text:
Sin-Muballit

Sin-Muballit was the father of Hammurabi and the fifth Amorite king of the first dynasty (the Amorite Dynasty) of Babylonia, reigning c. 1813-1792 or 1748-1729 BC (see Chronology of the Ancient Near East). He ruled over a relatively new and minor kingdom; however, he was the first ruler of Babylon to actually declare himself king of the city, and the first to expand the territory ruled by the city, and his son greatly expanded the Babylonian kingdom into the short lived Babylonian Empire.

Reign
Sin-Muballit succeeded his father Apil-Sin. No inscriptions for either king are known.

In Sin-Muballlit's 13th year, he repelled the army of Larsa, which was frequently in conflict with Babylon. In the 17th year of his reign, Sin-Muballit took possession of the city of Isin and his power grew steadily over time as evidenced by his building and fortifying a number of towns. He abdicated due to failing health.

title: Sin-Muballit


text:
HMS Scott (H131)

HMS Scott is an ocean survey vessel of the Royal Navy, and the only vessel of her class. She is the third Royal Navy ship to carry the name, and the second to be named after the Antarctic explorer, Robert Falcon Scott. She was ordered to replace the survey ship HMS Hecla (A133).

Construction
The ship was ordered from BAeSEMA in 1995 to replace the ageing HMS Hecla (A133). She was built at the Appledore Shipbuilders in North Devon and launched on 13 October 1996 by Mrs Carolyn Portillo, wife of Michael Portillo, the then-Secretary of State for Defence. She was commissioned on 20 June 1997. Not only is she the largest vessel in the Royal Navy's Hydrographic Squadron, and the fifth largest in the entire surface fleet, but she is also the largest survey vessel in Western Europe.

Role
Scott is the Royal Navy's only ocean survey vessel. She can remain at sea for up to 300 days a year, thanks to her crew rotation system. Her complement of 78 is divided into three sections: two sections are required to keep the ship operational, with the third on shore on leave or in training. When the ship returns to port, one crew section on board is replaced by the section on shore. The ship can then deploy again almost immediately. As with all of the Royal Navy's large survey vessels, Scott has an auxiliary role in support of mine countermeasure vessels.

Service
In February 2005 Scott surveyed the seabed around the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which varies in depth between 1000 m and 5000 m. The survey, conducted using a high-resolution, multi-beam sonar system, revealed that the earthquake had made a huge impact on the topography of the seabed.

In September 2006, Scott was granted the Freedom of the City of Swansea. From August 2008 until June 2009 she was refitted in Portsmouth.

On 26 October 2009 and again on 25 November 2010 the ship deployed to the South Atlantic and Antarctic to cover for the non-availability of the Royal Navy icebreaker HMS Endurance (A171). In February 2010, Scott hosted artist Rowan Huntley for a month in Antarctica, in a new artist-in-residence programme for the Royal Navy inaugurated by the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI).

In June 2010, the ship visited Cardiff to mark the centenary of Robert Falcon Scott's departure from Cardiff on 15 June 1910 for the South Pole, at the start of the Terra Nova Expedition. In February 2011, Scott hosted Dafila Scott, Scott's granddaughter, in Antarctica for a month as the Friends of the SPRI's second artist-in-residence.

The ship returned to Devonport in April 2011. With the task of Antarctic patrol taken over by HMS Protector (A173) in that year, Scott left Devonport in September to resume deep-water surveying, initially in the Atlantic. From November 2013 to June 2014 her most extensive refit to date took place, in Devonport. This included coating the hull with Hempasil X3 non-toxic anti-fouling paint, which is expected to increase her fuel efficiency.

The Ministry of Defence stated in October 2017 that the planned out-of-service date for Scott was to be 2022. In February 2022, it was indicated that the out of service date would be extended to 2023. In March 2023, and in advance of her purported decommissioning, the Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA) listed HMS Scott as for sale. However, in May 2023 it was reported that she would receive a major life extension refit and her service life would now be extended up to 2033 when she is likely to be replaced by the second Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship which may be a new-build vessel for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. In the interim, HMS Scott underwent a shorter maintenance period in Gibraltar to continue operations during 2023.

She visited the United States in 2023 participating in US Navy Fleet Week from the 24th to the 29th May. From there she visited Portsmouth, New Hampshire where her ship's company participated in the Portsmouth 400th anniversary celebrations. The ship's company also visited the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Cemetery. On 3rd June, 2023 they participated in a Remembrance Service organised by the British & Commonwealth Remembrance Project laying a wreath at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Royal Navy graves at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Cemetery. The British Consul General to New England Dr Peter Abbott.

It has been reported that Scott would now carry at least one of the new 11-metre survey module variants of the Sea-class workboats being procured for various tasks in the Royal Navy.

Affiliations

 * 42 Engineer Group (Geographic), Royal Engineers
 * City and County of Swansea
 * Plymouth Child Development Centre (Scott Hospital, Plymouth)
 * TS Scott - Maidstone Sea Cadets
 * The Captain Scott Society
 * The Worshipful Company of Water Conservators
 * Newcastle-under-Lyme School CCF

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

title: HMS Scott (H131)


text:
USS Gridley

Four United States Navy ships have been named USS Gridley in honor of Charles Vernon Gridley.

 * USS Gridley (DD-92), was a Wickes-class destroyer, launched in 1918, permanently decommissioned in 1922, and scrapped in 1937
 * USS Gridley (DD-380), was the lead ship of her class of destroyers. She was launched in 1936 and struck in 1947
 * USS Gridley (DLG-21), was a Leahy-class cruiser guided missile frigate, launched in 1961 and struck in 1994. In 1975, the Leahy class was redesignated as guided missile cruisers (CG), and she became CG-21.
 * USS Gridley (DDG-101), is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Her keel was laid on 30 July 2004, christened 11 February 2006, and commissioned in Miami on 10 February 2007

title: USS Gridley


text: User talk:156.63.21.14

title: User talk:156.63.21.14


text:
Talk:Underwater environment

Untitled
Mark,

The changes/additions you made are good. However, some are quite a bit off the subject. This article is about conditions underwater and not about all things oceanographic (like tides and waves and currents), which are covered in other articles. If the discussion gets that broad, then the page will need to be merged into an oceanography page. - Marshman 16:50, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Why are the pictures so sterile, there is virtually no organic life in them, could at least have more life on one of them and perhaps a deep sea pic, of course such a photo may be difficult to obtain /Minoya 09:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

"In fact, 75% of the water in the world ocean (the great depths) has a temperature between 0 °C and 2 °C." Does not deep ocean water have a temperature of around 4 Celsius? Water is at its most dense at this temperature. Deep water with a temperature below 4 Celsius would float upwards either to be warmed or to float near the surface as icebergs or a colder water layer. This is the case for fresh water lakes but, I don't know, maybe it is different for seawater?

"It is also impossible to shout underwater without drowning." Why ? 74.56.90.14 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.56.90.14 (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, pure water has its maximum density at a temperature close to 4 °C, and pure water freezes at 0 °C. However, ocean water, with an average salinity of 35 psu, freezes at −1.94 °C, so its maximum density is close to 2 °C. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:43, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Euphotic depth
"At 100 m (330 ft) the light present from the sun is about 0.5% of that at the surface." "The euphotic depth is the depth at which light intensity falls to 1% of the value at the surface. ... [the euphotic depth may] reach 200 meters in the open ocean." These two paragraphs seem contradictory. Maybe there's a better way of phrasing them? Greylurk (talk) 00:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The way I read it, the "0.5% at 100 metres" is a sort of general or average value, while the "1% at 200 metres" seems to be a maximum. I'll copyedit to see if that is clearer. However, as neither of the statements are sourced, there's no reason why they shouldn't simply be removed if they are confusing. --RexxS (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

How come that the "equivalent" to surface atmospheric pressure would be found "10m" below, but at that depth there can already be "ruptures" in the ear's membrane?

Transmission
''...in the very clear water of the open ocean less than 25% of the surface light reaches a depth of 10 m (33 feet). At 100 m (330 ft) the light present from the sun is normally about 0.5% of that at the surface.'' Where do these numbers come from and to what do they refer? Does "25%" refer to the total solar irradiation integrated over the full spectrum, or weighted to the photosynthesis action spectrum, or to the human vision action spectrum (i.e. the illumination perceived by a diver)? Due to the extreme wavelength dependence of light transmission in water (see Electromagnetic absorption by water) these numbers will differ greatly, and will be largest for photosynthesis due to the blue peak in the action spectrum.--SiriusB (talk) 08:13, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

What is the scope of this article?
It seems to be a pastiche of vaguely connected statements with little logical structure. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:42, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Much of the scope has been covered in detail in other articles, so I will be rewriting this in a summary style with lists linking to the other articles. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 18:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Suggest rename to underwater environment
I propose a rename to Underwater environment as that seems to be the scope of the topic, and is reasonably well defined, in contrast with the current name. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No comment after a week. I will rename accordingly. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:20, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * And done. Practical suggestions for expansion welcome. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 18:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Underwater environment


text:
Meshech Weare

Meshech Weare (June 16, 1713 – January 14, 1786) was an American farmer, lawyer, and statesman from Seabrook and Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. He served as the first president of New Hampshire. Before 1784 the position of governor was referred to as “president of New Hampshire.” He is also called “The father of New Hampshire.” The first president of the earlier Province of New Hampshire was John Cutt.

Family life
Meshech was born to Deacon Nathaniel Weare and his second wife, Mary Waite, in what was then the Third Parish, New Hampshire. The site of the home is now in Seabrook, though the actual house burned down in the early 1900s.

Weare was baptized in modern-day Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, on June 21, 1713. He was the youngest of 14 children. Some of his siblings included (in order of baptism date) Elizabeth, Abigail, Mehitable, Susanna, and Nathan.

Weare graduated from Harvard College in 1735. He originally planned to work in the Congregational ministry, but those plans were changed after his marriage to Elizabeth Shaw in 1738. He planned on improving the land he and his wife bought after their marriage, but this plan was cut short by his wife's death. He remarried to Mehitable Wainwright in 1746. During this time he began to study law, starting with the books passed down to him from his father and grandfather, who were former lay Judges in the provincial court.

The house in which Weare lived was built in 1737 by Samuel Shaw, and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was later to be visited by George Washington, Marquis de Lafayette, and James Monroe. The back half of the house burnt many years after Weare's death, although the front half was saved. It still stands in Hampton Falls, next to the park named after Weare and across from the town school, Lincoln Akerman School.

Political life
Weare's political career began in 1739 when he became a town moderator. For the next 35 years, he served in various political positions, including selectman and representative of Hampton Falls in the Assembly. He was also the speaker of the House of Representatives three times, and its clerk for eight years. In 1754, he was one of New Hampshire's delegates to the Albany Congress.

In September 1772, Weare served as one of the four judges in the trial of the participants in the Pine Tree Riot, an early act of rebellion against British authority in the Colonies. Although the defendants were found guilty (of assaulting a sheriff who had been enforcing laws against harvesting white pine reserved to the Crown), the light fines assessed by the court were seen as encouraging other such acts, including the Boston Tea Party.

On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire became the first American state to adopt a formal constitution. Weare was a leader in the drafting of this document, which served as the basic instrument of government for the ensuing eight years or until the adoption of a second and more permanent constitution in 1784. Under this constitution, there was no established executive, and the legislature was supreme. In practice, executive power was delegated to a Committee of Safety consisting of eight or ten legislative leaders. This committee had full power to act on behalf of the government while the legislature was not in session. After a brief interval, Weare was elected chairman of the Committee of Safety and served in this capacity throughout the Revolution.

In addition to being New Hampshire's first "Governor”, Weare was chief justice of the state's highest court the "Superior Court of Judicature" from 1776 to 1782. He also served as presiding officer of the Council, then part of the upper house of the legislature. He managed to hold that position throughout the American Revolution. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1782.

The Committee of Safety, over which Weare presided, was a most interesting governmental institution. It operated both at the state and (through a network of town committees of safety) at the local level, and was virtually a law unto itself while the legislature was not in session. Its duties included supervision and coordination of military affairs within the state, raising of recruits and supplies, regulation of the state militia, custody of prisoners of war, supervision of the entrance and clearance of vessels from Portsmouth Harbor, regulation of privateers and captured prizes, surveillance of the Loyalists, regulation of trade and currency (including prevention of counterfeiting), and supervision of price controls.

Memorials
The New Hampshire town of Weare (formerly Hale's Town or Robie's Town) was renamed in 1764 to honor his service as the town's first clerk.

In Hampton Falls, a park, built in the early 2000s directly next to his house, is named for him. Weare's grave is located in a small cemetery an eighth of a mile down the road.

title: Meshech Weare


text:
Talk:Xanthippe

Comments
Additionally, in Greek Mythology, Xanthippe/Xantippe is a daughter of Dorus who bore Agenor to Pleuron son of Aetolus. Very little information is actually transmitted to the ordinary well-read reader in this sentence. Wetman 16:52, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

The Article
This article entry, Xanthippe, is almost politically and historically incorrect. As Wikipedians, we need to refrain from adding 21st century perspectives (prejudices) to 2400 year old events and people. Stevenmitchell 18:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I made a lot of changes in the article, hopefully mitigating the problems you mention. Isokrates (talk) 02:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this any use? ALFREDO PANZINI'S "SANTIPPE," A LITTLE NOVEL BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN

" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xan81 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Xanthippe


text:
Hebban olla vogala

"Hebban olla vogala", sometimes spelled "hebban olla uogala", are the first three words of an 11th-century text fragment written in Old Dutch. The fragment was discovered in 1932 on the back of the end-leaf of a manuscript that once belonged to the cathedral priory of Rochester, Kent, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 340. The manuscript contains a collection of Old English sermons by Ælfric of Eynsham. The Dutch text is found on fol. 169v and probably dates to the late 11th century. It was long considered to represent a West Flemish variant of Old Low Franconian, although more recent research shows that it also displays significant influence from Old English.

An often-cited poem, it was long believed by many Dutch-speakers to be the only remaining text in Old Dutch. However, experts were already aware of other sources that were then not yet easily accessible. Today, more than 42,000 Old Dutch words and phrases from sources such as the Wachtendonck Psalms and the Leiden Willeram have been discovered, with the oldest definitive source being the Salian Law.

Text
The complete text, a probatio pennae or "scribble" by the writer to test their pen, is usually transcribed as Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu, although the manuscript text is very faded and many scholars differ slightly in their reading of the poem. A word-for-word translation into Latin was written directly above it: (H)abent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu quid expectamus nu(nc). It is roughly translated as: "All birds have begun nests, except me and you – what are we waiting for now?" (Modern Dutch: Zijn alle vogels nesten begonnen, behalve ik en jij – waarop wachten we nu?)

Origin
The text was long considered West Flemish; the arguments in favour of this view were advanced by Moritz Schönfeld in 1933. According to his interpretation, *agunnan, hinase and (as he read it) anda are Ingvaeonic forms whose presence might be expected in any of the coastal dialects of Old Frisian, Old Saxon or Old Frankish. However, the -n of third person plural hebban, which is absent in both Old English and Frisian, identifies the language as Old Dutch. (Old High German habent uses a different stem.) Schönfeld identified nestas as the plural of a masculine nest that is attested in Middle Dutch and is still present in West Flemish, and he noted that vogala has an epenthetic vocal of a type also found in certain Old Ghentish words, whereas Old English has fuglas. The form olla is the result of a vowel shift a > o before ll that is thought to have occurred in West Flemish at a very early date, possibly before 900.

The debate regarding the text's language, however, was reopened in 2004, when Luc De Grauwe asserted that many of the text's forms could also reflect the Kentish dialect of Old English. It has particularly been pointed out that the -s plural of nestas, the verb aginnan and the ending on -e of hinase are in fact more typical of Old English. The emerging consensus view is that the text is a linguistic blend of Old Dutch and Old English; it may even reflect a Flemish-speaking scribe's attempt at writing in English, making it not only a probatio pennae, or pen trial, but also a "probatio linguae", or language trial.

Language comparisons
Kenny Louwen gives a comparison of different forms the sentence would be expected to take in Old Dutch, Old English and Middle Dutch, which highlights the linguistic influences the text as it survives in the manuscript. (He reads umbidan rather than unbidan.)

Below is a comparison of the manuscript text with its closest translations into modern Dutch and English. The Dutch sentence is a correct one, although the verb begonnen is usually conjugated with zijn (be) and not with hebben (have). For English the word order had to be adjusted. For hinase and unbidan there are no close matches in either language.

The form hinase corresponds morphologically to Modern Dutch tenzij, meaning "unless", from hit ne sī, Modern Dutch het niet zij, literally "it were not to be". It does not seem to have a Modern English cognate.

Various theories

Frits van Oostrom has linked it to the Moorish Kharjas genre, which includes verses sung by women to their absent lovers. He concludes that the fragment was probably written by a woman or from a female perspective.

title: Hebban olla vogala


text:
Echo-class survey ship (2002)

The Echo class was a class of multi-purpose hydrographic survey ships in commission with the Royal Navy. The ships were primarily tasked with conducting survey work in support of submarine and amphibious operations, however, the class also has a secondary role in mine countermeasures. The two vessels of the class were the most recent additions to the Royal Navy's Hydrographic Squadron. Each ship displaced approximately 3,700 tonnes, and was equipped with a state of the art suite of equipment. The lead ship of the class, HMS Echo, was retired in 2022 and her sister ship in 2023.

Design
Echo and Enterprise were the first Royal Navy ships to be fitted with azimuth thrusters. Both azimuth thrusters and the bow thruster can be controlled through the integrated navigation system by a joystick providing high manoeuvrability. Complete control and monitoring for power generation and propulsion, together with all auxiliary plant systems, tank gauging and damage control functions is provided through the integrated platform management system (IPMS), accessible through workstations around the ship. The range of equipment carried includes the following:

 * Multi beam echo sounder
 * Single beam echo sounder
 * Survey Planning and Processing Systems
 * Side-scan sonar
 * Oceanographic Probe and sensors
 * Undulating Oceanographic Profiler
 * Doppler Current Log
 * Sub-bottom Profiler
 * Bottom Sampling Equipment
 * Survey motor boat fitted with multi-beam sonar and sidescan sonar

The vessels were armed. They carried a GAM-B01 20 mm cannon (a naval version of the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon), two miniguns and four General Purpose Machine Guns.

Role
The vessels were designed to conduct survey tasks in support of submarines or amphibious operations. They provided almost real-time tailored environmental information, and also have a secondary role as a mine countermeasure tasking authority platform, for which they were capable of embarking a dedicated mine counter measures command team, and supporting other mine warfare vessels.

Manning
The two ships followed the same type of crew rotation pattern as HMS Scott (H131), in that two-thirds of their crew was needed to keep the ship operational, with the remaining one-third ashore. This allowed each ship to be available for deployment for up to 330 days a year.

The ship's crew consisted of 72 personnel, with 48 on board at any one time, working a cycle of 75 days on, 30 days off. The ships were able to accommodate 81 personnel if necessary. In support of this high availability, all accommodation and recreational facilities were designed for an unusual (in a warship) degree of comfort. All personnel shared double cabins with private facilities, except the captain and executive officer who both had single cabins.

title: Echo-class survey ship (2002)


text:
John Taylor Gilman

John Taylor Gilman (December 19, 1753 –September 1, 1828) was a farmer, shipbuilder and statesman from Exeter, New Hampshire. He represented New Hampshire in the Continental Congress in 1782–1783 and was the fifth governor of New Hampshire for 14 years, from 1794 to 1805, and from 1813 to 1816.

Early life
Gilman was born in Exeter, in the Province of New Hampshire, the son of Ann (Taylor) and Nicholas Gilman. His brother was Nicholas Gilman, who had signed the U.S. Constitution. His family had settled in Exeter in its earliest days. He lived in the Ladd-Gilman House, now a part of the American Independence Museum. He received a limited education before he entered into the family shipbuilding and mercantile businesses. Aged 22, he read aloud a Dunlap Broadside brought to New Hampshire on July 16, 1776 to the city of Exeter. The American Independence Museum commemorates his brave act every year at their American Independence Festival, where a role-player reads the Declaration in its entirety to festival-goers.

Career
Gilman was one of the Minutemen of 1775 and a selectman in 1777 and 1778. Gilman served as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1779 and 1781 and was a delegate to the Convention of the States in Hartford, Connecticut, in October 1780. He served as a member of the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783. He was the New Hampshire Treasurer in 1791 and moderator in 1791–1794, 1806, 1807, 1809–1811, 1817, 1818, and 1820–1825.

Gilman served as Governor of New Hampshire between 1794 and 1805 and was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1805. He was again a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1810 and 1811 and again an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1812. He was elected governor and served from 1813 to 1816 and declined to be a candidate for renomination for governor in 1816. He was an ex officio trustee of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (1794–1805 and 1813–1816), and trustee by election (1817–1819). He was president of the board of trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1795–1827, and donor of the oldest property, the 'Yard,' upon which the older buildings stand. Gilman was also elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.

Personal life
Gilman was married to Deborah (Folsom) Gilman, the daughter of Major General Nathaniel Folsom of Exeter. He died in Exeter on September 1, 1828. He is the first governor of New Hampshire not to have a place in the state named after him. The town of Gilmanton, settled by 24 members of the extended Gilman clan, was named for the family as a whole and not for the Governor.

title: John Taylor Gilman


text:
IRC bot

An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another user. An IRC bot differs from a regular client in that instead of providing interactive access to IRC for a human user, it performs automated functions.

Function
Often, an IRC bot is deployed as a detached program running from a stable host. It sits on an IRC channel to keep it open and prevents malicious users from taking over the channel. It can be configured to give channel operator status to privileged users when they join the channel, and can provide a unified channel operator list. Many of these features require that the bot be a channel operator. Thus, most IRC bots are run from computers which have long uptimes (generally running a BSD derivative or Linux) and a fast, stable Internet connection. As IRC has become popular with many dial-up users as well, shell accounts at shell providers have become popular as a stable Linux server with a decent connection to run a bot from.

Aside from managing channel permissions, a bot can also perform functions such as logging what is posted to an IRC channel, giving out information on demand (very popular in IRC channels dealing with user support), creating statistics tracking the channel's top posters and longest-lived lurkers, or hosting trivia, Uno and other games. These functions are usually provided by scripts, often written in a scripting programming language such as Tcl or Perl by the bot's users. Channels dedicated to file sharing often use XDCC bots to distribute their files.

IRC bots are particularly useful on IRC networks such as EFnet and IRCnet without channel registration services, and on networks like Undernet or QuakeNet that require conditions to be met (minimum user count, etc.) before a channel may be registered. Where bots are used for administrative functions such as this, they may need more access than a normal client connection allows. Some versions of IRC have a "Service" protocol that allows clients with these extra powers. Such server-sanctioned bots are called IRC services.

Bots are not always welcome. Some IRC networks forbid the usage of bots. One of the reasons for doing so is that each nickname connected to the network increases the size of the network database which is being kept in sync across all servers. Allowing for bots in large networks can cause a relevant amount of network traffic overhead which needs to be financed and may even lead to netsplits.

In popular culture

 * Basshunter's 2006 song, Boten Anna, is about a female IRC user mistaken for an IRC bot

title: IRC bot


text:
Talk:List of heads of state of Lithuania

List of Lithuanian rulers
Supreme Council or Supreme Soviet. I knew, that such usage Supreme Soviet exists and the article about it exists too. However the thing is bit different here. After 11 Mart, 1990 Lithuanian institutions unofficially in English were called: representative institution was called Parliament and the leader of both the Parliament and the State was called President. These terms were common and even prevailed in Western media. However official designations (used, for example, in translations of legislative acts) were the Supreme Council and the Chairmen of the Supreme Council. Being without any doubt heritage of Soviet times, these terms after 1990-03-11 were directly translated from Lithuanian language, not using Russian term Soviet (cf. names of parliaments in Ukraine, China). The main thing is, that such usage existed officially, and we shouldn't use different parallel names, even if they are more common and understandable. Linas 07:22, 2004 May 24 (UTC)

King Mindaugas II
From 9 July 1918 until 2 November 1918 Mindaugas II was a king-elect of the Kingdom of Lithuania. He never reached to rule, but must also be considered a head of state as long as one regards 16 Feb 1918 to be the day of Lithuania's independence. --Jakro64 13:01, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is this article really a stub? Andres 12:35, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes it is - it is missing information in section "Lithuania as part of Imperial Russia". Also, section "Lithuania as part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" is incomplete. Knutux 17:09, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

Merging
About merging "Early dukes of Lithuania" in to Early rulers (legendary and otherwise) 1. Dukes mensioned in "Early dukes of Lithuania" wasn't rulers of Lithuania. Some of them is Samogitians for egzample, but main thing is that in 1219 was no Lithuania state and in list said - dukes of Deltuva, Samogitia etc. 2. In case of merging real persons will be puted in same place with fantasies of XVI a. as Rimgaudas. [author of "Early dukes of Lithuania"]

Algirdas coat of arms?
Algirdas used Gediminas' coat of arms so put it on Gediminas and Jaunutis as well. 88.223.213.190 (talk) 23:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)


text:
The Terminal

The Terminal is a 2004 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stanley Tucci. The film is about an Eastern European man who is stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport terminal when he is denied entry to the United States, but is unable to return to his native country because of a military coup.

The film is partially inspired by the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived in Terminal 1 of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, from 1988 to 2006.

After finishing Catch Me If You Can, Spielberg decided to direct The Terminal because he wanted to next make a film "that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world". As no suitable airport was willing to provide their facilities, an entire working set was built inside a large hangar at the LA/Palmdale Regional Airport, with most of the film's exterior shots taken from the Montreal–Mirabel International Airport.

The film was released in North America on June 18, 2004, to generally positive reviews and was a commercial success, earning $219 million worldwide.

Plot
Viktor Navorski, a traveler from Krakozhia, arrives at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport and learns that a coup d'état has occurred back home. The United States does not recognize Krakozhia's new government, rendering Viktor's passport invalid and leaving him unable to either enter the United States or return to Krakozhia. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seize his passport and return ticket, pending resolution of the issue, leaving him stranded at the airport with only his luggage and a Planters peanut can.

Frank Dixon, the Acting Field Commissioner of the airport, instructs Viktor to stay in the transit lounge until the issue is resolved. Viktor finds a gate under renovation and makes it his home. Dixon becomes determined to make Viktor someone else's problem. He tries to tempt Viktor to leave by ordering guards away from the exit for five minutes, but it fails. Dixon then tries to persuade Viktor to claim asylum, but Viktor refuses, as he is not afraid of returning to his own country. Viktor befriends and assists several airport employees and travelers:

 * Gupta Rajan, an elderly janitor who delights in watching people slip on his freshly cleaned floors;
 * Joe Mulroy, a baggage handler who plays poker, betting lost luggage items;
 * Dolores Torres, an immigration officer;
 * Enrique Cruz, a food service truck driver who has a crush on Dolores
 * Amelia Warren, a United Airlines flight attendant whom he tries to woo after she mistakes him for a building contractor who is frequently traveling.

Dixon, who is being considered for a promotion, becomes more and more obsessed with getting rid of Viktor. Meanwhile, Viktor begins reading books and magazines to learn English. After he impulsively remodels a wall in the renovation zone, he is hired by an airport contractor and paid under the table.

One day, Dixon detains Amelia and interrogates her about Viktor. Amelia, who realizes Viktor has not been entirely truthful, confronts him at his makeshift home, where he shows her that the Planters peanut can contains a copy of the "A Great Day in Harlem" photograph. His late father was a jazz enthusiast who had discovered the picture in a Hungarian newspaper in 1958 and vowed to collect the autographs of all 57 musicians depicted in it. He died needing only the autograph of tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, and Viktor has come to New York to get it. After hearing the story, Amelia kisses Viktor.

Nine months later, Viktor learns that the war in Krakozhia has ended, and he can now secure permission to leave the airport. Meanwhile, Amelia has asked her "friend" Max, actually a married government official with whom she had an affair, to get Viktor a one-day emergency visa to fulfill his dream, but Viktor is disappointed to learn that she has rekindled the affair during this process. When he presents the emergency visa at customs, Viktor is told that Dixon must sign it. However, as Viktor's passport is now valid again, Dixon is determined to deport him back to Krakozhia. He threatens that if Viktor does not go home at once, he will prosecute his friends at the airport for their illegal activities, most seriously by deporting Gupta back to India to face a charge of assaulting a police officer. Viktor finally agrees to return home, but Gupta delays the plane by running in front of it and is taken into custody.

The delay gives Viktor enough time to escape the airport. Dixon orders his officers to stop Viktor at the exit, but disillusioned with Dixon, they let him leave. As Viktor is getting in a taxi, Amelia arrives in another one, and they briefly smile and make eye contact. Dixon reaches the taxi stand only moments after Viktor has left, but has a change of heart and tells his officers to handle the incoming travelers rather than engage in pursuit. Viktor arrives at the hotel where Golson is performing and finally collects the last autograph, then takes a taxi back to the airport.

Cast

 * Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski
 * Catherine Zeta-Jones as flight attendant Amelia Warren
 * Stanley Tucci as U.S. Customs and Border Protection acting field commissioner Frank Dixon
 * Barry Shabaka Henley as U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Judge Thurman
 * Kumar Pallana as janitor Gupta Rajan
 * Diego Luna as food service deliverer Enrique Cruz
 * Chi McBride as baggage handler Joe Mulroy
 * Zoe Saldana as U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Dolores Torres
 * Eddie Jones as U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner Richard Salchak
 * Jude Ciccolella as Karl Iverson
 * Corey Reynolds as U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Waylin
 * Guillermo Diaz as Bobby Alima
 * Rini Bell as Nadia
 * Valery Nikolaev as Milodragovich
 * Michael Nouri as Max
 * Benny Golson as himself
 * Scott Adsit as cab driver
 * Mark Ivanir as Goran
 * Dan Finnerty as Cliff
 * Stephen Mendel as first class steward

Production
The idea for the film may have originated from the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, also known as Sir Alfred, an Iranian refugee who lived in Terminal One of the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris from 1988 until 2006. In September 2003, The New York Times noted that Spielberg bought the rights to Nasseri's life story as the basis for the film; and in September 2004 The Guardian noted Nasseri received thousands of dollars from the filmmakers. However, none of the studio's publicity materials mention Nasseri's story as an inspiration for the film, and the storyline bears no resemblance to Nasseri's experiences. The 1993 French film Lost in Transit was already based on the same story. In deciding to make the film, Steven Spielberg stated that after directing Catch Me If You Can, "I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world.... This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times."

Spielberg traveled around the world to find an actual airport that would let him film for the length of the production, but could not find one. The Terminal set was built in a massive hangar at the LA/Palmdale Regional Airport. The hangar, part of the U.S. Air Force Plant 42 complex was used to build the Rockwell International B-1B bomber. The set was built to full earthquake construction codes and was based on Düsseldorf Airport. The shape of both the actual terminal and the set viewed sideways is a cross-section of an aircraft wing. Because of this design, the film was one of the first to use the Spidercam for film production. The camera, most often used for televised sports, allowed Spielberg the ability to create sweeping shots across the set. The design of the set for The Terminal, as noted by Roger Ebert in his reviews and attested by Spielberg himself in a feature by Empire magazine, was greatly inspired by Jacques Tati's classic film PlayTime.

Tom Hanks based his characterization of Viktor Navorski on his father-in-law Allan Wilson, a Bulgarian immigrant, who according to Hanks can speak "Russian, Turkish, Polish, Greek, little bit of Italian, little bit of French", in addition to his native Bulgarian. Hanks also had some help from a Bulgarian translator.

Krakozhia
Krakozhia (Кракожия) is a fictional country, created for the film, that closely resembles a former Soviet Republic or an Eastern Bloc state.

The exact location of Krakozhia is kept intentionally vague in the film. However, in one scene, a map of Krakozhia is briefly displayed on one of the airport's television screens during a news report on the ongoing conflict. Its borders are those of present-day North Macedonia (known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia at the time of the film's production). However, in another scene, Viktor shows his driver's license, which is a Belarusian license issued to a woman bearing an Uzbek name.

John Williams, the film's composer, also wrote a national anthem for Krakozhia.

Hanks' character speaks mostly Bulgarian as his native Krakozhian. However in one scene, in which he helps a Russian-speaking passenger with a customs-related issue, he speaks a constructed Slavic language resembling Bulgarian and Russian. When Viktor buys a guide book of New York both in English and in his mother-tongue to compare the two versions and improve his English, the book he studies is written in Russian.

The film presents a reasonably accurate picture of the process of naturalistic second-language acquisition, according to linguist Martha Young-Scholten.

Soundtrack
Emily Bernstein played clarinet for the score, including several prominent solos, and her name is in the film's end credits. Normally individual musicians in studio orchestras perform anonymously, but Spielberg insisted on highlighting Bernstein's work; she was being treated for cancer at the time of recording, and she died less than a year later.

Box office
The Terminal grossed $77.9 million in North America, and $141.2 million in other territories, totaling $219.4 million worldwide.

The film grossed $19.1 million in its opening weekend, finishing in second, then made $13.1 million in its second weekend, dropping to third.

Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 61% of 206 sampled critics gave The Terminal positive reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Terminal transcends its flaws through the sheer virtue of its crowd-pleasing message and a typically solid star turn from Tom Hanks." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Michael Wilmington from the Chicago Tribune said "[the film] takes Spielberg into realms he's rarely traveled before." A. O. Scott of The New York Times said Hanks' performance brought a lot to the film.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave The Terminal three and a half out of four stars, stating that "This premise could have yielded a film of contrivance and labored invention. Spielberg, his actors and writers... weave it into a human comedy that is gentle and true, that creates sympathy for all of its characters, that finds a tone that will carry them through, that made me unreasonably happy". Martin Liebman of Blu-ray.com considers the film as "quintessential cinema", praising it for being "a down-to-earth, honest, hopeful, funny, moving, lightly romantic, and dramatically relevant film that embodies the term 'movie magic' in every scene." Critic Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com considered The Terminal alongside War of the Worlds and Munich (also directed by Spielberg) as the three best films made within the studio system that comment upon the September 11 attacks.

title: The Terminal


text:
Lithophyte

Lithophytes are plants that grow in or on rocks. They can be classified as either epilithic (or epipetric) or endolithic; epilithic lithophytes grow on the surfaces of rocks, while endolithic lithophytes grow in the crevices of rocks (and are also referred to as chasmophytes). Lithophytes can also be classified as being either obligate or facultative. Obligate lithophytes grow solely on rocks, while facultative lithophytes will grow partially on a rock and on another substrate simultaneously.

Nutrients
Lithophytes that grow on land feed off nutrients from rain water and nearby decaying plants, including their own dead tissue. It is easier for Chasmophytes to acquire nutrients because they grow in fissures in rocks where soil or organic matter has accumulated.

For most Lithophytes, nitrogen is only available through interactions with the atmosphere. The most readily available form of nitrogen in the atmosphere is the gaseous state of ammonia (NH3). Lithophytes consume atmospheric ammonia through a concentration gradient that allows the compound to traverse the plants' apoplast. Once free in the apoplast, gaseous ammonia is absorbed into metabolic cells by the enzyme glutamine synthetase.

To be able to absorb the few nutrients available on rocks or rocky substrates efficiently, lithophytes have evolved certain adaptations. They possess decreased numbers of root hairs and larger root diameters in comparison to other plant species. To add to this nutrient uptake efficiency, lithophytic plants have increased their relationship with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and dark septate endophyte fungi. These two types of fungi live inter- and intracellularly with the roots of lithophytes and a wide variety of other plant species. They increase the uptake of nutrients and water and have been found in greater concentrations in lithophytes.

Walls colonised as artificial cliffs by lithophytes
"Walls, and other exposed stonework, are colonised by plants in a similar way to the colonisation of cliffs and scree. These natural features are uncommon, especially in the lowlands, so walls are important for the conservation of plants which might otherwise be very isolated. Some wall plants even have 'wall' or 'muralis' as part of their common or scientific name such as wall-flower (Erysimum cheiri) or ivy-leaved toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis), which shows their long established relationship with these man-made structures. English Heritage Landscape Advice Note: Vegetation on Walls"

Examples
Examples of lithophytes include many orchids such as Dendrobium and Paphiopedilum, bromeliads such as Tillandsia, as well as many ferns, algae and liverworts. Lithophytes have also been found in many other plant families, such as, Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Begoniaceae, Caprifoliaceae, Crassulaceae, Piperaceae and Selaginellaceae.

Carnivorous plants
As nutrients tend to be rarely available to lithophytes or chasmophytes, many species of carnivorous plants can be viewed as being pre-adapted to life on rocks. By consuming prey, these plants can gather more nutrients than non-carnivorous lithophytes. Examples include the pitcher plants Nepenthes campanulata and Heliamphora exappendiculata, many Pinguicula and several Utricularia species.

Tennyson poem inspired by lithophyte
In the year 1863, Alfred, Lord Tennyson was moved to write his short and pithy poem of metaphysical speculation Flower in the Crannied Wall upon contemplating an unnamed lithophyte growing out of the masonry of the wishing well at Waggoners Wells.

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

title: Lithophyte


text:
529 plan

A 529 plan, also called a Qualified Tuition Program, is a tax-advantaged investment vehicle in the United States designed to encourage saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary. In 2017, K–12 public, private, and religious school tuition were included as qualified expenses for 529 plans along with post-secondary education costs after passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Overview
529 plans are named after section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code—. While most plans allow investors from out of state, there can be significant state tax advantages and other benefits, such as matching grant and scholarship opportunities, protection from creditors and exemption from state financial aid calculations for investors who invest in 529 plans in their state of residence. Contributions to 529 college savings plans are made with after-tax dollars. Once money is invested in the account, it grows tax-free, and withdrawals from the plans are not taxed when the money is used for qualified educational expenses. Only 2.5 percent of all families had 529 college savings accounts in 2013. As of August 2020, more than $360 billion was invested in 529 college savings plans.

There are two types of 529 plans: prepaid plans and savings plans.

 * Prepaid plans
 * Prepaid plans allow one to purchase tuition credits at today's rates to be used in the future. Therefore, performance is based upon tuition inflation.
 * Prepaid plans may be administered by states or higher education institutions.
 * Currently, nine states provide a prepaid tuition plan that is accepting new applicants. Those states include Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
 * Savings plans
 * Savings plans are different in that all growth is based upon market performance of the underlying investments, which typically consist of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF). Investors can select stocks and bonds via preset investment menus.
 * Most 529 savings plans offer a variety of age-based asset allocation options where the underlying investments become more conservative as the beneficiary gets closer to college age.
 * Savings plans may be administered by states only.
 * Although states administer savings plans, record-keeping and administrative services for many savings plans are usually delegated to a mutual fund company or other financial services company.

With the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA), 529 plans gained their current prominence and tax advantages. Qualified distributions from 529 plans for qualified higher education expenses or tuition for elementary or secondary schools are exempt from federal income tax.

History
529 college savings plan originated from states rather than the federal government. With tuition cost increasing year by year, the state-run prepaid tuition program of Michigan addressed the increasing anxiety on the part of many thousands of Michigan households with the Michigan Education Trust (MET) proposition. This created a fund to which the state's residents could pay a fixed amount in exchange for tuition increases. The initiative sparked interest in other states, which launched their first prepaid tuition program.

Michigan delayed its own launch so that a ruling could be requested from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding the tax aspect of arrangement. The IRS allowed purchasers of the "prepaid tuition contract" to not be taxed on the accruing value of the contract until the year in which funds were distributed or refunded. Additionally, the trust fund established by the state of Michigan was required to receive prepayments and be subject to income tax on earnings from the invested funds.

The Michigan Education Trust (MET) entered into prepaid tuition contracts with Michigan's residents. An estimated 55,000 individuals signed up for the program. MET paid federal income tax on its investment earnings, and in 1990 filed suit for refund from the IRS. The case was first decided in favor of the IRS, but on appeal in 1994 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court judge's decision and found in Michigan's favor.

At one point MET sold prepaid tuition contracts that were below market value, and the program had to be adjusted with appropriate pricing. Today it remains as one of the largest and most successful pre-paid programs.

Subsequently, Congress has passed new legislation authorizing qualified state tuition programs. This is now part of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996. Section 529 was added to the Internal Revenue Code, conferring tax exemption to qualifying state programs and deferring tax on participant's undistributed earnings.

Section 529 advanced to the Clinton administration's agenda and became part of Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA). The TRA made changes such as deduction on student loans, penalty-free IRA withdrawals for higher education, and adding room and board to the list of qualifying expenses.

Another provision was added to the bill to make Section 529 distributions tax-free, not just tax deferred when used for college. Bill Clinton vetoed this provision.

In 2001, when George W. Bush was president, new tax bills were crafted in both the Senate and the House of Representatives containing the previously vetoed changes.

With limited Democratic support, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001 was signed into law on June 7, 2001.

Due to federal budget constraints, EGTRRA stated that every tax provision within the new law would expire on December 31, 2010. Congressional leaders decided to insert a provision in the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) that would make all EGTRRA charges to Section 529 permanent, including tax-free treatment for qualified distributions.

Changes to the structure and marketing of 529 plans over the years have contributed to their growth. The states partnered up with the professional investment community, which allowed them to offer 529 plans with the feel of mutual funds. Also, registered brokers and investment advisors can directly assist families in understanding 529 plans and selecting an appropriate investment.

Other changes that have resulted in a growth in adoption include: federal legislation regarding taxes, financial aid, asset protection; on-going program improvement; lowering of expenses; generous state incentives; positive media coverage; and college savings registries that allow people sign up for the program. Some employers offer 529 plans to their employees as a benefit, similar to retirement plans, or even with contribution matching.

In 2014, Congress passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, laying the groundwork for ABLE accounts. ABLE, or 529A, accounts are similar to 529 plans, except for the purpose of saving for a disabled beneficiary's special needs.

In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama proposed removing the tax-free status of distributions of 529 plans. He abandoned the proposal after it met with heavy opposition.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 heavily expanded 529 plans to include K–12 public, private, and religious school tuition. The original plan, called the Cruz amendment, called for homeschool expenses to also qualify for 529 plans but due to the Byrd Rule in the Senate the homeschool expenses provision was stricken by the Senate parliamentarian while the K–12 tuition provision was allowed. According to the new law 529 plans can be used to fund all K–12 school tuition costs up to $10,000 per year per child. The SECURE Act further expanded the use of 529 plans to cover student loan repayments. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also allowed rollovers from 529 plans to ABLE accounts, as long as the ABLE account beneficiary is the original 529 beneficiary or a qualified family member. The allowed annual rollover amount is set at the standard IRS gift tax exemption, less any other contributions made in the current tax year.

Secure ACT 2.0 of Jan 2023 allows for tax and penalty free rollovers from 529 accounts to Roth IRAs, under certain conditions. Beneficiaries of 529 college savings accounts would be permitted to rollover up to $35,000 over the course of their lifetime from any 529 account in their name to their Roth IRA. These rollovers are also subject to Roth IRA annual contribution limits, and the 529 account must have been open for more than 15 years.

Use for qualified education expenses
The funds from a 529 plan are used for qualified education expenses. These expenses are typically tuition, fees, textbooks, computers and equipment and are charged to the student in relation to attending an institution defined as any eligible public, non-profit or private college or university, technical, vocational, or trade institutions. Expenses for special needs services needed by a special needs beneficiary must be incurred in connection with enrollment or attendance at an eligible post-secondary school or institution as described previously. For expenses to qualify, the student must be enrolled for at least half the full-time academic workload for the course of study the student is pursuing, as determined under the standards of the school where the student is enrolled. Institutions are considered eligible if they participate in a financial aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. This may also include some foreign educational institutions located outside of the United States, but they must be eligible to participate in a financial aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education as well.

Additionally, as determined by state law, eligible expenses of no more than $10,000 of tuition incurred by a designated beneficiary enrolled in elementary or secondary school may be used at any eligible public, private or religious school that provides elementary or secondary education.

Room and board are also considered eligible expenses for both on-campus and off-campus housing. For on-campus housing – the expense allowed is the actual amount charged if the student is residing in housing owned or operated by the school. For off-campus housing – the expense is allowed up to the amount allowed for on-campus room and board, as determined by the school, that was included in the cost of attendance (for federal financial aid purposes) for a particular academic period and living arrangement of the student. 529 plan qualified expenses for off-campus housing are not limited to rent. They can include groceries and utilities. For tax purposes, receipts for all qualified expenses must be kept.

Recent changes now allow expenses for fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for the designated beneficiary's participation in an apprenticeship program registered and certified with the Secretary of Labor under section 1 of the National Apprenticeship Act to be considered eligible expenses.

Qualified education expenses formerly did not include student loans and student loan interest. However, on December 12, 2019, the SECURE Act was signed into law, which allows for 529 withdrawals for "principal or interest on any qualified education loan", under certain conditions:
 * No more than $10,000 may be withdrawn for the purposes of paying a student loan
 * The $10,000 limit is a maximum lifetime limit per beneficiary and sibling

A distribution from a 529 plan that is not used for the above qualified educational expenses is subject to income tax and an additional 10% early-distribution penalty on the earnings portion of the distribution. The tax penalty is waived if any of the following conditions is satisfied:
 * The designated beneficiary dies, and the distribution goes to another beneficiary or to the estate of the designated beneficiary.
 * The designated beneficiary becomes disabled. People providing proof of being unable do any substantial gainful activity because of a physical or mental condition are considered disabled. A physician must determine that the individual's condition can be expected to result in death or continue indefinitely.
 * The designated beneficiary receives any of the following:
 * a qualified scholarship excludable from gross income
 * veterans' educational assistance
 * employer-provided educational assistance
 * any other nontaxable payments (other than gifts, bequests or inheritances) received for education expenses
 * The distribution is rolled over into an ABLE account whose beneficiary is either the original fund beneficiary or a qualified family member.

Advantages
There are many advantages to the 529 plan:

First, although contributions are not deductible from the donor's federal income tax liability, many states provide state income tax benefits for all or part of the contributions of the donor. Beyond the potential state income tax deduction possibilities, a prime benefit of the 529 plan is that the principal grows tax-deferred and distributions for the beneficiary's college costs are exempt from tax.

Many states give the account owner a full or partial state income tax deduction or tax credit for their contributions to the state's section 529 plans. So far a total of 35 states and the District of Columbia offer such a deduction. California, Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, and North Carolina currently have state income taxes but do not offer a state income tax deduction or tax credit for contributions to the state's 529 college savings plan. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, New Hampshire, Washington and Wyoming do not have state income taxes. Contributions to other states' section 529 plans are generally not deductible in the account holder's home state. Only Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana and Pennsylvania provide for state tax parity, where contributions to any state plan are eligible for the state's income tax deduction.

Second, the donor maintains control of the account. With few exceptions, the named beneficiary has no rights to the funds. Most plans allow donors to reclaim the funds at any time for their own use. However, if a "non-qualified" withdrawal is made, the earnings portion will be subject to income tax and an additional 10% penalty tax.

Third, a 529 plan can provide a convenient, hands-off way to save for college. Having selected which 529 plan to use, the donor completes a simple enrollment form and makes a contribution (or signs up for automatic deposits). The ongoing investment of the account is handled by the plan, not by the donor. Plan assets are professionally managed either by the state treasurer's office or by an outside investment company hired as the program manager. The donor will not receive a Form 1099 to report taxable or nontaxable earnings until the year of the withdrawals. If an investment switch is desired, donors may change to a different option in a 529 savings program every year (program permitting) or the account may be rolled over to a different state's program provided no such rollover for the beneficiary has occurred in the prior 12 months. 529 plans generally have very low minimum start-up and contribution requirements. The fees, compared with other investment vehicles, are low, although this depends on the state administering the plan. Finally, everyone is eligible to take advantage of a 529 plan, and the amounts that can be put in are substantial (over $300,000 per beneficiary in many state plans). Generally, there are no income limitations or age restrictions.

A final advantage of the assets in a 529 plan is that, although they can be reclaimed by the donor (subject to income tax and the 10% additional penalty on any gains), the assets are not counted as part of the donor's gross estate for estate tax purposes. Thus 529 plans can be used as an estate planning tool to move assets outside of the estate while still retaining some measure of control if the money is needed in the future. A beneficiary must be designated and the income tax savings are still only obtained if the money is eventually spent for education, though in some cases estate taxes can be reduced without spending the money on education.

In addition, under the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, 529 college savings plans and prepaid tuition plans are now treated as an asset of the account owner (typically the parent), meaning they have little impact on a student's eligibility for financial aid.

Under the SECURE Act of 2019, up to $10,000 of funds from a 529 plan can be used towards student loan expenses.

Transferable
Another benefit associated with 529 Plans is the ability to transfer unused amounts to other qualified members of the beneficiary's family without incurring any tax penalty. According to the IRS website (Publication 970), this type of transfer is known as a Rollover and is explained at length in their Qualified Tuition Program (QTP) section. Any amount paid to another QTP within 60 days of distribution is considered Rolled Over and does not require reporting anywhere on Form 1040 or 1040NR.

Qualified members of the beneficiary's family include the beneficiary's:
 * Spouse
 * Son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, adopted child, or a descendant of any of them.
 * Brother, sister, stepbrother, or stepsister.
 * Father or mother or ancestor of either.
 * Stepfather or stepmother.
 * Son or daughter of a brother or sister.
 * Brother or sister of father or mother.
 * Son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law.
 * The spouse of any individual listed above.
 * First cousin.

Disadvantages
While the number and types of 529 plans are growing, not all investment vehicles are available in 529 form.

Unlike almost all other types of tax-deferred plans, such as 401(k) plans, IRS rules allow only two exchanges or reallocation of assets per year in a 529 plan. This limitation also applies to ABLE accounts.

The earnings portion of money withdrawn from a 529 plan that is not spent on eligible expenses (or rolled over into an ABLE account for any eligible family member) is subject to income tax, an additional 10% federal tax penalty, and the possibility of a recapture of any state tax deductions or credits taken. For example, if $50,000 is contributed to a 529 plan, where it grows to $60,000 over time, and an unqualified withdrawal is made for the entire amount, the $10,000 gain is taxable and a 10% penalty on the $10,000 is applicable (i.e. $1,000).

Paying qualified expenses directly from a 529 account that is owned by someone other than the student or parent may reduce a student's eligibility for need-based financial aid.

Paying college expenses directly from a 529 account may reduce eligibility for the American Opportunity Tax Credit, due to IRS coordination restrictions. To claim the full credit (in addition to meeting other criteria, such as income limits), $4,000 of college tuition and textbook expenses per year should be paid from non-529 plan funds.

The 529 plan for the state in which one is domiciled may have higher fees (expense ratios) – which are not required to be disclosed in marketing materials and can range from under 0.4% to more than 1.1% – than the plans of other states. For example, a 529 plan in which $2,000 is deposited each year for 18 years would accumulate over $4,000 in fees with a 1.1% expense ratio but only $1,400 in fees with a 0.4% expense ratio – a savings of $2,600. Generally, direct-sold 529 plans have lower fees than advisor-sold 529 plans.

Deductibility of losses
In certain circumstances where a 529 account has experienced investment losses over the term of its existence, the contributor to the account may withdraw the funds and have the losses deducted from taxable income (but not counted as such for Alternative Minimum Tax purposes).

Gift tax considerations
Contributions to 529 plans are considered gifts under the federal gift tax regulations and hence any contributions in excess of $15,000 if filing single (or $75,000 over five years) or $30,000 if filing married jointly (or $150,000 over a five-year period) count against the one-time gift/estate tax exemption. The five-year period is known as the five-year carry-forward option: Once the single donor puts in $75,000 or the married jointly donor puts in $150,000, they are not able to make another contribution (gift) to that individual (without using part of their lifetime gifting exclusion) for five years.

Since tuition payments to an educational institution are not subject to the annual gift limitation, parents who are trying to minimize estate taxes may be better off making their annual gifts to another vehicle such as a Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) account and then paying the tuition directly. However, this may significantly reduce the student's eligibility for need-based financial aid.

title: 529 plan


text:
SWF

SWF is a defunct Adobe Flash file format that was used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.

Originating with FutureWave Software, then transferred to Macromedia, and then coming under the control of Adobe, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. They may also occur in programs, commonly browser games, using ActionScript.

Programmers can generate SWF files from within several Adobe products, including Flash, Flash Builder (an IDE), Adobe Animate (a rename of Adobe Flash since 2016), and After Effects, as well as through MXMLC, a command-line application compiler which forms part of the freely-available Flex SDK. Although Adobe Illustrator can generate SWF format files through its "export" function, it cannot open or edit them. Other than using Adobe products, one can build SWFs with open-source Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler (MTASC), the open-source Ming library and the free-software suite SWFTools. Various other third-party programs can also produce files in this format, such as Multimedia Fusion 2, Captivate and SWiSH Max.

The term "SWF" has originated as an abbreviation for ShockWave Flash. This usage was changed to the backronym Small Web Format to eliminate confusion with a different technology, Shockwave, from which SWF derived. There is no official resolution to the initialism "SWF" by Adobe.

Adobe declared its Flash player EOL on December 31, 2020. On January 12, 2021, it pushed an update to its Flash player that blocked all Flash content from running.

History
The small company FutureWave Software originally defined the file format with one primary objective: to create small files for displaying entertaining animations. The idea involved a format which player software could run on any system and which would work with slower network connections. FutureWave released FutureSplash Animator in May 1996. In December 1996 Macromedia acquired FutureWave and FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Flash 1.0.

The original naming of SWF came out of Macromedia's desire to capitalize on the well-known Macromedia Shockwave brand; Macromedia Director produced Shockwave files for the end user, so the files created by their newer Flash product tried to capitalize on the already established brand. As Flash became more popular than Shockwave itself, this branding decision became more of a liability, so the format started to be referred to as simply SWF.

Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005.

On May 1, 2008, Adobe dropped its licensing restrictions on the SWF format specifications, as part of the Open Screen Project. However, Rob Savoye, a member of the Gnash development team, has pointed to some parts of the Flash format which remain closed. On July 1, 2008, Adobe released code to Google and Yahoo, which allowed their search engines to crawl and index SWF files.

Description
The main graphical primitive in SWF is the path, which is a chain of segments of primitive types, ranging from lines to splines or bezier curves. Additional primitives like rectangles, ellipses, and even text can be built from these. The graphical elements in SWF are thus fairly similar to SVG and MPEG-4 BIFS. SWF also uses display lists and allows naming and reusing previously defined components.

The binary stream format SWF uses is fairly similar to QuickTime atoms, with a tag, length and payload – an organization that makes it very easy for (older) players to skip contents they don't support.

Originally limited to presenting vector-based objects and images in a simple sequential manner, the format in its later versions allows audio (since Flash 3) and video (since Flash 6).

Adobe introduced a new, low-level 3D API in version 11 of the Flash Player. Initially codenamed Molehill, the official name given to this API was ultimately Stage3D. It was intended to be an equivalent of OpenGL or Direct3D. In Stage3D shaders are expressed in a low-level language called Adobe Graphics Assembly Language (AGAL).

Adoption
Adobe makes available plugins, such as Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, to play SWF files in web browsers on many desktop operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux on the x86 architecture and ARM architecture (ChromeOS only).

GNU has started developing a free software SWF player called Gnash under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Despite being a declared high-priority GNU project, funding for Gnash was fairly limited. Another player is the LGPL-licensed Swfdec. Lightspark is a continuation of Gnash supporting more recent SWF versions.

Adobe has incorporated SWF playback and authoring in other product and technologies of theirs, including in Adobe Shockwave, which renders more complex documents. SWF can also be embedded in PDF files; these are viewable with Adobe Reader 9 or later. InDesign CS6 can also produce some limited forms of SWF animations directly.

Sony PlayStation Portable consoles can play limited SWF files in Sony's web browser, beginning with firmware version 2.71. Both the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3 consoles can run SWF files through their Internet browsers.

Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative SWF player that features full hardware acceleration using the GPU and has high conformance up to Flash 8 and AS2. Scaleform GFx is licensed as a game middleware solution and used by many PC and console 3D games for user interfaces, HUDs, mini games, and video playback.

The newer 3D features of SWF have been seen as an alternative to WebGL, with a spurt of 3D engines like Papervision3D, Away3D,  Sandy 3D,  and Alternativa 3D targeting 3D SWF. Although some of these projects started around 2005, until Flash Player 10 however they had no support of GPU acceleration, and even in that version of the Flash Player, shaders could be used for same materials, but vertex information still had to be processed on the CPU (using BSP trees etc.) After version 11 of the Flash Player added the new Stage3D low-level API, some but not all of these projects migrated to the new API. One that did migrate was Away3D, version 4.

Based on an independent study conducted by Millward Brown and published by Adobe, in 2010, over 99% of desktop web browsers in the "mature markets" (defined as United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand) had a SWF plugin installed, with around 90% having the latest version of the Flash Player.

Due to the increasing popularity of HTML5 for games and animations, as well as the numerous security holes that had plagued Adobe's SWF player, Adobe declared its Flash player EOL on December 31, 2020. On January 12, 2021, it pushed an update to its Flash player that blocked all Flash content from running.

Published specifications
Adobe makes available a partial specification of SWF, most recently updated in January 2013 to reflect changes in SWF version 19. SWF versions have been decoupled from Flash player versions after Flash 10. Afterwards the version number of the SWF progressed rapidly; SWF version 19 corresponds to the new features added in Flash Player 11.6. Flash Player 14 uses SWF version 25.

In 2008, the specifications document was criticized by Rob Savoye, the lead developer of the Gnash project, as missing "huge amounts" of information needed to completely implement SWF, omitting specifications for RTMP and Sorenson Spark. The RTMP specification was released publicly in June 2009. The Sorenson Spark codec is not Adobe's property.

Licensing
Until May 1, 2008, implementing software that plays SWF was disallowed by the specification's license. On that date, as part of its Open Screen Project, Adobe dropped all such restrictions on the SWF and FLV formats.

Implementing software which creates SWF files has always been permitted, on the condition that the resulting files render "error free in the latest publicly available version of Adobe Flash Player."

Related file formats and extensions
Other formats related to SWF authoring in the Adobe tool chain remain without a public specification. One example is FLA, which is the editable version of SWF used by Adobe's Flash, but not by other Adobe tools that can also output SWF, albeit with fewer features.

title: SWF


text:
Talk:Thestius

Comments
Such a genealogy, without a single reference point to any myth fragment or classical author, is opaque. Wetman 17:06, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Thestius


text:
Talk:Kitchener Rangers

Untitled
The Rangers are not a pro team by IIHF rules. I know, they get paid, but hockey has always engaged in remarkable doublespeak about amateurism. I seem to recall forty-odd years ago the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association declaring that an amateur player was anyone who received less than $40-odd a game (the equivalent of $250-odd today, I should think).

Anyway, if you want to revert to calling the Rnagers a pro team, I won;t get into a reversion war, but I'll probably add a clarification. TronTonian 17:07, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Kitchener rangers 1995.gif

 * Fair use rationale completed. Flibirigit (talk) 01:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Balanced Approach to Ben Fanelli Incident
More detail has been added about Liambas crying on the ice, trying to visit Fanelli in hospital and about his GM sticking up for him and saying he was a good student and expressed remorse. I think we can remove the flag about balanced approach. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.255.6 (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

awards section is wrong
The awards section lists the 1982-1983 Red Tilson award winner as being a member of the Kitchener Rangers. The 1982-1983 award was won by Doug Gilmour of the Cornwall Royals. See the reference below to past winners. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.251.196.160 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks! Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:16, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kitchener Rangers