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The Conqueror Worm

"The Conqueror Worm" is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe about human mortality and the inevitability of death. It was first published separately in Graham's Magazine in 1843, but quickly became associated with Poe's short story "Ligeia" after Poe added the poem to a revised publication of the story in 1845. In the revised story, the poem is composed by the eponymous Ligeia, and taught to the narrator in the fits of her death throes.

Synopsis
An audience of weeping angels watches a play performed by "mimes, in the form of God on high", and controlled by vast formless shapes looming behind the scenes. The mimes chase a "Phantom" which they can never capture, running around in circles. Finally, a monstrous "crawling shape" emerges, and eats the mimes. The final curtain comes down, "a funeral pall", signaling an end to the "tragedy, 'Man'", whose only hero is "The Conqueror Worm".

Publication history
"The Conqueror Worm" was first published as a stand-alone poem in the January 1843 issue of Graham's Magazine. Shortly after, it was included among several other poems by Poe in the February 25 issue of the Saturday Museum in a feature called "The Poets & Poetry of Philadelphia: Edgar Allan Poe". It was later included in Poe's poetry collection The Raven and Other Poems in 1845. That same year, it was incorporated into "Ligeia" for the first time when the story was reprinted in the February 15, 1845, issue of the New York World. "Ligeia" was again republished with "The Conqueror Worm" in the September 27, 1845, issue of The Broadway Journal while Poe was its editor. This was not unusual for Poe, who had also incorporated poems "The Coliseum" and "To One in Paradise" into tales.

Text
Lo! 'tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly— Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore, By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot, And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the angels sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, And the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Interpretation
Poe's mother and father were both actors, and the poem uses theater metaphors throughout to deal with human life on a universal level.

The poem seems to imply that human life is mad folly ending in hideous death, the universe is controlled by dark forces man cannot understand, and the only supernatural forces that might help are powerless spectators who can only affirm the tragedy of the scene.

Though Poe was referring to an ancient connection between worms and death, he may have been inspired by "The Proud Ladye", a poem by Spencer Wallis Cone which was reviewed in an 1840 issue of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. That poem contained the lines "Let him meet the conqueror worm / With his good sword by his side".

"The Conqueror Worm" also uses the word "evermore", which would later evolve into "nevermore" in Poe's famous poem "The Raven" in 1845.

Role in "Ligeia"
The poem plays an important symbolic role as part of its inclusion in the short story "Ligeia." The poem is written by Ligeia as she is dying, though it is actually recited by the narrator, her husband.

Because it emphasizes the finality of death, it calls to question Ligeia's resurrection in the story. Also, the inclusion of the bitter poem may have been meant to be ironic or a parody of the convention at the time, both in literature and in life. In the mid-19th century it was common to emphasize the sacredness of death and the beauty of dying (examples include Charles Dickens's Little Johnny character in Our Mutual Friend and the death of Helen Burns in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre). Instead, Ligeia speaks of fear personified in the "blood-red thing."

Adaptations
In 1935, Baltimore-born composer Franz Bornschein wrote a three-part chorus for women with orchestra or piano accompaniment based on "The Conqueror Worm". The poem was also rewritten and adapted as the first track to Lou Reed's 2003 album of Poe adaptations and Poe-inspired songs, The Raven. It was also adapted as a song by the Darkwave act, Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows on the album Flowers in Formaldehyde in 2004. Vol. 5 of the Hellboy comic book mini-series by Mike Mignola titled Hellboy: Conqueror Worm was based on the poem.

The British horror film Witchfinder General was retitled The Conqueror Worm for U.S. release. Although American International Pictures' prints featured a voice-over with Vincent Price in character as Matthew Hopkins reciting "The Conqueror Worm", the film is not actually an adaptation of Poe's poem.

Dark Horse Comics released Edgar Allan Poe Conqueror Worm, a one-shot comic by Richard Corben in November 2012.

The music video for "Curtain" by Australian extreme metal band Portal features an adaptation of the poem using puppets.

The album Dies Irae by the band Devil Doll is loosely based on "The Conqueror Worm". The text of the poem is paraphrased liberally, and the entire final stanza of the poem is reproduced almost verbatim.

Goth musician Voltaire wrote a song adaptation of "The Conqueror Worm" and followed the text of the poem verbatim. It was released in early 2014 on his album Raised by Bats.

title: The Conqueror Worm


text:
To the Faithful Departed

To the Faithful Departed is the third studio album by Irish alternative rock band the Cranberries, released on 22 April 1996. The album was made in memory of Denny Cordell who signed the band to Island Records and Joe O'Riordan (vocalist Dolores O'Riordan's grandfather), who had both died that year. The album reached number one in four countries and became the band's highest-charting album on the US Billboard 200, where it peaked at number four.

Packaging
The album sleeve photo session was made up of two parts, the first being the original design for the front cover, a naked baby boy (supplied by their press officer Smash at Island Records) lying on his back, which was shot in photographer Andy Earl's new studio on Shad Thames in London, and the band seated in a yellow room. At the last minute, at Dolores O'Riordan's request, the two were swapped and the yellow room became the front cover.

The yellow room was designed to be an echo of the previous two album sleeves. It was built in London and transported to the Lake District and erected in a forest near Loughrigg Holme. Snow fell on the day of the photoshoot, and the band spent as little time as possible on the shoot clad, as they were wearing new purple Dolce & Gabbana outfits.

A new logo and typeface were decided upon signifying the band's desire to move on from the strict repetition of the previous album sleeves. Incidental studio photos were included, taken by Cally in the band's studio in Vancouver, Canada. Cally added: "I attended the surreal Brit Awards where Jarvis Cocker invaded Michael Jackson's stage and left soon after to drive through horizontal snow to get to the Lake District in readiness for the photo shoot the next day. On waking in the Ambleside Hotel I saw Jarvis on the front cover of every paper, being released from jail with Nigel, The Cranberries A&R man beside him. Things only became more surreal when we realised that later we were shooting the band bravely clad in thin purple suits under snowfall in a yellow room in a forest in the Lake District".

Television performances
To promote To the Faithful Departed, the Cranberries appeared on different television shows (1995–1996).

Free to Decide World Tour
In 1996, the Cranberries toured in Asia, Oceania and North America to promote their third studio album To the Faithful Departed. The band embarked on a 117-date world tour which began on 30 April 1996 in Philippines but was stopped on 8 June 1996 in Cairns during the Australian leg, due to a knee injury of O'Riordan. The remaining dates of the Australian tour were canceled and O'Riordan returned to Ireland for surgery. The tour resumed on 1 August 1996 in North America but was stopped after twenty-eight concerts because of poor physical and mental health of O'Riordan. The Cranberries complained that they never had a rest since the beginning of their career and invoked saturation. O'Riordan was pressured by managers not to stop the tour because of a cost between $8 million to $14 million. Despite this, the remaining dates of the North American tour and the European leg of the Free to Decide World Tour were canceled.

The Cranberries

 * Dolores O'Riordan – vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, whistle, mandolin
 * Noel Hogan – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin
 * Mike Hogan – bass guitar
 * Fergal Lawler – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

 * Michael Kamen – orchestration
 * Henry Daag – saw ("Bosnia")
 * Richie Buckley – tenor saxophone ("Salvation")
 * Michael Buckley – baritone saxophone ("Salvation")
 * Bruce Fairbairn – trumpet ("Salvation")
 * Randy Raine-Reusch – additional percussion

Producing and technical staff

 * Bruce Fairbairn – producer
 * The Cranberries – producer
 * Mike Plontikoff – engineering, mixing
 * Andy Earl – photographer
 * Adrian Myers – assistant photographer
 * Baron Kallstein – incidental photographs (aka Cally: art director)

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

title: To the Faithful Departed


text:
User talk:Steve802

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay around. Drop us a note at New user log so we can meet you and help you get started. If you need editing help, visit How to edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Yours, Meelar 14:45, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

P.S. I liked your edits to United States Constitution. Keep up the good work.

Separation Of Powers
Good work with Separation Of Powers. We already have Separation of powers, however (it happens to the best of us), so you should probably merge your contributions into that article and redirect it there. -- Decumanus 14:54, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * We also have Checks and balances too. :) -- Decumanus 15:05, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Bokanovsky's process
Hello there. Just want to let you know that the above article is pending for DYK-ship because of some issues, can you please take a look at the discussion at DYK noms/suggestions page. Maybe you can still improve/expand the article. Thanks. - DaughterofSun (talk) 18:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Steve802


text:
User:Sj/mattersofpolicy

from 2004 but quite relevant to flagged revs details today.

Graded permissions system
[3/2x 21:01]  And if Jimbo seriously wants a metric system, we should give ideas serious deliberation.

Concepts

 * leverage : The leverage L of the system is the ratio of mischiefmaker-hours to editor-hours in rv'ing mischief. We should aim for $$ L>1 $$. (It should take much longer for an imp to cause harm than it does for others to undo it; among other things, this greatly reduces one of the incentives -- attention/power-trip -- for vandalism.)
 * metric : A simple linear metric useful for making certain programmatic, unambiguous gradations in divisions. Inherently gameable but neutral.  Exs: time $$T$$ since an account's first edit, number $$N_e$$ of edits and number $$N_a$$ of article-space edits made by an account.

SSSS
Sj’s silly scoring system [SSSS]: give each account/IP a naive 'trust rating', S. (In the following descriptions, time (6 hrs / 3 days / 3 months) refers to time since an account's first edit, not since registration) S-rating : +0.01 for 'non-bot' flag - set by another user, or automatically after ~6 hrs & 3 edits; anon accounts capped here. +0.1 for 'non-vandal' flag - set by another user, or auto'ly            after 3 days & 5 article edits; +0.9 for 'non-sock' flag - set by verifiable personal ident, or           auto'ly after 3 months & 100 article edits; +1 for 'serious contributor' flag - 1000 edits,  or ? +1 for 'extraordinary contributor' flag - 10000 non-bot edits, or other remarkable effort. -1 for each ban in past 3 months (multiple bans w/in the same           7 days count as a single ban).

hold at 0 if a 'warning' flag has been set by a sysop (IP shared by vandals and others, IP with only one or two          trivial edits that may be a bot gaming the system, etc.)

(note that this system a) makes explicit the incentive to create an account, for voting and talk/meta-editing privs; b) allows for a quick non-ban alternative, warning, for dealing with potential vandalism/trolling; c) provides incentive for maintaining old usernames -- the advantages of a public history of one's edits is translated into the increases in S-rating for 1000 edits and for 3 months of activity -- so, for instance, a 2-month user who is tempbanned may have short-term incentive to create a new account (with S=0.1), but after another month will have reason to come back and use the old account.)

Uses

 * Need S > 0 to post normally (i.e., changes automatically update page viewed by anons) to article/User: pages
 * Need S > 0.1 to post normally to meta/WP:/Talk: pages (voting, not being subject to immediate rv'sion at the whim of others), to set 'non-bot' flag for other users
 * Need S > 1 to be nominated for adminship;
 * Need S > 2 for certain actions, like QP creation, being on binding committees (eg: arb), etc.

Use cases:
 * 1) A spambot, knowing these rules, comes along and tries to maliciously update a few thousand pages at once.  This should not make the WP unusable (as a reference) for even a minute.  [for instance, each bot account would have to wait six hours after its first edit before it could go on a visible rampage; if the bot tried to do this with hundreds of anon IPs at once, this would be obvious; they could all be preemptively warned.]
 * 2) A vandal, planning to insert insidious false statements into many articles, joins and creates ten sockpuppets for this purpose.  It eventually takes ~two editor-hours per sockpuppet to deal with the attack; it should take longer for the vandal to prepare and impelement it.
 * 3) An eager user comes by and wants to start making changes to music articles right away.  These changes should be allowed, encouraged, and thanked, without violating the above policies.  Requiring that a user with S > 0.1 edit a page after such a newbie, before changes go live, is largely inoffensive.  The new user should get polite messages upon hitting "Edit" explaining how and when their edits will show up, how they will be validated for instant gratification by the time they return the next day, and how they can speed the validation process (find any other user to set their non-bot flag, post to a given ValidateMe! page, etc).

Implementation

 * 1) Add a S field (for storing this value) to the users table.
 * 2) Add a 'non-bot' flag and a 'warning' flag to the users table.
 * 3) Add a 'user-validation' audit table to log when a user validates a new user (by setting their non-bot flag), or toggles a user's warning flag.
 * 4) Run appropriate set of SQL queries (for users with S=0, run the first query once every 6 hours; other queries can be run once a day or once a week) to udpate the S field.
 * 5) When a page is edited, in the same query that checks for banned status, extract the S field for the editing user.  Then display different edit pages based on S (for newbies, show special edit page).
 * 6) When a user's 'warning' or 'non-bot' flags are set or unset, actively update their S.

Notes on DB structure

 * what's the timeline for implementing the 12/03 schema update?
 * see disc w/BV on 3/16... piece by piece.

 * Needs some kind of 'many lang_ids per art_id' scheme.
 * disc w/BVibber on 3/16; negative, too hard, useless.
 * see db schema

Notes on WP structure

 * A beautiful terse article on WP Power structure.
 * Dev access disc by TStar

Policy projects

 * Repair of Speedy deletion (via post-moderation sol'n for mostly-obvious cases, with strong consequences for being wrong)

 * Articles on JW and LS which, unlike all previous instances, don't suck (so there's something tangible to agree on). Bounds on inclusion disputes: sufficient standard for fame/inclusion and necessary standard for exclusion.
 * LMS: see his VfD'ed article (also below, in case of deletion).
 * JW: 3apes and wikia; old objectivist supporter, m-list moderator. cf his user-page / personal site for 'all-around frood' cred.
 * public presentations? W/Michael Hart (when?), at WOS 2004, etc.

 * Basic understanding re: lists as interface aid (cf. discussion of MW:Religions, MW:Religousfigures, MW:Cults). Sidebars?  footers?  headers?  organizing schema for entire article?  "series" designations?  overall (in-db?) cats, etc.

Worst-case quickpolls scenario
limited-time use; deprecated  Marriah[M] has been an admin since Jan. M knows a lot about Murghian history and requested adminship to counteract a recent influx of users with radical Murghian views who were changing world history pages and lists all over WP to support their version of history (they all came Since becoming an admin, 25% of M's time on WP has been devoted to monitoring the edits of these 20 or so users.  After 3 months of this vigilance, they have mainly retreated to their own WP.  M patrols vandalism with zeal.  Every 20 vandals or so, M overreaches and deletes a valid contribution; some other longtime user notices this and issues a warning; M thinks the article in question did merit speedy deletion, and replies dismissively to the warning.  A couple days later, in response to a similar deletion, the same user starts a quickpoll to temp-desysop Marriah.  This is the first time M discovers that a number of other admins also disagree with M's interpretation of 'speedy deletion' rules. Most other admins are ambivalent about this poll, but there has recently been a big debate about tightening up on vigilante admins, and 12 or 15 vote for it, to get M to stop deleting so actively. M apologizes the next day, but has already been temp-desysopped. The next week, after that brief suspension, M gets into an edit war with two longstanding controversial contributors; making 3 rv's one day and another 2 the next. Both users put up separate quickpolls to desysop M again, noting that 4 of these rv's were made "within 24 hours". Initially, only a handful of people vote in (both) polls, half of them opposed to it. One of the two polls is taken down. There are arguments as to whether the polls had a right to be started in the first place. Poll-confusion reigns. Meanwhile, the users who put up the polls again revert M's rv's to their POV, with a few choice insults. M gets angry, and instead of apologizing for not noticing that the 4 rvs were really within 1 day, or finding another admin to help maintain NPOV, in an incautious moment, temp-bans one of the complaining users. Many users think this was a rotten thing to do. A new poll is put up, in an attempt to clear the poll-confusion; of the first 10 votes, 8 are in favor; ten minutes after the poll opens, an eager bureaucrat unbans the user in question and (on the basis of the first 10 votes) desysops M. Subsequently, with 15 votes in, only 10 are in favor of the poll... 2 hrs later, M gets angry that he hasn't been resysopped, angering 2 other users who come to vote in favor of the poll; at 12/17, the vote is above 70% again, so nobody reverses the previous decision. M leaves in a huff; finally apologizing two days later, however, 48 hrs have passed and the 'successful' poll has already been removed as finalized. M has to wait the full week before being reinstated (since going through RfA takes time), despite the fact that most of the people who voted for the poll now wish they could change their vote. M now holds a grudge against the bureaucrat who desysopped so hastily (since poll support immediately after dropped below 80%) and a few admins who supported that bureaucrat; they likewise hold a grudge against M, and rather wish that M weren't a sysop any more. Meanwhile, the Murghians realize they can collaborate to get M desysopped 'permanently'. First they all make sure they have enough edits on the en: WP to vote, and a week later a few of them (with new user accounts) intentionally bait M. M complains loudly about their activity and advocates banning them, but the admins who dislike M speak out as devil's advocates in their favour, without knowing anything about the topics under dispute. Neutral admins, looking from afar, see M alone against 2 or 3 decent-looking new users and 2 or 3 admins, and figure M might be misbehaving. M is careful at first about reacting calmly to the offensive edits, but they are careful to also contribute neutral content and to respond on relevant talk pages as though they were serious contributors (and anon users start reacting, in strong language, on M's user talk page, claiming he is fanatically supporting his fascist anti-Murghian minority POV, abusing his position [such as it is]). The collaborators start making subtle offensive additions to minor pages that only M monitors; M discusses better alternatives while rewording and NPOV'ing their additions, which they ignore and rv using 3 different new accounts. They complain on the talk pages that M is 'reverting' their work; though M only uses admin-powers to rv once, they later claim M reverted over 5 times in one day -- twice "as a 'minor' change without edit summary". Finally, one of the Murghians, with an old account, starts a quick-poll to desysop M again. M responds angrily that this is obvious nonsense; the two regular admins who dislike M quickly support the poll, as do a few of the Murghians. Over the next day, the other 20 Murghians chime in, in staggered fashion, each claiming similar treatment to his or her work (possibly true, since some of this happened before even the first complaint). Most admins, seeing this outpouring of opposition to M (and not knowing the relevant history) join them or abstain. Less than two weeks after the first quickpoll, and without ever having knowingly violated WP policy, M is desysopped; the case goes to arbitration, but too late to remedy this slap in the face. Chaos breaks out on mailing lists and talk pages, and most people say "let's wait for the arbitration committee to decide". Over the next few days, while this is progressing, the Murghians return to their efforts to subtly alter articles on history and Murghianomics, claiming the high ground in any edit wars, twisting the knife. Long before arbitration is finished with the case, Marriah and a few fellow editors leave Wikipedia in disgust, and M turns the same energy to an anti-Wikipedia PR campaign among fellow academic historians. Many worthy expert contributors are lost.

title: User:Sj/mattersofpolicy


text:
Starobilsk

Starobilsk (Старобільськ; Старобельск) is a city in Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Starobilsk Raion. The modern settlement was founded in 1686, and it was granted city status in 1938. The city has a population of As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has been under Russian occupation since 2 March 2022.

Prehistory
Presumably, Starobilsk traces its heritage to the settlement of Bielska Sloboda which originally might have been named after Okolnichy Bogdan Belsky of Litvin Bielsky family who at that time was a subject of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

Bielsky arrived at the banks of Siversky Donets to build a fortress at the southern borders Tsare-Borisov (after Muscovite Tsar Boris Godunov) which was erected not far away in 1598–1600. In 1602 Godunov became suspicious of Belsky and order him to be arrested, stripped of any estates, and exiled to Siberia. After the death of Godunov Belsky was granted amnesty in 1605 due to the fact that his sister being the wife of the deceased Boris Godunov, Maria Skuratova-Belskaya, became a regent. Belsky was sent as a voivode to Kazan where in 1611 was killed by a mob after refusing to pledge allegiance to False Dmitry II. Sloboda gradually became abandoned, while the fortress was destroyed in 1612 in one of the Tatar raids.

Origin
In 1686 the settlement was repopulated by servicemen of the Ostrohozk Sloboda Cossack Regiment who originally came from Poltava and Chernihiv regions and named their settlement after a town of Bilsk, Cossack Hetmanate that might have belonged to another Litvin who sided with Muscovites, Theodore Bielsky.

Being runaway serfs, the Tsarist government allowed them to settle in the military frontier with the Crimean realm to carry out border guard functions. After the place became populated with serfs from the central regions of today's Russia, the Tsarist government took measures to find and return those fugitives. In 1701 the Ambassadorial Prikaz decided to conduct a population census in new settlements along Aidar and Siversky Donets. Most population avoided the census. According to data of stolnik M.Pushkin who in 1703 conducted a population census in 34 settlements, in Bielsky was registered only 41 residents although in reality there were much more.

Trying to meet the demands of Russian landlords who repeatedly turned to the Tsar with complaints and requests to return fugitives, on 6 July 1707 Peter the Great issued an edict (ukase) about the search of "newly arrived from Rus all ranks of people". To the Don was sent a punitive detachment under the command of Colonel Prince Yuriy Dolgorukiy. He was charged to search for fugitives and "take them to those landowners from whom they ran away". That action led to the well-known Bulavin Rebellion. Struggling with the rebellion, Tsarist troops eventually burnt the settlement to the ground.

In 1732 the settlement was repopulated again by peasants from around Ostrogozhsk (Ostrohozk) turning it into a sloboda Stara-Bila. Among the first of its new residents were again servicemen of the Ostrohozk Regiment led by sotnik I. Senelnykov. In 1782 Staro-Bila was assigned to the Derkul Horse Factory of Bilovodsk district (Voronezh Governorate). On Tsarist edict (ukase) from 1 May 1797 sloboda Staro-Bila was renamed into Starobelsk and became the administrative center of Starobelsk uyezd in Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire.

Modern era
Founded on 12 October 1851, Starobilsk "Joy of All Who Sorrows" Convent (Свято-Скорботний жіночий монастир) became a spiritual center for the region. After the Bolshevik revolution, the convent was restricted and, in April 1924, it was closed down. In 1992, the state returned it to the Orthodox Church. It was reconsecrated and opened in 1995.

The town was occupied by Austrian troops during the Central Powers' advance through Ukraine in the spring of 1918 but soon became a center of activity for the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or Anarchists. A photograph in the City Regional Museum (Старобільський краєзнавчий музей) shows Anarchist leader Nestor Makhno addressing the people of Starobilsk from a balcony on the main square in 1919.

The Prison Camp for Polish POWs Officers
During World War II, the old convent was the site of a Soviet prison camp for Polish prisoners of war (POWs), especially officers. 48 of those who died in the camp were buried at the Starobilsk cemetery. In 1994, their bodies were moved to the Polish War Quarter built by the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites at the Chmyrivka cemetery. A plaque on the outside wall of the convent states that more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were confined inside the convent and ultimately executed in 1940. The Starobilsk prisoners were executed at the District Directorate of the NKVD in Kharkov and later buried in the forest in Pyatykhatky. These executions, together with executions of Polish officers held in POW camps at Kozelsk, Ostashkov, and some smaller camps, became known as the Katyn massacre.

The German Wehrmacht entered Starobilsk in late 1942, and evacuated nine months later, destroying much of the city but neglecting to dynamite the milk factory. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city. The town was rebuilt around this factory, which in turn helped the region recover after the war.

21st century
During the first phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War many places in Luhansk Oblast were taken over by pro-Russian separatists; however, Starobilsk remained under Ukrainian control. The flag of the Luhansk People's Republic was raised over the Hotel Aidar on 17 June 2014, but swiftly removed. The city was occupied by a military presence for two years thereafter, during which time the statue of Lenin in Starobilsk city park was toppled by a tank.

In 2016, Lenin Street was renamed Monastery Street as it had been before the Bolshevik revolution.

Russian occupation
On 24 February 2022, at the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Forces began an assault on Starobilsk, consisting of an unspecified number of Tanks, BMPS, and infantry.

On 6 March 2022, hundreds of locals gathered and took down the flag of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic, burning it and singing the Ukrainian national anthem. The pro-Russian forces dispersed the pro-Ukrainian meeting with shots in the air.

On 11 August 2022, Askyar Laishev, a former law enforcement officer and collaborator, was killed in a car bombing on Shevchenko Street.

In early September 2022, Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive in the region. On 13 September, Ukrainian Governor of Luhansk Oblast, Serhiy Haidai, stated that Russian forces had fled Starobilsk adding that the city was "practically empty". As for December 2022, the latter claim was proven to be false, as the Ukrainian counteroffensive has stalled outside Svatove, around 60 KM from Starobilsk.

On 1 April 2024 a car bomb in the centre of Starobilsk killed the pro-Russian Deputy Head of the Centre for Servicing Educational Organisations of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Valerii Chaika.

Demographics
Ethnic makeup as of 2001:

Native language according to the 2001 Ukrainian census:

Twin towns – Sister cities
Starobilsk is twinned with:
 * 🇵🇱 Lublin, Poland

Notable people

 * Nadiya Svitlychna, attended a school in the city
 * Serhiy Zhadan, Ukrainian poet
 * Oleh Liashko, Ukrainian politician and founder of the nationalist Radical Party

title: Starobilsk


text:
Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam

As-Sulṭaan al-Ghaazee Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-A'uẓam or As-Sultan Ghazi Muhammad Bodu Thakurufaanu (އައްސުލްޠާން އަލްޣާޒީ މުޙައްމަދު ތަކުރުފާނު އަލްއަޢުޡަމް; died 18 August 1585) ruled over the Maldives Islands from 1573 to 1585. He is known for fighting the Portuguese who ruled over the Maldives from 1558–1573 after killing Sultan Ali VI in Malé. His victory is commemorated in the Maldives as Qaumee Dhuvas or National Day. He was also the first Maldivian Sultan to form a Lashkaru (a unified military body). He is regarded as a national hero.

Early years
Muhammad Thakurufaanu was the son of Katheebu Hussain of Utheemu in Thiladhummathi Atoll and Lady Aiminaa Dhiye of Ihavandhoo. Muhammad Thakurufan learned Hevikan (Martial Arts).

Defeat of the Portuguese
After killing Sultan Ali IV, the Maldives was ruled by An'dhiri An'dhirin and the Portuguese. An'dhiri An'dhirin was a regent of the (Sultan Hassan IX) who was the first Maldivian and the only member of its royalty to renounce Islam and convert to Christianity, later upon his deposition he took refuge in Goa, India.

After the invasion, the Portuguese ruled over the Maldives for 15 years and forcefully imposed Christianity with the threat of death on the locals in a period which the history describes as A time when intolerable enormities were committed by the invading infidels, a time when the sea grew red with Maldivian blood, a time when people were sunk in despair

Muhammad Thakurufaanu, left the Maldives with his brothers Ali and Hasan to Minicoy off the coast of India in the Laccadive Archipelago.They met the "Aaji" brothers. Hassan Aaji and Ali Aaji which helped the Utheemu brothers to defeat the Portuguese The three Utheemu brothers built the ship Kalhuoffummi. It is said that Muhammad Thakurufaanu received a help from the Maroshi Raaveribe (toddy-tapper) who mended and maintained the sail of the Kalhuoffummi - the ship used in the battle and supply water to the vessel every time it docked at Maroshi. The island has the tree that grew from the Kaani Mudi (a raw wooden post) used to make the sail of Kalhuoffummi. It is also the largest tree of its kind in the country. Kalhuoffumi shipwrecked near the south coast of Kolhufushi.

Muhammad Thakurufaanu wanted to construct one of the first Mosque in the country in the island, He went to the island off the coast of Kolhufushi’s current harbor; and Muhammed Thakurufaanu wasn’t pleased with how the sun sets and rises in the island. So, he constructed the Mosque on the south coast of the island with the planks and slats of his and his teams vessel into a Mosque.

''History has it that In the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that the area where the Mosque was, The tsunami affected greatly, but; only the area around the Mosque was affected, and it was a copious amount of damage. The Mosque was left untouched by the tsunami and not a single droplet of water reached it.''

The Mosque holds great importance to the islanders and the people of The Maldives.

The brothers landed on a different island every night, fought the Portuguese and set sail into the ocean before daybreak. They reached the capital island Malé on the night before the day fixed by the Portuguese garrison of An'dhiri An'dhirin for the forcible conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity, on the penalty of death for non-compliance. The Utheemu brothers along with other Maldivians, fought and killed the Portuguese garrison and regained independence for the country. An'dhiri An'dhirin was killed by a musket shot of Muhammad Thakurufaanu.

Aftermath
After killing An'dhiri An'dhirin, as per a treaty he got refuge from Ali Raja of Cannanore, India. Muhammad Thakurufaanu's base of operation was Maliku under the sovereignty of Cannanore. The Ali Raja demanded dominion over the Maldives, as promised to him by the Muhammad Thakurufaanu. The nature of the relationship between Muhammad Thakurufan and Ali Raja of Cannanore was outlined in a letter sent by a later Ali Raja, Mariambe Ali-Adi Raja Bibi, to the Sultan Muhammad Mueenuddine I of the Maldives. The letter was dated Friday 17 Jumad al-Awla Anno Hegirae 1243 (7 December AD 1827). According to the letter Muhammad Thakurufan had entered into a treaty ceding sovereignty of the Maldives to the Ali Raja of Cannanore in the event Thakurufan was established in power in Male.

Muhammad Thakurufaanu concluded a treaty with the King Dom Manoel who lived in Goa, in order to ward off the Ali Raja of Cannanore. Although Muhammad Thakurufaanu was made a regent of King Dom Manoel (as per the treaty), the Maldivians assigned Muhammad Thakurufaanu as the Sultan of the Maldives, no longer recognizing the sovereignty of the self-exiled Christian kings in Goa or their regents. The chronicles report him to have ruled wisely, being just and considerate, protecting all the poor, and even solicitous for the people’s interests. Muhammed Thakurufaanu died a natural death on 16 August 1585.

Death
As-Sultan Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam died on 1st Ramadan 993 AH, after 11 years and 6 months in power. It was on 18 August 1585. He was buried on the Mausoleum of the Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam near Bihuroazu Kamanaa Mosque in Malé.

Legacy
British author Royston Ellis's novel A Hero in Time is about the life and adventures of Muhammad Thakurufaanu.

The army (lashkaru) organised by him has evolved into the Maldives National Defence Force.

The Islamic Centre, the largest mosque in Maldives, Masjid as-Sultan Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam is named after him.

Qaumee Dhuvas (Maldives National Day), is a day to celebrate Thakurufaanu's win over the Portuguese occupation. Culturally he has become is regarded as a national hero.

title: Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam


text:
Todd County

Todd County is the name of three counties in the United States:

 * Todd County, Kentucky
 * Todd County, Minnesota
 * Todd County, South Dakota

title: Todd County


text:
Talk:Separation Of Powers

Merge with Separation of powers -- Decumanus 14:50, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Separation Of Powers


text:
Elizabeth George

Susan Elizabeth George (born February 26, 1949) is an American writer of mystery novels set in Great Britain.

She is best known for a series of novels featuring Inspector Thomas Lynley. The 21st book in the series appeared in January 2022. The first 11 were adapted for television by the BBC as earlier episodes of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

Biography
Elizabeth George was born in Warren, Ohio, the second child of Robert Edwin and Anne (née Rivelle) George. She has an older brother, author Robert Rivelle George. Her mother was a nurse, and her father a manager for a conveyor company. The family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when she was 18 months old as her father wanted to get away from Midwestern weather.

She was a student of English, having received a teaching certificate from the University of California, Riverside. While teaching English in the public school system, she completed a master's degree in counseling and psychology. She received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Cal State University Fullerton in 2004 and was awarded an honorary Masters in Fine Arts from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts in 2010. She also established the Elizabeth George Foundation in 1997.

George married Ira Jay Toibin in 1971 and they divorced in 1995. George is currently married to Tom McCabe.

Career
Her first published novel was A Great Deliverance (1988). It introduces Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley (in private life, the Earl of Asherton, Oxford-educated ); his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers (grammar-school-educated and from a working-class background) —both from Scotland Yard; Helen Clyde, Lynley's girlfriend and later wife; and Lynley's former school friend, the forensic scientist Simon St. James and his wife, Deborah.

Awards
George's first novel, A Great Deliverance, was favorably received by the mystery fiction community.

It won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 1988 and the 1989 Anthony Award in the same category. It was nominated for an Edgar Award in 1988.

Inspector Lynley

 * 1988: A Great Deliverance (ISBN 9780553278026)
 * 1989: Payment in Blood (ISBN 9780553284362)
 * 1990: Well-Schooled in Murder (ISBN 9780553287349)
 * 1991: A Suitable Vengeance (ISBN 9780553295603)
 * 1992: For the Sake of Elena (ISBN 9780553561272)
 * 1992: Missing Joseph (ISBN 9780553566048)
 * 1993: Playing for the Ashes (ISBN 9780553092622)
 * 1996: In the Presence of the Enemy (ISBN 9780553092653)
 * 1997: Deception on His Mind (ISBN 9780553102345)
 * 1999: In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (ISBN 9780553102352)
 * 2001: A Traitor to Memory (ISBN 9780553801279)
 * 2003: A Place of Hiding (ISBN 9780553801309)
 * 2005: With No One as Witness (ISBN 9780060798451)
 * 2006: What Came Before He Shot Her (ISBN 9780060545628)
 * 2008: Careless in Red (ISBN 9780061160875)
 * 2010: This Body of Death (ISBN 9780061160882)
 * 2012: Believing the Lie (ISBN 9780525952589)
 * 2013: Just One Evil Act (ISBN 9781444706000)
 * 2015: A Banquet of Consequences (ISBN 9780525954330)
 * 2018: The Punishment She Deserves (ISBN 978-1444786613)
 * 2022: Something to Hide (ISBN 9780593296844)

Whidbey Island Saga

 * 2012: The Edge of Nowhere (The Edge of Nowhere: Saratoga Woods or The Edge of Nowhere 01: The Dog House) (ISBN 9781444719956)
 * 2013: The Edge of the Water (The Edge of the Water: Saratoga Woods) (ISBN 9780670012978)
 * 2015: The Edge of the Shadows (ISBN 9780670012985)
 * 2016: The Edge of the Light (ISBN 9780670012992)

Short story collections

 * 2001: The Evidence Exposed (ISBN 9780340750636; Short story collection UK)
 * 2002: I, Richard (ISBN 9780553802580; short story collection)
 * 2004: A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women (editor; ISBN 978-0-06-058821-2)

Non-fiction

 * 2004: Write Away (ISBN 9780060560423)
 * 2020: Mastering the Process: From Idea to Novel

External

 * Elizabeth George at Goodreads
 * Elizabeth George at Goodreads
 * Elizabeth George at Goodreads
 * Elizabeth George at Goodreads

title: Elizabeth George


text:
Yellow pine (disambiguation)

Yellow pine is a number of conifer species which yield similar strong wood.

Yellow pine may also refer to:

Plants

 * Pinus palustris, longleaf pine
 * Pinus echinata, shortleaf pine
 * Pinus elliottii, slash pine
 * Pinus jeffreyi, Jeffrey pine
 * Pinus ponderosa, ponderosa pine
 * Pinus taeda, loblolly pine
 * Pinus strobus, eastern white pine
 * Pinus sylvestris, Scots pine
 * Halocarpus biformis, yellow pine or pink pine, a tree endemic to New Zealand

Places

 * Yellow Pine, Alabama
 * Yellow Pine, Idaho
 * Yellow Pine, Louisiana

title: Yellow pine (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Fagus sylvatica

Untitled
Most of this article's content was translated from fr:Hêtre following the request below at Translation into English.

 * Article: fr:Hêtre
 * Corresponding English-language article: European beech
 * Worth doing because: Material to incorporate into English-language article (+ pictures)
 * Originally Requested by: Bogdangiusca 19:29, 7 Feb 2004
 * Status: In progress Nathan 13:44, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Other notes: Most of the information in fr:Hêtre corresponds to the European beech rather than the originally requested Beech.

I'm not sure about capitalizing all of these tree names. I referred to Oak when I first wrote them un-capitalized, as that is how they appear there. If there is a policy to capitalize the names, that article needs work as well. Nathan 19:47, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * There isn't a current hard-and-fast policy, but the majority preference as discussed on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life is for capitalisation of individual species names (e.g. European Beech), but not for generic citations (e.g. beeches, oaks) - MPF 15:35, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Arctic beeches
In an old garden in Lurøy (Rennesansehagen), located exactly at the arctic circle, is an 19 meter tall copper beech, and there is one 100 km north of the Arctic circle at Steigen Bygdetun in Steigen as well. There are probably many more, but these are fairly large and located in public places. There are lots of beeches in Trondheim; one European beech in Ringve Botanical Garden was presented as the second largest tree in Trondheim by circumference (4.35 m at chest hight - the largest was an European Ash) by the local newspaper Adresseavisen.

Change taxobox image
I think the current image in the taxobox is not good for that purpose, as the big trunks in the photo are not of beech. Beech trunks can be seen only in the background. The Sonian Forest photo is very impressive. Perhaps it could be changed to the taxobox? Krasanen (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Rohan?
I'm looking for information about the "Rohan" subspecies, Fagus sylvatica Rohanii. Could someone add this? 174.24.50.139 (talk) 19:51, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely to be notable enough to warrant more than a simple listing in the article. My Hillier manual describes 'Rohanii' as a purple-leaved cultivar of fern-leaved beech (the Heterophylla Group); it's described as "A remarkably beautiful, rather slow-growing tree", if that helps at all? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

"Distribution and habitat"
Moved content here from main page, following discussion of beeches growing among oaks:

Foresters may assure the oaks' survival by cutting young beeches with a billhook 10 cm off the ground, which can produce magnificent bonsai.

Passage lacking citation, with non-neutral point of view. Can anyone provide a source? Much of the rest of this section needs better citations as well.

--Coconutporkpie (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Toxic substances
Raw nuts are reportedly toxic due to the presence of an alkaloid (or saponin) called fagin (or fagine):
 * fagine - Oxford English Dictionary
 * fagine - Oxford English Dictionary
 * fagine - Oxford English Dictionary
 * fagine - Oxford English Dictionary

I haven't found formulas for "fagin" itself yet; however, here're some formulas for some Fagus alkaloids: --Djadjko (talk) 00:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Taxonomy
According to (even not so) recent and consolidated taxonomy, Fagus orientalis is now classified as subspecies of Fagus sylvatica: Merging the two separated pages of W-Eurasian beeches could be considered? Giovanni Caudullo (talk) 13:57, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Denk, T., 1999. The taxonomy of Fagus in western Eurasia, 1: Fagus sylvatica subsp. orientalis (= F. orientalis). Feddes Repertorium 110(3-4): 177-200.
 * Denk, T., Grimm, G., Stögerer, K., Langer, M., & Hemleben, V., 2002. The evolutionary history of Fagus in western Eurasia: Evidence from genes, morphology and the fossil record. Plant Systematics and Evolution 232(3-4), 213-236.

fastigiate (columnar) forms
Please add text and photos about the fastigiate (columnar) forms. These are very important for modern urban domesticated uses. Some amount of detail about the history of breeding these cultivars would be welcome.-71.174.190.122 (talk) 15:58, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Copper beech
Perhaps the 'copper beech' might warrant its own page as Copper beech (tree) – or as a replacement for the present disambiguation page 'Copper beech' which could be moved to the current redirect Copper beech (disambiguation). The related German Wikipedia article may prove helpful to producing such ...
 * Blutbuche ... (English translation)

... in addition to what already exists here at Fagus_sylvatica.

For now, I've put in a request to have Copper beech (tree) created as a redirect to Fagus_sylvatica#Cultivation and boldfaced some relevant terms here.

--75.188.199.98 (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fagus sylvatica


text:
Spectral graph theory

In mathematics, spectral graph theory is the study of the properties of a graph in relationship to the characteristic polynomial, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors of matrices associated with the graph, such as its adjacency matrix or Laplacian matrix.

The adjacency matrix of a simple undirected graph is a real symmetric matrix and is therefore orthogonally diagonalizable; its eigenvalues are real algebraic integers.

While the adjacency matrix depends on the vertex labeling, its spectrum is a graph invariant, although not a complete one.

Spectral graph theory is also concerned with graph parameters that are defined via multiplicities of eigenvalues of matrices associated to the graph, such as the Colin de Verdière number.

Cospectral graphs
Two graphs are called cospectral or isospectral if the adjacency matrices of the graphs are isospectral, that is, if the adjacency matrices have equal multisets of eigenvalues.

Cospectral graphs need not be isomorphic, but isomorphic graphs are always cospectral.

Graphs determined by their spectrum
A graph $$G$$ is said to be determined by its spectrum if any other graph with the same spectrum as $$G$$ is isomorphic to $$G$$.

Some first examples of families of graphs that are determined by their spectrum include:
 * The complete graphs.
 * The finite starlike trees.

Cospectral mates
A pair of graphs are said to be cospectral mates if they have the same spectrum, but are non-isomorphic.

The smallest pair of cospectral mates is {K1,4, C4 ∪ K1}, comprising the 5-vertex star and the graph union of the 4-vertex cycle and the single-vertex graph, as reported by Collatz and Sinogowitz in 1957.

The smallest pair of polyhedral cospectral mates are enneahedra with eight vertices each.

Finding cospectral graphs
Almost all trees are cospectral, i.e., as the number of vertices grows, the fraction of trees for which there exists a cospectral tree goes to 1.

A pair of regular graphs are cospectral if and only if their complements are cospectral.

A pair of distance-regular graphs are cospectral if and only if they have the same intersection array.

Cospectral graphs can also be constructed by means of the Sunada method.

Another important source of cospectral graphs are the point-collinearity graphs and the line-intersection graphs of point-line geometries. These graphs are always cospectral but are often non-isomorphic.

Cheeger inequality
The famous Cheeger's inequality from Riemannian geometry has a discrete analogue involving the Laplacian matrix; this is perhaps the most important theorem in spectral graph theory and one of the most useful facts in algorithmic applications. It approximates the sparsest cut of a graph through the second eigenvalue of its Laplacian.

Cheeger constant
The Cheeger constant (also Cheeger number or isoperimetric number) of a graph is a numerical measure of whether or not a graph has a "bottleneck". The Cheeger constant as a measure of "bottleneckedness" is of great interest in many areas: for example, constructing well-connected networks of computers, card shuffling, and low-dimensional topology (in particular, the study of hyperbolic 3-manifolds).

More formally, the Cheeger constant h(G) of a graph G on n vertices is defined as
 * $$h(G) = \min_{0 < |S| \le \frac{n}{2} } \frac{|\partial(S)|}{|S|},$$

where the minimum is over all nonempty sets S of at most n/2 vertices and ∂(S) is the edge boundary of S, i.e., the set of edges with exactly one endpoint in S.

Cheeger inequality
When the graph G is d-regular, there is a relationship between h(G) and the spectral gap d − λ2 of G. An inequality due to Dodziuk and independently Alon and Milman states that

 * $$\frac{1}{2}(d - \lambda_2) \le h(G) \le \sqrt{2d(d - \lambda_2)}.$$

This inequality is closely related to the Cheeger bound for Markov chains and can be seen as a discrete version of Cheeger's inequality in Riemannian geometry.

For general connected graphs that are not necessarily regular, an alternative inequality is given by Chung
 * $$ \frac{1}{2} {\lambda} \le {\mathbf h}(G) \le \sqrt{2 \lambda},$$

where $$\lambda$$ is the least nontrivial eigenvalue of the normalized Laplacian, and $${\mathbf h}(G)$$ is the (normalized) Cheeger constant
 * $$ {\mathbf h}(G) = \min_{\emptyset \not =S\subset V(G)}\frac{|\partial(S)|}{\min({\mathrm{vol}}(S), {\mathrm{vol}}(\bar{S}))}$$

where $${\mathrm{vol}}(Y)$$ is the sum of degrees of vertices in $$Y$$.

Hoffman–Delsarte inequality
There is an eigenvalue bound for independent sets in regular graphs, originally due to Alan J. Hoffman and Philippe Delsarte.

Suppose that $$G$$ is a $$k$$-regular graph on $$n$$ vertices with least eigenvalue $$\lambda_{\mathrm{min}}$$. Then:$$\alpha(G) \leq \frac{n}{1 - \frac{k}{\lambda_{\mathrm{min}}}}$$where $$\alpha(G)$$ denotes its independence number.

This bound has been applied to establish e.g. algebraic proofs of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem and its analogue for intersecting families of subspaces over finite fields.

For general graphs which are not necessarily regular, a similar upper bound for the independence number can be derived by using the maximum eigenvalue $$ \lambda'_{max}$$ of the normalized Laplacian of $$G$$: $$\alpha(G) \leq n (1-\frac {1}{\lambda'_{\mathrm{max}}}) \frac {\mathrm{max deg}}{\mathrm{min deg}} $$ where $${\mathrm{max deg}}$$ and $${\mathrm{min deg}}$$ denote the maximum and minimum degree in $$G$$, respectively. This a consequence of a more general inequality (pp. 109 in ): $${\mathrm{vol}}(X) \leq (1-\frac {1}{\lambda'_{\mathrm{max}}}) {\mathrm{vol}}(V(G)) $$ where $$X$$ is an independent set of vertices and $${\mathrm{vol}}(Y)$$ denotes the sum of degrees of vertices in $$Y$$.

Historical outline
Spectral graph theory emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Besides graph theoretic research on the relationship between structural and spectral properties of graphs, another major source was research in quantum chemistry, but the connections between these two lines of work were not discovered until much later. The 1980 monograph Spectra of Graphs by Cvetković, Doob, and Sachs summarised nearly all research to date in the area. In 1988 it was updated by the survey Recent Results in the Theory of Graph Spectra. The 3rd edition of Spectra of Graphs (1995) contains a summary of the further recent contributions to the subject. Discrete geometric analysis created and developed by Toshikazu Sunada in the 2000s deals with spectral graph theory in terms of discrete Laplacians associated with weighted graphs, and finds application in various fields, including shape analysis. In most recent years, the spectral graph theory has expanded to vertex-varying graphs often encountered in many real-life applications.

title: Spectral graph theory


text:
Tipton County

Tipton County is the name of two counties in the United States:

 * Tipton County, Indiana
 * Tipton County, Tennessee

title: Tipton County


text:
Apache Point Observatory

The Apache Point Observatory (APO; obs. code: 705) is an astronomical observatory located in the Sacramento Mountains in Sunspot, New Mexico, United States, approximately 18 miles south of Cloudcroft. The observatory is operated by New Mexico State University (NMSU) and owned by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC). Access to the telescopes and buildings is private and restricted.

History
The ARC was formed in 1984 with the goal of building the 3.5 m telescope. It originally consisted of five institutions: New Mexico State University, University of Washington, University of Chicago, Princeton University, and Washington State University, some of which have since withdrawn.

Several additional organizations have joined over time: Johns Hopkins University, University of Colorado, University of Virginia, Georgia State University, University of Oklahoma, University of Wyoming, and Brigham Young University. Funding for the 3.5 m and 0.5 m telescopes comes from the consortium members, but funds for the 2.5 m telescope come from a much wider array of sources. The 1.0 m telescope is supported exclusively by NMSU.

ARC 3.5 m

The ARC 3.5 m telescope is a Ritchey-Chretien reflector on an alt-azimuth mount with instruments attached at several focal points. Construction of the building began in 1985, but full operations of the telescope were delayed until November 1994 due to problems with fabricating the primary mirror. From 1991 until early 1993, the telescope was fitted with a 1.8 m mirror, now located at Rothney Astrophysical Observatory under a cost-sharing agreement.

There are a variety of optical and near-infrared instruments available for the 3.5 m telescope, including:
 * The ARC echelle spectrometer (ARCES) uses a 2048 × 2048 pixel CCD and has a resolution of $$R\sim 31{,}500$$.
 * The Double Imaging Spectrometer (DIS) is a low-resolution optical spectrometer.
 * KOSMOS, on long-term loan from NOIRLab, is a low-resolution optical spectrometer.
 * The Near Infrared Camera/Fabry–Pérot Spectrometer (NICFPS) was developed at the University of Colorado. It uses a 1024 × 1024 H1RG HgCdTe infrared detector and a near-infrared Fabry–Pérot interferometer. It has many narrow band filters, including H2, [Fe II], and [SiVI]. It is unique among astronomical Fabry-Pérot devices in that it is cooled with liquid nitrogen.
 * The Astrophysical Research Consortium Telescope Imaging Camera (ARCTIC) is an optical imaging instrument with a 4096 × 4096 pixel CCD.
 * TripleSpec (Tspec) is a near infrared spectrograph which provides continuous wavelength coverage over the range 0.94–2.46 μm at moderate resolution ($$R\sim 3500$$, depending on the choice of slit).
 * Agile is a high-speed imager with a 1024 x 1024 frame transfer CCD.

The 3.5 m telescope is also used by the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) lunar-ranging project. The APOLLO laser has been operational since October 2005, and routinely accomplishes millimeter-level range accuracy between the Earth and the Moon.

Observations using the 3.5 m telescope can be carried out remotely by observers using TUI, the Telescope User Interface, via the internet.

SDSS 2.5 m

The SDSS 2.5 m telescope is used for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and began operating in 2000. It is a Ritchey-Chretien reflector on an alt-azimuth mount housed under a roll-off enclosure. It was designed with an unusually large 3° field of view to better support its primary task of surveying the entire sky.

NMSU 1.0 m
The NMSU 1.0 m telescope is a Ritchey-Chretien reflector set on an alt-azimuth mount, and was completed in 1994. A 2048 × 2048 CCD mounted at the Nasmyth focus provides at 15.7 arcminute view of the sky.

0.5 m ARCSAT
The ARC Small Aperture Telescope (ARCSAT) was previously called the Photometric Telescope (PT) when it was part of the SDSS project. It is a 0.5 m reflecting telescope on an equatorial mount, with a single CCD camera cooled by a CryoTiger unit. It was built in 1991, moved from its previous location in 1998, and used by the SDSS until 2005. It is currently used for small research projects.

Former telescopes

 * A 0.6 m reflecting telescope was built in 1993 to monitor sky conditions for the SDSS project. It never operated in a satisfactory manner, and was replaced with the 0.5 m PT.

List of discovered minor planets
The Minor Planet Center credits the discovery of the following minor planets directly to the Apache Point Observatory:

title: Apache Point Observatory


text:
User talk:Mdob

Nothing to see here. Move on

Fair use rationale for Image:InfinitementPetit.jpg
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Luboš Motl
As a contributor to Articles for deletion/Luboš Motl back in 2005, you may be interested to know it has been re-nominated for deletion. Your comments are welcome at Articles for deletion/Luboš Motl (3rd nomination). Robofish (talk) 16:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

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Near-Earth object
I edited the article as per your recommendations. Rontombontom (talk) 20:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Astronomical unit
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Astronomical unit you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Argento Surfer -- Argento Surfer (talk) 13:40, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Astronomical unit
The article Astronomical unit you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Astronomical unit for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Argento Surfer -- Argento Surfer (talk) 14:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Kőbánya cellar system GA
Hello, and sorry for the late reply! It seems like I didn't receive the notification immediately for your Kőbánya cellar system GA review, in addition to being busy lately.

You suggested that the lead section should be shorter, but I think that an article of such size deserves a lead that isn't only two-three sentences long. There are numerous examples for longer leads on Wikipedia where the subject matter is complex. Aside from that, I agree that there are too many citations in the article overall, they represent a "developing state" of the article where I tried to collect as many valid references as I could find, but I didn't found time to remove them yet. I do plan on cutting back to at most four or five references for a sentence.

Thank you for your time reviewing! Cheers.

--Rev L. Snowfox (talk) 19:13, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

 * Rev L. Snowfox, the lead section (per MOS:LEADLENGTH) should be two or three paragraphs given the length of the article as a whole, but it should also be a summary rather than a complete repetition of certain parts of the body of the article, and it doesn't need the level of citation it currently has: only controversial facts or quotes need lead section citations providing the material is cited in the body of the article (see MOS:LEADCITE). So, for example, instead of giving all the various estimates for floor area and tunnel lengths, a single range for each should be sufficient. Some judicious trimming of what's there now is certainly in order. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

 * @BlueMoonset: Thank you for answering Rev L. Snowfox. You saved me time I don't have right now because of schoolwork.
 * @Rev L. Snowfox You didn't reply late. I was supposed to leave a message on your talk page. Sorry for that. I'll give you about a month (until 15/may) to correct any problems, by that time I will also, hopefully, have more free time.

 * Mdob (talk) 08:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

 * Mdob, Rev L. Snowfox has posted to the review that the edits have been made to the article. I'm hoping, since it's after May 15, that you'll be able to return to the review soon. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:03, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Bieberbach / Neves
Hello Mdob Thank you for your kind comment on the language reference desk and for the barnstar. That was my first ever visit to the reference desk and my first ever barnstar. I see you are a Portuguese speaker from Brazil. You might be be able to help me if you feel competent to verify a European Portuguese pronunciation. There is a Portuguese footballer, Rúben Neves, who currently plays in England and whose name is (I believe) often mispronounced there. So I recently added an IPA transcription to the article:. However, I have never learned Portuguese and it is only a guess based on general knowledge. Is my attempt close enough, do you think? Keep up the good work. --Frans Fowler (talk) 19:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your confirmation elsewhere. - Frans Fowler (talk) 22:11, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

title: User talk:Mdob


text:
WIYN Observatory

The WIYN Observatory is owned and operated by the WIYN Consortium. Its 3.5-meter telescope is the second largest optical telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Most of the capital costs for the observatory were provided by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Indiana University, and Yale University, while the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) provides most of the operating services. The NOAO is an institution of the United States; it is the national optical observatory program and supports a collection of ground-based telescopes at Kitt Peak (where WIYN is located) as well as other locations.

Telescope
WIYN is a Ritchey–Chrétien telescope with an altitude-azimuth mount. The lightweight borosilicate primary mirror has a diameter of 3.49885 m (137.75") and was manufactured at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab. Sixty-six active optics actuators support the primary mirror.

The telescope is located in a half-Rhombicuboctahedron dome.

Hydra
Hydra is a multiobject spectrograph using fiber optics robotically positioned in the focal plane to allow up to 100 separate objects to be observed at a time. The light is guided to a spectrograph room under the main telescope where a CCD camera records the spectrum of each object. The field of view is approximately 1 degree. Hydra has been operating since 1990. It was originally located at the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope before being moved to WIYN in 1994. In 2021, Hydra received a major upgrade to the "gripper" fiber positioning robot.

NEID
Funded by the NN-EXPLORE collaboration between NASA and the National Science Foundation, the NEID spectrograph searches for extra-solar planets by looking for minute variations in the radial velocity of the host star caused by the orbiting planet(s). The extremely precise radial velocities (50 cm/s) provided by NEID will provide masses and densities for exoplanets discovered by the TESS space telescope. The name NEID comes from the Tohono Oʼodham word for "to see."

The spectrograph was designed and built at Pennsylvania State University, with the construction beginning in 2016. The Port Adapter portion of the instrument, which provides guiding, focus correction, fast tip-tilt correction, and atmospheric dispersion correction to the starlight before injecting it into the optical fiber feeding the spectrograph, was built by the University of Wisconsin in collaboration with NOAO. On June 2, 2021, NEID completed commissioning.

The NEID is also assisted by The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) with super-computer time and expertise in the scientific search for new exoplanets.

One Degree Imager (ODI)
The One Degree Imager (ODI) is the flagship of WIYN's new instrument initiatives. ODI utilizes both WIYN's one degree field of view and excellent image quality. The original design for ODI was to cover the one square degree field using a total of 64 Orthogonal Transfer Arrays (OTAs) with a total of 1 GigaPixel and a pixelscale of 0.11 arcseconds per pixel. Orthogonal transfer arrays allow to actively improve image sharpness by correcting images for tip/tilt motion during the integration. Corrections will be done over the entire field of view, making ODI a unique and competitive instrument in the era of wide-field surveys. ODI is funded by the WIYN partners and the National Science Foundation.

ODI was first commissioned in a partial or prototype configuration (pODI) using 13 OTAs in the summer of 2012, and was available for science observations since early 2013. pODI was decommissioned in late 2014 to undergo a significant upgrade. The upgraded ODI, now using 30 OTAs in a 5x6 layout was recommissioned in summer 2015 and has been available for science observations since October 2015.

WIYN High Resolution InfraRed Camera (WHIRC)
WHIRC is a near infrared high resolution imaging camera commissioned in 2008. WHIRC was a joint project between the WIYN partners and STScI. It consists of a 2k × 2k detector providing an excellent pixel scale of 0.1"/pixel and a field of view of 200 × 200 arcsec. WHIRC can be used with the WIYN Tip/Tilt Module (WTTM) to provide exquisite high-resolution images. A large set of filters is available.

Mini-Mosaic
MiniMo is a CCD consisting of two 2048 × 4096 pixel chips, with a field of view of 9.6 arcminutes. The two separate chips allow for faster readout of the image than would have been otherwise possible, as they can be read out simultaneously.

Governance
The WIYN Consortium is governed by a board of directors, which includes three members of each partner institution. The board meets twice a year. The Science Steering Committee provides scientific guidance to the board and the WIYN director.

From 2000 to 2008, the WIYN director was George Jacoby, followed by Pierre Martin (2008–2010). From 2010 to 2013, Pat Knezek served as interim director. Since 2013, Eric Hooper (UW-Madison) has served as interim director.

Yale University withdrew from the WIYN consortium on April 1, 2014 and was replaced by the University of Missouri in the fall of that year. In 2015, a NASA-NSF partnership called NN-EXPLORE effectively took over NOAO's share, although NOAO still manages the operations.

title: WIYN Observatory


text:
Checks and Balances (organization)

Checks and Balances is a group of conservative and libertarian attorneys that was formed in November 2018. It is composed of some members of the conservative-libertarian Federalist Society, which had assisted the Trump administration in selecting appointees for federal courts. Charter members of the new organization included, George Conway, Tom Ridge, Peter Keisler, Jonathan H. Adler, Orin Kerr, Lori S. Meyer, Paul McNulty, Phillip D. Brady, John B. Bellinger III, Carrie Cordero, Marisa C. Maleck, Alan Charles Raul, and Paul Rosenzweig, amongst others. The group was formed to provide a conservative legal voice for responses when, in its words, "Trump attacks the Justice Department and the news media".

Organization member Peter Keisler said the group had received an "overwhelmingly positive response", including from Federalist Society members, however, the formation of the group was sharply criticized by Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, saying he found "the underlying premise of the group rather offensive".

On October 10, 2019, the group released a statement offering its legal reasoning for an "expeditious" impeachment probe into President Trump. Citing the Special Counsel's report, which highlights that the "Trump 2016 campaign was open to and enthusiastic about receiving Russian government-facilitated assistance to gain an advantage in the previous election", it outlined the recent facts regarding Trump's attempts to put pressure on Ukraine for his personal and political benefit. After the statement by Checks and Balances was published, organization member George Conway said that the White House letter (reported by the Daily Beast as mostly written by Trump), refusing to cooperate in the House of Representatives impeachment hearings, was "trash".

In November 2023, an opinion piece in The New York Times by George Conway, J. Michael Luttig, and Barbara Comstock announced that Checks and Balances had become Society for the Rule of Law.

title: Checks and Balances (organization)


text:
Wall gun

The wall gun or wall piece was a type of smoothbore firearm used in the 16th through 19th centuries by defending forces to break the advance of enemy troops. Essentially, it was a scaled-up version of the army's standard infantry musket, operating under the same principles, but with a bore of up to one-inch (25.4 mm) calibre. These weapons filled a gap in firepower between the musket and the lightest artillery pieces, such as the swivel gun. This sort of weapon may also be found described as a rampart gun, hackbut or amusette, a name originally given to early medieval hand cannon.

Use

Wall pieces were so named because they were designed to be used along the walls of fortifications. They were equipped with a yoke at the point of balance, which tapered into a pivot, which could be inserted into several sockets along the walls, which would absorb the recoil of the piece and also provide a stable gun platform. (In this respect they were much like a scaled-down version of the swivel gun.) Many were fitted with a barrel hook to absorb shock. Some of these weapons had multiple barrels which enabled volleys to be fired much faster than a normal single-shot wall gun. Wall pieces could also be mounted on very light carriages for service in the field, usually in support of the larger guns. They were also used on small naval vessels.

A wall gun's barrel could be over 4.5 ft in length with a bore of at least 1 in. This made them more accurate than the standard flintlock or matchlock musket. George Washington acquired several wall guns during the American War of Independence; tests showed that they were capable of hitting a sheet of common writing paper at 600 yard — but since this is comparable performance to a modern full-bore target rifle these results may be queried. Wall guns were part of the standard equipment of some artillery pieces at that time.

During the Napoleonic Wars many of these guns were cut down and turned into blunderbusses. They fired lead shot and were used by naval boarding parties, and by coachmen as protection from highwaymen. A surviving example is preserved in New Zealand.

A breech-loading wall gun was issued to the French army in 1819 for the defense of towns. Improved caplock versions were introduced in 1831 and 1842, as were muzzleloading versions. Bolt action wall guns firing metallic cartridges were used in India and China in the late 19th century.

Naval use
When HMS Espoir (1797) captured the Genoese privateer Liguria on 7 August 1798, Espoirs captain, Commander Loftus Otway Bland, catalogued Ligurias armaments as: 12 long 18-pounders, four long 12-pounders, 10 long 6-pounders, 12 long wall-pieces, and four swivel guns. While wall-pieces were stocked similar to a musket, though would often have a forged yoke to help support the gun, and in some cases were rifled. Mentions of wall guns are rare in such enumerations; what is more common are mentions of the "swivel guns".

Asian wall guns

In the Far East, a jingal, gingal or gingall, from Hindi janjal, was a type of large matchlock gun, usually a light piece mounted on a swivel. It fired iron bullets 1.25 in in diameter and was classified as a form of wall gun either by design or use. It sometimes took the form of a heavy musket fired from a rest, and usually required a crew of two men. The weapon was used by the Chinese in the 19th century, such as by the Taiping armies, imperial forces during the Opium Wars, and Chinese rebels in Hong Kong during the Six Day War of 1899.

Wall guns were used in India as early as the 17th century and there is a Burmese source from the late 15th century mentioning the use of "cannon and muskets" by the defenders of the besieged town of Prome. There are examples of later wall guns fitted with bipods. This weapon figures in Kipling's poem "The Grave of the Hundred Head".

title: Wall gun


text:
National Optical Astronomy Observatory

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) was the United States national observatory for ground-based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared (OUVIR) astronomy. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded NOAO to provide forefront astronomical research facilities for US astronomers. Professional astronomers from any country in the world could apply to use the telescopes operated by NOAO under the NSF's "open skies" policy.

NOAO was operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. Its headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, were co-located with the headquarters of the National Solar Observatory. The budget for NOAO during the 2017 fiscal year was nearly $23 million.

NOAO was founded in 1984 to join the operations of the Kitt Peak National Observatory in the United States with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. On October 1, 2019, NOAO merged its operations with the Gemini Observatory and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to form NSF's NOIRLab.

Telescopes
NOAO operated world class research telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres. These telescopes, located at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo in the US and Chile respectively, remain in operation under the auspices of the NSF’s NOIRLab. The two sites allow US astronomers to make observations over the entire sky. Instrumentation includes optical to near infrared wavelength (0.4 to 5 micrometers) cameras and spectrometers.

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO)
CTIO has a base and office facility in the seaside town of La Serena, Chile. The CTIO telescopes are located some 70 km inland in the foothills of the Chilean Andes. Access to the observatory is made through the picturesque Elqui Valley.

Telescopes at CTIO include the Victor M. Blanco Telescope (named after astronomer Victor Manuel Blanco in 1995) which employs a wide-field of view CCD (Charge-coupled device), a wide field of view near infrared imager (1-2.5 micrometers) and a multi-object fiber fed spectrograph working at visible wavelengths.

The Blanco 4m played the central role in the discovery of dark energy, a poorly understood component to the universe which is currently causing the universe to accelerate in its expansion. The Blanco began hosting a new 3-degree field of view camera called the Dark Energy Camera, also known as DECam, in 2012. This camera is being built at Fermilab in Chicago, USA, and will be operated by CTIO. This instrument was built to execute the Dark Energy Survey, an undertaking to image a large part of the sky to faint light levels, detecting galaxy large scale structure as a function of look back time to shed light on the nature of dark energy.

CTIO operates, and is a partner in the 4.1m Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR). SOAR concentrates on high angular resolution observations and will soon deploy an adaptive optics module to help support such observations.

Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO)
KPNO is located near Tucson, Arizona, US. The mountain, Kitt Peak, is part of the tribal lands of the Native American people the Tohono O'odham. The mountain has been leased from the Tohono O'odham since 1958. The native name for the mountain is "loligam" which means manzanita. The observatory was established in 1958, and its largest telescope, the Nicholas Mayall 4m was dedicated in 1973. The Mayall played a key role in the discovery of dark matter though observations of external galaxies which showed that the galaxies rotated faster than they should have if the motion were due only to the mass in stars seen in visible light images.

A new wide field imager working at near infrared wavelengths (NEWFIRM) has been deployed to advance studies of galactic star formation, cosmology, and the structure and evolution of galaxies.

NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC)
NOAO also manages US participation in the international Gemini Observatory. Gemini is a partnership of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The US holds a 50% share of the project (funded by the NSF) which provides public access time on each of Gemini's two 8m telescopes. One telescope is located near CTIO in Chile, and the other is located on the island of Hawaii.

Gemini is the only facility available to all US astronomers on a permanent basis for large aperture science. Large apertures are typically taken to be between 6.5m and 10m. Gemini provides near infrared, mid infrared (10–20 micrometer), and optical imaging and spectroscopy in both the southern and northern hemispheres.

One of Gemini's strengths is high angular resolution imaging accomplished through laser guide star adaptive optics. These facilities are already making an impact. For example, Gemini astronomers, along with their collaborators at the 10m W. M. Keck Observatory, recently announced the first images of an extra solar system with three detected planets circling their parent star, an A-type star known as HR 8799.

Vera C. Rubin Observatory (LSST survey)
NOAO was a founding partner in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory project. Rubin Observatory is an 8m class telescope which will change the way some astronomers do science. More like a large physics program, Rubin Observatory will run its own experiment and provide data to the Rubin Observatory community in the form of images and astronomical catalogs. Rubin Observatory will have a dedicated wide field imager, and the telescope will cover the entire sky visible from the southern hemisphere approximately every week. By repeating the observations over and over for ten years, the Rubin Observatory will produce a very deep image of the sky, but it will also detect large numbers of astronomical objects which vary in brightness daily or on longer time scales. Rubin Observatory scientists will analyze, or "mine", the LSST data rather than go to the telescope to make their own observations.

Rubin Observatory is currently in the pre-construction phase, with first light targeted for 2023. During this phase, AURA is managing for design and development of the Rubin Observatory telescope system and site facilities. Rubin Observatory will be located on Cerro Pachón in Chile, near the Gemini and SOAR telescopes. It will be operated by NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. At the beginning of the new millennium, the National Academy of Sciences published its report on Astronomy and Astrophysics in the coming decade. Among other high priorities, the committee responsible for the report concluded:

"U.S. ground-based optical and infrared facilities...should...be viewed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the astronomical community as a single integrated system drawing on both federal and nonfederal funding sources. Effective national organizations are essential to coordinate, and to ensure the success and efficiency of, these systems. Universities and independent observatories should work with the national organizations to ensure the success of these systems."

NOAO has worked very hard with the US community in the ensuing years in developing this System. A clear success story is the public access to non-federal large aperture telescopes through the NSF funded and NOAO managed Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP). This program, accomplished with the enthusiastic support of the US non federal observatories, supplies the broad US community with some 70 nights of observing time per year.

This System goal was further reiterated by the NSF Senior Review in 2007 when it reviewed the full suite of NSF ground-based astronomy facilities. NOAO continued to work on behalf of the community to effectively shape the System and gain steady, state-of-the-art research capabilities of all apertures for open, merit based science.

A future major capability for the US system is an Extremely Large Telescope with diameter up to 30 meters. Two private consortia are currently working on such projects which may be operational before the end of the decade. These are the Thirty Meter Telescope and Giant Magellan Telescope. NOAO was working with both projects in planning for potential future involvement of the broad US community through operational support funding by the NSF.

title: National Optical Astronomy Observatory


text:
Thurston County

Thurston County is the name of two counties in the United States:

 * Thurston County, Nebraska
 * Thurston County, Washington

title: Thurston County


text:
Talk:Bad

 * By a scientific standard, there is no such thing as a bad person, in the context of evil. Science more often studies human flaws as pathology, psychopathology or sociopathology. As a term of art, bad refers to those believed to be bad or otherwise classified as bad by the subjective standard of a group or an individual.

 * Individuals and cultures tend to describe events in terms of good or bad, but there is no factual basis for the concepts except in comparison to a subjective standard. In nature, a "bad apple" fertilizes the soil while planting a seed. In a fruit basket, one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Bad describes events that do not meet a person's preferences. But what one person does not prefer, another does. Events or actions that may be seen as very bad by one group might be evidence of a great good to others.

 * Some spiritual traditions advise against codifying human preferences, though warnings prescribed in religous documents are not always incorporated in the doctrines of religous sects. Christianity and Judaism, for example, feature in their leading texts explicit warnings against dualistic moral codes.

 * ''"You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except the

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You must not touch that tree". From "Genisis, Chapter 3," in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.''

By whose "scientific standard"? This kind of pop relativism is intrinically POV, and hardly a matter of "science" in any case. Smerdis of Tlön 15:06, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why?
There should not be an article on the concept of bad. Because the term bad is so highly subjective and familiar, an article about it could never be informative.

Oh God I don't know what bad means! I better go on Wikipedia and search for it to see what it is! Come on, seriously the only person searching for the word 'bad' on wikipedia would be an absolute retard. This is so irrelevant.Debaser23 10:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Congratulations, you offended someone, this has to be a joke, you come to freaking Wikipedia and call someone r*t4rd, isn't it disrespectful? Yeah! I agree that the concept of bad is kind of subjective, but still, man, one thing doesn't justify the other, I know you just wanted to help, but damn, brother, that was completely disproportionate. 177.105.90.10 (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Without wanting offend, but I cannot understand why the heck someone would call the another "r3t4rd", just because he disagree the fact having a "Bad" article-about Wikipedia.
 * It cross all the freaking lines, so, for God's sake, and understand that you aren't nobody to call someone like that, be polite, it isn't difficult. 177.105.90.74 (talk) 21:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Ditto! Je pense donc je suis 21:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Debaser23 crossed the line, and Idk why the heck there's so insults in this little fella's words.

Deletion?
"Bad" should be in the dictionary not the encyclopedia. If it is going to be in the encyclopedia, wouldn't the title "Badness" really describe what this article is about. Well anyway the concept of "bad" or "badness" is so broad that an article on it is not appropriate.

German language city name element?
What does "bad" mean in German city names? Like Bad Harzburg? 4.255.51.216 (talk) 03:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It means "bath", and refers to a city's status as a spa town. I've added something to the article about it. Recury (talk) 19:59, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Redirect to evil
There are several popular articles entitled Bad. Also evil is not synonymous with bad, e.g "I had a bad meal". For these reasons I have restored Bad (disambiguation) to here. Tassedethe (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Please delete
It’s a waste. We don’t need an article on the word “bad”. I don’t understand why this is here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:5281:AD00:4CA8:825F:BB1A:A15B (talk) 23:53, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Actually, we need, yeah 177.105.90.10 (talk) 19:11, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bad


text:
Addu

Addu may refer to:
 * Addu Atoll, a geographic atoll
 * Addu City, an administrative city consisting of the inhabited islands of Addu Atoll

title: Addu


text:
Huvadhu Atoll

Huvadhu, Suvadive, Suvaidu or Suvadiva is the atoll with the most islands in the world. The atoll is located in the Indian Ocean. It is south of the Suvadiva Channel in the Republic of Maldives with a total area of 3,152 km2, of which 38.5 km2 is dry land. The atoll contains 255 islands.

It is the second largest atoll in the country, after Boduthiladhunmathi (consisting of Haa Alif, Haa Dhaalu, Shaviyani, and Noonu administrative divisions) which has smaller and fewer islands spread across a larger area.

Huvadu Atoll has been divided into two districts (administrative provinces) for administrative purposes since the 1970s. These divisions are Northern Huvadhu Atoll (Gaafu Alifu) in the north, and Southern Huvadhu Atoll (Gaafu Dhaalu).

During his journey to the Maldives, 14th century Muslim explorer Ibn Batuta stated in his journal that the Maldives was destitute of grain, except in the province of Souweid (Suvadiva or Huvadu) where they produced a cereal, a kind of Millet which was brought to Mahal.

The traditional seat of power in the Huvadhu was Thinadhoo until the division, after which Thinadhoo remained the Capital of South Huvadhu Atoll, and Villingili was instated as the capital of North Huvadhu Atoll.

The master carpenters of the iconic Male' Hukuru Miskiy were from Huvadu, Kondey island. They were Ali Maavadi Kaleyfaanu and Mahmud Maavadi Kaleyfaanu.

The best quality mats of the Maldives are woven in this atoll, in the island of Gaddū. The local grass 'hau' is dyed in two colors, black and yellow.

History
The ancient Sanskritised name of this atoll was Suvadive. Its capital is Thinadhoo (Huvadhu Atoll)

Historically the Huvadu atoll chief based in Thinadhoo had a great measure of self-government. He even had the privilege, not granted to any other atoll chief of the Maldives, to fly his own flag in his vessels and at his residence. The flag of the Huvadu Atoll Chief was similar to the flag of Nepal in cut, with two central black triangles edged by red and white bands.

There are many Buddhist archaeological remains in Huvadū. Therefore, it is likely that this was a very important Atoll in that period of Maldivian History. None of these ancient remains have been properly investigated yet.

Due to its strategic placement on the main sea route around southern India, Huvadhu and the other southern atolls have a long history of contact from mariners sailing the Indian Ocean through the centuries.

Descendants of the three dynasties, Devvadhoo, Diyamigili & Isdhoo Dynasty
Families of Devvadhoo, Dhiyamigili and Isdhoo Dynasty can be traced to Devvadu, Addu, Fuvahmulah and Tinadu. After the assassination of Muhammed Ghiya'as ud-din, Prince Abdulla son of Ghiyaasuddin was banished to Fuvahmulah. The South of Maldives was a safe haven for Abdulla being a descendant of Addu Bodu Fandiyaaru Thakurufaan.

Sultan Mohamed IV ( Devvadhoo Rasgefaanu )
Dhevvadhoo island is located at the centre of the Huvadu atoll. Sultan Mohamed IV or Devvadhoo Rasgefaanu was the first Sultan of Devvadhoo Dynasty who was the son of Ali Mafahaiy Kilege of Devvadu and Kakuni Dio. Sultan Mohamed IV was married to Khadheeja Kan’ba, daughter of Ibrahim Shah Bandar also known as Isdhoo Bodu Velaanaa Thakurufaan. After his death the Isdhoo dynasty was proclaimed.

Secession of the United Suvadive Republic
In January 1959, the three southern atolls: Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu, were involved in setting up the breakaway United Suvadive Republic which survived until September 1963. The name of the secessionist state was taken from the ancient name of Huvadhoo atoll.

In some islands, like Gaddhoo, there was opposition to the secession, however through threats and coercion, the groups of people opposing the Suvadive state were forced to agree.

The republic collapsed when the island of Havaru Thinadhoo was depopulated, and all infrastructure burnt to the ground by the Maldivian military led by then Prime Minister Ibrahim Nasir in 1962, after which it was left uninhabited for four years. For the next 10 years, the seat of power was moved to Gaddhoo until Havaru Thinadhoo, since repopulated, was reinstated as the capital of Huvadhoo.

The main motivation for secession was stated to be disagreements with the centralized policies that were being enforced by Male' at the time.

Huvadu Kandu
The name of the broad channel north of this atoll is locally known as Huvadu Kandu. It appeared on the old French maps as Courant de Souadou. Other names are Suvadiva Channel or One-a-half Degree Channel.

It is named after Huvadu Atoll and is the broadest channel between the atolls of Maldives.

Language
The inhabitants of this large atoll speak their own distinct form of the Dhivehi language, known as Huvadu dialect (bahuruva).

Because of the isolation from the Northern Atolls, and the capital of Malé, the Huvadhu dialect is significantly different from the other variants of the Maldive language, making much use of the retroflex 'Ţ' and allegedly retaining old forms of Dhivehi.

title: Huvadhu Atoll


text:
Gan

The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to:

Places

 * Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden"

China

 * Gan River (Jiangxi)
 * Gan River (Inner Mongolia),
 * Gan County, in Jiangxi province
 * Gansu, abbreviated Gān (甘), province of China
 * Jiangxi, abbreviated Gàn (赣), province of China

Maldives

 * Gan (Addu Atoll)
 * Gan (Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll)
 * Gan (Huvadhu Atoll)
 * Gan (Laamu Atoll)
 * Gan International Airport

Elsewhere

 * Gáň, a village and municipality in Galanta District, Trnava Region, south-west Slovakia
 * Gan Island, an island in the Addu Atoll in the Indian Ocean that used to be an RAF airbase
 * Gan, Norway, a village in Lillestrøm municipality, Norway
 * Gan, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département, France

Science and technology

 * GAN (gene)
 * Gan (Martian crater)
 * Gallium nitride, a popular III-V semiconductor, chemical formula GaN
 * Generative adversarial network, a class of machine learning systems
 * Generic Access Network, formerly known as Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA)

People

 * Gan (surname), a surname in various cultures (including a list of people with the surname)
 * Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), president of Egypt
 * Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (1884–1965), Swedish painter, signature "GAN"

Fictional characters

 * Gan (Stephen King), in King's Dark Tower novel series
 * Gan Isurugi, in the Rival Schools video game series
 * Olag Gan, in the Blake's 7 television series and franchise

Other

 * GAN (cycling team), the former name of the Crédit Agricole cycling team
 * Gan Chinese-speaking people
 * Gan Chinese, a variety of spoken Chinese
 * Gan International Airport, IATA code
 * Global Apprenticeships Network, a not-for-profit association based in Geneva
 * Global Arab Network, a London-based news service about the Arab world
 * Grant Anticipation Note, a type of highway financing
 * Great American Novel, commonly abbreviated as GAN
 * GANCUBE (or GAN), Chinese speedcube manufacturer

title: Gan


text:
Thomas County

Thomas County is the name of several counties in the United States:

 * Thomas County, Georgia
 * Thomas County, Kansas
 * Thomas County, Nebraska

title: Thomas County