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Fernando González

Fernando Francisco González Ciuffardi (born 29 July 1980) is a Chilean former professional tennis player. During his career, he reached at least the quarterfinals of all four major tournaments. He contested his only major final at the 2007 Australian Open, losing to top-seeded Roger Federer. González is the fourth man in history to have won an Olympic tennis medal in every color, with gold in doubles and bronze in singles at Athens 2004, and silver in singles at Beijing 2008. The gold medal that González won partnering Nicolás Massú at the 2004 Olympics in men's doubles was Chile's first-ever Olympic gold medal. During his career, González defeated many top players, including Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Federer (all while they held the top spot), Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Moyá, Gustavo Kuerten, Marat Safin, Pete Sampras, and Andy Murray. González qualified twice for the year-end Masters Cup event and was runner-up at two Masters Series tournaments. González was known for having one of the strongest forehands on the tour. In Spanish he is nicknamed El Bombardero de La Reina ("The Bomber from La Reina") and Mano de Piedra ("Hand of Stone").

Early years
At the age of four, González split his time playing both football and tennis. His father, an amateur tennis player, was able to persuade his son to choose tennis over football. González began playing tennis at the age of six and moved with his family to La Reina, in eastern Santiago, where he practiced with his coach Claudio González (no relation) at Club La Reina three times a week.

In 1988, when he was eight years old, González and his father spent a month and a half in the United States, training and participating in tennis championships. In 1992, his entire family moved to the U.S. for four years. They settled in Miami, where González honed his skills at the Patricio Apey Academy.

González played his first junior match in August 1995 at the age of 15, at a grade 5 tournament in El Salvador. As a junior, he won the US Open boys' doubles (with compatriot Nicolás Massú) in 1997, and the French Open singles (defeating a young Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final) and doubles (with Venezuelan José de Armas) in 1998. That year, at the age of 17, he made his Davis Cup debut in Chile's tie against Argentina, losing in four sets to Franco Squillari. He won his first Davis Cup tie in a doubles rubber, partnering with Massú. González reached as high as No. 4 in the world in singles and No. 2 in doubles.

González achieved success at the Futures level in 1998. In the three Futures events held in Chile that year, he reached two semifinals and defeated Italian Enzo Artoni in the final in Santiago.

Junior Grand Slam results - Singles:

Australian Open: A (-)

French Open: W (1998)

Wimbledon: 3R (1997)

US Open: QF (1998)

Junior Grand Slam results - Doubles:

Australian Open: A (-)

French Open: W (1998)

Wimbledon: 1R (1997)

US Open: W (1997)

1999–2004
González became a professional in 1999. Early in the year, he played mainly at the Futures level. He reached his first Challenger quarterfinal in Edinburgh and played his first ATP tournament in Washington, where he defeated Ivan Ljubičić in the first round before losing to Marc Rosset.

González won his first ATP Tour title in May 2000 when he defeated Massú at the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships final in Orlando, Florida. It was the first all-Chilean ATP final since Jaime Fillol defeated Ricardo Acuña in the 1982 Itaparica final.

In January 2001, González played at the Australian Open for the first time, losing in the first round to Guillermo Coria in four sets. In May, he made his debut at Roland Garros's main singles draw, reaching the second round. He continued to play Challengers and smaller ATP events throughout the year, with notable results including a final at the Montevideo Challenger (losing to David Nalbandian), and semifinals at Zagreb and Lima.

In February 2002, González won his second career ATP title in Viña del Mar by defeating Nicolás Lapentti in the final. Later that year, he won his third title in Palermo, Italy, and reached the semifinals at the Cincinnati Masters (defeating seeded Tim Henman and Andy Roddick en route), and the quarterfinals at the US Open. In September, he surpassed former No. 1 player Marcelo Ríos as the top Chilean in the singles rankings and was one of the most improved players on the ATP Tour, jumping 123 positions in the ATP singles rankings.

In May 2003, González reached the quarterfinals of Hamburg and the French Open. In between, he won the World Team Cup for Chile, winning all his singles and doubles matches. Later that year, he reached the finals of Washington and Metz and made the Stuttgart semifinals. In doubles, he and partner Tommy Robredo reached the semifinals in Miami.

In February 2004, González repeated his Viña del Mar title by defeating Gustavo Kuerten in the final. He also retained the World Team Cup with Chile. In August, at the Olympic Games in Athens, he and doubles partner Massú gave their country its first-ever Olympic gold medal when they defeated Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schüttler of Germany to win the men's doubles tournament. He also won a bronze medal in the men's singles. González had to play the bronze medal match against Taylor Dent and the doubles final on the same day. Additionally, he saved match points in both games, most notably four match points in the doubles final in the fourth-set tiebreak.

2005

González began the season by taking the title in Auckland, New Zealand, which was his first hard court title. In April, he won his first ATP doubles tournament (and second after the Olympics) in Valencia (clay) with doubles partner Martín Rodríguez. After reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in June, he went on to win the ATP tournament in Amersfoort (clay), Netherlands, in the following month. He further proved his all-court versatility by winning the indoors-carpet singles title at Basel and also won the doubles title in the same tournament with partner Agustín Calleri. His results in 2005 were good enough for him to attend the year-end Masters Cup in Shanghai first as a reserve and then as a player after the withdrawal of Andre Agassi following his first match. González became the first Chilean to win a Masters match when he beat Mariano Puerta and missed out on making the semifinal—and finishing the year as No. 11—after losing to Gastón Gaudio in a match in which he had three match points.

2006
In April, González became the third Chilean (after Ríos and Massú) to break into the top 10 singles ranking. In May, he reached No. 10 in the world after winning a quarterfinal match at the Monte-Carlo Masters, shortly after parting ways with longtime coach Horacio de la Peña. He was then replaced by Larry Stefanki. After reaching his first Masters Series singles final in Madrid (losing to Roger Federer in straight sets) in October, he ascended to world No. 7. He finished the year ranked No. 10.

2007
In January, González reached the Australian Open singles final, becoming the first Chilean to have reached the quarterfinals in all four Grand Slam tournaments ,and the fourth Chilean (third male) to reach a Grand Slam final. En route to the final, he defeated Evgeny Korolev, Juan Martín del Potro, Lleyton Hewitt, James Blake, world No. 2 Rafael Nadal, and Tommy Haas. He lost to world No. 1, Roger Federer, in (relatively close) straight sets. On 29 January, he jumped to No. 5, his best career singles ranking, only five points behind No. 4. In May, he became the first Chilean to reach the finals of the Rome Masters since Ríos won the title in 1998. At the US Open, González was upset by Teymuraz Gabashvili in a five-set thriller. From July to August, González went on a five-match losing streak, which ended in September when he captured the China Open tournament title in Beijing. In November, he became the first Chilean since Ríos in 1998 to directly qualify for the Tennis Masters Cup. In his opening match, he staged a huge upset by beating top-ranked Federer for the first time in eleven encounters. He then lost to Andy Roddick and Nikolay Davydenko, finishing last in his group. He ended the season at No. 7, his highest year-end ranking to date.

2008
At the Australian Open in January, González failed to defend all his points from the previous year, causing him to fall from No. 7 to No. 24 in the ATP singles rankings. However, he bounced back the following week, winning his home event at Viña del Mar for the third time and rising to No. 16. In May, he won his tenth ATP title at the BMW Open in Munich. The following month, he reached the quarterfinals of the French Open for the second time, losing to top seed Roger Federer in four sets.

In August, González represented Chile at the Beijing Olympics in both singles and doubles events, where he was his country's standard-bearer at the opening ceremony. As in Athens 2004, he partnered with Massú in doubles, but was unable to defend his gold, exiting in the first round. In singles, he improved his Olympic record, clinching a silver medal after beating James Blake in the semifinals. In the gold medal match, he lost in straight sets to Rafael Nadal. At the US Open in September, he lost in the fourth round to former local champion Andy Roddick, 2–6, 4–6, 1–6. He ended the season at No. 15. In November, at the end of the season, Stefanki stopped coaching González after receiving a job offer from Roddick. On 12 December, González announced he had hired former Argentine player Martín Rodríguez as his new full-time coach for 2009.

2009
In the first round of the Australian Open, González prevailed in a five-set thriller over Lleyton Hewitt, which lasted for 3 hours and 7 minutes. In the third round, he came back from two sets down to defeat Richard Gasquet of France in a match that lasted over four hours, with a score of 3–6, 3–6, 7–6, 6–2, 12–10. However, he bowed out of the tournament with a straight-sets defeat against world No. 1 and eventual champion Rafael Nadal in the fourth round.

At the Viña del Mar tournament in February, González claimed victory once again, taking the title for the fourth time in five finals. He overpowered all of his opponents with a solid display of tennis and did not drop a set throughout the entire tournament. In the final, he defeated his good friend José Acasuso, 6–1, 6–3. With this win, he returned to the top 15 in singles.

In early March, González missed the Davis Cup tie against Croatia due to a back injury. In April, he resigned from the Chile Davis Cup team, citing a violation of a confidentiality agreement. The local tennis federation had disclosed the amount of money won by the players at the tie against Australia. He conditioned his return on the resignation of the federation's current directive and promised to relinquish all his future Davis Cup proceeds for the "benefit of younger players."

At the start of the clay-court season, González reached the semifinals in Barcelona and Rome. However, he had to withdraw from Munich and Madrid after twisting his ankle while signing autographs in Rome. At the French Open, he reached the semifinals for the first time by beating third seed Andy Murray in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, he played Robin Söderling, who had previously defeated top seed Rafael Nadal and Nikolay Davydenko. González came just two games away from winning that match during the fifth set, after holding an advantage of 4–1.

At the US Open, González reached the quarterfinals for the second time, beating seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the fourth round. He was defeated by third seed Rafael Nadal in a match repeatedly delayed by rain. The match was suspended on Thursday night with González trailing, 6–7, 6–6, down 2–3 in the tiebreaker. When the match resumed on Saturday, González was visibly flat, losing the remaining four points in the tiebreaker and not winning a game in the third set.

With his notable performances at the French and US Open, González achieved a career-high 14 victories in Grand Slam events during the year.

2010
González won against Olivier Rochus, Marsel İlhan, and Evgeny Korolev at the Australian Open, but lost to Andy Roddick in the fourth round in a tense and controversial five-set match that lasted for 3 hours and 25 minutes. During the match, there was a disputed set point in the fourth set when a Roddick forehand winner was called out. Roddick challenged the call and Hawk-eye technology revealed that the ball was in. Therefore, Roddick won the set. González believed the point should have been replayed as he was in the right position and could have made a play on the ball if it had been called in. González lost the match 3–6, 6–3, 6–4, 5–7, 2–6.

Afterwards, González participated in the Movistar Open, which was held in Santiago for the first time that year instead of Viña del Mar, where he had won the previous two years. He made it to the semifinals but lost to Thomaz Bellucci in three sets despite being a break up in the second set and only two games away from victory.

In the Abierto Mexicano Telcel, González made it to the semifinals, defeating Sam Querrey, Victor Hănescu, and Eduardo Schwank in three sets before suffering a bad loss to David Ferrer. He then chose to skip the 1000 Masters in Indian Wells to travel to areas affected by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile.

In early March, González and his teammates defeated Israel in the Davis Cup to advance Chile to the quarterfinals. He then returned to the ATP Tour Masters 1000 in Miami, where he lost in the fourth round to Robin Söderling. He also hosted a benefit for the Chilean earthquake victims called Champions for Chile, appearing alongside Andy Roddick, Jim Courier, and Gustavo Kuerten.

During the clay season, González played only one tournament in Houston, where he reached the quarterfinals. At Roland Garros, he was defeated in the second round and was sidelined for almost three months with a knee injury.

González returned to play in New Haven, where he lost in the second round to Radek Štěpánek. At the US Open, he retired from his first-round match against Ivan Dodig. On 21 September, González announced that he would undergo surgery on his right hip and possibly his right knee on 4 October, and was expected to be out for eight to nine months.

2011
González announced he would return to Belgrade for "the start of the end of my career." He defeated Alexandr Dolgopolov in the first round of Wimbledon and made it to the third round, but lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets.

2012
On 9 February 2012, González announced that he would retire from professional tennis after the Miami Masters. He played his last professional match on 21 March 2012 at Miami, losing in three sets to Nicolas Mahut in the first round.

Personal life
González was born in Santiago. His father, Fernando González Ramírez, is the manager of the Molina flour mill in Santiago, and his mother, Patricia Ciuffardi, a housewife of Italian descent. He has an older sister, Patricia, and a younger sister, Jéssica. He studied primary school at Colegio de La Salle and finished secondary school at Colegio Terra Nova.

Since 2017, he had been in a relationship with retired Argentine field hockey player Luciana Aymar, and they have two children: a son, Félix, born in 2019, and a daughter, Lupe, born in 2021.

In July 2022, González announced that he and his family would be moving to Miami.

title: Fernando González


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René González (baseball)

René González (August 5, 1918 – May 9, 1982) was a Cuban professional baseball player. A native of Cienfuegos, Cuba, González was a first baseman/outfielder who batted and threw right-handed.

González was a consistent hitter who spent most of his career in Mexican baseball (1947–1949, 1951–1956), where he won three consecutive batting titles (1952–54) including the Triple Crown in 1952. An eight-time .300 hitter, he collected 1144 hits in 3459 at-bats for a .331 batting average during nine seasons.

In 1950, González played for the New York Cubans in the Negro leagues.

After that he played for the Patriotas de Venezuela club of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League during the 1951–1952 season. He finished with a .357 batting average and led the league in home runs (10), RBI (56), hits (74), doubles (18) and slugging % (.739). Later, he played as a reinforcement for the Navegantes del Magallanes in the 1951 Caribbean Series, where he led the Venezuelan offensive with a .333 average and two home runs, while his 11 RBI topped the tournament.

González also played in Cuba and Nicaragua up until 1958, his last season. Following his baseball retirement he returned to his Cuba homeland, where he died aged 63.

In 1993 he was inducted into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame.

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

title: René González (baseball)


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Guinea Pig (film series)

Guinea Pig (ギニーピッグ) is a Japanese horror (and later, black comedy) series that consists of six films, as well as two making-of documentaries. The series' original concept, envisioned by manga artist Hideshi Hino (who wrote and directed two films in the series), was to create film adaptations of his manga work. The series primarily focuses on situations involving graphic violence, gore, mutilation, torture, and murder.

The Guinea Pig series has garnered controversy for its depictions of violence. One or more entries in the series were suspected to have influenced Tsutomu Miyazaki, a serial killer who kidnapped and murdered four young girls. The second film in the series, Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood, was supposedly withdrawn from the market, and has achieved particular notoriety because of an incident in which American actor Charlie Sheen is said to have watched the film and believed that it depicted the actual killing and dismemberment of a real woman, prompting him to report it to authorities.

The Guinea Pig films were released on DVD by distributor Unearthed Films. As a tribute to the Japanese film series, Unearthed Films began producing a series of horror films titled American Guinea Pig.

Devil's Experiment (1985)
Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (ギニーピッグ 悪魔の実験) is a 1985 film directed by Satoru Ogura, and the first entry in the series. The film depicts a group of men who kidnap and graphically torture a young woman in a variety of ways—these include hitting her, kicking her, pinching her with pliers, forcing her to endure sound torture, burning her with hot oil, pouring maggots and offal on her, hanging her up in a net, and poking a needle through one of her eyes.

Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985)
Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (ギニーピッグ2 血肉の華) is a 1985 film written and directed by Hideshi Hino, based on his horror manga works, and is the second entry in the series. The plot revolves around a man dressed as a samurai who drugs and abducts a woman, takes her to his home, dismembers her, and adds her body parts to a collection.

This entry in the series has been called "notorious". It garnered controversy for its graphic content and was reportedly withdrawn from the market after being examined by a number of Japanese boards of education. It was also suspected to have influenced serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki—also known as the Otaku Murderer—who abducted and murdered four young girls in the Saitama and Tokyo prefectures. Miyazaki had an extensive collection of videotapes, many of which were horror films; one of the Guinea Pig films was reported to have been found in Miyazaki's collection, though writer-director Hino has asserted that it was not Flower of Flesh and Blood.

In 1991, American actor Charlie Sheen is said to have obtained a copy of the film from film writer and critic Chris Gore. Upon watching and becoming convinced that what was on screen was a genuine snuff film that depicted the dismemberment and killing of a woman, Charlie Sheen quickly reported it to authorities in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation purportedly opened an inquiry into those involved in the film's production and distribution. Any official investigations were dropped after it was demonstrated that special effects were used to simulate the violence in the film. This incident, and the frequency with which it has been recounted by "hard core" fans of horror films, has been compared to an urban legend.

He Never Dies (1986)
Guinea Pig 3: Shudder! The Man Who Never Dies (ギニーピッグ3 戦慄! 死なない男), also known as Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies, is a 1986 film directed by Masayuki Hisazumi (or Masayuki Kusumi). After an introduction given by an American reporter discussing strange cases from around the world, the story begins, centering around an unlucky salaryman named Hideshi. One evening, Hideshi attempts to slit his wrists, and finds that he cannot feel pain. He then discovers that he has somehow become immortal, and invites a co-worker to his home, asking that he bring sharp gardening utensils with him. When his co-worker arrives, Hideshi plays a practical joke on him by using the tools to mutilate himself, then ends up decapitating himself with a set of gardening shears, terrifying the co-worker to the point of fainting during the ordeal. Eventually, the co-worker’s girlfriend enters Hideshi’s apartment to see why her fiancé was taking so long, only to find Hideshi’s still-living head on a blood-spattered coffee table. Rather than being scared by the gory scene, the girlfriend is confused by how Hideshi is still alive. She goes to wake her boyfriend, and then the two begin to clean the apartment so Hideshi doesn’t get in trouble with his landlord. As the others get to work cleaning, Hideshi announces that he has become more confident, and would like to return to his job the next day.

Though He Never Dies features graphic imagery, it is more darkly comedic in tone than its predecessors and its successors except Devil Woman Doctor.

Mermaid in a Manhole (1988)
Guinea Pig: Mermaid in a Manhole (ギニーピッグ マンホールの中の人魚) is a 1988  film written and directed by Hideshi Hino, based again on his horror manga works. Sources differ on whether it is the fourth or sixth film in the series. In a 2009 interview with Vice, Hino said that he had "nothing to do with" the fourth Guinea Pig film, implying that he does not consider Mermaid in a Manhole to be the fourth entry in the series. However, Stephen Biro, co-founder of the home video distribution company Unearthed Films, listed Mermaid in a Manhole as the fourth film in the series. In his book The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films, Salvador Jimenez Murguía claims that it was "the sixth Guinea Pig film to be produced, although it was released fourth."

The plot of Mermaid in a Manhole follows an artist who has become estranged from his wife. One day while visiting the sewers beneath the streets of Okinawa, he encounters a mermaid that he had once met as a child. After noticing that she has boils growing on her body, the artist offers to help her, and brings the mermaid to his house to continue illustrating her. Over time, her illness gets worse, and eventually she begins suffering the symptoms of a horrendous infestation in which countless worms of various sizes burst out of the boils on her body. On the verge of death, she begs the artist to kill her, and he does, stabbing her to death then dismembering her body. Later, the artist's two neighbours, who were intrigued by what the artist had been doing after one of them found a fish head in the trash, go to investigate, but flee after they come across the artist holding the pieces of the mermaid while listlessly singing about her death.

When the local police take control of the scene and investigate, they find that instead of the dismembered body being that of a mermaid, it was that of a human woman instead. The neighbours are interviewed, and everyone suspects the artist to have killed his wife, a statement which the investigation finds to be true; hallucinating, the schizophrenic artist had murdered his wife, who had been suffering from stomach cancer. Now imprisoned, the artist sits, manically muttering to himself about how he was sure he had killed the mermaid. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, a single scale was found in the bathtub in the artist's house, belonging to an unidentified species.

Unlike its predecessors, Mermaid in a Manhole is more of a body horror film, has more of a storyline and has a tone that is significantly more poignant and falls more into the tragedy genre than the other films in the series. For these reasons, Mermaid in a Manhole is generally considered to be one of the best films in the series and is a fan favorite.

Android of Notre Dame (1988)
Guinea Pig: Android of Notre Dame (ギニーピッグ ノートルダムのアンドロイド) is a 1988 film directed by Kazuhito Kuramoto. It revolves around a scientist who tries to find a cure for his sister's grave illness. The scientist needs a "guinea pig" to perform experiments on. A stranger approaches the scientist, offering a body for the experiments, for which the scientist will pay. When the experiments do not go well, the scientist becomes enraged and hacks the body to pieces. The stranger approaches the scientist again and supplies another body so the experiments can continue.

Devil Woman Doctor (1990)
Guinea Pig: Devil Woman Doctor (ギニーピッグ ピーターの悪魔の女医さん) is a 1990  film directed by Hajime Tabe. Much like Mermaid in a Manhole, sources differ on whether Devil Woman Doctor is the fourth or sixth entry in the series. The front cover art for the VHS release of the film by Sai Enterprise describes it as the fourth film in the series. According to Salvador Jimenez Murguía: "despite being chronologically labeled as the fourth in the series, [Devil Woman Doctor] is often referred to as the final [Guinea Pig] film."

Devil Woman Doctor tells the story of a female doctor played by Japanese drag actor Peter. The film takes the form of several vignettes in which she encounters numerous patients, including a family whose heads explode if they get upset and a woman whose heart explodes when she becomes scared, a man with dissociative identity disorder who finds a new life as a street comedian, a yakuza member who has a sentient tumour with a human face growing on his stomach, and a zombie who lives a relatively normal life with his still-living girlfriend. The doctor then saves a woman from an animate internal organ before meeting a man who sweats blood, and attempts to remove a living tattoo from another patient, who she eventually has to flay alive to finally remove the troublesome ink. In the final scene, a group of four men discuss their particularly bizarre conditions. The first patient produces soybean paste under his feet and can spit eggs containing infant aliens from his mouth, the second has an elastic penis, the third constantly emits smoke from his body, and the fourth has a heart which moves around inside him. The Devil Woman Doctor then arrives on the scene and proclaims to the audience that each of the four conditions presented by the patients are incurable. As the credits roll, several of the film's characters hit each other with metal discs coated in sharp metal spikes, causing large amounts of blood to spurt from them, though no one appears to be seriously injured despite the graphic scene. Rather than horror, the tone of this installment is more akin to extremely violent and surreal slapstick comedy.

Making-of documentaries
In 1986, Making of Guinea Pig, a making-of documentary about the production of the first three Guinea Pig films, was released. The existence of behind-the-scenes footage demonstrating special effects used in the Guinea Pig series is thought to have assuaged fears about the Guinea Pig films being snuff films.

Making of Devil Woman Doctor, a behind-the-scenes look at the production of Devil Woman Doctor, was released in 1990.

Slaughter Special (1991)
In 1991, Guinea Pig: Slaughter Special (ギニーピッグ 惨殺スペシャル), a "best-of" special which showcases highlights from the series, was released.

Home media
In the 1980s, the Guinea Pig films were released on VHS by a variety of companies, including Midnight 25 Video, Japan Home Video, MAD Video, and Sai Enterprise.

In the early 2000s, distributor Unearthed Films released the Guinea Pig films and the associated making-of documentaries on DVD. Each release was a double feature containing two films: Devil's Experiment / Android of Notre Dame, Mermaid in a Manhole / He Never Dies, Flower of Flesh and Blood / Making of Guinea Pig,  and Devil Woman Doctor / Making of Devil Woman Doctor. The following year, Unearthed Films released a DVD box set containing the six Guinea Pig films, the two making-of documentaries and the Slaughter Special.

Legacy
As a tribute to the Guinea Pig series, Unearthed Films began producing a horror film series known as American Guinea Pig. The films in this series are as follows: American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore (2014), American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock (2015), American Guinea Pig: The Song of Solomon (2017), and American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice (2017).

title: Guinea Pig (film series)


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VMU

The Visual Memory Unit (VMU), also referred to as the Visual Memory System (ビジュアルメモリ) (VMS) in Japan and Europe, is the primary memory card produced by Sega for the Dreamcast home video game console. The device features a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), multiplayer gaming capability (via connectors at the top), second screen functionality, a real-time clock, file manager, built-in flash memory, and sound capability. Prior to the launch of the Dreamcast, a special Godzilla edition VMU, preloaded with a virtual pet game, was released on July 30, 1998, in Japan.

While its most basic function is as a removable storage device, the VMU may also serve as an auxiliary display during normal gameplay and, through the use of additional software (distributed as extras on Dreamcast GD-ROMs), acts as a handheld game console. Console-like features of the VMU include a screen, speaker, proper directional pad, four action buttons, the ability to connect and interact with other VMUs, and the ability to download additional games.

Hardware
For use as a memory card and second screen, the VMU is plugged directly into one of two slots on a Dreamcast controller (up to two VMUs may be plugged in each controller, and eight VMUs per Dreamcast console).

Upon initial use, the player is prompted to set the date and time, and then select from a group of bitmap images to serve as the default background for the VMU (various Dreamcast titles may offer players additional background images for the unit). This image is displayed while the Dreamcast console is in the operating system menu.

When operated independently of the Dreamcast console, the VMU acts as a file manager, clock/calendar (with selectable clock animations), and handheld game console. VMUs may also connect to each other directly to facilitate file transfer or multiplayer gaming.

The VMU runs on two CR-2032 lithium batteries which are inserted into the rear of the VMU under a screw-secured lid. Without battery power, the VMU still functions as a memory card and auxiliary display, but cannot play downloaded mini-games. Additionally, a VMU without battery power will beep when the Dreamcast is powered on (if the VMU is inserted into a connected Dreamcast controller)

The VMU has 128 KB of flash memory, but by default 28 KB is reserved for system use leaving 100 KB for data storage, which is divided into 200 'blocks' – one block equaling 512 bytes. In recent years, homebrew programs like Dream Explorer (aka VMU Tool) have allowed users to unlock an extra 44 blocks (22 KB) of this reserved space increasing the overall VMU capacity to 244 blocks. However, a handful of games might be unable to detect the memory card if this is done, although none have been reported apart from DreamKey/DreamPassport and Metropolis Street Racer.

Minigames and in-game features
Several titles for the Dreamcast include mini-games that can be downloaded onto a VMU. The Sonic Adventure series, for instance, include the Chao Adventure mini-games (Chao Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 which features more activities and items). In the games, players can transfer Chao eggs to the VMU and partake in various activities to increase the stats of their hatched Chao, whereupon they can upload their improved Chao back into the Dreamcast game. Sega GT includes Pocket GT, a top-down racer in the style of the 8-bit SpyHunter games.

In other video games, statistics such as the current health condition are displayed on the VMU for convenience (as in Resident Evil: Code Veronica) or to enhance multi-player gaming (for example, NFL 2K2 allowed the VMU to display secret plays not viewable to other players).

There are also numerous homebrew games, original creations and ports of famous games that are freely available on the internet and can be installed and played on a VMU. These games include: Metroid, VMU Mini Pacman, Breakout, Space Invaders, Tetris, VMU Fighter (a side-scrolling shoot 'em up), VMU Football (an American football game), VMU-a-Sketch (a digital Etch-a-sketch pad), and 3D FPS (a first-person-shooter).

Variants
Multiple Dreamcast memory cards with no VMU features have been released. The cards therefore omit a display screen, input buttons, speaker and built-in clock. Some have the same 128 KB storage as the VMU, equivalent to 200 blocks, while others have multiple "pages" with each acting as a 128 KB memory card. In the latter case, a button or switch allows the user to select the desired memory card. This is due to the Dreamcast having a limit of 128 KB per individual memory card.

4x Memory Card
Sega released an official 4x Memory Card which offered four times the data storage of a standard VMU, with 800 blocks. It was released in Japan on December 14, 2000, as "Memory Card 4X", and in the US as "4x Memory Card". A button is used to select one of four "pages", and a series of four orange LED on the card indicates which of these is currently in use. Not all games are compatible, so Sega released a list of incompatible games.

A limited edition Phantasy Star Online 4x Memory Card was also released in Japan to coincide with the game's release. It was coloured blue and featured the Phantasy Star Online logo printed onto the casing.

The 4x Memory Card did not make it to retail in Europe, despite a planned release (along with the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter which was also unreleased in Europe) due to the Dreamcast's unforeseeably short lifespan – although unofficial third party 4x Memory Cards were released in Europe.

Third-party memory cards
The Nexus Memory Card is a third party version of the Visual Memory Unit that features four times the memory of a stock VMU with 800 blocks (4 megabit / 512 kilobytes) but lacks an LCD screen. The card is divided into 4 pages each with 200 blocks, each page can be selected using a button on the top left of the card. The Nexus Memory Card is slightly larger than the normal VMU and can be connected to a personal computer by USB, Parallel or Serial cable. A 3200 block (16 megabit / 2 megabytes) version of the Nexus is also available, but this model has been known to be unstable.

Nyko released two memory cards for the Dreamcast: the Jumbo Memory Pak X2 with twice the storage as a VMU, and the Hyperpak with four times the storage. The Hyperpak could also act as a Jump Pak by setting its switch to rumble mode.

The Performance Memory Card was a third-party basic memory card with the same 200 blocks of storage as a VMU. The Performance Mega Memory Card acted like a 4X Memory Card. It used a switch on its back to select the desired memory card "page". Unlike other memory cards however, the Performance model had to be removed from the controller before the "page" could be switched.

In September 2023, following a successful crowdfunding campaign, Dreamware Enterprises released an aftermarket VMU update called the VM2. The VM2 features a backlit screen, a rechargeable battery with USB-C support, and MicroSD storage.

Reception
In a 10-year retrospective, GamesRadar called the VMU "one of our favorite storage devices". They offered praise for the originality of the device, as well its flexibility and commented that newer systems should have revisited the concept. However, they lamented that most games didn't find a useful purpose for it and that the device drained batteries quickly. In 2024, Time Extension called the VMU "an important evolution of the memory card concept".

title: VMU


text:
Talk:Steiner tree problem

Untitled
But what IS it? You never define what field it should be in, if it's linguistics or physics or what, or whether it might be a real tree. Help the reader and give some broad definition of this rather than just the specifics. Moncrief, 2 Mar 2004

Weighted Steiner Tree
I believe the problem description should start with the weighted Steiner tree description. I see little to no literature on the non-weighted version and in any case it's a specific case in which all weights are equal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gshaham (talk • contribs) 09:03, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

 * I don't quite see where we currently describe the non-weighted version of the problem. The lead paragraphs mention "lengths of edges", which makes sense both in the metric version (length = weight of the edge) and in the Euclidean version (length = distance between points). Anyway, I agree that we could re-organise the article and make the lead paragraphs more clear; feel free to edit it. — Miym (talk) 10:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

If I am not wrong the sentence "A Steiner tree is a tree in G that spans all vertices of S." is incorrect as this is a minimum spanning tree. A correct version should say that the Steiner tree is a tree in G plus the additional Steiner vertices and the additional Steiner edges, even if it is not clear to me which weight should be given to the edges that are added to the tree. — Roberto Mosca (rmosca76) (talk) 10:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Minimum energy / soap bubbles
I'm surprised there is no mention of soap bubbles, which bubbles form minimum energy structures on wire frames which I *think* are 3D Steiner trees. Ian.macky (talk) 06:17, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

 * No, they don't create Steiner trees. This is a common misconception. The bubbles only find some *locally* minimal energy structure, which may or may not be the globally optimal Steiner tree. (BTW, the experiment is usually done in 2D, with pegs on a board. And if the bubbles happen to hit the right topology of the tree, then energy minimization actually produces the correct layout.) See Scott Aaronson's "NP complete problems and physical reality" for more. Misof (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Steiner tree in graphs is not a generalisation
The Steiner tree in graphs is not a generalisation but in fact a special case of the Steiner tree problem:

The general case allows inclusion of Steiner points from a metric space (in the Euclidean case even a continuum), whereas the Steiner tree in graphs only from a weighted graph. A metric space with infinitely many points is not a graph, though. Conversely, a weighted graph is either a metric space (to wit if the triangle inequality holds) or can be made a metric space for the purpose of Steiner tree in graphs by ignoring edges that are longer than connections via other points. Hence, the Steiner tree problem in graphs is a special case of the Steiner tree problem in metric spaces rather than a generalisation.

Lantani (talk) 09:51, 10 April 2014 (UTC) Comments preferred either here or to my talk page in de.wikipedia

Motorway problem?
I have seen the Steiner problem also referred to as the Motorway problem (see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAyDi1aa40E; http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=301339078991765;res=IELHSS). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrincodi (talk • contribs) 06:56, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

N=3, definition of Fermat point.

 * For N = 3 there are two possible cases: if the triangle formed by the given points has all angles which are less than 120 degrees, the solution is given by a Steiner point located at the Fermat point; otherwise the solution is given by the two sides of the triangle which meet on the angle with 120 or more degrees.

The second part of the sentence is improper, since as we read in Fermat point:
 * When a triangle has an angle greater than 120°, the Fermat point is sited at the obtuse-angled vertex.

thus, it is true in general that
 * The Fermat point gives a solution to the geometric median and Steiner tree problems for three points.

--Natematic (talk) 08:54, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Steiner tree problem


text:
The Colour Out of Space

"The Colour Out of Space" is a science fiction/horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" (most likely after a line from either Milton's Paradise Lost or Shakespeare's Macbeth) in the hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts. The narrator discovers that many years ago a meteorite crashed there, poisoning every living being nearby: vegetation grows large but foul-tasting, animals are driven mad and deformed into grotesque shapes, and the people go insane or die one by one.

Lovecraft began writing "The Colour Out of Space" immediately after finishing his previous short novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and in the midst of final revision on his horror fiction essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Seeking to create a truly alien life form, he drew inspiration from numerous fiction and nonfiction sources. First appearing in the September 1927 edition of Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, "The Colour Out of Space" became one of Lovecraft's most popular works, and remained his personal favorite of his short stories. It has been adapted to film several times, as Die, Monster, Die! (1965), The Curse (1987), Colour from the Dark (2008), The Colour Out of Space (Die Farbe) (2010) and Color Out of Space (2019).

Synopsis
The narrator, an unnamed surveyor from Boston, describes his attempts to uncover the secrets behind a shunned place referred to by the locals of the hills west of Arkham as the "blasted heath". Unable to garner any information from the townspeople, the protagonist seeks out an old and allegedly crazy man by the name of Ammi Pierce, who relates his experiences with a farmer named Nahum Gardner and his family who used to live on the property.

A meteorite crashed into Nahum's land over fifty years prior, in June 1882. At the time, local scientists take a sample from the meteorite, and are perplexed by several strange behaviors that it exhibits. The sample disappears overnight after being stored in a glass beaker. When attempting to take a second sample from the meteorite, the scientists reveal a globule encased in the meteorite emitting a strange color. It was "only by analogy that they called it a color at all", as it fell outside of the range of anything known in the visible spectrum. One of the scientists hits the globule with a hammer, and it disintegrates. Overnight, the meteorite disappears after being struck by bolts of lightning.

The following season, Nahum's crops grow unnaturally large and abundant. When he discovers that, despite their appearance, they are inedible, he becomes convinced that the meteorite has poisoned the soil. Over the following year, the problem spreads to the surrounding plants and animals, altering them in unusual ways. All of the vegetation on the farm begins to become grey and brittle.

Mrs. Gardner goes mad, and Nahum decides to keep her locked in the attic. Over time, the family becomes isolated from the neighboring farmers, and Pierce becomes their only contact with the outside world. Pierce informs Nahum that their well water has gone bad and suggests digging and drinking from a new one, but Nahum refuses to take his advice. Thaddeus, one of Nahum's sons, also goes mad, and Nahum locks him in a different room of the attic. The livestock start to take on disturbing forms and die off. Like the crops, their meat is inedible. Thaddeus dies in the attic, and Nahum buries his remains behind the farm. Merwin, another of Nahum's sons, vanishes while retrieving water from the contaminated well.

After weeks of no contact with Nahum, Pierce visits the farmstead. He meets Nahum in his house, and realizes that he, like his wife and son, has also gone mad. When asked about Zenas, Nahum's last son who was accounted for, Nahum tells Pierce that Zenas "lives in the well". Pierce ascends the stairs to the attic and finds that Mrs. Gardner has taken on a horrible form. It is implied that Pierce kills her in an act of mercy. When he descends the stairs, he finds that Nahum too has become horribly deformed. Nahum has a moment of lucidity and tells Pierce that the color that arrived on the meteorite is responsible, and that it has been siphoning the life out of the surrounding area. Shortly afterwards, Nahum dies.

Pierce leaves and returns to the farmstead with six men. The group discovers both Merwin's and Zenas's eroding skeletons at the bottom of the well, along with the bones of several other creatures. As they reflect upon their discoveries in the house, the color begins to pour out from the well. The trees start to convulse, and the greyed organic material on the farm begins to faintly glow with the color. The men flee the house as the color flies from the well into the sky and disappears. Pierce alone turns back after the color has gone and witnesses some residual part of the color attempt to ascend briefly, only to fail and return to the well. The knowledge that part of the color still resides on Earth is sufficient to disturb his mental state. When some of the men return the following day, they find only Pierce's dead horse, acres of grey dust, and untouched inorganic matter. Upon hearing the rumors of what has taken place, many of the residents of the surrounding area decide to move away.

Background

Lovecraft began writing "The Colour Out of Space" in March 1927, immediately after completing The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. As he wrote the tale, however, he was also typing the final draft of his essay on horror fiction, "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Although the author himself claimed that his inspiration was the newly constructed Scituate Reservoir in Rhode Island, Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi believes that the planned Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts must have influenced him as well. American writer and pulp fiction enthusiast Will Murray cites paranormal investigator Charles Fort, and the "thunderstones" (lightning-drawing rocks that may have fallen from the sky) he describes in The Book of the Damned, as possible inspirations for the behavior of the meteorite. Andy Troy argues that the story was an allegory for the coverage of the Radium Girls scandal in The New York Times, with the symptoms of the Gardners matching the newspaper's description of radium necrosis. Edward Guimont and Horace A. Smith have proposed that the March 1926 rocket test flight by Robert H. Goddard on a farm in Auburn, Massachusetts may also have served as an influence on the story.

Lovecraft was dismayed at the all-too human depiction of aliens in other works of fiction, and his goal for "Colour" was to create an entity that was truly alien. In doing so, he drew inspiration from a number of sources describing colors outside of the visible spectrum. Most notably, Joshi points to Hugh Elliott's Modern Science and Materialism, a 1919 nonfiction book that mentions the "extremely limited" senses of humans, such that of the many "aethereal waves" striking the eyes, "The majority cannot be perceived by the retina at all". Lovecraft had used this concept previously, in his 1920 short story, "From Beyond". Completed by the end of March, "The Colour Out of Space" first appeared in Hugo Gernsback's science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in September 1927. The story was illustrated by J. M. de Aragón, an artist who produced occasional artwork for the magazine.

Reception and legacy

"The Colour Out of Space" became the only work from Amazing Stories to make Edward O'Brien's anthology of The Best American Short Stories, appearing in the 1928 "Roll of Honor". Gernsback paid Lovecraft only $25 (approximately $ in present-day terms) and was late in doing so, leading Lovecraft to refer to the publisher as "Hugo the Rat". He never again submitted anything to the publication. Lovecraft did not write another major short story until the following year, when he authored "The Dunwich Horror", although he did pen "History of the Necronomicon" and "Ibid" as minor works in-between, as well as an account of a Halloween night's dream that he called "The Very Old Folk".

In addition to being Lovecraft's personal favourite of his short stories, critics generally consider "The Colour Out of Space" one of his best works, and the first with his trademark blending of science fiction and horror. Lovecraft scholar Donald R. Burleson referred to the tale as "one of his stylistically and conceptually finest short stories". Joshi praises the work as one of Lovecraft's best and most frightening, particularly for the vagueness of the description of the story's eponymous horror. He also lauded the work as Lovecraft's most successful attempt to create something entirely outside of the human experience, as the entity's motive (if any) is unknown and it is impossible to discern whether or not the "colour" is emotional, moral, or even conscious. His only criticism is that it is "just a little too long". E. F. Bleiler described "The Colour Out of Space" as "an excellent story, one of Lovecraft's finest works; in my opinion the best original story to appear in Amazing Stories". The text of "The Colour Out of Space", like many of Lovecraft's works, has fallen into public domain and can be accessed in several compilations of the author's work, as well as on the Internet. It also had a strong influence on Brian Aldiss's The Saliva Tree, which has been seen as a rewriting of Lovecraft's tale. In 1984, the novel The Color Out of Time by Michael Shea was published as a sequel to the original novelette.

Film adaptations
The 1965 film Die, Monster, Die!, directed by Daniel Haller, is based on "The Colour Out of Space". The film stars Nick Adams, Suzan Farmer, and Boris Karloff. Lovecraft scholar Don G. Smith claims that, of the scenes that are derived from Lovecraft's work, the "blasted heath doesn't live up to Lovecraft's description" and asserts that, overall, the film does not capture Lovecraft's intent to "...play...with the idea of an alien life form completely different from anything humans can imagine". Smith considers Haller's work an imitation of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films, rather than a serious attempt to adapt Lovecraft's tale. Another adaptation, The Curse (1987), was directed by David Keith and stars Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins, Cooper Huckabee, and John Schneider. It more closely follows the plot of Lovecraft's work, albeit set in the 1980s. Lovecraft scholar Charles P. Mitchell referred to the film as faithful to the author's original work, but Mitchell claimed that "[t]he last twenty minutes of the film are so disjointed that they virtually ruin the entire film".

The 2008 film Colour from the Dark, directed by Ivan Zuccon, is an adaptation set in Italy. The film stars Michael Segal, Debbie Rochon, Marysia Kay, Gerry Shanahan, and Eleanor James. Bloody Disgusting praised the film, stating Zuccon "managed to do the famous writer's twisted tale of unseen terror a really fair share of justice by capturing the bleak, grotesque and utterly frightening atmosphere of the source material very, very well". The 2010 film Die Farbe (The Color), directed by Huan Vu, is an adaptation set in Germany. It is shot mainly in black and white, the exception being the "Colour" itself. S. T. Joshi described it as "the best Lovecraft film adaptation ever made". The 2018 film Annihilation—itself based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer—contains numerous plot similarities with Lovecraft's story, most prominently a colorful alien entity that crash lands on earth and begins mutating nearby plant and animal life.

A new version was adapted by writer/director Richard Stanley and released in 2019 under the title Color Out of Space. This film stars Nicolas Cage and Joely Richardson, and was produced by Elijah Wood through his production company SpectreVision. It has a contemporary setting but keeps Lovecraft's plot intact. It is intended to be the first film in a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations set in a shared universe.

Stephen King says that his 1987 novel The Tommyknockers, in which residents of a small town in rural Maine are physically and mentally affected by the emanations from an alien ship unearthed in the nearby woods, and which also features a major character named Gardner, was strongly influenced by "The Colour Out of Space". Like many of his works at that time, it was adapted into a TV miniseries, broadcast in 1993; in 2018 it was reported to be in development as a feature film.

title: The Colour Out of Space


text:
Madeline Bassett

Madeline Bassett is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an excessively sentimental and fanciful young woman to whom Bertie Wooster intermittently, and reluctantly, finds himself engaged.

Life and character
The daughter of Sir Watkyn Bassett and the cousin of Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng, Madeline has golden hair, a treacly voice, a tinkling, silvery laugh and when she sighs, it sounds "like the wind going out of a rubber duck". Bertie Wooster describes her in Right Ho, Jeeves as "a pretty enough girl in a droopy, blonde, saucer-eyed way but not the sort of breath-taker that takes the breath", though elsewhere he describes her as "physically in the pin-up class". He also notes that she is excessively mushy and fanciful, regularly espousing whimsical beliefs about gnomes and stars. She plays piano and is apt to sing folk songs, especially when she is trying to cheer herself up. She was educated at Roedean. Madeline enjoys reading Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh and the works of Rosie M. Banks. Inspired by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to become a vegetarian, she nonetheless has no knowledge of cooking.

While generally calm, she is capable of giving out an angry glare that could match even that of Bertie's Aunt Agatha. Bertie is surprised to learn this in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, when he asks her hypothetically what would happen if Gussie Fink-Nottle ate steak and kidney pie (against her wish for him to be vegetarian). She questions Bertie if Gussie has been doing so. As Bertie states: "I had never supposed that she had it in her to give anyone a piercing look, but that is what she gave me now. I don't think even Aunt Agatha's eyes have bored more deeply into me."

Her first appearance is in Right Ho, Jeeves. She meets and befriends Angela Travers and also meets Angela's cousin Bertie Wooster during a stay in Cannes. She mistakenly believes that Bertie is in love with her and is gazing at her with long, dumb, searching looks. When he tries to tell her subtly that "someone" (Gussie Fink-Nottle) has feelings for her, Madeline incorrectly thinks that Bertie is talking about himself. To his great relief, she turns him down, as she is in love with Gussie; she assures Bertie that, if ever her engagement to Gussie were to fail, Bertie is the first person she would look to as a replacement fiancé. Since Bertie's personal code does not allow him to insult her by correcting her misunderstanding or rejecting her offer, he is thereafter under threat of having to marry her if she rejects her first choice.

She becomes engaged (and disengaged) frequently in the novels, having idealistic standards that sometimes her fiancé cannot live up to. She becomes engaged to Bertie and Gussie in Right Ho, Jeeves and to Bertie and then back to Gussie in The Code of the Woosters. Her engagement to Gussie holds during The Mating Season, in which she visits an old friend of hers, Hilda Gudgeon, with whom she was educated at Roedean. Gussie later elopes with Emerald Stoker and Madeline becomes engaged variously to Bertie and Roderick Spode (Lord Sidcup) in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves and again to Bertie and then back to Spode in Much Obliged, Jeeves. Ultimately, she is engaged to Spode and appears to be on her way to becoming the next Countess of Sidcup.

Appearances
Madeline appears in:

 * Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)
 * The Code of the Woosters (1938)
 * The Mating Season (1949)
 * Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)
 * Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

Madeline is mentioned in:

 * Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974) (ch. 7)

Quotes
Madeline is distinctive for her maudlin and fanciful statements, illustrated by the following examples.

Direct speech:
 * "'Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.'"
 * "'When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.'"
 * "'Beautiful smiling flowers, all wet with the morning dew. How happy flowers seem, Hilda.'"
 * "'One morning we had walked in the meadows and the grass was all covered with little wreaths of mist, and I said didn't he sometimes feel that they were the elves' bridal veils...'"
 * "'And that evening we were watching the sunset, and I said sunsets always made me think of the Blessed Damozel leaning out from the gold bar of heaven...'"
 * "'Today I danced on the lawn before breakfast, and then I went round the garden saying good morning to the flowers.'"
 * "'I think I shall always be a fragrant memory, always something deep in your heart that will be with you like a gentle, tender ghost as you watch the sunset on summer evenings while the little birds sing their off-to-bed songs in the shrubbery.'"

Attributed speech:
 * "Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly asks you out of a blue sky if you don't sometimes feel that the stars are God's daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit." – Narration by Bertie Wooster about Madeline
 * "'She holds the view that the stars are God's daisy chain, that rabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born...'" – Said by Bertie about Madeline

Adaptations

 * Television
 * In the 1990–1993 television series Jeeves and Wooster, Madeline was portrayed by Francesca Folan in series 1, Diana Blackburn in series 2, and Elizabeth Morton in series 3 and series 4.

 * Stage
 * In the 1975 musical Jeeves, Madeline was portrayed by Gabrielle Drake.
 * In the London premiere of By Jeeves, the 1996 rewrite of the previous musical, Madeline was portrayed by Diana Morrison.
 * Madeline is one of the characters portrayed in the 2013 play Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. In the play, the events of The Code of the Woosters are reenacted by Bertie, Jeeves, and Seppings.

 * Film
 * In the 2001 recording of the musical By Jeeves, Becky Watson played Madeline.

 * Radio
 * Madeline was voiced by Anne Richmond in the 1956 BBC BBC Light Programme radio dramatisation of Right Ho, Jeeves.
 * In the 1973–1981 radio drama series What Ho! Jeeves, Madeline was voiced by Bridget Armstrong (Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, and The Mating Season) and Aimi MacDonald (Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves).
 * Madeline was voiced by Jenny Funnell in the 1988 BBC radio adaptation of Right Ho, Jeeves.
 * In the 1997 L.A. Theatre Works radio adaptation of The Code of the Woosters, Madeline was voiced by Patrice Egleston.
 * In BBC Radio 4's 2006 adaptation of The Code of the Woosters for its Classic Serial series, Madeline was voiced by Flaminia Cinque.
 * Madeline was voiced by Elizabeth Knowelden in the 2018 BBC radio adaptation of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

title: Madeline Bassett


text:
Battle of Krithia Vineyard

The Battle of Krithia Vineyard (6–13 August 1915) was fought during the Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War. It was originally intended as a minor British action at Helles on the Gallipoli peninsula to divert attention from the imminent launch of the August Offensive, but instead, the British commander, Brigadier General H.E. Street, mounted a futile and bloody series of attacks that in the end gained a small patch of ground known as "The Vineyard".

Prelude
The original commander of the British VIII Corps at Helles, Lieutenant General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, had departed the peninsula in July, following the last Helles offensive—the Battle of Gully Ravine. His replacement, Lieutenant General Francis Davies, arrived in early August but had not yet assumed command of the corps when a series of diversions were due to be launched from Anzac and Helles to divert Ottoman attention from the planned landing at Suvla and the break out from Anzac. Consequently, the Helles diversion was planned and conducted by the VIII Corps' chief of staff, Brigadier General H.E. Street, who proved himself an able student of Hunter-Weston's battle strategy.

Battle

Due to a shortage of artillery, the attack was split into two parts with the 88th Brigade of the 29th Division (with support on its right flank from the 1/5th Battalion, Manchester Regiment) attacking on the afternoon of 6 August while the 125th and 127th Brigades of the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division would attack early the following morning. The 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division and the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division in Corps reserve. They were facing four Ottoman divisions, three of which were fresh, while there were two more divisions in reserve.

The 88th Brigade's attack managed to capture some Ottoman trenches, which were recaptured by the Ottoman 30th Regiment during a counter-attack. The British attacked again and once more captured some trenches, but the Ottomans counter-attacked again and drove them out. The British failed to hold any ground and the 88th Brigade reported casualties of 1,905 men, (fully 2/3 of the original Brigade strength), effectively destroying them as a fighting force. At around 9:40 am on the morning of 7 August the 42nd Division attacked on the right of the 88th Brigade's sector. The 127th Brigade managed to break through the line held by the Ottoman 13th Division, but were forced back by an Ottoman counter-attack.

The Ottomans counter-attacked repeatedly from 7 August to 9 August and the fighting in the area continued until 13 August when it finally subsided. Afterwards, this sector of the Helles front would remain one of the busiest and most violent for the remainder of the campaign.

Aftermath
Two Victoria Crosses were awarded during the fighting at Krithia Vineyard. Lieutenant (temporary Captain) William Thomas Forshaw of the 1/9th Battalion Manchester Regiment, Territorial Force, of the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, and Private David Ross Lauder of the 1/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers, Territorial Force, of the 52nd (Lowland) Division. The British casualties in the first 24 hours of fighting, covering the original attacks of the 88th Brigade and the 125th and 127th Brigades of the 42nd Division, were 3,469 (134 Officers and 3,335 other ranks). The total British casualties for the duration of the battle were probably in excess of 4,000. The Ottoman casualties for the period of the battle were estimated to be around 7,500.

As for the other diversion at Lone Pine, the attack failed to fulfill its goal of tying down the Ottoman reinforcements away from the main offensive. As early as the morning of 7 August, regiments were being dispatched from Helles to the main front in the Sari Bair range.

title: Battle of Krithia Vineyard


text:
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, CB&Q, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also in Texas through subsidiaries Colorado and Southern Railway, Fort Worth and Denver Railway, and Burlington-Rock Island Railroad. Its primary connections included Chicago, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver. Because of this extensive trackage in the midwest and mountain states, the railroad used the advertising slogans "Everywhere West", "Way of the Zephyrs", and "The Way West".

In 1967, it reported 19,565 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 723 million passenger miles; corresponding totals for C&S were 1,100 and 10 and for FW&D were 1,466 and 13. At the end of the year, CB&Q operated 8,538 route-miles, C&S operated 708, and FW&D operated 1,362 (these totals may or may not include the former Burlington-Rock Island Railroad). In 1970, it merged with the Northern Pacific Railway and the Great Northern Railway to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.

1848–1882
The earliest predecessor of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Aurora Branch Railroad, was chartered by act of the Illinois General Assembly on October 2, 1848. The charter was obtained by citizens of Aurora and Batavia, Illinois, who were concerned that the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad would bypass their towns in favor of West Chicago on its route; at the time, that was the only line running west from Chicago. The Aurora Branch was built from Aurora, through Batavia, to Turner Junction in what is now West Chicago. The line was built with old strap rail and minimal, if any, grading. Using a leased locomotive and cars, the Aurora Branch ran passenger and freight trains from Aurora to Chicago via its own line from Aurora to Turner Junction and one of the G&CU's two tracks east from there to Chicago. The G&CU required the Aurora Branch to turn over 70 percent of their revenue per ton-mile handled on that railroad; as a result, in the mid-1850s, surveys were ordered to determine the best route for a railroad line to Chicago.

The line from Aurora to Chicago was built through the fledgling towns of Naperville, Lisle, Downers Grove, Hinsdale, Berwyn, and the west side of Chicago. It was opened in 1864, and passenger and freight service began. Regular commuter train service started in 1864 and remains operational to this day, making it the oldest surviving regular passenger service in Chicago. Both the original Chicago line, and to a much lesser extent, the old Aurora Branch right of way, are still in regular use today by the Burlington's present successor BNSF Railway.

The company was renamed Chicago and Aurora Railroad on June 22, 1852, and given expanded powers to extend from Aurora to a point north of LaSalle; this extension, to Mendota, was completed on October 20, 1853. Another amendment, passed February 28, 1854, authorized the company to build east from Aurora to Chicago via Naperville, and changed its name to Chicago and Southwestern Railroad. The latter provision was never acted upon, and was repealed by an act of February 14, 1855, which instead reorganized the line as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The new railroad was formed by the consolidation of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, the Central Military Tract, the west end of the Peoria & Oquawka, and the Northern Cross Railroad companies. With a steady acquisition of locomotives, cars, equipment, and trackage, the Burlington Route was able to enter the trade markets in 1862. From that year to date, the railroad and its successors have paid dividends continuously, and never run into debt or defaulted on a loan—the only Class I U.S. railroad for which this is true.

After extensive trackwork was planned, the Aurora Branch changed its name to the Chicago and Aurora Railroad in June 1852, and to Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad in 1856, and shortly reached its two other namesake cities, Burlington, Iowa, and Quincy, Illinois. In 1868 CB&Q completed bridges over the Mississippi River at both Burlington and Quincy, giving the railroad through connections with the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad (B&MR) in Iowa and the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad (H&StJ) in Missouri. In 1860 the H&SJ carried the mail to the Pony Express upon reaching the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri. In 1862 The first Railway Post Office was inaugurated on the H&StJ to sort mail on the trains way across Missouri.

The B&MR continued building west into Nebraska as a separate company, the Burlington & Missouri River Rail Road, founded in 1869. During the summer of 1870 it reached Lincoln, the newly designated capital of Nebraska and by 1872 it reached Kearney, Nebraska. That same year the B&MR across Iowa was absorbed by the CB&Q. By the time the Missouri River bridge at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, was completed the B&MR in Nebraska was well on its way to Denver. That same year, the Nebraska B&MR was purchased by the CB&Q, which completed the line to Denver by 1882.

Early repair shops for rolling stock were built by the Aurora Branch Railroad in Chicago, but the first true shop site was established at Aurora, Illinois in 1855. These were capable of repairing and building locomotives, freight cars, and passenger cars. Other shop sites were established or inherited from predecessor lines as the system grew. By the early 1900s, the shops at Aurora served the Chicago Division, the shops in Galesburg, Illinois served the Galesburg Division, the shops in Hannibal, Missouri served the St. Louis Division, the shops in West Burlington, Iowa and in Creston, Iowa served the Iowa Division, and the shops in Denver, Colorado served the McCook and Red Cloud Divisions. The latter were the final steam era shops built for the CB&Q, completed in 1922.

1882–1901
Burlington's rapid expansion after the American Civil War was based upon sound financial management, dominated by John Murray Forbes of Boston and assisted by Charles Elliott Perkins. Perkins was a powerful administrator who eventually forged a system out of previously loosely held affiliates, virtually tripling Burlington's size during his presidency from 1881 to 1901.

Ultimately, Perkins believed the Burlington Railroad must be included into a powerful transcontinental system. Though the railroad stretched as far west as Denver and Billings, Montana, it had failed to reach the Pacific Coast during the 1880s and 1890s, when construction was less expensive. Though approached by E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, Perkins felt his railroad was a more natural fit with James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway. With its river line to the Twin Cities, the Burlington Route formed a natural connection between Hill's home town (and headquarters) of St. Paul, Minnesota, and the railroad hub of Chicago. Moreover, Hill was willing to meet Perkins' $200-a-share asking price for the Burlington's stock. By 1900, Hill's Great Northern, in conjunction with the Northern Pacific Railway, held nearly 100 percent of Burlington's stock.

By 1899, the company had rostered 1,205 locomotives, 936 passenger cars and 40,720 freight cars.

In 1901, a rebuffed Harriman tried to gain an indirect influence over the Burlington by launching a stock raid on the Northern Pacific. Though Hill managed to fend off this attack on his nascent system, it led to the creation of the Northern Securities Company, and later, the Northern Securities Co. v. United States ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Burlington strike of 1888
The only major strike in the line's history came in 1888, the Burlington railway strike of 1888. Unlike most strikes, which were based on unskilled workers, this one was based on the highly skilled well-paid engineers and firemen, a challenge to management prerogatives. A settlement would have been much cheaper, but President Perkins was determined to assert ownership rights and destroy the union threat. The fight dragged on 10 months before the financially and emotionally exhausted strikers finally gave up, and Perkins declared a total victory. However, he had spent heavily on strikebreakers, lawsuits, and police protection, hurting the balance sheets and putting the railroad in a poor position to face the nationwide depression of the Panic of 1893.

1901–1945
Following the purchase of the Burlington by GN and NP, expansion continued. In 1908, the CB&Q purchased both the Colorado and Southern Railway and the Fort Worth and Denver Railway, giving it access south to Dallas and the Gulf of Mexico ports in Houston and Galveston. It also extended its reach south in the Mississippi Valley region by opening up a new line from Concord, Illinois, south to Paducah, Kentucky. It was during this period that the Burlington was at its largest, exceeding just over 12,000 route miles in 14 states by the 1920s. With the First World War having the same effect on the railroad as on all other railroads, during the 1920s, the Burlington Route had an increasingly heavy amount of equipment flooding the yards. With the advent of the Great Depression, the CB&Q held a good portion of this for scrap.

In 1929, the CB&Q created a subsidiary, the Burlington Transportation Company, to operate intercity buses in tandem with its railway network. On January 1, 1932, the CB&Q received a new president; former Great Northern Railroad president Ralph Budd. By which time, the CB&Q was facing a decline in passenger ridership from the Depression, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was exploring ways to help the rail industry improve. Ralph Budd subsequently asked for a streamlined stainless-steel train to be built, and this resulted in the railroad introducing the famous Zephyrs. As early as 1897, the railroad invested in alternatives to steam power, namely, internal-combustion engines. The railroad's shops in Aurora had built a three-horsepower distillate motor in that year, but it was not reliable (requiring a massive 6,000-pound flywheel), and it had issues with overheating (even with the best metals of the day, its cylinder heads and liners would warp and melt in a matter of minutes), so it was therefore deemed impractical. Diesel engines of that era were obese, stationary monsters and were best suited for low-speed, continuous operation.

It was not reliable for a railroad locomotive; there was no diesel engine suitable for that purpose then. Always innovating, the railroad purchased "doodlebug" gas-electric combine cars from Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC) and built their own, sending them out to do the jobs of a steam locomotive and a single car. After the positive results the doodlebug cars created, and after having purchased and used three General Electric steeple-cab switchers powered by distillate engines, Ralph Budd requested the Winton Engine Company to design and construct a light, powerful diesel engine that could stand the rigors of continuous, unattended daily service.

The experiences of developing these engines can be summed up shortly by General Motors Research vice-president Charles Kettering: "I do not recall any trouble with the dip stick." Ralph Budd, accused of gambling on diesel power, chirped that "I knew that the GM people were going to see the program through to the very end. Actually, I wasn't taking a gamble at all." The manifestation of this gamble was the eight-cylinder Winton 8-201A engine that powered the Burlington Zephyr (built 1934) on its record-breaking run, and it opened the door for developing the long line of diesel engines that has powered Electro-Motive locomotives for the next seventy years. In 1936, the CB&Q would become one of the founding members of the Trailways Transportation System, and still provides intercity service to this day as Burlington Trailways.

1940 was the final year the CB&Q added steam locomotives to their roster, having completed construction on their O-5A class locomotives at the West Burlington, Iowa shops. With their freight traffic weighing 31 million tons that year, the CB&Q saw no further necessity for any more steam or diesel locomotives to be added to their roster. In 1942, following the United States' entrance into World War II, the railroad's freight traffic increased to 49 million tons, with Ralph Budd (now named President Roosevelt's federal transportation commissioner) poised to ensure his company would help the war effort. In 1943, the War Production Board authorized EMC (now reincorporated as EMD) to construct sixteen FT locomotives for delivery to the CB&Q the following year, by which time, the road's freight traffic peaked 57 million tons.

1945–1970
After World War II ended, the CB&Q began ordering additional diesel locomotives from EMD, as part of a $140-million program to dieselize their roster. August 31, 1949, was Ralph Budd's final day as president of the railroad before he would retire during that year's Chicago Railroad Fair, and Harry C. Murphy succeeded him in September. Dieselization of the CB&Q's commercial passenger operations was completed on September 26, 1952, when the last of the 4-6-2 locomotives that operated for the Chicago-Aurora suburban service were retired; the remaining steam locomotives on the CB&Q were primarily reassigned as freight haulers and yard switchers. The first division on the CB&Q to be fully dieselized was the Casper Division in Wyoming, where EMD GP7 road switchers were delivered in 1951. In 1955, regular performance on class 3 overhauls on steam locomotives were discontinued, and Harry C. Murphy opted for the railroad's remaining steam fleet to use up their previously-restored mileage throughout the next year. By which time, the majority of the Burlington's steam fleet were relegated to operate east of Lincoln, Nebraska, with only two steam locomotives held for back-up service west of Lincoln. The final division on the CB&Q to be fully dieselized was the Beardstown Division in Southern Illinois, where 2-8-2 locomotive No. 4997 worked the last commercial steam assignment for the railroad at Herrin Junction on January 27, 1959 (the only major U.S. railroads to operate revenue steam after this date were Union Pacific, Illinois Central, Nickel Plate Road, Norfolk and Western, Grand Trunk Western, Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range, and Lake Superior and Ishpeming). CB&Q subsidiary Colorado and Southern eventually ended their commercial steam operations on October 11, 1962, when 2-8-0 No. 641 pulled a final freight train on the Leadville-Climax branch in Colorado.

On July 1, 1965, Harry Murphy retired from his position as president of the CB&Q (he remained on the railroad as a director until October), and former Frisco Railway president Louis W. Menk took over as president and CEO. During his presidency, Louis Menk explored ways to reduce costs for the CB&Q's passenger operations and to reshape the road's freight operations. Passenger service was markedly reduced, as people had shifted to using private automobiles for transportation. In late 1966, Louis Menk became president of the Northern Pacific, leaving William John Quinn in charge of the CB&Q.

As the financial situation of American railroading continued to decline throughout the 1960s, forcing restructuring across the country, the CB&Q merged with the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle (SP&S) railroads on March 2, 1970, to form the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN), with Louis Menk serving as the company's first president and CEO (twenty-six years later, the BN and Santa Fe Railroads merged to become the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF)). Most passenger operations would be assumed in 1971 by Amtrak.

Steam program
Beginning in the summer of 1955, the CB&Q hosted a series of occasional steam excursion trains per request of railfan clubs, such as the Illinois Railroad Club. Harry C. Murphy was a steam fan who recognized the popularity in steam locomotives, and he authorized additional steam excursion trains to take place on the railroad throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. Twenty-one steam locomotives of varying classes took part in the CB&Q's new steam excursion program, only two of which remained operational by 1961: 2-8-2 No. 4960 and 4-8-4 No. 5632. In 1962, the CB&Q's passenger department began sponsoring the excursion runs by offering ticket discounts to paying customers, and the Burlington began to host several school trains for school students.

In 1964, steam excursion operations on the railroad had dwindled, in the wake of rising operation and maintenance costs and a loss of experienced steam locomotive mechanics; the only factors that kept the CB&Q's steam program going were public demand and Harry Murphy's passion for steam. In the process of reducing operating costs for the railroad, Harry Murphy's successor, Louis Menk, ordered for the CB&Q's steam excursion program to be shut down by August 1, 1966. Despite a subsequent public outcry and protest over the program's cancellation, the No. 4960 locomotive pulled the railroad's final excursion train on July 17.

The Burlington Zephyrs
The railroad operated a number of streamlined passenger trains known as the Zephyrs which were one of the most famous and largest fleets of streamliners in the United States. The Burlington Zephyr, the first American diesel-electric powered streamlined passenger train, made its noted "dawn-to-dusk" run from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago, Illinois, on May 26, 1934. On November 11, 1934, the train was put into regularly scheduled service between Lincoln, Nebraska, and Kansas City, Missouri. Although the distinctive, articulated stainless steel trains were well known, and the railroad adopted the "Way of the Zephyrs" advertising slogan, they did not attract passengers back to the rails en masse, and the last one was retired from revenue service with the advent of Amtrak.

The Zephyr fleet included:

 * Pioneer Zephyr (Lincoln–Omaha–Kansas City)
 * Twin Cities Zephyr (Chicago–Minneapolis-St. Paul)
 * Mark Twain Zephyr (St. Louis–Burlington)
 * Denver Zephyr (Chicago–Denver)
 * Nebraska Zephyr (Chicago–Lincoln)
 * Sam Houston Zephyr (Houston–Dallas-Ft. Worth)
 * Ozark State Zephyr (Kansas City–St. Louis)
 * General Pershing Zephyr (Kansas City–St. Louis)
 * Silver Streak Zephyr (Kansas City–Omaha–Lincoln)
 * Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr (Chicago–Lincoln)
 * Zephyr Rocket (St. Louis–Burlington–Minneapolis-St. Paul), jointly with Rock Island
 * Texas Zephyr (Denver–Dallas-Ft. Worth)
 * American Royal Zephyr (Chicago–Kansas City)
 * Kansas City Zephyr (Chicago–Kansas City)
 * California Zephyr (Chicago–Oakland): Chicago–Denver handled by CB&Q; Denver–Salt Lake City by Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad; Salt Lake City–Oakland by Western Pacific Railroad

Other named passenger trains which operated on the Burlington included:
 * Adventureland (Kansas City-Billings)
 * Aristocrat (Chicago–Denver): replaced the Colorado Limited
 * Ak-Sar-Ben (Chicago–Lincoln): replaced Nebraska Limited and replaced by Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr
 * American Royal (Chicago–Kansas City): replaced by the American Royal Zephyr.
 * Atlantic Express (Seattle-Tacoma-Chicago): jointly with Northern Pacific Railway
 * Black Hawk (Chicago–Twin Cities overnight)
 * Buffalo Bill (Denver-Yellowstone) Seasonal tri-weekly service between Denver, and Yellowstone National Park via Cody, Wyoming
 * Chicago Limited (Chicago-Denver)
 * Coloradoan (Chicago–Denver): replaced by the Aristocrat
 * Denver Limited (Denver-Chicago)
 * Exposition Flyer (Chicago–Oakland) in conjunction with D&RGW and WP before the launching of the California Zephyr
 * Empire Builder: handled Great Northern Railway's flagship between Chicago and Minneapolis
 * Fast Mail (Chicago–Lincoln)
 * Mainstreeter: handled the Northern Pacific Railway's secondary transcontinental between Chicago and Minneapolis
 * Nebraska Limited (Chicago–Lincoln): replaced by the Ak-Sar-Ben
 * North Coast Limited: handled Northern Pacific Railway's flagship between Chicago and Minneapolis
 * North Pacific Express (Chicago-Seattle-Tacoma): jointly with Northern Pacific Railway
 * Overland Express (Chicago-Denver). This train, along with The Aristocrat and the Colorado Limited, were promoted as companion trains to the streamlined Denver Zephyr
 * Shoshone: (Denver-Billings) operated between Denver and Billings, Montana; referred to affectionately as "The Night Crawler"
 * Western Star: handled the Great Northern Railway's secondary transcontinental between Chicago and Minneapolis
 * Zephyr Connection: (Denver-Cheyenne) offered daytime service along Colorado's Front Range between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming

The California Zephyr is still operated daily by Amtrak as trains Five (westbound) and Six (eastbound). Another Amtrak train, the Illinois Zephyr, is a modern descendant of the Kansas City Zephyr and the American Royal Zephyr services.

Preserved locomotives
Multiple locomotives from the Burlington have been preserved, including two Zephyr power units, thirty-five steam locomotives, and thirty-four diesel locomotives.

Originally, 5632 (O-5B 4-8-4) was preserved, but later scrapped.
 * Pioneer (locomotive) (4-2-0) - It was built by Baldwin in 1837 as the very first steam locomotive to operate in Chicago, Illinois, as well as being the oldest locomotive to be used by the Burlington. It is currently on static display at the Chicago History Museum without a tender.
 * [[File:Hannibal & St. Joseph RR 4-4-0 "American" -35 MISSOURI, CB&Q's Aurora Shops, 1892, Carried First Mail for Pony Express.jpg|thumb|Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 4-4-0 steam locomotive 35 on static display at Patee House Museum.]]35 (A-2 [[4-4-0]]) - It has made an appearance at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, as well as the 1939 New York World's Fair(as Union Pacific 119) and the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1948. It is currently on static display at the Patee House Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri.
 * 114 (GE U28B) - It has been painted as Transkentucky Transportation Railroad 260. It is currently awaiting restoration to be repainted back to its Burlington appearance by the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois.
 * 504 (EMD SD24) - It is currently operational and used for pulling occasional tourist trains at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 637 (K-2 4-6-0) - It made an appearance at the Chicago Railroad Fair, and was used for pulling the Burlington's excursion trains in the mid-1950s. It is currently on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 710 (K-4 4-6-0) - It is currently on static display at Iron Horse Park in Lincoln, Nebraska.
 * 1548 (G-3 0-6-0) - It is the only Burlington 0-6-0 left to be preserved. It is currently on static display behind Quaker Square in Akron, Ohio.
 * 3001 (S-4 4-6-4) - It is currently on static display by a station in Ottumwa, Iowa.
 * 3003 (S-4 4-6-4) - It is currently on static display in Burlington, Iowa.
 * 3006 (S-4 4-6-4) - It is currently on static display at Colton Park in Galesburg, Illinois.
 * 3007 (S-4 4-6-4) - It is currently on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 4000 Æolus (S-4a 4-6-4) - It was rebuilt as a streamlined locomotive for use as an emergency backup for the Zephyr motor units, and the streamlining was later removed in favor of World War II. It is currently on static display at Copeland Park in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
 * 4960 (O-1a 2-8-2) - It was famous for being used in the Burlington's steam excursion program in the 1960s, and it was eventually used to pull tourist trains for the Bristol and Northwestern Railroad. It has been heavily modified, and it is currently operational while being used to pull the Grand Canyon Railway's steam saturday trains between the Grand Canyon National Park and Williams, Arizona.
 * 4963 (O-1a 2-8-2) - It was used on the Bevier and Southern Railroad before being used as a spare parts provider for 4960. It has been on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union since 1991.
 * 4978 (O-1a 2-8-2) - It was formerly on static display in Ottawa, Illinois, and it currently resides by a station in Mendota.
 * 4994 (O-1a 2-8-2) - It is currently on static display as Fort Worth and Denver 401 at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.
 * 5614 (O-5B 4-8-4) - It is currently on static display at Patee Park in St. Joseph.
 * 5629 (O-5B 4-8-4) - It is currently on static display at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado.
 * 5631 (O-5A 4-8-4) - It is on display at a depot in Sheridan, Wyoming.
 * 5633 (O-5A 4-8-4) - Currently on static display in Douglas, Wyoming.
 * 9146 (EMD SW1) - It went through several ownerships before it became owned by the Gopher State Railway Museum in New Prague, Minnesota. It is currently operational there as Northern States Power Company 4.
 * 9255 (EMD SW7) - It is currently operational at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 9903 Injun Joe (Mark Twain Zephyr power unit) - It went through several ownerships throughout the years. It is currently undergoing restoration by the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad in Trego, Wisconsin.
 * 9908 Silver Charger (General Pershing Zephyr power unit) - It is currently on static display at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.
 * Nebraska Zephyr Comes Out for the Day.jpg Silver Pilot (EMD E5A) - It is currently operational and occasionally used to pull excursion trains at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 9976 (EMD E9AM) - It is currently undergoing restoration at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * 9989A (EMD E9A) - It is currently operational as Burlington Northern 3 at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
 * Pioneer Zephyr. The original record setting Denver to Chicago train. On display are the engine and all cars at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. The train is inside the main entrance near the parking garage elevators.

Innovations
The Burlington was a leader in innovation; among its firsts were use of the printing telegraph (1910), train radio communications (1915), streamlined passenger diesel power (1934) and vista-dome coaches (1945). In 1927, the railroad was one of the first to use Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) and by the end of 1957 had equipped 1500 mi of its line. It played a central role in bringing air brakes to freight service.

The railroad had one of the first hump classification yards at its Cicero Avenue Yard in Chicago, allowing an operator in a tower to line switches remotely and allowing around-the-clock classification. The company also tested the twin cylinder car.

Cities platted by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

 * Massena, Iowa
 * Pacific Junction, Iowa

title: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad


text:
Wikipedia:Historical archive/Policy/Notability/Fame and importance

This has been replaced by Notability, which is most referred to by Wikipedia editors.

Content moved to Talk page
In 2004, there was no consensus that lack of "fame" or "importance" should be a legitimate reason to delete an article. There was much discussion of this question on the talk page. In 2005, there is consensus that not establishing the importance of its subject is a legitimate reason to delete an article. As of 2006, several topical notability guidelines have been incorporated into policy at Deletion policy, and the related guideline Wikipedia:Notability was written and remains heavily debated.


text:
User:Mike40033

Archived from Notability/Noticeboard :

Dr Mike's Math Games for Kids is a website - the url is www.dr-mikes-math-games-for-kids.com. According to Wikipedia's notability criteria for websites,
 * "web-specific content is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria.
 * The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles,  books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations"

with some exceptions meant to exclude certain types of trivial self-promotion.

The website has been featured in the following media :
 * The Malay Mail, 1st December, 2009
 * The Post, 4th September, 2010
 * Curtin FM, 21st September, 2010

Copies of the relevant articles/interviews may be found here.

My question - is this sufficient to make Dr Mike's Math Games for Kids notable by Wikipedia's standards? mike40033 (talk) 07:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 * As you are no doubt aware this is a borderline case. In my personal opinion the site satisfies the criteria described in WP:WEB, and WP:GNG – although in both cases not by a comfortable margin. I am personally less convinced that such an article is of much benefit to the encyclopedia, but I have bookmarked the site and may (irrationally) change my mind after having tried some of the games with my little daughter. :) Hans Adler 09:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * PS: Just on the off-chance that you are not aware of it, see WP:COI. Hans Adler 09:08, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I'm well aware of Conflict of interest, though I haven't (yet) read WP:COI. I'm trying to tread carefully here :-) mike40033 (talk) 00:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

title: User:Mike40033