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Talk:Kuwaiti oil fires

Nightline Debate
"During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Dr. S. Fred Singer debated Carl Sagan on the impact of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan said the smoke would loft into the upper atmosphere, disrupt the monsoons and lead to ecological disaster. Singer said such a view was ridiculous, that the smoke would go up only a few thousand feet and then be washed out of the atmosphere by rain. Three days later, black rain began falling over Iran, which essentially put an end to the speculation." this seems not important enough to be in the introductory paragraph. The speculation of two scientists about what they thought would happen and then did does not seem very notable. In addition, I do not know what it means because of the way it was worded. It just says what to viewpoints are, then says what happened as a result, then said it ended speculation. However how did that result end the speculation, and whose theory is correct. it is to amniguous for me to be able to decipher it at all. It almots seems as if someone included this just to make a point about one of the scientists.Scotto263 01:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have a source for whats on this page? Apart from formatting, its unchanged since "conversion script" wrote it. Seaching google, I find nothing but multiple copies of this rather dodgy article requoted in copies of wiki...

(William M. Connolley 16:36, 2004 Mar 18 (UTC)) I found something, not quite the same:

> "Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The > fires would burn out of control until they put themselves out... The > resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia... It could be > carried around the world... [and] the consequences could be dire. > Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and > droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This > endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it > should affect the war plans..." > > - Sagan and Richard Turco, The Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1991, > commenting during the Gulf War on the impact of oil well fires

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=kuwait+oil+fires+prediction+sagan&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=3A848FFD.5510039D%40mad.scientist.com&rnum=6

Also:

>"In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, some 800 oil wells in Kuwait were >set on fire by Iraqi troops. Prior to the war a number of predictions >were made concerning the possible environmental impact of such an event. >Early predictions warned of a "petroleum winter" effect: a significant >enhancement of the greenhouse effect due to the large amount of carbon >dioxide released in the combustion of the oil and global temperature and >precipitation depressions associated with a thick cloud of smoke being >lofted into the stratosphere. A number modeling studies discounted the >"petroleum winter" hypothesis, arguing that insignificant amounts of >smoke were likely to reach the stratosphere, and concluding that the >effects from the smoke plume generated were likely to be important on >only a regional scale. The predictions made in these modeling studies >are generally confirmed by later satellite and aircraft observations of >the smoke plume."

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=kuwait+oil+fires+prediction+sagan&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=EyFA1w.BIJ%40ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com&rnum=9

Accumulated loss
The Peak Oil article mentions that approximately 1.5 Gb burned away before all fires were extinguished. That number is absent from this article (only an estimated daily loss is given). Perhaps this number (and an estimated economic loss) should be included in this article as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.191.62.33 (talk) 20:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Contradictory data
In the introduction, it is mentioned that around 5 million barrels of oil were burnt a day. In the environmental impact section, its mentioned that 6 million barrels of oil were burnt a day. Which is more accurate? (Namzie11 (talk) 04:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC))
 * Of the sources in the article, this is the only one that seems to give a specific estimate (of 6 million barrels per day). So, I have changed the figure in the introduction. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 16:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hail and cold weather caused by smoke
I remember back in the early 90s (1991 or 1992, I can't remember), it hailed in the small city of Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia where I lived. It had never happened before and everybody was shocked. People even went out, collected the hail and put it inside their freezers! There were car accidents and at least a few electric poles fell over. The hail was of fairly small size so hail-related damage was limited. The electric poles were probably not designed for cold weather. In retrospect, the temperature was not sub-freezing but it was definitely below 7*C. This is shocking in itself in a place where it rarely rains and temperatures often soar to 50*C.

I believe this unprecedented and peculiar weather was caused by the fires in Kuwait. I don't have any sources, so that's why I'm simply writing my own personal first-hand experience here. --Zybez (talk) 19:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Motives
It appears that newly released documents may necessitate updating this section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/middleeast/20archive.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Someone more proficient can dig deeper, but from this article:
 * "Mr. Gorbachev’s diplomatic efforts were undermined on Feb. 22 when the Kuwaiti oil well fires that Mr. Hussein had ordered set — and which he saw as a defensive measure — were described by Mr. Bush in his conversation with the Soviet leader as a “scorched-earth policy” and a reason to not delay military action." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.45.144.150 (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Still burning?
The article contradicts itself.

It states

" The fires started in January and February 1991 and the last one was extinguished by November 1991.[1]

But also :

"Two wells have yet to be sucessfully extinguished."

One would presume that after 20 years, the fires are out, but I cannot find any data either way... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.120.222.100 (talk) 14:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

 * Still not sourced almost a year later. Removed. -- DevSolar (talk) 14:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Overview of the economics and changes in technology for extinguishing oil well fires, etc.
Before the war, Iraq threatened to start the oil wells on fire, and it was claimed that it would take many years to put out the fires. That did not come true. It would be good to survey how the technology of putting out these fires changed if at all during operations. Did the best practices change? Did the average amount of time for completing a job change? Did the number of crews in operation change? What was the typical cost for capping a well after---compared to the cost before---the fires were started? Did Iraq have to pay reparations for the lost oil and the environmental damage? Was there a timely and efficient response to the problem? What were some of the details of the economic incentives for the companies doing the work? Were the existing companies given incentive to train new teams both inside and outside their companies?CountMacula (talk) 13:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes and Gulf War Oil Spill; Comparison to Lakeview Gusher
The reason that I included the material on the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes (which, as you can see, have no article of their own, being discussed only here and in oil spill) and the Gulf War oil spill (which I note appears to have disappeared in the most recent edits) was for context, and because this article is closely connected (for obvious reasons) with the article Oil Spill. That article defines "oil spill" as the release of oil into the environment, without restricting it to oil pooled on the ground or oil slicks in water, thus justifying the inclusion of the Kuwaiti Oil Fires; for several years the Kuwaiti Oil Fires have headed the list of largest oil spills in history, followed immediately by the lakes generated wholly or in part by the same wells that were damaged or set on fire, and shortly afterward by the Gulf War Oil Spill. I don't think the inclusion of all three under the heading of "oil spills" should be controversial; removing them and counting only oil spills that didn't result from the 1991 Persian Gulf War would be far more misleading, particularly in light of their magnitude.

Because all three spills were part and parcel of the same act of sabotage, and also because they constituted three of the four largest oil spills in history (interrupted only by the Lakeview Gusher), it seemed logical to mention both the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes and the Gulf War Oil Spill, and the amount of oil involved, together with the estimate of oil destroyed in the Kuwaiti Oil Fires. I understand that the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes are mentioned again under the heading of "environmental impact" (although the Gulf War Oil Spill is not), but it seems to me that they ought to be mentioned together with the historical description of the oil fires, even if they're subsequently discussed in greater detail under the heading of "environmental impact."

And in the case of the Lakeview gusher, I thought it would be instructive to note the difference in magnitude between the Kuwaiti Oil Fires and the largest oil spill in history not resulting from deliberate sabotage at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. I think it dramatically illustrates the size of the disaster in a way that the article does not without such a comparison.P Aculeius (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

 * My rationale for separating up the various avenues by which oil was lost, by fire, by land gushers and by sea was to convey the events in a more easily digested manner. When I first came to this page the article would jump from one to the next leaving me feeling jumbled up about what was being discussed. Now that ambiguity is gone and each avenue of oil loss is compartmentalized in a logical manner.

 * I can see your point of view though, coming from the angle of wanting to show it as all a single oil spill, however this runs into problems as mentioned above not least of which because the article is titled "Kuwaiti oil fires" and not "Kuwaiti oil gushers" nor Gulf War oil spill - which were both oil spills. Personally I think you should edit that latter page to include the land based oil spills from the 46 oil gushers. Would that suffice? As the Kuwaiti oil fires weren't oil spills. Regarding them as an oil spill is misleading and unencyclopedic. It would be like classifying the gas burning Devil's Cigarette Lighter as a gas spill, when it wasn't, it was also a fire.

 * 31.200.144.195 (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

 * I'm not aware of any spill called "Kuwaiti oil gushers". As far as I can tell from the various reports (DoD, EPA, UN, etc.), there's no clear separation between pooled oil from wells that were set ablaze and those that weren't.  Unless I find something clear and reliable to the contrary, I'm going to assume that some of the oil from the wells set on fire may not have burned, but contributed to the oil lakes.  None of the sources I've seen separate the specific sources of this oil.

 * I'm sure that the definition of "oil spill" can be debated. But the definition in use includes oil fires, and has for several years.  The substance in question was liquid oil; it was released into the environment in an uncontrolled manner.  That some or most of it was then destroyed by fire doesn't change those facts, any more than the recovery of pooled oil converts what would otherwise be described as an oil spill into something else.  I'm reasonably sure that in other disasters where some oil was pooled on land or in the water, and some was burnt, the relevant statistics are based on an estimate of all the oil involved, not merely the oil that didn't burn.  It's not at all comparable to the Devil's Cigarette Lighter, which as that article states explicitly, was a natural gas well; I also note that there is no article about the phenomenon of "gas spills."

 * I don't see how classifying oil fires as a type of spill is misleading; if they're clearly labeled fires and so described, nobody is going to confuse them with non-burning oil. What would be misleading would be to exclude the Kuwaiti oil fires from a list of oil spills merely because the oil was burned after being released into the environment.  As the numbers clearly show, as an oil spill the catastrophe easily heads the list of the largest discharges in history; redefining it as "not an oil spill" effectively makes it sui generis, since there's never been another oil fire on the same scale of magnitude either, or even on that of a large oil spill.  It would be like defining "oil spill" as "all the oil-spill like events in history except for the biggest one of all."  P Aculeius (talk) 18:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

 * I'll first deal with your baseless and easily refuted assumption. (1) you stated above - "I'm going to assume that some of the oil from the wells set on fire may not have burned, but contributed to the oil lakes."
 * This is an unreferenced assumption that can be refuted by comparing two sources in the article - The total number of unburning, but gushing, oil wells is regarded to have been 46, and before efforts to cap them began, they were releasing approximately 300,000-400,000 barrels of oil per day, with the last gusher being capped occurring in the latter days of October 1991. The Kuwaiti Oil Minister estimated that in terms of total oil spilled, between twenty-five and fifty million barrels of unburned oil.
 * All you have to do is keep those two bolded figures in mind, and look at the referenced graph | here which charts the average oil released from the unburning (Kuwaiti) "Gushing wells" in red(note also that the reference also separately charts the oil burnt from the burning wells in blue, thereby satisfying your desire for a reliable reference that separates the two phenomenon as wholly distinct and therefore the burning oil wells are not at all under the remit of being classified as an "oil spill".)

 * Once you take a look at the red bars in the link above you'll see that the Kuwaiti Oil Minister's estimated number of barrels of oil spilled: 25 to 50 million barrels released between February-October 1991 exactly matches up with the estimated unburnt oil spilled per day from those 46 gushers. Therefore your assumption that the ~605 burning wells contributed a non-negligible amount to the unburning oil spills from the 46 gushers is, albeit plausible, pretty baseless and contrary to the authoritative sources.

 * So you regard any - "uncontrolled release of oil as an oil spill" - including cases where no actual oil is spilled at all, which includes case were all that oil is burnt? This is counter to what the word means - to spill oil.

 * You also state - "The substance in question was liquid oil; it was released into the environment in an uncontrolled manner. That some or most of it was then destroyed by fire doesn't change those facts"-
 * While the oil ejected from the ~605 burning well heads at Kuwait was actually released into the environment in a premeditated semi-controlled manner, it had a residence time measured in milliseconds and did not actually do any of the all important spilling. I wonder, would you similarly regard an oil burner that directly takes oil from a well and exposes it to the air for a millisecond before burning it also as an "oil spill"? Essentially, burning wells as akin to the mother of all patio heaters, and how about some C4 strapped onto a barrel of oil and detonated with an idealized 100% of the oil combusting, according to your own personal definition of an "oil spill" this would also bizarrely be defined as an oil spill/a spill of oil. Would it not?

 * As for - "It's not at all comparable to the Devil's Cigarette Lighter, which as that article states explicitly, was a natural gas well; I also note that there is no article about the phenomenon of gas spills." - It is indeed comparable, as both the kuwaiti oil fires and the Cigarette where cases of well heads burning, not hydrocarbon spills, only the 46 odd unburning Kuwaiti well gushers created the oil spill on land. Lastly, there is indeed such a thing as an " LPG spill", as it is a liquid it can and does spill and it would be analogous to an oil spill from a gushing oil well.

 * Just in case my response sounds confrontational, I am enjoying the discussion friend and await your reply.
 * 31.200.154.246 (talk) 00:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

 * You seem to misunderstand my point about the Kuwaiti oil lakes, perhaps because, as in the example above, you've combined two different statements and attributed them to a source that doesn't support the combined statement. The statistic of 46 gushing wells not on fire are from the DoD report, which as the section it appears in makes clear, is a very rough estimate.  Although a much later part of the document does attribute the pooling of oil into lakes to non-ignited wells, it provides a different estimate from that of the Kuwaiti Oil Minister as cited in the UN report, both as to the number of lakes and the amount of oil; as does the NASA site, although the USGS link seems to be dead; the material probably still exists at a different address.

 * The other reports don't indicate that burning wells made no contribution to pooled oil on the ground, and really even the DoD report doesn't explicitly say so; it just estimates a figure for oil released from non-burning wells, which doesn't account for the high-end estimates of the amount of oil in the other reports. Also, while the graph corroborates both the number of wells on fire and not on fire, and the total flow of oil, it doesn't allocate a particular amount of oil to each source.  So it really doesn't resolve the question of whether the lakes derived solely from wells that gushed uncontrolled, without having been set on fire.

 * But my main point was that the Kuwaiti oil fires, Kuwaiti oil lakes, and Gulf War Oil Spill are all part and parcel of the same act of sabotage, all involve the same basic principle, and should all be treated as the same basic kind of environmental disaster (i.e. oil spills); for which reason they should at least be introduced as a group and their significance or magnitude described, at least in the simplest terms, together; even if each has a separate section or article providing more detail.

 * The argument you make about the oil fires not being an oil spill because the oil wasn't spilled is circular reasoning. If "oil spill" is defined as an uncontrolled release of oil into the environment, then the oil fires certainly qualify as an oil spill.  Your argument, however, assumes that an "oil spill" means a stream or pool of liquid lying on the ground or in the water.  Naturally, if you define a thing so as to exclude a particular example, then that example is not that thing.  But in this case the definition is something other than what you want it to be, and it includes the example.

 * I've already tried to explain why it makes sense that the definition of "oil spill" includes the Kuwaiti oil fires, and why I believe it would be far more misleading to exclude them from that definition, when there really isn't a comparable category (oil well fires specifically being a much less familiar phenomenon than oil spills in general, one from which there may not be any other famous or particularly significant examples), and where it makes little sense to treat the three disasters as though they were completely different and unrelated events; and perhaps most importantly, because excluding the Kuwaiti oil fires would give the impression that they were a relatively minor event compared with other famous oil spills, even though more than a hundred times as much oil was lost in the fires as in any oil spill prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

 * As for the Devil's Cigarette Lighter, once again, that analogy fails because the material involved was not oil, but natural gas (not even liquified petroleum gas); the fact that the material was and had always been gaseous rather than liquid (or even petroleum) makes it impossible for it to qualify as an oil spill merely because the Kuwaiti oil fires fit under that definition. The Kuwaiti oil fires constitute an oil spill because the material released into the environment was liquid oil; not natural gas, not liquified gas, but naturally occurring liquid petroleum, which remained liquid up to the instant that it was burned.  That alone makes the Kuwaiti oil fires distinguishable from the Devil's Cigarette Lighter or any other gas fire.  Would a liquified petroleum gas fire be close enough to an oil spill to qualify?  Perhaps.  There's not a bright line separating things that are definitely oil spills from those that are definitely not.  But while the Kuwaiti oil fires consisted of burning oil, the Devil's Cigarette Lighter did not, and thus it cannot be considered an oil spill, even if the Kuwaiti oil fires are.  P Aculeius (talk) 04:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

 * If you can supply some references that support your plausible assertion that the ~605 burning well heads contributed substantially, say more than 1%, to the filling of the oil lakes while the oil wells were burning, as you suggest in your first paragraph above* then we can move forward, otherwise I'm skeptical this debate will be resolved. Moreover I hope you're not going to try and attempt comparing the DoD estimate of oil spilled by the 46 gushers with a different organizations estimate on the total oil spilled without also including that organization's estimates for the quantity of oil released by the 46 gushers As different organizations can use widely different methodologies to arrive at their estimates.
 * Your paragraph* - " The statistic of 46 gushing wells not on fire are from the DoD report, which as the section it appears in makes clear, is a very rough estimate. Although a much later part of the document does attribute the pooling of oil into lakes to non-ignited wells, it provides a different estimate from that of the Kuwaiti Oil Minister as cited in the UN report, both as to the number of lakes and the amount of oil; as does the NASA site, although the USGS link seems to be dead; the material probably still exists at a different address."-
 * [[Image:Oil well burning in Bibi Eibat.JPG|thumb| The 1904 Bibi-Eibat [[oil well fire]] which like the kuwaiti oil well fires, was not an oil spill while it was burning. Only the Gulf War oil spill was an oil spill.]]
 * I understand your approach to this article is from the angle of wanting to reference the kuwaiti oil fires as the largest oil spill in history, however they fires weren't oil spills as the oils residence time in the atmosphere was measured in milliseconds and the oil itself did not cause any environmental damage, only the combustion products of the oil caused poor air quality and environmental damage that was categorically of a different nature than the environmental damage from actual oil spills, and anyway, aren't the oil spills from the 46 land based gushers together with the sea based portion of the Gulf War oil spill not greater than the Lakeview Gusher? So you succeed anyway? Why are you so interested in falsely ascribing the oil fires as oil spills? If you're interested in packaging them all as acts of sabotage, which they were, then that is a war related discussion and should go in the Gulf War article. If you want to describe all the acts of oil sabotage as a single environmental insult then that's really stretching it as the environmental effects of the fires are so different from the oil spills.

 * Why not edit the Gulf War oil spill article to include the contribution from the 46 land based gushers? That seems like the logical thing, at least to me. All you'd have to do is copy the material from this article that deals with the effects of the gushers?

 * Lastly, during the second US invasion of Iraq in 2003, oil wells(30 to 50) were once again set on fire in the Persian gulf and these fires weren't described as oil spills, | here * | here likewise this recent Oil well fire on Baku Hafiz Heydarov in May 2014 was not described as an oil spill.|here
 * So your bizarre definition of an oil spill to include oil well fires is seemingly not supported by anyone else and so, as per WP:USEBYOTHERS, the article largest oil spills should not include fires like those at Kuwait in 1991 & Iraq in 2003 as NO reliable agency actually classifies the act of burning of oil as one in the same as the act of spilling oil.

 * 92.251.207.0 (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

 * Clearly you're not going to accept any definition other than your own, and you're still missing every point I've made. The whole point of this debate was to suggest that the Kuwaiti Oil Lakes and the Gulf War Oil Spill should be mentioned together with the paragraph discussing the extent of oil destroyed by the fires.  And this point has been consistently ignored throughout the entire debate, as you focus on whether or not the fires are classified as an oil spill.  Now you're even trying to move that debate over to the oil spill article, without dealing with the issue at hand here.  If you're not willing to work toward consensus, then please, just drop the issue.  P Aculeius (talk) 04:53, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

 * Why should info on oil spills be cataloged in an article about oil fires and in a section of that article quantifying the amount of oil burnt? I simply moved the info on the oil spills down the article to their rightful place. In an article on oil fires readers aren't expecting to be reading about oil spills that did not go on fire.

 * If you could find some reliable sources that state that the Iraqi's didn't intend to create unburning oil lakes, that is, the 46 gushers were due to poor arson efforts, then it might make sense to mention that under "The extent of the fires" section. A sentence like - "the number of oil well fires would have been larger by 46 if the Iraqi's had succeeded in igniting all the oil wells they had planned for."
 * Apart from something along those lines, I fail to see the logic in including paragraphs on spills in a section detailing the extent of fires.
 * 31.200.164.150 (talk) 03:02, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

An IP user's recent edits, requesting feedback
I'm generally happy with the article as it stands now, I've tagged a few things needing references that I wasn't able to find and also tagged one statement needing clarification.

The paragraph tagged for clarification is this- "At the peak of the fires, the smoke absorbed 75 to 80% of the sun’s radiation. The particles rose to a maximum of 20,000 ft, but were scavenged from the atmosphere relatively quickly.

My rationale for the tagging is that, from my understanding, soot isn't "scavenged"/(chemically attacked by atmospheric molecules) very quickly and is but a minor pathway for the removal of soot from the air, regardless of if it's from Diesel trucks or the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires, from my atmospheric science modules in college I came to the understanding that soot and particulate matter in general is removed from the air most commonly by physically being rained out, as it acts like a cloud condensation nuclei, being removed by wet deposition and/or it falls out via dry deposition. Chemical Scavenging only removes a small percentage of it.

So although the reference is a good one, I'd like some clarification on why the author appears to suggest chemical scavenging lay behind the removal of the soot, and if chemical scavenging did lay behind the majority of the soot's removal, how did they determine this, were experiments conducted etc?

I'd be interested in finding out.

31.200.144.195 (talk) 15:52, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

10, 20, or 23 years later: what do we know?
The article seems to be rather short on the long-term results: the clean-up, revegetation (where vegetation was previously), etc. What happened to the steel? ... the oil-drenched sand? (covered over with more sand? collected in dump trucks? forgotten about?)

Surely science teams and survey teams have documented the situation after n years. It seems the article might be much improved with a section on this topic, explicating the research on the long term outcome. N2e (talk) 03:24, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

 * You are right, there should be at least a paragraph on the clean-up or lack thereof. There is a bit on the long term effects from the Gulf War oil spill as that was into the thriving habitat of the sea, but there is very little(the last time I checked) on the oil drenched "tarcrete" sand. You sould be bold & look it up in Environmental remediation journals, if the info is anywhere, it'd be there.
 * 92.251.182.174 (talk) 21:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

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Environmental Impact Section
Why is there so much information about what people (namely Carl Sagan) thought would happen? I think a one or two line paragraph that said "some scientists, such as Carl Sagan, were concerned that the smoke would reach the stratosphere. This prediction turned out to be incorrect." and then just stick to what the actual effects were. Flipster14191 (talk) 17:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Kuwaiti oil fires


text:
Head coach

American football

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A college coach acts as the face of a team, in a sport where the players regularly depart after a few years, compared to some coaches who have been in the same position for over a generation. They are often called upon to discuss off-the-field incidents such as rule infractions or player antics. Sometimes, the coach becomes a celebrity in his own right, such as Lou Holtz.

In a majority of states, the head coach of a public university's football or men's basketball program is by far the highest-paid state public official, well above the salary of the state's governor.

At the end of the year, there are numerous college football coach of the year awards given out. Major annual coaching honors include the Home Depot Coach of the Year, the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award, the Associated Press College Football Coach of the Year Award, and the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award.

National Football League
At the professional level, head coaches often earn several million dollars a year, although there is considerable overlap between the salaries paid to top-earning college coaches and the range of salaries paid to head coaches in the National Football League. Since they do not have to travel the country recruiting high school players, head coaches at the professional level have much more time to devote to tactics and playbooks, which are coordinated with staff who are typically paid even more than at the college level. They typically report to the general manager.

Many factors are part of NFL coaches' contracts. These involve the NFL's $11 billion as the highest revenue sport, exceeding Major League Baseball's (MLB) $7 billion. The NFL's coaches are among the highest-paid professional coaches with professional football salaries topping a 2011 Forbes article on the highest-paid sports coaches.

Another major element of NFL coaches' contracts, negotiated between individual coaches and NFL teams/owners, are NFL-demanded provisions in the employment contracts of coaches that authorize the employing NFL teams to withhold part of a coach's salary when league operations are suspended, such as lockouts or television contract negotiations.

Salary
In 2013, the average annual salary for a head coach in the National Football League was $6.45 million.

Association football
In association football, a head coach has the same responsibilities as in any other sport. For instance, in European countries, a head coach usually picks their coaching staff. The main difference is a head coach usually works with a director of football, with the latter responsible for player recruitment and negotiating contracts. In the United Kingdom, these roles are combined in the position of manager.

In some countries, an individual may be granted a position as senior coach and acts as the first assistant to the head coach or runs a junior squad in the club. In the absence of a head coach, a senior coach can temporarily take over as an interim head coach (or caretaker manager).

Australian rules football or AFL
In Australian rules football, the head coach, or senior coach, is responsible for developing and implementing appropriate training programs for his players. The senior coach in the AFL is also responsible for determining the rotations and team lineups for each game. Moreover, the coaches are not the only ones involved in team operations, as in AFL teams, up to five different coaches may have their unique responsibilities. For example, there can be a forward, a midfield, and a defense coach, each focusing on a particular position. Thus, each coach works with players in those positions.

Rugby union
Rugby football union clubs have the option of employing a director of rugby (DoR), a head coach, or both. The responsibilities for each role vary between clubs. Generally, if a club decides to employ one of either a DoR or a head coach, it will hold more responsibility than if it employs individuals for both roles. It has been proposed that the DoR is a club-wide position, providing and ensuring the club is working towards a shared philosophy from youth teams to senior teams. Whereas a head coach is focused purely on planning and implementing coaching for the first team; alongside a coaching team consisting of a mixture of defense, attack, forwards, backs, skills and strength and conditioning coaches.

American track and field
Head coaching responsibilities for American or USA Track & Field vary depending on the level of the sport.

College track and field

Bill Bowerman was an American track and field head coach for the University of Oregon and co-founder of Nike, Inc.

American Distance Running
Head coaching responsibilities for Long-distance running vary depending on the level of the sport.

College Cross Country
At the college or University level, Cross-country running head coaching responsibilities vary widely depending on the program's budget and staffing.

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

title: Head coach


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Short ton

The short ton (abbreviation tn ) is a measurement unit equal to 2,000 lb. It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton; however, the term is ambiguous, the single word "ton" being variously used for short, long, and metric tons.

The various tons are defined as units of mass. They are sometimes used as units of weight, the force exerted by a mass at standard gravity (e.g., short ton-force). One short ton exerts a weight at one standard gravity of 2,000 pound-force (lbf).

United States
In the United States, a short ton is usually known simply as a "ton", without distinguishing it from the tonne (1000 kg), known there as the "metric ton", or the long ton also known as the "imperial ton" (2240 lb). There are, however, some U.S. applications where unspecified tons normally mean long tons (for example, naval ships) or metric tons (world grain production figures).

Both the long and short ton are defined as 20 hundredweights, but a hundredweight is 100 lb in the US system (short or net hundredweight) and 112 lb in the imperial system (long or gross hundredweight).

A short ton–force is 2000 lb-f.

title: Short ton


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Renegades

Renegades or The Renegades may refer to:

Books

 * The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker
 * Renegades (novel), a 2017 novel by Marissa Meyer

Film and television

 * Renegades (1930 film), starring Myrna Loy
 * Renegades (1946 film), starring Evelyn Keyes
 * Renegades (1989 film), starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips
 * Renegades (2017 film), starring Sullivan Stapleton and J.K. Simmons
 * Renegades (2022 film), starring Nick Moran
 * G.I. Joe: Renegades, 2010–2011 G.I. Joe animated series
 * Renegades (Gobots), the villains in the Gobots fiction and toy series
 * The Renegades (TV series), 1983 American television series
 * Star Trek: Renegades (2015), Star Trek fan film pilot

Music

 * The Renegades (band), a 1960s British-Finnish rock band headed by Kim Brown
 * Renegades (band), a side-project of the band Feeder

Albums

 * Renegades (Rage Against the Machine album), 2000
 * Renegades, a 1984 album by Brass Construction
 * Renegades (Nicole Mitchell album), 2009
 * Renegades (Feeder album), 2010
 * Renegades (Equilibrium album), 2019
 * Renegades, a 2020 album by L.A. Guns

Songs

 * "Renegades" (Feeder song), 2010
 * "Renegades" (X Ambassadors song), 2015
 * "Renegades" (One Ok Rock song), 2021

Podcasts

 * Renegades: Born in the USA, 2021 podcast hosted by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen

Sports teams

 * Renegades (esports), American esports team
 * Arlington Renegades, an American football team
 * Bakersfield College Renegades, American sports team
 * Berkshire Renegades (formerly the Reading Renegades), a British American football team
 * Boston Renegades, US women's soccer team
 * Hudson Valley Renegades, US minor league baseball team
 * Melbourne Renegades, Australian cricket team in Big Bash League
 * Mt Riv Renegades, Australian basketball team
 * Orlando Renegades, 1985 United States Football League team
 * Ottawa Renegades, Canadian Football League team
 * Richmond Renegades (1990–2003), US ECHL ice hockey team
 * Rome Renegades, US indoor football team (American football)
 * Zurich Renegades, American football team from Zürich, Switzerland

Other

 * Renegade Twins, professional wrestling tag-team

title: Renegades


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Harry Brecheen

Harry David Brecheen (,, October 14, 1914 – January 17, 2004), nicknamed "the Cat", was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played most of his career for the St. Louis Cardinals. In the late 1940s, he was among the team's stars, in 1946 becoming the first left-hander ever to win three games in a single World Series, and the only pitcher ever to win consecutive World Series games. He later led the National League in several categories in 1948.

Bracheen's career World Series earned run average of 0.83 was a major league record from 1946 to 1976. From 1951 to 1971, he held the Cardinals' franchise record for career strikeouts by a left-hander, and he also retired with the fourth-highest fielding percentage among pitchers (.983), then the top mark among left-handers.

Early life
Born in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, Brecheen was acquired by the Cardinals in 1938 from the Chicago Cubs after two minor league seasons, but made only three relief appearances during 1940 and did not pitch again at the major league level until 1943. He was nicknamed "The Cat" because of his ability to cover bunts.

Career
Brecheen appeared in three games, all in relief, in 1940. Exempted from military service during World War II with a 4-F classification due to a spinal malformation and a boyhood ankle injury, he pitched in the 1943 and 1944 World Series. In 1943, Brecheen pitched in 29 games, starting 13 of them. He went 9–6 with a 2.29 earned run average in 135 innings pitched. The next season, he went 16–5. Brecheen won game four of the 1944 World Series against the St. Louis Browns. He was key to the Cardinals' upset win over the Boston Red Sox in the 1946 World Series as he won three games during the series. Brecheen recorded his finest season in 1948, posting a win–loss record of 20–7 with 21 complete games and led the league in earned run average (2.24), strikeouts (149) and shutouts (7).

A two-time All-Star, Brecheen's overall career record was 133 wins and 92 losses, with a 2.92 earned run average over 12 seasons. After breaking Bill Sherdel's club record for career strikeouts by a left-hander in 1951, he held the mark until Steve Carlton surpassed it in 1971. Brecheen's 25 career shutouts remain the Cardinal record for left-handers. His career World Series ERA of 0.83 stood as the record (with at least 25 innings) until Jack Billingham broke it in 1976 with a mark of 0.36.

Playing his entire career for St. Louis teams, Brecheen ended his career in 1953 as a playing coach with the St. Louis Browns; it was that team's final season in the city before their move to Baltimore. He won his only start of the 1944 Series, which matched the city's two teams.

As a hitter, Brecheen was better than average for a pitcher, posting a .192 batting average (129-for-673) with 48 runs, 2 home runs, 44 RBI and 45 bases on balls.

Brecheen's screwball was ranked the eighth-best of all time by Bill James and Rob Neyer.

Later life
Following his playing career, Brecheen remained with the Browns when they became the Baltimore Orioles. His playing career ended in 1954 when he hurt his arm trying to pick up a suitcase, but he remained with the organization as their pitching coach from 1954 to 1967. While coaching the Orioles pitchers for the next 14 years, the Orioles’ staff ranked in the top four in ERA. He trained many young pitchers including Billy O'Dell, Jack Fisher, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Steve Barber, Chuck Estrada, Jerry Walker and Milt Pappas.

He was also successful with turning around the careers of veterans. In 1959, he converted 36-year-old Hoyt Wilhelm into a starter and the knuckleballer led the league with a 2.19 era and a 15-11 record. With Brecheen's help, seemingly washed up Phillies legend Robin Roberts made a successful comeback with the Orioles after going 1-10 with a 5.85 ERA in 1961. Roberts would win 42 games with the Orioles over his 3 1/2 years with Baltimore. Brecheen was let go after the 1967 season after too many promising Orioles pitchers turned up with arm troubles during his long tenure. He was voted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1997. He died at age 89 in a nursing facility in Bethany, Oklahoma.

title: Harry Brecheen


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User talk:Nedlowe

Hi Ned, welcome to Wikipedia. Hope you've having a fun time. I noticed you moved the contents of Imperial College, London to its proper name Imperial College London by copying and pasting text. Whilst its great your took the time to get the name right, copying and pasting isn't the best way to do it, because the authorship of the text is lost. i.e. if you had clicked Page History it would've seemed like you had written all the text at Imperial College London rather than other people. The way to avoid this in the future is to use the "Move this page" feature to move a badly-named page, this automatically handles getting the history of the moved-page right. I have fixed this for Imperial already, but just so you know for next time. If you need a hand with anything else, please give me a shout. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 19:09, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I'm afraid I've had to mark City and Guilds College Union and Imperial College Electrical and Electronic Engineering Society as possible copyright violations because they were copy and pasted from websites. If you had permission to do this, please let us know. Thanks, Morwen 19:11, Mar 17, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, the City and Guilds College Union page needs some work, you should probably check the Tutorial regarding faux-pas, particularly regarding the voice in which the article is written. Best, MattJ 18:34, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

AfD nomination of City and Guilds College Union
City and Guilds College Union, an article you created, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that City and Guilds College Union satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/City and Guilds College Union and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of City and Guilds College Union during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. ⇒   SWAT Jester    Denny Crane.  05:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Nedlowe


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Jenkins Commission (UK)

The Independent Commission on the Voting System, popularly known as the Jenkins Commission after its chairman Roy Jenkins, was a commission into possible reform of the United Kingdom electoral system.

The commission
The commission was set up in December 1997 by the Labour government with the support of the Liberal Democrats, to investigate alternatives to the single member plurality (or "first past the post") electoral system used for British general elections. A referendum was planned on whether to change the voting system.

The commission was asked to take into account four requirements:

 * 1) broad proportionality,
 * 2) the need for stable government,
 * 3) an extension of voter choice, and
 * 4) the maintenance of a link between MPs and geographical constituencies.

The commission reported in September 1998 and suggested the alternative vote top-up or AV+ system, which would directly elect some MPs by the alternative vote, with a number of additional members elected from top up lists similarly to Mixed-member proportional representation. The commission considered a single transferable vote system but rejected it because it would require massive constituencies of around 350,000 electors resulting in an oppressive degree of choice (i.e. too many candidates to choose from). Also, they described the counting of votes in STV as "incontestably opaque" and argued that different counting systems could produce different results. Finally, Jenkins rejected STV because it was a different system from those used in European and devolved parliaments, as well as the London Assembly.

Actions taken from the commission
No action was taken by the Labour government to change the electoral system.

After the 2010 election, with a hung parliament, and the Liberal Democrats potentially holding the balance of power, AV+ was again the subject of discussion, as a potential part of a coalition deal. However, the eventual coalition's deal – between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives – specified that there would be a referendum on "the introduction of the Alternative Vote". This was confirmed in February 2011, when the referendum on AV (not AV+) was approved by Parliament.

The referendum took place on Thursday 5 May 2011, resulting in a 67.9% "No" vote, in favour of keeping the existing first-past-the-post; versus 32.1% "Yes" in favour of moving to AV. Of 440 voting areas (based on Parliamentary constituencies) only 10 of the 440 areas returned "yes" votes in favour of AV, of which six were in London, the others being Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin.

title: Jenkins Commission (UK)


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User talk:Jorend

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) 22:12, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jorend


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Batna Province

Batna Province (ولاية باتنة, ) is a province of Algeria, in the region of Aurès. The capital is Batna. Localities in this province include N'Gaous, Merouana and Timgad. Belezma National Park is in the Belezma Range area of the province.

Administrative divisions
It is made up of 21 districts and 61 municipalities.

The districts are:

 * 1) Aïn Djasser
 * 2) Aïn Touta
 * 3) Arris
 * 4) Barika
 * 5) Batna
 * 6) Bouzina
 * 7) Chemora
 * 8) Djezzar
 * 9) El Madher
 * 10) Ichmoul
 * 11) Menaâ
 * 12) Merouana
 * 13) N'Gaous
 * 14) Ouled Si Slimane
 * 15) Ras El Aioun
 * 16) Seggana
 * 17) Seriana
 * 18) T'Kout
 * 19) Tazoult
 * 20) Théniet El Abed
 * 21) Timgad

The municipalities are:

 * 1) Aïn Djasser
 * 2) Aïn Touta
 * 3) Aïn Yagout
 * 4) Amantan
 * 5) Amdoukal
 * 6) Arris
 * 7) N'Gaous
 * 8) Batna
 * 9) Ben Foudhala El Hakania
 * 10) Bitam
 * 11) Boulhilat
 * 12) Boumagueur
 * 13) Boumia
 * 14) Bouzina
 * 15) Djerma
 * 16) Djezzar
 * 17) Draa Etine
 * 18) El Hassi
 * 19) El Madher
 * 20) Fesdis
 * 21) Foum Toub
 * 22) Ghassira
 * 23) Chemora
 * 24) Gosbat
 * 25) Guigba
 * 26) Hayat
 * 27) Hidoussa
 * 28) Ichmoul
 * 29) Inoughissen
 * 30) Kimmel
 * 31) Ksar Bellezma
 * 32) Larbaâ
 * 33) Lazrou
 * 34) Lemsane
 * 35) Mâafa
 * 36) Menâa
 * 37) Merouana
 * 38) Metkaouak
 * 39) N'Gaous
 * 40) Chir
 * 41) Oued Chaâba
 * 42) Oued El Ma
 * 43) Oued Taga
 * 44) Ouled Ammar
 * 45) Ouled Aouf
 * 46) Ouled Fadel
 * 47) Ouled Sellam
 * 48) Ouled Si Slimane
 * 49) Ouyoun El Assafir
 * 50) Rahbat
 * 51) Ras Ei Aioun
 * 52) Sefiane
 * 53) Seggana
 * 54) Seriana
 * 55) Talkhamt
 * 56) Taxlent
 * 57) Tazoult
 * 58) Teniet El Abed
 * 59) Tighanimine
 * 60) Tigherghar
 * 61) Tilatou
 * 62) Timgad
 * 63) Tkout
 * 64) Zana El Beida

Geography
The origins of the name of the city and province of Batna are not clear, but most historians agree that it is of Arabic origin: m'batna, meaning: "Where we sleep this night". Capital of the highlands situated between the Tell Atlas in the north and the Saharan Atlas in the south, with the Chott el Hodna in the middle, it constitutes a naturally protected passage between south and north. Its climate is moderate, hot and dry during summer time, due to its altitude (it being 800 metres above sea level) the winter is tough, snowy and at times cold (with temperatures of -15 °C recorded on some cold winter nights). This geo-political position is the origin of the last economy merging city due to a high commercial exchange rate between the north's seaward opening, and the south's source of all the wealth of the country (including reserves of oil, natural gas, iron and many minerals).

Population
Batna City is the fourth largest Algerian city in terms of population; the number of permanent inhabitants is estimated by the Office National de Recencement at 446,000 (as of 2000), though other sources closer to the province estimate closer to one million. A large part of the population is largely mixed from all surrounding villages which suffer from a heavy unemployment rate and isolation. The natives are named "Tamazight", or in the local dialect: "Chaouyas", (the plural of Chaoui). The presence of the Tamazight is historically established; the locals refer to "Jugurtha", "Massinissa" and especially "Dihya" or so called "Kahina", as their ascendants and history. The local resistance to the repetitive invasions is a source of proud and trivial culture; Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and French. The word "Tamazight" in Chaoui (Berber) language means "Free men". As opposed to the surrounding villages (e.g. Arris, Fesdis, Ain Yagout, Kais, N'gaous, Merouana, Djerma, El Madher, Ouled Nail) where you can find pure chaoui, the city of Batna itself is very heterogeneous, including chaoui from Batna (like Ouled Sidi Yahia, Ouled Boujamâa), Biskra and Khenchla but also many non-berber or mixed families from the Algerian desert (from places such as Oued Souf, Tougourt, Msila and Ouled Jelle) and other places from the west, explaining the fact that the city is mostly arabophone.

Economy
The economy is based on heavy industry launched during the first half of the 1970s. With chemicals, as well as with an industrial and textile base, the region attracts people from the whole region. The city offers a large choice of university orientation (15,000 students in 2001). The city urban structure is based on the old town buildings, narrow and highly populated; the actual city expansion policy is based on heavy works done the surrounding mountain flanks to provide enough buildable space.

Life level
The rapid expansion of the city in the last 10 years is mainly due to the open market policy of the previous government, which was a benefit for many, but in the same way penalized many of the middle-class.

The continuously growing city results in an extreme level of inflation especially on the real estate domain where prices reach extreme levels (for example, ownership of one square meter of land in the city center costs $1000) where the lowest paid salaries are in the region of $180.

Social life
The cultural aspect of the city was active during a time when the local theater group was giving continuous and innovating performances. The city consisted of 12 cinemas and 2 "cinemathèques", one culture house and many open museums across the province. Due to recent events, security problems and an influx of population into the city, the cultural life has been heavily affected, though recently, thanks to the work of young artists, culture is once again on the public scene.

title: Batna Province


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Cochrane Theatre

The Cochrane Theatre, previously known as the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre, was a receiving and producing theatre situated in Holborn, London, that opened in 1964. It is now used for television filming.

History
The theatre opened in 1963 and was named after its founder, Jeannetta Cochrane, who was a theatre practitioner specialising in costume and scenery design at the Central School of Art and Design, now part of the University of the Arts London. Through her persistence, Cochrane persuaded the London County Council to build a theatre attached to the school that could be used as a practice space. The theatre has a traditional proscenium arch and fly tower consisting of 41 counterweight flying bars, orchestra pit and a fully functioning paint frame (a rarity in London theatres).

From 1991 to 1995, Talawa Theatre Company had its home at the Cochrane Theatre.

The Cochrane closed in January 2012 when Central St Martin's moved to a new site near King's Cross (unifying what had been disparate locations for different parts of the college), with the new venue having its own theatre, the Platform Theatre.

Its owners since 2011, Grange Hotels, are set to demolish the building.

Television productions
In June 2015 Channel 4 filmed a TFI Friday special at the theatre and a series of ten shows were produced live in October through December 2015.

Cochrane Theatre was chosen for the new series as the original location of Riverside Studios where the show was filmed has been demolished and is being redeveloped, due for completion in autumn 2017.

ITV's late night chat show The Nightly Show was filmed at the Cochrane Theatre in 2017.

Channel 5's Do the Right Thing with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford was filmed at the Cochrane Theatre in 2019.

title: Cochrane Theatre


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Gadget

A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos.

History
The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in glassmaking that was developed as a spring pontil. As stated in the glass dictionary published by the Corning Museum of Glass, a gadget is a "metal rod with a spring clip that grips the foot of a vessel and so avoids the use of a pontil". Gadgets were first used in the late 18th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is anecdotal evidence for the use of "gadget" as a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one can't remember since the 1850s; with Robert Brown's 1886 book Spunyarn and Spindrift, A sailor boy's log of a voyage out and home in a China tea-clipper containing the earliest known usage in print.

A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was "invented" when Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, the company behind the repoussé construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886), made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm; however this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the fact that it did not become popular, at least in the US, until after World War I. Other sources cite a derivation from the French gâchette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gagée, a small tool or accessory.

The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries contains a multi-article entry on the word "gadget" (12 S. iv. 187). H. Tapley-Soper of The City Library, Exeter, writes:

A discussion arose at the Plymouth meeting of the Devonshire Association in 1916 when it was suggested that this word should be recorded in the list of local verbal provincialisms. Several members dissented from its inclusion on the ground that it is in common use throughout the country; and a naval officer who was present said that it has for years been a popular expression in the service for a tool or implement, the exact name of which is unknown or has for the moment been forgotten. I have also frequently heard it applied by motor-cycle friends to the collection of fitments to be seen on motor cycles. 'His handle-bars are smothered in gadgets' refers to such things as speedometers, mirrors, levers, badges, mascots, &c., attached to the steering handles. The 'jigger' or short-rest used in billiards is also often called a 'gadget'; and the name has been applied by local platelayers to the 'gauge' used to test the accuracy of their work. In fact, to borrow from present-day Army slang, 'gadget' is applied to 'any old thing.'

The usage of the term in military parlance extended beyond the navy. In the book Above the Battle by Vivian Drake, published in 1918 by D. Appleton & Co., of New York and London, being the memoirs of a pilot in the British Royal Flying Corps, there is the following passage: "Our ennui was occasionally relieved by new gadgets—'gadget' is the Flying Corps slang for invention! Some gadgets were good, some comic and some extraordinary."

By the second half of the twentieth century, the term "gadget" had taken on the connotations of compactness and mobility. In the 1965 essay "The Great Gizmo" (a term used interchangeably with "gadget" throughout the essay), the architectural and design critic Reyner Banham defines the item as:

A characteristic class of US products––perhaps the most characteristic––is a small self-contained unit of high performance in relation to its size and cost, whose function is to transform some undifferentiated set of circumstances to a condition nearer human desires. The minimum of skills is required in its installation and use, and it is independent of any physical or social infrastructure beyond that by which it may be ordered from catalogue and delivered to its prospective user. A class of servants to human needs, these clip-on devices, these portable gadgets, have coloured American thought and action far more deeply––I suspect––than is commonly understood.

Other uses
The first atomic bomb was nicknamed the gadget by the Scientists of the Manhattan Project, tested at the Trinity site.

Application gadgets
In the software industry, Gadget refers to computer programs that provide services without needing an independent application to be launched for each one, but instead run in an environment that manages multiple gadgets. There are several implementations based on existing software development techniques, like JavaScript, form input, and various image formats. Proprietary formats include Google Desktop, Google Gadgets, Microsoft Gadgets, the AmigaOS Workbench and dashboard software Apple Widgets.

The earliest documented use of the term gadget in context of software engineering was in 1985 by the developers of AmigaOS, the operating system of the Amiga computers (intuition.library and also later gadtools.library). It denotes what other technological traditions call GUI widget—a control element in graphical user interface. This naming convention remains in continuing use (as of 2008) since then.

The X11 windows system 'Intrinsics' also defines gadgets and their relationship to widgets (buttons, labels, etc.). The gadget was a windowless widget which was supposed to improve the performance of the application by reducing the memory load on the X server. A gadget would use the Window id of its parent widget and had no children of its own.

It is not known whether other software companies are explicitly drawing on that inspiration when featuring the word in names of their technologies or simply referring to the generic meaning. The word widget is older in this context. In the movie "Back to School" from 1986 by Alan Metter, there is a scene where an economics professor Dr. Barbay, wants to start for educational purposes a fictional company that produces "widgets: It's a fictional product."

title: Gadget