont returned fire, immediately replacing it as a target for some twenty 130 mm rounds. One shell found its target, hitting the Mount 52 gun. The burst sent shrapnel into the mount and down through the superstructure to the after deckhouse, killing FN Frank L. Ballant and wounding eight others. Despite the casualties to men and ship, Du Pont continued on station for another two weeks before heading for Subic Bay and repairs. Under fire once more when she returned to the gun line on 10 October, she successfully avoided being hit. On 10 November, the eight men wounded on 28 August received Purple Heart medals, and two days later, the ship left for her last trip to the gun line. At the end of seventy-five days in combat, Du Pont's 5-inch guns had fired 20,000 rounds. Returning to Norfolk in January 1968, she went into dry dock for repairs followed by operations with the Apollo recovery force, exercises in the Caribbean, and midshipman training. By summer's end, her engineering department had racked up its ninth departmental excellence award.

Back in the Far East on 10 October 1968, she began twenty-six days on the gun line supporting SEAL reconnaissance teams and ARVN units in the Mekong Delta. Later in the Gulf of Siam, she fired on a Vietcong-held island, supported a swift boat sweep up the Ông Đốc River estuary, and provided gun fire support in the I Corps area and around Da Nang. In mid-December, her guns covered an amphibious landing to the south.

Returning to combat in January, her gunners supported the 1st Marine Division at Da Nang, covered a four-day amphibious landing to the south, and then again shelled enemy positions around Da Nang and in the Mekong River Delta. When she left Vietnam that spring, Du Pont's guns had fired 30,000 rounds, damaging or destroying more than 730 military structures, and 131 small craft, not to mention causing multiple fires and explosions. Following her return to Norfolk, she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard and decommissioned on 23 May 1969 for antisubmarine warfare modernization.

Recommissioned on 9 May 1970, she returned to Norfolk and in April 1971, began antisubmarine warfare and routine operations along the Atlantic Coast, in the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. In 1972, she won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award for the Atlantic Fleet. In 1979, Du Pont was relocated to the Bethlehem Steel Works Ship Yard in Hoboken, New Jersey, where the destroyer underwent a major refit. In 1980, the ship got underway and was attached to Comdesron 2, under the command of Cmdr. Harlan K. Ullman.

Following the refit, the ship sailed for its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, before going to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Under Cmdr. Ullman's command, the crew participated in two weeks of refresher training, simulating wartime conditions. The crew of Du Pont received three of the Battle "E's".

In 1981, Du Pont went to the Middle East, sailing through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea then to the Persian Gulf. The ship was assigned to the USS Nimitz battle group, remaining on patrol in the Persian Gulf following the release of American hostages held in Iran. The ship was continually on alert, as Iranian P-3 Orions, originally supplied by the United States, would survey the gulf to track U.S. ship movements.

In 1982, Du Pont was assigned to assist Israel, after the confrontation took place between Israeli forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The ship remained off the coast of Beirut for nearly 100 days, lending naval gunfire support. Du Pont was stationed off the coast of Lebanon longer than any other U.S. Navy ship.

Fate
Du Pont was decommissioned on 4 March 1983 and sold for scrap on 11 December 1992 to the Fore River Shipyard and Iron Works.

title: USS Du Pont (DD-941)


text:
Angst (KMFDM album)

Angst is the sixth studio album by German industrial band KMFDM, released on 12 October 1993 by Wax Trax! Records.

Background
Bandmates Sascha Konietzko and En Esch began working together again after splitting up during the recording of their previous album, Money. Konietzko had moved to Seattle in 1993, while Esch had moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. Angst was the first album the band recorded in America with new engineer Chris Shepard, after recording their first six albums in Hamburg, the previous four of which had all been engineered by Blank Fontana. Angst also marked the first appearance of steel guitarist Mark Durante, whose presence made a noticeable impact on the band's sound, moving it towards a more guitar-driven style. Dutch vocalist Dorona Alberti made her mark on the album as well, singing on half the songs, including lead vocals on "The Problem". The song "A Hole in the Wall" lyrically is a direct to-English translation of the German lyrics to the song "Liebeslied" from the recently pulled version of their 1990 offering 'Naïve (album)'.

Production
After very limited participation on Money, Esch had a much stronger hand in the songwriting and recording of Angst, and commented after its release, "We've tried to involve guitar players, we tried to be like a real band, especially in the creative kind of aspect."

Release
Angst was released on 13 October 1993. Unlike previous albums, Angst had a more rock-oriented sound, so the marketing strategy of Wax Trax!/TVT changed. TVT director of sales and marketing Paul Burgess said, "We decided to work them not like a typical dance-rock artist, but like a serious rock band, and it has crossed over to metal and commercial alternative this time." KMFDM embarked on the Angstfest Tour in support of the album in April and May 1994. In addition to the studio lineup, guitarist Mike Jensen was brought along for the live shows to duplicate the heavy sound of the album. This led to stage performances that included up to four guitarists playing at once.

The album had sold 20,000 copies by February 1994, and went on to sell more than 100,000 copies by October 1995. A digitally remastered reissue of Angst was released by Metropolis Records on 21 November 2006.

Reception
Andy Hinds of Allmusic said KMFDM had reached their full potential on the album. He called "A Drug Against War" "the band's most over-the-top moment to date" and thought "Sucks" was funny and irreverent. He concluded by calling Angst a great album for KMFDM newcomers. Ira Robbins called Angst "the fulfillment of Money's promise, a meld of pop choruses, metal guitar riffs and industrial machine-beats". Colin Larkin said Angst "perfected the band's aggressive fusion of pounding electro rhythms and screeching guitars." Angst was given a Silver Salute by CMJ New Music Report in 2003, with Brad Filicky saying, "KMFDM managed to make people laugh, even as they were checking under their beds for monsters and finding the inspiration to plug their guitars into a MIDI unit."

Musicians

 * Sascha Konietzko – vocals, bass, keyboards, programming
 * En Esch – vocals, guitars
 * Svet Am – guitars, piano ("The Problem")
 * Mark Durante – guitars

Additional personnel

 * Dorona Alberti – vocals ("Light", "Lust", "Move On", "No Peace", "The Problem")
 * Christine Siewert – vocals ("Blood (Evil Mix)")
 * Bruce Breckenfeld – Hammond B3 organ ("No Peace")

Production

 * Sascha Konietzko – production, arrangements
 * Chris Shepard – recording, engineering, mixing
 * Brian Gardner – digital editing
 * Konrad Strauss – mastering

title: Angst (KMFDM album)


text:
Talk:Ripening

Completely uninformative
Does not explain the mechanism behind ripening of fruit at all. An embarrassing article for wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.78.46 (talk) 04:47, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Unreferenced
"Shortage of pollinators can be an unrecognized factor in poor ripening of fruit. In a test in the Rio Grande valley of Texas, increasing the number of beehives in cantaloupes by a factor of about 2 1/2, increased the total crop by almost seven tons per acre, mostly due to increased sugar content in the fruit."

That's cool, but I'd like to see a reference. Also, a percentage of improvement would be better than a tonnage, unless you state the tonnage per acre before the extra bees where introduced.  — db48x 05:17, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Do Lemons ripen to yellow if picked green?
That is the whole question. If you pick some fruit too early it will not ripen. I believe lemons and oranges begin to dry up when picked green and do not ripen to the yellow, esp lemons, which means a lemon is ripe. Is this right or not. And if not is there a best way to ripen them,,,,,off the tree;;;; and still retain the full juice?

Thanks Al Hawthorne — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.144.52 (talk) 21:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

 * The application of analogist and inhibitor of plant hormone can control the timing of ripening. For example, banana are picked when they are still green. The banana was kept in a room with high conc. of ethylene for a period, the banana will become ripen when ready in market. Chemicals would be used to inhibit ripening of lemon to maintain the yearly supply. Shrimp wong 16:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Does the second sentence in the main article make sense to anyone? Especially considering that the first sentence says that during ripening the acid content decreases in fruit.

Mark Z (talk) 17:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Mark Z

Peaches
Why do peaches get juicier after they are picked and as they ripen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.201.157.194 (talk) 17:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here. If you have concerns, please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 11:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Artificial Ripening Using Acetylene?
Does artificially ripening fruit with a toxic hydrocarbon sound implausible to anyone else? There's no reference cited for this "fact" but everything else I have read lists ethylene gas as the cause for the ripening process. Any chemists/biologists out there wanna take a stab at this?

CleverPun (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Calcium carbide [C2C] is placed in a sealed package under fruits and water vapour from fruits when reacting with C2C releases sufficient ethylene for ripening as per this reference. Hope this clears up.  Docku: “what up?”  21:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Calcium carbide is CaC2 giving acetylene after reaction with water. See Calcium_carbide. TH 15:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.194.65.113 (talk)

Brix acid ratio
We should either make a page or add it in a paragraph here. This source might help. - 76.97.245.5 (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Ripening indicators
I am a little confused by this section. It starts by saying that iodine can be used to "check if the fruit is ripening or rotting by showing whether starch in the fruit has turned into sugar." This implies that a ripening fruit will be mainly starch, while the rotting fruit has turned into sugar. At least, this is how I see it. Usually I think of ripening and rotting as two sequential processes. First it ripens, then it rots. Therefore, starch turning into sugar parallels ripening and rotting.

Yet later on it says that a rotted fruit will have starch and the iodine will be dark, while a light iodine color indicates that most of the starch is gone into sugar. (and implied ripe)

So I'm a little confused as to which way it is. Does the ripening fruit or the rotting one have a lot of starch? - ellusion - (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

 * An unripe fruit has high a high starch content. The ripening process converts these starches to sugars, so a ripe fruit tastes sweet.  Some low-sugar fruits will begin to "rot" at this stage, as molds, insects, and bacteria break down the fruit into humus.  But, many fruits with a higher sugar content will begin to ferment instead.  Wild yeasts and bacteria settle down in the ripe fruits, consuming the sugar and producing ethanol and CO2.  Thus, at this stage we get another food product, alcoholic beverages.  James Monroe (talk) 05:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

 * Ah, thank you for that explanation. So a fruit that is ripening will be converting starch -> sugar. The fruit at "peak" ripeness will be mostly sugar. The rotting fruit is then being turned into humus or alcohol.

 * So as I understand it, a fruit still ripening will turn dark with an iodine drop. A fully ripe fruit should in theory then remain yellow. Does this sound correct? - ellusion - (talk) 06:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

 * That seems to make sense, although I don't know that every ripe fruit converts 100% of the starch to sugars. See Iodine test.  James Monroe (talk) 22:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

 * Thank you for the clarity. :) - ellusion - (talk) 06:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Ripening on/off the vine; climacteric vs. non-climacteric ripening
I came here trying to find out which fruits ripen on the vine and off the vine. I recall a passage from How to read a french fry classifying fruits into according to whether they could ripen only before picking, only after, or both. Unfortunately, I can't find my copy at the moment. From Google books I found in What Einstein told his Cook 2 a passage discussing the difference between climacteric and non-climatcteric fruit. This doesn't seem to be quite the same distinction, but it appears well studied, for example here which includes an extensive table.

From various sources, it appears that in general
 * Berries, melons and pineapples, among others, only ripen before picking
 * Many fruits, for example bananas and tomatoes are deliberately picked unripe, shipped and then ripened with ethylene or other agents, as noted in the article
 * A few, notably avocados, ripen only after picking

Since the actual picture is more complex and may depend on factors such as which exact variety is involved, I'm reluctant to put such a statement in the article, but at least it's a start.

Not surprisingly, some cookbooks include summaries of fruit ripening   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmh (talk • contribs) 17:50, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Overripeness
I've been looking around for a page on overripeness and this is the closest one I found. It occurred to me today that I really have no idea what actually makes fruit overripe, and would like to find out. Is there anyone who can add a section on mechanisms of overripeness and what that actually means on a molecular level?  ~rezecib  ( talk ) 17:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This article needs to explain/include the chemical processes that occur during ripening (what chemicals are involved and what happens during the ripening process), and possibly images of the chemicals involved. I'm wondering if anyone from WikiProject Chemistry can help out. - M0rphzone (talk) 06:16, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Ethylene not emitted?
There is the sentence "Ethylene is not emitted by the plant naturally, and cannot activate the ripening of nearby fruits, rather, it is used as a hormone within the plant." I disagree. Ethylene is used by plants to communicate often, especially after some danger (herbivores etc.) TH 15:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.194.65.113 (talk)

Confusing sentence
"Cold slows, and heat increases, fruit ethylene production" is a confusing sentence in the article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.213.66.175 (talk) 14:42, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed that whole section added by OtterStenwick since it's written in a how-to style and sourced with an unreliable source. Here's a rewrite of his sentence: "cold temperatures slow down ethylene production while hot temperatures increases producion". - M0rphzone (talk) 03:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Article is not about "Ripening."
This article does not talk about or explain what ripening *is.* It describes properties of fruit which change as a result of ripening; and it discusses certain agents which accelerate the process. That is not the same as explaining the process of ripening; which, it seems clear, should be the main purpose of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.204.112 (talk) 08:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

The introduction contradicts the body
In the intro, "'Even though the acidity of fruit increases as it ripens, the higher acidity level does not make the fruit seem tarter. This is attributed to the Brix-Acid Ratio.'" with no citation.

In the body, "'Acids are broken down in ripening fruits'" with citation #8.

A quick Google search also yields. An excerpt from that book, "'During the ripening process the fruit acids are degraded...'"which would suggest that the final two lines in the intro are wrong. Bookwyrm404 (talk) 09:52, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I am a biologist and want to clarify these contradictions so perhaps someone can fix the page (new to editing pages, so don't want to ruin anything and frankly repairing this error will take some time). Not only does this page need fixed, but so does the page Ripeness_in_viticulture for the same contradictions. Here is a more credible source for clarification:

Relevant information from that article: "[Abstract] Citrus are among the most relevant sources of vitamin C (ascorbic acid + dehydroascorbic acid). Recent studies have revealed that it increases in the peel as fruit ripens and remains constant or even decreases in the pulp tissue. Moreover, important differences on ascorbic acid content exist among citrus varieties in both tissues."

So there are MANY different acids both forming and degrading simultaneously. For a much more in depth analysis, here is a chapter from a plant science book on a university website that provides much more detail about these various acids:

The take-home (my paraphrasing follows) is that the sentence about the Brix-Acid Ratio is the most correct - some acids are broken down, but many are also created. However, a fruit will not taste more "tart" (aka acidic) as it ripens because it is simultaneously also increasing the overall sweetness of the fruit due to the breakdown of starch and pectin (and other polysaccharides) into simple sugars. The amount of sugar created "overcomes" the acid ultimately and the human palate primarily picks up on the sweetness. The Brix-Acid Ratio originated and primarily was created to help wine blenders find the "sweet spot" in terms of the right ripeness to pick the grape depending on the flavors the blender desired. Clarifying this should alleviate any contradiction. 2601:805:C004:E090:8E3:4C44:A136:886F (talk) 13:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ripening


text:
USS Bigelow

USS Bigelow (DD-942) was a Forrest Sherman-class destroyer in the United States Navy. The ship was named for Watertender Second Class Elmer Charles Bigelow (1920–1945), who was killed in action extinguishing a magazine fire while serving on board USS Fletcher (DD-445) during action against enemy Japanese forces off Corregidor in the Philippines on 14 February 1945. Bigelow was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Bigelow was built by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath in Maine. The ship was launched by Mrs. Verna B. Perry, mother of Elmer C. Bigelow.

Bigelow was part of Combined Task Group CTG 136.1.1 tasked with blockading Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bigelow received the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for participating from 24 October 1962 to 21 November 1962.

Bigelow saw extensive service in the Vietnam War and also served as a NASA recovery ship for the Mercury and Gemini III programs.

While operating off Vietnam on 20 April 1967, an explosion in a gun mount injured six sailors, 1 killed.

Bigelow served as a test platform for Phalanx CIWS in 1977. The mount was installed just aft of the aft radar gun director.

Glenn R. Brindel, commanding officer of USS Stark (FFG-31) during the 1987 missile attack, was executive officer of Bigelow from 1978 to 1980.

Fate

Bigelow decommissioned 5 November 1982.

She was sold for scrap to the Fore River Shipyard and Iron Works at Quincy, Massachusetts, on 11 December 1992. When the Fore River Shipyard went bankrupt she was resold to N. R. Acquisition Incorporated of New York City by the Massachusetts Bankruptcy Court. She was re-acquired by the Navy for disposition as a target ship, stricken 1 June 1990 and was "Disposed of in support of Fleet training exercise" (presumably sunk as a gunnery target) on or before 2 April 2003.

title: USS Bigelow